The Gay Thread

[innerSpaceman]

In response to Kobe's "remark," former NBA player John Amaechi had this to say:

Originally Posted by John Amaedchi

The problem we have now is because of the way we don't address homophobia, the ultimate insult to a man is to tell them either they're like a woman or worse, that they're gay.

We have to take it as unacceptable as a white person screaming the N-word at a black person. … I can tell you that I've been called a f——- fairly routinely, and yet people seem to hold off on calling me the N-word. We've got to mirror that progress.

I find this interesting in light of a facebook conversation yesterday between me, Gemini Cricket, Morrigoon and Chernabog about gay insults vs. harmless phrases. Brad has (in the past, at least) deplored the use of "that's go gay" as a version of lame accusation that relies on negative views of gay stereotypes. I, on the other hand, deplore when gay men refer to other gay men as "girls," feeling it riffs too directly on the insult that gay men are equivalent to women (even though there's absolutely nothing wrong (far from it) with being a women. It's just that gay men aren't.


Anyway, it seems to me like an interesting tangent of discussion ... perhaps.