Shannon and I are sitting here watching that strange prime-time game show “Power of 10” which asks people to predict what percentage of Americans to a random question. The last question was “ How many Americans believe that people are born gay”. The winning answer: 51%.
I wasn’t surprised (my guess was 50%), but more than a little appalled. It’s just further evidence of the religious right’s vigorous and misleading campaign to portray homosexuals as degenerates who will burn in hell for all eternity. And their primary tool has been the unceasing repetition of the phrase “gay lifestyle.”
Even with all the inroads we’ve made to gain acceptance and the right to left alone, that phrase is still in popular use.
Well, I got news for you: I’m gay, and I don’t have a lifestyle. I have a life. I can’t afford a lifestyle.
My life as a gay man has included mourning the death of my first partner who had so much more to give to the world and standing by Shannon through bouts of depression and insanity. It’s included having to help make the gut-wrenching decision to turn my father’s life support off, knowing that he would most like die within a few minutes (he did). It’s included holding a responsible job and stepping up to help take care of the company when it wasn’t convenient, but necessary.
Sounds a lot like the lives of many Americans.
We are, in fact, a couple of contented homebodies dealing with the problems and enjoying the same pleasures as all people of the homebody persuasion.
So enough of this “gay lifestyle” crap. There is no such thing, and the perpetuation of the myth that there is only reinforces stereotypes, encourages discrimination and, ultimately, demeans gay people everywhere.
And it’s a patently dishonest phrase that people who claim to be moral leaders should erase from their vocabulary.
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