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When
I was a small boy...and I need to clarify that I was a small
heterosexual boy, whereas now I'm a full-blown heterosexual
man who enjoys intimate relationships exclusively
with women, lest any of you wisenheimers get the wrong idea...but
anyway, when I was a small boy, I used to spend lots of
time wondering about house pets owned by black people...were
the pets black, too?
By the same tortured reasoning,
when a gay chef in a gay bar cooks a hamburger, is the burger
gay, too? And what about the person who eats it?
I have heard of these so-called
"gay" people and their mysterious practices. I have heard
of their boisterous Pride Parades and their disproportionate
influence in the fashion industry. I have heard of their
Judy Garland biographies and Bette Midler videocassettes
and Laura Branigan CDs. I have heard of their amyl nitrite
and their Tony Awards and their clean teeth and their pet
poodles and their well-oiled armpits. I have heard of their
cock rings and their golden showers and their quivering
prostate glands. I have heard of their turd-encrusted peni
and saggy sphincters blown-out like inner tubes. I have
heard of their analcentric politics and their jagged glory
holes and their virus-laden seminal fluids.
Very interesting, these gay
people. But why are they called gay, when not all of them
seem happy? Must be the same reason there's no ham in a
hamburger.
We already know that lesbians
subsist on a diet of potato chips and cheap beer, but what
about male homosexuals? Do gay men eat the same sort of
food as real people? The hamburger is a good place to start.
It is more quintessentially American than, say, anal fisting.
So what about the gayburger? How does it differ from the
burgers produced by Giant Heterosexual Corporations?
"When a gay chef
in a gay bar cooks a hamburger,
is the burger gay, too?
And what about the person who
eats it?" 
I needed to know. So I decided
to set my prejudices  aside
and sample some of Portland's homosexually oriented burger
fare. I had my fears, of course. I was scared about rampant
rumors of Secret Gay Sauces and vindictive homo-terrorist
chefs. I was reasonably certain that, despite my leather
jacket and trim appearance, the gays would be able to tell
I was an interloper. And I made it clear, under NO uncertain
terms, that I wanted NO mayonnaise or melted cheese on my
gayburgers.
Most of Portland's gay restaurants,
and thus most of Portland's gay hamburgers, are clustered
around  "Vaseline
Alley," the notorious homosexual ghetto tucked like a greasy
salami in Downtown P-Town's backside. I have heard murmurs
that the city's Health Inspectors are afraid to set foot
in Vaseline Alley. But not me. I needed to taste this forbidden
meat.
I expected to find dingy S&M
dungeons whose walls were spackled with dried seminal
fluids and crusty feces smeared like chocolate cake frosting.
Instead, I found pleasant, polite, color-coordinated,
well-groomed dining experiences. If it weren't for the
pumping disco music, exclusively male clientele, and muscular,
well-tanned waiters, one might think these were regular
het bistros.
All told, I ate three gayburgers
in three different gay restaurants. To my relief, they
were the BEST FUCKING HAMBURGERS I'VE EVER EATEN!!! They
were thoroughly delightful taste treats, and I can say
this without compromising my masculinity in any way. After
all, enjoying a gay hamburger is not tantamount to engaging
in sexual congress with a gay man. 
The main difference between
the gayburger and the hetero burger is that gayburgers
are much bigger. Lots more meat. For some inscrutable
reason, gay men seem to enjoy shoving huge slabs of beef
into their mouths.
There I sit, eating my gay
hamburger. Gay patrons look over at me as I wrap my eager
mouth around a giant hunk of meat. The gay people smile
at me. I smile back courteously, my twinkling eyes saying,
"I don't care what sort of blunt objects or furry rodents
you shove up your ass, that's a damn fine hamburger!"
I am proud, and more than
a little relieved, to report that never once did I achieve
an erection during my dining experiences, nor was I in
the least bit titillated by all the sweaty, muscular manflesh
swirling around me. Plus, no one tried to convert me,
and I appreciate that. I didn't even have to make it clear
that I didn't wish to suck anyone's penis or penetrate
their anuses. 
I learned some very important
lessons from all this...
I began to slowly realize
that gay people are almost human. Gay people eat food,
too. And they need love, respect, self-empowerment, dignity,
and a sense of connectedness just like people who don't
insert gerbils into their rectums.
Merely because they indulge
in practices which God clearly condemns doesn't mean that
they aren't like us in many ways. And even though they're
going to hell unless they repent, that doesn't mean they
don't experience what might properly be called emotions.
Gay people have hopes and
dreams and bank accounts and mortgage payments. They drive
cars, take showers, and sleep in beds. They slather shampoo
on their hair and sprinkle talcum powder on their achin'
tootsies. They breathe the same air as us and flush their
toilets into the same sewer system.
And they eat hamburgers.
Delicious, oversized hamburgers!
Anyone who can cook such
a bitchin' burger doesn't deserve to be herded in gay
concentration camps or persecuted for their alternative
lifestyle or strung up to die on lampposts or labeled
with nasty, unfair nicknames such as "pole-smoker,"
"rump-wrangler," "peter-puffer," "ass jockey," "butt
pirate," or "cum-guzzlin' Nancy-boy."
Although I might recommend
that gay people be forced to use separate drinking fountains
and rest rooms, I am not ashamed to assert that they
deserve equal treatment under the law.
Gay people enjoy a good
hamburger just like the rest of us. No...make that a
GREAT hamburger. Right on, you gay people!
Stand up, gay people, and
be proud of your hamburgers!
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