I’m a long way from my queer theory classes, and to be honest, I never thought I’d live in an age when what I learned in them would seem so important to straight people. But after six years of Republican rule, it’s clear that the old mantra “gay rights are human rights” has never been more true. Let me see if I can make this argument simply.

This story is a tale of long running horror and abuse. Of children. Even children who commit crimes deserve to be treated as children, with the assumption that they can be treated, educated, and otherwise returned to the path of becoming healthy, functional adult citizens. It has always seemed barbaric to me that we treat child offenders as we do adults in our justice system, but there isn’t a word strong enough to describe the condition in which hundreds of children are raped and sexually abused by their jailers. But as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the culture of rape in our prisons is widespread, and it’s a story that most of the media, as well as people in general, just don’t want to think about, let alone attempt to curb or control.

Rape and pedophilia are not specifically “gay” behaviors. To people like us, that’s obvious. People who have a healthy understanding about sex know that there is a difference between sex and rape, and that the latter is a physical expression of what Lambert is fond of calling the “authoritarian” impulse. Rape is about control, and people who rape aren’t “getting off” on the physical act so much as they are elevated, if one can call it that, by the perception that they have power over another human being.

In our culture, there are still many people who associate male-on-male rape as the ultimate act of degradation. The rapist achieves, by raping the male body of the victim, the status of ultimate authoritarian. He subverts another human being to his will, and at the same time, subverts what many believe to be the greatest social taboo. Through this perversion, using that word ironically, of social and cultural norms, the rapist is able to understand himself as the agent of ultimate control. I was reminded of just how deeply this current runs in our country while watching this movie. Gay people should rejoice that we live in this age, because for long decades before, out culture represented gays in a very limited number of ways, all of them degrading and negative. Primary in that representation is the gay man as rapist. Too many people are still programmed to believe that gay male sex must be about the violent perversion of heterosexual norms.

Which leads me to this story. I find myself in the uncomfortable position of arguing for a more favorable understanding of a convicted rapist. There were several witnesses and victims who testified against him, and his defense seemed to be only that he was a gay man. He claimed that those who accused him did so because they wanted to remain in the closet, and that in fact one of his accusers raped him. For me, the case is complicated by the fact that I can easily imagine a situation where gay men in the military find themselves making wildly inaccurate claims because of the ridiculous ’don’t ask don’t tell’ policy, and because of the cultural climate of the Air Force, which is often reported to be that branch of our military most infiltrated by authoritarian christianists. The bottom line for me is that if gay rights were reality and law, this rapist may not have felt the need to rape, and instead may have been able to openly embrace his homosexuality and develop healthy relationships with his peers. He may still have had the authoritarian impulses which led to his criminal behavior, but to me, the tragedy is that we’ll never know- for a gay man who desires a military career, the closet is the only place he can be.

The Closet isn’t some sort of cute term to describe a minor inconvenience. It is a horror. There are few crimes greater than the enforced denial of self, and it is a crime that one perceives doubly because not only is it perpetrated by the state and society, but also by the self. Imagine what it would be like if every day you woke up and looked in the mirror and were forced to say “I hate myself. I will oppress myself. I will deny my being. I will feel shame.” Imagine if in addition to doing this, you also regularly suffered at the hands of those who knew of your secret (for inevitably someone always does), and were blackmailed, raped, or enslaved to others with regularity or soul-destroying randomness. Even today, far too many gay people can relate personal horror and tragedy, often at the hands of family or “friends,” because of the social confusion that is the way in which homosexuality is processed by people in much of the country.

The costs of the closet are great. In addition to “minor” personal tragedies, there are political conditions that could not exist without the continuation of the culture of the closet. Republicans would not have been able to maintain their majority without a motivated base, fired up to turn out and vote in order to “protect families” by denying gay people our rights. As Foley (and so many others!) have shown us, the leadership of the Republican party is rife with closeted gays, who are openly contemptuous of their ’moral value’ supporters, and who demonstrate that daily. Read Mike’s blog for regular reports of what I mean. Today’s Republicans have brought new meaning to the words “perverted” and “hypocrisy,” and if I were still an academic I’d argue that their culture is one that takes the example of the closet and applies it to almost every arena in which they are actors. In public, they say one thing (fiscal responsibility, concern for security, religious piety) and in private (and not so private but hidden by our media through omission) they are completely the opposite.

Authoritarianism is not a “gay thing,” but it is exacerbated when it intersects with closeted homosexuality. The authoritarian impulse doesn’t develop as frequently in those who love themselves, who don’t fear difference in others, and who feel comfortable to explore and express the full range of human emotion. Conversely, like the “dark path” Yoda warns us about, authoritarian behavior gets easier with practice, it is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy for those who believe that where there is a “taint,” the only responses are those of shame, guilty, fear and hatred. Which, going Yoda again, lead to violence- against the self, against others, against the innocent.

Try to imagine a world in which no one could be shamed for being gay. Think of all our political opponents who would be neutralized, or who would have less influence and power when stripped of this issue as a weapon. Think of all the crimes and horrors that could be avoided, all of the cycles of violence that could be prevented, if people were not turned to authoritarianism as a response to our culture’s hatred of gays. We’re getting closer and it’s important for straight folks to do their part in this fight. Because my rights are your rights, and my government is your government, and we all benefit from freedom.