Do we need to know that Diana Nyad is gay?

Yes. And here's why:

When you insist being gay couldn’t possibly matter less, what you actually insist is that the subject never be brought up in the first place.

One day, it will not matter whether Diana Nyad, Tim Cook, Sally Ride, or any other noteworthy person is openly gay. But we’re not there yet. Until we are, it is our responsibility as LGBTQ people to remind the rest of the world that we’re still here, we’re comfortable in our own skins, we come in all shapes, sizes and specialties, and, once in a blue moon, some of us can even swim from Cuba to Florida. We should be proud to say so.

Would you want to live in a gay-free world?

You know that increasingly the right wing tries to make us gay people "the  other" and foreign.  You'd think they want us to disappear.  But be careful what you wish for, wingers.  From the HuffPo

But imagine, for a moment, that there were no LGBT people on the planet. Just what would this world look like? 

Imagine the world without the Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo, a gay man. Imagine the world without that famous Mona Lisa smile, or the iconic painting of Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper, both by Leonardo da Vinci, another man who was probably gay. Imagine the world without the music of The Nutcracker or Swan Lake, by Tchaikovsky, also gay. More recently, imagine the world without the music of Johnny Mathis, Joan Armatrading, Elton John, Melissa Etheridge, George Michael, or the Indigo Girls, among countless others. 

Imagine the world without the plays of Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Paula Vogel, or Stephen Sondheim. Imagine how literature would look without the writings of Virginia Woolf, Truman Capote,Alice Walker, or Augusten Burroughs. Imagine sports without such legends as Martina Navratilova, Greg Louganis, Johnny Weir, or Billie Jean King. Imagine the world without the comedic brilliance of Lily Tomlin, or Andy Warhol's groundbreaking Campbell's Soup Cans painting, or Roland Emmerich's smash hit movie Independence Day. Imagine Glee without Jane Lynch and Chris Colfer. Oh, wait -- you're right! There wouldn't even be a Glee without gay creator Ryan Murphy.

"ex-gay" leader admits change is not possible

From The New Civil Rights Movement:

John Smid, one of the most important leaders within the so-​called “ex-​gay” or “reparative therapy” movement — known as “pray away the gay” — finally admitted after 30 years, that conversion therapy is a crock, and that it is, indeed, impossible to change one’s sexual orientation. Smid, appearing on Chris Matthews’ “Hardball,” said, “there’s an intrinsic homosexuality that, I haven’t seen many people who have seen an orientation change.” Smid says, “predominantly, I’m attracted to men.”

But, as the right wing continues to deny science (including evolution and climate change), and because they fundamentally misunderstand science (no single "gay gene"! There's no "tall" gene either) they continue to make excuses and claim that we choose to be who we are. They never quite answer WHY we would choose to be gay, if we weren't oriented this way.Let alone, HOW. I mean, I find the idea of sleeping with men repulsive. So does this mean that straight women also find sleeping with men repulsive? Somehow I don't think so. I'm not lesbian because of abuse or unstable family or anything else. I'm lesbian like I'm right-handed, or have curly hair: I just AM.

Bullying drives boy to suicide

Whether he was gay or not, the bullies went after him and he died last week in Indiana.

Students told Fox59 News it was common knowledge that children bullied Billy and from what they said, it was getting worse. Last Thursday, Billy's mother found him dead inside their barn. He had hung himself.

Students said on that same day, some students told Billy to kill himself.

"They said stuff like 'you're like a piece of crap' and 'you don't deserve to live.' Different things like that. Talked about how he was gay or whatever," said Swango.

Principal Phil Chapple doesn't deny that students are bullied in the high school, but he said he didn't know Billy was one of the victims.

"We were not aware of that situation," said Chapple.

So when we talk about Focus on the Family opposing laws against bullying, or the danger to kids in school, this is why.

And this about a boy in MInnesota:

In the weeks since she found her son dead in his room on July 9, Tammy Aaberg has heard from many of her son's friends at Anoka High School. They told her Justin Aaberg had been bullied and had recently broken up with his boyfriend.

Those same students also opened up about their own experiences, telling her they feel harassed and unsafe as gay and lesbian students.

"These kids, they just hate themselves. They literally feel like they want to die. So many kids are telling me this," said Tammy Aaberg, fighting tears.

But students harassing them are the real victims of Focus on the Family, who think that their religious values require them to bully other students unto death.

Update Homophobic bigots are posting messages of hate on the memorial facebook page set up for Billy. THe mind boggles. Wonder how many of them think that is the "Christian" thing to do.

Till death do us part

What is it with Republican governors? First it was Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri who, back in November, vetoed legislation that would let a gay person plan his dead partner's funeral, ostensibly because that was a slippery slope to marriage. (The veto was overridden in January 2010).

Now Gov. Tiim Pawlenty of Minnesota is trying the same thing (and situating himself for a possible attempt at the GOP nomination since homophobia is apparently a tea party value).

Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed a bill Saturday that would have given same-sex partners the right to decide what to do with the body of their loved ones, should they die.

These people have no values, and certainly no humanity nor Christianity. How awful can you be.

Can Justice be Gay?

Justice is blind. Can she also be gay?

I posted previously about the kerfuffle over rumors of gay candidates for SCOTUS, in What if a Supreme Court Justice be Gay? I also commented acidly on the expectation that only straight white Christian men can be objective. Somehow, it is assumed that a minority, a woman, or a gay person can't see the world apart from their membership in those groups. (Our friend Mike in TX has some examples of how being straight, male Christians can lead to its own judicial perversions.)

Now the American Family Association has updated its comments (H/T RightwingWatch; I will not link to hate sites):

Speculation continues to swirl about the sexual preference of likely Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. She is apparently out to her friends and others in her academic and social circles, but not out to the public at large.

The White House has flatly stated that she is not gay, which could prove a tad embarrassing if the open secret of her lesbianism is confirmed at some point. ...It's time we got over the myth that what a public servant does in his private life is of no consequence. ....The stakes are too high. Social conservatives must rise up as one and say no lesbian is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. Will they?

I don't care if Kagan is gay or not. (If she were, I wish she were out, but that's another issue). I DO care that rightwingnuts are somehow pretending that orientation is a litmus test. It would be offensive for there to be a test for faith, or race, and it's just as offensive to invoke a test for sexuality. Being GLBT is not illegal.

Sadly, neither is being stupid.

UpdateAndrew Sullivan writes:

And yet we have been told by many that she is gay ... and no one will ask directly if this is true and no one in the administration will tell us definitively.

In a word, this is preposterous - a function of liberal cowardice and conservative discomfort. It should mean nothing either way. Since the issue of this tiny minority - and the right of the huge majority to determine its rights and equality - is a live issue for the court in the next generation, and since it would be bizarre to argue that a Justice's sexual orientation will not in some way affect his or her judgment of the issue, it is only logical that this question should be clarified.....

To put it another way: Is Obama actually going to use a Supreme Court nominee to advance the cause of the closet (as well as kill any court imposition of marriage equality)? And can we have a clear, factual statement as to the truth? In a free society in the 21st Century, it is not illegitimate to ask. And it is cowardly not to tell.

And From Slate:

Whether or not the strategy works politically, the White House's announcement that Kagan isn't gay should end the matter, unless and until someone come up with some real proof to the contrary. The unfounded insistence that Kagan is a lesbian isn't about lies or hypocrisy (shades of, oh, Larry Craig and John Edwards) or even journalistic ethics. It's about making things up. There's simply no evidence that Kagan's pretending to be anything she's not. The underlying lesson may be that the confirmation wars are so completely toxic that we have come to assume every nominee reflexively lies about everything, up to and including his or her sexuality.

California's "gay cure"

There's an old, old law on the books in CA mandating research into the causes and cures for homosexuality. AB2199 would repeal this law, recognizing that modern science and medicine agree that being gay or lesbian is a variant, not a pathology.

Of course, the Forces of Evil want the law to stay on the books. As EQCA says ,

The anti-LGBT right-wing is trying to kill EQCA's bill to repeal the California law that instructs health officials to conduct research into the "causes and cures of homosexuality." Why? Because they know that when people learn that sexual orientation is not a choice and cannot be changed they are much more likely to support full equality.

Head on over there and sign their petition asking the Governor to sign the bill.

As the SF Chronicle opines,

The state has far better things to do than hunt down a "cure" for sexual orientation. But the insulting language remains on the books, so Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, has introduced AB2199 to scrub it. But there's no question that it should pass..... The idea of searching for a homosexuality "cure" is insulting, absurd and rooted in ignorance.

Born Gay: why it matters.

From the LA Times, a kick-ass editorial by two geneticists:

There was an elephant in the San Francisco courtroom where lawyers contested the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the California law that prohibits the marriage of same-sex couples. One key issue should influence every aspect of the Perry vs. Schwarzenegger proceedings yet remained unspoken: What makes people gay? Is it a choice or is it innate?

....the empirical evidence for the role of genetics in human sexual orientation has been quietly but steadily mounting over the last 15 years. ....The results unambiguously demonstrate that heritability plays a major role in sexual orientation and far outweighs shared environmental factors such as education or parenting.

...critics of sexual orientation inheritance are fond of pointing out that there is no single identified "gay gene." However, they fail to mention that the same is true for height, skin color, handedness, frequency of heart disease and many other traits that have a large inherited component but no dominant gene. In other words, sexual orientation is complex, i.e., many genes contribute...

So why does this matter?

Biology cannot be avoided in determining whether fundamental rights are protected under the equal protection clause of our Constitution. This is because "immutability" is one of the factors that determine the level of scrutiny applied to possible violations and that determine whether gays are awarded "suspect class" status, which would give them more constitutional protection. Heritability is not necessary for immutability or suspect class status (religion is the usual counter-example), but it should be sufficient; we do not choose our genes, nor can we change them.,,,polling data [shows] that people who believe that gays are "born that way" are generally supportive of full equality, whereas those who believe it is "a choice" are opposed.

In the Advocate, a commentator pushes this further, and challenges the political decision not to bring this up strongly in the advocacy for marriage rights.

Eighty percent of voters who believe people are born homosexual vote yes on gay rights. Our strategists intentionally ignore this. Economists call this opportunity cost: what we could and should be doing strategically instead of what we are. It is shocking to realize it, but the “empathy” and “letting people hear our stories” ads that Garden State Equality and the Empire State Pride Agenda use our money to run are, in their political opportunity cost, just as toxic to us as the ads run by Schubert Flint and the National Organization for Marriage. We're being killed by friendly fire because our own people dislike the fact that Bob Schieffer’s question, "Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?" moves voters. So they don’t ask it. 


Okay, but why ignore it? The commentator provocatively suggests,

Homosexuality is inborn. The problem is that this contradicts liberal ideology. The leaders of the gay rights movement are (logically) almost all liberals, and so viscerally opposed to the idea that behavioral traits are innate. Yet those 25 percentage points we get from making voters understand that homosexuality is innate are exactly what will make us win. Result: We've got a serious problem here.

A deliberate decision, he suggests, for political or ideological reasons. He goes further,


What we are doing wrong is simple. We’re failing the Schieffer test. We’re refusing to answer the only question America is asking us. This is political suicide. 

In an interview with Rex Wockner six weeks before voting day in Maine, Jesse Connolly, No on 1’s campaign manager, dismissed the other side’s strategy: "These are the same old doomsday tactics that opponents of equality have been using ... in every state."

In an e-mail to Connolly, Wockner observed, "And those tactics worked in every state."

Connolly: "Question 1 is only about fairness and equality."

Wockner: "'Fairness' and 'equality' are lovely words and beautiful high-minded concepts. But they were beyond useless ... " 

Wockner.... made the cool, ballot-box-math, matter-of-fact observation: "They like us better if we're born gay." And they just do. 


So how would the mantle of biology help counter the arguments used against us? (Used, we must remember over and over again with considerable success).

Schools can't "teach" homosexuality any more than they can "teach" handedness. (Although they can teach understanding and acceptance.) Teachers can't "promote" innate traits like being black or female, and if your TV spots claim they can, it reveals antigay forces to be the idiots that they are.

SO, time for a big change. I am glad to see this brought up--and it's critical to the argument in the Prop8 case. It is well past time to explain that for most gay people, it's not a choice. We aren't a pathology. It's who we are. So stop making such a big deal of it, give us our dam' rights, and let us work together on things that really matter.

Are you listening, Rick Jacobs? Are you listening, Geoff Kors? Are you listening, Jesse Connelly? Are you listening, HRC, EQCA, Courage Campaign?

What are you going to do about it?

I DON'T HAVE A LIFESTYLE

Aren't you TIRED of the term "the homosexual lifestyle"? It's derogatory, scornful dismissal. I recently got cross in a comment thread on a blog when someone bleated "what 's wrong with the term homosexual lifestyle?" And this is what I responded:

Try these terms:

"left-handed lifestyle"

"red-haired lifestyle".

Do they make any sense?

The word "lifestyle" implies trivialities, like choosing which supermarket to patronize or which clothes to buy. A dictionary definition: "a set of attitudes, habits, and possessions regarded as typical of a particular group or an individual". Synonyms: "fashion, style, mode".

There is no such thing as a "homosexual lifestyle". Sure gay people may choose the same range of actual "lifestyles" as any straight people, ranging from suburban earth-moms to urban partiers. But our sexuality isn't part of that choice.

To use that term to refer to our LIVES is profoundly offensive It says our LIVES are trivialities and stylistic choices. But our lives have same value, depth, and complexity of anyone else's. My marriage, my family, and my life are not a "lifestyle".

I don't have a "lifestyle". I have a LIFE.

The Science of Gaydar

What makes us gay? It seems pretty clear that it's quite hard wired in most gay men. Lesbians, and women generally, have more fluid sexuality. There's an interesting piece in New York magazine about the science behind sexual preference.

One provocative question: if you know a child were gay, would it be ethical to abort it? Or to genetically manipulate it into heterosexuality?

This all goes back to a post I made some time ago about what it is to be different: I called it "Curing the Variant". When is a difference a "normal" variation and when is it a pathology?