I was at a small gathering of friends for a birthday party last night and one friend brought his new girlfriend. She seemed pleasant enough, until the conversation turned to homosexuals and their apparent transgressions against her personal views on society.
I'm still not sure how the conversation started, but if I remember correctly another person started saying something about how he didn't like "the gays" flaunting their sexuality in his face. I reminded him that some gay folks probably feel the same about seeing overly sexual public acts of hetero affection ("the straights"). A side note worth mentioning here is that the host (and one of my dearest friends) is Mormon. He has specific views about religion, homosexuality and other things that we don't usually get into discussions about. We agree to disagree one some topics, although I know he isn't some freak fundamentalist that has a hatred hard-on for gay people. In a scenario where somebody, straight or gay, is doing some overly public display of affection, he would be equally annoyed.
Anyway, from the flaunting discussion this new girlfriend added something about gay pride parades and how she didn't understand why they were necessary. Again, I pointed out that there were many groups that have unity or pride parades and in the case of gay people specifically, not only were they for a celebratory recognition, but they raise awareness for some of their grievances.
Unfortunately, the reaction I got first was outright disbelief ("what are they not getting now?") and what I like to call "the tone". Now, I'm a rational guy and willing to discuss and/or debate on a variety of topics and I can even allow for people who don't agree with me. But when people whip out the condescending tone as though it strengthens their argument, that's usually when I start to get ramped up.
When I listed issues such as their lack of equal access to marriage and legal recognition in some states, her response was "They can't pro-create, so why should they be able to get married?". She's a mother of three and living at home with her mom (I learned this later and the irony of which was beautiful) and was talking like she would to one of her children, not to mention her juvenile and woefully inadequate argument all combined to really annoy me. My response was the obvious one for her statement; plenty of people get married with no intention of having children should they be barred from getting married in the first place? And, by the way, there are plenty of folks who are infertile, should they too be banned from getting married or treated any differently? I also didn't add the obvious that they actually can pro-create because I thought it seemed too complex for her to understand the distinction.
The boyfriend defused the situation before it really ramped up with a perfect amount of humor and all was "good". I apologized to my host later for creating an uncomfortable situation, to which he just laughed and told me that it wasn't even worth talking about.
Yeah, I realize that all of this is my own version of condescension, but for fuck's sake if you are going to pop off to somebody you just met, whip out the childish tone and have a weak-ass argument, then you might be better off just shutting the fuck up, sing "Happy Birthday" and eat your slice of cake. But, hey, that's just me.
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