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the problem i have with maher's proposed tactic is that, in the end, it presupposes and relies upon ambient homophobia. while i understand the hypocrisy arguments made above, i think they explain the internal workings of the tactic and not the assumed effects of using it. what maher would do, effectively, would not only rely upon homophobia but would legitimate and reinforce it.
it seems to me well past time to dispense with the illusion that being gay in itself corresponds to a particular politics--the population of people who happen to be gay is widely distributed politically, and sexual preference need not translate into any particular set of broader views toward the world. the assumption in the 80s, say, seemed to be that there was a single coherent response to the fact of exclusion/marginalizaton rooted in homophobia, and that this single coherent response necessarily positioned everyone in a context of political opposition.
i think this was and is naive--wishful thinking.
it seems obvious to me that folk can experience problems in positioning/self-positioning at one level and integrate that experience into a whole range of wider political worldviews, which can and often are explicitly reactionary. while i would imagine that the probabilities of a reactionary political viewpoint being built around such experience (at one level or another) are different from those which obtain in a population not so affected, it nonetheless seems to me that there is nothing particularly surprising to find gay people who are extremely conservative and others who are not.
if that is true, is there anything in itself hypocritical about being gay and conservative at the same time?
i am not so sure.
i think the discussion about this should be much more wide-ranging than it has beens so far in this thread, and arriving at a judgment about it seems to me complicated.
and if anything like that is true, then this loops back onto the problem that i have with maher actually following through on his threat to out conservatives who are gay.
and believe me, i have no sympathy at any level for the right.
i find the contemporary american right to be dangerous on any number of levels, and damaging the right through tight argumentation is a worthwhile political project.
i am just not sure that what maher is proposing is anything like that.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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