Gay 'n Gray

Straights Say the Darndest Things

Kids Say the Darndest Things with Art Linkletter was a popular TV show several decades ago.

Reruns now show on Nickelodeon at 5:30 a.m., which says something about its current popularity. As a gay senior who toots around the country from time to time I’ve been impressed on occasion that straights also say the darndest things, or maybe the dumbest things.

Just south of Miami there’s an Italian Renaissance style villa, Viscaya, built on Biscayne Bay by a Chicago industrialist, James Deering. It was his private home in the early twentieth century and now the house and gardens are open to the public. In addition to the typical tourist draw, Viscaya is home to Miami’s White Party every fall and hundreds of gays and lesbians, celebrities and wanna-bes, cram the property for a party that James Deering himself would have loved to be a part of.

When Howard and I visited Viscaya we joined a small group led by a very knowledgeable older woman from New York who acted as our guide. Several times throughout the tour the guide commented on the fact that Mr. Deering had never married and that he had selected the tiles and the drapes and the tapestries in collaboration with his close friends and decorators. Invariably, at the end of her statement, a middle-aged woman from Kansas with a whiny high-pitched nasal voice asked, "Well, why didn’t he get married?"

To a gay senior the reason seemed fairly obvious, but the woman tourist apparently hadn’t adjusted to the fact that neither she nor Dorothy were in Kansas any more. "Why didn’t he get married?" has become a code phrase between Howard and me whenever we hear straights making stupid statements.

I used it last summer with Howard when we joined a tour group in Halifax to start a ten-day tour of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador. At the opening dinner reception where tour members met each other for the first time, Howard sat to my right and a late sixties gentleman from Pittsburgh on my left. While Howard and Mr. P were at the buffet table loading up on local delicacies, a Texas lady sitting opposite me asked, "How did you three men get away for a trip like this without your wives?" I answered her honestly that I’d never met the man on my left before and I had no idea of his marital status, but as far as Howard and I were concerned, we’re domestic partners who live together in Fort Lauderdale and don’t have the consideration of wives. I suppose I could have been coy and said my wife (or husband, depending on my mood) was at the buffet table, but a straight answer to a straight person seemed best. Interestingly, as the tour moved on the Texas lady who asked the question and her husband became our new best traveling friends.

Then recently on a trip to Miami from Fort Lauderdale by water taxi, the boat captain’s assistant made a poor attempt to play Jay Leno in the hope that his humorous monologue would stimulate tips at the end of the trip. Most of his humor, however, was put-down humor which included a couple of jabs at gays. We held our peace, did not tip the man, and two days later I wrote a letter of protest to the president of the Water Taxi Company. In his prompt response, Bob Bekoff, stated, "Not a day goes by when I am not amazed by how stupid people can be. Not only does Water Taxi not tolerate this type of behavior, we have formal policies prohibiting these types of comments." Later in his letter he commented concerning the offender that, "Mr. G____’s services are no longer required here."

Then along comes Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania senator and the third in command in the Republican Party, who in an April 7 Associated Press interview likened gay behavior to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. A stupid statement? YES! But, unlike the innocent questions and comments of fellow travelers, a statement that is intentionally designed to promote bigotry and pander to the Senator’s political base. Even more offensive than his statement is the fact that the Republican leadership, including the President, circled their wagons to protect their man. Not one Republican of stature has spoken out in disagreement with the Senator. To their credit, more than one hundred seniors of St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, walked out on Senator Santorum’s graduation speech.

"Why didn’t he get married?" You figure it out for yourself, Mr. Santorum.