9. The People Who Think I’m Gay

To The People Who Think I’m Gay:

Sorry, I’m not. This could end here, but that wouldn’t make for a therapeutic letter or a good read. So here goes.

During my junior year of high school a fellow musical theater student continually asked me if I were homosexual. Day after day. Week after week. He’d lob the question out there. I’d tell him no every time. I swear I was an unassuming kid.

I really played Schroeder in this musical in high school.

Eventually, I went to my mother to ask her why this guy kept picking on me. She led me to two Bible verses and then said: “You know, he’s probably gay himself.”

I had never quite thought about it like that. How prophetic. That same character made his way out of the closet three years later. And now you can better understand why I apologized to you at the beginning of this letter.

Before I continue, I feel compelled to speak to the gay community the way President Obama spoke to the Muslim world. I do not hate you. Heck, I even have a few gay friends. You may think that comes across similar to the way a white person tells you about his one black friend. But I have the sincere belief that openly gay people are some of the bravest inhabitants of this crazy world.

That still doesn’t mean I care to see two men or a female couple kissing in public. For that matter, I don’t want to see a man and a woman tonguing each other down in the mall, either. Save that stuff for the privacy of your homes. This, and VH1, is  why we have 8-year-olds who know that blowjobs aren’t Popsicles.

I digress.

I know I have a few tendencies. I have way more female than male friends. I think crossing my legs is just fine. And maybe I do have too many shoes.

President Obama crossing his legs at the UNITY Convention in Chicago in July 2008.

But let me explain: I have more female friends because I think women are easier to converse with, and I think they help prepare me for a potential wife. I cross my legs because it’s comfortable, and hell, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Denzel Washington, Will Smith and President Obama do it. And the shoes? I think everybody — gay, straight, bi-sexual, poor, working, middle class, rich and wealthy people — should have a plethora of nice, comfortable kicks. People look at your feet like they look at your hands (manicured hands also shouldn’t be a designation).

Lest I forget, not every man who does musical theater is homosexual. That’s just a bad stereotype.

Honestly though, I’m too square to be gay or a manwhore. Believe it or not, I’m actually petrified of having children I can’t afford out of wedlock with a woman I barely know. The idea of becoming more susceptible to catching sexually transmitted diseases doesn’t tickle me, either. And I’ve been crushing on some girl every year of my life since I was five.

Go figure. It’s all really that simple.

In the interest of full disclosure, I feel it’s imperative that I say the following: I don’t believe in gay marriage, but think civil unions are just. I think liberals and gays who don’t understand why blacks didn’t support gay marriage in California need to spend three Sundays in a Black Baptist church not officiated by Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I’m sure he’s not as bad a man as he’s been painted, but that would still be too easy.

And if you think all gay people are going to burn in hell, you probably should go ahead and pick a number. Yeah,  there’s a lofty chance you’ll be joining them there because of your burgeoning desire to judge. You’ll probably find the likes of John G. Roberts, Jim Rome, Curt Schilling, Charles Barkley, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Campbell Brown, Sandra Day O’Connor, Clarence Thomas and myself there as well.

Not Thurgood Marshall, though. He’s like the Black Moses of civil rights. He can’t go to hell.

Seriously… please just do two things. Stop judging people you don’t really know. And don’t worry about me in the afterlife because I pray for forgiveness after each letter I write.

Two fingers (no, not the middle ones),

Damon