No.
There are many reasons for bigotry, for supremacist belittling views of gay people. There were many reasons for supporting slavery, Jim Crow. Those reasons were and still are fundamentally based upon aggressive ignorance and dogmatic fear.
And, you see, I'm not interested in appeasing that.
I want to look that ignorance and fear directly in the face and say, "No. I am not inferior because I'm gay. No. I am not less than you. No. I am not sick. No. I am not unworthy. I am a fully human law abiding contributing citizen who happens to be gay."
This article points out some interesting context to the bigotry. But let's face it. Whatever the context, the grievance, the fear, the misinformation - supremacist ideology is supremacist ideology.
If black women are more bigoted toward gay people because they're ignorant about sexuality and prejudiced against gay people because of the anti-gay denigrating rhetoric they hear repeatedly in their fundamentalist churches, well so what!
My experience with people who've been entrapped by the Christian fundamentalist cult, whether black or white, is that they're a lost cause when it comes to reason and fairness. To them, gay people will always be devlish child molestors in need of repair. Why would they ever overlook their belief that I am a child molestor? Absurd.
Thus, it's a wasted effort to reach out to these people if it means appeasing and stroking and tip-toeing around their bigotries as if they were sacrosanct. No. I'm not interested in hateful homophobic hypocrites. I might have an interest in marginalizing them but I certainly don't have an interest in respecting them.
I have too much self-respect, dignity and honor as a citizen who happens to be gay to participate in the appeasement Mr. Blow advocates.
No. We gay people must stop fearing the hatred and ugly cruel beliefs others have about us. We must put away the internalized homophobia. We must not appease the bigots. We must stand up and merely say, "We are fully human, fully worthy, fully equal JUST AS WE ARE." The bigots might knock us down; we must get up. The bigots might knock us down again; we must stand up again.
Eventually, and it won't take long, we will overcome the forces of the anti-gay industries and their ugly mean-spirited immoral ilk. Those who are unreachable are likely just followers. We'll never change their minds.
We gay people must win our full civil rights, our full inclusion in legislation that now excludes us, the right way. We must demand our equality, take our equality, scream for our equality, stand up for our equality. But we must never never beg for it.
No.
*This is a comment I wrote in response to an article in the New York Times entitled 'Gay Marriage and a Moral Minority' by Charles Blow.
Leave a comment