They Don’t Seem All That Gay

They Don’t Seem All That Gay
Monday, August 22, 2011
by Burt Prelutsky

There are certain topics about which I write that inevitably trigger predictable responses. If I write, say, a defense of Israel, I know I will be called one of three or four obscenities by anti-Semites. If I write a piece bemoaning the fact that 80% of Jewish Americans invariably vote for left-wingers, I can expect to be vilified, not as a conservative, but as a self-hating Jew. If I write disparagingly about Obama, a certain number of readers, taking their lead from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, will condemn me as a racist, and if I write anything in opposition to same-sex marriages, I’m pilloried as a homophobe.

So, naturally, when I wrote and posted “Gays and Grays,” it stood to reason that I’d receive some angry email. What I hadn’t anticipated was that I’d receive a piece of snail mail that would contain a couple of pro-gay propaganda pieces and a third article downloaded from a gay website called Good As You, written by someone named Jeremy Hooper, taking me to task.

The envelope had no return name or address on it, so I couldn’t respond to the anonymous sender. And as the website didn’t entertain comments, I will have to take this opportunity to address Mr. Hooper.

In the article, portions of my original piece were re-printed so that Hooper’s gay readership would understand that I was a bad guy, even though in my article I had written, “I don’t happen to think that homosexuals are bad people.”

Apparently the part that most upset Mr. Hooper was the sentence that read: “What I do find annoying about a great many homosexuals is their insistence on identifying themselves solely on the basis of their sexual activities,” even though the paragraph continued, “To be fair, I have an equal intolerance with heterosexual men whose identity seems to be totally wrapped up in their sexual activities and whose conversation consists of bragging about their conquests. It just strikes me as adolescent.”

My critic also quoted the following three sentences: “As for Gay Pride parades, I can hardly imagine anything goofier. What is it that they’re so proud of? Is it that their sexual activity will never lead to the birth of a baby, but only, tragically, on occasion, to a dreadful disease?”

To tell you the truth, I thought my article was temperate and even sympathetic. But inasmuch as Mr. Hooper and his secret admirer wish to take me on, so be it.

If I am to be taken to task for suggesting that what unites gays is solely their sex lives, they will have to come up with a logical alternative. What else are we to make of their silly parades? In what else are they displaying their pride? It’s certainly not their nation, their religion, not even their personal accomplishments. It’s not like the Irish showing the green on St. Patrick’s Day or a VFW company offering a tribute to their fallen comrades on Memorial Day. The only unifying aspect of a Gay Pride parade is based on the sexual acts they perform together.

Finally, how is it that they ever came up with that childish insult, “homophobe”? It’s bad enough that they are so arrogant that they can seriously insist that anyone who opposes same-sex marriages is suffering from an irrational fear, which is the definition of a phobia, but what are we to make of the first part of the word? After all, for years we have been lectured that the “H” word is an obscenity, every bit as offensive as the “N” word, and yet here they are tossing it around like a beach ball at Dodger Stadium.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised they didn’t go all the way and come up with “queerophobe” or “fagophobe.”

That way, even in denouncing the label as a lie, they could claim we were using vile language to insult them.

I guess the nice thing about being a member of a minority in America is that you can assume the moral high ground even when you’re wading in a swamp.
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.