Wednesday, May 28, 2008

You Have Gay Family and Friends

I don't know how many times I've been talking with acquaintances and someone makes a snarky remark about homosexuality. The remarks are rarely malicious. The speaker just assumes that everyone in the conversation is hetero and so they make a crack about the "other".

I don't know what the percentage of gay people is but it's substantial, so you can be quite certain that someone you work with, probably even someone in your own family, is gay.

It's really impolite to speculate about other people's sexual orientation, but if you just keep the idea in your head that there might be gay people around, you might hold off on the careless comments. (And as a hetero, I can assure that it's not only gay people who are offended.)

Even more importantly, many gay people agonize over coming out to their parents, families and close friends. If those parents, family members and friends could just open a little crack in the door to let their loved ones know that they accept them in all orientations, it could ease so much pain. It would also make it less likely that you'll lose someone you care about.

Apologies for the preachy tone.

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2 comments:

Anthony said...

i make gay jokes all the time

why? because being gay is normal, not a taboo, so we shouldnt treat gay people as something special, cuz they really arent, just normal people with different sexual preferences.

my experience with gay people coming out in difficult situations is they need to be told that it really isnt a big deal. That involves making jokes about it too...

the political correctness around it makes people think that there are so many homophobes out there, which there are alot less than there used to be.

And besides, if someone says something really homophobic, all you really have to do is call them a redneck and welcome them to the 21st century.

I apologize to all the rednecks I may have offended in this comment...

Anonymous said...

And do you make jewish and african american jokes all the time?

"why? because being jewish is normal, not a taboo, so we shouldnt treat jewish people as something special, cuz they really arent, just normal people with different religious beliefs."

"why? because being african american is normal, not a taboo, so we shouldnt treat african american people as something special, cuz they really arent, just normal people with different skin color."

You should apologize to all the gay people and the other "normal" groups I suspect you have offended.
You can forget being asked to join the 21st century.