The Dish

A new reader writes:

I only recently (last couple of weeks) saw an interesting thread and book marked your site. I like the illustration in the right column with the laptop and dogs.  I noticed that detail before anything else.

I scrolled down far enough today to see comments from a reader attacking gay men (fags and fag hags comments) and learned you are gay. That may help me as an outsider understand your perspective better, but it shouldn’t change anyone’s interest in your journalistic observations.

I propose that we humans are typically so much more than any one of our many accurate and one-dimensional labels. Broader generalizations may be accurate sometimes, but usually stereotypes just enable one to avoid actually learning about another person’s life.

In one dimension I am just another boring middle class white late 40s straight guy who grew up in the American South.

More than 25 years ago I established new friendships in college. Among them were the first gay and lesbian folks I’d ever gotten to know. My fundamentalist Christian upbringing strongly affected my perspective, but I couldn’t bring myself to judge these persons who had already become my friends. Several of those friendships are still intact today. Those folks have had a profoundly positive impact on my life and are among my most cherished friends.

I carried my fundamentalist Christian early life perspective, along with my Jewish heritage and name, along with me to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in a Muslim country.  The Muslim people who became my adopted family far from my original home are among the nicest most honorable people I’ve ever known.  My experiences in that setting again changed my life and allowed me to grow into a better person.

As humans we are all somewhat flawed and have our share of mistakes in our life experience. These days it seems a mistake to get aggressive in judging others’ personal choices, predispositions, or cultural practices. I feel ashamed that we still semi-tolerate bashing of gays and lesbians or open hostility toward Muslims in our society. I am somewhat different from my gay and Muslim friends, but I feel very protective of them.

It is easy to look at Iraqi society and consider they have a lot of hard work to do to evolve into a tolerant modern society. When we look in the mirror, or at the newspaper, or at the screen we, too, have much hard work ahead of us.

It’s obviously not a gay thing. My email in-tray often gets invites to porn sites with names like "teenage schoolgirls" or "barely legal". Have you seen the ads for "Girls Gone Wild"? These girls do not look over 18. Pop music has also historically been festooned with references to straight pederasty. A reader notes three:

"Into the night," by Benny Mardones: "She’s just 16-years-old, ‘leave her alone,’ they say … "

"I saw her standing there", by the Beatles: "She was just 17, you know what I mean, but the way she looked was way beyond compare …"

"You’re 16," by Ringo Starr: "You’re 16, you’re beautiful, and you’re mine …"

Of course, what this emphasizes is that what was wrong with Foley is not so much the dirty talk as such, but the abuse of his power. And that’s why it resonates with some: it reveals just how abusive the Republicans have become with their power in general. The Democrats were just as bad before them. I’m not being partisan here. Readers are invited to send in other popular lyrics celebrating sexual relationships between older men and women under 18.

A reader writes:

Sincere appreciation for your recent article in TIME called "When Not Seeing Is Believing." Andrew, you put to words what my soul has been crying out for a very long time. Christianity is taking a very ugly turn with its hardline fundamentalist bent – it deeply saddens me. I wonder if you have read Donald Miller’s "Blue Like Jazz"? It deals with this issue closely – I think you would enjoy it.

And thank you for trying to save true conservatism. What is happening right now in this country is nothing less than an Orwellian nightmare, and to be honest I am in wonder as to why people aren’t up in arms about this. The loss of privacy, cessation of heabeus corpus, unprecedented and unchecked powers bestowed on the executive, a federally endorsed policy of torture, it just goes on and on – I have to wonder. Have we come so far from our roots, that freedom and liberty are just words to be bandied about by politicians, void of any real meaning? Our apathy will be the death of our democracy.

Three other pages describe Foley’s online predation. The GOP is going to have to find another angle to deflect this. They’ve tried blaming the MSM; they’ve tried blaming Clinton; they’ve tried to turn all the victims into pranksters. It’s been a worthy display. But in the end they may have to take … responsibility. Remember that? It used to be a conservative value.

Parma, Italy, 5.20 pm.

Another victim of the closet writes:

I have never read anything quite so hateful and hurtful as the comments of your correspondent who used the term "fag hags."

After over 30 years of marriage, my husband admitted to me about 9 months ago that he is gay. It has been a roller coaster of emotion ever since. I’ve felt used, abandoned, and angry. I’ve hated him for what he did, but also felt awfully sorry for someone who couldn’t admit this either publicly or privately as a young man. I’ve tried to deal with the financial aspects of this, the family effects, and my own personal mental health.

Exactly what kind of a person hurls insults at a person in my position?

A bigot. I apologize for the hurt he may have caused. But you should read my email in-tray, if you think such bigotry isn’t still prevalent in our culture. Some write me daily – or several times a day. When it is cynically used by politicians for their own power, it wreaks further damage.

The silent victims of the closet are not just the closeted gay men and women themselves. The pathology destroys marriages, wounds wives and husbands, traumatizes kids, breaks up families, leads to acting out, sexual abuse and dysfunction. The victims of homophobia are not just gay people. They are straight people as well. And the only way out is through.

If one good thing comes out of this Foley fiasco, I hope it is a clear sign that the closet and its pathologies must end. And only the institution of civil marriage for all can kill it off for good. Gay people desperately need institutions in which to express their love constructively and responsibly. We are just as human as anyone else.

Like Mr Foley, he does appear to have made some concession to reality.

A reader writes:

I just watched the video of Condi Rice arriving in Baghdad today. She walked down the steps of the airplane wearing a bullet proof vest, along with her security people, also wearing bullet proof vests.

After 3+ years of war and close to $500 billion dollars and the Baghdad airport is still not secured?

… the GOP could lose 50 seats, according to an internal poll. And if he quits? Maybe they didn’t ask that question. One aspect of this is worth further noting. The base of the GOP has been fed homophobia and gay-baiting for years now. It was partly how Rove won Ohio and the presidency. Gay-hating is integral to their machine. Now, the very homophobia these people stoked and used is suddenly turning back on them. Part of me is distressed that the GOP could lose not because of spending recklessness, corruption, torture, big government, pork, and a hideously botched war … but because of a sex scandal which doesn’t even have (so far as we know) any actual sex. But part of me also sees the karmic payback here. They rode this tiger; now it’s turning on them. And it’s dinner time.

"Children, there’s a BIG difference between gay people and Mr. Garrison. Do you understand that?" – Chef.

I fear, Chef, that many still don’t. South Park, as usual, gets it right. It has gay characters who are actually sane, fun, adjusted, grown-up. They’re caricatures, but based on an acceptance of the reality of actual gay life: Big Gay Al and Mr Slave, to cite two such. I’m so glad they eventually found each other. One critical thing they have in common: they are out of the closet. Then there’s the self-hating, closet-case, Mr Garrison, and Butters’s closeted, dysfunctional dad, Mr Stotch. Mark Foley is both Mr Garrison and Mr Stotch – in Congress.