Everyone’s a Little Queer / Why Can’t You Be a Little Straight?

Mary Peretz’s very own Lloyd, err, assistant to the editor-in-chief, has a post up on the Plank complaining that according to Shrum’s Edwards bashing memoir:

In his new memoir, “No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner,” Shrum recalls asking Edwards at the outset of that campaign, “What is your position, Mr. Edwards, on gay rights?”

“I’m not comfortable around those people,” Edwards replied, according to Shrum. He writes that the candidate’s wife, Elizabeth, told him: “John, you know that’s wrong.”

Kirchik goes on to get all Samuel L in SOAP on Edwards ass, angrily declaring:

“Those people?” So much for Ann Coulter’s suggestion that Edwards is a friend of Dorothy.

Frankly, I don’t see how someone who is admittedly “not comfortable” around any sort of American–whether they be black, Chinese, poor, or gay–is fit to be president.

James has a pretty good point, of course Edwards should not be so fidgety and uncomfortable around “Americans,” but I think James, distracted by his deservedly righteous anger is missing a few points. One, being from North Carolina, Edwards probably didn’t know very many openly gay people growing up. Now, it’s easy for us tolerant people with lots of gay acquaintances to say how bizarre it is to be uncomfortable around them, but we might be glossing over something. When you’ve never really interacted with gay people and your only ideas of them are from your traditional community or church and the occasional rumor or TV show, there’s something alien, odd, even queer about being gay. For many straight men, being attracted to women is so basic, so central to their conception of themselves, so self evident, that being attracted sexually to men is just mind boggling. Of course, after spending any amount of time with gay men, all these childish yet understandable notions evaporate. I feel that even for people who see racial divisions as silly or trivial are still likely to have lingering notions about homosexuals being fundamentally odd.

Now Edwards, as far as we know, isn’t a bigot, isn’t intolerant and has never called a gay man a fag or treated one inappropriately. This will not stop “heterodox” gay journalists like Sullivan and Kirchick from bashing Edwards for being just another bigoted Democrat who uses gays to his political advantage and then gives them nothing in return. Though he isn’t for gay marriage, he opposed the marriage amendment, supports ending DADT, supports ENDA and supports the expansion of hate crimes so as to include violence done against gays. He is by all accounts, for American politicians, if not progressive, at least a mainstream supporter of gay rights.

Additionally, I think its the basis of the liberal society we should try to cultivate in America that someone can be “uncomfortable” with gays in the private sphere, yet in the public sphere, he can advocate policies he knows are fair and promote social and legal equality, because he thinks these values are important. We shouldn’t bash politicians as being not good enough on gay rights if they have common, residual cultural prejudices or even discomfort with gays, yet they still, in their heightened position in the public sphere, advocate on behalf of gays. John Edwards may not be perfect, but lets not call him a bigot or a dishonest supporter of gay rights, especially when the other party is built on bigotry and disdain for homosexuals.