Gay Rights

Sponsored message sent out on the magazine's email list refers to "appalling homosexual acts" and "sexual deviants"

By Justin Elliott

Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol (Credit: Gage Skidmore / CC BY 3.0)

(UPDATED BELOW)

Today, subscribers to the Weekly Standard’s email list received a message with the subject line, “Congress to mandate pro-homosexual education?”

It was a sponsored fundraising message from anti-gay activist Eugene Delgaudio focusing on the Student Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar discrimination against LGBT students in public schools. (The email rechristened the legislation the “Homosexual Classrooms Act.”)

But whatever one’s position on the legislation, the message is remarkable for its fierce anti-gay rhetoric, dripping with disdain and disgust for “homosexuals.” A taste (emphasis added):

Better named the “Homosexual Classrooms Act,” its chief advocate in Congress is Rep. Jared Polis, himself an open homosexual and radical activist. …

Require schools to teach appalling homosexual acts so “homosexual students” don’t feel “singled out” during already explicit sex-ed classes; …

In fact, it will set them up to ram through their entire perverted vision for a homosexual America. …

Sexual deviants being held up as models of virtue? If that makes you as sick as it makes me, you simply must join me in this battle for America’s children.

This is the sort of language one would expect to find in Ron Paul’s 80s-era newsletters the Standard has been so critical of.

Lots of publications rent out email lists to groups wanting to get a message across; that obviously does not imply an endorsement by the magazine. But it’s telling that in 2012 this kind of fierce anti-gay rhetoric is still considered within the pale at the Standard. I’ve asked the magazine for comment and will update if I hear back.

UPDATE: The Human Rights Campaign is condemning the email sent on the Weekly Standard list and calling on its members to voice their displeasure with Standard editor Bill Kristol.

UPDATE II: Standard publisher Terry Eastland tells Dylan Byers that the magazine’s “vetting system” broke down, and, “This is obviously not the sort of advertising that we would accept, nor will we accept it in the future.” But Kristol is apparently declining the opportunity to condemn the email as HRC wanted.

***

The full email:

Dear Pro-family American,

The Radical Homosexuals infiltrating the United States Congress have a plan:

Indoctrinate an entire generation of American children with pro-homosexual propaganda and eliminate traditional values from American society.

Their ultimate dream is to create a new America based on sexual promiscuity in which the values you and I cherish are long forgotten.

I hate to admit it, but if they pass the deceptively named “Student Non-Discrimination Act,” (H.R. 998 & S. 555) that’s exactly what they’ll do.

Better named the “Homosexual Classrooms Act,” its chief advocate in Congress is Rep. Jared Polis, himself an open homosexual and radical activist.

And it’s dangerously close to becoming the law of the land.

H.R. 998 already has 150 co-sponsors in the House!

And S. 555 already has 34 co-sponsors in the Senate!

That’s why I need you to act quickly — right away — to protect our nation’s youth.

I have prepared the official “Protect Our Children’s Innocence” Petition to Congress for you to sign.

Please click here to sign it right away so I can rush it to the Capitol with thousands more.

You and I must defeat this disastrous legislation.

You see, the Homosexual Classrooms Act contains a laundry list of anti-family provisions that will:

*** Require schools to teach appalling homosexual acts so “homosexual students” don’t feel “singled out” during already explicit sex-ed classes;

*** Spin impressionable students in a whirlwind of sexual confusion and misinformation, even peer pressure to “experiment” with the homosexual “lifestyle;”

*** Exempt homosexual students from punishment for propositioning, harassing, or even sexually assaulting their classmates, as part of their specially-protected right to “freedom of self-expression;”

*** Force private and even religious schools to teach a pro-homosexual curriculum and purge any reference to religion if a student claims it creates a “hostile learning environment” for homosexual students.

And that’s just the beginning of the Homosexual Lobby’s radical agenda.

In fact, it will set them up to ram through their entire perverted vision for a homosexual America.

My friend, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this is not a fight we can afford to lose.

That’s why Public Advocate is leading the fight against this immoral legislation.

This is a battle for the survival of American values and the fact is, there’s no time to waste.

The Homosexual Classrooms Act will turn America’s schools into indoctrination centers and its classrooms into social laboratories — and they’re pulling out all the stops to pass it.

You see, they’ve disguised the bill’s wicked purpose behind an innocent name: “The Student Non-Discrimination Act.”

The Homosexual Lobby knows that if the public knew the truth about their radical agenda, they’ll have no hope of success.

And their dangerously close to ramming their perversity into law.

H.R. 998 already has 150 co-sponsors in the House!

And S. 555 already has 34 co-sponsors in the Senate!

You and I need to take action right now to stop the growing momentum of this disastrous legislation.

I’ve developed a massive program to launch the second they try to push this bill through — mail, email, phones, and even radio and TV ads.

But that’s only possible with your support…

None of these things are cheap. In fact, running a program of the size necessary to defeat this bill can get quite expensive especially with increases in postage and printing costs.

That’s why I need your generous contribution. In addition to your signed “Protect Our Children’s Innocence” Petition, will you contribute $250, $100, $50 or even just $35right away.

And every dollar counts in this fight so even if you can only chip in $10 or $20, it will make a difference.

Unfortunately, this agenda is nothing new.

In fact, other countries like Britain are already experimenting with this kind of legislation, such as mandating public schools inject pro-homosexual content into every aspect of education.

Word problems in math classes are now to include homosexual characters. History classes will document the “civil rights” struggle against the “oppressive” pro-family establishment.

And it’s even started to infiltrate our state governments.

In California, lawmakers want to “require schools to portray lesbians, homosexuals, transsexuals … as positive role models to children in all public schools.”

Sexual deviants being held up as models of virtue?

If that makes you as sick as it makes me, you simply must join me in this battle for America’s children.

Please sign the “Protect Our Children’s Innocence” Petition to Congress and then send agenerous contribution right away. Your action will make all the difference.

And if all that wasn’t enough to convince you that action must be taken immediately, there’s more.

Many say that there will always be private schools and traditional homeschool families to teach traditional values to the next generation.

But the truth is, this radical agenda is NOT restricted to public schools.

Kevin Jennings, Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” has clearly stated that “every school, public, private or parochial has an obligation” to teach a pro-homosexual curriculum.

In fact, Jennings denounced school choice programs as “very dangerous” because they make it much harder to impose the Homosexual Agenda on our kids.

“Lord forbid a Baptist or Mormon school,” he added.

Jennings’ ultimate goal is for all curriculum in “kindergarten, and first grade, and second grade – every grade” be infused with a pro-homosexual slant.

Traditional values will be squashed and demonized as old fashioned or out of date, or even as bigotry.

You and I cannot let them succeed.

Please sign the “Protect Our Children’s Innocence” Petition to Congress I’ve prepared for you right away.

And along with your petition, would you please send a generous contribution of $250, $100, $50 or even just $35.

And every dollar counts in this fight so even if you can only chip in $10 or $20, it will make a difference.

Thank you so much for all you have done.

Sincerely,
Eugene Delgaudio
President,
Public Advocate of the U.S.

P.S. Radical Homosexuals in Congress have a plan to indoctrinate our children in schools — both public and private.

But Public Advocate is taking a stand. Will you join me?

Please sign the “Protect Our Children’s Innocence” Petition to Congress I’ve enclosed.

And please, along with your petition, would you please send a generous contribution of $250, $100, $50 or even just $35 right away?

And every dollar counts in this fight so even if you can only chip in $10 or $20, it will make a difference.

: Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott

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Ask, tell: What gay rights wins can teach pro-choice movement

Whether on Facebook or in statehouses, gay rights has momentum. Can pro-choicers borrow their successful tactics?

By Irin Carmon

From left to right, Petty Officer Autumn Sandeen, Lt. Dan Choi, Cpl. Evelyn Thomas, Capt. Jim Pietrangelo II, Cadet Mara Boyd and Petty Officer Larry Whitt, handcuffed themselves to the fence outside the White House during a protest for gay-rights in Washington, Tuesday, April, 2010. (Credit: AP)

Topics:Abortion, Gay Rights, Feminism

It’s happened to Newt Gingrich, and he responded calmly. Michele Bachmann gets it again and again. Mitt Romney learned the hard way in a New Hampshire diner.

It seems that everywhere the Republican hopefuls go, they’re confronted by supporters of gay rights, who may or may not themselves be gay. And every time it happens, their equivocations or evasions or sputtering give birth to another viral moment, primed for Facebook sharing and coalescing around the view that the Republicans are hopelessly out of touch on an issue of growing consensus. That narrative gets reinforced even without the candidates’ help — just last week, there was the instantly iconic image of a sailor, first off the ship, passionately kissing her partner, and the enduring popularity of Zach Wahls’ earnest speech about his mothers before the Iowa Legislature.

You know what I’ve never seen someone confront a Republican candidate about, with maybe one exception? The fact that four of them have signed the so-called Personhood pledge to wholly ban abortion and many common forms of birth control, or that five of them have vowed to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides basic health services to literally millions of women under the Title X program. The only recent viral video I can remember that deals with reproductive rights was U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier saying on the House floor in February that she had terminated a wanted pregnancy with serious complications. Combined traffic tallies at every publicly measured place where this video was posted suggest it had a fraction of the views of the others.

Such cathartic, confrontational moments aren’t the whole picture, but they’re emblematic of the sort of enthusiasm and grass-roots engagement that the gay rights movement has seen this year, and not coincidentally, they’ve come along with real legislative momentum. It’s hard to disagree that this year was “the best year for gays ever.” The Obama administration certainly would like that word out there, since it’s steadily building a case that it’s done more for gay rights in three years than anyone else did in eight. (Not that there’s very much competition on that front, given that the two most-targeted policies, “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act, were put in place by our last Democratic president.)

At the same time, the administration seems far less concerned with the case it’s going to make to women on reproductive rights. The Plan B debacle, with its flagrant contempt for both objective public health values and women, has proved a sort of tipping point for disappointed feminists, who are having discussions both privately and publicly about the weakness of Democratic support for reproductive rights, often looking enviously at the sort of leverage gay rights activists have generated.

To be clear: This is not a women versus gay people dichotomy — there are, of course, lesbians as well as gay men who want to marry their partners, serve openly in the military, or be protected against discrimination, something quite visible in those viral moments too. (In fact, discharges under “don’t ask, don’t tell” tended to disproportionately affect women, and women of color in particular.) But it is instructive to contrast the statuses of these overlapping causes and wonder why, generally speaking, reproductive rights lacks the spontaneous creativity and popular coalescence the gay rights movement has seen lately. It’s a question of some urgency, not only because of the presidential election, but because of the recent, intensified wave of anti-choice legislation in the states.

The differences between the issues surely inform the administration’s calculations, at least in part. For one thing, the youngest generation of voters can’t understand what the fuss is all about when it comes to denying gay people equal rights, but may be more divided about abortion. According to a study by the Public Religion Research Institute in June, “on the issue of abortion, Millennials mirror their parents’ views, with about 6-in-10 saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But they are much more supportive than their parents of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. This suggests that we may see these issues moving on separate tracks in the future.”

That generation has grown up not only without the memory of when abortion was illegal, but also with the legacy of decades of anti-choice rhetoric stigmatizing abortion. They may not take seriously the anti-choice movement’s goals to ban abortion absolutely and at least some forms of contraception along with it. In pop culture, of course, even as being gay has been justifiably normalized in more and more fictional scenarios, abortion has all but disappeared.

There’s also the urgency involved: Abortion is still legal (for now). It’s easier to rally against an outright prohibition, like a federal act that actively discriminates against gay people, including ones whose unions are recognized by their home states. Very rarely is an outright abortion ban on the table, though that’s obviously the ultimate goal, and it’s harder to rally around, say, medically irrelevant restrictions on clinics, or waiting periods and ultrasound laws, which are harder to explain as succinctly. As Amanda Marcotte pointed out in an earlier discussion on this front, gay rights activists’ victories, such as HIV/AIDS-related activism, also lost some of their verve. “As the demands were actually met to a degree, the radical activism faded away — the radical pro-choice movement that had ACT UP-style actions faded away after abortion was legalized, and ACT UP hasn’t really been raiding places in a long time, now that HIV is taken seriously as a public health issue,” she wrote.

In that vein, a frequent criticism of pro-choice and feminist groups is that they’re too interested in access and cozying up to elected officials who in turn take them for granted. But whether or not the gay rights cause is better served by its official organizations (which helpfully include the likes of the Log Cabin Republicans), activism on this year’s key issues has clearly run the gamut from official lobbying and donor pressure to old-fashioned confrontational tactics like chaining yourself to the White House gate and getting arrested. And while there are certainly donors motivated by pro-choice values, most of the burdens of antiabortion legislation fall on the poorest and most vulnerable women — who are also less likely to be able to mobilize. As they did pre-Roe, wealthier women will nearly always be able to access the services they need. But both “don’t ask, don’t tell” (when it existed) and the Defense of Marriage Act affect people of every income and education level, from enlisted service members to West Point cadets, from the average Joe to, say, David Geffen.

Marriage and openly serving in the military, as many have pointed out, are fundamentally conservative, institution-friendly goals, whereas the right to terminate a pregnancy is still stigmatized as anti-family or a threat to traditional values. Given that roughly one in three women will have an abortion before age 45, most of them already mothers, and that 99 percent of us have used contraception, that’s a lot of women to condemn. What would it take for one of them to walk up to one of the candidates and defy them to call her a bad mother or a bad woman? With a camera-phone nearby, of course.

: Irin Carmon is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @irincarmon or email her at icarmon@salon.com. More Irin Carmon

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Religious leaders battle African homophobia

Facing bombs and bigotry, a growing band of clerics stands up for gay rights

By Naomi Abraham

Ugandan bishop Christopher Senyonjo, defender of gay rights (Credit: Facebook)

Topics:Gay Rights, Africa

When Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made a historic speech in Geneva on Dec. 8 calling for recognition of gay rights and support for those who brave hostility to defend gay rights, she might have been speaking of the Rev. MacDonald Semberka who was in the audience listening.

On the evening of Sept. 11, 2011, Sembereka, a Malawian Episcopalian, found his house reduced to unrecognizable rubble by a petrol bomb. A month later, he borrowed money for airfare so he could attend a conference at Union Theological Seminary, a Manhattan institution with a long history of social activism. He arrived wearing a clerical collar and a smile that belied the horror of seeing his home and nearly everything his family owned destroyed. At the two-day conference in New York, he would meet and strategize with other Christian leaders in the fight against Africa’s perilous and increasingly prevalent brand of homophobia.

Sembereka is one of a small but growing group of African religious leaders who have taken great personal and professional hits for supporting LGBT rights. For their efforts, they have faced violence, professional alienation and social ostricization. Yet these straight men and women, primarily Christian clergy, continue to criticize the intensifying vitriol and violence against gay Africans.

The motivation behind the bombing of the house Sembereka shared with his wife, two children and extended family has yet to be determined, and the perpetrators may never be brought to justice. But Malawian human rights organizations say Sembereka was likely a target because of his outspoken pro-gay views and his valiant defense of human rights.

Fortunately, the only ones home that fateful night were two teenage boys who managed to run out unharmed. “I’m thankful that miraculously no one was hurt,” Sembereka told me in an interview. “But what hurts me the most is to see my [7-year-old] daughter traumatized. She’s had bad nightmares since the attack.”

For the most part, African faith leaders have either fanned the flames of homophobia or stayed quiet on the issue. In some cases, they have been the key agitators of anti-gay attitudes in their countries.

In an interview last summer, Bishop Benjamin Nzimbi, the former archbishop of Kenya, told me that he could fix homosexuals by marrying off lesbians with gay men. Ugandan evangelical pastor Martin Ssempa has shown same-sex pornography to his congregation of hundreds in Kampala in order to rally up support for the Ugandan government’s anti-gay position.

Last month, after British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to cut aid to Ghana unless it retracted its anti-gay policies, religious leaders there made sharp comments against homosexuality and warned against capitulation. Some of the criticism came from 53 LGBT African groups who wrote, “While the intention may well be to protect the rights of LGBTI people on the continent, the decision to cut aid disregards the role of the LGBTI and broader social justice movement on the continent and creates the real risk of a serious backlash.”

Last week, after Clinton announced a similar decision to tie U.S. foreign aid to a country’s record on gay rights, the backlash was evident. Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president, said of homosexuality, “It’s something anathema to Africans, and I can say that it is abhorrent in every country on the continent that I can think of.” The National Council of Churches in Kenya stated flatly, “We don’t believe in advancing the rights of gays.”

Where religion plays a significant role in the lives of many Africans, faith leaders yield great influence over politics and in setting the moral compass of most African societies. Last spring when Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki nominated Willy Mutunga, a pro-gay judge, many of the country’s religious leaders sprang into action to oppose his nomination. Making matters worse for them, Nancy Baraza, the president’s choice for the deputy chief justice, was also supportive of gay rights. For two months, substantive issues were sidelined for questions on the nominees’ sexuality.

The two nominees, both straight, were eventually confirmed as chief and deputy chief justice. Activists in Kenya and across Africa hailed this as an unparalleled victory in their struggle for equality. Longtime gay rights activist David Kuria said, “Things are changing and the most pertinent example is the nomination of the deputy and chief justice. This discredits that Africa is universally united in its opposition of homosexuals.”

Methodist Rev. John Makokah of Kenya, who’s been blasted for his pro-gay views, said, “We have a long way to go but Willy Mutunga and Nancy Baraza will help usher a new dawn for persecuted homosexuals.” But the hearings in the Kenyan parliament last summer also demonstrated the strong sway of religion on government decisions.

Generally, media reports on homosexuality in Africa have focused on the legislative push in Uganda to render certain acts of homosexuality a crime punishable by death and on the wave of lesbian “corrective” rapes in South Africa. But little attention has been given to the African activists, gay and straight, who challenge the mistreatment of gay Africans and the criminalization of homosexuality in 38 of 54 countries in Africa.

For example, Bishop Christopher Senonjo, a retired 80-year-old Anglican Bishop from Uganda, has been a beacon of support for LGBT Ugandans since 1998 when he began to counsel gay men and women. Around the same time, a group of gay men founded one of Uganda’s first gay groups and asked the bishop to chair the organization. His decision to accept the invitation would lead to years of persecution. Because of his support of homosexuals, he would be ostracized from the church, stripped of his pension and precluded from performing his religious duties.

But he says the most difficult part of his ordeal has been the backlash against his family. Recently, his daughter’s fiancé broke off the engagement because he said he didn’t want to be associated with a family who held pro-gay views. But early on, he says, even his family had their doubts. His wife, Mary, 73, did not understand or agree with what he was doing but, laughing and showing his toothy smile, he said, “God changed her heart.”

Today, Mary is a quiet force of support for her husband and the LGBT individuals she meets through his work. When a Ugandan lesbian broke down into uncontrollable tears at the conference in New York, Mary scooted her chair to where the woman was sitting and rubbed her back till she stopped sobbing and stayed by her side for the rest of the day.

Albert Ogle, president of St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation, a faith-based organization headquartered in San Diego, says that the Senonjo and Sembereka “are fueled by a moral value, which is about including all the marginalized in ministry and service. It’s not that their mission is about gay rights necessarily but to serve all humanity.”

By the end of the conference Ogle and those in attendance formed a coalition, which they dubbed “Compass to Coalition” to combat punitive laws and attitudes toward LGBT people in Africa and in the 76 countries around the world where it is illegal to be gay.

Anglican priest Michael Kimindu of Kenya says religious leaders in Africa have to be at the helm for changing attitudes toward gay people. Like many of his counterparts, he’s also been banished from the church and alienated from family members for his work with LGBT Kenyans. “We can’t let them be treated this way,” he says of gay Kenyans. “The church has to lead in bringing dignity to these people.”

When Sembereka took the stage at the conference, he also spoke of the formidable challenges that he and other LGBT-affirming faith leaders faced: “We are branded as Western puppets or gay ourselves.” He added that these attacks would not stop him or his colleagues from continuing to fight the unnecessary persecution of people of diverse sexualities. Later when asked about his destroyed home he said, “That too will be something of the past just like the plague of homophobia.”

: Naomi Abraham is a multimedia journalist in New York City. She reported from Kenya and Uganda as part of a project sponsored by the International Center for Journalists. The Ford Foundation provided funding for this story. More Naomi Abraham

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Do I have to tell my girlfriend I’m gay?

I was thinking, maybe, I could just tough it out and marry her and have some kids and not ever have to tell?

By Cary Tennis

(Credit: Zach Trenholm/Salon)

Topics:Since You Asked, , , Gay Rights, Marriage, Gay Marriage

Dear Cary,

I have been dating my girlfriend for three years, yet I know I am gay.

I am writing this after my girlfriend just came into the room. I was on my couch, surfing sites with hot men.

I like show tunes, I am not all that into sports, and most important, I am attracted to men. In my life, I have always strived to be “normal.” I was always the odd kid out at school who always tried to fit in with the popular crowd. I bought all the right clothes, got into the coolest frat in college and only hung out with people based on social class simply for acceptance and to know what it is like to live a “normal” life. I don’t know how to live my life any other way, especially at 27 years old when all major decisions in life should have been “figured out.” I don’t want an alternative lifestyle.

I just want to be married and have kids and make my parents happy. Right now, my girlfriend is head over heels in love with me and is waiting for a ring within the year. I know if I break up with her that is the last chance I will ever have at a “normal” lifestyle and the rest of my life, I will be lost in oblivion. I am great at fooling everyone now. I date an incredibly beautiful woman and I am on top of the world; everyone is envious of me and every conversation topic is how cute we are together. I could be getting this the rest of my life and never have to hurt anyone. I strongly consider leading an uncomfortable, dishonest life, so that everyone around me is happy and gets what they dreamed of.

I can never “come out” of the closet. I am not strong enough for that and am not the type of person who would be loud and proud. I would be weak and humiliated. I don’t want stares for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be labeled “the gay guy” to every person I meet. I don’t want to see the looks on all my friends’ and families’ faces as they now feel awkward and recall all the gay jokes and cracks they have told me. I don’t suddenly want to be the gossip on Facebook, my high school reunion. “Guess who’s gay!!!????”

I am stuck in a black hole right now. I obviously know the “right” thing to do and I am sure many people out there are rolling their eyes, telling me to man up, break up with the girlfriend and get out there. I want to know if anyone else has felt this way before and, more important, if there is anyone still in the same position as me. I would like to talk and befriend you. I know nobody else going through what I am going through and I feel alone, utterly alone. I need a hand to hold onto and somebody to talk to. I am lost.

Lost

Dear Lost,

First off, you are going to be fine.

The only person you need to be honest with right now is your girlfriend. And even with her, you don’t need to tell her right this second.

Wait until you are ready.

Are you ready yet? Oh, OK. I thought you were ready. OK, I’ll wait. But I’m not pushing you.

Like I said, there’s no pressure. You don’t have to rush into anything. And there is nothing to fear.

You are going to learn to live as a gay man and know happiness as a gay man. You don’t have to become some screaming stereotype of a gay man and you don’t have to be “out and proud.” You don’t have to come flying out of the closet like a gay superhero and savior. You can come out quietly as if you had just ducked into the closet for a moment to choose a shirt. You can dress and behave exactly as you do now.

The only thing you cannot do is pretend you are straight and get married to this beautiful woman and have kids with her and live 20 miserable years in secret while everyone talks about what a cute family you are until you can no longer stand it and she has spent many miserable years wondering what the hell is wrong that you don’t feel attracted to her and then choose some drunken and traumatic moment on a rainy night when the kids are heading home from college to finally announce you’re gay and you’re moving out and you’ll be at the hotel and here’s the number and please forward any bills.

That you just cannot do. That’s a 1950s thing.

So let’s go through this together.

Is now a good time? Is she there? Why don’t you take her for a drive somewhere quiet, on a long and winding road, and sit somewhere outdoors by a lake and tell her. Or sit in your house where you both feel comfortable and tell her. Just treat the situation with some dignity and care so that she understands that you have some consideration for her. Anywhere. Just not in a crowded theater and not at Christmas dinner with her folks.

I mean, it’s going to come as a surprise. So let her be surprised. Let her let it sink in. Let her be angry if she is angry, or sad if she is sad, or just dumbfounded if she is dumbfounded. Give her time to let it sink in and be there for her.

Like I say, there’s no rush. But now might be a good time. Is she home?

OK, maybe you are still a little nervous about telling her. I can understand that. This is one of the biggest things you are ever going to do for yourself. This is a huge step. But it is a positive and courageous step. And you aren’t doing it just for yourself. By taking this step you are helping to end hundreds of years of suffering and oppression. You are breaking a chain that stretches back hundreds of years in which men like you were put to death and exiled and shunned. You are doing your part for our society, and all of us, from queers to oddballs to transgender folks to eccentrics to nerds to just every person who has ever felt out of place or awkward or fearful or misunderstood, every one of us will applaud you for being honest and doing the right thing, and every one of us will take courage and strength from knowing you did it, and every one of us will be glad that we live in a world where you no longer have to pretend to be the perfect dad with the perfect wife while secretly living as though you were a criminal.

You’re not a criminal. You’re not even a remotely bad man. You haven’t done anything wrong. All you’ve done is wonder about who you really are and try to figure it out and do the right thing.

But. Now that you feel sure, one thing is clear. You owe it to your girlfriend to release her from the relationship and tell her the truth. And, like I say, no hurry.

Is she home?

And please, listen to me, these horror stories, these images you have in your head of suddenly being “the gay guy,” these are just distorted and catastrophic projections. That isn’t what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen is that you, with your wonderful capacity for blending in, are going to carefully manage this thing.

So look at it this way. Right now, you have the opportunity to get a great weight off your shoulders before any real harm is done. And here’s something else I predict: Just taking the lid off this one secret is going to do you so much good!

Believe me, my friend, you are only 27 and you have a great life ahead of you. This is a manageable situation. This is a gift.

You can tell her any time.

Is she home?

Cary Tennis is Salon's advice columnist. His latest book is "Citizens of the Dream: Advice on Writing, Painting, Playing, Acting and Being." He leads writing workshops and creative getaways, and occasionally tweets and bellows as @carytennis on Twitter.

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