I’ve always thought it strange that dislike of gays is labeled “homophobia” but prejudice against African-Americans is called “racism.” No one came up with “blackophobia” — racists don’t get a pass because sometimes their prejudice is fear-based. Homophobes, however, have their bigotry softened. It’s not their fault, you see. They’re just afraid of what they don’t know.
Maybe in 1962 you could get away with that, but not in 2014. There isn’t a red-state legislator who doesn’t know some gays personally — you can love the sinner as long as you hate the sin, remember? These new laws aren’t based on a genuine fear of us, they are nothing more than a blatant appeal to a right-wing base whose delusions of being under assault as Christians must be fed in order to keep them going to the polls. Pull that lever for Jesus — he’s coming back with an AR-15 any day now, I know it because God wrote it himself in the Constitution.
That said, there is an element to anti-gay prejudice that doesn’t get much discussed. I call it the “ick” factor. When Senator Christian Redneck thinks “homosexual.” he immediately flashes on a visual image of two men having sex together. Of course he makes a face and says “ewww,” he’s been trained to react that way since childhood. Then, projecting onto us the way he’s fantasized about countless women, he makes the leap that if a gay man had a chance, he would sexually impose himself on any straight man picking up a bar of soap. This perception makes him mad at gay men, and psychologically amenable to voting for outrageously retrogressive laws. It’s not enough to discriminate against us because Leviticus said so, we have to deserve it for our lustful intentions. Maybe you haven’t yet but you would if you could.
Oh, quelle vanit?. I submit that the only thing they find more unpleasant than imagining another man wanting to have sex with them is imagining that he would not. Their egos, perpetually primed by botoxed trophy wives, wouldn’t permit such a deflated thought.
Here’s a news flash, Assemblyman Whitebread. When gays want to have sex we find each other in bars, bathhouses, and on the internet. Sometimes friends even introduce us, or we meet at the laundromat — imagine that, just like “normal” people. Bottom line, we have plenty of options, and almost never pay for it. That’s right, we have a lot more sex than you, for free! Why ever would we seek out the unconsenting when gay men are the ones who put the “yes” in testosterone?
Delegate Dickhead, you need to stop holding us responsible for sexual assaults that are overwhelmingly the province of heterosexual men. (And I include male-on-male sexual assault, which is almost always perpetrated by men who self-identify as straight.) You get to keep feeling icky about gay sex if you want, but you don’t have to get angry about it. Do I get pissed when Ryan Gosling makes out with Emma Stone? No, I just close one eye and cover her side of the screen.
There is precedent for what you are doing, and its pretty stomach-churning. For over a century after the Civil War, Southern lawmakers and a feverish press would periodically raise the specter of a fictitious epidemic of black men ravaging white women — or wanting to, at least. Genuine cases of such assaults in that era were virtually non-existent, but that didn’t prevent thousands of lynchings. Maybe they haven’t, but they would if they could. What a convenient belief for the heirs of the planter class to encourage among the good ole boys in their pick-up trucks. That’s right, you don’t need a union, ’cause your problem is the colored boy planning to stick it to your wife.
Gays who want to buy wedding cakes represent an economic danger of a different kind. We threaten the pocketbooks of the legislators passing these new civil wrongs bills. The math is simple; they make more money in the private sector the longer they stay in the public sector. Painting same-sex love as a form of anti-Christianism keeps culturally conservative voters going to the polls, allowing the gravy train of incumbency to keeping chugging along. If right-thinking warriors for Christ find out Pam and Barb are just regular folk — who, you know, just want to buy some lunch– you might as well just hand the seat over to George Soros.
Happily, Representative Upchuck, your kids and grandkids can’t muster up much of the ick factor you were fed like mother’s milk, and your misbegotten updates of Jim Crow for Homos are the ultimate exercise in penny-wise, pound-foolish politics. You think you are marginalizing us, but you are marginalizing yourselves. We will be fine — we are some of the most entrepreneurial, mobile and savviest Americans out there. You think the Montgomery Bus Boycott was effective? Just you wait and see what we come up with.
Edited and Published by: WG
