Gay and Lesbian characters in SFF - a response

Dave Brendon writes about Gay and lesbian characters in SFF on his blog. It's ostensibly laudatory and gay supportive. However, he expresses his support by showing surprise that "not only did their gender preference not overshadow the storyline, but they were amazing characters, characters that readers, no matter their own gender preference, could identify with and like."

*gasp* You mean, gay characters can be just as well-written as their straight counterparts? Knock me over with a feather.

He opens the fourth paragraph with "The first time I encountered a gay main character (last year) there was absolutely no sense of shock, no recoiling in disgust, no okay-now-that-was-a-bit-too-freaky-for-me, nothing like that." Let's do a little thought experiment here. What happens when you replace "gay" with "black"? How about "left handed"? How about "right handed"? How about "white"? Just saying...

Now I should say again that the blog post is obviously intended to be gay supportive. The last thing I want to do is to slam a straight reader who actually recognizes that it's possible for him to identify with someone who doesn't share his orientation.

I had a response all worked out for him. However, since I'm probably never returning to his blog (I read too many as it is), I'm posting my response here:

I know you mean well. I really do. It's always good to read people root for gay characters. However, it's hard not to interpret your first few paragraphs as saying, "Hey, I read books with gay protagonists and they didn't get their icky homosexual cooties all over me!" (Before you even say it, I know you didn't mean it that way. I'm just saying this is how it comes off and I'm about to explain why.)

Why is no one ever worried that heterosexuality might "overshadow the storyline"? It's not like there aren't stories where the sole purpose of the (in some cases literally) disposable female character is to establish that the male protagonist is straight. Have we lost count of the number of stories where the sole purpose of The Wife/Girlfriend is to die so that the Male Action Hero is Spurring Into Action? Relatively few complain about how the heterosexuality overshadowed those storylines. Certainly, it doesn't come up every time someone mentions straight characters in movies. However, if it's gay characters, something like "overshadow the storyline" pops up every time (even, in this case, which supports gay characters).

(Also, you're implicitly saying that gay characters are ok as long as they aren't, you know, gay. Again, I know. You didn't intend to say this. You may even insist that you didn't say this at all. I'm just making you aware of how your words are coming across to me. Basically, I'm sick of "overshadow the storyline" highlighted as a potential hazard of writing gay characters when I see heterosexuality "overshadow the storyline" all the time.)

Like I said, I'm extremely happy you've discovered that you can identify with characters who don't share your orientation. (Gay people have had to do this forever.) I definitely hope it leads to a further mainstreaming of gay characters, especially in SFF.

Next time, can you please express your support in a way that doesn't unintentionally reinforce old prejudices? I know what you intended to say, but you said a few other things at the same time. Thank you.