Oprah: Don't Ask. Don't Care.

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Los Angeles, California - August, 2007

When I first saw the email with the subject line "Oprah Is Not Gay," I dismissed it. A few minutes later, I saw the same headline on Yahoo News' "Most Emailed Stories." Later I heard a TV promo for Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight telling viewers Oprah was not gay and to watch tonight for the complete story.

What story? She's not gay! What's the issue? Apparently, there was one, and I was missing it so I went back to the original email with Oprah's declaration. Because of the avalanche of speculation about her close friendship with Gayle King, Oprah decided to squelch the rumors in the August issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.

"There isn't a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it – how can you be this close without it being sexual?" Oprah says in the article.

I was more convinced than ever. Oprah is not gay.

But weeks after the flash fire, the story rages on. Gayle is on The View saying if they were lesbians, they would say so. The Globe runs a story saying Oprah and Gayle moved into an $8 million love nest. O Magazine is flying off the stands because folks feel the need to confirm something they already know: "Oprah Is Not Gay."

How is this a story? Summer doldrums could be partly to blame. The public's insatiable appetite for celebrity news plays a big role. The sensational media always makes a good scapegoat. All are solid explanations, but if the hubris is stripped away we can examine what is truly fueling this. It's deep-seated fear in homosexual conspiracists and the heterosexual collective, forcing them to grapple about power.

With very different motives, each group labels certain strong, smart women as gay. (Men are labeled too) Conspiracists ache for validation, so identifying someone as gay gives them strength and empowerment. As for the collective …well … its motives could be described as a bit more sinister.

The collective uses the homosexual label like kryptonite against seemingly invincible women. Who wouldn't want to be Oprah? She's not just a media power player, she's the highest paid woman on television, the guardian of the Angel Network and the almighty queen of her own Harpo empire. She's an American icon.

Straight, gay or otherwise, Oprah is Oprah.

But if gay is added to her biography, there's an immediate implosion in the world as we know it. Even if it at first it seems innocuous – almost banal and punctuated with the Seinfeldian snark "Not that there's anything wrong with that," the punch is hidden in the unsaid.

Because the message, particularly to young women, is don't be strong or independent like Oprah, Hillary Clinton or Condoleezza Rice because you may also be gay – or at the very least mistaken as gay – and you do not want to be that. Inducing internal homophobia steals power from women, letting the collective retain what they see as their birthright.

Now I'm not saying that all heterosexuals belong to this so-called collective. So what about those heterosexuals who are gay-friendly, but still perpetuate this attitude? My friend Sylvia, a 40-something New Yorker who is single and straight, shared her thoughts about the Oprah story shortly after watching The View with Gayle as a guest. To her it's fairly straightforward.

"It's been so ingrained that women get married, regardless of how successful they are, that people are always looking for some explanation as to why a woman in her 40s, 50s (even 30s) isn't married," she said. "I think that when a woman doesn't get married, it threatens people's belief in marriage as an institution. Sexual orientation is an easy explanation."

As for the conspiracists, I understand their insatiable need for validation. All that gayness that Oprah and Gayle say they don't have, I possess in my pinkie. And just like the others, I need to identify with women who are strong, independent and gay.

I grew up in West Texas in the 1980s. I often refer to it as "Darwin's waiting room." From time to time as a kid, I'd run into the all-girl softball team, The Bad News Bears, with their bad hair, beer coolers and blue-collar jobs. With each encounter, what my life would become crystallized in my mind. I knew they were gay; I already knew I was gay; so a mullet, a pickup and a beer cozy had to be in my future.

Feeling powerless, I'd pedal away on my bike, wondering why someone like Jodie Foster couldn't be gay. That would be validation a 10-year-old could live with.

But does it matter if Oprah, Hilary, Condi or Jodie are gay, straight or transgender? It most definitely matters to those with whom they are intimate. But it shouldn't matter so much to the general public.

Being gay should carry no more weight when describing someone than saying the person has blue eyes or an aptitude for math. It is part of that person's makeup, but does not supersede all other characteristics.

It's the rumors about Oprah, Hillary and Condi that possess the power and inflict the most damage. The perpetuated falsehood makes gay empowerment fleeting, and, in the end, constricts the power of all women.