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Dear Auntie Pinko,
I am a gay American and frustrated as hell! Of course I’m thrilled that the Bushpublicans’ karma is rising up to savage them, but why did it have to be at the expense of gay people? For centuries, homophobic assholes have been equating being gay with being corrupters of youth, pedophiles, ‘recruiters,’ etc. And we’ve only recently begun to take that stereotype apart.
And now the whole Foley scandal is morphing from a focus on a member of Congress abusing parents’ and young peoples’ trust, and his Bushpublican cronies covering it up for political expediency, into yet another “gays eat babies” witch-hunt. It’s even more frustrating that some gay activists who should know better have decided that the best way to ‘punish’ them should be to “out” closeted gays in the Bushpublican ranks.
Auntie, what is a gay person to do in a no-win situation like this?
Alexander
Canton, OH
Dear Alexander,
I sympathize, and I share your frustration. The small comfort offered by a logistical setback to the Republican Party isn’t much to balance such a giant step backward in the fight to dismantle the destructive stereotypes that have contributed to the oppression of gay people in America. And the focus on gay people as evil predators is doing much to divert attention from where it really belongs: On the Congressional leaders who knowingly enabled an adult colleague to sexually harass young people they had a responsibility to protect. Their behavior put political expediency before the welfare of young people under their care, and there is nothing more despicable. All the fan-dancing and blame-shifting in the world can’t change those facts.
Yet the predictable hysteria about “gay pedophiles” shoves that cowardly abuse of trust aside and grabs the media spotlight, not without some cooperation from the media, which is still allowing itself to be shamelessly manipulated by Republican flaks. I don’t blame you for being discouraged. I wish I had a magic answer for changing the situation, but I don’t. The only suggestion I can offer is that those of us who see the problem in terms of the terrible abuse of trust by Congressional leaders adopt the “stuck record” tactic, and that we put as much persistence and effort into it as the Republicans are putting into their obfuscatory tactics.
It would help a lot if Democrats and others who are quite understandably wallowing in the pleasure of watching the Republicans flail about in their self-created morass, would exercise a bit of self-restraint and join in on the “stuck record” effort. Foregoing the opportunity to make yet another “Congressional Page” joke, in favor of a firm, “but the REAL issue is the shocking abuse of trust by Republican Congressional leadership,” again and again.
And, for what it is worth, I think that is beginning to happen, Alexander. I have noticed a considerable slackening of the gleeful wallowing in the last few days, which is a good start. If we can get the same energy going around the “abuse of trust” issue, it will not necessarily reverse the media tide but it might offset it somewhat. The media cannot be wholly blamed, either. Remember the old joke about what sells newspapers. Even well-intentioned journalists have to take the childishly prurient tastes of the media-consuming public into account to some extent.
However, it is an unfortunate reality that even an issue as important as Congressional leaders abusing the trust of young people and their parents and allowing a sick colleague to exercise predatory behavior among Congressional pages, will never grab as much attention as the actual salacious details of the behavior and the appeal to unsavory impulses like homophobia. We have a long way to go. Gay people and their families and friends must put aside their weariness of dealing with this constant assault on reality, and continue to point out the truth: The incidence of criminal and predatory sexual behavior among gay individuals is no greater than the incidence of criminal and predatory sexual behavior among heterosexual individuals.
Insofar as some activists in the gay community want to respond to the Republicans’ shameless blame-shifting and obfuscation by “outing” closeted Congressional Republicans and staffers, the impulse is certainly understandable. Gay individuals colluding in their colleagues’ hysterical whipping-up of homophobic frenzy in order to evade taking responsibility is revolting in its slimy hypocrisy. But it is not our place to appoint ourselves arbiter, judge, jury, and executioner of others’ moral choices, however repugnant they may be. That would simply put us in the same holy water-filled bathtub occupied by Republican “moral arbiters” who want to impose their narrow prescriptions of virtue on others.
And for those who believe in karmic justice, remember that the attempt to usurp or to hurry karma carries its own karmic debt. It is abundantly clear that the Republicans are experiencing a grand settling-day of karmic debt; let’s not get in the way. They’re assembling a circular firing squad, let’s not joggle their elbows and spoil their aim. Thanks for asking Auntie Pinko, Alexander, and chin up — this too shall pass!
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