The old sinking feeling.

THERE WERE NO GAY PEOPLE ON THE TITANIC. I'VE SEEN A

dozen movies, a musical, an opera, a Vegas tableau--everything

but a dog-show version--and short of a

few guys putting on dresses to sneak their way into

the lifeboats, I've yet to find a hint of anything interesting

going down but the Titanic herself. Even the

Nazis, who made a gigantic melodrama designed to

show how the British class system and rich Jews conspired

to sink the ship, neglected to include us in

their take.

Maybe this is the real

reason the Titanic story

clanks loudly through the

corridors of time. It's a

haven for people who are

afraid to confront The Gay

Angle in popular culture. You

can dip into a Titanic story

secure in the knowledge that

Colonel Astor was not traveling

with a "nephew" named

Zack, Mr. and Mrs. Strauss had

not been married in Hawaii,

and the unsinkable Molly Brown was not a diver.

This plays large with the legion of people lately who

whine, "Must everything be so gay?" as if millions of

gay people just showed up last week on some alien

craft. In a way, of course, it's true: In the past year millions

of formerly invisible gay people came out. The reliable

right demonized us, but the slurs seemed increasingly

hollow to a straight public presented with our

everyday gayness. It's all right to be 'gay, this public

seems to be saying. Just don't be so pushy about it.

Be happy that a major television network lets you tell

comic lesbian love stories. But don't fuss when that network

puts an "advisory" in front of the show. Be grateful

when religious or governmental institutions tell you

it's OK to be gay so long as you don't actually engage in

any homosexual behavior. At least they don't

hate you anymore right out of the box.

Understand that when corporations

refuse to support expressions of gay culture,

it's nothing personal. They simply

wish to avoid controversy. Know that

when ex-secretary of Education William

Bennett throws around pseudodata

claiming that the life expectancy 

of an American gay

male is 43 years, he's not a

hatemonger; he just

wants the gay community

to clean up its

act. In fact, remember that anyone who goes on Bill

Maher's TV show and offers the opinion that sex causes

AIDS isn't being mean-spirited, just a little confused

in her terminology. In other words, there was a small

problem with some ice, we'll be slightly delayed getting

into New York, and in any event, there's enough

room in the lifeboats for everybody.

Your straight friends--and some of your gay ones--who

want you to just pipe

down and be a little less gay

are wringing out the last vestiges

of homophobia injected

into them years ago. Many of

them don't know they have it.

When Frank Oz, director of In

& Out, tells the media that

the movie's restricted rating

is important because the picture

isn't for children, that's

not Frank Oz the gay-friendly

artist talking. It's Frank

Oz, product of a generation that

believes homosexuality and young people don't mix.

When Tony Danza zaps Ellen and Anne for displaying

affection in front of the president, that's not the Tony

Danza who helped his young costar Danny Pintauro

come to terms with his sexuality. It's Tony Danza the

street fighter hanging on to the last shred of prejudice

Brooklyn gave him. When Tom Selleck sues a tabloid

because its claims about him are false and his family is

hurt to read such falsehoods (none of the other falsehoods

hurt?), this is not the Tom Selleck who deals

with gay people every day of his life but a guy from a

generation that was told that gay equals bad.

What we must realize is that homophobia is the

status quo, so insidious and ingrained that it will

sneak up on us in the most unexpected and casual

places. Most people don't question the status quo,

especially people who are not by nature revolutionaries.

Certainly the 1,500 people

who died on the Titanic didn't do a lot of

questioning. The men put the women

in lifeboats and stayed behind. The

steerage passengers allowed the crew

to lock them away while the first-class

passengers made their escape. People

followed custom--all the way to the

bottom of the Atlantic. Who would

have guessed that, as far back as

that cold April night

in 1912, silence

equaled death?