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In 2008, then-Attorney General of Alabama Troy King was found in bed with a young man. In 2011, Indiana representative Phillip Hinkle answered a Craigslist ad posted by a 20-year-old seeking a “sugga daddy.”

In 2004, Californian representative David Dreier was revealed to be living with a male partner. Rumors of Lindsey Graham hiring gay escorts emerged in 2020.

What do all these men have in common? They have all campaigned on platforms of homophobia.

King called homosexuality “the downfall of society.” Hinkle voted to ban gay marriage and Dreier and Graham have either voted or argued against federal hate crime bills. In secret, however, they all engaged in same-sex relations or intercourse.

At the core of these jokes and insults are the same homophobic ideals that people are hoping to shame the recipients for holding.”

High-profile, widely reported cases like this have perpetuated the belief that the most vocal of homophobes are closeted homosexuals. The idea is that the stronger the anti-gay sentiment, the more likely the protester is gay, but this rhetoric is counterintuitive to advancing the normalization and acceptance of gay rights.

It’s tone-deaf and inherently relies on homophobia to insult and provoke. It’s a bid to emasculate the person on the receiving end. People who rely on this tactic — though they may not realize it — view being gay as a bad thing.

Such rhetoric flew left, right and center during Donald Trump’s time as president of the United States.

In 2018, The New York Times ran a series of articles and a video entitled “Trump and Putin: A Love Story” depicting then-President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin as gay lovers amid allegations of collusion.

Gay journalists denounced the article for its tone-deaf message, but it wasn’t the first to perpetuate the idea of Putin and Trump as gay lovers.

Despisers of Trump relied heavily on this line of thinking. In 2017, Stephen Colbert referred to Trump as Putin’s “cock holster.” “Saturday Night Live”’s Alec Baldwin (depicting Trump) and Beck Bennett (depicting Putin) alluded to a gay romance between the two men multiple times during sketches over the years.

Funnily enough, Baldwin has been accused of using homophobic language in the past.

At the core of these jokes and insults are the same homophobic ideals that people are hoping to shame the recipients for holding.

Perhaps it is true that there is a link between closeted homosexuals and blatant homophobia, but it certainly isn’t true of every single homophobe.”

Insulting people like Trump or Putin — straight men who have both backed homophobic and transphobic policies — by calling them gay isn’t helpful. It’s done to evoke some sort of negative reaction out of them, which only serves to further their own negative association with homosexuality.

What’s telling about these situations is that this is the worst thing they can think of to call someone. When Baldwin called a Daily Mail reporter a “toxic little queen,” his choice of words was intentional. It was meant to gyrate and offend. It was intended to insult, and the worst, most insulting thing that immediately came to mind was that this man may be gay.

Granted, a 2012 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology “found higher levels of homophobia in individuals with unacknowledged attractions to the same sex,” but nothing is gained by carrying on using it as fodder against homophobes. What purpose does it serve to rely on this line of thinking?

Perhaps it is true that there is a link between closeted homosexuals and blatant homophobia, but it certainly isn’t true of every single homophobe. Additionally, provoking them and emboldening their homophobic beliefs by using gay as an insult helps no one.

The behavior is no better than those on the right insinuating that Michelle Obama is a trans man and that Barack Obama is gay. It’s insulting to gay people to be associated with someone as bigoted as Trump, who spent his final weeks in office rolling back protections for the LGBTQ+ community. The jokes were never even funny to begin with.

With people so nefarious, underhanded and ignorant, it’s more appropriate to insult their character, not their possible sexuality.

Reach Nathaniel McKissick at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @NateMcKissick.