Who's the real bully?

This week wrapped up the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington -- the annual event is the GOP and far-right equivalent of a massive circle jerk, where speakers such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, etc, go on stage and attempt to be as theocratic/conservative as possible in order to win a worthless straw poll that is representative of the farthest of the far right fringe in the US.

Anyway -- other things happen here as well. Symposiums, awards, vendors set up booths, the list could go on and on. The end result is that there's a fairly large mix of conservatives descending on Washington for the week. With the news on the 9th Circuit Court's overturning of Prop 8 fresh, some GLBT and liberal media sources and bloggers have decided to check out the rather large amount of Craigslist "m4m" (male for male) personal ads from admitted CPAC attendees.

Queerty -- Cruising CPAC

But as HyperVocal points out, the conservative cabal is also a hotbed of homo cruising (presumably of the closeted kind). Slade Sohmer trolled recent Craigslist postings in the DC area and came up with quite a few CPAC-related M4M ads.

The irony, of course, is the less than friendly platform the Republican Party has taken towards GLBT equality, especially at a convention where moderate positions on much of anything are not tolerated at all. The qualifier from the Queerty article was what I wanted to hit on:

 And we’re genuinely rooting for this lot, hoping all these guys score—it doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you sit on, or what you sit on, everyone’s entitled to some lovin’ they prefer.”

Of course they are -- but if it "doesn't matter what side of the aisle you sit on" then why are we even posting childish taunts about CPAC attendees on Craigslist anyway? The fact is that many young conservatives -- even conservatives that might be considered "fringe" in most other ways -- have come around to supporting marriage equality and some other GLBT rights. Even on the far right, trends have continued to show that support for GLBT equality is not driven by the "Right V. Left" mind frame but is actually driven by a generation gap, with younger Americans generally friendly towards equal rights. 


As a movement that is beginning to come into it's own at a fairly rapid pace, I think it's incredibly important that we behave in a mature manner. The post that I mentioned read like a nasty high school gossip letter, and  if I were a closeted, gay Republican male who was considering offering my support, or even coming out of the closet, I would feel distinctly less comfortable after seeing things like this. 


While there are a litany of other issues that pro-equality conservatives are dead wrong on, the movement for equality is not so inevitable that we can afford to pick and choose whom we are taking on as supporters. Belittling, childish behavior will never help gay Americans get the equality that is rightfully ours. While the humor of things like the Larry Craig incident is never going to be lost on me, at some point, I think we have to grow above it. 

 

Too Early to Come Out?

Queerty takes a look at a really interesting topic this morning: if there should be an age requirement for "coming out" as gay or lesbian, and if so, what that age requirement should be.

Is 8 Years Old Too Young to Come Out?

With many kids coming out earlier and earlier, I think it's a valid question and one that probably needs to be discussed, especially given the increase in tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality in general. The link goes into detail about the mother of an eight year old girl who informed her mother than she "just knew" she was a lesbian and that she had played around with another girl her age.

The mother was supportive, although remained skeptical:

My 8-year-old daughter told me that she “just knows” that she is gay. I find this hard to believe. She told me about an incident where she and a (girl) friend got undressed in front of each other and “rolled around naked” on her bed. I asked for more details, explaining that she might feel better to get it off her chest. She cried a lot and while she did not give more information, she insisted that she could just feel it that she’s a lesbian.

I assured that it would not matter to me at all, but she may be a little young to know conclusively. What do you think? Could she know?

 This is a really interesting question because a practical response is kind of tough to have here: while we certainly would never question an 8 year old boy or girl having a school age crush on someone, it's probably valid to say that at that age, your feelings are far from shaped in terms of your lifelong sexual preference, and it's easy to see a child eventually finding out that they may have expressed themselves incorrectly. Given the rather weighty implications of coming out of the closet at any age, and the way that your sexuality ends up framing your life, it becomes rather difficult to clearly see how to deal with a child coming out at this age, especially if they decide to have a discussion about this with more than just their parents.

It seems to me that this wouldn't be such a problem if there wasn't the focus on sexuality that there is today; anything that a kid says when they are 8 years old shouldn't have a bearing on them in the long term. Society's emphasis on attractiveness and sexuality is extremely pervasive; so much so that even at such a young age that it is noticeable, both consciously and sub-consciously.

I think that given the situation, there is no "too early" to come out -- I knew I was gay by the age of 8, but I didn't actually know what "gay" meant -- I just knew I liked boys. What do you think?