Gay Conservative: The Oxymoron that Isn’t & the Self-Appointed Conservative Gatekeepers

by: Steve Yuhas

Over the last week I have been receiving attention from people, particularly in the south (mostly Alabama) and have done any number of interviews about a column that I wrote about Natalee Holloway.  I will not rehash the article, but stand behind what I wrote and said about the situation.  During the course of the interviews and in emails I received from people expressing how they feel I realized a predictable, but still superficial theme: some people cannot fathom a person being gay and conservative.

Responses ran the gamut with the geographic proximity to Holloway’s home town and state being a major factor in how people felt and how vitriolic their response (get ready for the longest column I’ve ever done, but important to finally say so I can refer people to it when they ask how a gay can be a conservative).

Before I begin explaining why what a person does in the comfort and privacy of their bedroom has little consequence in how they think politically and there are more important factors in life that determine political philosophy I think one thing is important.  This column is not to “write off” the south or to make fun of the people who live there as I admire their red state status, family lives and only wish that the common sense attitude they have on most issues would work west. 

Now to politics:

In email after email and caller after caller one theme became apparent: being gay and Jewish (or either of the two really) is completely unacceptable to some in the south and most probably elsewhere, but in my mind they are not only compatible, but the two go together perfectly.

A few examples (and I have to say right here that my last column, although controversial, emails ran about 80/20 correct) of what I mean: one caller to a radio program said that being gay and conservative was an “oxymoron” and an email I received said (among other things) “…Hopefully you will find Christ or you will surely find Hell…I feel sorry for you” and another added, “Thankfully your (sic) a fag and you’ll never loose (sic) a child but your (sic) (J)ewish too either find Jesus and stop calling yourself a conservative or a Republican you give both a bad name…”

Without trying to offend the indelicate sensibilities of those who wrote about my need for Jesus or desires for all gays to burn in hell, I will explain not only my own politics, but about a quarter of the gay people in America who identify as conservative. 

Most people don’t even think about their sexuality.  Few people wake up every day think about it; others put it on their sleeve and talk about it all day and let it drive them in everything they do from voting to eating (read: gay activists). 

Some callers to radio programs became upset over not only the contents, but that I had a biography on my website that told them that I was gay, Jewish, and a disabled honorably discharged veteran.  It is there for people who stumble across the site or see an article or hear the show and for people who do not know me.  It also puts in context the vantage point from where I look at life.  I do not talk about being gay as a way to be a victim, I don’t talk about being disabled as a cry for help, I don’t speak to my faith as a way to degrade other faiths or recruit people to mine and I don’t talk about being a veteran except for having pride in the fact that I served.  Still, people complained that I gave my biography that included those things. 

Have you ever known a writer or talk show host not to have a biography on their home page?  It is not like it is included in the article they were writing to complain about since the endnote is a simple sentence with how a reader can contact me and the fact that I’m a talk show host on KOGO.  The same one below; not to mention that people have to seek out the facts of my life yet they’re upset that they found exactly what they were looking for.  It is not like I hid it under some deceptive heading – it is under B-I-O-G-R-A-P-H-Y.

In hopes of retaining my conservative card (or getting it back from the posse sent from Alabama who confiscated it) I will outline how one can be gay and conservative.  I had no idea that radio callers and people with email were the conservative great hall.

Being a social and fiscal conservative is not inconsistent with being gay.  I am a social conservative because I believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman and was front and center on the debate not only in California, but in other states as well.  I believe that a child should be adopted into a home with a mother and a father, not a mixture of the two or single parents.  I believe that abortions of all types, including incest and rape, should be outlawed and that Roe v. Wade should be overturned and everything that typical conservatives believe, including the fact that government should be limited and not stretch into your private consenting adult relationships.

On other issues I believe in the idea of our Constitutional Republic that are written about in the Federalist Papers and other writings from our forefathers and that government must limit itself to things specified for their care, like national defense and securing the border.  I want the Congress to cut taxes even more and to reform the tax code permanently to allow taxpayers to keep more of what they earn and to allow young workers to take their Social Security tax and put it into higher bearing savings accounts and the market.  I want a nation tough on crime that keeps Americans free and allows us to live in a manner consistent with the way we acknowledge as our distinct American culture, while realizing that some Americans may be inconvenienced for the security of others. 

I do not believe in hate crime legislation or special recognition for specific groups based on racial criteria or sexuality and tired of hearing people blame America for terrorists wanting to attack us.

I could go on, but most people get the picture.  If you did not know I was gay you would read those things and assume I am a conservative, but because I am gay many of the velvet rope conservative guards in the south believe it cannot be possible. 

What a pompous attitude from people who divorce, commit adultery and break many of the laws of G-d, but who have adopted a sliding scale of moral relativism where the sin of homosexuality excludes a person from being a conservative, but every other sin is greeted with open arms so long as you sleep with the right person at night.  Forget the fact that adulterers and people married many times over are leaders of conservatives; never mind that people who found Jesus in prison have been excused their sin of burglary or theft, spousal abuse or assault and set aside the fact that many conservatives have their share of out of wedlock children and shacked-up (thanks Dr. Laura) before marriage.

They’re all perfectly good conservatives because they’re heterosexuals and not Jewish – they found Jesus and they sleep with the right person.  Their public sins are forgiven and their conservative cards laminated while mine is torn up because I spend my evenings with a man instead of a woman.  I’ve made my share of mistakes in life, but the sliding scale that has been adopted to be a conservative is an interesting thing: no sin is greater than being gay and if you are you may as well not apply.

I include my sexuality in my biography because it is one of the many things that makes the moniker of the program on KOGO go without explanation.  “Uniquely Conservative Talk Radio”™ does not mean that I’m unique as a conservative; it means I’m unique insofar as I can think of no other host like me (if you can find one let me know).  I say I’m disabled because people are interested about why I think about disability issues and why I take them seriously.  I say that I’m Jewish because over six million Jewish people died in the Holocaust by people who believed our faith so inferior that I owe it to them not only to practice it, but to be proud of it.  I say that I am a veteran because nothing makes me prouder than the fact that I did more than talk about the wonderful things that America has to offer – I served it in uniform voluntarily.

For those who disagree that a gay person can also be a conservative I’d like to ask what other sins preclude membership in this exclusive club?  I realize that many will never understand or comprehend, or get beyond, the fact that there are gay conservatives, but there are and although we don’t wear rainbows on our clothes and tend not to frequent bathhouses or criticize America – is that which you find so offensive, what we do in our bedroom, so beyond the realm of possibility that you believe that your sliding scale of ethical relativism means you refuse people who identify politically as conservative as little more than scum that you wish death?

Perhaps you should look at conservative leaders and think about their ethical lapses, addictions, behaviors and failings and contrast that against the sin that you believe is so reprehensible that you kick us out of your exclusive club.  I think you’d find yourself a very lonely group if you included only people in your group who were pure of sin and human failing.

To be gay and conservative is not an oxymoron – it is entirely consistent with the political views I hold and although you may disagree and this article is the longest I ever wrote it may very well be the most important.  I grow tired of people who declare themselves the agents who pass out the membership cards to the conservative club and emails deciding that my sin is worse than their own.

If nothing else I find it ironic that it is a Jew who has to remind people that Christian tradition says that Jesus Christ is the only person without sin and that he will be the judge of others.  While objecting to a column, though, so many in the south and elsewhere believe themselves so pure that they preach in Jesus’ name signing their name calling and plays on words with hyphenated last names because of divorce, using computers from which they look at porn and while judging my private life while they defend the behavior of every other sinner on the planet.

Given the odds that a straight Christian wanting to keep me out of the conservative club has sins of their own, I do not blame them for wanting to keep me out for it is people like me who are honest about their life and although are far from perfect and have made mistakes in the past – make no excuses for them today.  If my only sin today is who I go to bed with at night then surely that is not sufficient to say my views are not conservative.

Being gay and conservative is not an oxymoron and far from a contradiction; Christians judging others and declaring eternal damnation in hell, however, is and I wonder if they would respond if they knew about the private lives of their neighbors and friends and the conservative icons of our time?  For all of those that wrote, please send me a list of your sins and what sins are acceptable to be a conservative and I will reply with whether or not your conservative credentials have been confiscated.

I declare myself arbiter of conservative thought – after all it takes only a phone and an email and I’ve got both.

Steve Yuhas is a columnist and radio talk show host on KOGO AM 600 based in San Diego.  He may be reached at steve@steveyuhas.com or www.steveyuhas.com