Quick! Let’s play a game of word association. I’ll write a word, and you say out loud the first associated word that comes to mind: Black… Dog… Bacon… Homosexual….

If you’re an ordinary Joe or Jane, I’m betting you associated Black with White, Dog with Cat or maybe Lovable Life Companion, Bacon with Eggs or Pig, and Homosexual with Liberace or Rock Hudson. But if you’re California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, when it comes to homosexuality, what you associate it with is graphic sexual exhibitionism. There’s simply no other way to understand what’s going on behind Gavin Newsom’s tweet saying that Murfreesboro banned being gay in public when it outlawed public indecency, lewdness, nudity, and sexual conduct.

Let’s start with Murfreesboro’s ordinances, which are completely normal, at least as of five minutes ago in America. Murfreesboro, as all American cities once did, has a public indecency ordinance prohibiting sexual conduct and content in the public square. American communities did this to protect their children from inappropriate conduct and to keep their communities safe from the anti-nuclear-family degradation that comes with commodifying sex.

To this end, Section 21-23(C) of its Municipal Code defines sexual conduct as follows:

Sexual conduct means acts of masturbations, homosexuality, sexual intercourse, or physical contact with a person’s unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or if such person be a female, her breast.

That definition covers all sexual conduct, whether homosexual or heterosexual. The distinction between homosexuality and sexual intercourse is necessary when you understand that sexual intercourse applies very specifically to the mechanics of male-female sex, which sees one actor insert Tab A (the male procreative organ) into Slot B (the female procreative organ). Homosexual conduct is, by definition, missing either Tab A or Slot B, so it needs to be called out separately from heterosexual sexual intercourse. A comprehensive ordinance must list both.

Image: Gavin Newsom by AI (this is not a real photo).

But basically, the city’s definition of “sexual conduct” falls into that famous category that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart articulated when he was asked to describe his obscenity test in 1964: “I know it when I see it.” We may be more permissive nowadays, but we still know the difference between physical conduct that is purely sexual in nature and physical conduct that is not. You’ll notice that hand-holding, for example, is not on the Murfreesboro list, whether homosexual or heterosexual.

Now that we’ve established what constitutes “sexual conduct,” what kind of behavior does the Murfreesboro code ban? Section 21-23(A) states:

(A) A person who knowingly or intentionally, in a public place:

(1) engages in sexual conduct;

(2) appears in a state of nudity; or

(3) fondles the genitals of himself/herself or another person, commits public indecency, which is an offense against the City by a fine of up to $1,000.00 for each offense.

In other words, a person who appears in public and engages in overt sexual activity, whether homosexual or heterosexual, has committed an offense against public decency.

Those of us with children or minimal standards can only approve. But leftists have no minimal standards, so The New Republic reports with breathless horror that Murfreesboro has essentially gone full sharia against gays (not that you’re allowed to disapprove of gay roof tossing in Gaza, of course):

A city in Tennessee is using a recently passed ordinance essentially prohibiting homosexuality in public to try to ban library books that might violate the new rules.

With this rule in place, city officials have pulled from county libraries books that graphically depict homosexual acts. Moreover,

The board also implemented a new library card system that categorizes books into certain age groups. When it takes effect next year, children and teenagers will only be able to check out books that correspond to their age group; they will need permission from a parent or guardian to check out “adult” books.

The horror!

The ACLU, of course, is on the case, trying to ensure that on the streets and in the libraries, children have unfettered access to witnessing graphic homosexual sex acts.

But it’s not just the ACLU. California’s Governor Gavin Newsom displayed his word association with homosexuality and exhibitionism, too:

A city in Tennessee has banned being gay in public.

This is just the beginning. We have to call this out. https://t.co/0G1i7dKTgp

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 16, 2023

Of course, you can understand why Governor Newsom has this word association. While heterosexuals understand that they will be arrested if they engage in sexualized conduct in public or give children sexually explicit reading material, the entire LGBTQ community has been hollering that they must be allowed to engage in overt, graphic sexualized conduct in schools, at fairs, in theaters, and on streets. Anything else is homophobic.

It says a lot that the LGBTQ community insists, and Gavin Newsom, potential presidential candidate, agrees that the essence of homosexual sex is exhibitionism.