Gay Republican: Not an Oxymoron

The class discussion about how gay men are portrayed in contemporary popular culture reminded me of a scene from the TV show, The West Wing. In an episode from season 2 entitled, “The Portland Trip” (I couldn’t find a clip to embed…Sorry!), the Democratic President’s deputy chief of staff, Josh Lyman, has a meeting with a Republican congressman regarding a bill that pertains to definitions of marriage. Josh is of course representing the administration and the Democratic Party, debating for the side of broadening the definition of marriage so that homosexuals are not excluded. The Republican congressman, however, believes that marriage should be defined strictly as a legal union between a man and a woman. The twist is that this Republican congressman is himself a homosexual. Josh looks at the congressman indignantly, asking him how he can stand for the language in this bill and how he can not only believe in but also represent a party that says that who he is wrong?

The congressman turns to Josh and explains to him that he believes in the Republican platform, that he believes in small, centralized government, and that being gay does not have to dictate his party affiliation. More importantly though, he explains that being gay does not have to constitute his overarching personal definition. He can be homosexual, Republican, and believe in the institution of marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman all at the same time.

This really resonated with me because I feel that there is a tendency to look at homosexuals and see them as being wholly defined by their sexual preference. For instance, we look at a heterosexual male and we see him as a husband, a father, a doctor, etc., but we look at a gay man and it is harder to get past the fact that he is gay to see what else is there. This is obviously not a positive thing, and I liked that the show tried to illuminate this stereotype so that viewers could see beyond it. Heterosexuals are seldom completely defined by their sexual orientation, so why should homosexuals be?

In Reinventing Privilege: The New (Gay) Man in Contemporary Popular Media, Helene A. Shugart quotes another theorist, Gross, and says that “when previously ignored groups or perspectives do gain visibility, the manner of their representation will reflect the biases and interests of those powerful people who define the public agenda” (68). I found that the episode of The West Wing relates interestingly to this because the congressman is himself a powerful person who has influence and can affect the public agenda, yet he is not necessarily trying to change the laws to benefit other homosexuals like himself. How gays will be represented is up to him and his fellow congressional members, but there is an interesting paradox here because the congressman is representing himself and his own interests, not just the interests of the people of his district. However, he is choosing to vote against his own interests, marriage rights for homosexuals, in order to stay true to his party lines and to his belief that “gay” should not be the singular personal definition of an individual just because he or she is homosexual.