Speaking Out (of his mind!)	Speaking Out Archive

May I begin by saying I feel I'm very well qualified to be a trend setter and opinion maker for the gay world. To start with, I happen to be gay, but, naturally I'm very discreet about it. I mean, I don't go around flaunting my preferences and making life difficult for those not similarly inclined. I consider myself to be very straight-appearing and straight-acting. Over the years I've spent a lot of money on keeping my wardrobe both up-to-date and attractive. As a consequence, I've received many, many compliments on any clothes. Even the less desirable elements in the gay community hold me in esteem. A brief illustration, I think, will serve to demonstrate this.

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I live in a very nice neighborhood. I don't think anyone would blame me for wanting to keep it that way. Well, one evening I was returning home late with a few friends. We had just been to a cocktail party. It was a gay fundraising benefit, of which I attend many, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, while we were waiting for the elevator, I noticed three flagrant looking drag queens loitering around the lobby of my building. Now I'm not the kind of person that usually likes to give anyone a hard time, but you can imagine how embarrassed and upset I was by this. These are hardly the sort of people I want my friends to think I live around. I decided to walk over to the offending group and in a very polite but firm tone I said that this was a private apartment building and that unless they were guests of one of the residents (which, of course, I knew they couldn't possibly be) they would have to vacate the premises. Otherwise, I went on, I might just be forced to call the police. Now you might think that such directness on my part would have been met with hostility. But instead my intervention earned their grudging respect. As they were leaving, the tallest (and I must say, the most outlandish looking of the three) turned to me and said in the sweetest voice, "Honey, you're such a credit to your orientation!"

I'm proud to say that I was raised in a home where good table manners and good table linen were both very much in evidence. As you've probably already surmised, I was educated at one of America's most prestigious and expensive colleges. As for travel, yes, I've been to Europe. And more than once, too. I've seen first-hand such impressive sites as the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, the Louvre Museum in Paris, and the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam. I number among my acquaintances not only some of the finest and most influential members of the gay community, but also several members of the third world (and I'm using the term third world here in the broadest sense to include both individuals of the Jewish persuasion and Irish). I do not wish to appear immodest, but I honestly believe The Guide would have been hard-pressed to a more apt or qualified person to represent the opinion of that group that on occasion I've heard admiringly referred to as "the good gays."

But enough about myself and on to my beef. I'm getting really fed up with that tiny minority of our community known as militant homosexuals. You know the kind of people I have in mind-- the ones who walk around acting like there is nothing wrong with them. I may be gay, but at least I have the decency to pretend that I'm not. You'd think the way some of these folks carry on, that freedom and liberation and securing basic rights are the only things that matter. What about those other timeless values like courtesy and good taste? There's got to be something pretty sick about people who behave as if that most sacred of all bodily functions (the one Bob Eubanks on "The Newlywed Game" refers to, with appropriate delicacy, as making whoopee) is somehow meant for pleasure. I'm sure that it is people just such as these that His Holiness, the Pope, had in mind when he talked about those who practice self-abuse. He said they have a problem-- immaturity! Well, to all those misguided would-be hedonists out there, I don't think anyone has ever put the answer better than my mother. She used to say, "Lester, if the good Lord wanted us to enjoy our bodies, he wouldn't have created arthritis."

The thing that bugs me most about these militants is the way they go around giving offense to straight people. Now it so happens that my mother is straight. Personally, I have always tried to live by the credo that if anything said or done might offend my mother, than whatever it is should not have been said or done. Does that seem unreasonable? I think not. To begin with, my mother like millions of other straight people is not very comfortable at the thought that homosexuals exist. So it really makes my blood boil when some militant, by word or deed, reminds her of that unpleasant fact. Why should gay people inflict their existence on her. She would never dream of imposing her values on them, unless, of course, it was for their own good. I think it's time for some gay folks to begin to learn a little something about tolerance and how to fit in. So what am I saying? Simply this: be as militant as you want in private, but in public pretend to be normal so as gay people we can walk proud.