Posted 27 April 2015 - 12:55 PM
POPULAR
The argument that always gets made is that 'straight pride'—just like 'white pride'—is inherently inflammatory because these movements arise in communities which are not subject to discrimination or persecution, as, say, gays or blacks have been.
This argument is what I like to call, 'Horse shit.'
Gay pride is also horse shit.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: the notion of so-called "gay culture" is wholly-fabricated and artificial, sharing none of the hallmarks of cultural development that arise from the natural evolution of distinct societies, and the gay pride movement does more harm to gays by further stigmatizing, shaming, and humiliating us than it will ever do to raise awareness for gay rights. Why? Because the majority of people are straight, and if you want the general populace to take you seriously as a community, utilizing symbolism to which most people cannot even begin to relate—or even worse, actively find offensive—is not the way to go about it. If you want to be taken seriously, marching half-naked down city streets is not the way to go about it. Acting like hooligans to shock and provoke is not the goddamned way to go about it.
As a lesbian, I'll be the first to admit "Pride" isn't about being proud, it's about giving a big cockring-twirling middle-finger to homophobes. The fact the concept of "straight pride" offends gays is proof-positive of this: gays view straight pride as just as big of a, 'Fuck you,' to them as gay pride is meant to be. And you know what enraging homophobes accomplishes? The same thing burning Qur'ans does to Islamists: it breeds more of them. It's fucking stupid, and it needs to stop.
If serious progress is to be made anywhere in the world towards equality and inclusiveness for gays, we as a group have to stop insulating ourselves as a community behind the quite-frankly tacky and distasteful shows we see at pride parades and the pornographic charades we see flaunted as the hallmarks of "gay culture". Have some goddamned class. I hate to say it, but look to the media: who are the gays who garner respect not only from the gay community, but from people of all orientations and walks of life? They're the Anderson Coopers, the Rick Mercers, the Ellen DeGenereses of the world. They're the people who own their sexuality, who are actually proud of it, but who don't define themselves by it and certainly don't use it to attention-whore.
There's been a recurring line in the marriage equality debate that qualifying gay marriage as such is stupid—it's not "gay marriage", it's just "marriage". Well, gay people are just people, and the sooner we realize that that's the argument we need to convince the rest of the world of, the better off we'll be.
