Homosexuality and Sports

Jason Collins is gay.  No matter what talk radio station I turn to, that is all people are talking about.  Collins is the first male American professional athlete in one of the major sports to come out while he is still an active player.  All of those adjectives are key in the description.  Tennis, swimming, figure skating and golf are all sports with male professional athletes but if one of their players came out it would be reported on the back page of the sports section.  It would be a non-story after 24 hours.  Athletes coming out after retirement from one of the big 4 (football, basketball, baseball and hockey) is nothing new.  Female athletes coming out while they are still playing?  It's been happening for years and it rarely gets a reaction. So my excitement over his coming out has been squashed by all the ignorant comments that I've heard for the past 2 days. 

The two most common arguments:

Gay people should have separate locker rooms.  If I were playing sports and one of my teammates were gay I wouldn't feel comfortable changing next to him. 

So apparently gay men are all sex fiends.  They can't stand near someone of the sex they are attracted to without wanting to have sex with him.  And of course all people of the sex they are attracted to are attractive to them.  I have never been a man but I have changed and/or gone to the bathroom in front of plenty of men and gay women over the years and, in doing so, been partially or completely undressed in front of them.  At no point did I have to fight someone off because they were so overcome by the sight of my partially naked body that they had to jump on me.  

To play the other side of this argument.  What if someone was attracted to you?  Does that mean they would act on it?  Do people typically physically assault every person they have a crush on?  More often than not, you hide your feelings from the person you are lusting after and go out of your way to seem like you are not attracted to them.  I have had men and women grab my ass or make inappropriate comments to me while I was walking down the street or into a bar.  I wouldn't advocate for all people who may be attracted to me to be banned from public places because they incidents are the exception and not the rule.  I have been well over 100 situations where something like this could have occurred; I can count all the incidents on one hand. 

There is nothing courageous about what he did.  It's not like he's a superstar.  If Kobe Bryant came out that would be brave.  That would be a story.  

Your accountant coming out is not a big deal to the general public. For the most part, kids aren't watching your accountant on TV.  Your accountant doesn't regularly bump elbows with some of the richest, famous and most talented people on the planet. Your accountant would still be brave if he came out within his co-workers and circle of friends but it wouldn't be national news. 

A 12 year old boy who knows he is gay but is afraid to come out because he doesn't want someone to call him a sissy may not have known who Jason Collins was yesterday but today he is his biggest fan.  Because he sees someone who shares his sexuality but doesn't act like the over the top, gay stereotype that is so often portrayed on American television (think the New Normal, Glee, Rupaul, etc). He sees another option.  He sees that he can be gay and still be masculine and not the but of a joke.  And he sees those guys that are superstars playing next to this guy and not blinking an eye.   

Collins pointed this out in one of his interviews.  He made a point to mention that he is not an effeminate gay man.  Many gay listeners called in and criticized him for this.  These people need to face the fact that people who's inner circle doesn't include gay people think of all gay men as the overly effeminate lisping stereotype and all gay women as  the manly, unattractive man-hating stereotype.  It is important for people to realize that gay people come in all shapes, sizes, colors and personalities just like the rest of us. Yes, sometimes you can look at a person and guess that they are gay.  But a lot of the time you can't.  And there are a lot of effeminate straight men out there screwing with this stereotype.  

I am black and my husband is white.  There are a lot of people who don't approve of our relationship.  Many of these people are very vocal about their disapproval of our relationship.  30 years ago there were laws that supported people's rights to discriminate against us and, in some cases, arrest us for being married.  Unfortunately there are still many people who feel this way.  There are still towns with segregated proms and neighborhoods.  But they are the exception, not the rule. 

I hope that we are saying the same things about gay rights a few years from now.  That when a so called religious person compares homosexuality to bestiality, pedophilia and polygamy people look at those people as crazy.  That those people no longer get to be part of the mainstream.  That their hate is limited to the cult that they represent.    That those people are on the fringe with the rest of the bigots and the rest of us are allowed to live our lives with the same rights and freedoms as every other American citizen.  

I'm a Gleek and I'm Mad

So I love Glee. From the first episode I was hooked.  The singing and dancing.  It's like a musical and a soap opera all in one.  In the beginning it was great but it has slowly started to lose it's way.  I was excited when they had the 'Become a Glee Cast Member' contest this summer.  With a handful of the cast slated to graduate from high school and leave the show at the end of the season, they had to get on to developing new characters to keep the show going.  The show wasn't an American Idol type show with a bunch of rejects and a few talented people.  It was all talented people that were chosen to compete, a welcome change from most of the reality shows. 

My top pick from the summer actually was one of the winners which I loved.  His name is Damian and he is  this Irish guy with amazing eyes who sings old school, rat pack sort of standards.  He is charming and vulnerable and has a awesome accent.  So of course Ryan Murphy and the rest of the team can't figure out what to do with him despite talking about how much they could do with him during the contest.  He's just been in the background with no story line no character development and honestly I feel sorry for him.  It's embarrassing to watch someone who so many Gleeks grew to love over the summer just wallow in "extra-dom".  He is essentially part of the pit crew.  So we wasted the summer listening to him sing and rooting for him as struggled to learn to dance dance moves.  Why have a contest if you weren't going to do anything of substance with the winners.  Any fan could have been plucked off the street and inserted into the show with the role he's been given.  

Another complaint is the diminished role of Chris Coffer, the gay kid.  He is one of the greatest talents on the show and he rarely gets a solo any more.  Maybe they are trying to help us get used to not having him featured since he's supposed to graduate but they did this for a lot of last season too and Rachel, Finn and the other seniors seem to be getting plenty of face time.  It all started when they added Blaine to the show.  I get it, Blaine is talented and the ladies love him but he is no Kurt and really he's basically a one trick pony with his boy band moves and head tosses.  I need to see Kurt him signing and dancing every episode, as a lead, not part of the chorus.  He is the heart of the show and idol for a lot of gay kids who have no one else to look up to in Hollywood.  Not featuring him in the show any more is criminal. 

And while I'm on it, where in the hell are Rachel's adopted parents?  You've been talking non-stop about her 2 gay dads since the beginning of time.  When are we going to meet them?  How hard is it to find 2 gay man who can sing, dance and act in Hollywood? I mean seriously.  Step up to the plate. 

Glee has lost a least 1.5 stars over the past years by not living up to the standard that they set.  They need to get it together or they will lose fans.  That's all I'm saying.  It's still on my DVR but it might not be next year.    

Seperate Schools for Special Kids

A couple years ago I watched a documentary about a gay-friendly public high school in New York City.  I thought the documentary was fantastic.  You felt for these poor kids who had been bullied at their previous school because they didn't fit the cultural norms for their gender.  Only about 60% of the kids featured in the documentary were gay/bisexual/transgender.  The other kids were straight but were bullied so severely in public schools that they didn't feel safe there.  Last week there was an article in Time Magazine about a similar school in Milwaukee and schools like it popping up all over the country.  Some people argue that special schools weren't needed twenty years ago and they weren't needed now.  They argue that by separating kids from bullies you are sheltering them from what they will have to deal with once they enter the real world.  Others argue that tax dollars shouldn't be used for a public school that caters to a section of the community that not everyone supports due to moral/religious conflicts.  I can understand arguments for and against these schools but I think they are an unfortunate necessity right now.

I am 35 years old.  I attended private school through 6th grade and public school for the rest of my education.  Like most kids I was bullied but not to an excessive amount.  There were times when I was a bully to other people but not to excess.  I never felt like I wasn't safe going to school.  I did witness kids being severely bullied.  There was Derrick, the black boy who was very clearly gay and deaf.  He wore a huge hearing aid and talked funny and that was just too much for some kids to take.  In high school the bullying was pretty bad.  Kids would mock his speech and his mannerisms.  They threw his stuff on the floor and kicked it around the halls.  At first Derrick would cry and yell when they did these things but after a few weeks he just tried to ignore them.  Derrick was a really funny kid and had a really unique sense of fashion that drew people to him.  Pretty soon Derrick was a popular kid with a large circle of friends.  The bullying never stopped but it became less severe when he stopped reacting.  It seems that the fun of bullying comes from making the other person cry/yell/fight back.  When people stop giving the bully the attention they need, they find someone else to bully who will. 

I wonder what would have happened to Derrick if the bullying didn't ease up over time.  If multiple times a day, every day through 4 years of high school he was severely bullied how long would he have lasted?  If Facebook and Twitter were around and people could continue to harass him online outside of school.  If text messages were sent to his phone non-stop telling him what an awful person he was and how people wished he were dead.  Would Derrick have been one of the kids who took his own life or dropped out of school rather than continue to deal with the bullying?  The only special schools that I knew about in our area were for kids with special needs (autism, down syndrome, etc.) and a lot of those kids eventually integrated into the mainstream public schools.   His single mom wasn't going to home school him.  She couldn't afford to send him to a private school (where he would have likely been bullied).  I don't know if I would have been able to make it through 4 years of this sort of bullying.

When you're a teenager everything is very dramatic and seems much worse than it is.  Once you become an adult, you look back at how things that seemed like such a big deal when you were a kid weren't at all.  Your boyfriend breaking up with you wasn't the end of the world.  You weren't going to die because that $5 box of hair dye turned your hair orange.  There were bigger things in life to deal with and you were amused at how dramatic you once were.  But when you're 15 you don't know that things will be better when you're 30.  All you know is that every day life if horrible and there doesn't appear to be any relief in site.  So maybe you give up because you just don't have the strength to fight any more.  Because no matter what you do, they won't leave you alone. 

What's wrong with sheltering these kids until they reach college or the work force? With providing them with an environment where they can learn and express themselves with no fear of bullying?  Once they reach college or the work force, sure there will be people that don't like them but there will also be people who are just like them and can help them cope or who don't care because they are busy living their lives.  I don't have any children but I pay a school tax.  I would rather not pay a tax bill that doesn't benefit me in any way but I recognize that kids going to school and getting an education benefits society as a whole.  My taxes pay for food stamps for kids who don't have the money to eat, for people who can't find jobs, for public housing, and hundreds of other programs that don't have anything to do with me.  Why shouldn't they pay to keep another kid from taking his own life at 13?  I don't care what any one's religious/moral beliefs are, no one should miss out on an education or die because they don't live their life exactly like someone else wants them to.  I hope one day society progresses to the point that these schools aren't necessary but until then I expect more of these schools to pop up. 

Don't Ask Don't Tell

So it looks like the US is set to overturn the highly controversial Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy that was made law in 1993. I distinctly remember being a junior in high school and not understanding why the policy was necessary. Did people think that gay people hadn't served in the military before? Why why this policy suddenly needed? Everyone in the military has served with gay people, whether they were out or not, did they think that there would be less gay people because of the policy?

The only thing the policy did was reinforce that gay people were less than straight people in this country. That it was OK to be gay if you hid it. That when a bigot killed a person they suspected of being gay it was that person's fault for acting gay. If you have a problem with gay people then you are the one who should be punished and kicked out of the military. By kicking gay people out because ignorant people were uncomfortable with their presence you are telling gay people that they will be held accountable for the stupidity of others. That we can't expect people to be tolerant of people that are different from them.

The arguments from the people who didn't want the policy repealed are very similar to the arguments against letting blacks and women having equal rights. There are still people who kill people because of race and sex but we don't tell the victims it's their fault for being being black or female. We shouldn't prevent people from living free lives because it might make some people uncomfortable. There are people who stare at my husband and I when we hold hands. People who are blatantly rude simply because we are an interracial couple. It bothers me that these people exist but it doesn't make me let go of my husbands hand.

About an hour north of Syracuse, is Fort Drum Army base. This morning they interviewed three different people who lived at the base to get their opinion of the policy. They picked three people who represented the most ignorant arguments that I have heard against overturning the policy. New York is a very liberal state, particularly upstate New York where I live. It was distressing that the three people that they chose don't properly represent this state.

The first person was an older veteran. He had a long beard, a leather vest and a bandanna (very biker look). He said that when he was in the military there were homosexuals and those people got sent to the hospital; that's just how things went sometimes. I'm happy that this person is too old to serve in the military. But you know that person, and people like him, raise ignorant kids who have the same views or disown their kids when they come out to them. It wouldn't be a surprise if this person wore a sheet on the weekend and burned crosses in front of people's houses.

The second person was in his early 20's and he said that he didn't believe in "it" because that's how he was raised. OK, so you are against homosexuality as a lifestyle. What does that have to do with some one's ability to serve in the military? That person isn't going to stop being gay just because they aren't in the military. Gay people are still going to exist. You cannot force the entire country to live life based on your personal religious or moral bigotry.

The third person was also in his early 20's and he said that he was okay with it as long as "they" didn't hit on him. That's right because every gay person hits on every straight person. Because gay people are obsessed with having sex and cannot control themselves when they are around people of the same sex. Because when you're hunkered down in a foxhole with someone trying to avoid enemy fire their only focus is on getting into your pants. Don't flatter yourself.

When I was in college there was a big deal made of a woman trying to join the Citadel. The administrators at the southern, military school said that she would be a distraction to the other cadets. That they could not guarantee her safety and that their facilities were not set up to accommodate women. In the end she won her lawsuit and opened up the Citadel to women. She didn't graduate because the harassment was too much for her to handle. But many other women have gone on to attend and graduate from the Citadel.

A woman attending the Citadel is not longer such a novelty. Future generations won't be able to imagine not serving next to female class mates. I hope that is how we look back on gays in the military. That we think of the 17 years when we kicked 13,500+ people out of the military simply for being suspected of being gay as a dark time in this country's history. That it is grouped together with other major civil rights milestones.

Thanksgiving

Today I am thankful that I am a straight woman. I am thankful that I wasn't born pre-disposed to love someone of the same sex because my life would be very difficult. I could not marry the person that I loved in most states. If I died, my partner might not be allowed to received death benefits. If my partner and I had children and she died her family could take my children away from me if they didn't approve of our lifestyle. I could get kicked out of the military if someone found out I was gay no matter how nobly I served or how many times I had risked my life to protest the lives of others.

I live in a country where society as a whole allows gay people to be discriminated against. Where there are government policies that discriminate, or at least don't equally protect, gay people. Why are people surprised that so many gay children and young adults are killing themselves? What are we as a society giving them to look forward too? What message are we sending them about their lifestyle?

I know that things will get better, because they always do. There was a time where I couldn't go to college, marry my husband or go to certain places without fearing for my life because I am black. I hope that gay kids that are born in the next decade can look back at the early 2000's and be grateful that they weren't born then, the way I look back at the late 50's when my mother was born. I hope that we as a society realize then, how ignorant we were as a society and how un-American it was to discriminate against 10% of our population because they were different.

Out of the Closet..Sorta

So I was listening to Macy Gray's newest album, The Sellout, this morning while I was getting dressed. It's a really good album; if you liked her old stuff I would recommend it. But I was a little surprised to here her singing about her man in one love song after another. Earlier this year I heard an interview with Macy Gray where she was talking about how she had gone crazy for a few years because she felt like she was living a lie. She came out to the world and introduced her girlfriend. She said it was liberating and allowed her to write some of the most honest music that she had written in years. So why does she still feel like she needs to hide behind the stereotypical love song about a man when she doesn't have one and never will?

I watch Ellen periodically and I love how open she is about her wife. She frequently refers to things that happen to her and her wife Portia. She talks about their life together like any other married couple would. The only difference is that she is a lesbian and her partner is a woman. Ellen doesn't present an agenda or talk about anything political, she just talks about her life and her audience accepts her.

Years ago when Rosie O'Donnell came out on her show she became very political after being extremely family friendly for years. Her viewers didn't respond well to this and eventually her show was cancelled. The same thing happened on The View. When she became too political and combative they kicked her off the show. It was too much for the conservative housewife crowd to take. I love Rosie and listen to her radio show all the time but I am not a person who would watch The View. I hope that she goes the way of Bill Maher and gets a show on cable where she can be herself and doesn't have to censor herself.

So back to Macy Gray. 5% of the population is gay (pretty well established statistic at this point) and 60-70% of the people who listen to R & B music are female (not sure how reliable this statistic is but it seems that more women than men listen to R & B). So if you guess that 5% of the 60-70% are gay then as many of 40% of the people who listen to Macy Gray are thinking about their woman and not their man. So why hide it?

Hearing that someone is gay isn't a big deal (at least not to my generation) at this point. There is something very sad about knowing that someone is gay but is still living in the closet in some ways. I couldn't function if I hid who I was and who I loved from the world. She already came out to the world; that was the hard part. I just hope she realizes that people who love her music won't love it less just because she's gay.

Penn State Proud

I recently watched a documentary on Logo (home of a lot of great documentaries) about the Penn State Women's basketball team. I am a proud Penn State alum but this documentary didn't give me anything to be proud of. Rene Portland, the basketball coach since the late 70's, was very vocal about her disapproval of lesbian players on her team and actually sabotaged the careers of many young women because of their sexuality. When I was at Penn State, I remember a couple of articles about Ms. Portland but honestly they didn't receive a lot of attention from the student body. The women's basketball team was very successful during my time there(1994-1999). They were regularly in the top ten and had a bigger crowd at their games than the mediocre men's team.

What shocked me the most about the documentary were the multiple negative reports from former student athletes and diversity experts from other universities and organizations that had been ignored by the university . Even more shocking is that Ms. Portland was allowed to continue coaching until 2005 when the public outcry finally reached a level that the university could not ignore. But the most disappointing part for me was that Joe Paterno, Penn State football coach for 40 plus years, was a Portland supporter during all this time. While Portland was going out and telling reporters that lesbians were not allowed on her team, Paterno was giving her awards and singing her praises to all of the university administrators. Any Penn Stater will tell you that the word of Joe Paterno trumps that of the university president becuase he brings more money into the university than any other individual or department.

It is always frustrating when someone who has been built up to be a great person based on the personality traits the media (or I) chose to focus on. Logically, of course I would expect an 80 year old white man to have different political and social views than I do. But Joe Paterno is a college football icon first and an 80 year old man second. I have excused various racist and sexist comments over the years because of who they came from. As I have gotten older, I recognize these comments much quicker and am less likely to let them pass. When I look back on situations that I have been in, I recognize that there were times when I should have spoken up and I didn't.

I don't think I would have boycotted any sports teams if I felt the way I feel now when I was a student. But if a large portion of the student body protested, I might have. Unfortunately, like most big-time sports schools, there is very little that I can imagine happening that would have upset the big money that college football and basketball bring into the university. I still love Joe Paterno and Penn State football but I also recognize that, outside of the public football persona, there probably isn't much to like.

Gay Marriage

Let me just start by saying that I have gay friends and family members. I have been exposed to gay people all my life and don't view them any differently than other people. For the people who say they don't know any gay people I would challenge that. It's probably that you don't know any openly gay people. I have heard that approximately 1 out of 5 people are gay. That doesn't mean that 1/5 of people are living a gay lifestyle. Many people choose to repress their feelings and live a heterosexual life or lead a double life on the "down low". Religion, family and friends and public persona are all factors that contribute to one's comfort level of living an openly gay life.

I don't think a person can stop being gay any more than I can stop being black. I think that you can choose to squash those feelings but that doesn't mean that you are no longer gay. There are a handful of priests who have come out and said that they are gay. These are men that will be celibate their entire lives but they were courageous enough to admit that their attraction is to men and not women. I love that. I wish I had that kind of courage.

I was raised Catholic and my husband's family is Mormon (the guilt would be overwhelming if either of us still practiced these religions). Both religions teach that you get married in order to have children. Children without marriage and marriage without children are both frowned upon. Birth control, abortion and homosexuality are all no-nos. I think its fine for a group to say "Within our own little sub-culture, we don't want people who don't live up to our moral ideals". But its not okay to try to extend their influence on the population at large.

This is supposed to be a country where you are free to practice any religion that you want but also a country where religion is completely separate from politics. Obviously that is not the case. Large sums of money come from various religious groups to politicians when certain topics are on the ballot. Religion has secured itself as a prime supporter for conservative candidates. These candidates then turn around and appeal to that segment of the population, no matter what percentage of the total population they represent because they have deep pockets. I don't agree with many of the rituals that I have seen in church or some people's ignorant interpretations of the bible in order to suit their own agendas. But I don't surround myself with these people and can easily avoid them in my daily life. I don't need to carry around a sign stating that these people are wrong and going to hell becuse they don't share my beliefs. I am capable of living my life to its fullest without having the rest of the world think exactly the same as I do.

What I don't understand is the highly vocal protestors that call themselves Christian, Mormon, etc. as they carry around signs with homophobic slurs and scream hateful things at innocent people. If you really beleive that God is watching us and judging all the bad people then let Him do that. Whatever happened to "Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house, Love thy neighbor, etc? If homosexuality is so evil that God is going to send them to hell when they die than why do you need to say anything? Why do you feel that you are in a position of authority to try and push your dogma on others? You are not teaching people about your religion. You are not showing compassion for your fellow man. You are using religion as an excuse for your bigotry.

Everyone in this country should have the same rights. I don't care if a man and woman live together for 10 years and never get married. That couple should have the same rights and my husband and I if they sign a piece of paper that says they are committed to each other. They same rights should be extended to same sex couples. Any two people in a long term committed relationship should get all the benefits that come with it. You can have a marriage between two ideas or two corporations, etc. Why have people decided that the word marriage is strictly the definition of man plus woman. There are several different definitions of marriage in the dictionary, why have we decided to define it so narrowly in this country? It is dissapointing that we are supposed to be the leader of hte free world but our social policies are severely lacking.

How will it hurt you or your family if a gay couple is allowed to have the same rights as you are? Gay people aren't having sex in the streets any more than heterosexual people are. By pretending that gay people are morally corrupt and gonig to ruin the lives of young children isn't going to make gay people dissapear. Just because you don't talk about it doens't mean that it goes away. Heterosexuality isn't taught in schools. It is the school's job to make sure that no one feels left out. Childrens' books with gay people in them don't teach children how to be gay and more than having an Asian couple in a book teaches children to be Asian. They teach children that everyone is born different and there is no reason to discriminate against someone because they are different. Different does not equal wrong.

If your child is gay and feels that they will not be accepted by you if they follow their heart and live a gay lifestyle then you are responsible for whatever happens to that child in the future. Gay children have a significantly higher rate of suicide and drpession than hetero children. Whether it is your child or not you can't honestly believe that being dead is better than bieng gay.

It wasn't so long ago it when it would have been illegal for me to vote because I am a black woman. My husband and I would not have been allowed to get marrid because he is a white man. Various groups argued that the bible teaches that women are inferior to men and that black people are different from white people. At that time, civil rights opponents twised bible verses around to support their bigotry. A lot of people died on both sides of these arguments. When we look back on these times in history we are ashamed at how ignorant our ancestors were and do not question that these policies were ignorant. I hope that we can one day say the same thing about gay marriage and other basic civil rights that are currently denied to homosexuals in this country.