My Year Of Everything

I’ve just finished the part of “The Unlikely Disciple” where author Kevin Roose reaches his limit of the rampant homophobia* at Liberty University, and I’m right there with him. While the general attitude toward gays seems to be “bemused pity,” some students just actively do not like gay people (never having met one, naturally). But statistically speaking, there have to be some gay kids at Liberty. Roose has a talk with the campus spiritual adviser whose job is ministry to students “suffering unwanted same-sex attraction,” which is a pretty brave move. These kids can’t drink, swear or watch R-rated movies, so you have to imagine the gossip machine is well-oiled.

Ministry-To-Gays guy serves up a “hate the sin, love the sinner” platter that’s discouraging, but could certainly be worse. It does, though, contain the one exasperating element that I’m ready to stop coming across: “We just want to keep people away from the gay lifestyle because it is one of substance abuse and promiscuous, anonymous sex, and is therefore unhealthy.”

Anytime I hear this argument, I’m reminded of swim meets.

When I was 9, a pool was built in my subdivision, and just like that we had a swim team. It was low-stakes: twice-weekly practices, meaningless meets against other neighborhoods, free t-shirt. But our next-door neighbors, who I’ll call the Harrises, took it very seriously indeed. Mrs. Harris (who mowed the lawn every Saturday morning in a bikini) would show up for practices and interrupt the coach to critique her kids’ strokes. You could pretty much watch Charlie Harris, who was my age, developing an ulcer. He was a good swimmer, though. (I didn’t care one way or the other about winning, I was just on the team to be social. The Harrises had no time for kids like me. Good.)

Mr. & Mrs. Harris never missed a meet, and when their kids’ events would come up, they would follow them up and down the length of the pool, barking. “Go, go, GO! Stay straight! You’re LOSING!” And if, as sometimes happened, one of their kids didn’t win, Mr. or Mrs. Harris would yank them right out of the pool by the arm and march them straight to the Jeep Wagoneer. Game over**. “You LOST. How does THAT feel? To be a LOSER? Second place? There IS no second place, there’s only FIRST LOSER. You make me SICK.” Loud. Loud enough for everyone to hear it, even if we didn’t stop what we were doing to listen, which of course we did.

And then every single time, off in the distance, we’d get the kicker:

“WHY ARE YOU SLOUCHING?”

That’s what I hear when I hear the more tolerant fundamentalist argument against homosexuality. “Their capacity to love dooms them to eternal anguish in the fires of Hell, and no matter how hard they try to be good people, they are, by their unchosen nature, excluded from even the possibility of morality. Plus they have low self-esteem.”

* There HAS to be a better word for hatred of gay people. “Homophobia” means “fear of the same,” which is not really the case, “homosexualphobia” is too long, “queerphobia” makes me feel like I’m handing out literature at a Bikini Kill show in 1993. Ditto for gay relationship names; “boyfriend” is a little too teenagery for long-term adult relationships, but when you introduce someone as your “partner,” I picture you both atop horses at a dude ranch. Come on, gays in marketing, let’s have a brainstorming session. I’ll make dip.

** Charlie and I went on to rival high schools, and the one year I was on my school’s swim team, we faced off in the 100m Freestyle. I have no idea what place I finished, but I do remember this: he came in second, pulled himself out of the pool, punched the cinderblock wall, slumped over and cried. Loud. Loud enough for everyone to hear. We were 16.