If there is one singular phrase that can corral a huge batch of anger it’s reading about how someone is ‘Openly Gay’. It’s the context that gets me most of all. Context is a theme I will be exploring in the next few blog entries, so you might as well get comfortable now with my ranting and raving.
What angers me most is that there is some fundamental difference between “Gay” and “Openly Gay” – a kind of paper-based room-divider-esque closet for people to hide in while trying to appeal to the masses. The difference between “Gay” so and so and “Openly Gay” so and so makes every part of me tremble with rage. I see the phrase “Openly Gay” in headlines and it just turns in my gut like a knife – that being public and sharing your sexual orientation is in itself a newsworthy event. It is not a newsworthy event, if someone is gay, they are gay. What is the shock and awe associated with this?
Centrally this touches on a huge pet peeve of mine. People who hide in the closet, thinking they are protecting themselves when they are doing nothing more than dodging the truth and avoiding unpleasant feelings. The longer you dwell in the closet the harder it is to open the door, and if you spend too much time there, you run the risk of losing the seam where the door really is and thinking you are in a jail cell for the rest of your life.
The rest of this touches on the number of homosexuals in our world. Everyone is under the impression that there are just a really limited number of homosexuals and that we can be gleefully written off because we aren’t important enough to consider as being worth it to regard and respect. If everyone who was gay in the closet came out spontaneously, our world would change. The truth would not only set you free, it would set us all free. The truth is like light, it cleans what it touches and from my recent experiences (more on those later) that light is more needful than ever to come out and illuminate every little nook and cranny. If you don’t think it’s important for your social health, it’s vital for your biological and spiritual health as well!
I recently had the pleasure to watch this blog-entry from a fellow by the moniker of Davey Wavey. He’s quite wise for someone so young and instead of replicating his words I can just point to him and have everyone watch what he has to say on this subject. It is time for people to stop using the phrase “Openly Gay” because all Gays should be “Open” already. Hiding is bad for you, it’s bad for me, it’s bad for us all!