A Few More Words About Cooper.
Today I read a wonderfully well-written post over at this blog where I left a comment that I thought was worthy of a post by itself here on my own blaaarg. Sorry Tornwordo and others who are sick of this whole thing, but judgemental bigotry and injustice in any form is a long-standing pet peeve of mine that I will not hesitate to call people’s attention to. I think the difference is that unless you have been on the side of those attacked by their own “people” or so-called “community”, you can’t begin to fathom the hurt that comes from it. What follows is the comment I left on BlueAlto:
Having far more “inside information” because of my long friendship with Cooper, I can tell you that what he experienced was completely unprovoked and unfair. He was basically judged by people who, prior to that link being put on Joe’s blog, didn’t even know he existed. But because the overall tone of Joe’s post was questioning and, IMHO, negative, these people immediately high-tailed it over to Cooper’s blog and freely attacked and judged him. They didn’t know him or anything about him but he had been held up as some kind of “Gay Parenting Poster Child” on Joe.My.God so that made it open-season on him.
Those who claim that Joe is innocent in all of this need to only reread his original post. Words like “straightifying” speak VOLUMES when it comes to Joe’s feelings toward anyone or anything he personally believes don’t match his own narrow definitions of “Gay”. He will freely apply his street-corner psychoanalysis to those he feels are taking his beloved gay-way-of-living in a direction that differs from the one he knew back in, oh, say 1982! And when he does this, the diagnosis is always, “Assimilationist! Assimilationist!” He screams it from the rooftops…”Stop the Assimilationists! The Assimilationists are Coming!” This playing up of a great divide in gay culture is something Joe has been guilty of for a long time. Sadly, his sycophantic minions singled out Cooper as their target and they succeeded in silencing a gentle and innocent bystander. (Who, I might add, never even bothered to read Joe.My.God. until he found that his blog had been linked from there.)
Regarding Joe’s apology…I found it sickeningly amusing that many of the same people responsible for Cooper’s demise are now on that comment board singing his praises! Apparently, one does anything they can to look good in Joe’s eyes over there. And yes, I know who they are since Cooper himself gave me names. I have to say that after all of this, I am happy to be marginalized by the majority of gay people. They don’t understand me and I don’t understand them. The difference is that I couldn’t care less how they live their lives but they continue to be fascinated and obssessed with how I (and Cooper and people like us) live mine. It’s called “Individuality”. Check it out!
Filed under: Sunshiny Goodness
It sickens me when commenters say things like it had to have been a, “Right Wingnut.” The reality is that it’s gay people, hurting other gays. And what’s even more disturbing is that we, as a community, allow it to happen.
you would think with as many people that give gay’s a hard time that they wouldn’t pick on each other like that..i really really just don’t understand it..and it saddens me…it’s like being attacked from within your own family…
Boogie on reggae woman! I mean, man. I can’t help myself, you make me break out in song. Well said Kabuki boy!
(I’m overtired, forgive the insanity)
There’s just something about being able to express your opinion anonymously in a widely read forum that brings out the inner douchebag in some people. My blog hasn’t gotten a huge amount of traffic yet so it hasn’t happened to me there, but I’ve posted in forums elsewhere about stuff that was personal in nature, and had people call me a liar, ridicule what I was saying, and just be flat-out hateful. You have to have really thick skin sometimes to wade around in the dark waters of the internet.
I believe that is the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/) of which you speak, Big Tex.
I am a naive and sensitive soul. It breaks my heart, this mess that has attacked our dear Cooper. I still click my link that goes to his blog. I look at the “blog has been removed” message with tears in my eyes and heaviness in my heart.
Hi Kevin,
I left this comment in response to the one you left on my site.Thanks for commenting by the way, as well as for the above reference.
I am aware that you and others in the gay community that have, for whatever the reason, taken on the responsibility of parenting as an out gay couple, often been the target of unfair assumptions and presumption. I saw that happening with Cooper at Joe’s site, and I was more than disappointed at the response on those threads. Until the proverbial shit hit the fan, and then of course the support bases changed. Typical for that site actually. Tater (a friend and a writing partner), who also has a blog, and I frequently find ourselves on the non popular view on that site, and we both have experienced first hand how brutal that can be in that specific blogs comments section. It is often brutal. I feel awful that Cooper went through that and it prompted the actions he ultimately took.
Let me state flat out that I think we in the gay community do a terrible job of offering support and understanding for decisions someone makes that may not have been our own individual first choices. As a community we all need to work on that. And while I think Joe was way off in his criticism of gay parents, I really do take issue with the “assimilation” debate.
Where Joe has expressed a problem on that, and where I completly agree with him, is in the idea of an earned acceptance being something that will see our progress toward human equality and civil rights based on being “very good gay people” who are polite, wear Brooks Brothers, don’t march in gay pride events, and are monogamous in a LTR. I call BS on that being the only or even the best option. Rights are rights, and the mentality that attempts to buy a spot at that very unethically constructed table will always be experienced by many among usis nothing but further oppression. The masters tools tearing down the masters house analogy.
“They aren’t like us, therefore they are less than”. That mindset demonstrates the following:
A denial of access, based on a flawed and subjective assignment of what confers a right to access.
Aside from that very large point, I agree 100% with the way you have discussed this issue, and I hope you, your partner, and the rest of your family will have a better go of it. I can assure you that you will always have very vocal support here. I truly admire what you guys are doing. And yes, I wish more gay men did things such as committing themselves to the concept of family that you have. Thanks again for commenting. You will always be welcome here.
That was a nasty little feeding frenzy, for sure…and like Java, it’s left me sad and a little bereft.
The Corridor was more than a blog I checked daily, but a friend’s place that always touched me one way or another. I still click out of habit (i just don’t want to take him off my links list), only to get that message.
And I cry foul to those who felt it necessary to attack him for being one of the nearly infinite variety of people who’s individuality makes our culture, both gay and straight, a little richer. Shame on them.
I have a been a devoted fan of Cooper’s Corridor since I found it about a year earlier. And I had no idea all this shit went down and that’s why his blog went AWOL. I am very sadden each time that I have gone to his url to find it missing (thinking that blogger screwed something up).
Perhaps you can get a message to the Coop if he would consider publishing a private blog with readership by invitation only. I miss visiting his blog weekly to see the smile on his children’s face and to see how much he is making a difference. He may never be Prime Minister or the head of some multi-national company. But he has more than transformed the lives of two children who may one day go off and change this world for the better.
I miss the rustle of leaves in the corridor, and I’d like my appointment with him in the forest back. Now will someone please show me the snow tracks to find him again.