Confessions of a closet homophobe

I have a confession to make. For many years I was a closet homophobe. I can’t blame it on my parents. My mommy may me wear frilly pink dresses and play with Barbie dolls, while my other mommy made me take ballet class. And I was the very first boy to integrate the girl’s soccer ball team. Yes, both my mommies did their darndest to reassign my socially constructed gender.

And, for many years I made myself believe that I was not, in my heart of hearts, a homophobe. I attended the Sunday school at the Metropolitan church, where they taught a sort of reverse version of reparative therapy, where if you had enough counseling sessions and went through the whole treatment program, they could redirect your homophobic orientation to be homophilonic. But however often they prayed over me and tried to exorcise that inner demon of homophobia, I always felt the same irrepressible urge.

Really, when I look back on my life, I’ve been homophobic as long as I can remember. I guess I was born that way.

But somewhere in-between Harvey Milk High School and Oscar Wilde Academy, something in me just snapped. I rebelled. I came out of my homophobic closet. I went public with my homophobia.

And I found out that there were others, many others, just like me, just waiting for someone to take the first step.

And as I began to do research, I discovered that there’s a high statistical percentage of homophobes in every time and place. Homophobes have always existed. You’ve had whole homophobic families, leading alternative homophobic lifestyles, with homophobic family values, forming whole homophobic communities. Indeed, homophobes represent the great majority of the population.

From history I went to biology and discovered the homophobic gene. I found out that I was hardwired to be homophobic. I can’t help myself. I didn’t choose to be this way. It’s a genetic thing, you see. This is how God made me. And God doesn’t make mistakes.

This is why I decided to major in law and go into politics. That is why I founded the Homophobic Party. Because there’s a whole homophobic underworld, a vast silent majority, driven underground by an intolerant, narrow-minded minority of Christophobic and heterophobic fundamentalists.

I write this to tell you, if there are any homophobic readers out there, that you are not alone. We must come out of our closeted existence and take a public stand. We must oppose the persecution of homophobes. We must outlaw heterophobic hate-speech. We must promote affirmative action for homophobes. We must pass anti-discrimination laws to uphold the equal rights of homophobes in housing and employment. We must endow college chairs of homophobic studies. Homophobes of the world, unite!