Talking Point III - Carlson

Dennis Carlson’s Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community looks at a number of issues. First his piece talks about the slandering and lashing out of straight America. For a long time in American culture homosexuality was viewed as bad, immoral, disgusting, and as a disease. Students and teachers deal with this issue every single day. From what the article talked about both these groups tend to keep silent whenever discussing queer issues, a major reason for this is to be avoidant of any harmful words or acts that might be imposed on them by their straight peers. Some of the stories of personal experience were pretty gruesome and hurtful. These stories dealt with students and teachers who had become victims of slandering and degrading. What I find outrageous is the amount of “political correctness” we as a nation constantly claim to have. Yet wherever you go I can say, personally, I am sure you’ll hear one straight person refer to either a straight friend of a gay person as a “faggot”. The looseness of this term has become shocking; a word that is completely degrading to straight people, especially men. As a child growing up if you were called a “faggot” it meant you were less of a man. Reading this article I was saddened to see how students have no problem being vocal about homosexuality in negative ways, were as some students said outright during class that homosexuality is gross. We as a nation talk about overcoming hurdles of racism and we have become more accepting as a nation (this is something I personally don’t agree with) but yet we have a tough time accepting people who are gay.

Another terrifying piece of statistics is the over whelming number of suicide victims who are gay. There are also a large number of homosexuals who are homeless and drug users. This becomes a scary insight into what a world of casting stones and judging of a group of people can do in a society. The inability to show compassion and acceptance by straights and the issues of an internal struggle with self acceptance causes youthful homosexuals to make decisions that can have drastic effects on their future, and can even lead to death. This of course doesn’t mean that everyone who is gay will have to deal with this internal torment and social degradation, but for some this is an unfortunate and inevitable outcome. It is nice to see a number of gay alliance groups and gatherings that help give adolescent homosexuals a place to find role models and gain confidence to take on problems of straight, judgmental groups that dominate the culture. One thing I always liked personally was the idea of Silence = Death, I have forever had the upmost respect for people of the gay culture who were willing to teach about gay culture, literature, icons, etc. and were willing to be themselves and be open with their sexuality; no matter what the consequences from close-minded America inflict on them.

One aspect I agree but also disagreed with was the idea of the queer culture through movies. Where as I understand the conflict between ideas of whether the movies are degrading and unrealistic or whether they are movies of triumphs and overcoming social turmoil. One thing I disagreed with was the slandering of the movie Bird Cage. Whereas I understand the idea that the movie makes it seem like there’s a coexistence and acceptance of homosexuals and straight people because both groups attend showings at a drag club, that it is, in fact not really underlining that there’s complete friendship and compassion between the two groups. The thing I didn’t agree with is that the movie puts into place that all gay men are flamboyant, feminine, and gaudy. I believe that the movie deals with a group of gay men who are a part of a sub-culture. I would like to believe that there are intelligent people in the world who understand that every gay person isn’t like that, but then again due to the ignorance of common people to this topic I wouldn’t be surprised otherwise.

One thing about this topic I always thought was interesting was in a documentary that I saw a couple years back which discussed the Matthew Shepherd incident. One person on the documentary made an interesting point about straight people and their feelings about homosexuals. That person said that many straight people claim that they accept gay people and don’t have a problem with them, but then follow with “but I don’t want them coming near me”. Doesn’t this seem to be a little bit hypocritical and also acts as an oxymoron? There’s a constant stigma about the queer culture that people have nothing on their minds but child molestation, multiple sexual partners, flamboyancy, etc. and that these ideas are ruining the fabric of the “American way of life”. So in the long run this idea of “partial-tolerance” is a complete joke and still inflicts a causation of out casting people of the queer community. Oddly enough while I write this piece I think about the article and how every way to label homosexuals is wrong and honestly I feel pretty stupid right now as well. It seems every word used to define the said group of people has been a derogatory term at one point or another, and I feel like I am being derogatory by using each one of the words. But maybe the reason those words and descriptions feel off setting is because when you get older and you see what those words really are used for it becomes a bit shocking and saddening to see loose words like “faggot”, “queer”, “homo”, etc. being used as if people who are gay aren’t even people at all. They’re animals who are disgusting, how can people be so cruel and not even think twice about it?

Finally what bothers me the most about this issue is sometimes I wonder if there’ll ever be co-existence and complete peace with the queer community. Other issues of discrimination such as race coincides and conflicts with the queer culture. Whereas both groups have to deal with issues of discrimination and slandering people who are of different races share some of the same interests with each other, one of those same interests in religion and religion preaches the idea of tolerance and acceptance between people. Yet a large number of churches slander and immortalize the queer culture, and because religion has a large influence on society they basically dictate how to react to specific things. I am not saying that all churches do this, but it is prevalent, I mean, look at the inequalities of law and justice for the queer community. I can only hope someday all of that will change.