Heterosexism in our time

The Rev. Michael Piazza, the dean of the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, one of the largest gay congregations in the country, chastises his fellow gays for being so quick to condemn public sex in the Larry Craig scandal, and in one involving Shannon Bailey, a gay Democratic leader in Dallas who was arrested on charges of having sex in public. An excerpt from his column in the local gay newspaper:

But I do want to caution our community against simply assimilating the sex-negative attitudes of our fundamentalist sisters and brothers.

Increasingly, I see our community espousing heterosexist standards for lesbian and gay relationships and behaviors. Ultimately, those standards may be right for some of us, but it would be our own expression of hypocrisy to seek to impose our sexual standards on others.

How long have we been told that the only acceptable form of sexual
expression is between one man and one woman in the sanctity of marriage? We reject that judgment, as well we should.

What we need to avoid is becoming homosexual fundamentalists sitting in moral judgment on those who don’t meet standards dictated for us by the heterosexual majority.

We also must purge from our consciousness the compulsive need for the approval of the majority.

All our lives, we have subconsciously longed for our parents’ approval, but we are adults now. If the hetero majority doesn’t approve of us and our behavior, then that is their problem.

My Dallas Morning News colleague Steve Blow wrote a good column commenting on this today. Steve, note well, supports gay marriage, but he thought the Rev. Piazza was way out of line. Excerpt:

The Rev. Michael Piazza says let's not be so quick to judge. And I say, oh, let's do.

Maybe I'm being "heterosexist," but it seems a pretty easy call to say that sex in public parks and restrooms is not a healthy thing.
[snip]
Mr. Piazza is distressed because it seems that we heterosexuals are having some nasty influences on the gay community. "Increasingly, I see our community espousing heterosexist standards for lesbian and gay relationships and behaviors," he wrote.

"What we need to avoid is becoming homosexual fundamentalists sitting in moral judgment on those who don't meet standards dictated for us by the heterosexual majority."

If disapproval of restroom romance makes you a fundamentalist, I guess that puts me in the fire-and-brimstone camp.

Mr. Piazza, who is dean of Dallas' Cathedral of Hope, the largest predominantly gay church in the nation, seems to have adopted a defiant "do-your-own-thing" theology.

"If the hetero majority doesn't approve of us and our behavior, then that is their problem," he writes.

OK, could Mr. Piazza have possibly handed a bigger stick to the gay bashers? I think not. As I read his column, I could hear their voices: "See what we've been saying all along?"

Keep in mind that Steve Blow is a straight man who supports gay rights. And he quoted a local Log Cabin Republican as saying that Piazza is wrong about this issue. Big ol' whiny Rev. Piazza, showing the emotional maturity of a 13-year-old, sent a letter around town accusing Blow of being a gay-basher for criticizing him. Blow reprinted it here. Excerpt:

As I said I knew we disagreed, but I have to say that the way your column went I felt like the fag getting beaten up by the bully on the playground again so my heterosexual "friend" can prove his manhood. Go ahead punch me and Shannon all you want...after all you "own" the column and we can't really fight back.

I know that was not your intent and you covered it nicely with your continued support for equality for gays, but you couldn't help strike out at the end with one last un-defendable blow against someone whose life has been threatened regularly while fighting for equality on the front lines in Dallas for 20 years.

Ultimately, your article really wasn't so bad. What was bad was how stupid I felt that I talked to you this week like a friend who would really listen rather than like a reporter looking for a straw man (fag) he could knock down to make his case of "moral" (sexual) superiority.

Oh good grief. The Rev. Michael Piazza desperately needs to grow up. How tiresome is that all-too-familiar mantra: If you don't agree with and affirm me in every possible way, then you hate me! You hate me! You hate me!" Frankly, though, I'd pay cash money to see Chris Crocker do a YouTube dramatic reading of the pity-party Piazza epistle.