While cruising through my usual e-news website (you can take me half a world away, but I’ll still need news from home), I came across a really interesting blog post, and the subsequent discussion.
I think the whole question of ‘coming out’ is a really interesting one that is unfortunately often very fraught and emotionally charged. Personally, I view a person as a person, as a person – everyone deserves the same respect as a human being as everyone else (until proven otherwise), and it really bugs me when some random Joe Bloggs claims special treatment due to their fabulous divaness / importance / wealth / blah blah / whatever.
So I find it really very sad that one particular group of people shoulder so much of the burden of Western society’s historical and emotional baggage, for no better reason than they were born not adhering to society’s version of ‘normal’. Organised religion (of any type) has an awful lot to answer for, if only for teaching that forgiveness and ‘redemption’ is conditional.
My brother is gay. One of my best friends at work is gay. Neither of them fit the ‘flouncing queen’ stereotype. My line manager at work is lesbian. One of my dad’s best (and oldest) friends is gay, and one of his best mates from his career as a lawyer is gay. One of my soon-to-be hubby’s uncles is gay. All of them are good people, and their sexual preference is secondary to their worth and value as people, and as friends.
The only surprising thing for me is that more of my friends and relations aren’t either gay / lesbian, or if they are, that they aren’t open about it. It’s the same sort of surprise that so few athletes competing in the Beijing Olympics are openly gay. But then, I can’t see that sexual preference would necessarily have a material influence on athletic performance, so why would people choose to make their sexuality a point of note, over and above their athletic results?
Filed under: Personal, Random, musings | Tagged: Beijing Olympics, Coming out, musings, SMH, Sydney Morning Herald
