Myth of the 'gay lifestyle' justifies bias

By LZ Granderson, Special to CNN

April 6, 2010 -- Updated 1858 GMT (0258 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

 LZ Granderson: Is grocery shopping, getting my son off to school the "gay lifestyle"?
 Granderson: Nonexistent gay lifestyle keeps up an "us against them" tension
 Gay rights foes drum up the fear of a link between gay men and pedophilia, he says
 He writes: Being judged by the content of one's character is a constitutional right

Editor's note: LZ Granderson is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, and has contributed to
ESPN's Sports Center, Outside the Lines and First Take. He is a 2010 nominee and the 2009 winner of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation (GLAAD) award for online journalism as well as the 2008 National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
(NLGJA) winner for column writing.

(CNN) -- On most mornings, my better half wakes up around 5:30, throws on some sweats and
heads to the gym before work.

About a half hour later, I wake up my 13-year-old son, go downstairs to the kitchen to make his
breakfast and pack his lunch. Once he's out the door, I brew some coffee and get to work.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the "gay lifestyle" -- run for your heterosexual lives.

I understand opponents of gay rights must highlight differences in order to maintain the "us
against them" tension that's paramount to their arguments. But this notion that sexual orientation
comes with a different and pre-ordained way of life -- as if we're all ordering the No. 3 at a drive
thru -- only highlights how irrational groups such as Focus on the Family, the Family Research
Council, the American Family Association and others like them are in this whole debate.

Pro-marriage organizations try to stop two consenting adults from marrying. Pro-family groups
try to stop stable couples wanting children from adopting unloved orphans.

And somehow, me doing something like going to the grocery store threatens the very fabric of
society, as Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern spewed. She says "the homosexual agenda is
destroying this nation" and "homosexuality is more of a threat than terrorism." I'm not sure what
her idea of a gay lifestyle might be, but with a growing teenager, buying and cooking food
dominates my day-to-day.
We're just as diverse, intolerant, upstanding and tragic as our straight counterparts.
--LZ Granderson

I don't worship Barbra Streisand, I don't watch any TV show with the word "Housewives" in its
title and I love fishing, beer and Madonna. But more important, I'm just a father trying to keep
my son away from drugs, get him into college and have a little money left over for retirement.
I'm no sociologist but I'm pretty sure those concerns are not exclusive to gay people.

In one of the most pivotal scenes in the biopic "Milk," Harvey Milk, played by Sean Penn,
gathers a group of community organizers and activists to come up with strategies to combat a
1978 ballot initiative that sought to ban LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) teachers
and their supporters from working in public schools in California. As the small crowd settles
down, Milk quickly glances around the room and says ..

"If we're going to convince the 90 percent to give a ---- about us 10 percent, we have to let them
know who we are ..."

"What" we are -- be it gay, straight, black, white -- is simply window dressing. "Who" we are is
where the substance is, where the person is, where our humanity is.

Too often, discussions about gay people and gay rights focus on sex, as if a person's entire being
is defined by his or her Hollywood crush.

This fixation has been the crux behind attempts to link gay men to pedophilia -- from John
Briggs, a state legislator from Orange County who introduced the proposed ban on gay teachers
in California, to the Catholic League's Bill Donohue, whose recent attempts to excuse the church
for its global scandal cover-up by seemingly blaming homosexuality -- and it's a tactic that is evil
incarnate.

I don't worship Streisand, I don't watch any TV show with the word "Housewives" in its title
and I love fishing, beer and Madonna.
--LZ Granderson

"The vast majority of the victims are post-pubescent," Donohue recently said on "Larry King
Live." "That's not pedophilia, buddy. That's homosexuality."

Actually, Bill, sexual predators whose victims are 13- to 17-years-old are called hebephiles -- a
la Joey Buttafuoco, Madeleine Martin and Heather Kennedy -- not homosexuals. And that still
doesn't explain why the church opted to save face as opposed to, in the words of the infamous
anti-gay figurehead Anita Bryant, "Save our children."

Being gay doesn't dictate how people live their lives any more than being straight does. There are
gay people who go to church every Sunday and straight people who do not believe in God. There
are single gay men who believe in the sanctity of marriage and married straight men who
apparently do not -- such as Gov. Mark Sanford, ex-Sen. John Edwards and Sen. John Ensign, to
name a few.
The truth is the only thing all gay people have in common -- you know, besides being gay -- is
that we face continuous rhetorical, social and legal attacks for simply existing, thus potentially
making something as mundane as bringing a date to a work function a fight-or-flee situation.

And yet, even in the face of that discrimination, LGBT people all handle it differently.

Some of us live in the closet, some of us do drag every Wednesday night, some of us are
Republicans hoping to be change agents within a conservative sect and some of us are apathetic
Democrats too dumb to carry on a conversation about anything other than Lady Gaga.

"What" we are is simply window dressing. "Who" we are is where the person is, is where our
humanity is.
--LZ Granderson

In other words, we're just as diverse, intolerant, upstanding and tragic as our straight counterparts
and unless there is an annual meeting I don't know about, the only item on the much talked-about
gay agenda is an abbreviated passage from the Declaration of Independence -- "We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

In 29 states, people can be fired simply for being gay regardless of their education, experience or
job performance; servicemen and women can be dismissed from the military regardless of their
qualifications, dedication and courage; and partners are unable to see their better halves in the
hospital regardless of the love, commitment and life they share.

Wanting to be judged by the content of one's character isn't a special right, it's a constitutional
one guaranteed by the 14th and 15th amendments.

And yet, 145 years since the abolition of slavery, 90 years since women were allowed to vote
and 20 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act, we're still involved in McCarthy-like
investigations, holding Briggs-like elections and taking opinion polls based solely upon "what"
someone is as opposed to "who" they are.

It's sad. We're such a great nation, still full of great hope and promise and yet we keep being
tripped up by ignorance, which leads to fear and then eventually hate. Being gay isn't a choice,
but being a bigot certainly is.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.