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04/28/2003 Archived Entry: "What Every Conservative Needs Now Is A Gay Best Friend"

WHAT EVERY CONSERVATIVE NEEDS NOW IS A GAY BEST FRIEND: I'm not going to bother commenting on the Santorum brouhaha (god knows how Andrew Sullivan has already beaten that particular controversy into the ground and then proceeded to beat the ground he buried the controversy in), but it's interesting to read this Elizabeth "Noblesse Oblige" Nickson column in the light of recent events. I originally read the thing on Friday and I absolutely loathed it. Now it's been posted onto the web in all its smarmy, condescending glory. It begins with this outlandish opening line, "I have a much greater sense of how difficult it is to come out as a gay man or woman since the United States won the war," and goes straight downhill from there. The title of the column is "Coming Out of the Conservative Closet," but from the message Nickson seems to be sending us (in as far as I can piece together anything coherent from Nickson's ramblings), the column could very well be called,

"I MIGHT BE A CONSERVATIVE, BUT I'M NOT A CRAZY HOMOPHOBIC FREAK."

Fine, whatever. But how are we to explain the clueless self-absorption of paragraphs like this:

In desperation for someone to talk to in the last days of the war, I went to the Fraser Institute's [ed. Canada's equivalent of a right-wing think tank] Annual General Meeting, walked into the hotel ballroom and my jaw actually dropped. Yes, really, dropped. So this is where they've been keeping all the incredibly handsome men in really beautiful suits, I mused. It was a little like a room in heaven that God had made especially for me.

Why do I get the feeling that Nickson has been watching too much Sex and the City? Then we get to read Nickson boasting about how tolerant and open-minded she is:

I wouldn't be your average conservative perhaps. For instance, I think gay men and women make a unique contribution, without which my life and yours would be a lot poorer and plainer....I am intensely curious about races other than mine, have several friends with mixed-race children, had a long affair with an Indian (dot not feather), and consider one of my best new friends a Cowichan tribe activist.

Elizabeth Nickson, COMPASSIONATE conservative! Friend to all creeds, races, and sexual preferences. The fact that you can easily substitute the phrase "gay men and women" in the sentence about unique contributions and replace it with any minority group you can think of (heck, even "white, heterosexual males" will do) and the sentence remains true, no matter what, only points to the intellectual paucity of Nickson's sentiments. It's meaningless feel-good bafflegab, worthy of any bureaucrat in our nation's "Multiculturalism" program. And must Nickson really air all those intimate details from her life in order to prove just what an incredibly nice and generous person Elizabeth Nickson really, really is? It's kind of like listening to someone crow about how much money she gives to charity each year. Personally, if I were Nickson's former East Indian lover or her "best new friend," the Cowichan tribe activist, I'd be a touch annoyed at the fact that my name was being used in a national newspaper for the sole purpose of promoting the greater glory of Elizabeth Nickson. Not "your average conservative" indeed!

In any case, coming out as Christian or conservative is terrifying, as is, I'm certain, coming out as gay. You will be discriminated against. The crimes of the past will be held against you. Your income, unless you stick close to your kin, will be threatened. People will frown when they look at you. People will hate you without knowing you, they will call you names if you say anything, they will send you coruscating hate mail, you will suck it up. This will make you crazy and you will understand extremism because you'll see it in your own soul, called up from the depths by the hatred in which you are held....My gay friend told me Monday that three of his friends told him they were fed up by the left, hated being portrayed as victims by the press, and were turning right. Perhaps they can teach us a little about courage.

And there you have it. Coming out of the closet politically is just as frightening as coming out of the closet sexually. Like homophobes everywhere, those damn rascally liberals will threaten your livelihood, say mean things about you, write you horrible letters, and generally make your life a living hell. For all I know, liberals probably go around beating right-wingers to death, just like homophobes did to Matthew Shepherd. Quite frankly, when something like 30 to 45% of voters out there would describe themselves as conservatives, when the political right has a majority in all branches of government in the United States, and when (pace Nickson) most liberals are manifestly not violent ignorant goons, Nickson's self-serving "poor little me" claims of victimhood are morally sickening. This is a woman, you must remember, who lives on British Columbia's Salt Spring Island (island motto: "Arts, crafts, and culture in a spectacular setting"), the closest equivalent Canada has to Martha's Vineyard. The fact that Nickson can draw a vacuous "Movie of the Week"-style lesson about how poor, suffering gays can teach their fellow poor, suffering conservatives "a little about courage" just shows how devoid of intellectual substance Nickson's moralizing puffery really is.

Now, I absolutely despise homophobia (as Elizabeth Nickson might phrase it, "some of my best friends are gay"), especially if it comes from our so-called "allies" on the religious right. I welcome any call for a reconciliation between conservatives and gays in general. I feel that it is the right thing to do both morally and politically. But Nickson's kind of smug, patronizing condescension with its refrain of "aren't we all victims of hatred here?" is the type of attitude which gives moral pomposity a bad name. Gays are not to be treated a kind of nice accessory to have along to be used to justify the right's sense of moral superiority nor are they to be invoked as fellow victims whenever the right feels the need to rehearse its long history of "suffering" at the hands of the "evil" left. Far better the honestly-expressed fear and loathing of a Rick Santorum or a Family Research Council than the treacly, self-aggrandizing "tolerance" of an Elizabeth Nickson.

Replies: 1 Comment

Pity. I don't read Nickson that often but I have enjoyed what she wrote before. I hate conservatives who condescend to other conservatives.

Posted by Steve Martinovich @ 04/28/2003 08:05 PM EST