Speaking Of Gay
Tonight we were privileged to have speakers from the PFLAG, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Our speakers Valerie (lesbian) and Brandon (gay) hit on many topics, shared life experiences, and a lot of Q & A. With all the topics they hit on, and all the messages they carried, their most important point was that they were boring.
Valerie said best when she said, “I’m just a regular boring adult.” No message rang truer than that the fact that there was nothing fantastic about being gay. It’s nothing alarming or unusual; it’s just different form of a normal life. They pay their taxes, they argue with their partners, and they live regular lives. Now granted they were faced with larger hurtles growing up, from losing friends they had crushes on to possible disownment by parents. Brandon mentioned that his mom originally thought, “This was a punishment from God,” which must have been hell to deal with as a teenager. After all, between pimples and puberty this “God” punishes teenagers enough without singling them out to be gay.
The most interesting topic by far was that there’s no such thing as bad publicity when it comes to homosexuality. Will & Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Queer As Folk may carry many stereotypes but this is not such a bad thing. According to Valerie and Brandon the more homosexuality is in the public eye the better. Good or bad, it’s still bringing attention to the cause. To quote Cousin Bubba “a man came to my door once and asked me ‘what was the worse vice of society, ignorance or indifference?’ So I said ‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’” The long and the short of it is that the ignorance of can lead to misunderstanding and prejudice, while indifference leads to neglect of the their civil rights.
Personally I say there is no “I” in tolerance, because tolerance is wrong. We should not be teaching tolerance of homosexuality, we should be teaching acceptance. Tolerance implies that we intend to simply tolerate something as long as we can, like your neighbor’s a barking dog. This is wrong, we shouldn’t look at homosexuals as a nuisance we tolerate, but rather as equal human beings that we accept as a part of our society.
I suppose the moral of this story would be that we should not tolerate homosexuals, but accept them. After all, they’re just as normal and boring as we are.
Exile
Original_exile@hotmail.com
Valerie said best when she said, “I’m just a regular boring adult.” No message rang truer than that the fact that there was nothing fantastic about being gay. It’s nothing alarming or unusual; it’s just different form of a normal life. They pay their taxes, they argue with their partners, and they live regular lives. Now granted they were faced with larger hurtles growing up, from losing friends they had crushes on to possible disownment by parents. Brandon mentioned that his mom originally thought, “This was a punishment from God,” which must have been hell to deal with as a teenager. After all, between pimples and puberty this “God” punishes teenagers enough without singling them out to be gay.
The most interesting topic by far was that there’s no such thing as bad publicity when it comes to homosexuality. Will & Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Queer As Folk may carry many stereotypes but this is not such a bad thing. According to Valerie and Brandon the more homosexuality is in the public eye the better. Good or bad, it’s still bringing attention to the cause. To quote Cousin Bubba “a man came to my door once and asked me ‘what was the worse vice of society, ignorance or indifference?’ So I said ‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’” The long and the short of it is that the ignorance of can lead to misunderstanding and prejudice, while indifference leads to neglect of the their civil rights.
Personally I say there is no “I” in tolerance, because tolerance is wrong. We should not be teaching tolerance of homosexuality, we should be teaching acceptance. Tolerance implies that we intend to simply tolerate something as long as we can, like your neighbor’s a barking dog. This is wrong, we shouldn’t look at homosexuals as a nuisance we tolerate, but rather as equal human beings that we accept as a part of our society.
I suppose the moral of this story would be that we should not tolerate homosexuals, but accept them. After all, they’re just as normal and boring as we are.
Exile
Original_exile@hotmail.com
posted by exile at
11/16/2004 03:30:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home