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Friday, February 5, 2010

Current Gay Events - my take

Ok Its February 2010 and gayness is all over the news. Don't ask Don't tell, gay bashers, and police brutality (against gays) on South Beach. That somehow the steady drumbeat of homophobia ebbs and flows, but never seems to go away. But I do find one common thread through all of these stories...young straight men.

I was listening to a reporter on NPR interviewing several young Marines in a town adjacent to Camp Lejuene. The reporter approached several and asked about their opinion on Don't Ask Don't Tell. While they all stated that they would follow the orders of their commander in chief, each and every one stated how it would "undermine unit cohesion" and that they couldn't trust trust an "openly gay soldier". Yet somehow they could trust a closeted one. So this raises two questions for me: First, I know from plenty of experience that nobody trusts a closeted gay man, period. Why? Because a. they are not fooling anyone; and b. nobody trusts a person who is hiding something. So its a catch-22 for a soldier, I can't trust you one way or another. My second observation from the interviews of the soldiers...who don't you trust? The gay man who you've trained with, served with and has put his life on the line for you or yourself alone with a gay man. Its bullshit, because they've been serving in the military along side each other all along.

So two undercover police officers beat the crap out of some gay man in Flamingo Park. Another man calls 911 to report the assault, they see him, beat the hell out of him, and arrest him for "breaking into 6 cars". Two men's lives are disrupted by two: yes that's right, two young, straight men in uniform. No investigations, no allegations, until a lawsuit by the ACLU finally takes the two young straight males, off the street.

A rash of attacks on gay men, by bullies and police on South Beach. Who knows why, but in each case no arrests, cursory investigations. Why, because straight young men hate "fags". Why? What is the root of this mistrust, hate? In contemporary culture we are cast as the "predators". We are the "molesters". (Of course child molestings only count, if that child is male, the 50,000 annual molestations of little girls don't really matter). That somehow, in a foxhole, with lives at stake, some gay soldier is going to "rape" another.

I think as Americans, since we don't have any borders with any potential enemy, we find the enemy within. The natural male inclination to"protect the tribe" doesn't really have an outlet so let's go "beat up some fags" because they're "molesting all those boys" and "trying to see my penis". Whatever, I do notice that women don't really hate gays as much as straight young men do. Oh well.









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