While it is clear that there is a bias in our community, particularly among our leaders, against gay conservatives, I do not think for one moment that we are victims in the sense that we require some kind of collective restitution or institutional protection. I just think that well-meaning individuals need to speak out and challenge the biases of our community. I know that I have not done enough, given that for several years, I refused to publicly identify myself as a Repubilcan.
That is one (of the many) reason(s) I am grateful to Bruce for inviting me to this blog. He has givne me a forum to express my views, an opportunity to challenge the negative stereotyping of gay conservatives.
While I have lost dates and even had men who approached me because they found me attractive walk away upon learning my politics, I have also encountered many gay liberals of good will. Indeed, it is in my interactions with these fine people that I have come to appreciate one of the advantages of being a gay conservative. It makes it easier for us to measure the caliber of our peers.
A gay leftist may never know if someone’s affection for him is based on similar political sentiments. When we come out politically, we can see if an individual evaluates us on our character or our politics. If that person rejects us because we are conservative, then we know that he would likely not be a very relible friend.
When I came out as a Republican in 2004 to my fellow Outfest Theater Managers, none of them gave me the cold shoulder; they just found something else to rib me about. 🙂 I was delighted to confirm the qualities of these good people.
One of them, a woman who has since left LA :-(, who learned about my politics when I responded to her e-mail encouraging me to see Michael Moore‘s film, first expressed shock upon learning that I was a Republican. Later, concerned that our political disagreements might affect our friendship, she wrote me one of the sweetest e-mails I have ever received, indicating her respect for my political decisions and offering praise for my qualities of character.
Interestingly, that lesbian handled my criticisms of Michael Moore’s film far better than did a straight female friend who had sent out a similar e-mail.
Since I began my previous post on the bias against gay conservatives with an anecdote from my undergraduate days, I’ll conclude this one by offering an anecdote involving one of those classmates who, as undergraduate, suggested I was Republican to cover up my sexuality.
Just before moving to Los Angeles, I went to New York to visit my sister (and the two most beautiful girls east of the Appalachians, i.e., two of the PatriotNiecesWest), I went into Manhattan to meet this classmate. It would be our first time together since I had come out (as a gay man). We had a great dinner at a wonderful restaurant on Eighth Avenue, got drunk off cocktails and wine and reconciled. It was a powerful moment. And proof that with good will — and persistence — people can overcome their biases.
While there is bias in our community against gay conservatives, if we see ourselves as victims, we may lose the wherewithal to take on this stereotyping. Perhaps, I’m naive, but I do believe that as we become more comfortable with ourselves, both as gay individuals and conservatives, we will be able to change attitudes in our community.
Not only will this make ours a better community, but it will present the gay community in a better light to our straight peers. And the social progress we have seen over the past quarter-century will only continue.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
I have “come out” as a conservative to just a few friends. One called me a racist, and the others are trying to “save me.” I am happy that you had better success. I have found that our world is just as intolerant as they claim conservatives are.
There are certain posters on this forum who seem to be clueless on the definition of the word ‘victim.’ Acknowledging that a real world situation exists, e.g. the hatred within the gay community toward people with conservative values, does not make one a victim.
Whining that other people are the cause of all one’s problems, and calling on the Government to fix them, that is the mark of a victim. And when you go onto embrace the fantasy that the Government is being run by people secretly plotting to exterminate you… well, then you’re really gone.
Quite a while back a gay friend of mine was telling me about his date. He said the the guy was charming, good looking, intelligent, a good conversationalist but he wouldn’t be going out with him again. When I asked why he told me that (paraphrasing here) “What kind of gay guy would I be if I kept going out with a conservative?” My response was that he deserved to be alone on Friday nights and I never EVER wanted to hear him again bitch about the lack of serious dating in the gay world. Bah.
GPW, I think you’re spot on. The best way (IMHO) to gain acceptance in the straight world is live life with dignity, responsibility and high standards. And by acceptance I’m referring to marriage, adoption, benefits, inheritance, etc. Does the straight world live up to these ideals? Hardly, but that’s besides the point. They already have the rights gays/lesbians are seeking so they don’t have to ‘prove’ themselves. Is it fair? Hardly but that’s life in the real world.
Hahhahahhahahahaha….
The Lady Reagan doth protest waaaaaaay too much.
Seems somebody hit a nerve.
I stopped seeing a guy because he was antogonisticly (if that’s a word) liberal…go figure. I’m not proud or happy about this: he was a great guy. But I also realised we would be far too incompatable, in the long run, to stay together for any significant length of time. I guess this shows the other side of “family values”!
Dan, it isn’t limited to the gay community.
My cousin is as straight as they come and is a Republican who leans a lot farther to the right than me. A few years ago his company moved him to Miami and he leased an apartment in South Beach, where he was immediately popular. He hung with a group of gals and guys in their upper 20s, bar-hopping, sailing, playing sand valleyball, etc. He had hot dates. UNTIL he put a Republican bumber sticker on his Jag in 2004. He still finds hot dates but has had to find new friends to run around with and enjoy water and beach sports.
After I got out of college I made a great effort to broaden friendships among straights. Thanks to that effort and business relationships I eventually had a very busy social calendar, including a lot of activities with “liberals”. Politics and religion were seldom discussed, the focus being on enjoying each other’s company at parties and going out to dinner and taking an occasional trip together. After I openly supported George W. Bush in 2000 I was snubbed by many of these people and my social invitations dropped by nearly half. (Oddly, the only leftists who continued as friends were two gay men who said politics don’t matter.) Fortunately, I still have a wide circle of straight and gay friends who share my moderate politics.
It is funny (?!) how gay culture created a new closet for some of us to climb into. But we won’t. Its similar to the “diversity” issue where you’re supposed to have women, gays, people of color, etc. – but you’re all supposed to have the same point of view.
I marched against the incursion into Irag (5 times mind you) but when the insurgency started and my fellow marchers were blaiming the US troops for the murdering and butchery of the Islamists, I found I was a’marching with them no more.
Even at the marches when the evils of the world were being blamed on the Patriarchy I began to feel like I was marching to a different drum. It was then that I began to search for “conservative Gays” on the web and found your blog and others like it. I don’t agree with anyone all the time and contrary to what I hear from both “righties” and “lefties” (some expect you to buy into the whole package) I don’t want to!
But you’re here and I appreciate your point of view.
Goodness me it is this theme of persecution again.
Do people not have the right to choose who they date ?, who they hang out with ? who they want to be friends with ? where and with who they may worship ?
Accept the fact that in exercising this right people may not want to hang out with you. They may not even like the values you advocate. If they disrespect you that is another matter. However as I have alluded to in other posts I read a lot of disrespect and intolerance of individuals and groups going on in the USA.
You know I am not into blood sports so I wouldn’t be spending my weekends with hunters, or hanging around bars talking about the thrill of the kill. If a persons political ideology is important to them sure they might find they don’t want to spend their spare time with people who don’t share their views. Doesn’t your US democracy guarantee the “right to assembly” with who you choose ?
It sounds to me that you have more beef with the fact you have decided to assembly with a largely unpopular group with many gay people and yet you need gay people to date with ? Sorry tesoro, I think you have a saying in English – something like you made your bed …… so maybe you need to take some more responsibility if you can’t get people to lie in it with you. That is a lesson you should have learnt in life 101.
Also, since GPW has the gay thing and the Hollywood thing working against him, it’s kind of a double whammy.
Um, mario, this is not a post about persecution, but one where, while I acknowledge the narrow-mindedness of some gay leftists, I appreciate the open-mindedness and good hearts of a great many others, including a number of my friends.
One of the reasons that the gay Left might take more of a hit on this issue than their conservative brethren is because the “Left” particularly the part which grew out of the sixties, was supposed to be about individual freedom. Live and Let live. I remember the phrase “I might not agree with you but I will defend you’re right to say it”. Tell that to a anti-feminist on a college campus. There was supposed to be a true meaning of openess and the word “liberal” was intended to be fully manifested. That is what makes the current intolerance of the anti-west, feminist lefty-gay orthodoxy seem like such a betrayal to me.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – no one group is more intolerant of others than liberal flaming gays. In fact, the Undeniable Truth of Life is this – groups like Queer Nation, ACT-UP and their ilk were devised so that nellie guys with attitudes would be allowed easier access into the mainstream of society.
You don’t believe me? Ask any straight African-American what he/she thinks about gays and you’ll get an answer that will make Jerry Fallwell look liberal. Chances are 9 out of 10 that they’ll condemn our lifestyle as “sinful.” Do the same with any strict Catholic Hispanic or Asian. Some “tolerance” there, isn’t it?
Regards,
Peter H.
Time, space and the editor (VdaK) of that series on “Gay Parenting” wouldn’t allow me to comment on the antipathy my partner and I have run into in the gay community from gays for being parents, being GOPers, and being successful. I have yet to find a conservative gay who expresses anything but overwhelming support for taking on the job of parenting, gay parenting at that… and a little envy, too.
But the truth is that we’ve run into more intolerance from GayLefties, liberal Democrats, and university “intellectuals” than from any other group –and yep, we are Catholic, faithful, Republican Dads. Vacations in Ogunquit are usually “endless” debates at parties broken up by time on the beach.
In Ann Arbor, we find the gay community to be monolithically Democrat… and given that the Democrats are only two steps away from political fraticide, I can understand their hatred, mean spiritedness, bigotry, narrowminded partisan attitudes… the thing I don’t fully fathom yet is why they think revoking my GayCard makes a difference to me or my partner.
The most freeing instance in the last 15 years was when I discovered that the GayLeft was corrupt, morally bankrupt, and marginalized to a point of impotency. Who the heck needs approval or validiation or friendship from that kind of group? Victims? Hell no; we never took a gay slave cabin on the DemocratPlantation.
Not for us, thank God for wisdom and better judgement.
Time, space and the editor (VdaK) of that series on “Gay Parenting” wouldn’t allow me to comment on the antipathy my partner and I have run into in the gay community from gays for being parents
1. Actually, I would have liked to include more examples of that antipathy, I thought that section was a little thin.
2. Jeez, 15 years ago I was still living in Ann Arbor. Wonder how it is we never ran into each other.
Peter Hughes: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – no one group is more intolerant of others than liberal flaming gays. In fact, the Undeniable Truth of Life is this – groups like Queer Nation, ACT-UP and their ilk were devised so that nellie guys with attitudes would be allowed easier access into the mainstream of society.
I think you are generalizing by saying that gay liberals are just flaming nellies just like some gay liberals generalize by saying gay conservatives are self-loathing.
Has anyone else noticed the difficulty “Mario” has maintaining what he claims to be.
VdaK, that was probably when you were still hoisting up the flag of libertarian oppression and getting your clock punched on the Diag.
Peter Hughes — July 15, 2006 @ 3:40 pm – July 15, 2006
In fact, the Undeniable Truth of Life is this – groups like Queer Nation, ACT-UP and their ilk were devised so that nellie guys with attitudes would be allowed easier access into the mainstream of society.
So, let me understand this. Do you also believe that the NAACP was formed to that those “steppin’ fetch-it” Negroes with attitudes would be allowed easier access into the mainstream of society? Or that the Anti-Defamation League was formed so that those money-grubbing Jews with attitudes would be allowed easier access into the mainstream of society.
If not, why do you single out Queer Nation for criticism? (It may surprise you, but the fact is that ACT-UP was not a gay group.) Because you stereotype gay lefties as necessarily being “nellie”?
You’re a wonder to behold.
Really Annoying Jerk, it’s a wonder that you lump in the NAACP and the ADL with an admittedly fringe group like Queer Nation. What is it that you are really trying to convey about yourself and your beliefs?
Regards,
Peter H.
#19 Peter Hughes — July 16, 2006 @ 3:30 pm – July 16, 2006
Really Annoying Jerk, it’s a wonder that you lump in the NAACP and the ADL with an admittedly fringe group like Queer Nation. What is it that you are really trying to convey about yourself and your beliefs?
This is a joke, right? You’re intentionally ignoring the question that had been posed to you. Are you taking a page out of NCXXX’s play book?
So, let me read between the lines. What other fags do you single out as being nellie queens? Gay members of the 101st keyboard brigade who support the American war on Iraq but are unwilling to serve in it? I’m sure that you don’t.
bingo, ding ding ding… raj is the first GayLeft LeftFlank radical to try to play the ChickenHawk Card in a long time… what’s next? raj baby revoking our GayCards?
LOL. Pathetic; this coming from the side of the equation that hates the military, hates Bush, hates pre-emption, and hates America. A conscientious objector to the war on terror… let’s make him a human shield for Saddam’s lawyers.
Really Arrogant Jerk, here is the answer you are seeking – it is obvious that liberal gays, along with radical feminists and race-baiting blacks, are constantly seeking either redemption for their misbegotten beliefs or approval of their own self-worth in the eyes of others. You fall somewhere in both categories.
That being said, the only way for these groups to gain full access into the mainstream of society is to coalesce and to somehow elevate themselves into “relevance,” if you will. Rather than trying to be more assimilationist, they are deliberately self-segregating themselves to call attention to their so-called plights.
Try doing something like this in the Muslim world – the only lifestyle choice you will have is whether to be thrown into a shredder or having a wall knocked down on you.
Du ist ein dummkopf. And I don’t give a shit if I misspelled it or not, you pompous little twit.
Regards,
Peter H.
I used to be a far left liberal until I moved to San Francisco. It took years but I learned that the left-liberals are the FARTHEST thing you can get (other than fundelmentalist muslims) to freedom. You had BETTER march to the drum…or else! The name calling begins immediately and just like a gang of redneck thugs packed in a truck; they wait until they outnumber you to go into an all out assault. The anti-semitism in SF is incredible. It comes thinly veiled as ‘anti-zionism’ but you wouldn’t believe what I experienced FIRST hand by ‘liberals’ in SF. Then in 2000, I discovered Ayn Rand and found her to be a near prophet while finding Chomsky to be a false one. That was it. The harassment forced me into the conservative movement which I have found MORE accepting to different ideas, more civilized, pro-American and tolerant. Sure there are asshole but for every conservative asshole I have encountered, I’ve met 100 liberal ones.
#22 Peter Hughes — July 17, 2006 @ 2:21 pm – July 17, 2006
Du ist ein dummkopf.
This is funny as heck.
ich bin
du bist
er/sie/es ist
Nice try.
I’ll continue for your daily German language lesson:
Sie (singular, plural) sind
wir sind
ihr seid
I’d go to the preteritum, but I’ll stop now.
On the subject matter of the post, it’s rather funny that you wish to stereotype gay people that you refer to as “queers” as being nellie. Don’t try to defend yourself, you have shown yourself as what you are. As I described above in #18.
You’re pathetic. No surprise.
On the subject matter of the post, if you, as a “gay conservative” do not view yourself as being a victim, one might seriously wonder why you seem to continually (well, almost) blather on about gay conservatives in a manner in which one might seriously believe that you view yourself to be a victim. You complain about losing dates–well, to be honest, you have mentioned that when you out yourself as being a gay Republican, but you and others here seem to conflate Republican and conservative, except when some don’t, but they don’t provide much of a distinction.
Let me ask another question: given the fact that you seem to be unable to make a point succinctly–many of the posts seem to be all over the (movie) lot–what was your undergraduate major?
Peter, raj baby has a problem with comprehension… I think you nailed it and him when you wrote:
“Du ist ein dummkopf. And I don’t give a shit if I misspelled it or not, you pompous little twit.”
And then he proceeded to give you an unsolicited lesson in German grammar –a dying language only surpassed in it’s death throes by French.
Gotta love the raj… he can be such a prickish twit.
M-Matt, in the case of Really Arrogant Jerk, it’s all academic. No pun intended.
How someone like him is so full of self-loathing and utter contempt for others makes me say “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Regards,
Peter H.
Just for the record, I would never sever a good friendship or not date a guy just because he’s a republican. I think that that kind of behavior reveals a serious character flaw, regardless of one’s politcal views.
In fact, I had a bf some years ago who was very conservative. We stopped seeing each other because he met someone else he liked better. It had nothing to do with our political affiliations/beliefs. We’re still good friends, and can still have a good, thought provoking debate over a sixpack of rolling rocks. Incidentally, his relationship with the bf he dumped me for only lasted half as long as ours did 😉
I just read comment #23 and couldn’t agree more. The uber-left is so narrow in scope and view and ready to launch a paranoid attack on any individual gay or straight that realizes any march to equality has to be methodic and slow, they are pushing out the backbone of those willing to do the work.
Anyway – good story and oh so true.
#27 Peter Hughes — July 18, 2006 @ 3:53 pm – July 18, 2006
So, let me understand this. You are uninterested in being edicated.
No surprise.
This must be typical of right wingnuts.
Actually, Raj, since we have no proof that you are, you seem completely and wholly unqualified to comment.
Why have you stopped posting your sock-puppet responses under the name of Ian?
Why do you refuse to, like GayPatriotWest does, reveal your name, your occupation, your location, and your email address?
Can one really make a distintion between one’s politics and character? Seems like a false one.
Really Annoying Jerk, you are typical of libtards who have no sense of humor. As for my education, let’s just say that I put it to very good use.
Tell Inserted Anal Nozzle hello for me…oh, wait, that’s you too.
Regards,
Peter H.
#32: So I take it you believe that the personal is political?
Victims? I don’t think of myself as a victim. I think of myself as a person with an open-mind who is willing to accept differing political ideologies if they are working for a common cause.
What is disturbing is the inflexibility of the fundamentalist gay left. Those who just see you or I as a political entity and not a person.
What comes to issue is the fundamentalist lefties are in control and the most seen when it comes to the things that affect all gay people.
They don’t always portray the gay community accurately or in the most positive light.
Like true fundmentalists, they don’t seem to care about the consequences and/or damage they may be inflicting on others. They have no concept of perception and image, let alone the basics of good Public Relations.
Are we really victimized by them? I don’t think so. I think they are the victims of their own politics and narrow scope.
When you look outside of the fundamentalist left forum you actually start to realize, what a minority it is and how the moderate to conservative gay community is actually the majority.
We’ll never convert the fundamentalist, but we always can speak our truth and keep on working to keep this country great and free.