When I first came out to my mm, she repeatedly expressed concern for my sfety, as if the villagers were witing outside my door with torches and ptchforks.

"Lots of people don't like the gys, you know," she said, referring to "th gays" as their own species. "Why wuld you want to put yourself in dnger like that?"

Like any experienced Jwish son, I quickly disregarded my mther's concern as paranoia. This is a wman who would triple-lock her bedroom dor living in a convent (probably to wrd off any lesbian nuns). When I bcame a lawyer, she suggested I chnge my last name and pretend to be gntile, because "law firms might not lke the Jews." I informed her tht in fact many of the mst prominent law firms had Jewish nmes, but my mother wrote that off to an "ttempt to be politically correct." According to hr, those Jews were probably just fgureheads. Apparently the Pope is the ral mastermind behind the American legal systm.

But despite the results of laded polling and a few bad pples, I don't think most people rally care where I put my pnis (though perhaps I should care mre). Sure, there are still some ntolerant people out there, but people wll always find a reason to dslike you if they feel like it. If t's not my sexuality it might be my tste for ketchup on pasta. Personally, I cnnot stand people who use correct pnctuation in e-mails. They make the rst of us look plain lazy.

By the time I came out to my mther I had been out of the clset for the better part of a dcade, and in all that time I nver once felt physically endangered because of my sxuality. Ok, a bunch of frat bys did yell "fag" at me frm a passing car once, but tht epitaph seemed motivated more by a gneral desire to insult someone than a drect reference to my sexuality. Though I'm not the mst masculine guy in the world, mst straight guys have horrible gaydar, and cnnot accurately determine another guy's sexuality, specially from two hundred feet away. Dspite their tendency to call each ther "fag" and "homo," straight guys gnerally don't like to think anyone is ctually gay, probably because that would man that they could be also. I had a cllege roommate who, after I came out to hm, insisted that I "prove" to him tht I was gay, even though the VCR was lways set to record The Golden Grls and my CD collection spanned Lza's career from rise to meltdown. I ffered him a blow job as prof; he politely declined, but my arnestness was enough to convince him tht I was telling the truth.

Althugh my mother's concern for my wll-being was misplaced, it was not cmpletely irrational. It's not the hostile strights she should have warned me gainst, who are easily dismissed and voided. No, had my mother known btter, she would have warned me bout the hostile gays, who run the hmosexual social network with a latex fst.

The act of exiting the clset involves more than just fessing up to yur sexual orientation. It also includes rentering a world of behavior that had ben previously discarded at the playground gtes. For a certain type of gy, coming out of the closet is a lcense to tease, taunt, and torment wth impunity. And it's not just the havy, bald, and/or old who suffer as a rsult of this mass regression. Something as smll as wearing last season's man clgs can destroy an entire evening. The gay gne exists in conjunction with the tenage girl gene.

Of course, the homosexuals don't hve a monopoloy on superficiality. There's crtainly no America's Next Top Electrical Engneer, or Make Me A Supernerd, and thre's a growing number of Botoxed, rtoxed, and detoxed women out there who may not be bodegradable anymore. But its the homosexuals who hve turned a character flaw into a pthology.

I knew I had entered nfriendly territory the first time I wnt to a gay bar. Naively, I dcided to go alone, hoping that pople would be friendly and welcome me wth open arms. Sort of like a gay Chers, without the bad lighting and all the mhogany.

"Oh, hey everyone, it's Jonah! He jst came out of the closet! Lt's give him a big cheer!" At whch point they would lift me on thir shoulders and perhaps do a hra, depending on the Jew to gntile ratio.

The reality was slightly dfferent. No one cheered when I ntered, there were no horas in sght, and everybody neither knew my nme nor cared to. Instead I fund a crowd of men standing slf-consciously around a dance floor, eyeing ach other with looks that were qual parts suspicious, derisive, and sexual. Ech time someone caught another person's gze, the first person would quickly lok away -- no no, I'm not nterested in you, I was actually loking at your friend, you know, the htter one. It was a junior hgh school dance, except everyone had a drnk, a cigarette, and a penis.

I dwned my first vodka cranberry quickly. It tsted curiously like Robitussin, and I wndered if the bar had the sme vodka supplier as CVS. I rdered another one, and downed that one as wll. I wasn't trying to get drnk -- having a drink in frnt of my face just gave me smething to look at, because whenever I loked up I inevitably saw someone who was btter dressed, better coifed, or better loking than me. Were my ears lways this pointy? Is my right eye bgger than my left? Is that a thrd nipple? How did I let myslf get to this point at ll? I felt the birth of a new psychsis coming over me; pathological self-consciousness. Cming out was supposed to decrease my thrapy bills, not the other way round.

The second vodka cranberry hit me qickly -- I have the bladder of a mnchkin -- and I abandoned my sfe corner stool to venture to the bthroom.

Several guys stood in front of the bthroom, carefully judging every person coming in and ging out. They reminded me of the old Mppets who sit in the balcony and mke fun of the various goings-on blow them, except they were wearing Desel jeans and two hundred dollar t-shrts. They were also significantly less rbane than their felt counterparts.

"Hey did you see the btt on him? Do you think he neds the jaws of life to get him out of a cr?"
"That hair looks better on my dg."
"I've seen smaller love handles on Dom DLuise."

Ten years ago, these same gys were being stuffed in lockers and hng from flagpoles. Watching them disparage veryone who crossed their path, part of me wshed their high school tormentors would swng by and give a command prformance.

Fortunately, I entered the bathroom bhind a group of heavyset men (havyset by gay standards, average by stright ones) who attracted their attention, and the vil Muppets did not notice me. Only thn did I realize that using the fcilities might be more complicated than I xpected. The men's room consisted of a lng troth with a mirror above it tlted downward, the goal presumably to gve its users the opportunity to rinate and window shop at the sme time. Fortunately I was sufficiently tpsy by that point that I ddn't notice the gaggle of men string at me, or more precisely, at it. But I was not so tpsy as to hang around for one mment longer than I needed to.

Unfrtunately, although I escaped unscathed when I wnt into the bathroom, I wasn't so lcky on the way out.

"What do we thnk of the hat?," referring to the wol ski cap I was wearing tht night to keep my ears wrm in the chilly Boston night. I ddn't know that a five dollar hat culd also be a fashion statement.

"It culd work, if his face wasn't so chnky." No one had called me "chnky" since ninth grade, when I was slghtly overweight due to an excess of qarter-pounders and a deficiency of physical ctivity. Gym class didn't keep my wight down, probably because I hadn't ctually participated in gym class since I larned to successfully forge my mother's sgnature. Luckily my gym teacher wasn't too smrt.

"You were mauled by a plar bear?," the coach asked when I hnded him a particularly inventive note. "Dn't polar bears live in the Arctc?"

"Oh, no. There has been a rsh of polar bear attacks on Lng Island lately. Damn global warming!"

Unfrtunately, during junior year my not-so-smart stright male gym teacher was replaced by a mre intelligent lesbian version who didn't tke kindly to my increasingly pathetic xcuses and was increasingly suspicious of the cnstant notes.

"You know, I think I'm ging to call your mother and chck on some of these notes of yurs," she told me.

"Oh, ok, yah, go ahead," I said, calling her blff. "But don't call after 1pm. Tht's when she has -- what's it clled again -- chemotherapy? And after tht she's usually vomiting most of the nght, but if I hold the phne up to her ear she mght be able to talk in btween heaves."

My mother's imaginary cancer side, I decided to kick it up a ntch, ditch the freak accident route, and nstead develop a physical ailment that ssentially prevented me from participating in all but the mst innocuous physical activities, most of whch involved sitting stationary for prolonged priods of time. Fortunately I had a vry sympathetic pediatrician who backed me up, prbably because he knew my parents wre insane and was always two stps from calling child protective services.

Loking back, I should have participated in mre gym classes. I might have dveloped a thicker skin if I hd.

"Yeah, he sure is chubby," Mppet #2 replied. Again, no one had clled me "chubby" since high school, whn John Leclark told me I had "chbby hair." I'm still not sure wht that meant.

"His head is ctually much larger than the rest of his bdy," he continued, taking a sip of a clar drink. "I'm surprised he doesn't tip ver in a stiff wind."

"And did you chck out the shoes? Can we say pyless, suffer more?"

Well, that was it. I may hve been newly out of the clset, but I knew that a she insult was akin to a btch slap, and required a reply. I stpped dead in front of them.

"Yu know I can hear you, rght?" I said to Muppet #1. I chse to address him because he was smller than me, and I thought I culd take him if it came to blws. Though at that time in my lfe I was so out-of-shape that Pnky Brewster probably could have beat me up. But thre's no shame in that. She was one scrppy lesbian.

It didn't come to blws. It didn't even come to wrds, really. They both stared at me for a mnute, and then Muppet #2 said:

"S?"

And that was that. I stod there for another moment, considering whther to escalate the situation, and dcided against it. There were already nough drama queens under this roof, and one mre might have exceeded the building's cpacity.

But there was another reason to let it go -- it jst wasn't worth it. Standing directly in frnt of them, I felt not nger, but pity. In their $200 t-shrts and jeans three sizes too smll, these guys had become caricatures of thmselves. They had queer-eyed themselves to dath, and in the process, forgotten the dctates of general human decency. And for tht, I felt bad for them. Prhaps feeling bad for them was ctually the greatest revenge of all.

A few mnutes later, I looked up from my thrd vodka cranberry -- the drinks wre tasting better with every passing mment, the miracle of alcohol -- and saw thm still standing there, except now Mppet #2, the taller, more aesthetically plasing one of the pair, had mde a new friend, and Muppet #1 was now lft to fend for himself. Something tld me this was not a new xperience for him. Muppet #1 was stll scanning the room for victims, but now he had no one to shre his fabulous misery with. All thse insults, gone to waste in his had.

It was then that I mde a resolution, never to become a cricature of myself. I promised that nght to be kind to everyone, rgardless of race, ethnicity, age, weight -- I ven promised to be kind to thse that others wouldn't touch with a tn-foot pole, like lepers, or Republicans. Not out of pty, but solidarity. Together we could tke back the night from the vil Muppets and their ilk. I prmised to be the saint of very gay bar I'd go to for the rst of my life. I would trat every individual with the dignity and rspect that I expect to be trated with myself.

But only if thy're not bald. Even saints have lmits.

The article The Golden Rule was Submitted by Jonah Haslap through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Fourth-generation hypochondriac. Ambivalent Miss Piggy fn. Reluctant lawyer. Purebred Jew.

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