Gay Hoopla (Diary)

Carson, from “Queer Eye”, I am not. I am not surprising anyone by design or living in a house with six strangers getting my gay angst on. I have my own Grace; but no Liza for me, and only small helpings of Cher, please. If I ever attach a rainbow sticker to my bumper, please call my mother and tell her that I loved her.

I am a moderate, usually even-tempered, and seldom-catty 33-year-old gay son of a Fundamentalist Christian minister. I went to a Christian liberal arts university, which could arguably be labled an oxymoron. And although I knew I was gay from age 6, I was a virgin until age 27.

Mine was the punch in the gut, overly-fabled story that deserves to be played out in schtick. Last-picks in P.E. Not so creative slandering in school halls. And girlfriends who agreed to wait until we were married. God bless them all.

Not surprisingly, the recent media mainstream gaysplosion has placed me on a teeter-totter of emotions. My balance, which has always been misbalanced, is off. And I wonder how it is impacting every day straight Americans. What I first considered to be a nationwide “a-ha” moment when Will & Grace ratings spiked, now begs me to wonder not only when it will fizzle – or hopefully, level out – but more importantly, how middle-straight-America will make sense of it all? Do they know the inside jokes? Understand the struggle that led to them?

Part of me says that the timing is right. But even this reasonable boy who grew up at the foot of the Cascade mountains, leading worship from a piano every Sunday and appearing in school musicals thinks it might be too much of a good thing.