(Provocative title FTW!)
Yesterday the New York Times published an op-ed by the rather unfortunately named Charles Blow*, detailing a new Gallup study indicating that the general public’s attitudes toward the LGBT community have changed substantially.
First and foremost, the study contains awesome news: this is the first poll in which the majority of respondents indicate that they find "gay and lesbian relations" to be "morally acceptable." In other words, Tony Perkins and the religious crazyballs are losing their death grip on public discourse as it relates to my personal life. Yay for that. The study also indicates that there has been a seismic shift in the attitudes of men; the percentage of men who find gay "relations" morally acceptable has risen 48 percent over four years ago. The Meathead Straight Guy is a dying breed. Yay for that as well.
Still, most of the ink spilled over this poll has centered around Gallup’s odd and rather antiquated use of the phrase "gay and lesbian relations". Memo to the good people at Gallup: I am not my penis. In fact, my penis is a (woefully) small part of my body. The fact that your organization, along with so many of the anti-gay nutbars out there, are so concerned with the, um, comings and goings of my penis is rather distressing.
And yet, this focus on the adventures of the gay man’s sexual organs is largely responsible for the lack of advances in LGBT rights in the last decade. The Religious Right has been tremendously successful in leveraging the "ick" factor of male-male sexual relations in derailing the so-called Gay Agenda. While Aunt Barb may respond well to photos of cute kids and puppies with their two gay dads, just whisper to her that after hours those gay dads are having sex, and suddeny Aunt Barb is squicked out and sending her monthly Social Security check to Focus on the Family.
So again, I say to Aunt Barb and all the other voters out there: I am not my penis. My penis is a (woefully) small part of who I am, and I gotta tell you, mine isn’t particularly adventurous. But the rest of me gets up every day, showers, dresses and goes to work just like you do. I come home, I eat something, I mess around online, and then go to bed, just like you. Some day (assuming something goes horribly, terribly wrong) I may even have kids, just like you. I spend 99.9% of my life being just exactly like you. Am I somehow a second-class citizen because I spend the other .1% of my life being just a little bit different?
*As a side note, I absolutely love the expression on Mr. Blow’s face in the picture accompanying his op-ed. His smile borders on a smirk, as if to say "Yes, my name is Charles BLOW. You got a problem with that?" So Mr. Blow, you ROCK that shit, grrrl.
(crossposted at my blog.)