So, point: My dad is gay. He was married to my mother for more than 20 years, and through the systematic sledgehammering he took from his ultra-conservative, religious upbringing and just the generally crapsack world we live in, he forced himself to not only live an oppressive existence for most of his adult life, but also had to suffer the belief that he was this pervert and evil sinner too. In one massive act of bravery, he finally managed to come out mid-way through his 50's, and is finally living the life he missed out on for so long. He is happy with his new partner, and has been able to free himself of the constrictive guilt and punishment he had been imposing on himself, which makes me happier than you could possibly know.
All of this said, I have an opinion here that I suspect isn't going to be the anchor of my eventual platform when I run as president of the universe. It's not exactly in tune with the popular thinking, but it's been bugging me enough that I opened Blogger and had to try to remember my password to write something.
I'm getting more than a little fatigued by the whole battle bewteen the LGBT community (and its supporters, of which I am a genuinely fabulous member) and the rest of the fuckwads who like to shake their angry little fists in protest over buttsex. It's just getting to be too much for me. Put me in a room with some tight-lipped, conservative moron shooting their mouth off about the abomination of the gays, and watch me go in Debate Team mode. I will righteously smack that somvabitch down with all manner of shiny biblical references and scholarly points. BUT.
I was scrolling through my Facebook feed quickly, just to see if anyone had had a surprise baby or significant lottery win, (cause fuck knows there aren't enough hours in my life to actually engage with Facebook anymore. I WILL NOT PLAY MAFIA WARS WITH YOU, fuck off.) and there were at least three different posts by three radically different people with pretty heavy-handed gay content. One was a fairly innocuous article by some religious website outlining why Christians are wrong to use the bible to piss all over gay people, which is a point of view I'd like some bumber stickers of. (I don't have a car, but I'd be happy to affix one to my cat.) It was a good article, and I'm glad that the point that Jesus was all about the brotherly love is being made more frequently and articulately from within the whole ugly establishment that's responsible for the modern day stoning. The other was a little more ham-fisted, and actually made me so angry I kind of lost that little bit of my soul that would have been tempted to rug-munch at all.
www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1377661702449130
Now if you don't feel like watching that
video, here's a rundown: in a world where homosexuality is the majority and
socially acceptable lifestyle (the Bible apparently says it's bad eggs to lie
with the opposite gender outside of "breeding season", which might
well be my favourite thing ever), a little girl realises she has heterosexual
feelings for a boy and gets mercilessly ripped to shreds by absolutely
everyone. Her two mothers are apparently full-blown arseholes and try to push
her towards football and karate, because no child of theirs is going to be a
'ro. The children at school unanimously decide to physically beat her and
bombard her with text messages encouraging her to kill herself. Of course,
eventually she does, in the most protracted, clumsy little montage this side of
a Ricki Lake pre-taped confessional.
You’ve been
waiting for me to make my contrary view, and this is it: No. Look, it’s an entirely
valid argument to make, that the status quo is taken for granted and that the
people supporting the casual ostracising and targeting of gay people and
children aren’t really cognisant of the harm they're doing, or of how singularly
evil and arbitrary their judgments are. How the very ever, this is not how you
go about making that point in a poignant or finessed manner. I know exactly how
cruel and institutional the abuse towards gay people can be, how cruel children
and parents and how relentless the struggles of these people are. While
the switching of the roles for the sake of a short film might be an interesting
rhetorical device, it becomes a little bit redundant when you don’t really
portray those struggles with anything like the realism or nuance that helps it
hit home. Yes, these children suffer unbelievable bullying, both physical and
emotional, but this girl has apparently been outed as heterosexual for all of a
week, and the biggots at her school have all, every single one, dedicated their
every waking moment to tormenting her and sending her messages urging her
towards suicide. Apparently, they wake up in the morning and immediately set to
the task of smacking her around and calling her a faggot, go to school solely
to mistreat her, and until they go to sleep sit on their cellphones obsessively
sending her those messages barely taking time to eat or bath or masturbate or whatever
it is 12-year-olds do after school. When you have to wave a massive banner
around shouting “THIS IS TERRIBLE. SEE HERE HOW TERRIBLE IT IS” instead of just
showing us how things are and letting the terribleness of the situation make
itself obvious, you’re just going to sound like a loon who doesn’t understand
the problem properly. This little girl might have had 12 full years to soak up
the knowledge that her kind won’t be tolerated, but only really contemplates
the personal ramifications of it and only suffers the violence and direct
prejudice for something like a week before cutting her wrists in the most
emotionally manipulative manner imaginable. This is just fucking stupid. For
one thing, the children suffering this kind of bullying generally suffer a more
insidious, ever-constant low-level threat that relies on the promise that it
could (and does) flare up at any moment and escalate to the kind of all-out
violence depicted here, which is far more psychologically damaging and scary
than one afternoon of an all-out brawl. These kids endure years of having to
hate themselves for their own feelings, and having to wrestle with themselves
on it back and forth. They have to deal with much more fundamental reminders in
the home that their parents would hate them for what they are. To condense it
this way and to reduce it to the almost abstract idea of simply getting beat up
is really to undermine the actual seriousness of the problem, and moves away
from being helpful and sincere towards being self-righteous and obnoxious.
That’s my
problem. Or to put it slightly differently, I think the whole gay rights vs.
homophobic bigotry debate has gotten ludicrously out of hand. I’m getting so
tired of staring at post upon post, article upon article like the video above
that seem to think what we need to be doing is shouting as loudly as we can,
and to go “look how evil you people are” whilst printing up the martyr badges.
I’ll reiterate my previous statement: No. Stop spending your energy trying to
rationalise and prove a point to the mindless, arsehole citizens of the deluded
right wing- their numbers are dwindling anyway. A majority of Americans are now
in favour of gay marriage, and most of the 1st world countries (and
even shitty little wannabe 3rd world countries like South Africa)
actually have legislation upholding those rights. More and more, the evil
little whiners who like to throw Bible-shaped rocks at gay people are the
hold-outs, the people who will be replaced in a couple of generations by more
homogenised descendants.
My dad’s parents
were Seventh Day Adventists who believed that observing the Sabbath on a Sunday
was sinful and ignorant. My father is a secular Christian who believes in
equality. I am a raging arsehole atheist who will happily pee on the ignorant,
conservative right and say I thought they were on fire. We progress. As slowly
as it may seem, we inch forward a little every day, and even though we do our
damndest to raise our children to hold our own biases and prejudices, they are inevitably
eroded by the march of an ever-more evolved world at least enough every
generation to ensure their eventual extinction. What I’m saying is, all of this
noise is unnecessary and a little bit counterproductive. Can we just recognise
that while the fight for equal rights and the humane treatment of gay people
(hell, all people. There are a great many injustices in this world, and a lot
of people living under the oppression of their gender, sexuality, race and
beliefs) is still vital, but that we are past the part of the program where we
need to explain it over and over again? When you go to such lengths to illustrate
why that kind of hatred is wrong, why the Bible really supports love over
judgment, and why we should be treating other human beings with the most basic
kind of respect, you’re only indulging the argument. I’m sorry, did you say
that laws restricting the basic rights of gay people is A-OK because your
little book mentions it briefly in between urging you to shun a menstruating
woman and beat your child to death for swearing? Fuck you. You’re not only
wrong, you’re delusional, and there’s no applying logic to crazy. It’s really
OK, entertain yourself with those little notions and warm yourself by the fire of your dying culture, because your children and your children’s
children will grow up in a world less and less tolerant of ignorance and
cruelty, and eventually your ilk will be the ones having to form minority
groups to protect your right to idiocy.
It’s fucking
2013, and barely at that. Shit, two minutes ago I turned 21, and tomorrow I’ll
be collecting pension from the government. I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about countries where gay
people are routinely executed and tortured, nor am I taking issue with
the fight to root the absurd-minded despots out of government where they
can cause actual harm by inflicting their personal beliefs upon
legislation. Those are very valid fights to be fought, and we're still
some ways away from making sure people aren't dying for their sexual
orientation. I'm talking about the social conventions and the movement
around 1st world acceptance of lifestyle, which is a very different
kettle of fish. Well it's a kettle of a related species of fish, but the
point holds. But we are so massively past the phase
where we even need to explain to grown-ass, well-fed human beings why it’s OK to love whomever the fuck will have
you, or why it’s properly nuts and indisputably repugnant to treat anyone with
any less dignity than you’d like to be treated with yourself. I really, really
think we can settle into the phase where we can just be happy that the actual,
statistical majority of rational thinking adults are clued up, and accept the
opposition as the bizarre minority it is. The social stigma is turning towards
those nutjobs, and believe me, if they weren’t inclined to be decent human
beings to start with, a piece of emotional blackmail like the video above isn’t
going to change their hearts and minds. But simply scoffing at their lunacy
like the village drunks they are will.
Just dismiss
them, people. No one wants to play with them anyway. And stop cluttering my
Facebook wall with kittens requesting Likes for Jesus, that shit is giving me
hives.
