Why oh why do we have to hear from so many in the LGBT community who aren’t even close to understanding any of the issues?
Okay, let’s get this straight, people. I know the general public always jumps on the current trendy terms and applies it to everything. That’s common. But you’d think that the LGBT Community would be a little more politically astute.
"Bullying" is the term I’m referring to. A whole parade of thin skinned and unthinking LGBT citizens are now taking this very serious term (as it applies to children and teens in school) and use it to fight back against normal criticism coming from any one of a variety of sources.
The latest I found was this outrageous quote from Reichen Lehmkuhl, one of the stars of the ludicrous and brain killing TV series, "The A List", a show revolving around a bunch of empty headed, self absorbed gay men who couldn’t find their way out of a simple maze with a bottle of poppers at the exit. By the way, on this show, "The A List" the stars regularly criticize and condemn other people for being "fatties" and other such delicate terms of endearment.
Lehmkuhl is responding to an editor, writing in New York’s NEXT MAGAZINE, who said that Lehmkuhl and his boyfriend were "vapid queens".
Lehmkuhl responded…
“I don’t appreciate your bullying words. You can save your ‘vapid queens’ comment for, well, no one. I can’t even imagine speaking this way about other human beings. That you would reduce my existence to someone who is a ‘vapid queen’ says more about what you don’t know about me, along with the kind of person you must be. Is this seriously how a ‘senior editor’ at a magazine talks about people?”
Recently on one of my own Facebook postings someone went after me for pointing out the overwhelming evidence not that someone else was gay (well known) or mean (well known) but was an idiot (more than well known). She labeled it as "bullying". Opinion, well based in fact, is not bullying, not to an adult.
I have to admit that I’m sick to death of thin skinned, pie in the sky idealists who want to ban the word "fag" without paying attention to any of the other million or so offensive words out there, or people who label the civil rights battle for marriage as a battle for "love". At some point in recent years, during the LGBT battle for civil rights, a whole new hybrid of activists popped up. Those who say we should "respect" all opinions and all work together in harmony. Are you serious? Why do we criticize those who get it wrong? So we can weed out the crop. Do we want to turn into a mass of passionless lumps of harmony, or do we want to get rid of those who are mis-using their positions of voice to mutate a message until it’s meaningless? There are things to get angry about, and there are a whole lot of things to NOT get angry about. Why can’t we tell the difference anymore?
Not all people deserve respect for certain opinions. I’m certainly not going to respect anyone in America who says that the bible says gays don’t deserve equal rights. We don’t live in a country ruled by the bible, we’re ruled by the constitution. If I call out a Christian for that completely misguided opinion, am I bullying them? Of course not! There are not necessarily TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY. Sometimes there’s only one. Anyone subscribing to the idea that all opinions are just as valid as all others is useless to any cause, in my opinion. All opinions are allowed to be expressed in America, but all opinions are not, at their core, valid.
Most of all, I’m tired of those who now work to censor writing and speech everywhere by capitalizing and trivializing the very real issue of bullying as it pertains to children and teens.
You don’t strengthen the work against the bullying of children by pretending that honest criticism of adults, even if it’s sarcastic and biting and cynical, is the same as bullying. In fact, you weaken everything we fight for and more importantly, maybe, just maybe you’re too weak to know the differences between free speech and hate speech. Maybe, just maybe, you should grow up.
