Hi, I'm Kate and I'm straight. I just thought I'd get that out there right away, just in case, y'know, my being straight makes you uncomfortable in anyway...
Kind of ludicrous, huh? But, sadly, we still live in a world where someone's sexual orientation can quite literally be a matter of life and death. Now I know from the experience of a few friends of mine that coming out in 21st Century Britain can be traumatic enough thanks to the backwards attitudes of certain sections of society but, thankfully, it hasn't yet led to them being locked up, 'cured' by crackpot 'doctors' or religious leaders, or stoned to death in the middle of Southend High Street. Which makes them - and us - more fortunate than an awful lot of other people around the world.
The issue of gay rights has been in the news a lot recently, what with the Winter Olympics being held in Russia and all. Now I have to hold my hands up here and admit that the term "gay rights" makes me a little uncomfortable, because I find it frankly ridiculous that we still live in a world where people are still discriminated against because they happen to be gay, or black, or a woman or, I don't know, a three-headed Martian or whatever. I believe firmly in Hillary Clinton's "women's rights are human rights" maxim and I also believe in applying that to any other issue as well; so "gay rights are human rights" is kind of where I stand on this whole thing. Like I've said before, I believe in the Gospel of Bill and Ted: Be Excellent To Each Other And Party On, Dudes. I genuinely don't give a flying monkey whether you're gay, straight, male, female, black, white or anywhere in between any of these; if you're a halfway decent Human Bean I will probably like you, and if you're a pretty nasty Human Bean I will probably not like you. Simples.
Apparently there are people in the world - quite powerful people, too - who have yet to wake up to this way of thinking. Now while I feel it's important that everyone be entitled to their own beliefs and have a slight nagging twinge of conscience everytime the Imperialist West goes and starts pushing its way of thinking onto other people, nevertheless I feel that what is MOST important, over and above any other form of belief, is the belief that everyone on the planet is fundamentally a Human Bean and therefore should be treated fairly. Anything they then happen to be on top of that - gay, straight, Purple People Eater or Justin Bieber fan (or even Justin Bieber) - is just part of life's rich tapestry making all those billions of atoms into each individual person. Beneath all the quirks and idiosyncrasies, though; all the likes and dislikes; the colour of our skin and who we want to sleep with, we are basically all the same: atoms and molecules, cells and particles all smooshed together to produce a member of the Human Race. So why is it so bloody impossible for people to treat people like, um, people?!!
The Russian thing has been talked about for a long time now, especially since the Winter Olympics are being held there. If you've been living under a rock recently, the basic problem is that Russia has recently passed a law making it illegal to promote "propaganda" which highlights "alternative" lifestyles to people under 18 - basically anything that isn't Mother, Father and 2.4 children. Now, any one person or organisation who tries to highlight the issue of gay rights, or offer support to anyone under the age of 18 who is struggling with their own sexuality (because -surprise! - you can realise you're gay before your 18th birthday) faces imprisonment. There are so many levels of wrongness in this law that I don't even know where to start, but I'm guessing that most of the people who will read this blog will have half a brain and a fully-developed sense of Humanity, so I probably don't need to go into details.
Now the Russian thing is bad enough, and that's on top of all the places like Nigeria where being gay will get you either jailed or killed, but then today I came across this doozy: Kansas anti-gay segregation bill Basically, the state of Kansas has pretty much all-but written into law a ridiculous state of affairs which, under the guidelines of "religious beliefs" will legalise the segregation of gay and straight people. Anyone else getting flashbacks to the Bad Old Days of Jim Crow and racial segregation? Oh good, so it's not just me. Basically this law means that it will be perfectly legal for people to openly discriminate against someone based on their sexuality. Worst case scenario - a police officer or member of the medical profession can refuse to help you based their religious beliefs (I'm sorry, let's call this out for what it actually is: their hate-filled bigoted fear of what they don't like or understand) and they will not be punished for it!!!! So you can be bleeding to death in the gutter because some half-crazed lynch mob has decided to attack you for holding hands with your same-sex partner, and the ambulance crew can refuse to assist you because your being gay offends their religious belief that Men should only sleep with Women. Words fail me. I mean words literally fail me. This goes against every basic principle of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; more than that, it morally offends me. I find it morally repugnant that, in the 21st Century, we still live in a world where people can plead the protection of their religion and infringe on someones basic right to exist as healthily and happily as everyone else. My one consolation - small though it is - is that, thanks to Judy Garland's Kansas-based Dorothy Gale being such a huge gay icon, the state will forever be linked with homosexuality whether it likes it or not...
I want to say it's not all bad. I want to say there is light at the end of this tunnel, where one day it genuinely won't matter whether you're male/female, black/white, gay/straight, religious/not religious etc etc, but will be judged according to your moral character alone. (That Martin Luther King was a very smart man. He'd be spinning in his grave if he knew we were still having the same old basic arguments even now). Sadly, I don't see it. Whether because of fear, religious belief, ignorance or just downright hate, it seems to me there will always be some 'Other' who is persecuted either physically, spiritually or morally; this has been going on since well before Edward Said discussed the phenomena of 'the exotic Other' in his seminal text "Orientalism" (1978), and I have no doubt that in a hundred years some other group will be identified as the "Other" and marked out for discrimination.
It's why Ellen Page's public coming out saddens as well as delights me. Here we have a young actress, a role model to many young people, who has decided she's sick of "lying by omission" (her words) and has decided to publicly announce she's a lesbian. If you want to see the video (and I strongly recommend you do), it's here:
On the one hand, I want to applaud her for speaking up so publicly and for (hopefully) giving hope and encouragement to other young people who may be struggling with their sexuality and their desire to come out to their loved ones. On the other hand it saddens me, because while I want everyone to be able to live a full and happy life with the partner of their choice (provided of course we aren't talking about paedophilia or incest, because regardless of laws and what-not that is morally heinous), I hate that because Ellen Page's partner of choice would be female it's suddenly a "thing". Does it make any difference to her ability as an actress? No. Does it suddenly turn her into a baby-eating monster? Um, no (sorry Kansas...) So why should it make the blindest bit of difference? I long, perhaps blindly and in vain, for a day when no one feels they need to say "hi, I'm gay", just as I don't feel the need to say "hi, I'm straight". Will it ever happen? I don't know. Because while there are people like Ellen Page who are brave and confident enough to come out in public and 'normalise' their sexuality in the eyes of the world, there are oppressive and backwards governments the world over, even in the most powerful Western civilisation of them all, who still seek to oppress, deny and demonise those who are 'other'.
We've come an awfully long way on so many human and civil rights issues. But we also have an awfully long way to go...
I want to say it's not all bad. I want to say there is light at the end of this tunnel, where one day it genuinely won't matter whether you're male/female, black/white, gay/straight, religious/not religious etc etc, but will be judged according to your moral character alone. (That Martin Luther King was a very smart man. He'd be spinning in his grave if he knew we were still having the same old basic arguments even now). Sadly, I don't see it. Whether because of fear, religious belief, ignorance or just downright hate, it seems to me there will always be some 'Other' who is persecuted either physically, spiritually or morally; this has been going on since well before Edward Said discussed the phenomena of 'the exotic Other' in his seminal text "Orientalism" (1978), and I have no doubt that in a hundred years some other group will be identified as the "Other" and marked out for discrimination.
It's why Ellen Page's public coming out saddens as well as delights me. Here we have a young actress, a role model to many young people, who has decided she's sick of "lying by omission" (her words) and has decided to publicly announce she's a lesbian. If you want to see the video (and I strongly recommend you do), it's here:
On the one hand, I want to applaud her for speaking up so publicly and for (hopefully) giving hope and encouragement to other young people who may be struggling with their sexuality and their desire to come out to their loved ones. On the other hand it saddens me, because while I want everyone to be able to live a full and happy life with the partner of their choice (provided of course we aren't talking about paedophilia or incest, because regardless of laws and what-not that is morally heinous), I hate that because Ellen Page's partner of choice would be female it's suddenly a "thing". Does it make any difference to her ability as an actress? No. Does it suddenly turn her into a baby-eating monster? Um, no (sorry Kansas...) So why should it make the blindest bit of difference? I long, perhaps blindly and in vain, for a day when no one feels they need to say "hi, I'm gay", just as I don't feel the need to say "hi, I'm straight". Will it ever happen? I don't know. Because while there are people like Ellen Page who are brave and confident enough to come out in public and 'normalise' their sexuality in the eyes of the world, there are oppressive and backwards governments the world over, even in the most powerful Western civilisation of them all, who still seek to oppress, deny and demonise those who are 'other'.
We've come an awfully long way on so many human and civil rights issues. But we also have an awfully long way to go...
