Goldberg and Guthrie

In The Corner's continual quest to ruin movies you may otherwise have liked, a discussion about Miller's Crossing has begun.

It appears John Derbyshire - AKA "The Derb" - has never seen nor heard of it. In the midst of some discussion and attempts to convince the Derb to see it, John Podhoretz writes:

I once horrified Jonah by saying that the secret to understanding Miller's Crossing is that Gabriel Byrne's character is gay and he's in love with Albert Finney -- but that's only because I AM RIGHT!!!!!

To which the Derb responds:

John P.: Now I don't want to watch it.

That's it - no context, not another punchline, not a LOL. Apparently, the mere flippant suggestion that a character in a movie may be gay is enough to cause one conservative pundit to avoid seeing it.

One question, however. If subtext and clues lead one to the obvious conclusion that a character is gay, won't this mean that John Derbyshire will have to stop reading articles about John Derbyshire?