A Borrowed Note On Homophobia in the US

[rfmcdonald]

In visiting J. Bradford Delong's blog, I noticed the following interesting entry concerning apparent homophobia at the highest levels of the American government. Canadian-born ABC News reporter Jeffrey Kofman did a report on discontent among American troops stationed in Iraq. In response, the White House seems to have responded by leaking the fact that not only was Kofman openly gay, but that he was a Canadian. As Mark Kleiman observed, however, that the joke backfired, when a high-ranking soldier who saw the report asked Kofman if it was true that he was Canadian:

It seems to me -- though I may be overinterpreting -- that both the soldier and Drudge were making the same gentle joke: rejecting the White House's attempt to denigrate Kofman in terms of his sexual orientation by focusing their reaction on his nationality instead.

Whoever in the WH press office tried this stunt seems to have run into a little bit of cultural lag. He (or she) struck with a weapon that used to be sharp but has, rather suddenly, become dull.

Thirty years ago, and to some extent even ten years ago, homosexuality was what Erving Goffman called a stigma: a "spoiled identity," something that people were ashamed of and wanted to conceal. In some quarters, it still is.

But in elite circles, even right-wing or military elite circles, being homosexual mostly isn't considered shameful any more. Even though some heterosexuals are still uncomfortable with it and some homosexuals are still ashamed of it, that discomfort and shame are not respectable, and therefore are not to be spoken. (It's about where being Jewish was in, say, 1960.)

Really, that's such a profoundly cheerful thought I almost want to laugh out loud.

I have to agree with Mr. Delong that it also says worrying things about the White House.

(This also goes to show, as Ikram Saeed has observed, that there is nothing at all wrong in the world's eyes with being Canadian.)