Please say gay!
Ron DeSantis, or, as my friends refer to him, “Rhonda Santis” has passed a bill that bans classroom instruction or discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades, up to 12, throughout Florida public school system. It’s been applauded by the ultra-right who believe such discussion does not belong in the classroom — that old-fashioned Christian values be upheld. (They frequently throw in “Judeo-Christian values” in hopes that these Hebrew heathens will repent and bring on the second coming.)
I grew up in the 70s, a gay kid in a small town in Western Pennsylvania. It was a time when gay wasn’t discussed, whether in the classroom, or, for the most part, out of it. So, I don’t know how many other gays there were in my class or in the entire town.
A teacher would never utter the word gay in the classroom. Homosexuality, if discussed at all in my high school classes, received an uncomfortable belch from Mr. Oberfeitinger, the health-ed teacher who could barely bring himself to say, what he called “the more unsavory aspects of sexuality…homo-sexual…”
He didn’t say gay.
He didn’t have to. Everyone giggled accordingly. They knew. He was saying it loud and clear, gays were unsavory.
Here’s the thing: when they can’t say gay in the classroom or school counseling, it will still be said. It will be said just the way I heard it, day in and day out when I couldn’t walk from Chemistry to English without some proud heterosexual yelling: “Fag!”
I learned to walk with my head down, my rapidly growing body developing a protective, stooped-shoulder gait as I studied my shoes, the floor tiles, anything to prevent me from looking up to see just which one of these brave heteros was going to shout it this time. “Fag!” It echoed throughout the halls. “Fag!”
The teachers often pretended not to hear. Or if they did, they did nothing, some even snickered to themselves. I was gay; I deserved derision, didn’t I?
I didn’t tell anyone I was suffering from this kind of bullying, that I harbored ideas of either suicide or homicide, depending on my current state of mind. I was clearly ab-normal, and these geniuses had to point it out to me over and over again. I was unworthy of empathy or protection in those days. I was meant to feel shame.
And I did.
Who knew if there was an adult somewhere in that whole god-forsaken school — or town — who was, like me, gay. I’ll never know. Back then, teachers wouldn’t dare say it for fear of losing their jobs. Behind those closed schoolroom doors, was anyone just a little bit concerned? Didn’t anyone want to intervene?
Rhonda and her crusade to wipe out gay won’t stop gay kids from existing. They will be forced to live and suffer in shame and fear. The teachers won’t dare say gay once again because they know the law. And the 70s, with its closets and nasty little secrets, will look like child’s play. Because now we have a new sheriff, one who has latched onto her “anti-woke” agenda.
But make no mistake: people will say gay. It will be shouted out loud and clear, with bile and hatred. All those “loving Christians” are raising packs of judgmental animals who will think nothing of hurling epithets at these gay kids. They will hear it again and again and again.
“They killed him on the street — killed by kids with baseball bats! That’s right, ma, killed by children. Children taught by people like you. Queers don’t matter! Queers don’t love! And those that do deserve what they get!”
— from Torch Song Trilogy, by Harvey Fierstein
Rhonda is just making sure that no one in public schools will help these kids. Because Rhonda is the worst of the worst: an entitled, coddled, Ivy League elitist who craves power. Rhonda is a proud Christian Nationalist, who believes her religious beliefs eclipse all other rights. Her time at Yale and Harvard taught her that these radical lefties—who believe that we all deserve to live in peace, that diversity must be a core tenant of American progress—must be stopped. And she’s just the one to do it. Oh, Rhonda!
Gay will be said. And so will a lot of other words. Harsh words. Words that have been learned at the feet of these great moralists, who believe they have a right to control not only the words and the thoughts, but our existence. These horrible words will take the form of rocks, baseball bats, or worse, guns, as gays throughout the state of Florida discover they deserve neither respect nor protection. “Gay” will be the ugly curse on the lips of the self-righteous hordes who picket gay bars and clubs, given permission to continue Rhonda’s bloody crusade.
As Florida purges its school bookshelves of anything that tells a counternarrative to the White Supremacist mythology of the ugly right, the rest of the country sits and waits. Other states, as regressive and primitive as this one, are studying the blueprints. The red states will line up to be the next state to outdo even Florida in hate and intolerance.
“Oh, not all Christians are like that!” I hear many say. “Many of us are very welcoming and accepting!”
Well, if so, you good American Christians, then SPEAK THE FUCK UP!
Don’t let this evangelical gang of thugs hijack Christ’s true message of love and acceptance. Don’t wait for us gays to do it for you. Don’t live in your little bubble, safe and sound, because it isn’t you.
Yet… Because they won’t stop at gay.
Say gay, all you Christians who believe and actually follow the word of Christ. Say gay and say it loud!
Otherwise, you might as well join your Christian brothers and sisters in hate.
Just say gay.
