Having just finished watching Bruno, the topic of homosexuality is on my
mind, and I know the movie's going to cause a lot of discussion
regarding it. As a jumping off point, I will say that, with the
possible exception of voting libertarian in the 2000 Presidential
election, I have never been able to vote for a political candidate that
agreed with my position on this issue because the pros always outweighed the cons.
Let's
go back to the beginning. In some ways, earlier generations were more
fortunate than mine when they learned about homosexuality, because the
first time I learned about it was also the first time I learned about
AIDS. Movies like Philadelphia and AIDS: And The Band Played On
combined with school sex education that explained about both AIDS and
homosexuality in the same breath made them virtually synonymous. Nobody
specifically called it the "gay cancer", but they might as well have.
AIDS was interesting apart from that though, because, outside of
increasingly rare blood transfusions or unfortunate birth circumstances,
one could only get the disease through sex outside a monogamous
relationship or through drug usage. Having it was like a giant Puritan
"A" on your face. I will note that it is unfortunate that some at the
time actively tried to prevent AIDS research from receiving funding
based on the apparently sincere belief that it was God's punishment for
homosexuals. Considering the not insignificant number of children born
with the disease, I should hope a significant portion of homosexuals
don't get diabetes, or that will be an apparent punishment too I
suppose. So this paragraph covers AIDS and related issues and having
done so, I'll say no more about it.
Despite growing up in
Harrison, AR, a community not exactly enlightened regarding such things,
I was never really exposed to significant anti-gay sentiment. My
mother could fairly be described as more out-of-touch and insensitive
regarding it, and, while my stepfather plainly believes it's morally
wrong to be a homosexual, he was never preachy about it and even watched
The Birdcage with myself and my mother when it came out. Mostly, I was
exposed to homosexuals through my oldest stepsister and her male
friends, all of whom were invariably gay. This was due either to her
friends all being in the drama department, Hannah's personality simply
being agreeable to such young men, or a combination of both. Whatever
it was, it gave me an impressive gaydar that functions accurately to
this day, and an immensely positive view of homosexuals. Hannah's
friends were very cool guys and invaluable early tutors in pop culture
and film. Particularly of note was a young man named Andrew who worked
as a projectionist at our local mall cinema. Running the place with the
attitude and audacity of Randal from Clerks, he knew everything about
the films playing and would screw up the projection for audiences who
talked and were disrespectful to films clearly better than their
audience. As far as actual exposure to homosexuals among my own peers,
they were mainly closeted, though I certainly had my suspicions. When a
woman gets cast as Gaston in a class production of Beauty and the Beast
because she can pull off the required masculinity better than any of
the men, yeah, that's a hint.
College was, as I imagine it is
with most people, the first place I actually encountered uncloseted
peers. Even during my evangelical Christian days, I never had a problem
with them. My own interpretation of The Bible at that time placed
forgiveness, redemption, and compassion above judging or tormenting
others. Presently, I've realized that it's not very Biblical to be so
kind and tolerant, so the Christians who oppose homosexuals are only
having the courage of their convictions. Invariably though, I liked the
various homosexuals I got to know. They were fun to smoke with
(tobacco for those who, I don't know, had a head injury), made for good
roommates, and nobody keeps up in an argument like some of those guys
from back in the day, especially one about pop culture. Strangely, and
this applies to this day, the number of lesbians I've been friends with,
or even aware of, is vanishingly small, although people keep claiming
they were there. Do I scream fat oppressive Republican alpha-male? I
suppose from a cursory visual examination, I can see it, but that's a
rather lazy evaluation of me, I think. Have a little insight won't you,
lesbians at Drury from 1999-2006?
Now for the controversial
paragraph. Bruno made me realize I've got to have a paragraph like this
in here to be completely honest. There is nothing wrong with being a
homosexual. Anything. At all. However, some of the stereotypical
behavior involved is deeply unpleasant behavior that is not okay...for
anyone. Ever. If you're an arrogant, shallow, condescending, elitist,
lewd, man-child who talks with an unnatural lisp and valley girl
accent...well...it's a free country. I'm not going to stop you from
acting like an idiot and a clown, but nor will I refrain from observing
that you are, in fact, acting like an idiot and a clown. Observing
these things does not make me a homophobe. It makes me a idiotphobe and
a clownphobe. Now, some people have talked and acted that way since
they were a kid and didn't even know what sex was. That's fine. You
don't get to throw away your entire personality that you've had and your
closest friends know you as just because you came out of the closet
though, an observation I've had a gay friend make, by the way. So, yes,
act however you want, but try and have some goddamned dignity about
you.
I'll just close by saying that, knowing about Kinsey's scale
as I do, it's interesting to talk in strict terms of heterosexual and
homosexual, when few people are truly at the extreme polarities in
either direction. Kinsey hoped we'd stop defining ourselves by the
strict lines of our orientation. Yeah, and you can hope that abandoned
land mines will become clean food and water, but it ain't gonna happen.
Yet, we've got GBLTQ as a concept now. Not only can you be gay or
lesbian, but in the middle as bi, transgendered, which is a whole other
thing that I can only imagine complicates matters exponentially, and
questioning. Heterosexuals really do have it easy, because we're left
alone to discover things on our own mostly. All I had to do was to see
Nicolette Scorsese on the diving board in Clark W. Griswold's imaginary
swimming pool to have something click, and all of a sudden I understood I
was attracted to the opposite sex. What does a homosexual do if, for
instance, their trigger is the volleyball scene in Top Gun, or, in the
case of a young lesbian, Nicolette Scorsese on the diving board? Surely
they cannot embrace their new insight into themselves as openly and
with as much support as I was privileged to be able to do? My mind
cracks at trying to imagine a similar trigger for a transgendered or
transsexual child. What insight my mind is able to gather basically
tells me that sex is complicated. More than anything, my most
significant relationship taught me that, and I always interpreted that
as a tragedy. Sex is such a huge part of all of our lives. Those that
embrace chastity or celibacy must still resist their own body chemistry,
so there is no real escape. Much better would be simplicity and
transparency, so clear communication would be possible and everyone
would know one another's motives and where one another was coming from.
Instead, we've got this system whereby sex is something we, or at least
I, might never fully understand in a lifetime. Given that, a little
compassion and a little patience is probably a good idea, because
everyone is defining their own path, and the important thing to remember
is that their path is not your path. Learn to walk your path as best
you can and, if you ever come to the conclusion that you are so wise as
to be able to presume to tell another how to walk theirs, perhaps you
should give it a moment's thought.
-Frank
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