Republicans’ Fresh Fixation on Vintage Homophobia
For much of my life, I was extra careful around young children, especially young boys. I made certain not to congratulate one of them with a pat on the back, lest run-of-the-mill tenderness be misinterpreted as something else.
There was no playful tousling of hair, so there would be no wrongful stirring of suspicion. Born in 1964, I grew up when stereotypes about gay people like me were largely negative and deeply ingrained.
And perhaps the cruelest of the lies about us, reflected in recurring debates about who should and shouldn’t be allowed to teach in schools, was that many gay men were child molesters.
It was a facet of our perversion, a function of our deviance. To leave us alone with children was to give us an opportunity to groom them into sexual activity, so we had to be watched.
