Why do I care...?

Entry for February 20, 2006

About two years ago, my father and I had an interesting discussion that I think applies here. Realize first that some in my late teens to early twenties until my father passed last year, our roles reversed. I was not the giver of advice, or rather, enlightened advice. Talk of compassion or the ways of human beings. I'd moved him far left of his bigotry over the years. In this particular discussion, he spoke of his frustration towards the goth/punk crowd. "Why did they do that to themselves. Why did they need to draw attention to themselves." Well, it took some doing, but I helped him to reshape his thinking and ask himself the same questions. Why DID they need to draw attention to themselves. Perhaps it was something painful in their past, or maybe it was just who they were. Better yet, why not ask, "Why do I care how they look?" A month or so later, he returned to the conversation, mentioning how he'd really been exploring what in himself made him give a damn. Why get so frustrated over something that had nothing to do with him. Moreover, the behavior of these people might just have been eliciting the exact response they'd hoped it would. He was actually the sap in their little scenario.

Well, I tell all that to tell you this. Growing up, the most damning and oft used term to insult another guy was, "fag" (please, whenever you read that, you need to use a near surfer-dude tone, in a deep baritone and more often-than-not an Elvis or Billy Idol lip curl). This term was tossed about so readily, it should have developed the same meaningless quality we now give to ‘In God We Trust’ on our bills. Yet, it didn’t. As, I look back at my life from the current apex, I have a great fear of my own idiocy. At merely 36 years old, I realize much of my life I’ve been at best a twit and at worst an ignorant boob. I’m somewhat ashamed of having ever used the term “fag”. A recent visit to friends who have not explored humanity the same way a student of the theatre is forced to, I was quite taken aback at the tossing about of this very term. It sadly made these dear friends shrink just a little in my eyes. The term is certainly offensive, even as well-meaning jibe, but it’s further bread of such utter unadulterated ignorance as to astound me. In this day and age it seems beyond impossible to judge a person’s manhood by their sexual preference. What makes a man is certainly a different question than it was in centuries past. I certainly didn’t build my family’s home with my bear hands. The problem with calling someone a ‘fag’, is he could still be intelligent, compassionate, manly and so on, while his response that you’re a jackass seems quite the trump card.

Let me lay it on the line for you. All I’m really saying is that as I grew up, I made no choice what-so-ever. I liked girls. There was never a time when I questioned it. It wasn’t up for debate. Those formative years were filled with the same tired old clichés we’ve all heard where my seeing even the smallest part of a girls leg from beneath her skirt and I sat there hoping against all hope not to be called up to the blackboard. For some time, when I was still more ignorant than I must be today, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would choose to be gay. I mean, girls were so round and bumpy in all the right places. They had all this great equipment guys simply didn’t have! If you ride out this thinking, before long, even the dimmest person arrives at the idea that homosexuals have made no choice, just as you have made no choice. They chose just the same as you chose. So here I am perched upon this hill of 36, madly in love with my wife and children. Being a feeling human being and believing homosexuality is just something a person is—and furthermore a thing that is harmful to no one. I’m aware, I was lucky to be born in a society who accepts my sexual preference. But I’m also struck with an interesting pondering. What if society hadn’t agree with my love of my wife? Would I love her less? Would my love for her be wrong because some believed it to be so? Would I not fight for acceptance? Would I not fight for the right to be legally bound in wedlock to her? I sure as hell hope I’d have the constitution to do so. I hope I’d have the inner strength. I hope I’d have the ability to see past the stigma, the religious dogma, and the youthful teenage taunting scars we all still carry in some form or fashion. I hope I’d be that sort of man.

So, I put out there, why is the expression of love between two people regardless of gender so unappealing as to force a turning of the channel. What resides inside you that can’t accept and even appreciate nothing more than an expression of love between two people. If you’re before your television, or sitting before a stage in a theatre, you’ve already chosen to suspend your disbelief. You’ve accepted that those people on the screen or stage are not real, you know that and accept it. Their actions are scripted and put before you by your choice for your enjoyment. Why then is it suddenly too appalling to watch? It’s not even actually happening. I would venture to say the passion between them does not repulse you. If passion repulsed you, you’d react the same way with a heterosexual lip-lock. There are many reasons why this might affect a person. I think the reality is not that the expression of love repulses you, but rather, you are allowing societies views to affect you. Just in the same way I used to readily toss out the word, “fag”. Where I would agree that public displays of affection are generally inappropriate (no matter the genders involved), shouldn’t we live in a world where the occasional snatched kiss during a shopping trip or at a sporting event should be acceptable no matter the gender of the participants. And shouldn’t we strive to define it as nothing more than it is, attaching no stigma placed on it not by our own insecurities. A show of affection. What could be wrong with that? Perhaps it should instead be celebrated or congratulated.

Monday February 20, 2006 - 09:19am (CST)