That’s Gay!

In fact, there are lots of good cuss words a person can use. I just don’t think they should be used all the time. Only for special occasions, like Christmas, Easter and Tax Time. But, there are some other words that shouldn’t be used in certain occasions and are okay to use at other times.

Words relating to a person’s race, creed or religion can be hateful if used intentionally to hurt. If you are black, white or pink, it don’t matter to Grouchy. I ain’t spittin’ up your skirt either, I’m serious. I am colorblind, and everyone is just a shade of gray to me. (Well, at least after four or five shots of Jack Daniels.) So, if I’m in a room with someone who has a distinguishing quality, like blonde hair or big boobs, I’ll just yell out, “Hey, you with the big boobs, come sit by Dr. Grouchy!” After all, that ain’t nothin’ but a compliment. Some women spend a lot of money to get big boobs, and they want you to notice!

I can call someone Black or Asian or White, when I’m not pickin’ on ’em. I have to use my own judgement there, but those are just descriptions in some cases. Just like calling someone a women or gay is ok, when it’s just a fact and not mean. We shouldn’t hate on people for being a certain race, or for being short or tall or having a big nose. We shouldn’t be hateful and disrespectful to fat people, or people from America or people with a lisp. In fact, we are limiting ourselves if we single out “protected groups”, because we shouldn’t be hateful of anyone.

If I know someone who’s gay, I can say that in a conversation, as long as I’m not making fun of him for being a sissy, mind you! I shouldn’t call people gay, just to make fun of them when they aren’t. That encourages people to use gay people as a butt of jokes and is just plain wrong. Of course, we need to understand the difference between humor and hate. I’m not saying it’s right to make fun of someone based on a stereotype, but we have a long tradition of fun-making in this world. Fat jokes, blonde jokes, white jokes, Italian jokes, even black or gay jokes can be made in a way that is not hateful. It may not always be funny, but we’ve certainly all seen movies that poked fun at one stereotype or another. We need to lighten up and not take everything so seriously. If I am man (which I can prove), and I poke fun at a woman, that isn’t a hateful thing. Think of all the things I have been called over the years. People hurl around very hateful words like Nazi or Hitler or racist and so on, because someone says something they don’t agree with. They might call me a “Good ol’ Boy” or a “Redneck” (I have a rash). Is that right? Is it ok to hate me, and use hateful language against me or others. Is it ok to even use hateful language against someone who is an all out racist? My grandpappy told me, “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Example: When I am at a strip club and they have a couple hot chicks there that wanna kiss, I can yell, “Bring out the lesbians, so I can watch ’em kiss!” If they have a kiddie pool filled with oil, all the much better. But, after getting kicked solid in the grouchies by a pretty looking foot in a clear plastic pump when I called a straight nudie dancer a lesbian, I figured out fast that it weren’t nice to poke fun at somebody’s sexual orientation. That just leads to somebody with a pickup truck and a cowboy hat in Wyoming thinking it’s alright to abuse some kid cause he’s different. And, we can’t stand for that kind of thing.

If we lose our sense of humor, and our perspective, and we can’t be forgiving – then we polarize. We drive the politically correct into one group, and the racists into another group (in a compound in Wyoming) and we make no progress in getting across why people with differences need to be tolerant. We won’t get Pat Robertson to allow gays through the Pearly Gates, but maybe we can work with him to get him to use a little less hateful language. Maybe we can eventually get him to admit that it wasn’t gays in New Orleans that brought on the destruction by Hurricane Katrina.

Here’s a test. Watch an episode of “Mind of Mencia” or “South Park”. If your sphincter knots up and you start hyperventilating, you are probably too uptight.

This brings me to “gay” and “queer”. These are two words I used as a kid. Back in the “gay 90s” my grandpappy used to go around having a “gay ol’ time” about every other day. And, he knew some queer kid who wouldn’t take his finger out of his nose. Nobody used those words to describe homosexuals back then. Now, I don’t throw those words around willy-nilly. It’s just harder to use those words in non-sexual situations, without people jumping down your throat as they try to defend those words like they’re sacred.

Gay, in the sexual meaning, is a description of a person. Sometimes it could be a description of something people do, if it is sexual. I just am damn annoyed that people who aren’t gay are trying to protect people who are gay, by getting on my case for using the word “gay” in a perfectly dictionary way.

Example, “I was stuck in traffic for two hours. It was totally gay.”

I wouldn’t use the word totally, but that was just an example. In this case, gay has nothing to do with sex, unless I was having gay sex in my van, which I wasn’t. It is a fair use of the word to describe a situation that is, “characterized by cheerfulness or pleasure” or ironically in cases where the opposite is true. Things that are silly, are “gay”. Things that are really annoying can also be “gay” (ironic). It isn’t right to misuse the word in a sexual way, and this isn’t just hand waiving to justify using a negative term. Some people will never get that, because they only think of it in a sexual way, but they need to cut the rest of us some slack. You can substitute other words for “gay”, like “fun”, but it may not have the same impact and it shouldn’t be necessary because we aren’t doing anything wrong. After all, I’m not suggesting it is ok to say, “That’s Lesbian” or “That’s Black” or “That’s Mexican.”

Imagine sometime between 1930 and 1960 when the term “gay” came to predominantly describe homosexuals. More recently, the word “queer” was bent to that same meaning. Some people call the act of taking an infrequently used word and making it mean something else the act of “hijacking” a word. I don’t believe we should treat some words like this as “off-limits unless you using it in a way that a protected group wants it used.” As long as the meaning is clear, and not hateful, it shouldn’t cause an uproar. We are way too sensitive in this country over a handful of “special” words, and attack people in a hateful way because we don’t like the way they use words. I don’t think hate is appropriate for anyone. If you don’t understand this, don’t assume you’re right and I’m wrong. Erring on the side of political correctness doesn’t automatically make your position correct. It also doesn’t justify using the other N-word (Nazi) or similar hateful language, just because you “believe” you are right and I am wrong. People are not only too uptight, they are way too quick to judge others.

I also don’t think it should be acceptable for people in a “protected group” to use a hateful word amongst themselves. By making the N-word acceptable in rap music, it seems to make it ok for some to use the hateful word, but not others. If a word is negative like that, it shouldn’t be used by anyone, and it isn’t funny to joke about it by saying it frequently or in a funny way just because you are Black.

But, people should be able to say, “That’s gay” about a situation that is clearly non-sexual and it shouldn’t be considered demeaning or hateful. In everyday use, that it how “gay” is sometimes used. The more it gets used that way, the more it will be accepted in that usage. And, that’s fair. (At least until we get overly sensitive about all these words and define them all as hate speech and outlaw their use in public, unless you carry credentials saying you are a member of a qualified protected class.)