Great piece! I've noticed that the Dean of the College pulls that a lot...he says "womyn" instead of "women," which is some politically correct bullshit.

Excellent column.

Couldn't have said this better myself -- except, if I had, I'd be labeled a homophobe, because I'm not gay. The LGBT people push their sexuality in our faces and participate in all the stereotypically bizarre activities: dressing in drag, talking PC-talk, holding discussions on sex toys, talking like the opposite sex. When will these people just accept who they are and quietly do whatever they want to do behind closed doors? I'm not out there pushing heterosexuality, because nobody cares. And nobody cares about anyone else's sexuality either.

Even if you do not fit into the extremely gay images put forth by the LGBT community, I think it is important to understand their purpose. It's not just some carnival aimed at the people who actually regularly adhere to that more intense gay culture. The bigger purpose is to force society to accept these extremes, which means they implicitly accept anything less than that as well. I am not gay. I have never been to a LGBT event. But this strategy is no accident and it's present in many different movements. A drag show isnt the rule. But it is an extreme, as you yourself recognize. And by flaunting that extreme and saying "we have the right to go this far," they are also fighting for everyone else at the same time. Choose how gay you want to be, but, as you said in this column, recognize that these more extreme choices by other gays allow you more choices. They broaden your spectrum of possibilities, giving you and all other gays more freedom in how you choose to live.

[QUOTE id="8a5d469c-edc5-461d-a00c-c653cab54b82"]Couldn't have said this better myself -- except, if I had, I'd be labeled a homophobe, because I'm not gay. The LGBT people push their sexuality in our faces and participate in all the stereotypically bizarre activities: dressing in drag, talking PC-talk, holding discussions on sex toys, talking like the opposite sex. When will these people just accept who they are and quietly do whatever they want to do behind closed doors? I'm not out there pushing heterosexuality, because nobody cares. And nobody cares about anyone else's sexuality either.[/QUOTE] You don't have to push your sexuality in people's faces because it's the culturally accepted/expected norm. How much straight sexuality is forced down our throats from the American media? You don't have to worry about getting your head bashed or getting slurs hurled at you just for walking down the street, holding hands with your bf or gf. You don't have to be the whippng posts for the religious rightwing nutjobs who claim that the very fiber of your being makes you the #1 candidate for permanent residency in hell. You don't have to worry about being fired from your job or being denied housing because of your sexual orientation (yes, as ludicrous as that may seem to you, most states have no laws on the books that explicitly prohibits an employer or landlord from denying employment/housing based on sexual orientation.) If you took the time to take your head out of your arse, you'd realize that you can't clump all LGBT persons together. LGBTs are no more monolithic than blacks, whites, asians, hispanics, jews, muslims, etc. There are lots of "normal" (whatever the hell normal is) gay people who are doctors, lawyers, teachers, parents, and just regular, everyday Penn students like myself. So you think gays are the only people who engage in bizarre activities? Clearly, you need to open your eyes to the world around you. Even though I am not out other than to my family and closest friends from back home and here at PENN, I am grateful for the OUT, LOUD, and PROUD queers at PENN and everywhere else. Because of their "bizarre activities," they are pushing the envelope and knocking down barriers to make life a little easier for the rest of us gays.

I completely disagree. As a gay undergraduate, I don't see any reason to define myself by only one small portion of my life. When other gay men adopt a very flamboyant persona and march in parades dressed in leather thongs and drag it undermines progress for the rest of us. Most of the time, the only image of gay people for Midwest America are the hedonistic scenes from gay pride or the stereotypical fashion forward gays from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Whenever my straight friends and family see these images in the media I have to work doubly hard to overcome these stereotypes. I thought Penn would be different when I came here. Instead, I am faced with the prospect of not truly belonging with my straight friends because I sleep with guys, and not belonging with the gay crowd because I'm too straight acting. I am ashamed and embarrassed that the diaspora at the LGBT Center proclaims to represent me. The views expresses in Q and the U supplement are emblematic of the divide between the weird gays with mental issues surrounding their coming out and the rest of us. I think we need to distinguish between the one-dimensional weirdos at this school who use PC-talk and feign outrage at everyone who doesn't embrace drag queens and huge dildos as part of their public life, and the normal guys who just happen to sleep with other guys. [QUOTE id="43283b98-29b3-4cb4-8943-8571db211bc9"]Even if you do not fit into the extremely gay images put forth by the LGBT community, I think it is important to understand their purpose. It's not just some carnival aimed at the people who actually regularly adhere to that more intense gay culture. The bigger purpose is to force society to accept these extremes, which means they implicitly accept anything less than that as well. I am not gay. I have never been to a LGBT event. But this strategy is no accident and it's present in many different movements. A drag show isnt the rule. But it is an extreme, as you yourself recognize. And by flaunting that extreme and saying "we have the right to go this far," they are also fighting for everyone else at the same time. Choose how gay you want to be, but, as you said in this column, recognize that these more extreme choices by other gays allow you more choices. They broaden your spectrum of possibilities, giving you and all other gays more freedom in how you choose to live.[/QUOTE]

Do whatever the hell you want to do in the privacy of your life, your home, and your soul, and don't let nutjobs like me coerce you into changing the inner core of your being. But don't you go accusing me of being a hooded klansman for telling you that I believe your lifestyle choice is erroneous. And don't you try to legislate my thoughts or my estimates of your better judgment in my employment and leasing decisions.

I really appreciated this column because it puts forth an opinion that is rarely shared or expressed publicly. As someone who has been very active in Penn's LGBT community, I often struggled with how to get more students involved and ensure that we were not alienating anyone. This year's QPenn theme, Q & U, is all about how we each individually relate to Queer in terms of our identity and how we choose to get involved or not. I would only add that getting involved in the struggle for equal rights, in whatever way you feel comfortable, does not make you the "gay guy". It makes you someone who realizes that the personal is political and that we shouldn't sit quiet even on a campus like Penn that is perceived as 'liberal' until we achieve true equality and end homophobia.

Andrew, Thank you for voicing an opinion you don't often hear on campus. While I hope that you consider yourself an advocate for gay rights, you should also feel free to maintain your identity outside of the "gay" label. I hope that the LGBT community at Penn reads this and perhaps a worthwhile dialogue can commence.

[QUOTE id="2a981074-bd3c-42f4-81ee-ccebabe2fadd"]Do whatever the hell you want to do in the privacy of your life, your home, and your soul, and don't let nutjobs like me coerce you into changing the inner core of your being. But don't you go accusing me of being a hooded klansman for telling you that I believe your lifestyle choice is erroneous. And don't you try to legislate my thoughts or my estimates of your better judgment in my employment and leasing decisions.[/QUOTE] I suppose that if I ask whether you believe in legislation to prevent housing/employment discrimination on the basis of race/gender you will tell me that those are not choices, while you clearly believe that this is. I don't have a strong opinion on the choice/innate debate, nor do I want to start a debate on it, so I will ask the following: Do you believe in legislation that prevents discrimination on the basis of religion? If so then religion is clearly a choice and, I would argue, allowing firms or landlords to prevent a religious group from gaining employment or housing enables is in violation of American principles. Why? So long as you're a good employee or tenant, how you choose to live your private life should not impede your pursuit of happiness in the country. Please explain why this situation is different.

Your article left me a bit confused, Andrew. What, exactly, are you upset at? You acknowledge that your outlook might be influenced by a privileged and liberal background (which I would say goes beyond 'might'), so where does the problem lie? I have as many problems with gay stereotypes as you do, but I think connecting these to activism misses the point. Not all gay activists 'flame' and not all people who flame are gay activists. This is an element of somebody's personality, something that's either inherent or so deeply ingrained that it cannot (and really shouldn't) be changed. I get bothered when people label all gays of any stripe as universally anything. Including labeling all gay activists as universally Runway-watching. Changing your pronouns is not a simple act of political correctness. Using 'he' as a gender neutral pronoun presupposes a male superiority. People use 'ze' in order to undermine and draw attention to this fact (I prefer the singular 'they' myself). Instead of saying 'fireman' or 'fireperson', maybe you should use the slightly less ridiculous 'firefighter'. Gender does permeate your everyday conversation. Activists don't put it there. We're not talking about inclusion here, we're talking about oppression. And yes, we need to stop adding letters to the LGBTQA(etc) acronym in an attempt at 'inclusiveness'. Perhaps we could focus on the racism, sexism, and classicism that poisons our community. But we can't make these changes unless we are active. The best thing we can do is to have a conversation about what it even means to be 'the gay guy'. For my part, I wouldn't want to be 'the ANYTHING guy'. I'm a multivalent person who's not defined by any labels. Most gay people would agree. But homophobes and heterosexists are going to call you 'the gay guy' no matter what. Perhaps not in a liberal northeastern state but if you're in Alabama and you're gay, you're the gay guy. The nutjobs who want to discriminate against us really don't care if we're super-camp or mega straight-acting. They give a lot of lip service to that, but it comes down to an inner prejudice against WHAT we are.

[QUOTE id="2a981074-bd3c-42f4-81ee-ccebabe2fadd"]Do you believe in legislation that prevents discrimination on the basis of religion? If so then religion is clearly a choice and, I would argue, allowing firms or landlords to prevent a religious group from gaining employment or housing enables is in violation of American principles. Why? So long as you're a good employee or tenant, how you choose to live your private life should not impede your pursuit of happiness in the country. Please explain why this situation is different.[/QUOTE] My religion instructs me to behead the infidels. Otherwise, I'm a perfectly competent programmer/accountant/plumber/physicial/etc. Should there be a law in place that bars my employer from considering this facet of my belief system in his hiring policies? I understand where you're coming from, and I agree that it is un-American to bar Jews from entering your store, or blacks from eating at your restaurant. But certainly it is equally un-American to legislate patterns of thought, especially patterns of the zero-tolerance variety. Fortunately, in a free country, bigots can't and don't survive very long. The cure for intolerance, corruption, and all immorality is sunshine. The guy across the street doesn't serve blacks? Well maybe he won't get my money either. The country club doesn't allow Jews? Maybe I'll start my own country club and allow *only* Jews to join. This isn't just theory. This is history. This is why (for example) Jews, who weren't allowed in the country clubs and weren't welcome at hotels/restaurants/etc started their own businesses and prospered despite initial misgivings from their WASPy neighbors, who in time overcame their mistrust. And all without government intervention. Economic equality leads to social equality.

I understand that one cannot legislate beliefs and that "winning hearts and minds" is a far better policy than forcing something down unwilling throats. I would point out, however, that legislating behavior (relating to underlying prejudices) IS how our country has attacked racism, etc. There's a couple of amendments on this not to mention the Civil Rights Act. Whether the legislation itself is the reason that prejudices are eliminated or whether private citizens reach those conclusions is hard to say, but I'd hardly say that history clearly shows one thing or another. Also, your leading example is absurd. I would venture to say that criminal activity or a personal threat are nowhere near the situation at hand. Please come up with a better example than this or don't introduce it into the debate to begin with.

Alright then, how about, my religion instructs to defile any and all religious beliefs that you hold sacred. No criminal activity, but every time you say 'praise God', I say 'praise Satan.' Every time you say 'we are all God's children', I say 'God created Masters and Slaves.' Every time you march for civil rights, I start passing around a petition to repeal the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Again, no criminal activity involved. Just cool and calm advocacy for these positions, which I justify as stemming naturally from my religion. (Incidentally my not-so-veiled reference to radical Islam is not that far off the mark in many of the issues I just listed). So there's your example, a (religious) ideology that is diametrically opposed to whatever you believe in. Should there be a law that bars you from considering my belief system when you evaluate my application for employment? On to your other point: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, which you hold up as an example of government intervention to right certain wrongs are nothing more than the explicit grant to government of the power to determine where my fist ends and your nose begins. These Amendments explicitly enumerate the rights of human beings to be free from involuntary coercion and non-uniform application of the laws. They are the codification of Jefferson's famous proclamation that "all men are created equal and endowed by their Create with certain unalienable Rights...and governments are formed by men to secure these rights". That is very different from the statement that "all men are created with the right to compel others to associate with them and governments exist to make their people play nice with one another." In the 1950's and 60's we removed racially-motivated biases from our laws and perfected their practice with Jefferson's ideal. In my view, that is all that government should do, and just as importantly, that is all that government can hope to do. Anything more impinges on my freedom of conscience, and incidentally on your freedom of conscience, since if we apply our laws uniformly (like we should, since that's the whole point of constitutional government), I have to hire flaming homosexuals, and you have to hire Koran-thumping Wahabiists (who leave their scimitars in their glass cases, since we don't want to taint our discussion with criminal extremes). So where does that leave us? It leaves us in a situation where you have as many rights as I do, where I cannot compel you to do anything, and where you cannot compel me to do anything. The State of Nature. If I don't hire gays, you shame me. If you advocate Gay with a capital G, I present my arguments for why I believe homosexuality is wrong (or, 'incorrect' if we want a less loaded word) and in the marketplace of ideas, we battle it out. Such is the nature of life in a free society. The moment government steps in and begins to define the terms of the debate, and begins to rule some topics out of bounds, we all lose in the long term, even if one of us may win a reprieve in the short term.

[QUOTE id="790b9324-e4ac-4247-8825-67344f9eb34f"]Great piece! I've noticed that the Dean of the College pulls that a lot...he says "womyn" instead of "women," which is some politically correct bullshit.[/QUOTE] Does he write "womyn" or just pronounce the word "women" in a way you think is spelled "womyn"?

I swear.. the Daily Pennsylvania never ceases to amaze me with all the ridiculous articles it publishes. I'm all for freedom of speech and voices your opinions... but how dare you attack people and make such false accusations... that's just tacky. No, I'm not very involved in the visible LGBT community at Penn... so I consider this an outsiders perspective as well.. I read Malek's article.. and I think you really took that quote out of context.. perhaps to prove your own point.. go figure! So, you "say "fireman" instead of "fireperson" to avoid the requisite double-take that the latter elicits"... that sounds cowardly.. say fireman because you want to, not because you are afraid... how radical is fireperson, a term that recognizes that women can be fire fighters too?!? And congrats on never having experienced homophobia more than five times in your privileged life... I only wish the rest of use could say we have had that experience... recognize your privilege kid and do not think that the fight for equality should end because you do not see the glaring homophobia that many of us face. Lastly, you seem to have some internalized issues with being seen as gay perhaps because of the connotations attached to it. Go ahead keep your gayness "openly hidden".. whatever the hell that means. (Isn't that an oxymoron) Really, I could care less. All I ask is that you do not attack those working hard for change.. even for pricks like you.