As far as we've come since the sexually repressed America
portrayed in the movie "Kinsey," ignorance about sexuality
continues to fuel much of the antipathy towards gays in this
country. Evidence: Rick Sincere (who recently launched his own
blog), alerts me to an
item defending gay unions on the blog of a straight Republican,
Tony Iovino, who observes:
When we see a heterosexual couple, we see them as Dick and Lynn, individual adults who are a couple. We don't think of them as a couple engaging in sex. Think about it -- what if the first thing you thought of when you saw the Cheneys holding hands on a stage was their sexual activities? You'd gag. As you would with just about any couple, other than Jennifer Aniston & Brad Pitt. But when we see gay couples, we are immediately focused on their sexuality, like you would be drawn to the hair of someone wearing a giant orange Afro wig. And it freaks us out.
That is, I think, the crux of the matter -- the deep sense of
unease associated with gay sexuality, seen as legitimatized and
promoted by legal recognition of gay unions, along with the strong
fear of unleashing sexual anarchy if traditional is altered too
rapidly. In any event, chanting "bigots" and "haters" and feeling
smugly superior won't make the problem go away.
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