If I were to summarise this entire blog post in three words, it would be as below.
Homophobia Is Outdated.
There. That's done. Now you can go away. Or keep reading. 'Sup to you, brah.
The thoughts I'm about to share with you stem from my reading this article on PinkNews, the British LGBT news website. The man in the article talks about how public money shouldn't be spent on curing those who follow the "perverted lifestyle" of homosexuality. He says that if you make the choice to have gay sex, you knew you were going to get AIDS, and you deserve to suffer the consequences of not bridling your evidently unbridled desires. Or, in other words, "you did something I don't agree with, so I'm going to let you die, LOL."
Initially I was going to do a really long, angry blog post about just how wrong he is, in a number of colourful yet family-friendly ways. I was going to talk about how gay isn't a "lifestyle," it's a natural characteristic the exhibitors of whom follow a vast range of lifestyles. I was going to talk about how we still treat people who are injured in car crashes, when they made the decision to buy a car and drive it. I was going to talk about how AIDS rates are dropping dramatically in gay men, and how it's just as easy to pass STDs via unprotected heterosexual sex, and how the only real reason AIDS rates were so high amongst gays in the first place was because no-one knew a lot about STDs, so condoms were only generally seen as contraception.
But you know what: I can't be bothered. You've heard it all before. Some ignorant old loud-mouth spews some crap about how gays should be treated; sensible people of various sexual orientations proceed to use logic and rationality to show that they are wrong.
It's all getting a bit old, really, isn't it?
Discrimination against LGBT folk is being lifted all across Europe, North America, and much of the rest of the world. Homophobia is dying. And if Walking with Dinosaurs taught us anything, it's that huge beasts tend to make the most noise in their last, painful moments.
Anyone who has ever thought clearly about anything now knows that it's unacceptable to treat gay, bisexual and transgender people as second-class citizens. Support for the religious and non-religious right is shrinking. Social conservatism may seem to be a big thing now, but it's only making itself seem like that in a wild attempt to avoid it's doom.
It took decades to rid the Western world of institutional sexism, but (arguably I know) we have got there. It was a long slog between the days of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and the removal of the last instance of public racial segregation. But again, we've reached the end of that road. And we're reaching the end of this one, too.
If you want to help kill the beast more quickly, then challenge homophobia, even gilded homophobia, whenever you get the opportunity. Gay jokes can sometimes be innocent, but there are an equal amount of instances where comments such as "that's so gay," "you fucking fag," are signs of underlying anti-gay sentiment. And that isn't acceptable. If there's ever a moment where you think you should ask the question, "what exactly do you have against gays?", then ask it. Ignorance needs to be challenged, and accidentally implying a non-homophobe might be homophobic is a lesser sin than risking the growth and spreading of said ignorance.
And whenever anyone like the man in the article says homosexuals are lesser human beings, or whenever organisations like Exodus talk of homosexuality as a disease that needs to be cured; then think of gay suicide, think of anti-gay violence. It's people like this, however much they dress up as rational, that cause this sort of tragedy.
It's arguable that this post has become a lot more like the description in paragraph four than I intended... but, hey. Needs must.
I now hand over to Queen Latifah, with a touching message of hope for all of us.
I now hand over to Queen Latifah, with a touching message of hope for all of us.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
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