While moseying around Joe.My.God, I stumbled across this post where dear Joe explodes all over gay conservatives due to a response made by one to a post.
Yes, homophobia. Because above all, the thing that [gay right-wing bloggers] hate the most (and if you are unfortunate enough to come across any of these blogs, hate is often the Daily Special), is themselves. These are capital "A" assimilationists, mocking the mere existence of gay neighborhoods and belittling those who reside within, ridiculing the work of GLAAD and HRC, and making vicious attacks on Pride events. To some of them, people with HIV or AIDS are promiscuous, dirty drug addicts who got what they deserved. These gay right-wingers long for a world free of openly queer culture, a world where gays live fully integrated (and therefore invisible) in their picket-fenced, cul-de-sac'd McMansions. They shout that "gay is only a small part" of who they are, yet fail to see the irony in their blog titles which use words such as "gay", "queer", even "faggot". Talk about cognitive dissonance.
Pushing the gross generalizations, full-on hatred, and stereotyping aside, the idea of assimilation struck me. Here's my question:
If you're gay, and you live in a gay area, participate in many stereotypically gay things like drug-use and sex parties, listen to stereotypically gay music, and behave in a generally stereotypically gay manner, who's the real assimilationist? Are people who go "all in" to gay culture any different from those who eschew it entirely? Aren't the same impulses at work? Is a disdain for straight culture any different than a disdain for gay culture?
I'm merely asking. It seems to me, plunging headlong into the gay world and becoming nothing but gay is, in fact, simply another form of assimilation. Few people fall into all one thing or another by happenstance. Be it a religion, ideology, or identity community that one is not born into, people often make a conscious decision to become that thing, to let that define them completely for a host of reasons, good or bad.
Somewhere in the chaos of our comment section, I remarked that I tend to dwell in a social world that straddles the gay and straight divide. As gay rights advance, people around my age and younger have been granted the freedom to pick and choose what we like without letting it devour our identities. In my view, that is progress; that is the entire point of the gay rights movement. There is lot about gay culture I genuinely enjoy. I couldn't jolly well blog on a website focused around gay culture if I didn't. However, there are also parts I could do without - if not outright abhor (see: rampant drug use).
I find it strange that people who are militant towards gay freedom seem to dislike it when that freedom is exercised in a manner that isn't pre-approved by the self-annointed homo police. You must have certain politics, you must like gay culture or else you're assimilationist, etc. etc.
Man is a funny little hypocritical creature. Just saying.
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