GLR Forum

General Forum => Politics => Topic started by: Feral on Wed, Jan 25, 2006, 10:02

Title: Denneny 13: Gay life is an issue only for gays
Post by: Feral on Wed, Jan 25, 2006, 10:02
Denneny’s thirteenth proposition is: “Gay life is an issue only for gays; whenever straights address the question, they are attacking us.”

The quality of gay life is obviously an issue for us. There are many aspects of the gay world, many peculiarities of gay life that are disturbing; we should face them, and keeping an open mind, try to understand and evaluate them as possibilities for ourselves. (This does not mean attacking gays who choose to live differently than we do; it means deciding how we want to live, not how other people should). But this discussion is totally off limits to straights.

Whenever straights, usually posing as friendly but concerned liberals, address the “issue” of gay life, they are actually raising the question of whether we should exist. Curiously enough, the answer is inevitably no. This question is not raised about blacks and Jews, at least not in polite company, because its murderous implications are at once evident. For instance, in Midge Decter’s recent hilarious attack on us in Commentary (“The Boys on the Beach,” September 1980), one finds the following: “Know them as a group. No doubt this will in itself seem to many of the uninitiated a bigoted formulation. Yet one cannot even begin to get at the truth about homosexuals [my italics] without this kind of generalization.” To see what is being said here, simply substitute “the truth about Jews” or “the truth about blacks” and reread.
Title: Re: Denneny 13: Gay life is an issue only for gays
Post by: Mogul on Thu, Jan 26, 2006, 17:00
This is certainly true for straight men who are talking freely when they are among themselves or believe to be among themselves. In such an ignorant company, a gay man is best advised to interfere as soon as possible - before these boobies become really nasty. Heterosexual women are much better in this relation: they often have the same interest to gays as straight men to lesbians - yes, yes - perverts!

Seriously, we should understand Denneny also in that sense that gays should care more about important issues of gay life - because nobody else will. At least, not with the purpose we can recognize as agreeable.