Serendipity
Out of the closet
From Leno to Oprah, not-so-obscure gay blogs to the New York Post, much has been said about New Jersey ex-Governor James E. McGreevy. His recent foray into the limelight to promote his "coming-out" memoir, "The Confession", reminded everyone of that fateful day two years ago when he declared to all and sunder that he was in fact, a "gay American".
I was in the US when he made that shocking declaration and I remember watching his speech on TV wondering what the fuss was all about. Everybody in New Jersey was stunned -- men, women, children included, heck, even the wild deer at the back of my brother's house in Morris Plains shamefully disappeared for a week after the news came out.
I couldn't believe why a country as liberal or as open-minded as America could still be scandalized by any man's admission of his homosexuality. But then again, McGreevy was no ordinary man. He was a young, brilliant, promising politician on his way to the White House. And when you're on your way to Washington, a side trip in a truck stop is tantamount to a permanent engine breakdown.
After a scandal, there are no second chances in American politics (unlike here in the Philippines where we put dirty, corrupt politicians to even higher office). What you do is resign, fade into oblivion and, well, if you have the guts, maybe make a memoir that will shock America even more. But the bottomline is, there will no longer be a place for you in the frontlines or even in the shadowy backrooms of the political (nether)world.
And so, I ask, why is this so? Why is it that when a man philanders, takes six wives or 12 mistresses, society can close its eyes or even silently applaud him for his machismo? But when a guy declares that he's out of the closet with his gay genes in overdrive, everybody reacts so violently as if homosexuality is a contagious disease. No, homosexuality is not a disease (although in the 1970s they considered it as a psychological / mental disorder) nor is it communicable (rest assured you can't catch it if you talk to a gay guy, even if he spits on your face).
Which brings me to a much debated topic on homosexuality: is it a result of nature or nurture? Is homosexuality genetic or is it a by-product of environmental factors? Biological and scientific studies have been made to resolve this debate: from literally picking on men's brains and concluding that there are physiological differences in the anatomical structure of a homosexual and heterosexual male's brain (a small portion of the hypothalamus of a gay man was found to be twice the size of his heterosexual counterpart according to DF Swaab, a physician who did the studies in the 1990s), to testing the effect of high levels of androgens on rats (in the males, the subject who received deficient levels of androgen became submissive in matters of sexual drive and reproduction and were willing to receive the sexual act of the other male rat according to a Stanford study).
Of course, not to be outdone are the socio-behaviorists who see childhood elements as the largest contributing factors to homosexuality, unresolved Oedipal issues, as well as parental and family dynamics or the effects of roles imposed by family and friends upon children (the masculine and the feminine stereotypes). Homosexuality has even been traced all the way back to ancient Greece when men engaged in same-sex relationships (although these were not equal relationships as they were older men to young boys going through the transition to adulthood) along with the theory that culture is a causative agent of homosexual expression (e.g. in Crete, every adolescent boy undertook a homosexual relationship as a rite of passage into manhood).
But like all debates, there has really been no definitive answer to the question of homosexuality. Even with a morality issue in the background over and above the biological and environmental dispute, I still think that it all boils down to two things: acceptance and equality. Homosexuals have as much right to exist, live and thrive in this world as heterosexuals. Why discriminate and why delineate? I suppose we are all the same in the eyes of God (at least I would think my God is not a homophobe), right?
For those who still choose to live in the closet, maybe it's time to do a McGreevy. There's really nothing more liberating then coming out. Leave the closet to your wardrobe. Life is short; it's better to be "out" than "in".