Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Just Stay Quiet

The irrepressible Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on why gays get picked on at work.

THINKPROGRESS: Where do you stand on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act?
GOHMERT: I’m not aware of exactly which one you’re talking about.
THINKPROGRESS: It would protect LGBT workers from being fired due to their sexual orientation.
GOHMERT: Who wants to go talking about sexual orientation when they’re working? Good grief.

Gohmert is either being clueless or disingenuous. The problem is not about Those Chatty Gays standing up on their desks and declaiming loudly about the joys of their sexual orientation and how all the other folks in the office ought to give it a try.  In my experience, gays don't talk all that much about homosexuality per se, any more than straights talk about heterosexuality.

But what they do talk about — or would like to be able to talk about, or even reference in passing without worrying about it — is their relationships. We don't think anything about someone at the office or shop or factory mentioning some activity, game, picnic, movie that they went to with their boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, etc.  We think nothing of someone mentioning how their spouse or loved one cooked up a really great bowl of chili last night.  We take it in stride when someone puts a picture of their beloved on their desk, or on their screen saver.  We think it's cute if their main squeeze pops into the office to take them out to lunch.

Unless (for some observers) if that person and their significant other are of the same gender.  _Then,_ all of a sudden, such behavior is "talking about sexual orientation" or "pushing a gay agenda" or "flaunting their unnatural sexual activities."  

If you translate someone's amusing water cooler anecdote about a home improvement project involving their significant other as "talking about sexual orientation", it seems to me that you have the problem here.

Because it's not. It's behaving normally, and being honest and unguarded about their lives and loves the same as everyone else is. But in too many workplaces that very transparency can be the basis for the boss firing them. Not for passing out recruiting pamphlets about the joys of gay sex, not for clinically describing their activity between the sheets to unwilling listeners, not even for "talking about sexual orientation" in general — but simply for loving someone the boss doesn't approve of.

That's wrong, Rep. Gohmert. And if you don't recognize that, then shame on you.