ABC News: Invasion of the Gay Hubby-Snatchers!

ABC News just ran one of the more infuriating stories I've seen in quite a while. In conjunction with their quizzically intense recent coverage of the Jim McGreevey scandal (which is sooooo 2004, no matter how many shameless tell-alls are written about it), they've run a hilariously boogeyman-heavy "IS YOUR HUSBAND GAY?!?!?" article that's both staggeringly behind the times and mind-bogglingly thoughtless. Two great tastes that taste great together, right?

The piece essentially alerts readers that out there right now, wearing heterosexual clothes and driving heterosexual cars (don't know what those are? Read this.), there are seething hoards of secret homosexual spouses biding their time until they spring out of their closets, resign from public office, and generally ruin their families' lives. And one of them could be sleeping in your bed!

It's the "McGreevey Effect", y'all. And in the hands of ABC News, it's got all the makings of a bad B-movie.

WATCH! -- as a currently closeted man using a pseudonym bemoans his horrible existence as though there were any other way to spin it and then return to the Dark Side:

"I need to look at my responsibility and the impact on my children," George said. "Do I really want my daughters to see me throw their mother in the trash can? I can see myself married to my wife for the next 20, 30, 40 years. … And I want her to be my wife."

MARVEL! -- as Bonnie Kaye, author of Is He Gay? A Checklist for Women Who Wonder, shares her keen insights on the inner workings of the universally self-loathing gay mind:

And why do so many gay men and women get married? "Because people don't want to be gay," Kaye said. "It's a very hard way to live. Guys who get married are hoping that if they love their wife enough, that love will change their sexuality."

SWOON! -- at the items in Kaye's brilliant checklist, which include:

If your husband thinks you are a nymphomaniac or "pushy and aggressive" because you want sex twice a week.

If sexual activity steeply declines within the first few years of marriage.

You're always more sexually aggressive than your husband.

If your husband is turned off by the thought of touching your vaginal area or performing oral sex on you.

If his best friend is gay.

If he hangs out in gay bars.

If he enjoys watching gay porn movies and surfing gay porn Web sites.

If he is excessively homophobic, mocking and imitating other gay men.

Yes, I know -- this book came out a while ago and these are not new. But they're still hilarious. Remember: if he likes gay men or if he hates gay men, that means he's probably gay.

The thing that really irks me about this is that the article is content to try to freak people out about a big gay monster hiding under their bed without actually asking any questions about WHY this phenomenon exists in the first place. How about asking why these men and women stay married, and what conditions encourage them to live these lies that hurt the people that they love? It's a lousy situation, yeah -- and not one that anyone should have to be in. But it's not nearly as simple as the Invasion of the Gay Hubby-Snatchers situation that the article suggests. I wonder if "If there is an enormous sea pod under your bed, he's probably gay" is on Kaye's list...

The article even lists three recent examples of men who have come out as gay while married and with children: Jim McGreevey, Ted Haggard, and former congressman Mike Huffington. And yet the fact that all of these men worked actively in politics didn't seem worthy of further discussion? How about looking at the cultural climate that this sector promotes, and in discussing the circumstances surrounding the lies that these men chose to live?

As it is, the article essentially says that if your hubby has lost interest in your hoo-ha, it's time to call in an exorcist. And that's simply not the whole story.