Lance Bass is a Gay.

Lance Bass, as interviewed and depicted in People Magazine August 7, mentioned that even though he's 100% gay and in love with some guy from a reality TV Show, America shouldn't start hating him, because he hangs out with a group of SAGs. SAG stands for Straight Acting Gays.

With celebrity, comes the power to influence. On certain nights, the idea that none of Lance's friends are gay will help some of us sleep better. But how confused and perplexed I am that they even included that fact at all.

Now I have no idea what Lance Bass acts like, but once we publicly declare ourselves to be gay men, we revoke all right and license to anything remotely straight, by mere virtue of the fact that WE'RE GAY. In public. None of what we do could ever be straight acting at all, and it is never going to be because we're simply not straight, and that's OK.

In the Gay Community, ubiquitous use of the term "Straight Acting" reinforces self-loathing and deceit, and I must admit as a gay guy, many times, I am all for it. Bring it on. Men should act like men. I know I shouldn't think this way, but Lance Bass suddenly became a little hotter once I read in People Magazine that he acted like a Straight Man. He's still the geekiest looking member of N'Synch. I'm not sure he'd fill out one of my jockstraps properly, either. But that's ok too. Because being any kind of gay is ok. Or rather, it should be ok.

I'm afraid that too many of us are walking around with an over inflated sense of masculinity. It has effectively lowered the bar for most of the real men left in the world who aren't sissy bitches.