I’ve been watching more of “Modern Family” – the gay couple, Mitchell and Cameron, are hilarious. Both of them fit the stereotypes so well. I suppose it’s time to tackle this particular issue.
Hardcore haters. I’ve noticed that the people who bark and bray the loudest against gays almost invariably wind up being bumped out the closet quite dramatically. Whether it’s denial or self-hatred, I don’t know, but the gay bashers all too often seem to be confused as to which team they’re actually on. On the other hand, simply not being a “sympathizer” and hanging out with gays, frequenting gay clubs, or embracing them and their lifestyle, is not even prima facie proof of being a “homophobe”.
Having said that, I do have a few problems with gays. None relate to religion, though.
A. Roger the Alien, from “American Dad”. Rather, I should say this is my problem with gays as portrayed on TV. Too many of them have this annoying tendency to be excessively impressed with their own wit and sophistication. This pretentious depiction exceeds what I’ve noticed of gays in person. The TV people are so intent on positive portrayals of gays that they go overboard with depictions that are, in fact, annoying. Fortunately the “Modern Family” writers have dodged that bullet.
B. I’m not particularly worried that a legion of gay men are going to find me irresistible and hunt me down. I don’t find all women attractive; do all gay men find me attractive simply because I’m male? Probably not - especially since not all women find me attractive either. What I’d be more concerned about is being considered gay simply by association. The way to avoid that is to avoid gay bars and other places where they socialize as a majority. But even around Dupont Circle in DC, not every place is mobbed.
Way back when, on “L.A. Law”, Douglas Brachtman (Alan Rachins) was invited to lunch by an old friend (law school classmates? I don’t remember) who wanted to disclose his orientation to him. And this guy picked a restaurant known – apparently not to Brachtman – as a gay hangout, with serious consequences for Brachtman. And I’m thinking, Mr. Pink Friend didn’t have to go to this particular place to make his big confession, he could have picked a regular restaurant. All very well and fine to embrace who you are, but dragging your straight friend into the equation was gratuitous and inconsiderate – a serious lapse in discretion on his part.
C. Flamers. Now on “Dancing With the Stars” there is are not one but TWO flamers, Judge Bruno and the contestant Carson Kressley. Lee, on “Desperate Housewives”, is the flamer; Jack (Sean Hayes) was the flamer on “Will & Grace”. This is annoying, to be sure, but not offensive per se. At least not to me. Then again, a flamer is putting you on notice as to his orientation. You have been warned!
Metrosexuals. “Metrosexual” basically means “acts gay but doesn’t sleep with men” – the whole manicure/pedicure, obsessive grooming and dressing, cooking & wine, etc. I don’t think any of them are actually gay; to the contrary, it often seems like a desperate attempt by luckless straight guys who can’t seem to attract women any other way. Be careful: she may think you’re actually gay.
Choice vs. Genes. I really don’t care about this one way or another. I have no attraction to men, and if put in a position where access to women was practically nil I’d just…take care of myself. I’m not bisexual or even curious – and no amount of alcohol or drugs will change that. Nor do I buy into this idea that (A) all women are secretly bisexual or (B) all men are “bi-curious”. While I’m sure certain women are bisexual, it’s been my experience that this proportion is extremely small. And my take on the latter is that many truly bisexual – or in fact, gay – men don’t want to admit that the majority of the male population is neither gay nor even bisexual, so they cook up this nonsense about “bi-curious”, partly defensive and partly wishful thinking.
But I say “irrelevant” for this reason: I don’t really care WHY gays do what they do. Whether something inside them makes them prefer other men, or one day they simply CHOSE to be gay, so long as their sex is 100% consensual and they leave me alone, what they do neither interests nor concerns me.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with it”. Jerry Seinfeld joked that straights were worried that with the proper “sales pitch”, they could be persuaded to switch sides. “Start with holding hands, there’s no obligation.” Whatever you are, you are, whether you’re in or out of the closet. Closer examination reveals “switching sides” to be nothing more than “coming out” – a public recognition of true orientation rather than an actual change in preferences.
Expediently Bisexual. By this I mean the type of guys who will nail guys when women are not available, but are exclusively hetero when women are around. The best examples involve (A) prison or (B) Islamic terrorists out in the field. I’ve noted earlier about Yasser Arafat; the more knowledgeable experts, from Lawrence of Arabia all the way to the Israelis, have observed the dirty secret that the heavily homophobic Islamic world hides a substantial minority of repressed homosexuals. As we saw during Prohibition (1919-1933), gun control, the Drug War, etc. repressing something never stamps out the behavior in question, it simply raises the cost of doing what we’d do anyway.
Molesters. The big issue with molesters is not that they’re gay, it’s that they prey on children who are too young to understand what’s going on or too weak to resist. And this is true whether the child is a little girl or a little boy. It’s also objectionable when a person in a position of trust – e.g. a priest, father, uncle, Michael Jackson, etc. – takes advantage of that to satisfy his own darker desires at the expense of a small child.
Will & Grace. This was the first show which really showcased the lifestyle. I never watched it unless it came on the TV in front of me at gay church (the gym) while I was on the treadmill. Even then it wasn’t particularly amusing or funny, just an excuse for these two (McCormack and Hayes) to marvel at their own wit. I much prefer watching Mitchell and Cameron (and Lily) on “Modern Family” – a clever, sophisticated gay couple who AREN’T pretending to be the most intelligent people on the planet or better than all the straights around them.
Freddie Mercury & Rob Halford. We pretty much knew Queen had a bisexual singer; Mercury was fairly open about his lifestyle. As for Judas Priest, Halford had consistently ACTED gay but denied it. The music? Queen did have a drama, show-tune kind of quality to their music, particularly “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Flash Gordon”, but deep down inside the music still rocked. Songs like “Best Friend” could be considered ambivalent, as with “Eat Me Alive” and “Love Bites”, two of JP’s more raunchier songs, with “Raw Deal” being the nastiest. But the clever part about it is that Mercury and Halford knew how far they could go without stepping over the edge – make it, at worst, ambiguous and not explicit.
Of course, how could we have missed The Village People? Apparently the Navy did.
Gay Marriage. My take on this is the following: allow them to have “civil unions”. If the state had a finite amount of marriages they were willing to perform each year, and straight couples were locked out because gay couples took up the available slots, then it would be a zero-sum game whereby gay marriages were imposing some sort of cost on straight ones; then I could see some sort of problem. But civil unions do not (A) force straight people to marry gays, (B) prevent any straight couple from getting married if they want to, or (C) somehow “ruin” it for straight couples, who now have to get divorced, live together, or pursue common law marriages in the few states which still recognize them. The state has no legitimate interest in interfering with the happiness of consenting adults.
Having said that, the Constitution has no provision protecting gay marriage (nor, for that matter, should it), so at this point the 50 individual states and D.C. can make their own determination. If DC, MA, NY, CA, etc. want to legalize gay marriage (or civil unions) and VA, NC, SC, GA, MS, AL, FL, TX, AZ, etc. wish to ban it, that’s their prerogatives. Part of the beauty of a federal system is that if you’re not thrilled with your state, you can move to a state you prefer; moving out of the country completely due to unfavorable Federal laws is considerably more inconvenient (and unfair) than simply crossing state lines. This will clearly encourage gays to live in certain more “tolerant” parts of the country, but if they are in the minority in the “less tolerant” areas they really have no business dictating their particular political agenda to the rest of the state. Tolerance works both ways, and gays have to accept that not everyone loves them, nor do they have the right to unconditional acceptance by the entire country.
AIDSCAP. Back in 1994 I had a temporary job working for this USAID agency in Arlington. Myself and perhaps 3 other guys were the only straight men at this whole project. However, only about 2-3 of the gay men were actually flamers; the rest were pretty normal. I got along fine with everyone and was not molested, groped, or mistreated.
I did learn something interesting, though: according to the literature put out by this agency, which was 99% pro-gay agenda, in the US the AIDS problem is 90% a gay problem. It’s overseas in the Third World, where it seems half the male population regularly visits prostitutes, that straight men and women start having problems with AIDS.
Condemnation & Gay Rights. Having said all that, South Park is still on point: “simply because you tolerate something doesn’t mean you have to like it.” If gays are free to do as they please with each other, straights likewise have the right say what they want about them, and private organizations like the Boy Scouts have the right to screen out for gays. Even G. Gordon Liddy pointed it out correctly: gays have the SAME RIGHTS, no more, no less, as straight people; they have no “gay rights” and no rights specifically because they are gay.
We know there are two kinds of vegetarian: the Paul McCartney style who adopt it as a choice but respect the non-vegans’ rights and choices to continue to eat meat, vs. the militant types who try to gross us out from eating meat and ruin it for everyone. Likewise there are the discreet gays who aren’t out to rub their lifestyle in our faces and just want to be left alone, vs. the militant types who flaunt it outrageously and get off on shock for the sake of shock. The latter types aren’t doing the movement any favors; most straight people are content to let the gays alone so long as the sex is consensual and discreet.
Personally, I don’t think being gay is anything to be proud of, such that a “gay pride parade” is a good thing, but somehow I also don’t think that a Gay Shame Parade, where they block off the street for a few hours to see absolutely no one parade at all, would fly or work very well in practice. The whole thing works best when everyone just minds their own business and leaves each other alone.
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