Dammit, Janet

Ann Coulter moaned the other day at the CPAC convention that the GOP didn’t have the support of more “gays” without ever realizing how using “gay” as a noun objectifies and demeans the people she’s talking about.

I am not a “gay”. I am man who happens to be gay. One of the least important things about me.

I am a man, dammit.

I’m pig-headed, obstinate and mouthy. I’m compassionate, loving and caring. I work hard. I give an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, and then some. (Even though I don’t get paid what I’m worth.)

I stayed up all night talking to my father who was unconscious, writing when I knew he was going to die the next day. We were going to have to cut off life support, and I knew that. I wanted to be there with him for a while, alone.

I cut off life support for my first husband because I knew that was what he wanted. I didn’t for my last one, because he was very clear about his wishes.

I have a mother who needs me, and I need her, too. I have a brand new baby nephew who’s named after me.

I am more than the sum of my sexual orientation. That determines who I do or do not take to bed. And that’s no one’s business unless I want to make it known. And I don’t talk about that any more than any straight person I know.

Or should I say “a straight”.

You’ll never hear someone say “a straight”. Unless in the context of “a straight man” or “a straight woman”. But you’ll hear “a gay” or “gays” pretty regularly. Not “a gay man” or “gay woman” or “a gay person”.

There are no “gays”. There are gay people. Using the word as a noun is demeaning and objecitifying. It’s perjoratie, and it hurts. If I live to be 100 (and I hope I don’t—I believe that God is merciful and will take me home before then), I never want to hear that word used as a noun again.

What Ann Coulter didn’t get is that she was offending the very people she was trying to appeal to. Wonder why there aren’t more “gays” in the GOP? Because they’re people first and a sexual orientiation on down the list. It’s not the most important thing about them.

And they don’t vote with their dicks.

Except when they do. But that involves hanging chads and other messy things that I won’t go into. Suffice the say, one would need a tissue, hanky or hand-towel to clean up after them, depending on the level of patriotism.

At the end of the day, I am you. You are me. We’re human beings. I’m a human being with a penis. I happen to want to go to bed at night with another human being that also has a penis. What happens when I close the bedroom door and pull the covers up is none of anyone’s business but mine and the other penis’s.

Gay does not define me, and it never will.

Until the politicos realize that people like me are people like them, they’ll never get it.

When Daddy was in the hospital and running out of steam rapidly, Mama said that she didn’t know what to do. I told her that when the time came, she would know what to do. That it would be the hardest thing she ever did in her life, but also the easiest. That I knew because I’d already done it.

The situation had required it, and I manned up to it. That defines me more than anything else: I’m a man taking responsibility because someone has to, and I’d just as soon it be me as someone else who might or might not care as much about the consequences of the actions. That is who I am.

I am gay. I’m a gay man. But I’m not “a gay.” I’ve never even met one, much less been one.

Until right-wing whack jobs like Ann Coulter understand that, they’ll never have broad support from gay and lesbian people. And until the radical right quits telling me with everything it does that I’m less equal than other people, I don’t give a rat’s ass about anything else they have to say.

When the GOP is ready to talk about that, they can call me.

I’m a man, dammit, Janet.