Is Being Gay a Choice? Herman Cain Clams Up

When MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell asked Herman Cain Thursday to explain his beliefs about LGBT people, his answer was short.

"Next question, please," he declared almost immediately.

The insurgent Republican presidential candidate was being asked to elaborate on something he said while a guest on The View.

"How can you say that being gay is a choice?" the question came in from Twitter on O'Donnell's show. "Did you choose to be straight?"

Cain had just come off a bruising discussion with O'Donnell about whether he sat out of the civil rights movement while in college. So Cain's answer was brusque.

"There will always be a difference of opinion," he said. "Like I told Joy Behar, she has her opinion, I have my opinion. It's a difference of opinion. Next question, please."

His answer on The View wasn't much longer.

Behar asked, "I think that you believe that being gay is a choice?"

"Yes," he said.

"To think that gay is a choice, I don't know how to respond to that," Behar said, trying to explain her position. "I don't think that anybody in this world wants to be gay considering all of the vilification that is brought upon someone who is gay. Why would you choose that?"

Cain didn't similarly explain his side.

"Well, you show me the science that says that it's not, and I could be persuaded," he said. "Right now it's my opinion against the opinion of others who feel differently."

The only explanation for his belief that Cain has ever offered is one he gave to CBS News early in the campaign. "I believe homosexuality is a sin because I'm a Bible-believing Christian," he said.

(RELATED: For more on Cain's assertion that science is silent on genetics, read Dr. Dean Hamer's response to Tim Pawlenty, who once made a similar statement.)