2006 was ripe with celebrities coming out of the closet...some voluntarily...some not so. One very brave individual, TR Knight, came out because one of his Grey's Anatomy castmates used the derogatory term FAGGOT to describe Knight...not once but twice. Now that castmate is in "rehab"! Can a person's prejudices be rehabilitated?
Last week, I was surfing the satellite to find something worth watching on TV. My interest was grabbed by an ad for The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency when one of her new male models was offered the cover of Instinct Magazine. Why would that grab my attention? Simple...Instinct Magazine only puts out gay men on their cover and it was unknown if this model was gay. So Janice had to approach the model with the magazine's offer and find out if the man was gay. The episode ended last week with the question in the air...and the model, JP Calderon, looking very agitated. Was he agitated because he was straight and his sexuality was being questioned OR was he agitated because he was facing coming out?
Last night, we found out that it was the latter. Calderon is, in fact, gay and came out in a BIG WAY. He was noticeably uncomfortable with the situation and when asked about it, he replied that he didn't want to lose his masculinity and did not want to be stereotyped negatively.
I was both outraged by and sympathetic to his feelings. I asked myself why...why was I upset? Why was he having this fear of losing his masculinity? Why the fear of negative stereotyping?
It's the 21st century and still so many gays, lesbians and transgenders are afraid to be themselves. Is this fear the result of persecution from conservative, "religious" bigots? Yes it is...but we can't blame it all on them. (I'm pausing now so you can gasp at my last statement.) I say it again, we cannot blame it all on them! We, the gay community, are also to blame. How can we expect to be treated with equality and respect, when so many of us do not show that respect to our own community?
There are so many of us who make derogatory comments about someone who is too fem, too flaming, too butch, too big, too old, too weird... We are different from heterosexuals and we're proud to be different but at the same time, we are unwilling to accept the differences within our own community.
The gay community and supporters have come so far in our fight for rights, equality, recognition but we have far to go. We can't expect to win over our opposition if we can't win over ourselves!
Referring back to my first question, can a person's prejudices be rehabilitated? I have no idea, but if it can be done, we all need to go in for treatment!
The God
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Goddess
DECLARATION OF THE FOUR SACRED THINGS
The earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth.
Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them.
To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standards by which our acts, our economics, our laws and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.
All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance: only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirti flourish in its full diversity.
To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible.
To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives.
Taken from The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk
Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them.
To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standards by which our acts, our economics, our laws and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.
All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance: only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirti flourish in its full diversity.
To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible.
To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives.
Taken from The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk
2 comments:
I think we should all just break out the martinis. It's hard to be a bigot when the vodka is chilled.
We all share a common tendency to blame our struggles on someone or something other than ourselves. No doubt, difficulties arise due to external forces, but, as Choice Theory teaches us, we have control over our reactions and responses to those forces. As LGBTQ individuals, we have sometimes chosen to react to prejudice and discrimination in unbeneficial ways – ways that have only worsened our plight.
Bruce Bawer (who is gay), in his book, “A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society” makes a case of negativity in regards to modern gay pride festivities. It is important that people realize LGBTQ individuals are present in society, but do gay pride parades filled with tacky, immodest caricatures and extremely sexual overtones really portray what it means to be LGBT or Q? As LGBTQ individuals, we know that most of us live an average, normal life like any heterosexual. But, that is not what the media and the religious right choose to write about or display on television screens. No, they are quick to display the picture of the man with a single leather strap that barely covers any part of his body, and then they use this to describe what it is like to be gay. No wonder so many heterosexuals are afraid to grant LGBTQ individuals equal rights! Young people and older, especially those who are questioning their own sexuality, get the impression, “this must be what it means to be gay.” Then, they draw conclusions about themselves from these images.
I can relate to this first hand because I always felt that I didn’t fit into the “gay world.” Now, I realize that the LGBTQ is very diverse – thank God that it is! I can actually be myself – a gay Christian, progressive Baptist minister – and I do not have to fit any preconceived stereotypes set forth by anyone, including the gay community.
I believe the LGBTQ community needs to work at portraying themselves as most of us REALLY are – “normal” people, living “normal” lives, working “normal” jobs, etc. We need to accept responsibility and work to eliminate prejudice in healthy ways.
Post a Comment