A GAY MAN STRUGGLES TO COME OUT OF THE CLOSET.

The closet that tells him to keep quiet about being a conservative. Its a long post at Big Hollywood, but it really strikes a cord. From the article:

Our well-intended guilt doesn’t impress anyone but ourselves. For all the hand-wringers out there, Ayaan Hirsi Ali makes an important point: we need to be clear about what we are fighting. The enemy is not Muslims, who are just people like you and me, most of whom are sane. The enemy is Islam, the ideology – the ancient, backward doctrine that exhorts a growing minority to kill. Just like white supremacy, Communism, Nazism. So we need to stop feeling shame – because the people who want to kill us sure don’t feel any. If the men who flew the planes into the WTC had been able to detonate atomic bombs instead that day, does anyone really doubt that they would have?

Bottom line: I have had to work very, very hard my whole life to accept myself as a gay man, and to be able to introduce myself freely as such and be proud of my relationship. No one did that for me. But a big plus was living in this crazy, over-the-top country that has changed so much just in my lifetime – and done such an incredible about-face after eight years of an unpopular President. What other country on earth is that flexible? What other country is that trusting?

Now, however, I often feel as if I’ve been shoved right back into the closet by the very people who go around espousing diversity and equal rights and compassion – fellow gay people and “sophisticated” urban friends who in fact can’t tolerate an idea that’s not out of the playbook.

When a Muslim leader in Nigeria – or even scarier, in Canada – declares that gay people should be killed and their heads cut off, I’m sorry, but that offends me. And it also worries me because we have all seen these believers act on their hate.

Meanwhile, the affluent gay community in LA never makes a peep about hate speech if it comes from non-caucasians with funny Arabic names. The buff, mostly-white queers just continue doing what they do best: identify as victims and pretend it’s 1977 – protesting the harmless Mormon church, which never fights back, and boycotting campy Mexican restaurants to put other tax-paying minorities (including some gays) out of work. Meanwhile, a threat much bigger than Prop. 8 is growing fast.

Damn, this does my heart good!