Today is what I call Sexual Honesty Day — otherwise known as National Coming Out Day.

Sexual Honesty Day was developed by Dr. Robert Eichberg and Jean O’Leary in 1988. It was popularized with the artwork of Keith Haring.

Sexual Honesty Day affirms the decision of same-sex-attracted persons to be honest with friends, family, and neighbors. Sexual honesty makes healthy living possible: It enables informed, transparent, and responsible behavior; it allows people to obtain emotional, physical, and spiritual support; it spares heterosexual spouses the trauma of an ex-gay “marriage”; it allows same-sex-attracted people to un-closet the romantic side of their lives.

In short, National Coming Out Day events around the world the pro-equality movement a familiar face for friends and peers of those who are same-sex-attracted.

Sadly, Sexual Honesty Day is hated and parodied by a handful of ex-gay activists, who created a Dishonesty Day in response.

For years, HIV-positive ex-gay activist Michael Johnston chaired “National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day.” NCOHD was promoted annually by Focus on the Family and Peter LaBarbera — until 2003, when Virginia attorney Michael Hamar contacted TruthWinsOut.org founder Wayne Besen. Hamar had two clients who claimed to have had unsafe sex with Johnston, and one client believed he may have been infected with HIV from Johnston. After admitting a vague “moral fall,” Johnston’s “ex-gay” Kerusso Ministries collapsed in shame. Johnston later returned to ex-gay politics and finance, however, through the so-called “Pure Life Ministries” in Kentucky. Johnston has never apologized nor made amends for endangering the lives of his male sex partners.

Meanwhile, Dishonesty Day lived on, albeit feebly: Exodus International tried to resuscitate NCOHD in 2006, while the Traditional Values Coalition promotes Dishonesty Day — and Michael Johnston — on its web site. Neither organization warns readers about Johnston’s potentially lethal abuse of gay men. (Perhaps we need a Double Dishonesty Day?)

Whether one calls it National Coming Out Day or Sexual Honesty Day, today offers people from all walks of life an opportunity to reflect on their level of honesty and openness with their families and neighbors - and to think about secrets that might be eating away at their emotional or physical health.

(Clownish AFA Says Ronald is Too Gay)

Well, thank God we can finally eat McNuggets in peace without the yahoos at the American Family Association annoying us at the next table. The AFA will announce a boycott today because they claim the company supports the so-called “gay agenda” and has taken sides in the “culture wars.”

“It is about McDonald’s, as a corporation, refusing to remain neutral in the culture wars,” whined the oft-offended AFA. “McDonald’s has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.”

The AFA - the Tupelo, Mississippi-based group that once claimed Mighty Mouse snorted cocaine - has once again gone mad. What next, they will claim that Grimace is secretly gay because he is the same lavender shade as the Teletubby Tinky Winky?

McDonalds is not promoting a “gay agenda.” They are simply supporting equality for all people in the workplace. This boycott will fail, just as AFA’s Disney Boycott fell flat. The group is all hat and no cattle and has emerged as one of the most dishonest groups on the far right fringe. They even sell a video, “It’s Not Gay” featuring failed ex-gay Michael Johnston - without a disclaimer telling AFA members that Johnston has participated in gay orgies, while claiming to have “changed.” Now, how moral is that?

I’m going to do my part this morning. I will put my yogurt back in the refrigerator, march down to McDonald’s, and buy a delicious Egg McMuffin. Yum!

Please call McDonald’s today and thank them for being a fair-minded company and let them know you would rather eat without the angry, puritanical AFA crowd.

1-800-244-6227