Glee star Jane Lynch won't be the first gay activist to host the Emmy awards show on Sunday night (Ellen DeGeneres did in 2005). But in the October cover story of the gay magazine The Advocate, Lynch misquoted Winston Churchill in taking the fight for "progress" against America's "puritan roots."
Lynch isn't above some real-life track-suit bullying of the "anti-gay" adversaries either, repeating the classic assertion that "A lot of the people who are the loudest voices going against gay rights are fighting an inner gay within."
ADVOCATE: Do you think that we'll be able to crack that lead actor slash romantic love interest barrier?
LYNCH: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think everything's just a matter of time. As much as we have our puritan roots in this country, and we kind of fight progress, we end up making the progress [happen]. What is it Winston Churchill said? Americans will always do the right thing after they've failed at everything else?
Not exactly. It's "The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives." I don't think Winston was thinking of critics of Glee's wooden and politically correct plots or "pronoun bigotry" against Chaz Bono.
ADVOCATE: One of the more touching stories in your book is about your best friend, Chris, who you break up with essentially because he's gay. That's a tough story.
LYNCH: Right. And the reason I tell the story is I want people to know I wasn't above it. It's condemning that which you're not expressing. It's going on all over the place: A lot of the people who are the loudest voices going against gay rights are fighting an inner gay within. Chris is very open, and he was basically, F you if you don't like me. He dressed the way he wanted to dress, he dyed his hair, got a perm, he was wearing parachute pants - and I had such a hard time with that. I was like, You don't flaunt that stuff. Since we had never come out to each other, this was just so unconscious on my part, hating that which is inside of you that you haven't accepted.
This is a bit of a repeat from the end of last year, when Lynch sat alongside bully/sex columnist Dan Savage and threw insults for Newsweek magazine:
Savage: F--k John McCain—put that in NEWSWEEK.
Lynch: Yeah, I say it too, to the second power.
Savage: Really, when it comes to gay rights, there’s two wars going on. The first war is political. But the culture war is over. Between Glee and Ellen and how integrated and accepted LGBT adults are, that’s done. So it’s very frustrating to be steeped in how culturally accepted we are and know that there’s all these legislative things that we just can’t seem to make any progress on.
Newsweek: How long until there’s an openly gay president or Supreme Court justice?
Savage: Scalia isn’t gay?!? I always think the biggest homophobe in the room is clearly a c--ksucker!
Lynch: Totally! The next religious person who tells you there’s something wrong with being a homosexual, start the countdown. It’s Psychology 101—the people who are the loudest and hate it the most hate something in themselves.
This is the gay equivalent of "I know you are, but what am I?" It's not exactly how people against "hate" usually talk.
UPDATE: The U.K. Guardian adds some more wisdom from Jane Lynch:
You're not going to change people's minds about bullying and homophobia. But you can tend to the people who are at the brunt of people's abuse or neglect. That's what Glee does. Hang in there, it gets better. Look for your people. You gotta find your people, just like those kids found glee club. I'm thrilled to be part of it. It's very empowering...
Sexual orientation doesn't mean anything out here in Hollywood. Ellen [DeGeneres] and Melissa Etheridge and Rosie O'Donnell – everybody before me who had the courage to stand up and say: "America, you love me, but I'm also gay" – I love that they did that. It made it easy for me. But here I know tons of gay people, so when you get out there and you hear about people suffering at the hands of homophobia, it's shocking.
