One of the saddest things about fighting stereotypes is no matter how much you achieve, said stereotypes don't go away. In fact, they get repeated with force and volume.
As an African-American, I've dealt with being called lazy, criminal-minded and stupid more times than I can count.
As a gay man, I've had to deal with the following, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
Regardless of what Monckton implies, if gay men did actually have up to 20,000 sex partners, no matter how long or short our lifespans would be, we would NOT be unhappy. I can assure you that. Seriously though, the idea that gay men are oversexed and have an enormous amount of sex is repeated by members of the anti-gay right, even if this idea contradicts a lot of the other things they say about gay men, as Monckton demonstrates as he continues to ruminate about alleged gay sexual habits:
It's easy to laugh at this stuff now. But don't. Though, with the exception of folks like Matt Barber, Linda Harvey, Peter LaBarbera, Brian Camenker, and Bryan Fischer, the vast majority of the anti-gay right wouldn't dare to overtly repeat this mess, we should remember how successful such stereotypes were decades ago when they were repeated openly and we should also remember how successful they are now when repeated in places like Uganda and Russia when enterprising homophobes exploited religious beliefs to attach such awful images to the idea that homosexuality is a sin.
As an African-American, I've dealt with being called lazy, criminal-minded and stupid more times than I can count.
As a gay man, I've had to deal with the following, courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
Lord Christopher Monckton, a columnist for the far-right WorldNetDaily, today came to the defense of an Australian politician, Rosalie Crestani, who is trying to pass a law to prevent her local government from mentioning LGBT issues and holding diversity trainings. Monckton, who derisively refers to the LGBT community as “QWERTY,” like the keyboard layout, said that Crestani discovered during a consultation with “an expert in non-heterosexual lifestyles” that “homosexuals had an average of 500-1,000 partners in their sexually active lifetime, and that some had as many as 20,000.” “One wonders how they found time for anything else,” Monckton quips, adding that gay people lead “short, miserable lives” as part of their “deathstyle.
Regardless of what Monckton implies, if gay men did actually have up to 20,000 sex partners, no matter how long or short our lifespans would be, we would NOT be unhappy. I can assure you that. Seriously though, the idea that gay men are oversexed and have an enormous amount of sex is repeated by members of the anti-gay right, even if this idea contradicts a lot of the other things they say about gay men, as Monckton demonstrates as he continues to ruminate about alleged gay sexual habits:
As the experts she has consulted have pointed out, the QWERTYs – who represent about 0.5 percent of the population – have brilliantly promoted themselves by carefully shifting the debate away from what homosexuals actually do to each other (just ask any proctologist: all of them are heartily sick of trying to repair the gross damage caused by deviant sexual practices) and on to “celebrating” what is misleadingly presented as a “valid alternative lifestyle.”
How in the world can gays be 0.5 percent of the population and be having all of this sex? And just what proctologists did Monckton consult? The man is lying through his teeth. And he proves something awful about anti-gay stereotypes. No matter how many times they are refuted, they are constantly repeated. The following is from an anti-gay comic published in the 1980s, which I have featured several times. It pretty much says the same thing Monckton does:
It's easy to laugh at this stuff now. But don't. Though, with the exception of folks like Matt Barber, Linda Harvey, Peter LaBarbera, Brian Camenker, and Bryan Fischer, the vast majority of the anti-gay right wouldn't dare to overtly repeat this mess, we should remember how successful such stereotypes were decades ago when they were repeated openly and we should also remember how successful they are now when repeated in places like Uganda and Russia when enterprising homophobes exploited religious beliefs to attach such awful images to the idea that homosexuality is a sin.
That's why when we read things like what Monckton wrote, we can't be quick to laugh or be nonchalant about it. Stereotypes are generally used to hurt people and they aren't hurting you, you can bet they are hurting someone else.
Related posts:
All of the 'evil and dirty' things that the gays do
How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on America - Scribd or Wordpress
Related posts:
All of the 'evil and dirty' things that the gays do
How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on America - Scribd or Wordpress