Like other gay conservatives, I spend a lot of time on critiques of the gay left. Turnabout is fair play, so here's some advice to my gay conservative compatriots:
COME OUT. Years ago, when I was still substantially closeted, a straight friend observed that it's hard to change the world from a hiding place. He was right. All conscientious gay women and men should make coming out a top priority. But I think gay conservatives have an especially great obligation to do so. We know there's no gay lifestyle, no gay or "ungay" thought or idea. We must convince the rest of the world, including some gay people, of that. You can't do so unless you're seen and heard.
Of course, there's some risk of rejection or career impairment in being visible. But you should be dedicated in your life to something other than your own wealth or career. Otherwise, you may one day find yourself sixty, rich, and empty.
GET INVOLVED. Conservatives, by disposition and ideology, are reluctant to be "activists." Unless it's got a hammer and sickle tattooed on its forehead, we tend to think it's benign or just foolish, and hence disregard it. But the truth is, if you're gay in America today you're something less than a full citizen, even if you drive a Mercedes and drink 25-year-old port. It will take work, our work, to change things.
Join political and civic organizations. Write to newspapers and magazines when you read something wrong or offensive. Engage the gay left and the religious right in debate. And don't quit at the first sign of trouble or resistance.
DON'T WHINE. Lots of my conservative gay friends say they hate going to pride parades and other gay events because everybody there is in drag or leather thongs and tit clamps. They also lament the dominance of the left in gay organizations. They say that such people represent only a small fraction of all gays and that this distorts the picture the rest of the country gets of us.
They're right that the parades and the outlandish public behavior and dress that often occur at them do not portray most gay lives, but they're wrong to stay away. The antidote to the false impressions created by the parades and other public events is not to stay home and disdainfully watch them on TV; the answer is for us to go ourselves. The answer is to ensure that at such events, and in gay organizations and media, we are present to provide the necessary corrective. We cannot blame anyone else - certainly not the "marginal" elements of our community - for misrepresenting gay life. By our silence and our absence, we have allowed that false picture to be painted.
TOLERATE DIFFERENCE. While we're on the subject, this is probably a good time to repeat the truism that not all gays, not even all gay conservatives, wear suits and ties and act like proper ladies and gentlemen. We should be striving to secure equality for all gays, including those who dress and behave differently from the mainstream.
We can still criticize theatrical excesses, such as public nudity, and we can still condemn real moral wrongs, such as pedophilia. But we will have to respect the right of others to craft their own public image. It may not be the image we would choose for ourselves, and we will want to counter it with more representative depictions of gay life, but we must grasp that we are part of a diverse and colorful movement.
FOCUS ON THE REAL ENEMY. This I promise you: when the bullies are menacing your bloodied body, the person standing betwixt you and eternity will not likely be your Heritage Foundation debate partner. It will be that bull dyke with a nose ring who thinks a single-payer health-care system is really cool. Even taking into account the stifling effect of high taxes, counter-productive social welfare programs, crime, and the encroachment of "hate speech" regulations, the most organized threat to our civil rights today comes from the religious right. A gay leftist may think you're overbearing or self-righteous, may call you names and grossly misunderstand you at times, but I've yet to hear one request the state to lock you up under the rubric of a sodomy law. So let's try to keep our squabbles with the gay left in perspective. When you get frustrated, remember the line from an old movie: they may be rancid butter, but they're on our side of the bread.
EDUCATE. Many, though by no means all, gay political leaders and writers have only a dim view of what gay conservatives stand for. That fact is both disappointing and a measure of how much work we must do. Yet the animosity and suspicion with which the gay political establishment views us is partly understandable: the only people they've ever known as "conservatives" told them they were immoral, unnatural, or worse.
We must painstakingly correct their impressions of us and fill in the large gaps in their understanding of our ideas. And we must emphasize again and again that we stand with, not against, them in the pursuit of equality for gays.