Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Do some gays keep us from progress?
Remember when Chris Crocker had his Youtube breakdown about Ms. Britney? Was talking to a straight woman about it and she said Crocker was an embarrassment to gays and lesbians. Why I asked her. Crocker’s Britney rant was all his and he doesn’t have a history of speaking for anyone but himself.
I’m sure when some straight person leaves a hot mess on the Youtube world, no one ever accuses that person of being a blight to straights. She granted my points, but noted in the real world rules are different for minority groups. The individual equals the group and the group equals the individual. Therefore Crocker’s rant is a stand-in for other gays and lesbians.
This conversation came to mind after heading over to Queerty.com yesterday (can never stay mad at them). They had an interesting piece about the whole Carrie Prejean/Perez Hilton pony show. They wonder if Hilton’s antics, which are more suited for a cat fight over a man, are really helpful to the progress of gay rights.
“In bringing up the gay rights question at the Miss USA pageant, Perez was putting our issues in the public spotlight, but naturally, he made it all about him and in doing so, actually lost the battle he was trying to wage. In calling Prejean a “bitch” and making her out to be evil as opposed to ignorant, he only reconfirmed the anxiety of many straight people that anyone who disagrees with gays and lesbians will be treated as less than human.”
All fair to a point, but if a straight person gets nervous because of the rantings of Hilton, then the issue is with the hetero not Hilton. Pointing to a media mouth or any other gay or lesbian who decides to act a fool, as an “embarrassment” plays into the very rigged game that keeps us from being judged on our own individual terms. It doesn’t mean we can’t be critical or have serious disagreements with each other, but straights lie through their lying teeth when they say gay rights would be so much easier to obtain if every queen was demure, quiet, and wore a Brooks Brother suit. No disrespect meant at all to all my proper Brooks Brothers wearing sisters. A few of you need to call a brother but that conversation is for another time.
I disagree with this article. All of the recent progress on Gay civil rights and Gay Marriage have come about as a result of a well thought out and carefully planned strategy of workig those areas where we had the greatest ability to win (ie Iowa Supreme Court, Vermont).
It is vital that for additional progress we demonsrate to the staright world, that our demand for equal civil rights is based upon recognition of the Gay community as fellow citizens, deserving equal treatment under the law. Disriinination comes from fear and unfortunately, many people still rely on the historical stereoytpe of Gays as being only interested in sex and fashion. When people comes to understand that we have the same needs as all other peoe, ie: The desire to marry, the ability to serve in the military, the ability to hold a job and be promoted based upon merit as opposed to whether or not the individual is straight, then people will come to understand that they dont have to be Gay or feel threated by gays , once they understand that there is no need to be fearful of Gay people.
Dont get me wrong, I am not about to apologize for being gay to anyone nor am I willing to have someone else vote on wether I should receive the same rights they enjoy, but it is important we set a standard of behavior that justifies our demands for equal treatment. Perez Hilton’s calling Miss California a bitch does not help us, it hurt us.
Wjhile I respect the ability of anyone to hold true to their religious beliefs (including Miss California) I dont believe that ones religious views should be imposed on another citizen nor be a determinant of whether another person receicves the same set of rights that all other citizens enjoy.
So I am not advocating every Queen wear a Brooks Brother suit nor Perez hilton to stop doing what perez Hilton does, but arguing for Gay rights by hurling inslults on another person is not the way to go.
Thank you so much for saying this. I personally with Hilton would sit down, and shut up. That has to do with how I feel about him personally. I do think he is doing a dis-service to the LGBT community, but I think that is because of the very unfair, if unavoidable “rules of engagement” you bring up here.
I would personally like to see someone go on national television and address how Westboro Baptist church gives straights and Christians a bad name in the middle of a conversation on the people who supposedly give us a bad name and see how the other side reacts.
Dear Mr. Withers,
Your contributions to this website are rambling, occasionally incoherent and grammatically embarassing.
Join that with a lack of any logic or realistic perspective in your most current piece, and I can only assume you don’t really give a damn about writing for this website.
Finally James I agree 100% with you on something. I am so over comments, especially from within the community, that diss on our diversity (AKA – comments posted by Wendy Payne). In our plight to get equality, some feel that we have to totally mainstream ourselves, act, behave etc. like the heteros. That is not the case. Kudos to the boys/girls that dare to be different and continue to announce, we’re here, we’re queer, get use to it!!!! There are plenty of “straight” events where they act the fools – we can at least have our one parade where it is our turn!!!!
perez “obese” hilton and chris crotcher are all about the fame. They don’t care about gay people or equality, all they want is to be on camera.
What’s that saying? “No press is bad press.” I’d say that applies to the Perez vs. Miss California showdown. Perez puts the issue of marriage for same-sex couples out there and makes it unavoidable.
Miss California responded the way she did. I’m gay and for same-sex marriage rights, but even I might have had a difficult time responding eloquently and thoughtfully under pressure about such a heavy social topic. I get why Carrie Prejean responded the way she did. These beauty queens are trained to exude a certain level of wholesomeness–and bikinis make that awful difficult–so, in responding to Perez’s question, Miss California calls upon her family values because she understands that emphasizing family values helps her achieve wholesome credibility. She knew that traditional family values, as defined by conservatives in politics and in religions, is opposed to all things gay. The easiest retort she knows that these groups in opposition relies on is “marriage is between a man and a woman.” And that was her response. (What we really need to do is emphasize that there is a place for LGBT people in family values–put that on your To Do list in 2009).
Let Perez call her a bitch. Like it or not, Perez is a spokesperson for the gay community, and all who visit his blog know he says this out of anger and frustration. Straight people who check in with Perez now are learning to understand that anger and frustration. It’s the same anger and frustration we deal with every day.
Think of it this way. I remember being a kid and having friends whose parents told them “no” to everything all the time. After a while, I thought my friends’ parents were bitches, too!
Maybe it’s better that Miss California said “no.” You can only hold down a group for so long before people come around to seeing that suffering and say, “It’s time to tell those bitches to take a hike!”
What about the so-called lesbian who after over 10 years of being gay, is now straight and not allowing her partner to see the child they raised together? She now claims that being gay is a choice, and that people can be made straight. Not only that, but she convinced a higher count to agree with her that her partner should not have any visitation rights. That I think is the prime example of an embarrassment to our community.
Hilton’s question cannot hurt gay rights for the same reasons that Westboro Baptist cannot hurt conservative christians. The issue is much larger than either of them.
Our fate does not rest in the hands of one person. To suggest otherwise is giving him far more credit than he deserves.
As TJNV suggested, “The people that want to hate us are just looking for bad behavior. Never mind that most bad behaviors can be found in all groups. Also those that hate us will ignore all of the postive good contributions of GBLT people.”
We can’t condemn our freaks and queens, people. The freaks, butches, and queens of old are the ones who STARTED our modern movement. It was the drag queens and butch girls from the old bar scenes that were on the forefront of Stonewall, you know. Do they represent the entirety of our community? No! But neither do the straight laced straight acting conformists. We are supposed to be a community that prides ourselves on being different! Where did that go? Quite frankly, if playing ‘normal’ is the only way to gain legal recognition than NO THANK YOU! I’d rather die than go back into the closet. The real embarrassments to our movement are the people who advocate that we hide who we really are to appease the masses. Sure, some of the freaks freak us out, or piss us off, but can we really say all our ‘good little faggots’ that are acting as our face today have done nothing wrong? This is a fight people, so let’s tie our hair up, step out of our heels, and start swinging with EVERYTHING we’ve got! Metaphorically, of course, because violence is wrong. And could smudge our makeup.
Yes there are gays that send us backwards. And I was one of them. I stayed in the closet for twenty years. I refused to admit who I was. I fought a disease and finally came true to myself and others.
I didn’t identify with the stereotypical image I saw in the media. And it bothered me that was what I was, or supposed to be. So, I stayed in the closet. I now understand that the rainbow flag is not just about race and ethnicity, but about country boys raised in North Carolina who ride horses, it is about jocks who play football, it is about beauty queens who wear lipstick, and it is about go go boys and dykes on bikes.
I stayed in the closet. And I am responsible for setting the movement back. People like cnn reporters who fail to be true themselves set the movement back. And so on and so on.
But if you are talking about Hilton and his remarks. Yes, he to set the movement back. Because he promoted and image that will make it hard for that little boy in Wisconsin looking for a gay image that resembles him going fishing with his brothers, and all he will see is Hilton.
To fight this, we need more images of gay people in the media. And Queer as Folk just doesn’t do it all.
I think James is 100 % right on this. The people that want to hate us are just looking for bad behavior. Never mind that most bad behaviors can be found in all groups.
Also those that hate us will ignore all of the postive good contributions of GBLT people.
However I really believe that we should be allowed to be human and still have our rights.
A co-worker remarked after the Prop 8 protest that if we were nice people would give us our rights. Yeah Right.
Tom in Long Beach
It all depends on how ignorant the non-gay person is. If they don’t know any more than one gay person, then they would think the only gay person they know speaks for all gay people. Then again, if they are that sheltered of a person, they won’t be gay friendly anyway. Do what you want. Life is too short to please others.
Yes, some gays DO set us back and thwart progress. What immediately comes to mind are the scantily clad gays during Pride parades who make absolute fools of us all! If we want to have grownup rights and privileges (marriage equality) and hate crime protections we need to act as if we deserve them! The LGBT community should transform Pride parades into equal rights marches instead.
Tiger,
But as you know folk will say Bush and the Pope stand alone as indivuduals. Ms. Crocker, however, represents all us. That is one of the perplexities of minority life. Ralph Ellison has a great essay about this. Can’t think of its title right now.
Sincerely,
James
There will always be at least one in every group that acts a fool. I thought Crocker was a cute fool tho, when his mascara wasnt running. The next time someone throws Crocker’s rant in your face, just remind them of the 8 years of Bush and the Poop’s condom tirade in Africa. The GLTB community has yet to produce anything on that scale.