[Vision2020] Men of the Rainbow-Colored Cloth

[Tom Hansen]

>From the December 1, 2006 edition of the UI Argonaut with special thanks to
Frank McGovern -

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Men of the rainbow-colored cloth    
Written by Frank McGovern -Argonaut     
Friday, 01 December 2006  

I met a guy one time, a gay guy (we'll call him Ted) at the house of a
friend (the friend will be known as Mike). I knew Ted was gay immediately.
He was effeminate, well-dressed and, I'm serious, talking about his love of
both musicals and dancing to Abba. You think I'm making that up but I'm not.
My immediate presumption was that Ted was there at Mike's invitation. The
two of them were seated with Mike's devoutly Mormon parents. As the parents
had recently found out (to their vociferously conveyed horror) what
virtually everyone who met Mike knew already - that Mike was gay - I was
surprised and impressed at what a . I would say "ballsy" move it was, but
that would be inappropriate, I think.

I soon found out that Ted wasn't there at Mike's behest at all, but his
parents'. Ted was a representative of "Evergreen," an oddly named LDS-run
gay-conversion troupe. I'm not sure why it's called "Evergreen," if you're
going to try to turn gay dudes straight, at least give the organization's
name some balls (so to speak), like "The De-Gayitizers," or "The
Straighteners." "Choose Sports, not Dudes in Undersized Shorts," that one
rhymes at least. What about "No More Mormon Guys Having Sex with Other Guys
(or Girls with Girls)." The last one's a little long, but at least it's
straightforward.

Anyway, I was asked to leave in short order and Ted, I assume, was all over
Mike in no time; trying to turn him straight, that is. It didn't work out
beyond contributing to Mike's already ample homosexual-in-a-Mormon-household
neuroses. I actually tried to stay in touch with Ted to do a story on
Evergreen, but shortly after our first and last meeting, Ted fled, bleeping
off the Evergreen radar with a male flight attendant.

Ted's inability to remain straight is not a statistical aberration. The
reported "recidivism" rates for these sadly quixotic farce-groups are
consistently around 70 to 80 percent, and realistically hover somewhere in
the nineties.

Newspaper opinion pages - college papers especially, and certainly this one
- I would guess typically sport a mean of two or three pro-gay rights
columns a semester. So I'll avoid warnings that "gay rights" is the new
"civil rights" (oh my God, gay rights arguments are SO in right now) now
that all that pesky racism is gone for good. Appeals to the compassion and
common sense of the anti-gays will be similarly neglected. They obviously
haven't worked. (I won't ever be able to buy that "hate the sin, love the
sinner" crap-storm. I find it hard to believe that people can summon that
much love for a group of people they consider a lifespan away from eternal
torture in a horrific pit of fire).

Evidence that homosexuals are born homosexual and will forever be gay is
increasing. An old study of identical twins found that both twins were
either gay or straight 100 percent of the time. Newer studies suggest the
percentages around 50 or 60 percent; still pretty high and pretty indicative
of a genetic and/or hereditary basis for the gay. Variations in brain
structures based on sexuality have also been reported. Studies have cited
disparities in the size, structure and makeup of the suprachiasmatic
nucleus, the anterior commissure and neuron groupings in the hypothalamus
between gay and straight men. 

I understand all of that perfectly, but for you poor souls who don't, the
fact that there are differences in the sexual-orientation parts of the brain
between straights and gays suggests that people do not choose their
orientation. It's hard to believe that somebody could change the shape of
their anterior commissure upon deciding to be gay, even if they concentrated
really hard. If this sort of neurological manipulation were possible, I'd be
releasing dopamine and serotonin constantly, and I'm not.
Look at Rev. Ted Haggard. Look at him, damnit. He's head of the National
Association of Evangelicals, which has 30 million members, he's buddies with
President Bush and, as you probably know by now, he's gay as a Floridian
Republican congressman. (How close he and Bush are is anyone's guess, but
I'd put money on Cheney wearing the pants in any White House-based gaying
out). Haggard, emotionally devestated by his depressingly skewed moral code
as he was, once compared a gay rights parade to a parade of "murderers." It
turns out that Haggard was, indeed, quite the man-killer. He hooked up with
Mike Jones, a gay prostitute, whenever he had the hankerin' for some gay sex
and/or a quick blast of methamphetamine.

Does anyone honestly think that Haggard chose to be gay? Assuming you're not
gay, could you make that choice, and if so, to what end? That's right; it's
both contrary to one's natural disposition and absurd as a "life choice," if
one is so disinclined. Let's not bear any false witness here, even to
ourselves. Homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality and just as
inborn. They represent a non-breeding population segment that, knee-jerk,
doth-protest-too-much legislation notwithstanding, can raise children. Once
the obviousness of homosexuality's hard-wired status is accepted (by people
other than those who consider the question rationally) the only excuse left
is intolerance, which is much easier to argue against than ignorance.


--------------------------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in
Albany, Georgia and St. Augustine, Florida, and many other campaigns of the
Civil Rights Movement.  Many of these courageous men and women were fighting
for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and
I salute their contributions."

- Coretta Scott King (March 30, 1998)