Anne Coulter in the Alley with a Maryland Redneck

It was the man with the tattooed arms in the passenger seat of the convertible that drew my attention at first. Then I noticed the Maryland tags. I really couldn't see the driver until I got closer, making my way up the alley on the way to meet my trainer for the usual session that I think should require the sanction of a Bush Justice Department legal memo. As I got closer to the car, I could make out a silhouette of a thin woman with straight hanging long hair.

Then she called out to me. "Hey! Hey! I want to say something to you." My first thought was she was going to bitch at me since our jeep Liberty was parked in the alley behind the garage, partly blocking the alley (though there was still enough room to get through). Bracing, I walked closer to the car on the tattooed man's side, and leaned down. And came face to face with Anne Coulter.

"I want to tell you something," she repeated. I braced myself, not knowing what to expect. Anne closed her eyes, and then silently gave me an air kiss.

I recoiled from the car and quickly walked up the alley toward the gym. Okay, it probably wasn't Anne Coulter and was just another prostitute trying to use our alley as her little temporary love shack. Not Anne, and just another hooker. When we first moved here our garage didn't have a door, we didn't have a car to park in it and many times hookers would drive their johns to our garage, park in it, do the nasty and leave, the only sign of their presence the used condoms and condom wrappers we would find. A garage door was one of our first home improvement projects.

But man, it sure looked looked like her. But she was just another prostitute. Although if you think about it, the two women aren't that different. One makes money for fucking citizens in public, the other makes money for fucking the public civility. But, I'm probably being insulting to the prostitute for the comparison.

Elizabeth Edwards Takes on Coulter

And watch Ann squirm.

You know, the practice of personal attacks has been around as long as American politics has -- the attacks on Jefferson for his affair with Sally Hemmings, for example. The problem is that the endless hours of breathless cable coverage and blogging and talk radio give these attacks the power of weapons of mass defamation.

If you want an example of raising the political discourse, listen to these kids.

Why We Need Anne Coulter

The gay community needs Anne Coulter. Bigotry is both silly and ugly. And Coulter's actions and words -- referring to John Edwards as a "faggot," shines a spotlight on schoolyard homophobia's silliness and ugliness. As this article shows, Coulter's name-calling from the public stage has generated a rebuke that suggests open homophobia is losing its acceptability. We need the Anne Coulters of the world to parade their ugliness so it continues to become less acceptable.

I'm not ignoring the destructiveness of such homophobia. Locker room taunts and playground teasing like Coulter's leaves emotional scars and even forces powerful adults -- like NBA player John Amaeche -- to cower in the confines of the closet. But those taunts are done in relative privacy and what schoolboy -- especially if he suspects he might be different -- wants to run home and tell daddy the other boys are calling him a fag (I sure didnt)?

But when Anne Coulter hurls it in the public square, everyone can see the ugliness of it. Like the picture above, Coulter presents an ugly image no matter how you look at it. People who might have casually and thoughtlessly uttered "that's so gay" and "faggot" may see a reflection of themselves in those moments and recoil. It is -- to a lesser degree -- akin to seeing the hoses turned onto civil rights marchers in the 60s. It says, so this is where prejudice and hatred leads. And seeing the destination, hopefully a few will turn back.

And although I agree that Coulter should be repudiated, I don't think she should be forcibly silenced. First, I think a society that "values" free speech should not seek shut speech off that it finds undesirable. I advocate for gay rights and marriage equality, something that most people in the U.S. find undesirable and disgusting. Disagree with me, denounce me or ignore me, but don't deny me the right to say what I think.

Secondly, I agree with Dan Savage:

"When we start acting like the thought police, it plays into the right-wing paranoia that we are going to force them all to say only nice things about us in public," Savage said. "I think we would gain ground faster in the gay and lesbian civil rights movement if we drop the Sally Field act of, 'You like me! You really like me!' "