Lindsey Graham, Senator from South Carolina, presidential candidate, 60-year-old man who’s never been married, effeminate with Southern mannerisms. Need we say more? Apparently, America thinks not because America assumes Lindsey Graham is a closeted old Southern queen.
Which is why he’s polling at 1% in the 2016 GOP presidential race.
Which is why it was perfectly acceptable for John Stewart to mock him repeatedly on the Daily Show, something he did countless times during his tenure on the Comedy Central hit.
Guess what: that’s hate speech. That’s calling him a faggot the same way a 15-year-old bully calls a 15-year-old effeminate kid in school: faggot.
After reading about Graham on Wikipedia, then reading the Salon article, Are Rumors About Lindsey Graham’s Sexuality Hurting His Presidential Chances?, Lindsey Graham is now a human being to me, as opposed to a freakish, closeted, right wing nut who is my enemy.
He’s a man who lost his parents in his early 20s and became a father and a mother to his orphaned 13-year-old sister.
He’s a human being with hopes and dreams.
Society puts all men in a box. Likes boys. Likes girls.
Then sub boxes: not married, not macho, not forthcoming with testosterone and an overt interest in women… must be a fag and not even one who can own up to it and wear it loud and proud.
Still not a good man. Still the subject of ridicule and scorn from all sides of the universe.
So the men who cruise the Grand Central cruising Stations of the world are forced to confine their same-sex sexual activities to, not the closet, but the stall.
The stall that stonewall built
After the 1969 Stonewall Inn riots that brought gays and gay rights out of the closet and into mainstream America, men were forces to choose sides. Likes boys. Likes girls.
But sexuality doesn’t always work that way, and the only way for some man to get off the way they want is to be a double agent.
The result: while much of society nows accept gays, we still don’t accept men who have sex with men and are still in the closet about it.
Case and point: the many online gay profiles that declare: it’s 2015, show your face to all of us here on this world wide media device, got dammit! What’s wrong with you?
From the Salon article:
“Even in 2015, many Americans still assume that anybody who isn’t partnered at a certain age must be homosexual. The fact that Graham talks in a somewhat stereotypically gay voice only makes the assumption more irresistible.
“But when Stewart performs his effeminate Graham impression, he isn’t just suggesting the senator is gay—he’s mocking him for it. That’s a problem. Were Graham openly gay, no progressive comedian would dare ridicule him for his manner of speech. Graham is only fair game because he’s perceived to be closeted. The implication that he’s gay and lying about it is what makes the joke amusing. (That is, if you think it’s funny at all.)”
Not anymore I don’t.
Randy Boyd author 