L'Affaire Stephens

Is it just me, or is there something absurd about a huge scandal erupting over whether or not a high school basketball coach is a lesbian? What next, interior decorators suspected of being gay? I always assumed that, in this stereotype-fueled world we live in, female high school gym teachers were assumed lesbian unless proven otherwise, and that no one really had a problem with this (except, perhaps, straight female gym teachers, who might have a hard time getting a date). Assuming it was her sexual orientation that got her fired, I'm in disbelief at how homophobic a town could be, if so many of its residents give a crap whether the high school gym teacher has a boyfriend. The thing with the Dreyfus Affair was that Dreyfus was, as a army officer, in a role that was atypical for well-off French Jewish men, so much of the controversy was over the idea that Dreyfus was overstepping his bounds. But if a gym teacher is fired for being a lesbian, then what do the open-minded people of Bloomburg, Texas, want to do with their lesbians? That may sound ridiculous, but what I'm getting at is, if minorities are considered unacceptable even when acting in the most predictable, stereotype-fulfilling way, then things are really a mess. If people get worked up when a star football player comes out, then that's part homophobia, part honest confusion over the ways of the world. But if a lesbian can't be a gym teacher, it's pretty safe to say she won't be allowed to do much of anything, other than try very hard to like boys, if she wishes to stay in town. Bad news indeed.