“Mommy, why is that girl sitting on the stickshift and making that boy make those sounds?” “It is not my responsibility to explain things to you, honey.”
Please indulge this post, which is going to be a little LiveJournal-y for my tastes. Shut up and literally read it, because there is sex when you reach the end of the post.
On Monday, because of and despite power tools right outside my window at 7:30, I woke up in a happytastical mood. Not only did Alice Ripley get her Tony like the crazy bitty she is, but it was also beach day! The first beach day of the year, no less!
Being the new media douchebag I am, the first thing I do in the morning is check facebook on my phone before even lifting my head from the pillow. This is the update at the top of my newsfeed from a friend from high school, who, I might add, is a completely lovely and loving and understanding person:
Found out last minute when we were already in the Orlando area that it was gay weekend at Disney… ugh. We didn’t go. Can’t bring two little girls into that environment! I was so disappointed. We will try this again this weekend.
Good morning to me!
Admittedly, I am a child sometimes. I get offended easily and often jump to conclusions. But! This was upsetting to me. This is the type of comment that I can almost always allow to pass when I see them said by politicians or preachers or traditional marriage advocates, but there is something about hearing it said by someone that you know and respect that is particularly jarring. To be quite honest, it was in my head and bothering me for the entire day, despite my best efforts to consciously remove it.
Several other people also commented that they found it offensive or surprising, one of whom brought up the point that most of the performers at Disney are gay (not necessarily persuasive, but it’s context later). Also, since I was not intimately familiar with Pride Weekend at Disney, from what I can tell from the website, Gay Days at Disney is a particular day at the Disney theme parks, not sponsored by Disney, when gay people go to the parks wearing red to increase the LGBT community’s visibility and prove that we can be just as obese and white trashy as the average Disney theme park visitor I guess?
The poster continues on after reading several of the dissenting and supportive comments:
Holy moly! Good thing there is a such thing called freedom of speech in this world! Didn’t mean to offend anyone, but I will not take two little girls for the first time to Disney to have a memory of what it shouldn’t be… You know if Disney is giving the title of “gay and lesbian weekend”, people are going to be wayyy more obvious with it than not… I know I am not the only person to think this either!! I do not want to have to explain to two little girls why those two guys are making out and why those two girls are holding hands… why should I? We all know it’s not the “norm”, but if that’s what you choose, fine. Be happy. Live your life. And it is so different to be dressed up and gay, kids obviously don’t know if the guy is gay in costume; they think of him as Mickey or Cinderella as her or whoever as they look!! Duh. So get over yourselves. Thanks.
I don’t bring this up to ridicule or even criticize the person that posted this, and I do not intend to attach an identity to the person who wrote this. I just wish to use it as an example of something that is homophobic but can still be said without any cognitive dissonance or hypocrisy by someone who has gay friends and supports gay marriage and gay legal rights in general, which is even more frustrating to people like myself who care more about what people think about me before they know me.
Things mentioned explicitly:
- Children should not be brought to locations with higher-than-average numbers of gay people
- Large numbers of gay people in an area cause disappointment
- Freedom of speech justifies offending people
- Having gay people around will make children like things less
- Parents should not have to explain to their children what being gay means
- Being gay is a choice
Things that were strongly implied and can be left up for interpretation:
- Being gay is gross (“…gay weekend at Disney…ugh”)
- Gay people should not be allowed at Disney theme parks
- Gay people should not be allowed near children
- Gay people will express affection in unoppressive environments, and this is unacceptable
- I take solace in the fact that the majority of people are made uncomfortable by gay people
- Being gay is not normal
- It’s only okay for gay people to be gay if they hide it.
I take issue and offense with every single one of these points. Except for the freedom of speech one – I think that people should be able to be offensive, i.e. speak their minds. I think it’s great when people are allowed to fully express anti-gay points of view; further, I think that people that hold anti-gay points of view should be encouraged to express them, especially in a public forum.
I could go through each point and talk about why each one is wrong, but instead, I’ll just post this picture of straight people who were pretty much doing the nasty in a car in a parking lot directly next to and in plain sight of the highly trafficked boardwalk in Newburyport, at approximately the same time the follow-up comment was logged, no less (I do not want to have to explain to two little girls why those two guys are making out and why those two girls are holding hands… why should I?).
For the record, I counted no fewer than 6 strollers passing this point in the 10 minutes my friends and I finished our ice creams and watched in amazement at the brazen disregard for public decency of this couple.
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You may not be judging or disparaging your high school friend, but I sure am. Wow. This actually ranks above my ex boyfriend (who is now, by the way, engaged to a beautiful and sweet girl but used to be flaming it up with his boyfriend, Matt) who, when he found out that he and Matt would be in Disney for gay days told me he was upset by this because he didn’t think that people should have to have “days” to celebrate their differences. He felt the same way about say, adopted kids day, or twins day. He felt that rather than be proud of being unique (uniquely adopted, or twin, or gay) you should want first and foremost to be considered the same as everyone else. To want a day in celebration of your otherness implies that you want to be considered an other rather than part of the human experience. I found that to be wrong on so many levels. But now that I read what your “friend” wrote, I wonder if he might not be right- perhaps the answer is that everyone should hide who he or she is to fit into some predetermined “norm”. Alright then, George Orwell, bring on the 1984.
I will never understand what the big deal is about “explaining” same-sex PDA to kids. When I was 5 I asked my mom if “a groom could marry a groom” and she said yes, he could. And that was that. The only trauma I suffered from it was when I repeated it to my babysitter and she flipped out at me and told me my mommy was wrong. THAT part was scary.
just so youre aware ive been to disney during gay days and its spectacular.
I love it when people justify their argument with the statement, “I know I am not the only person to think this either!!” translation: me and my invisible friend.
From my perspective, the frustrating thing is that she isn’t the only person to think that. [Via]
A clear majority of Americans are against full marriage rights for gay couples. Briefly, there’s a conflict in that the majority belief is often correct, but that majorities are also rarely but consistently wrong in predictable ways. This tendency as an argument is technically a fallacy, but it’s useful. Consider “No reputable scientists dispute the existence of global warming.” That’s very similar reasoning, and it’s also very persuasive. So especially for an issue like gay rights, where my opponents believe it to be a moral issue, where there aren’t really demonstrable facts to objectively debate the veracity of, the argument “most people believe this to be immoral” is even more persuasive, or at least admissible (for me) when presented with other lines of arguments.
Frustrating, though, right?
WOW.
What a sweatervest.
It’s hard enough to deal with ignorance in the world – it’s harder when it comes to people we’re friends with.