(no subject)
How Gay
Time and language; the contents of both are almost equally raped of their accurate substance. Morphed by human minds and unconcentrated in the arrogance of tongues. Society and the peoples within have treated their language as a joke and created slang and polluted meaning with double entendres. I can walk a hall and hear someone use a word, indifferent to its original nature, and add their own spin on it, their own connotation. "Fat" becomes "phat", as "tight" once was "cool" once was "stellar" once was "groovy" once was "popular" (or was it? I do not even recall its original name, and who does in this confused society?). Now, what does a measure of constriction, a degree, an astrological term, an adjective for shape, and popular notions all have in common? They've all been given a false identity. "Fraud!" I cry, "let's take 'em to court! They forged the signature of an other’s definition!" So here is one that may rile your moral and grammatical frustration; you hear it almost everywhere, that daily abused noun/adjective gay.
"That's so gay!" an insult is cursed upon another, giving a bad connotation to the word. I tell my friend Marie that I cannot go anywhere this weekend because of my unavoidable, previous engagement. She proffers to me her ever so intelligent response; "Oh. G-a-a-a-y!" within the extension, the long draw on that word, she expresses her discontent with a mixture of mocking resentment and disappointment, her tone starting in a higher decible and lowering as her expectations were "let down". However, between kids and boys it means an entirely different thing. They may say the same thing, in almost the same tone, and it is an insult to blush at. Between boys, manly pride is coveted. To hurt one's manlihood is to shame them entirely. These allegedly "straight" boys mock each other when they find weakness, cowardice, or even some measure of independence in the "sheep" of the flock. It is a measure of prompting, the accusations as harmful as a dare. "So prove that you're not gay", one might as well say. It denounces any attraction for women or girls; it cripples their sense of toughness and suggests that they are nothing more than a pansy, a girl. While boys may see liking and dating girls as a sign of a man, being as one is lowly; the connotated "girly" is still a cousin to weak, giggly, insensible, submissive women of the 40's and earlier; a curse on woman's name that has not yet been wiped clean.
Gay bars; gay clubs; gay conventions; gay population. A word that originated as an adjective for happy now has become an adjective for a lifestyle. The lifestyle is a very undefined one that stems from stereotypes, opinions, differences, misunderstandings, and (in some cases) Judy Garland. This stereotype has bothered numerous people, heterosexual and homosexual. I know a friend of mine, a young man of the age of seventeen, who is club president of the L.B.G.T.U. Club (Lesbian-Bisexual-Gay-Transsexual-Undecided) who would not have a certain other popular gay-boy be co-president because of their "flamboyancy". He was of the opinion that our mutual friend was too much of a stereotype, and he himself was desperately trying to escape that. Our friend did not think the same; he did not care who thought or knew of his homosexuality. Both are like to be right, in their own way. A characteristic trait, a life choice, should not brand them; they should not indulge the low, judgmental opinion of society by concealing themselves in shame. There should not be a definite "sign" that signals that trait instantly. There should be no red flag on every homosexual; you might as well pin a purple triangle to their jacket and send them walking through the streets of Germany.
The flaw of being gay will not allow someone the simple right of marriage. A couple is denied the simple civil right in their pursuit of happiness, of gayness, because of their "condition" which makes them so unequal to the rest of us. Murderers and rapists, hillbillies and their thirteen-year-old third-cousins, a man and his beloved cow, are allowed marriage or at least vows. So what causes a gay couples' "condition" to be so criminal, so much lower than a convict, so impossible as a bestial individual and their sow, so much more unhealthful as cousin and cousin procreation that causes them to be denied of this right to commit their lives to one another in a ceremony? I'll tell you; nothing but law and religion, the two things you never bring up during polite dinner conversation. The unarguable Law continues to presume its rights to destroy the nature of individuals lives by disallowing them privileges, while religion continues to condemn and threaten with the fires of eternal Hell. On they continue, a marriage between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, as sweet and tearful as any other wedding but unrecorded by any legal document; they are called "Commitment Ceremonies".
Heterosexual men are offended by flamboyancy as well, though this is a far more widely accepted notion. The popular myth is that "gay is contagious". From personal experience, I must deny this myth its place in the minds of educated peoples. I know numerous people who have spent their lives in the company of those who prefer the same sex and they remain "uncontaminated". Repeatedly, people find the desire to quarantine alienated populations and deny them rights that they would normally have as a "politically correct member of proper society". Yet another kind of racism; one more step towards cultural segregation. What is our governments next move after the tolerance of the oppressed wears thin? Will heterosexual and homosexual facilities be established as a means of solving this "problem"?
Straight men are bothered by it more than straight women; once again, they see their own "kind" acting like women. Perhaps that bothers them? -Makes them uncomfortable? It is not natural to act that way! Let us ignore the fact entirely that it has been in culture since before the Greek ages; since before this culture of ours was a thought in the ambitious New Englanders minds. For some reason now it has been suddenly realized by the masses and branded as a sin by God and the president! But a tampered-with Bible, changed and edited over the series of centuries by conventions and politics, and a Republican President that cannot put a compound sentence together do not have the convincing arguments to condemn the ancient roots of this sexual characteristic. Perhaps, as some suggest, it is a choice; but who has been given the rights to restrict the rights of others? Who can say a personal choice will define your place in this world, or even the next?
The word angers me. A structured stereotype, a curse and a way of life; happy, joyful. the rape of words continues, unchanged and unminded by writers and grammatic-fanatics alike. The altered words become so embedded in our culture, our history, that it would confuse and disorient us all to right the error now. A simple lifestyle choice brought up so much controversy. So much hate and condemnation. The contagion of hate confused with the contagion of freedom of choice, albeit an unaccepted one. The segregation of people; stereotypes forming invisible lines around the sense of people as human tolerance and individuality is ignored and misnamed. Society confines itself to be blinded by fear of the unknown, and so they do not open their eyes. Once again, they further their disability to survive with each other in a world that becomes increasingly smaller. So, yes; I hate the word, in a sense. I hate what we as a people have done to the word. I hate the cringes I see on faces at the word, the cautious step backwards at even the mention of it. The word is contamination; controversy; conflict; a race of individuals bound by their choice. America; freedom to pursue happiness!; freedom of speech!; freedom of choice! But not freedom to pursue gayness. No one wants to hear them. No one wants to allow them happiness. They are a pockmark on the skin of our country; the only inflection we're publicly and thoroughly willing to see, but not look at.