COLUMN: This Column Is Gay

Harry Caines contributes a weekly column to CacheValleyDaily.com. His column is a work of opinion, and does not reflect the views of Cache Valley Daily, the Cache Valley Media Group, or its employees.

<em>“Gay TV has been immensely important in transforming American culture in a more gay-positive direction.”</em>

—Tony Kushner

It says much about my upbringing and the rather eclectic nature of my family that as a 12 year-old boy I once was in a gay disco. I will not write out the full story, only to say the disco did not have a liquor license, so anyone could enter—and my family thought it would be fun to bring me along for some quality time together.

I had hormones at that age. If I was ever going to be sexually attracted to men, I would pretty much have known that night. Didn’t happen. I’m straight. Oh, well.

And here I am, three decades later, still amazed at how something so customary as homosexuality is still debated by those who hold on to mundane, obsolete religious scriptures as the reasons for opposing it as amoral.

Perhaps it can be as simple as the life we all live that makes us accept or cower from things different than ourselves. I was exposed to people of different sexual orientations at a young age. I have close family members who are gay. I worked in the hospitality business, which in a big city has a workforce filled with homosexuals.

It was never weird to me. Much like everything else, it was just there.

Even when I worked in nightclubs as a younger man, I was shocked how easy it was for me to get put on the schedule for “gay nights.” Many did not want to work those parties. Stupid. I made tons of money—for if there is one positive stereotype attributed to homosexuals that I can emphatically confirm it is that they are fantastic tippers.

This all leads up to last week, when a news story turned out to be barely a news story. On May 12, Minnesota became the 12th state to legalize gay marriage.

Yawn.

Whoa! Wait a moment! Yawn? Whaaaaaa? This is Gay Marriage! (Insert ominous music here) The pestilent plague on decent society. The cancerous death knell to the nuclear family. How was this just another story?

Short answer: Because homosexuality is no big deal, and allowing gays to do everything we non-gays do is simply being on the right side of history.

In a country where a majority of those who still are adamantly opposed to the “homosexual agenda” and denying that gays can pretty much do anything anyone else does, the great paradox is lost on these theocrats.

Accepting homosexuality is altogether moral. And for Christians, it is the Christ-like thing to do.

The days of yore, when psychiatrists treated homosexuality as a mental disorder, and gays were pretty much outcast to large cities, are over. Homophobia still exists, but those who adhere to it are the freaks. The rest of us pretty much accept it and do so without fear or trepidation.

What changed? How did homosexuality, which has been with us since the start, finally turn from being abnormal to something rather passe. In a single word: television.

That’s right! TV helped The Gays take over our straight world. Much like organized religion, television is a means of persuasion. Religion depends on persuasion to manage their flocks into obedience to a theological dogma. Television also tries to persuade us, but they use entertainment as a way to get us to buy stuff.

When homosexual characters became more common on television, specifically during the late 1980’s and throughout the 90’s, religious leaders freaked out. They knew what most of us know now: once we accepted homosexuals as just regular people, the old arguments about God hating them would seem archaic and mean.

Remove persuasion and what is left? An open mind.

Listen to those few who are left that oppose gay marriage. They usually say, verbatim, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.” That is the art of persuasion. Those who use the term “I believe” do so on faith. They were persuaded by arguments.

Those who use empirical evidence for their rationale tend to say “I think.” Big difference. “I think” suggests weighing counter arguments coupled with personal experiences and judging what seems logical. Homosexuality became less taboo and obviously less dangerous when we invited it into our homes via television.

Maybe there is a God. Maybe He will indeed punish those who indulge in homosexual behavior. I seriously doubt it, but who knows? Here is what I do know:

As time goes by, humans evolve. The days of using a book of fables to determine morality are rapidly changing. Gay people have mothers. And those mothers are standing against those who would tell them that their children are somehow defective or deviant.

We are a better, more humane people when we accept things that for too long a time were considered wrong and deserving of scorn and ostracization. What was once misunderstood is now common, and that is surely to our credit.

And we are closer to being the best people we can be when a state in this country legalizes gay marriage and it barely registers on the news.

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