The Gay Debate

Here’s a story:

                Recently, former San Francisco 49ers lineman Kwame Harris got in a scuffle with an ex about soy sauce.  This resulted in an assault charge against Harris.  Soy sauce-based arguments happen more often than you think, people. That’s not the interesting part.  The interesting part is that Harris’s ex happens to be a man.  Yes, hard to believe as it is, a professional football player was gay. 

                As you may know, the San Francisco 49ers happen to be in the Super Bowl this year.  As a result, on media day, a number of the current players were asked if knowing that a teammate was gay would affect the atmosphere in the locker room.  Most said a teammate’s sexuality would not have made a difference, as, being professionals, they are there to do a job, namely win games, not wondering what their teammates are doing with their penises in their spare time.  Non-grammar-award-winning-cornerback Chris Culliver did not share that opinion, however, and openly worried that gay germs might infect him and ruin his good time (paraphrasing). *

                Here’s my beef: there are a number of things that I have opinions about, and not favorable opinions, either.  I am 99% opposed to marriage for me, and about 90% opposed to it for you.  I think that conspicuous consumption is either a sign of a small penis or daddy issues.  I have found that people who talk about how great they are at religion are usually pretty bad at being humans.  But the truth of the matter is that no one gives a shit about my opinions because they are stupid, and, technically, a little crazy.  So how is it that we provide a forum for people to continuously express their stupid and crazy opinions about human sexuality? 

                I know what some of you are thinking: that this is something that should be debated because the Bible says or doesn’t say something about sexuality, or because sexuality is or isn’t a choice.  Well, guess what?  The Bible also has an opinion about ham sandwiches.  But do we feel the need to debate ham sandwiches ad nauseum on every television show and every blessed comment on USAToday?  We do not, America.  And, on top of that, lots of things are choices.  Men under thirty who grow full-on Ulysses S. Grant beards make a choice, but people allow them to go about their lives with nary a word, despite the fact that I CAN GUARANTEE YOU that their partner/loved one thinks that they look MUCH BETTER without the beard.  So, given the fact that we feel perfectly comfortable allowing some biblical references and some choices to slide, why is it that we must pick on sexuality?

                Don’t get me wrong: I believe in the marketplace of ideas.  But there’s got to come a time when we say, “Thanks, we’ve heard enough on this issue.”  Right?  Because all we keep doing now is recycling the same things that people have been saying for hundreds of years now- the same things that people used to say about interracial marriage, women voting, and abolishing slavery.  Aren’t we intelligent enough to move beyond that?

                Oscar Wilde- a man who, coincidentally, was imprisoned for homosexuality- wrote, “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”  When we insist on pretending that sexuality is a legitimate debate, we are simply bedeviling ourselves.  Instead, why don’t we live by the words of my hero, Kurt Vonnegut: “If you can do no good, at least do no harm.”  Regardless of whether you believe gayness is good, bad, weird, awesome, or something else, can’t we all agree that to show loving kindness is the truest expression of humanity?

                And besides, don’t we have more important things to debate?  Children die from preventable causes.  Mentally ill people are untreated.   Rape remains a powerful tool of oppression, and according to Stephen Colbert, bears are out to get us.  Gayness is something that can’t be solved, and doesn’t need a solution.  Bears, on the other hand…

* Culliver’s actual quote was, “"I don't do the gay guys man…I don't do that. No, we don't got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do. Can't be with that sweet stuff. Nah…can't be…in the locker room man. Nah."  A later tweet on an unrelated topic also demonstrated that Culver is unaware of the their/there distinction.