May 01, 2009   | COMMENTS     

We must stop enabling lying, closeted gays

To the Editors:
Re: “The return of outing” (editorial by Kevin Naff, April 24)

You hit the bull’s eye with your editorial. The article finally pinpointed the biggest challenge for the gay community moving forward: All any of us ever really wants is plain and simple equal protection under the law. It’s every American citizen’s right to be treated equally and to be given the same opportunities as everyone else. Period.

But how can we get there if we don’t focus our fight against the people who are just like us, but hate themselves (and the rest of the community) enough to stay in their closets?

I feel we as a community — whatever that means these days — are consumed by the great “gay vs. straights” war, which doesn’t really exist. It hasn’t existed for quite some time.

In our complacency, we continue to lose sight of the actual war between the gays who have accepted who we are, and have gone on with our lives and those gays who have chosen to stay in the closet and thereby have decided to live a lie and make life generally miserable for themselves and those around them.

Of course, good old religion plays a big role too, what with all these divorced Mormons suddenly winding up happily gay.

But at the root of it, it is still one person making one conscious choice to suppress who they are and instead spend life in a closet.

Ultimately, I think we’ve all been too easy on those cowards.

But how do you beat an enemy that is an idea in someone’s mind? To make things worse, it’s an idea that makes certain that person is predisposed to hate our cause.

In the 1960s, there were no African-American people hiding out and working against the civil rights movement. But in the 1940s, there certainly were closeted Jews (and closeted gays, for that matter) who helped the Nazis against their own.

We are at a major turning point. The movement needs to decide if it will continue to try to convince the straight world about a choice we never made — namely, being gay.

Or do we finally move this gay storyline forward and find the nerve to stand up to these cowards who do make a choice to stay in the closet?

So maybe now is the time to examine why, after all these decades (as your article states), “the self-imposed closet remains the biggest obstacle to equality.”

Why indeed?

But when we start answering the question, we are forced to look in the mirror. Exactly what are these closet-cases running away from? What psycho stereotype of the “gay lifestyle” do these guys have in their head that make them choose a world of glory holes, Craigslist, and divorce?

While there is no simple answer to explain away self-hate, there is an antidote. The antidote is that mirror.

Look in the mirror and you will find that our community has a lot of work to do if it’s ever going to take this next stage of the fight seriously.

But if and when we get serious about it, the good news is that the fight then gets really easy. All you need to do is employ the same intolerance for them as they for you. These closet cases must have no “sanctuary” within our community.

Every self-respecting gay man out there must deny advances from or, heaven-forbid, secret love affairs with closeted, married co-workers (or members of Congress).

Craigslist posts by “curious married dude” or “bi seeks bj bud” must remain unanswered.

Isn’t it about time to show those pseudo gays that we finally mean business? Or are we all just enablers at heart?


MIGUEL TUASON
Arlington, Va.


Disappointed by insensitive cartoon mocking blindness

To the Editors:
Re: Editorial cartoon (Forum section, April 24)

If we, as a community, can justifiably take a stand against hateful cartoonists such as Sean Delonas of the New York Post, then we ought to speak out just as forcibly when we come across cartoons with similarly hateful messages that target other groups, such as people with disabilities.

I was angered and disappointed to see such a cartoon in the Washington Blade on April 24, which mocked New York Gov. David Paterson’s blindness. The LGBT community faces many challenges from a homophobic society, yet shows an appalling indifference to those who possess physical differences. The way we cling to a culture that often praises physical perfection above all else does nothing to advance our cause and only succeeds in alienating us from our allies and each other.

I would like to see the Blade issue an open apology to our staunch ally Gov. Paterson, and to the disability community at large. After such a gross display of disrespect, it’s the very least you could do.

ERIC PETERSON
Washington