Assumptions

Talking about stuff that is messed up, without some people really getting that it's messed up ...

Try this on for size. Let's say that some guy with blue eyes has a friend with brown eyes. So, he's taking a break from work, and not feeling too relaxed because something seems weird about the way people are looking at him. Lots of whispers and snickering, until somebody walks up to him and asks ...

"Could you level with us?"

"About what?", he asks.

"About the fact that you're wearing contacts."

"Huh? Did you notice I'm wearing glasses?"

"No, no", the person says. "Colored contacts. Because we know you must really have brown eyes, because ... you know ..."

"Because I have a buddy who has brown eyes?", our friend responds. "That's where you're going with this? Again, I mean?"

"Not that we see anything wrong with that ..."

"I'm sure you don't."

"I mean, I wouldn't want you to think I'm a chromophobe."

"A chromophobe?"

"You know, somebody who .... you know ... hates people who are differently pigmented there. I mean, it's OK if you want to hang out with ... you know ..."

"Somebody like that?"

"I knew you'd understand."

"All too well."

"What's that supposed to mean", somebody asks, jaw gaping as he sees a finger pointed sharply toward the door.


Welcome to the Twilight Zone? We see this as strange because just being brown eyed or blue eyed isn't something that is "tolerated", it's something that is accepted. The difference between the two takes us into the realm of a subtle, dishonest form of bigotry.

A lot of people will insist that they have absolutely nothing against anybody based on his or her sexual orientation, but you listen to their words, pay attention to their reactions, and they tell a different story, and not a very pretty one. Gay Rights is a personal issue for me, because it affects some of my friends, who spend their lives, at best hearing a grudging "I guess he's OK", and a little more quietly, "you know he can't help it", as if there anything that he needed to do that he wasn't doing?

Replacing blue eyed and brown eyed people with heterosexuals and homosexuals, and that bizarre dialog I just gave you comes uncomfortably close to discussions I've really had, by people who think they're being nice because they giggle instead of scream at people over an immutable difference that harms nobody, except to the extent that some people decide to make it harmful.

A lot of us make excuses saying "hey, it's just human nature", but 5000 years of history says otherwise. Yes, homophobia is deeply entrenched in both Christendom and Islam, but take a look at societies in which no Abrahamic faith is followed, and one does seem to find, not tolerance, but acceptance. The bad attitudes aren't hard wired into our DNA, as a species, they're cultural choices, choices that make the lives of others harder than they need to be, for no good purpose.

If you ask me, that's a pretty good definition of evil, an evil that needs to be uprooted from our culture. The purpose of my photostream on Flickr (or wherever I end up posting my photos) is to push some people out of their comfort zone by showing them the people they condescend to as human beings, living their lives, where they are neither out of sight or mind, but part of a normality that some will just have to get a little bit more used to. I suppose the more determined haters can just ignore my little page, but I like to think of it as that accident they try to look away from, but can't, turning and seeing, to their mounting horror, that absolutely nothing bad has happened, and that his fear and scorn were never based on anything real.

But I'll need more images before that happens.