Feeling Gay About the FutureA small but persistent contingent of heterosexual males regularly shares with me one of its greatest fears: That its constituents are playing a starring role in some gay guy's fantasy. Such an e-mail arrived just last week. This particular man apparently just found out about the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which President Barack Obama signed back in December. "I, as a male, will be FORCED to billet with an individual that may have sexual intentions or fantasies that involve me, and he can even tell me so and there will be nothing I can do about it?" he wrote. "We don't require women to billet with men, and vice versa, so how can we require a soldier to sleep or live in close quarters with persons who have sexual desires for those of the same sex? How will this play out in battlefield situations?" Hmm. Let me put my thinking cap on. The big burgundy one, with the giant feathers sprouting like exclamation points around my head. Thinking ... I'm thinking... I'm going to go out on a limb here and state as fact, without a shred of reporting, that gays and lesbians are just as unlikely as straight people to want to have sex on a battlefield. When under fire, this fellow is so safe. From the gays, I mean. I also want to assure him that raging homophobia is a definite turnoff to any self-respecting gay man — and most women, for that matter, seeing as we're not big on hate as an aphrodisiac. He's likelier to be ogled by a red-eyed tree frog than he is to take center stage in anyone's sexual fantasy. In the past, this sort of e-mail made me feel discouraged and a tad testy. It's hard to imagine a brighter day for gay and lesbian Americans when a gaggle of grumpy men insist on casting long shadows over the landscape. But the future belongs to our young people, and a recent survey has me doing the happy-feet dance over the issue of equality. Less than two weeks ago, UCLA released its annual report revealing what's on the minds of more than 200,000 incoming college freshmen around the country.
Not surprising, really. We all are feeling that way. But there was good news, too, which I discovered after reading the study's online summary: More than three-quarters of freshmen support the legal right for gay and lesbian Americans to adopt children. God bless them. The chief difference between my generation's experience with gays and lesbians and our kids' experience is in the level of awareness. Most of us have admired, respected and even loved homosexuals throughout our lives; we just never knew it. They were too afraid to share this essential truth about their lives. Our kids and grandkids overwhelmingly reject this cruel pretense. I hope to live long enough for the day when they are the ones passing laws, voting on referendums and running businesses. I also look forward to meeting their children, who likely will shake their heads in disgust over what we used to do to our gay and lesbian citizens. You remember that feeling, don't you, fellow boomers? Think back to when we were young and rejected outright the notion that African-Americans were an inferior class of human being. Jeez. Where did all our courage go? Back to that silly e-mail. Only hours before I read it, I was in a conversation with two friends about the Vietnam War. The husband mentioned that his elder brother had been drafted into the Army and served in Vietnam in 1965. His wife added that this same Vietnam veteran recently had celebrated 32 years with the same life partner. When I asked whether his brother ever talked to her about his time in Vietnam, my friend corrected me. "Not her," she said. "Him." The husband greeted my raised eyebrows with a smile. "Nobody knew he was gay when he was in Vietnam," he said. "He was called, and he served his country." We fell silent for a moment. Sometimes, there are no words. Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and an essayist for Parade magazine. To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM
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