Dear Friends;
Today is my birthday. I’m 62. A proud father and grandfather. Happily married for almost forty years.
But I have a confession I must make publicly. I’m secretly a Right-Wing Republican. And I’m a Christian fundamentalist. And I’m straight.
I had planned to take this secret to my grave but I couldn’t. Lately, so many gay rights-hating,
I know how shocking this might seem to anyone whose favorite source of news is Fox, but it is true.
For years I was in the closet. I couldn’t pretend to be secretly gay – no one would believe me – so I pretended to be a Democrat. Straight Democrats are very believable. Especially if they are white middle-aged men. I made all the right moves:
· I joined MoveOn.org.
· I got on the e-mail list of the Daily Kos.
· I wore a Kucinich ’08 button.
· I wrote lengthy e-mails praising the Dixie Chicks.
· I recycled some stuff.
· I passed out DVDs of Michael Moore’s movies.
· I bought a solar powered product. (Okay, it was a digital watch. But it was solar powered!)
· I subscribed to the online edition of the New York Times and the Washington Post to save paper.
· I complained when my neighbor got a Hummer (from GM, not from his girlfriend.)
· I complained that President Bush has the worst economic policies since the
· I made fun of a brilliant global warming debunker: Senator James Inhofe.
· I hid my collection of Ann Coulter erotica.
The entire charade was tough, very tough. It even put a strain on my marriage: my wife is a Democrat and I had to pretend to agree with her. (About politics, that is. Get real.) I even pretended to agree with her assertion that “George Bush is the worst president in American History.” despite knowing the truth: historians must go back no further than Franklin Pierce to find a president who was (probably) worse than W. But I love my wife and I didn’t want her to know my secret. Until today.
My friends, I am a homophobic right-wing bible thumper and I am straight. There are no skeletons in my closet. No hidden gay affairs with my chief of staff, like Rep Dave Dreier (CA). No drug-laden affairs with gay prostitutes, like Reverend Ted Haggard. No sexually charged e-mails sent to teen-aged boys like Rep Mark Foley (FL.) No attempts to pick up men in public bathrooms like Senator Larry Craig (ID.) No sham marriages such as Michael Huffington had with Arianna when he ran for Governor of California and was endorsed by every Conservative commentator in the country. And I was never a gay porn model who became a right-wing White House reporter, like Jeff Gannon.
I was never arrested for any sort of perversion after spending years loudly supporting homophobic legislation, like so many of my heroes. Clearly, as a right-wing fundamentalist I am a failure. I am such a dud that I cannot understand why it is morally wrong for a man to lie and say, “I did not have sex with that woman.” but morally acceptable for a man to lie and say, “I did not have sex with that man.” I’m just not as smart as most right-wingers. And so I have stayed in the closet.
But now it is time to confess publicly. My friends, I am not gay. I never have been gay. I am a straight white ultra-conservative who believes that my interpretation of the Bible is perfect. I may be one of the very few left in the country but I’m standing tall with my brothers. I’m proud to take this stance. I have always taken a wide stance when surrounded by real men.
Copyright 2007 Jacob Arthur
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