It’s never too late for me to chime in on days-old news, this being about Cpl Matt Sanchez, recipient of the Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award at this year’s CPAC .

I am sick and tired of “The Left” consistently reminding Conservatives, Republicans, or whomever you want to call them, that so-and-so person is [dun, dun, dun] A Gay.

Was that supposed to make us cringe in self-disgust that (a) we didn’t know this person was A Gay or (b) we support this person because of something else not related to him being A Gay and that you people on the Left want to remind us that this person is A Gay on the off chance that we are as big bigots as you and just drop this person like a hot potato?

John Hawkins has an interesting take on the man:

First of all, there is “nothing inherently wrong with Sanchez being a gay porn star or a male escort?” Wrong answer. Yes, there is something wrong with it and if he were still doing those things, I wouldn’t want him given an award at CPAC or for that matter, even attending CPAC.

But, whether you’re talking about Sanchez or Jeff Gannon, if they want to go in a different direction with their life, I think that’s a good thing. There are plenty of Republicans, gay and straight, who have done dumb things in their past. That doesn’t mean they’re forever branded with some sort of scarlet “A,” or in Sanchez’s case, a Scarlet “GP,” for gay porn.

Take note that John didn’t mention that Cpl Sanchez was A Gay, only that he did gay porn, which from even a moral conservative’s POV is deplorable not because it is gay porn but because it is porn which is something that goes against John’s values. (Trust me, I’m a long-time reader.) And don’t even begin with his escort work either. However, let me react to John’s lede from the same article: “One of the most fascinating things about the left is that they often accuse conservatives of hating gays in one breath and then display rampant homophobia in the next.” I suppose you can call it homophobia. My guess is that it’s not so much homophobia as it is this sanctimonious self-image combined with a long-time perception that Right-Wing folks are total bigots, finally served in a package that totally underlines their lack of sense of irony. The short of it? I guess it’s homophobia.

Oh and did you know that Mary Cheney is a HUGE lesbian and that that fact was totally made clear to me during the presidential debates around 2004? I thought for a second that John Edwards wanted me to drop Cheney and co. all together because of that…

A pox on you all. Being A Gay* is none of your frickin’ business.

* — The turn of phrase “A Gay” I hear is apparently relatively common on the West Coast. I haven’t heard it used that way where I am in Maryland, and at this point I am still ambivalent about using it, really. I figured I’d use it for this post to see how it feels. My internal jury is still out on that.