I haven't seen it yet, but in the ensuing discussion I mused the following:
I will say it does not surprise me in the least that the most strident public anti-gay voices, even politicians who regularly legislate against us, are closeted gays themselves. My experience as a closeted gay teenager in an ultra-conservative Mormon town in Utah, bears this out. It all makes perfect sense.
When I felt my first sexual stirrings at the onset of puberty, the objects of my fascination were guys -- very obviously, and powerfully, so. Guys at school came back from summer break one year, fixated on girls -- and boobs, and how lipstick tastes, and cheerleaders, and all of it. I, however, couldn't stop looking at the guys in class that had come back with muscles -- and this kept up all the way through high school. The guys on the wrestling team were a particular weakness. There were a few of them I even avoided looking at since I was *sure* someone might notice what, who, I was looking at. (Simply by *looking*, I thought I'd get caught.) I still remember the two lockers in the hallways, owned by girls, which had the Antonio Sabato Jr. Calvin Klein underwear ad pinned up. These things caught my eye like strobe lights on a landing strip. Obviously, I kept every single one of these thoughts and feelings to myself.
Because of course, I wasn't gay. Being a good Mormon kid, this wasn't an option. My Teachers' quorum leader asked me one night, in a one-on-one interview, if I had "gotten interested in girls yet" and my knee-jerk answer, without even thinking, was "Of course!" Nothing could have been further from the truth, but I knew that was the only correct answer. I was just waiting for -- get this -- Heavenly Father to bless me with my rightful desire toward women, which I was sure he would, just as soon as I got through this initial attraction to men -- doesn't this happen to everyone? This how it works, right? You're a boy, so obviously your first crushes are on other boys, but eventually the ship rights itself and the mad desire for women switches on. Any day now. Seriously. Right? Later, into high school and beyond, I figured I was still being "held back" somehow from my spiritual progression, and righteous desire for a wife and mother for my children, because I had so utterly failed to stop buying bodybuilding magazines and lusting after the Varsity wrestler who sat in front of me in Physics.
Simple as that.
The mental pretzel-twisting you engage in, happens all by itself. You hear from every corner of your life -- family, school, church -- that homosexuals are evil and disgusting, and we don't have any of those around here anyway. So it makes sense that this hormonal fascination with guys is not a homo thing at all, it's a natural step on your progression toward a healthy heterosexual identity, see. So I waited and I prayed. Soon enough, everything would come around. But, in the meantime, I certainly wasn't one of those nasty homosexuals everyone was always on about.
I imagine, had I continued on this path, I could have well ended up like these professional gay-haters and closeted politicians. Digging my heels in deeper and deeper, praying harder and harder for help and forgiveness, doomed to be attracted to men instead of women as long as I continued to fail in my efforts not to be attracted to men -- I know, right? Because for a guy in this mindset, the thought process is this:
1) Sex with, and relationships with, a man, are WAY more interesting than either one with a woman.
2) This is, of course, against God's plan, so it must be vigorously resisted in one's own life.
3) It also behooves us to help others, who are not as strong as us, avoid making these mistakes in their own lives. (These are, after all, feelings we all have had, right, and some are just better than others in dealing with them.)
4) Allowing gays, and their relationships, to flourish in the light of day, and in society, would be a disaster for humankind because obviously -- if gay marriage were legal, then everyone would gay marry.
Full stop.
This is more than a little bit ridiculous. No real straight people want to marry someone of their own sex. The only people who think this are those who pretend to be straight but who, deep down, really *do* want to get with someone of the same sex, and this leads to the assumption that everyone, in their quiet, dark places, feels the same way.
Memo to you guys: It's not true. Only gay people feel this way. The fact that you can't be honest enough to admit this to yourself is your problem, and yours alone. But your inability to come to grips with your own reality is affecting the rest of us, and we're kind of getting sick of it. I was fortunate enough to come to my senses, summon all my courage, and come out honestly before I did something stupid like wreck some poor unsuspecting woman's life by marrying her in a vain attempt to continue the charade. But I do know what I'm talking about here.
The usual arguments we like to make, do not work on the heels-dug-in closet cases either -- when someone asks the question, "When did you choose to be straight," no doubt all of these people, if they were honest, would say, "Every single time I say my prayers." Because this would be the truth, in their case -- and our simple asking the question reinforces their own belief that sexual orientation is a choice -- since it's one they struggle with every waking moment.
They don't realize that straight kids awaken in puberty already "switched on" in their orientation -- and, since it's the one they, their parents, friends, teachers and church leaders are expecting, they simply go with it. Case closed, end of story. Easy.
They don't realize that actual straight people do not spend any mental energy on the question of their sexual identity -- it is what it is.
It never occurs to them that anyone having prominent homosexual fantasies, even if they refuse to acknowledge them, is at least a little gay themselves. Straight people don't spend a lot of time wrestling with these questions.
They don't realize one simple truth: Making life easier for gay people will only improve the lives of people who are already gay -- it won't have any effect at all on straight people who aren't "interested" in being gay. They think their crusade against making homosexuality acceptable in our culture is a righteous battle to save sinful or weak straight people from themselves, since this is the battle playing out in their own heads. Against this backdrop, I do have to ask, when I see our most vocal opponents in the news, what are they hiding?
One big example of this in action, is Ted Haggard. Please. In "Jesus Camp" (scariest movie I saw last year, btw), the man dares to mug for the camera: "I know what you did last night! Give me a thousand dollars and I won't tell your wife!" I mean, wow -- project much? Was this maybe the day after one of those meth-fueled man-on-man sex romps at the No-Tell Motel? It's like he was *begging* to be found out.
When I felt my first sexual stirrings at the onset of puberty, the objects of my fascination were guys -- very obviously, and powerfully, so. Guys at school came back from summer break one year, fixated on girls -- and boobs, and how lipstick tastes, and cheerleaders, and all of it. I, however, couldn't stop looking at the guys in class that had come back with muscles -- and this kept up all the way through high school. The guys on the wrestling team were a particular weakness. There were a few of them I even avoided looking at since I was *sure* someone might notice what, who, I was looking at. (Simply by *looking*, I thought I'd get caught.) I still remember the two lockers in the hallways, owned by girls, which had the Antonio Sabato Jr. Calvin Klein underwear ad pinned up. These things caught my eye like strobe lights on a landing strip. Obviously, I kept every single one of these thoughts and feelings to myself.
Because of course, I wasn't gay. Being a good Mormon kid, this wasn't an option. My Teachers' quorum leader asked me one night, in a one-on-one interview, if I had "gotten interested in girls yet" and my knee-jerk answer, without even thinking, was "Of course!" Nothing could have been further from the truth, but I knew that was the only correct answer. I was just waiting for -- get this -- Heavenly Father to bless me with my rightful desire toward women, which I was sure he would, just as soon as I got through this initial attraction to men -- doesn't this happen to everyone? This how it works, right? You're a boy, so obviously your first crushes are on other boys, but eventually the ship rights itself and the mad desire for women switches on. Any day now. Seriously. Right? Later, into high school and beyond, I figured I was still being "held back" somehow from my spiritual progression, and righteous desire for a wife and mother for my children, because I had so utterly failed to stop buying bodybuilding magazines and lusting after the Varsity wrestler who sat in front of me in Physics.
Simple as that.
The mental pretzel-twisting you engage in, happens all by itself. You hear from every corner of your life -- family, school, church -- that homosexuals are evil and disgusting, and we don't have any of those around here anyway. So it makes sense that this hormonal fascination with guys is not a homo thing at all, it's a natural step on your progression toward a healthy heterosexual identity, see. So I waited and I prayed. Soon enough, everything would come around. But, in the meantime, I certainly wasn't one of those nasty homosexuals everyone was always on about.
I imagine, had I continued on this path, I could have well ended up like these professional gay-haters and closeted politicians. Digging my heels in deeper and deeper, praying harder and harder for help and forgiveness, doomed to be attracted to men instead of women as long as I continued to fail in my efforts not to be attracted to men -- I know, right? Because for a guy in this mindset, the thought process is this:
1) Sex with, and relationships with, a man, are WAY more interesting than either one with a woman.
2) This is, of course, against God's plan, so it must be vigorously resisted in one's own life.
3) It also behooves us to help others, who are not as strong as us, avoid making these mistakes in their own lives. (These are, after all, feelings we all have had, right, and some are just better than others in dealing with them.)
4) Allowing gays, and their relationships, to flourish in the light of day, and in society, would be a disaster for humankind because obviously -- if gay marriage were legal, then everyone would gay marry.
Full stop.
This is more than a little bit ridiculous. No real straight people want to marry someone of their own sex. The only people who think this are those who pretend to be straight but who, deep down, really *do* want to get with someone of the same sex, and this leads to the assumption that everyone, in their quiet, dark places, feels the same way.
Memo to you guys: It's not true. Only gay people feel this way. The fact that you can't be honest enough to admit this to yourself is your problem, and yours alone. But your inability to come to grips with your own reality is affecting the rest of us, and we're kind of getting sick of it. I was fortunate enough to come to my senses, summon all my courage, and come out honestly before I did something stupid like wreck some poor unsuspecting woman's life by marrying her in a vain attempt to continue the charade. But I do know what I'm talking about here.
The usual arguments we like to make, do not work on the heels-dug-in closet cases either -- when someone asks the question, "When did you choose to be straight," no doubt all of these people, if they were honest, would say, "Every single time I say my prayers." Because this would be the truth, in their case -- and our simple asking the question reinforces their own belief that sexual orientation is a choice -- since it's one they struggle with every waking moment.
They don't realize that straight kids awaken in puberty already "switched on" in their orientation -- and, since it's the one they, their parents, friends, teachers and church leaders are expecting, they simply go with it. Case closed, end of story. Easy.
They don't realize that actual straight people do not spend any mental energy on the question of their sexual identity -- it is what it is.
It never occurs to them that anyone having prominent homosexual fantasies, even if they refuse to acknowledge them, is at least a little gay themselves. Straight people don't spend a lot of time wrestling with these questions.
They don't realize one simple truth: Making life easier for gay people will only improve the lives of people who are already gay -- it won't have any effect at all on straight people who aren't "interested" in being gay. They think their crusade against making homosexuality acceptable in our culture is a righteous battle to save sinful or weak straight people from themselves, since this is the battle playing out in their own heads. Against this backdrop, I do have to ask, when I see our most vocal opponents in the news, what are they hiding?
One big example of this in action, is Ted Haggard. Please. In "Jesus Camp" (scariest movie I saw last year, btw), the man dares to mug for the camera: "I know what you did last night! Give me a thousand dollars and I won't tell your wife!" I mean, wow -- project much? Was this maybe the day after one of those meth-fueled man-on-man sex romps at the No-Tell Motel? It's like he was *begging* to be found out.
Larry Craig. Anyone cruising for sex in an airport mens' room is at least a little bit gay. (No straight politician, concerned with his career, is going to plead guilty to such a charge -- ever.)
A certain, notable, gay-hating religious crusader, who is a regular attendee at the San Francisco Folsom St. Fair and Chicago's International Mr. Leather, is also on my list of suspects. He's not an actual participant at the events, of course, but he does stand around on the sidelines snapping endless pictures of all the "depravity," but really, who is he kidding -- he's found himself a "legitimate" way to rationalize spending entire weekends in the company of men wearing little more than leather straps, and sweat. You kind of have to applaud him for his twisted ingenuity. I have to agree with a comment I read on a blog the other day about him, and his like-minded pals -- "Seriously dude, not even GAYS think about gays this much!"
I'm not sure who to blame for this situation. Certainly religion plays a huge role -- and it's a vexing problem. In a world where "society" were accepting of (or at the very least, not negative toward) homosexuality, kids hitting puberty, if they're gay, wouldn't be forced down that torturous road of mental gymnastics and self-delusion, and wouldn't end up such strident foes of their own kind. But, as it is, it's becoming ever more clear that the most damaging voices in our community are coming from other gays -- the ones who haven't been honest or strong enough to stand up to the hate coming from people exactly like themselves.
It may seem to them that there's been an explosion of The Gay, the last couple of decades. This is nothing more than the natural consequence of more and more of us refusing to put up with the institutionalized abuse. People are not "turning gay," it's the people who are *already* gay, being more honest about it, in greater numbers.
Not every anti-gay voice is a closeted gay, to be sure -- but it is not at all surprising to me that so many of them are. There but for the grace of [whoever's in charge] almost went I...
Come out, people. You'll be glad you did. And so will we.
A certain, notable, gay-hating religious crusader, who is a regular attendee at the San Francisco Folsom St. Fair and Chicago's International Mr. Leather, is also on my list of suspects. He's not an actual participant at the events, of course, but he does stand around on the sidelines snapping endless pictures of all the "depravity," but really, who is he kidding -- he's found himself a "legitimate" way to rationalize spending entire weekends in the company of men wearing little more than leather straps, and sweat. You kind of have to applaud him for his twisted ingenuity. I have to agree with a comment I read on a blog the other day about him, and his like-minded pals -- "Seriously dude, not even GAYS think about gays this much!"
I'm not sure who to blame for this situation. Certainly religion plays a huge role -- and it's a vexing problem. In a world where "society" were accepting of (or at the very least, not negative toward) homosexuality, kids hitting puberty, if they're gay, wouldn't be forced down that torturous road of mental gymnastics and self-delusion, and wouldn't end up such strident foes of their own kind. But, as it is, it's becoming ever more clear that the most damaging voices in our community are coming from other gays -- the ones who haven't been honest or strong enough to stand up to the hate coming from people exactly like themselves.
It may seem to them that there's been an explosion of The Gay, the last couple of decades. This is nothing more than the natural consequence of more and more of us refusing to put up with the institutionalized abuse. People are not "turning gay," it's the people who are *already* gay, being more honest about it, in greater numbers.
Not every anti-gay voice is a closeted gay, to be sure -- but it is not at all surprising to me that so many of them are. There but for the grace of [whoever's in charge] almost went I...
Come out, people. You'll be glad you did. And so will we.
