ROBERT OSCAR LOPEZ: Gay writer in Slate: I can’t live without being marked as a perpetual victim!

Think of how much potential there is in saying that we’re all human, and we can have experiences or temptations or urges from day to day without having to subsume our whole essence and identity into them? That sounds liberating to me.

To this Slate writer, it’s “the new homophobia.” To say we’re all human and not divisible into airtight categories is anti-gay. Why? Because “Gay” as an identity has become entirely predicated on being hated and dissimilar from others. Stern screams out: “Don’t take away my claim that I am defined by what I do with my genitals, because without that claim, I won’t get any more special treatment!” He’s afraid that once people don’t view gayness as an intrinsic trait like blackness or femaleness, people won’t feel pressured to extend special protections to “gays” as a class. It’s also true that they wouldn’t discriminate against “gays” since they wouldn’t distinguish them from other people. And Stern would have to learn how to live in a world where he’s neither a special elite nor a downtrodden victim.

He would just be …. himself. I guess that scares some people. It’s a pity.