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Everywhere But Nowhere

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 5 January 2005
6 comments

Edito Discriminations-Minorit. USA Wayne Besen


By Wayne Besen

It seems a little discordant that the issue of gay people marrying is ubiquitous when gay couples are virtually invisible in society. In today’s America, you have a better chance of seeing a couple of polar bears sunbathing on Main Street than you do a same-sex couple holding hands.

If you take a look around, the only place you are likely to see affectionate gay spouses are on the gayest streets in the gayest of gay ghettos. There are really only three possible explanations:

1) There are no gay or lesbian couples living outside San Francisco, New York and West Hollywood.

2) Gay people live everywhere. However, they have an unexplained medical condition where they are unable to feel love unless they are breathing the magical sea air of Provincetown, Rehoboth or Fire Island

3) Same-sex couples across America are reticent to show public affection because of harassment or hate violence.

The 2000 census showed that same-sex partners live in 99.3 percent of all US counties, which disproves my first theory.

My second hypothesis doesn’t hold because there is no medical condition inhibiting gay peoples’ ability to love. Of course, there are gay people who use thinly veiled defense mechanisms such as “I don’t believe in PDA.” Give me a break - even the most uptight, emotionally distant heterosexual couples still hold hands in public.

This leaves Option Three. According to the FBI’s 2003 report on hate crimes, (the most recent year statistics are available) sexual orientation just surpassed religion as the second highest category. The report shows that 8,715 reported hate crimes occurred, with 1,430 (16.4 %) based on real or perceived sexual orientation.

As alarming as these numbers are, I believe they would reach epidemic proportions if gay and lesbian couples didn’t self-censor their behavior. For those who disagree (especially heterosexuals) I dare you to stroll for 30 minutes hand in hand with a person of the same-sex down almost any street in America. If you want to prove your mettle, do it in a county that voted for George W. Bush by at least a 10-point margin. If you really think you’re a tough guy, you can walk the strip one more time in drag to experience the harassment transgender people often encounter.

I believe that if every person in America volunteered to take this challenge, it would offer most people a new appreciation of what it is like to be gay in much of America. This would be the ultimate diversity training!

On a day-to-day basis, choosing where to show even mild affection can put enormous stress on same-sex relationships. For example, over the New Year’s holiday I went camping near St. Augustine, Florida with my boyfriend Ben.

When we got to our assigned campsite, I looked around and we were hemmed in between two families: The Beverly Hillbillies and the crew from Deliverance. There were about ten people and a total of thirty teeth. Did they survive by roasting marshmallows? On one of their vans there was a great anti-Evolution bumper sticker and another that said “Choose Life”. Empty beer cans littered the mouth of one of the camouflaged tents.

I do admit that I am guilty of Yahoo-profiling. For all I know, these folks might have been pro-gay and used their truck as a float in the gay pride parade. But I’ll take my chances with being wrong - at least I’m alive.

After studying the situation, I asked Ben if we could move to a more private location. At first, he got upset and said they looked like nice families.

“Sure, just because they are families, that makes them nice,” I sarcastically retorted. “Just like Focus on the Family, The American Family Association and the Family Research Council.” He saw my point.

We ended up getting a more private campsite and had a great time. Still, when we went for romantic country walks, unlike heterosexual couples, we had to discern when it was safe to be ourselves. And in a place where half the people looked like Elmer Fudd, it was a difficult question to answer.

Ironically, when we got to liberal Gainesville, Florida the next day, cowardly punks in a passing car called us “queers”. This is the third time I’ve experienced such an incident in the past year.

I partially blame the political climate created by George W. Bush and his ugly Federal Marriage Amendment. Indeed, political homophobia has become pathological to the point of a Virginia lawmaker proposing this week to sponsor an anti-gay marriage license plate. How many people have to be hurt before grandstanding politicians realize that their hateful words have real life consequences?

As much as they might like, the opposition cannot forever use the threat of violence to silence. As more gay couples are married and have children, we are going to see less self-censorship on Main Street. In America 2005, same-sex couples have pulled off the surreal feat of being everywhere, but nowhere. I believe in the next few years this will radically change.

http://www.outletradio.com/besen/archives/001474.php

Forum posts

  • Wayne, you seem to be overly self concerned with gay issues. People are dying around the world at the hands of our government. Halliburton is looting our grandkid’s money while Bush has run up the biggest debt in history and they are about to loot $2 trillion in social security. Check that- that’s $2 tril ’transfer costs’ to setup the new system, then they’ll let the stock market run up with our trillions invested before they tank it and loot the rest.

    You know what I’m saying... they are robbing our freedoms- installing checkpoints, random searches and national id cards. Bush and Cheney’s plans for America describe ’big brother’ perfectly. Please realize that there are many more important issues to deal with today, and of course if we correct the corruption at the top, the gay issues will just fade away because they are the ones creating it.

    Please consider focusing your efforts on exposing Bush’s lies and hypocrisy, on demanding the impeachment and arrest of the Bush cabal.

  • "Half the people looked like Elmer Fudd," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Crew from Deliverance," "...a total of thirty teeth," "Empty beer cans littered..." It sounds like you were the intolerant person at the campsite. Wasn’t there a gay camp ground you could have gone to?

    As the first poster pointed out, in the scheme of things, you’re sensitivity about the plight of gays is pretty low on the social/economic/war-issue food chain.

    • Well, pal, let’s change the focus and make the gays the villians, AGAIN. Perhaps the descriptions of the neighbors are a trifle exaggerated, but that is literary license. The real import of the article is absolutely correct. Gays are abused in so many ways, subtle and direct, overt and covert, cruel and unintentionally cruel, that a few over-the-top phrases are one of the only means to counter the pain. You are obviously uncaring about others’ plights, probably incapable of empathy, and I’ll bet, have more that a few secret longings that you supress with effort.

    • "Well, pal, let’s change the focus and make the gays the villians, AGAIN. "

      Nobody is abusing gays here, just suggesting that perhaps the author is a little too self-absorbed.

      Have you heard the phrase "divide and conquer’? the author is falling for it, being overly concerned with the gay issue when people are dying right now. Nothing personal re: Mr. Besen, but if this is all he writes about, perhaps he is an (unknowing?) agent of those that wish to divide us.

  • Why are people hatin’ in the comments section here?

    In any case, I disagree that this a problem that only affects same-sex couples. I mean there was a notorious case of German tourist being mistaken for gay and brutally bashed in NYC, circa late 1980’s, as his horrified wife looked on.

    Something else: I have a heterosexual female friend who looks a bit masculine/tomboyish. She has encountered suburban homophobia. Apparently, there are vigilant passing motorists, usually young males, who are on the alert for gay male couples to harrass. Hopped up on intolerance and testosterone and perhaps even God, they are mistaking hetero couples for homo.

    Anecdotal as this may seem do you really want to live in an environment of intolerance and hate? Let’s say your straight and macho. One day you’re hung-over and get dressed in the dark. You don’t realize the shirt you are wearing is fuschia. You clop down the street in birkenstocks and get hit in the head with a bottle. I mean would you want to live in that world?

    Okay maybe some of what I wrote is dumb, but so are some of the above comments.

    NJ IMC Vince

  • I’ve chosen to ignore the other comments written here because I greatly appreciated all that you’ve said. A human being’s natural emotional defense mechanism is sarcasm and cynicism so I’m not going to call you self-absorbed or hypocritical. I completely agree with you that Gays and Lesbians and the like are forced to hide themselves within society for their own safety. it’s just not right. period. Sure, there may be bigger problems in the world, AIDS in Africa, tsunamis, and war, but the most you can do for those (unless you’re a hard core activist, in which case kudoes to you) is donate a bit of money. But homophobia is something you can fight on a daily basis. Thank you so much for this article.