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As we all know now, Mary ran her father's vice presidential campaign in 2004. She ran
it--she didn't just stick flyers on windshields. She didn't quit when Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. She didn't even issue a statement disagreeing with the President's position. She went right on working for a party that considers the GLBT community sub standard. “She stayed behind the scenes and stuck it out, for her father's sake,” Naff wrote. “It's difficult to fault her when she puts it in those terms.”
No it isn't. Mary Cheney is a very well oiled cog in a political machine. She's a polished, media savvy professional, not just some lesbian who loves and respects her father. And her father and George Bush weren't running for spots on a student council. Like it or not, she was in the public eye and, despite how she now attempts to spin her cowardice, her sexuality was, indeed, fair game during the campaign. She made sure of it by working for her father.
Cheney could have shined; she had an opportunity to do something positive for her community, but she chose not to. She made her bed, now she can whine in it. Why Kevin Naff has chosen to whine with her is beyond me.
Naff not only supports Cheney's jack-in-the-box behavior, but also admits that he, too, pops in and out of the closet to “avoid the stress” or “those awkward confrontations” of every day life. Shame on Kevin Naff. He has practically ordered Cooper and Smith to come out to all of America , but he doesn't have the courage to come out to a hotel desk clerk.
Wow. I only hope that at the next editorial meeting, someone asks him, “Was Mary Cheney worth it?”
While I would never expect Naff to routinely or purposefully put himself in life-threatening situations, or even dry hump his partner in the lobby of the Holiday Inn--I do expect him to set an example for his readers and practice what he preaches, not support concealment and avoidance in the name of awkwardness.
Blade readers will decide for themselves if Naff's decision to bring his own insecurities to his support of Cheney was a wise choice, but I think it was an unfortunate call. The purpose of an editorial is to empower readers and call them to action, not applaud their weaknesses or highlight an editor's own weaknesses.
In light of Naff's words, I'd like to provide readers with what he failed to offer them--a more positive perspective.
I live “in that place” Naff writes of. I am 100% out. I wasn't always, but I am now. And one of the reasons I am is because I couldn't write about the importance of being out and proud without actually being out and proud. And, for the record, the same holds true for the entire staff of AfterEllen and AfterElton.
While it's true that I spend a great deal of time writing about creepy people who, it seems, have nothing better to do than attempt to suppress the GLBT community, they are not the people I come in contact with every day. The people I meet or talk to daily couldn't give a rat's ass that I'm a lesbian. If they do, they certainly don't let me know it.
So I reject, and refuse to promote, the idea that around every corner is someone just waiting to make me feel awkward, because in my mind, the exact opposite is true. I've found, far more often than not, that being myself--being out all the time--opens doors to very positive conversations about being gay, not negative or “stressful” ones.
I believe that most people are much kinder than our fears allow us to believe. They are also much more concerned with their own lives at any given moment in time than they are with mine. I don't retreat into the closet to avoid potentially awkward situations because those awkward situations rarely prove to exist.
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