Prejudices, paradoxes and the twilight of the retrosexuals By Juan Tristan

One truism of politics is “success is rarely total, typically transitory.” It is why I cringe when I hear party loyalists boast of a “permanent majority” when their tribe scores a big victory, because it is almost guaranteed they’ll see the walls cave in on themselves during the next election. I reminded myself of this after reading about the little commented-on (outside the gay weekly Dallas Voice) Texas Lyceum Poll showing a majority of Texans now support either gay marriage or civil unions. This is not exactly news. Previous polls have produced similar results, but it is worth noting the now solid and consistent support for either proposal. This also strangely follows the wide margin which the 2005 amendment to the Texas Constitution banning gay marriage and “any legal status identical or similar to marriage” — meaning civil unions — was given by voters. Indeed 2005 was a bleak year, but little did I know public opinion would shift the way it did. There’s a peculiar phenomenon at work here, and considering Monday was National Coming Out Day (a much under-served civil awareness day), it is time to spend a moment defining exactly what is going on. Hays County also makes a suitable base for gay-rights activists. Though voters here approved the amendment, the margin was actually closer than anywhere else in the state, save Travis County, the sole county alone rejected it. The “retrosexual revanchism” popular several years ago was less pronounced here. That’s the framework in which anti-gay laws are best viewed. If the goal of anti-gay legislators and homophobic activists is to keep the closet door shut (as such laws are argued to be necessary, lest homosexuality be “encouraged” by the state). And for a return to the days when homosexuality was simply not talked about — not thought about — then by the very process of attempting to do such a thing, one ends up talking about homosexuality a whole lot. The journalist Mark Simpson formulated this paradox when he wrote, “Putting cats back into bags, because you don’t like cats involves, unavoidably, a lot of thinking and talking about — not to mention handling of — cats.” The push by anti-gay forces to condemn homosexuality, then, has the opposite effect intended. It has pushed homosexuality even further into the public eye. It has also shown the necessity for gays and lesbians to come out of the closet, and how much harder it is to condemn a friend, brother, sister, son or daughter for whom they love, than it is a complete stranger. Coming out can be, to say the least, very difficult. Those who do, may lose friends and be left incredibly vulnerable, but whatever is lost, the freedom and dignity gained is a mountain. Smashing the closet is in the interest of heterosexuals too, in case you were wondering. With the exception of grossly defamatory slurs about the private behavior of gays and lesbians (often enough signaling hidden temptations from the ones doing the defaming), anti-gay laws are often framed as not in response to what gays do, but what straights should do. Marriage, the proponents say, is for raising children, which the state should encourage as the “natural” order of human relationships (with a muscular father figure at its head above a subservient stay-at-home wife), and heterosexuals should be encouraged to conform to this standard. However, being married is simply one option among many, as is having children. The existence of married gay couples, then, would confirm the fact the nuclear ideal is at best an illusion, and it would show heterosexuals have a variety of options, not the least being non-procreative sex. I doubt many people in this country would want to do away with that.