Letters to the Editor
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Bread & Circuses
It's all an enormous distraction. Meanwhile the glaring real fires rage on unchecked.
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Don't be so sure
I'm not so sure that young people are less likely to be homophobes when they grow up. The guys that killed Matthew Shepard were pretty young. I don't see any signs that the South and Midwest are getting more progressive with the new generation - seems like parents are doing a pretty good job of passing down Bible-thumping Baptist claptrap. And even in the more progressive parts of the country and at colleges, you'll find plenty of frat boys and jocks who will be happy to tell you how much they 'hate fags'. Believe me, I want the massive social/cultural revolution to happen, but I'm just not seeing it.
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The same hatred has, and will, run forever.
Look at how far we've come in the last 20 years on the hatred front. Not very far, and I would say not at all.
If anything, we're 20 years older and no wiser. I don't see the signs you seem to be seeing. I see the exact opposite.
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Larry Craig's greatest sin ...
... is that he was a Republican rather than a Democratic senator.
Barney Frank is still in Congress.
William "Cold Cash" Jefferson is still in Congress.
Ted Kennedy is still a senator.
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democracy sux!
Dunnit, Hitler?
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Okay, by this time Keillor has really lost it.
People lose their prejudices against gays and lesbians, or body types? Obviously someone needs to buy him a TV, or a window to the outside world. Or a ticket to a little redneck bar in Ocala, Florida, to hear the monologues of the white, dumb and racist.
Racism was supposedly conquered, or on its way there, by the mid-'70's. That's the popular wisdom. Go talk to a black person and see if it's true.
Even if people lose some prejudices, they gain others. Seven years ago Islamics were only thought of as greedy oil sheiks, when people thought of them at all. Has Keillor heard what they are called now?
I said it a long time ago, and I repeat it now; Keillor has almost as little understanding of the reality-based community than George Bush, and like him, he really shouldn't tamper with or comment upon it.
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GK is absolutely right
Racism was once as common and unquestioned (among white people) as maple syrup and butter on pancakes. Now it's odd and ostracized. The same thing is happening with homophobia.
Part of it is because we're living more and more independently of our neighbors. Once we had to care what the neighbors thought, because we depended on our neighbors for our jobs and social lives. If the neighbors didn't like your opinions, or who you hung out with, or how you behaved in bed, your life could turned into a living hell. Now most of us probably don't even know who our neigbors are. People don't even go out of doors any more. That may be sad in that we've lost any sense of community, but it also means we're free to be who we are. And every sign is that we're going to become even more free in the future.
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I wish it were true.
For sexual issues and tensions to relax implies that tolerance will increase. Speaking from my experience in this country, tolerance is on the wane. This is displayed by the current occupant who steadfastly insists that there are two groups of people in this country, patriots and traitors. That doesn’t leave much room for dissent, thus tolerance goes lacking.
The next 20 years do not appear rosy. If this country follows its current path, children will spend their entire childhood smothered in an atmosphere of war, as every American child under the age of six has done. As has always happened, people will look for scapegoats, with religious believers pointing fingers away from themselves.
It is easier to act cowardly than it is to act tolerantly. It is easier to blame others for one’s own problems than to take responsibility for failure. It is easier to go shopping in a time of national emergency than to wrack one’s brain for solutions. It is easier to hate than to love.
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So what
We'll just create new prejudices or resurrect some of the old ones again.
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Titter
So many crazy people here on the internet. As some one who has lived in both the South and the Midwest (hence the moniker), you all are smoking crack. Homophobia has declined radically in the normal world. Yes, people still say stupid shit. People will always say stupid shit. They're people, but things are changing.
Gay people live in rural areas, happily even sometimes. I was born and raised in a terrifically rural area. My queer relatives are/were hardly chased out of town by pitchforked mobs. My own sexuality barely raises an eyebrow.
Forty years ago you could hang a man for his color, now that would be unthinkable. By the end of my life, gay equality (legally) will almost certainly be achieved. Sometimes we have to stop and go hell yeah! Things are changing. Slowly but surely.
I can live with that.
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things have improved in some ways
Remember the 80's when not even Elton John was out?
This article made me think of the first man I ever knew was gay, my uncle. As a small girl (I believe I was five) I asked my mother why he wasn't married like all the other adult men I knew. My mother, who has always been shy when it comes to talking about sex, instantly got in over her head. "He just doesn't like girls," she said.
Which is why, at a block party, in front of dozens of people, I asked my shy, bookish, mild-mannered uncle why he didn't like girls. "I'm a girl!" I said.
"I like you just fine, honey," my uncle said, blushing a brilliant red.
Everyone laughed. To the best of my knowledge, no one said a word to my uncle as a result of the conversation. It had to have been pretty obvious to most adults what was up from the moment the professor and his very handsome male friend arrived together wearing sandals.
So there was a certain amount of tolerance in the world, even in the 70's in a small town in Tennessee.
On the other hand, my uncle never introduced his partner to his mother, not in forty years, during which they bought a house together, moved together to a new city, and in all other ways shared life and love. When mother came to visit, the partner disappeared into a hotel. The first time the partner and the mother were ever under the same roof together at the same time was at her funeral. "I know this is a horrible thing to say at my own mother's funeral," my uncle said, "But it's a huge weight off my chest."
Which sort of directly demonstrates Keillor's point, doesn't it, about the members of that generation passing away?
Others have compared homophobia to racism. I see plenty of racism today. What I don't see nearly as often is casual racism, the old lady who politely remarks about what those niggers are up to. Those old ladies are mostly dead. I have a mean old white lady who lives on my block, and yesterday morning I saw her hugging a little black boy who lives across the way from her. When I was growing up, mean old white ladies in Tennessee didn't give casual hugs to little black boys. I'm sure some old white ladies did, but only the nice ones, and even they weren't casual about it; there was a consciousness of crossing barriers.
I don't think it's ever going to be possible to completely banish prejudice, because we're never going to completely banish people who are willing to violate society's norms. What we can do is change what society's norms looks like. Normal people behaving normally will be less overtly nasty. That's not perfection, but it's a big step forward.