CARLTON FLETCHER: Even in modern-day America, some prejudices die hard

“Do what you wanna do, But be what you are.”

— The Dramatics

I was talking with an acquaintance recently, and during the course of our conversation, he started to use the term “faggot” when referring to someone we both knew who was gay.

At first, I was uncomfortable with the use of the word, even in the context of a private conversation, and finally I told this guy that I would appreciate it if he didn’t use such a derogatory term. To say he was taken aback would be an understatement. As a matter of fact, I don’t think we’ll be having any more one-on-one conversations.

“So you’re one of them?” he said, adding emphasis to “them.”

I said that, if by “them” he meant people who are not comfortable having conversations that included language that would be offensive to people, then, yes, I was one of them.

“Everyone told me you were a flaming liberal,” he said. “I gave you credit for being open-minded enough not to be someone who should be labeled, but I guess I was wrong. What’s the matter, are you a closet homo and don’t like people putting down your kind?”

I told the guy that a) my sexual preference was none of his business, b) that opposition to jerks who call people derogatory names behind their backs is not a partisan issue, it’s a human decency issue and that c) I really could not care less what he or anyone else he talked to thought of me.”

Then I left.

I started thinking about this backward way of thinking so many people have. And I thought about a friend of mine (I wrote about him a long time ago) who had “disowned” his son when the teen “came out” to him. In the years since I last talked with that friend, he’s had to bury that son whom he turned his back on when the son had the courage to stand up for who and what he was.

I wonder how people who condemn others for their differences — sexuality, gender, religion, race — manage to look at themselves in the mirror as they go about life condemning anyone who doesn’t think or look like they do. (A lot of these folks even have the nerve to call themselves “Christians.”) I wonder how they can find someone objectionable simply because their skin shade is a hue darker or they prefer the romantic company of the same sex or they worship in a building that has different symbols on their walls.

I wonder if these self-righteous folks, if told something that brought them joy, pleasure and happiness was “wrong,” if they’d give that something up so that they could conform more rigidly to “norms” that were set by a homogenous group that left no wiggle room for folks who colored a little outside the lines on occasion.

Several years ago, I ran into someone from my hometown, and we were talking about some of the people we both knew. I said something about one former classmate, and this person told me, “Oh, yeah, I know him. We were talking about you, and he said he always thought you were gay.”

I had to stop and think about that for a moment. Did I take offense to someone making what was an incorrect assumption (to quote Seinfeld, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”) based on the way I acted when we were both in high school? It turns out that I actually found it funny, having gradually come to the realization back at Irwin County High that such things did not change who a person was and, therefore, did not matter.

I told this person with whom I’d been talking that, while I was not actually gay, if I were, I would be among the most flamboyant and outspoken gay rights advocates there are. As it is, I simply live by something I was taught at an early age: If someone’s doing something that’s not against the law and doesn’t hurt you, why the hell do you care anyway?