Why Saying ‘I Am Gay’ Can Be So Difficult

Three little words.

That’s what keeps bringing us back to this intersection of low comedy and pathos. Three words, none longer than three letters — and yet, some of us still find them nearly impossible to say.

Three words: I am gay.

If he’d been able to say those words, who knows what Roy Ashburn might be today? But we already know what his “inability” has made him: an object of ridicule.

Ashburn is a Republican state senator in California. He has always been rather reliably anti-gay in his lawmaking, voting against virtually every gay-friendly piece of legislation from marriage equality to a simple motion to set aside a day in honor of Harvey Milk, a gay political icon who was assassinated in 1978.

So naturally, we’re all shocked — shocked, I tell you, “shocked!” — to learn that Ashburn himself is gay. This revelation came after he was arrested for drunken driving early this month. Turns out he’d done his drinking at a gay bar. “I am gay,” he told a conservative radio host. As for his anti-gay record? He said he was just following the wishes of the people he served.

Because who wants a leader who thinks for himself?

It has since come to light that he faced similar accusations two decades ago when he was in the Navy. [READ MORE]