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A new documentary "Behind the Scenes of a Victory" about French President-elect Emmanuel Macron - the 39 year-old centrist who defeated National Front's Marine Le Pen to win France's highest political office - is drawing a lot of attention because of a longstanding rumor addressed within it.
Macron, who is married to a woman 24 years his senior who was at one time his teacher, opens up about the whispers that he is secretly gay and has been in a relationship with a male radio executive.
“Two odious things: on one side misogyny because they say it’s not possible to be with a woman who is 24 years older," says Macron in the documentary.
“That’s how I’ve always lived because I’ve been with my wife for 20 years. And on the other side, it’s homophobic.”
I'm not going to sit here and speculate as to whether or not Macron is gay. If he says he isn't, that's fine. I'll take him at his word.
But the larger issue here is how ridiculous it is that anybody cares if he's gay at all.
While I was originally born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, I have called New Jersey my home state for many years and I remember watching former Governor Jim McGreevey resign his post as Governor because he abused the power of his office to hide the fact that he was gay.
I don't want to live in a world with Governors who use their political authority to cover up affairs, gay or straight. But I also don't want to live in a world where anybody feels they have to go to such lengths to avoid being outed as gay.
Furthermore, I don't want to live in a world where rumors about somebody possibly being gay are seen as negative. Whether or not Macron is gay is less of the issue here than why that rumor means anything at all to anybody.
I suppose if a politician is having an affair, it can be considered news if it somehow affects his or her job performance. Mark Sanford disappearing on the "Appalachian Trail" when he was Governor of South Carolina is a good example of this.
But otherwise, I don't care about the private lives these people lead, and I care even less about their sexual orientation.
This Macron rumor gets on my nerves whether it is true or not. If it isn't true, anybody spreading it as some sort of negative is mean-spirited and homophobic. And if it is true, then it is legitimately upsetting that the man feels he has to go to such lengths to hide who he is.
Being gay doesn't make you any less of a person and anybody who acts otherwise is closed-minded and stuck in the past.
This doesn't mean that anybody who objects to gay marriage or does not want to bake a cake for a gay wedding based on religious principles is automatically a bigot. There is a difference between having religious objections to certain acts and thinking those acts make a person bad.
But if you would be less likely to vote for somebody because of who that person sleeps with, you're simply irrational and wrong.
The French people have much bigger issues to deal with than who Emmanuel Macron is or isn't screwing.
Unless, of course, like most politicians, he ends up screwing all of his constituents.
Then they can feel free to object.