Getting Giddy Over the Gay Games

Cleveland will host the international Gay Games in 2014.

No kidding. More than 12,000 athletes will compete in 30 different sports right here in the middle of the country. We beat Boston and Washington, D.C., for the honor, too.

Sweet.

Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Robert Smith wrote last week that this news sparked some major pooh-poohing from big-city snobs, particularly on the coasts, where many a family crest is an upturned nose.

Cleveland's so backward, they said, so undeserving. In their view, we're not only anti-gay but also anti-gaiety.

Midwesterners are used to exceeding others' low expectations, so we greeted this latest round of miscalculation with the crinkled eyes of geezers used to getting the last laugh.

Homophobes may still outnumber flatulent cows in this state. But when a congressman from Texas stands on the House floor in Washington and equates homosexuality to sex with animals and corpses, you can hardly argue the last stronghold for intolerance of gay America is in the Midwest.

Last week, the House held a special session on the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which can be summarized thus: "Look, we're happy to have you gays and lesbians risk your lives for our country, as long as you lie about being gays and lesbians. 'K?"

Some lawmakers, including Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa. — a straight guy and an Iraq war veteran — think this is the height of military hypocrisy and argued for the repeal.

Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, called the repeal a "perverse ... social experimentation." He then attacked the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill, which had nothing to do with that evening's special session:

"If you're oriented toward animals, bestiality, then, you know, that's not something that can be ... held against you or any bias be held against you for that, which means you'd have to strike any laws against bestiality. If you're oriented toward corpses, toward children — you know, there are all kinds of perversions."

Where was I?

Oh, yeah, in the Midwest.

Back to the 2014 Gay Games, which — did I mention this? — are going to be in Cleveland.

Now, we tend to greet good news here with the incredulity of people bred to be underdogs. We're not just modest; we're mopey. Too many Eeyores, not enough Tiggers.

The Gay Games might change that, and not just because so many enthusiastic members of the LGBT community will swarm into Ohio to dive, skate and power-lift their fit selves to victory.

The sporting events are nice. The faith in our better nature? Way nicer.

The Federation of Gay Games overlooked a lot of our flaws to pick us. When it comes to gay rights, we've yet to put the heart in heartland.

We still struggle to emulate the love and acceptance of the God most of us claim to worship, but we inched a little closer recently, after the Cleveland City Council passed the domestic partner registry.

The registry doesn't confer any real rights. But it's a giant leap from the heinous anti-gay referendum passed in 2004, when the majority of Ohioans pulled away the welcome mat and tried to hammer the door shut, too.

Broke the hearts of a lot of residents we didn't deserve to keep. They stayed anyway, and so many are glad they did.

Several readers on The Huffington Post griped that we don't deserve to host the very people we tried to wound.

Cleveland area resident Dana Aritonovich responded:

"As I drove through downtown Cleveland on my way home, I noticed that the Pride flag was flying with the American flag over City Hall. It was an amazing sight! We deserve this, we are proud of this, and we will make the best of this to show the world what an awesome city Cleveland is — the best location in the nation!"

Two exclamation points? We call that bragging in the Midwest.

We're going to let it pass. Just this once.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House, "Life Happens" and "... and His Lovely Wife." She is a featured contributor in a recently released book by Bloomsbury, "The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's 'A More Perfect Union.'" 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.

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