It's the most wonderful week of the year. If you're gay. And annoying.

It's "Coming Out Week" at universities all across the fruited plains. Throughout the country, students are sharing their queer sexual proclivities. Colleges sponsor gay rallies. They put out "pro-tolerance" fliers. They hang gigantic banners over major boulevards in honor of those who are brave enough to tell us which set of genitals they prefer.

Here's a piece of news for proponents of Coming Out Week: None of the rest of us care. We don't care whether you play for the other team. You can parade around in drag as much as you please. You can hold as many "gay marriages" as you want. You can wear shirts reading "We're Here, We're Queer." You can wear a rainbow sticker on your backpack. Just don't expect us to care.

What do you expect? That we're going to sprint to the altar of political correctness and offer sacrifices to the god of sodomy? That we're going to hoot, holler and send checks to GLAAD? That we're going to sell our houses, leave our spouses, move to San Francisco and buy little yapping dogs?

Don't pretend that you're trying to "heighten awareness" by shoving your sexual appetites in our faces. We're already aware of you. You have several support groups on each campus. You have thousands of our tuition dollars to coax kids out of the closet. We can't turn on the television without seeing two guys or two girls smooching. We can't open the newspapers without seeing gay unions in the weddings section. Believe you us, we know you exist. 

So if you're not here to heighten awareness, then you're here to cope with your own insecurities. We're constantly hearing that if people are anti-homosexuality, deep down they're homosexual. Well, if you're repeatedly proclaiming how proud you are to be gay, isn't it just possible you might be a little insecure about your own homosexuality? The most secure gay people I know aren't militant about it. They do what they want to do and don't bother the rest of us with it.

Which is how "Coming Out Week" should really work. If you want to make a big deal out of your "sexual identity," go ahead. Do it within your own community. Have "wedding showers" for whichever woman or man you decide is the wife. Hand out condoms at parties to ensure that no one goes home with HIV. Have gay events, gay parties, gay ceremonies. If you want to treat homosexuality like a religion, that's your business. But when I celebrate Jewish holidays, I don't march down Santa Monica Boulevard, holding up traffic, waving my ceremonial fringes in the air and chanting: "I'm here! I'm Jewish! Get used to it!" Continued...