Reply to Anti-gay cheers at bball game

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wish that these young men could understand that when they engage in behavior like this, they are really telling an entire class of people that they hate them.  And those people they hate on include some of their classmates, or some of their classmates' parents or siblings.

I have often thought that it would be beyond difficult to be gay, because no matter how much progress our society makes in the areas of acceptance and rights, most people in the wider world are still so hateful (in many areas of Africa or the Middle East it is imprisonment or death, and read the international boxer's hateful rhetoric of this week).

That is why it is especially important that educated young men here not contribute to that hate.[/quote]

The fact is, there are many people in America, including here in our "enlightened" Washington area, [b]who are uncomfortable with the gay lifestyle[/b].  This may be especially true at a school that has a more fixed religious orientation.   In their view, they don't hate the sinners but they won't condone the sin.[/quote]

Are they uncomfortable with people who are gay [i]per se[/i], or are they uncomfortable with some stereotype they ascribe as "the gay lifestyle".  Being gay is a matter of who you are attracted to physically or sexually, something that all of us, whatever our orientation or desire may be, have a certain inherent preference for -- male, female, both, or no interest.

I assume, therefore, that you must mean that people are uncomfortable with a stereotype they describe as "the gay lifestyle."  This probably refers to some idea of stealth, underground, fleeting, casual, promiscuous, semi-anonymous sexual encounters.  First I would argue that historically, gay men by necessity -- to avoid persecution, death, prosecution, firing, and discrimination --  were forced by society to live a public life of heterosexuality, while keeping their sexual preferences a secret.  In fact, young men teasing other young men about 'being gay' from an early age, certainly continues to drive a lot of that sexual expression underground.  Second, plenty of heterosexual people have and enjoy a sexual lifestyle that is hookup, casual, non-monogamous, secretive and underground (yes, I am looking at you Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Anthony Wiener, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Kardashians. et al.).  And third, many gays enjoy a 'conservative' life in a monogamous relationship, with a longtime partner or spouse, children, a house, good jobs, and places of respect within their communities.

Let's teach our young men to cut it out, our gay brothers and sisters face enough discrimination and insecurity in the larger world, without us permitting that intolerance and 'hate', because it is that, to creep into our academic communities, which should be places to foster empathy, friendship, tolerance, and acceptance.

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