Straight Men the Future of Gay Rights?

From last October, Z Magazine's gay affairs writer Michael Bronski muses on the meaning of former New Jersey Governer McGreevy's self-outing. From ZNet:

McGreevy’s coming-out speech was a convincing piece of work. It defined homosexuality as an identity—not an activity—and placed it in the context of U.S. citizenship. In the New York Times, a spokesperson for the HRC explained that the “gay American” phrase was crafted to define homosexuality (and gay rights) as a civil rights issue, not a “sexual liberation” issue, thus making it palatable to a heterosexual audience.

But, while a “civil rights” discourse is an appropriate framework for fighting for gay rights, it shouldn’t be used at the expense of promoting a culture that values and validates sexual expression. Over the past 20 years, gay rights groups have attempted to keep all mention of sexuality out of the public discussion of gay rights. This includes playing down all of the more obvious sexual elements of gay culture such as drag, clubbing, and public displays of affection. This is one of the reasons same-sex marriage has become such a major gay rights issue—marriage with its implicit baggage of romance, households, family, and children is the obvious anecdote [sic] to the perception that gay culture is all about (and only about) sex. It is the ultimate statement that “gay people are just like straight people” and, therefore, deserving of basic civil rights.

There is a terrific irony here. Culturally, mainstream “straight culture”—drawing from and taking its cues from “gay culture”—has become gayer. We see this in “metrosexual” style; we see it in the representation of heterosexual behavior and language on television shows; and we have seen it in the changing, far more fluid, heterosexual relationship patterns.

Click here for the rest.

I've mentioned here a couple of times before (here and here) that in the absence of any other positive social force, the gay community becomes the champion of healthy American sexuality by default--truly, GLBT people stand alone in opposition to the overwhelming forces of sexual exploitation by the commercial media at one end of the ideological spectrum, and sexual repression by right-wing Christianity at the other. That's why I'm increasingly alarmed by what appears to be something of a shift away from away from sexual issues in public gay discourse. I understand the desire to be accepted, but publicly desexualizing homosexuality cannot lead to acceptance: it is disturbingly reminiscent of the phenomenon of African-Americans feeling that they have to "act white" in order to succeed. In other words, gays are "accepted" as long as they act straight. That's not acceptance in my book; it's assimilation. Sadly, if this trend continues, it's not just "Gay Americans" who will suffer. Because homosexual assimilation represents what is essentially an abandonment of the cause of safe sexual freedom, everybody will suffer.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$