This week, we learned that virulently anti-gay Puerto Rican Senator Robert Arango was on a diet. Like any straight man wanting to show off his sculpted new body, he posted pictures of his anus on the gay men's cruising software Grindr. Last week, a homophobic Indiana lawmaker, Rep. Phillip Hinkle (R), answered a Craig's List ad for an $80 male prostitute looking for a Sugar Daddy. After he was exposed by the escort, Hinkle said that he isn't gay and declared "I don't know what was going through my mind." And, of course, we all know about Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) who sought sex in a Minneapolis airport men's room by tapping his foot.
These tawdry tales of deception and deceit are tailor-made for the tabloids. They provide vindication for the LGBT community and punish villains who deserve their fate. However, it is time to look beyond the headlines and have the psychiatric community examine the heads of closet cases that inflict enormous damage on their own people. These disgusting betrayals are much greater than hypocrisy. They represent full-fledged pathology that has devastating consequences for the LGBT community.
To protect their "dirty" secret, these scoundrels are inciting persecution and passing discriminatory laws that lead to many forms of suicide: career, social, financial, emotional, spiritual, and actual. Gay couples with limited rights must pay higher taxes and hire expensive lawyers to draw up contracts. These couples must also endure the emotionally devastating prospect of not having hospital visitation rights when emergencies strike. Careers are irreversibly harmed when homosexuals hit glass ceilings or they are fired in states that offer no legal protections. And, we lose young people every day who hear homophobic rhetoric coming from closeted politicians or those influenced by them.
Enough is enough.
Society needs to stop being squeamish and treating these vulgar events as personal tragedies or sordid anomalies. Such phenomenon are neither episodic nor mere coincidence, but part of a pervasive pattern that strongly suggests that the most rabid homophobes are usually gay. Indeed, solid research backs up this hypothesis: In 1986, a University of Georgia study by Dr. Henry Adams proved that men who are most outspokenly anti-gay were the ones most likely to be turned on by gay porn.
Given the research and empirical evidence, activist and sex columnist Dan Savage is on the money when he asks: "Have we reached a tipping point yet? Shouldn't homophobic politicians and anti-gay bullies be presumed to be gay until they get caught up in a straight sex scandal?"
My opinion is not mere speculation, but comes from my own behavior while living in the closet. During my freshman year in high school, I confronted a fellow student in my debate class with an anti-gay epithet. He looked me in the eyes and presciently replied, "Those who call other people fags are usually the real homosexuals."
A similar situation happened in Puerto Rico when Sen. Arango once gay-baited a political opponent and even used a rubber duck to convey that this man was gay. (Apparently, the word for duck is an anti-gay slur in Puerto Rico) The difference was that I was 13 and trying to grapple with my sexual orientation and Arango never grew up and progressed to passing anti-gay laws.
The teenage homophobia that I employed took two distinct forms. The first was deflecting suspicion by laughing at anti-gay jokes. The second was actually telling the jokes to gauge my social group's reaction, hoping I could find someone who was also a closeted homosexual. The ideal situation for such individuals is to find fellow closet cases that create safe conditions to maintain the heterosexual façade while enjoying the sexual benefits of someone who is open and honest about their sexual orientation.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that the majority of people with anti-gay attitudes are actually gay. Most hostility still comes from heterosexuals brought up in families where religion-based bigotry is preached. But, I strongly believe that those who are most visibly animated and unusually motivated by homosexuality probably have a strong desire to enter that arena. If every anti-gay activist and politician came out today it would not end opposition to LGBT equality, but it would take the heart out of this insidious movement.
We have to stop laughing (not completely) at these sex scandals and start learning more about the psychological dynamics that drive closet cases into conservative politics and anti-gay activism. It is an underdeveloped field of study that deserves scholarly attention from the top research institutions and universities in America.
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"The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself. Saul took him that day and did not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. " Like a lot of language in the Bible it's not spelled out entirely. But the language uses the same terms that were used as the time to refer to spouses and their relationship after they became married. In the language of that time, "did not let him return to his father's house" was understood as a condition of marriage. The story is virtually unknown in the modern day because of centuries of suppression but if you have a Bible in your house you will find it there in the Book of Samuel.
That said, I don't know why you'd consider it preferable to be identified by your disgust rather than fear, but that's up to you. I do know that you're in no position to speak for "the vast majority" of heterosexuals in that regard. Perhaps your circumstances are insular in nature, and factors of geography, culture, your employment or something similar contrives to surround you with others who feel as you do.
But approaching the start of my seventh decade on this planet, pervasiveness of the attitude you describe hasn't been my experience, and I daresay the subject of others' feelings about my orientation - and those who share it - comes up much more frequently in my dealings with people than in yours. Unless, that is, you have some reason to poll everyone you meet on the subject, which would speak to something specific going on with you, rather than anyone else.
Your religion is getting in the way of your humanity.
Why is this important (someone could ask)? Well, because it is symptomatic - whoever needs to hide, to use an alias, he or she is signaling a lack of self-confidence, a problem with their identity, right? Now, who's afraid of what?
"What does mass have to do with it?"
Remember that the topic was (is) FACING the truth.
What is your point? Stop typing now please.
Uhhh how'd he manage that feat? Grindr removed a photo of a guy eating ice cream because they said it was sexually suggestive. They don't even allow "V" shots of guys lower torso.
But if you're opening pray-away-the-gay clinics, engaging in endless hair splitting debates about what's a "choice" and what's not, lamenting the inevitable destruction of the entire human race should we allow gay people to file their taxes together, waxing on and on about the proper use of genitalia that ISN'T YOURS, coming up with endless witty zingers about anal sex or otherwise burning precious neuron time contemplating a sexuality that you CLAIM isn't yours, well...okay, yeah, I suppose that's not weird. Sure.