Everyday Homophobia
Big acts of homophobia, like the President's call — half-heartred though it is — for a Constitutional ban on marriage equality, are certainly awful. They are visible and they incite large numbers of people simultaneously to look for ways to renew their thoughtless hatred. I take them personally, and I get tired of endless "debates" (worse than people talking about you while you're in the room) over whether I should have rights that every other US citizen takes for granted.
It's tiring, but at least with the really big acts of homophobia, one usually has the feeling of not being alone. There are plenty of people around who will raise their voices in concert with mine. This is vitally important: every homosexual who ever was in the closet knows that desperate feeling of lonliness, the powerlessness of being the "only one".
But then, what to do about the everyday, little acts manifestations of homophobia, the countless ways in which individual gays and lesbians encounter anti-gay attitudes, overt or subtle, one at a time, person by person?
To laugh or to cry, that is the question. It can all seem so absurd sometimes, but ridiculously silly, too.
Jim Buzinski, in a story called 'Gay' is a Naughty Word, at Outsprts.com, reports on this little controversy:
To the NFL it's naughty to be "GAY" but OK to be "BIN LADEN." You can be a "NAZI" but not a "LESBIAN." Even a gay man with the last name Gay can't buy a jersey.
This rather bizarre conclusion is reached when trying to order a personalized jersey from the NFL Shop, the online merchandise site run by the league. Anyone trying to buy a jersey with the single word "GAY" or "LESBIAN" or "GAY PRIDE" on the back gets a rejection message that states: "This field should not contain a naughty word."
He goes on to detail the problems that one Barry Gay had in trying ordering a jersey with his name printed on it. Barry wasn't pleased to find that the NFL thought his name was "naughty", but customer services is quoted as saying: "I am sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately there is no way around this issue." (How fortunate that the customer service rep can't write english: "However, the NFL reserves all rights to what can and can not be printed on one of it's Jersey's [sic]", since it gives one a small piece of moral superiority to cling to.) I think it's unfortunate that Barry has to go through this, although he's no doubt faced it all his life, but there you go. Just another little bit of everyday homophobia, wearing down one person at a time.
It's tiresome.