The other morning I turned on the television and before I had a chance to change the channel I got sucked into Jerry Springer (in my opinion one of the worse shows on television). Today’s theme, “Weddings Explode.”

Seated on the stage was ‘Mamma’, a husky woman with a heavy ‘country’ accent grasping a Bible like it was the last biscuit at Sunday breakfast. Mamma’s son (we’ll call him Sonny) was planning to marry, as Jerry put it, a ‘transvestite’. Mamma was having no part of it. Sonny, a 6’ tall good ole boy, was wearing a black cowboy hat, a dress shirt with the sleeves cut off, black vest and bow tie. What mother wouldn’t be proud? To his credit, he appeared to have a full set of teeth. Mary (not her real name) the transvestite, appeared to be a bit taller than Sonny, and quite naturally was wearing a wedding dress and veil.

Now here’s the part that made me turn my head. As Mamma and Jerry spoke before rest of the inhabitants of Dogpatch joined them, Mamma exclaimed, “My son is not gay.” Jerry responded, “He had sex with a man, didn’t he?” To which Mamma responded, “I don’t know. But I’m here to tell him that he’s not gay.” This Mensa-esque conversation continued without much deviation for far too long. Throughout the banter Jerry would say, “If he had sex with a man then he’s gay.”

There’s the rub, a key reasons why we can’t get people to understand gay rights. It isn’t that we’re portrayed as transvestite marrying hicks on television, although that doesn’t really help our cause. No. The issue is Jerry’s comment that reduced being gay to sex.

Can you have sex with someone of the same gender and not be gay? You could be bisexual, you could be curious or you could have just gotten drunk with your college roommate (every weekend for a semester?). If it was just the one time maybe you were experimenting, otherwise you’re probably gay. Isn’t sex an expression of feelings other than or in addition to the physical? It’s the feelings and not the sex by itself that defines us. I’ll bet if you asked a straight man (and I did) how he knows that he’s straight he’d most likely say, “I have an emotional attraction to women.”

It’s our relationships and our sense of community, how ever you may define it that makes us gay. It’s not just sex. Every time we use a shirtless boy or the lesbian equivalent to promote a GLBT business or product we’re playing right into the stereotype that we are sex and nothing more. We have a responsibility to ourselves and the following generations to makes sure that people know that we are more than sex. There is an emotional connection that binds us to another person even if the law doesn’t recognize it. We sit next to the bed of a dying friend or partner. We spend holidays with our ‘family of choice’ and not our family of birth. We share our time, our money and our love, not because of sex but because we have an emotional connection.

Cher asks, “When the money’s gone will you be my friend?” I’d like to know, when the sex is gone will you still be gay? I think so.

[BTW - I turned off Jerry Springs as soon as Mamma took her teeth out and threw them at another guest.]

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