I was sitting in the tenderloin in an Indian restaurant last night, after having had a nice long toke from some of northern Cal’s finest. It was too crowded and the table was to small to read and eat some rather remarkable Tandoor. So I began to cogitate a bit on Timothy’s column and the various responses to it.

And then it hit me. We’re not thinking about this the right way. Even I, who think this way all of the time, wasn’t thinking about it the right way, even though the right way was implicit in everything I have written. I have said repeatedly, in these pages and in others, that the religious right is not the problem. The wanna-be-straight-but-ain’ts ain’t the problem either.

The problem is the closet. End the closet, and most homophobia ends as well, sooner or later. Take the profit out of it, and the moralizing busybodies will fade as well.

Quoting myself: “The closet is about living a lie. It IS a lie, it is based on lies, and it engenders lies. It distorts, perverts, and debases everything it touches, as the sorry life of Ted Haggard will attest. And like all lies, the bigger it is, the longer it is told, the more damage it ultimately causes…As far as I am concerned, if we are willing only to be silent about it, we are consenting to it. We can be polite, but we have to start being truthful. The closet depends on both lies and silence for its power over gay people and its support from heterosexuals. ”

The closet, like lying of any sort, is not respectable, so why respect it? Here is the solution to the problem. EVERYONE comes out. EVERYBODY is outed, friend, foe, and indifferent. Instead of National Coming Out Day, it’s going to be National YOU’RE Coming Out Day… like it or not.

Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell is the embodiment of the closet. The opposite of DADT is not repeal. The opposite of DADT is TELL EVERYONE RIGHT NOW and screw waiting for a few more crumbs to fall from the hetero-imperialist table. (Sorry, my ’60′s roots are showing). Can you imagine the power of 500 soldiers in front of the White House saying, “We’re here! We’re queer! Either process our discharges or repeal this assholery NOW!” Do you think the Holy Maverick would get anywhere with his filibuster? Do you really think senators would say would be able to say that “We don’t need you.” They can say that because there is only Dan Choi standing up to them, and he is only one person. Which is worse: confronting the Taliban, or confronting your fears? Show the right wingers who really has balls, what our military is really made of? Because right now, with a few visible, notable and noble exceptions, most of you look like pussies. You won’t even stand up for your own code of honor, your own integrity, your own sense of self worth. Where is the bravery and the honor in lying, in covering your ass while Dan Choi puts his on the line?

You’re one of a group certain southern senators, long rumored to be big ol’ ‘mo’s, but antipathetic to any gains for gay people? You swore to uphold out Constitution, to stand for the things that allegedly made this country great, but you’re only standing for your own benefit, not the country’s. You don’t REALLY care about the country, because for the sake of the closet, you continue to allow, nay encourage, our distraction from our very real issues while you roll over for the anti-gay lobby. YOU’RE COMING OUT. What, you’ve been so discreet that no one really knows for sure, and what business is it of anyone else’s? Honey, you don’t really believe that, since you are quite willing to make MY SEX LIFE someone else’s business. Just not yours. Sorry for that, but I guess you’ll just have to deal with it. You’re a politician like our boy Kirk, more or less supportive, but still hiding? Sorry, you’ll actually have to be a leader instead of playing one on CNN. YOU’RE COMING OUT!

You’re a famous single actor, long supportive of gay and liberal causes, but always dating some girl or another who doesn’t seem to stick around very long? You shared a house for some years with another very famous, handsome actor, who does the same? Sorry, I don’t believe that you just haven’t met the right girl yet. You’re 50 years old. You’re not going to. Instead, YOU’RE COMING OUT!

You’re my cousin who is too afraid to tell your parents that you’re gay? As my wonderful and witty late partner once said to a friend of his, “You’re 40 years old. don’t you think it’s time to stop lying to your parents about who you really are?” YOU’RE COMING OUT!

You’re the married guy with whom my friend has been having an affair for the last 10 years or so. Unbeknownst to you, he knows your REAL name and what you do for a living. Sorry that this will upset your wife, but you’re the one that’s been lying to her. She’s only been lying to herself. Of course she already knows, she just would prefer not to. YOU’RE COMING OUT!

You’re a gay priest of the RC brotherhood, and you know dozens, if not hundreds of priests similarly situated. You’ve kept your vows of celibacy, you’re not a boy banger or a girl grabber, and have attempted to make the world a better place through your vocation. You’re saddened by the unrelenting homophobia of your church, propagated as you know by wanna-be-straight-but-ain’t bishops who are projecting their own self loathing on to the masses in order to keep their own dark desires in check? Yup, you’re saddened, you’re sur-, op-, and de-pressed, you’re offended, you’re everything but courageous enough to say “ENOUGH!” How about you all speak for the truth, for your very own Fount of Truth, and call those bad boys out? How about 500 of you take the chance of losing your jobs and your special place in the community– like all the rest of us how have to suffer through what your church has been dishing out for the last 1700 years– and assemble on the steps of St. Mary’s with this statement. We’re here! We’re queer! Now let’s start having a dialogue about the proper place of gay people in our society. Maybe we can even get a Methodist or two who hasn’t retired to speak up.

Let’s take our cue from The Fount Itself. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” John 8:32 does not say let’s hide the truth and hope no one notices, or hide the truth and put off the consequences, which are only as inevitable as we give them the power to be.

and on and on and on. No one is excepted. Everyone is coming out. Either you tell or I tell. Then we don’t have any more of these pointless debates that Mr. Kirk was not bad enough to be outed, but Mr. Ashburn was, but nobody did. No more fears of people finding out, because they already have, or have long suspected, and don’t care. Or if they freak out, they’ll recover.

I can already hear people chastising me, telling me that people have to come out when they are ready, that this is a personal decision, that there are consequences that people will have to bear, in a perfect world blah job blah family blah church blah blah und blah…

Bullshit. bullshit, and more bullshit. It is just the fear and loathing of the closet. It has the power it has because we give it that power. The whole campaign against Prop. 8 was conducted from the closet, and that is why we lost, as far as I can tell. Can’t show gay people– they’re scary. Can’t show gay families– the Reich co-opted the issues of OUR children. They are ours, not theirs. where did they get that power? Can’t talk about religion. Can’t talk about prejudice. Can’t show our lives. And what did we get for that reticence, the obsequiousness to the soul-destroying power of the closet? $45 million dollars worth of more of the same.

Romanovsky and Phillips used to have a song about “Straightening Up the House” when the parents arrive. Let’s hide the Advocate, the his-n-his towels, and the rainbow chotchkes. In the end they conclude that maybe it is just better to clean the house, instead of straightening it. What I’m proposing is a major housecleaning. Nobody’s closet is exempt.

end of rant.

Everyone who has ever had sex (depending on what “is” is, of course) with a person of the same sex gets a purple spot on their forhead. The more they have, the bigger the spot.

End of the lcoset as we know it.

This guy is not honest about his military service, he is not honest about his military recognition and he is not honest about his sexualiy.

He has created the false world he lives in to appeal to voters and nothing more. Out the kook and the more injurious to his political the better.

He has received fairly sympathetic treatment within the media, in part because had abided by the change in rules for Parliamentary expenses, in respect to second homes, he would have been forced to out himself. Also if he had outed himself at that time he and his partner could then have rearranged their affairs and continued to claim the money, if not more, in expenses.

“Of course, this comment is all based on the assumption that Kirk actually believes in the policy, not that he’s just making a decision from political expediency. But that is the problem with outing; it often requires believing (and declaring) motivations that we don’t know.

The final irony in the situation is that Kirk’s outing could result in a situation in which the policy he supported (and observed) may well harm him.”

First, that assumption is a BIG one, and there are very few politicians, even real maverick guys who have (or had) a reputation for straight talk, that i would ever think have that much integrity. After all, it depends on what the definition of “is” is.

Secondly, I’m not sure there is a really strong line between hypocrisy and irony. If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then irony is surely virtue returning the compliment. Or maybe it’s just the proof of the pudding. I don’t know, I get my cliches mixed up.

But if he is hurt by it, then he is merely getting his just recompense for an evil practice, at least according according to St. Paul.

Kirk is holding himself to the terms of DADT. He is serving from the closet, not as an openly gay man.

Actually, no. He told, and that was a violation of the policy, as well as being an example of why the policy is such a piece of drivel. The military shouldn’t care if Mr. Kirk were interested in another man as a potential partner, as long as he avoided intermingling between officers and enlisted. Clearly Mr. Kirk’s sexuality has not had a negative impact to his career to date.

But the reality is, the military does care, and it requires that military members not only do not discuss their orientations – and remember, third parties can begin investigations by reporting what they have been told, even when they’re not military – AND not engage in any homosexual sexual behaviors. As far as I can see, Kirk violated one, and likely violated the other.

Forgive me if someone has already pointed this out in the comments above, Timothy, but I don’t entirely buy this argument.

You may be TECHNICALLY correct, but isn’t it Kirk’s CHOICE in the first place to belong to a political party that would treat him this way in the first place?

If Kirk were a Democrat, he could be openly gay (esp. in Illinois) with FAR fewer political repercussions. He’s chosen to remain Republican. Aren’t they the party of “personal responsibility”, anyway?