The fact that this has not happened leads me to conclude that it must not exist. The right talks about the dangers of allowing people to serve as openly gay, and that allowing it creates some special new right. In the same vein, they claim allowing for same sex marriage creates a new right. They are wrong.
The repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell merely replaces the policy with what I would like to call "Don't Care." How does one soldier as "openly gay?" For that matter how does one bank teller as "openly gay" or corporate finance officer as "openly gay."
I am glad that Don't Ask Don't Tell has been repealed, and I hope it leads to a national policy of Don't Care. I knew some of my gay friends were gay almost immediately. Some I only know because they told me so. Some of them came out of the closet to themselves at some point in time after we met.
This line may get me in trouble, but I have referred to some of my friends as "so fruity you could squeeze the juice out of them." I am still proud to call them my friends, but sometimes it is a hindrance for them in their careers. One actor whom I had described that way was the romantic interest in a play we performed for high school audiences- they laughed at him professing his love to his "fiance" because they "knew" he had know interest in her.
By the same token, I've known a couple of people who I would have put in this category that would complain about being hit on by gay people and wondered why they couldn't figure out that they were straight. I've been hit on by a few gay men, and I did feel some discomfort, briefly- I'm now old enough that I'm secure. I also have been called gay by some people. The implication is that being called gay is an accusation. As I said before I'm not gay and I responded as such. My "accuser" would usually say something along the lines of "I don't mean to offend you" to which I responded that I wasn't offended, I'm just not gay.
All of this brings me to an epiphany I had the other day. The Right sees homosexuality as a choice. I see it as a fact. If it is a choice, then the Right is afraid that events will take place that will cause them to make this choice they see as abhorrent. Once they accept that it is not a choice, they will have much less to fear. They won't have to worry about choosing it. They will either be gay or not. And those on the right that are will find a much more accepting world.
When the Right talks about the "Homosexual Agenda," the implication is that gay people want to turn straight people gay. As I've just mentioned, I don't believe that is possible. I also believe that gay people would agree with me on that score. Those gay men who've hit on me were hoping I was gay- they were not trying to "convert" me. When all is said and done I would say that the "Homosexual Agenda" is for others to acknowledge that gay people have the same unalienable rights as they do, and that this is nothing out of the ordinary.
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