A real HOMO-CON

After reading an item at Huffington Post about the alleged Republican gay group called GOProud getting smarmy conservative pundit Ann Coulter to headline its Homocon event, I started to think about how this is related to the four fears of water. It was difficult enough for me to comprehend the Log Cabin Republicans, but at least they embrace being gay. GOProud seems bent on neutering the gay politic entirely by ridiculing gay activists by portraying them as taking all the fun out of politics.

I didn’t know that politics was supposed to be fun, you know, like karaoke or your first circle jerk or kissing a boy for the first time (or the second, or third, or fiftieth, or …).

This group asserts that it stands for “individual liberty” and that “every individual should be equal under the law.” But selecting Ann Coulter as your headliner for your inaugural event? This woman (and I use that term in the general sense), whom GOProud has dubbed “the right wing Judy Garland,” famously called former presidential candidate John Edwards a faggot and labeled a Mississippi high school girl an “irritating lesbian” because she dared to challenge the “sanctimony” of a heterosexual-only prom. She’s called Al Gore a “total fag,” and let’s not forget this salacious slag’s knock on Jews, saying in 2007 that they “need to be perfected,” as if she were queen of the Borg. Ann Coulter is no Judy Garland; rather she is the antithesis of the class and grace Judy Garland exhibited, particularly when it came to Garland’s gay fan base.

As I said, all this reminds me of the four fears of those who go down by the water: The fear of waves, fear of crocodiles, fear of whirlpools, and the fear of sharks.

In the Catuma Sutta, the Buddha uses this simile to explain how some who enter the holy life leave it because they are unwilling to accept the demands of monasticism (while the link goes to Wikipitika, I am referring to the translation by Bhikkhu Nanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi).

With the fear of waves, the novice decides he doesn’t like being told how to act, how to dress, and how to move his body. With the fear of crocodiles, the novice decides he doesn’t like being told what he can eat and drink and when he can eat or drink it. With the fear of whirlpools, the novice quickly decides that he misses the sensual pleasures of the lay life, of being able to dress as he pleases and accumulate wealth and possessions. And with the fear of sharks, the novice gets turned on by women (or men) and decides he would rather indulge his woody than live celibate.

This self-loathing and denial most noticeably exhibited by the gay “conservative” is really quite perplexing, and undoubtedly a primary factor in why the most sensational political sex scandals almost always involve conservative Republicans. These pseudo-gays consistently lambast the more colorful and, yes, stereotypical members of our community as being inappropriate representatives of the gay community, all the while wearing fishnet stockings and black lace panties beneath their three-piece pinstriped suits.

Instead of fearing the waves of homosexual sensibility, instead of fearing the crocodiles of taking dramatic stands on important issues, instead of fearing the whirlpools of mingling openly with the dancing circuit boys or the drag queens in the pride parades, instead of fearing the sharks of openly accepting same-sex sex without a shred of guilt and all that entails, these moes need to cut loose and join the chorus singing, “Don’t dream it, be it.”

Yes, it is important to have fun. But there’s a time for seriousness as well. And there’s not a single minority issue in American history that was ever successfully changed by being nice about it. It takes dramatic and sometimes shocking acts of civil disobedience. That’s why we celebrate Stonewall, and not the founding of the Mattachine Society.