Another All Worked Up Column

ALL WORKED UP ABOUT M.Y.O.B.
By J.T. Benjamin
Copr. 2007

Early last year, in this very column, I announced the adoption of a new motto, to coincide with the then-upcoming mid-term elections. My goal was to give like-minded, free-thinking, sexually liberated, intellectually sophisticated people of exceptionally good taste, (like the readers of this column), a ready-made high caliber piece of ammunition in our war of words against the forces of sexual repression. Whenever the enemy tried to shove their anti-freedom, anti-fun, anti-whoopie doctrine down our collective throats, my motto would provide an easy, clear, direct response.

And what was this ready-made credo? This soundbite? This armor-piercing shell of a catchphrase?

“Mind Your Own Business.”

As I wrote back in January, 2006,

“It’s firm. It’s assertive. It’s simple. It’s ‘Get The Government Out Of Our Private Lives.’ It’s Freedom. It’s Liberty. It’s All-American. It’s Ann Landers saying, ‘Dear Concerned: M.Y.O.B.’ It’s Hank Williams singing, ‘Why don’t you mind your own business, so you won’t be minding mine.’ You can’t get more All-American than Ann and Hank. Of course, regarding child pornography and sexual assault, we all need to crack down, but when it comes to monitoring the sex lives of consenting adults, we have to say just four simple words.

“Mind Your Own Business.

“A guy down the street hangs a “Gay Pride” flag in his window where everybody can see it.

“Mind Your Own Business.

“The newsstand on the corner sells books and magazines with all kinds of filth and dirty pictures.

“Mind Your Own Business.

“That couple in church looks nice, but I hear they throw late-night private parties once a month, and some of the people in those parties wear lots and lots of leather.

“Mind Your Own Business.

“Mr. Edwards, the math teacher, has a roommate named Jim, and there’s only one bed in their apartment.

“Mind Your Own Business.”

I have to say that the reaction to my adoption of that credo has been overwhelmingly positive. I can’t count the number of emails, blogs, and general comments I’ve received in support, for which I’m grateful, and I’m glad to see that even certain public figures have been voicing similar sentiments.

I just didn’t expect most of them to be REPUBLICANS.

Take young Tyler Whitney, for example. He’s been working as the webmaster on Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo’s Presidential campaign. Tyler’s also gay. Mr. Whitney was recently “outed” by the Michigan gay newspaper “Between The Lines,” and his cohorts on the Tancredo campaign rushed to his defense. Bay Buchanan, one of Tancredo’s top advisors, even said, “A person’s sexual preference is a personal matter and has nothing to do with the campaign.”

Amen, Sister! That’s the MYOB philosophy at its finest. Well stated!

The only problem is, Whitney’s boss is famous for his anti-gay marriage rhetoric, and Whitney himself is a card-carrying member of the Young Americans For Freedom group at Michigan State University. YAF is listed as an anti-gay, anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and nine months ago, Whitney himself was seen at a YAF-sponsored demonstration against pro-homosexual legislation, holding a sign that said, “Go back in the closet!”

So it appears that Whitney was NOT a believer in the MYOB credo right up until HIS right to privacy and HIS sexual preferences were brought to public attention. That’s okay, Tyler. Converts are welcome in our movement. As long as you’re a believer now, that’s all that’s important.

Just like Mary. She just had a baby boy with her life-partner, Heather. That’s right. Samuel has two mommies. Of course, the Holy Terrors have been up in arms about all this. Focus On The Family founder James Dobson eve chimed in, saying on the FOTF website that “The two most loving women in the world cannot provide a daddy for a little boy—any more than the two most loving men can be complete role models for a little girl…The fact remains that gender matters—perhaps nowhere more than in regard to child rearing…Isn’t there something in our hearts that tells us, intuitively, that children need a mother and a father?…(R)aising children is a two-person job best accomplished by a mother and a father.” Some of Dobson’s cronies on the uber-right even called Mary and Heather, “cruel” and “selfish” for bringing a baby into the world without a father.

To her credit, Mary wouldn’t put up with that shit. She proudly proclaimed, “This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate, on either side of a political issue. It is my child.”
You go, girl! Tell those fascists hiding behind the Bible to get their stinking noses out of your uterus and your bedroom! It’s tough enough raising a child in this day and age, and it’s been made all the more difficult when right-wing, homophobic assholes feel they’ve got the God-given right to interfere with your right to happiness and the joys of motherhood. Way to go, Mary Cheney!

Mary Cheney?

Yup. As in, “Lesbian daughter of Vice-President Richard ‘Prince Of Darkness/Darth Vader’ Cheney. Chief crony to George Dubya Bush and sidekick whore to the very same religious right homophobic assholes who are shrilly attempting to legislate homosexuality into fourth-class citizenship status. Mary’s been working diligently for her father’s campaigns for years and has never said one word to criticize or dilute the Bush-Cheney cabal’s message of anti-gay hatred.

So Mary and Heather are also latecomers to the MYOB party. That’s okay. You’re welcome anyway. It’s a shame your son’s been born into a world of such animosity toward his two mommies, and that his grandfather is one of the main sources of that animosity. But it’s cool. It’s also ironic.

There’s irony, and then there’s hypocrisy. When Bill Clinton was being impeached for the Monica Lewinsky affair, two of his biggest critics were House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and then-Congressman David Vitter of Louisiana. Both Republicans screamed bloody murder that Clinton had engaged in an otherwise private indiscretion, and that his moral failings were so great that he should either resign or be removed from office.

At the time, Gingrich’s and Vitter’s wailings drowned out any responsive, “Mind your own business” argument, but rest assured. Both Gingrich and Vitter have seen the light, now.

A few months ago, on James Dobson’s (him again!) radio program, Gingrich confessed that while he was persecuting Clinton for adultery, Gingrich himself was cheating on his second wife, with the woman who would become his third wife. (For that matter, Gingrich started seeing his second wife while he was still married to his first wife. I detect a pattern, here).

Gingrich sees no hypocrisy or irony in his actions, and he’s even gone on the record as saying that private affairs (pun intended) shouldn’t be fodder for public discussion. In effect, he’s saying it’s None of Our Business. Which it isn’t. Except when he says it is. Like when it’s someone else’s business.

Finally, David Vitter’s situation is still the stuff of late-night talk show monologues. The phone numbers in the D.C. Madam’s Rolodex. The testimonials from several well-known Washington and New Orleans prostitutes. The tearful Jimmy Swaggert-style “I-have-sinned” press conference, standing next to his “supportive” wife, who looks like she’s staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

Of course, any decent observer would conclude that Vitter’s indiscretions and the attendant consequences should be solely the province of himself and his wife, and it’s none of our business what they do or how they do it, right?

And the fact that Vitter demanded Clinton resign over the Lewinski affair should bear no reflection on Vitter’s own position in the Senate, right? Live and let live, right, Senator? Mind your own business, right Senator Vitter?

Congressman Gingrich?

Ms. Cheney?

Mr. Whitney?

Looking back, I blame myself. I appreciate that conservatives are seeing the light, but it’s apparent when I came up with my MYOB credo, I didn’t go into enough detail. I went for brevity, not precision. I’d just assumed that when someone wants to be left alone, he naturally must be willing to leave others alone, as well. It appears that Gingrich, Cheney, and the rest didn’t get the subtlety of the message until it was their private lives under the microscope.

Therefore, I’m revising my credo. The new one doesn’t flow off the tongue as well as “Mind Your Own Business” does, but I don’t want any more misunderstandings.

Ahem.

“If you keep your nose out of my bedroom, I’ll keep my nose out of your bedroom, and nobody has to suffer a broken nose.”

How’s that?