Weekend Beach Bum 

"The proliferation of gays in the media has caused the destruction of America in our time."

This is a quote I heard on the radio while driving to work a few days ago. The program’s host was interviewing some "cultural expert," with an obvious conservative Christian right-wing predilection, about our supposedly liberal American media. According to the expert, sex, violence, and—you guessed it!—the inclusion of GLBT people and concerns in television shows and news, are poisoning our youth and God’s mighty hand is set to rain down fire and brimstone upon our formerly great nation.

(I sometimes wonder, when God finally does rain down fire and brimstone upon America, if He’ll just smite the continental United States, sparing Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa His angry wrath. It seems to me that it would be rather difficult to miss Canada and Mexico and our neighboring islands with a blow that includes Alaska, Hawaii, and our national territories. Then again, with Canada’s recent ascent onto the gay marriage bandwagon, and since the Netherlands and Belgium extend completely equal rights to same-sex couples, perhaps the entire world, aside from Vatican City, of course, deserves a good smiting. But I digress.)

When I heard this quote, I exploded into laughter and literally almost lost control of the wheel. I’ve always said that listening to right-wing conservative Christians is hazardous to your health, and now I have proof. I’m a pretty staunch current events buff, and I couldn’t believe that out of my daily visits to CNN.com and Yahoo! News and my subscription to Newsweek, not one of those sources had reported that the very fabric of America is falling apart. I suppose the only explanation in this case is, of course, our darned liberal media. That’s the same media, mind you, who reports on GLBT causes only when it’s a hot issue like Matthew Shepard’s murder or the ordination of an openly gay Episcopalian bishop. When was the last time you saw a feature story on a less glitzy, ratings-booster topic like workplace discrimination, the disproportionately high GLBT youth suicide rate, or gay adoption (when Rosie’s not involved)? Liberal media, my pump-clad foot. America’s ridiculous obsession with Bennifer does not deserve the endless hours of media coverage it receives. Homeless GLBT youth or the recent rash of Washington, D.C. transgender murders, are stories worthy of those wasted media hours. But again, I digress.

The radio speaker’s quote is lacking logically on two counts. First, as I’ve said, GLBT issues receive nowhere near the media attention they deserve. Following the beaten-to-death 1-in-10 rule, we should receive six minutes of every hour of news coverage, and obviously, we don’t get it. Granted, important stories like the debacle in Iraq or the floundering economy affect all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation. Still, even if you say that GLBT issues deserve only one minute of every news hour, that’s still not the case. The radio speaker also spouted off about television shows’ depiction of "positive gay characters," but I hardly identify with the sex-obsessed folk on that queer show, or those two mixed-up sit-com guys who depict gay men as having little will or grace.

The radio speaker’s second false assertion is that the great quilt of America is fraying at the edges. What is this nebulous "destruction of America" of which so many conservatives speak, and what do GLBT people have to do with it? Since when does extending equal marriage rights (all 1,049 of them) to same-sex couples destroy, disintegrate, or devalue heterosexual marriages? The main problem with conservatives is that they sentimentally long for a time in America that never existed. Maybe they all watched too much Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best growing up, but those families were fictional presentations of the way we’d like to be, not the way we ever were. On the small screen, Lucy and Ricky tiffed about her quest to break into show business and his thick accent, but in real life they fought about Desi’s alcoholism and womanizing, and Lucille’s work ethic that knew no bounds. Real life problems aren’t wrapped up neatly in thirty minutes. Our lives are not black and white like those old television shows. There are many, many shades of gray.

Conservatives also have a tendency to deal in media-bite-sized jingoisms like "traditional marriage" and "family values." The radio speaker, for example, cited America’s alarming divorce rate and blamed it on gays. Obviously I’m wearing my wig caps too tight, because I completely missed the link. The divorce rate is higher, largely, because people just don’t stay in unhappy marriages anymore, and that has to be a good thing. Would conservatives prefer that an abused woman stand by her pugilistic man, or that children watch their parents wallow in a loveless marriage, just to keep the divorce rate low? The sad part is, many conservatives probably would prefer just that. Divorces are more commonplace for other innocuous reasons, for example, that women are much more independent economically, psychologically, and emotionally than they ever have been, and the only way to change that situation is to revert to the days when women were largely dependent upon men. Sadly, I’m sure most conservatives wouldn’t mind that, either.

If anything is to blame for a supposed decline in American culture, it’s just plain laziness and a lack of free thought. We super-size all the meaningless things in our society, like fast food and television screens, and can’t seem to find time for important things like reading, introspection, and forming our own well-thought-out political opinions. I suppose it’s easier to have your opinions fed to you, or to hide under a political banner, rather than having to support your assertions with evidence, logic, and thought—three things conservatives are usually lacking, not to mention compassion. Regardless, I don’t want to hear one more ridiculous word about gays bringing down America. We took the blame for the fall of the Roman Empire, until political corruption, government infighting, weakening infrastructure, and lead poisoning turned out to be the real culprits. To that radio speaker, I’d like to say, "Do some research and use some logic and stop blaming gay people for everything. We’ve got enough on our plates."