I Don’t Know What Title to Give This Post

Okay, so Mr. BlueAlto (I believe his name is Al) left a great comment on my last post that I want to respond to but I have to admit that I’m not really sure how to respond.  This is the part that I want to address:

“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.”

Okay…right off the bat, I’m kinda retarded so if I have completely missed the point of what you were saying here, I apologize.  But I also have to state that I DON’T CARE how other people live their lives.  Truly, I mean that!  I don’t care if you are a straight 435 lb. nudist or a Wiccan or a born-again evangelical or a circuit party gay drug-abusing whore.  I just don’t care.  If you aren’t hurting me or those close to me, how you opt to live your life is your business and I’m certainly not going to interfere with it.  When it comes to lifestyle choices, I’m about as open and uncaring as you can get.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t find certain choices to be distasteful to me personally but I certainly don’t push my beliefs on anyone else.  All one need do is take a look at the cross-section of people I consider to be my closest friends and the differences in how they live their lives is apparent. 

With that said, I guess my problem with this arguement is that it invokes the presumption that someone other gay people might call an “assimilationist” has made a conscious decision to attempt to gain acceptance from straight society.  I’m sorry, but with the exception of those freaks known as Log Cabin Republicunts, I find the idea of that to be preposterous!  I just can’t believe that someone would consciously set out to do things in their life in the hopes of gaining them acceptance by straight people.  What is to gain from that?  Sure, they may be loved by the straights but it doesn’t gain them any rights over any other gay people.  They are still “the gay one” and therefore the outsider.  Who would kid themselves into believing anything different?  This is where I believe your arguement is flawed.  I just don’t believe that anyone would really delude themselves into believing that by acting like straights, I will become accepted by straights.  It even sounds ridiculous just typing it!  Based on the “examples” that you stated in your comment, I am guilty of the crime of Assimilation and should probably be shot.  Let’s go through these, shall we?  1.) Polite.  Oh my goodness, I have the manners of a Victorian debutante!  My mother raised me to treat others with respect and dignity and I see absolutely no harm in doing so.  If there is something wrong with being polite in anyway, I’m oblivious to it.  2.) Wear Brooks Brothers clothing.  Are you kidding me?  I’ve got four kids!  Expensive name brand clothing is about as important to me as anything spoken by Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears or Chris Crocker.  3.) Don’t march in gay pride events.  Okay, all my life I have felt that parades are really stupid and pointless.  Oh!  Look!  There’s someone I don’t know or care about sitting in a car waving at me!  WTF?  So, no.  I don’t march in gay pride events.  Of course I understand what you are really getting at here and it is really more about participation in pride events rather than actually marching.  Honestly, I used to attend some of them way back when but now, I have no interest.  First, I hate crowds.  Second, I really can’t relate to most of those people.  I’m not a dancer, I’m happily partnered so therefore not looking for anyone, I can drink for far cheaper just by staying home, I don’t fit into any of the neat little categories that gay people enjoy stuffing themselves into.  Sorry but it all just feels rather contrived and phoney to me.  What is any of it really changing?  You can go to a gay bar any night of the week and get the exact same thing!  Some people might say, “But by attending pride, you’re supporting the community and letting people see who we are” or whatever.  Please!  The media will still only do a brief blurb on the news that evening and the only people that ever get shown are the 8 ft. tall scary drag queens or the practically naked leather boys.  Your average, ordinary, everday gay person is invisible.  Anyone who can’t admit that Pride is nothing more than an excuse to drink and pick up guys in the middle of the day instead of at night is in the minority and probably kidding themselves.  4.) Monogamous.  Yep.  And couldn’t be happier!  That’s not to say our relationship has always been that way.  We experimented…it was brief…and it didn’t work.  If it does for others, hey, great!  But they aren’t me.  5.) In a LTR.  19 years now and going strong.  So clearly, by the fact that my lifestyle is in line with the majority of the points that have been outlined, I am an “Assimilationist” except for one thing…I have never consciously made any decision to live my life the way I do in hopes of improving my standing within Straight Society.  We should probably add in there that I currently live in a suburb and have never isolated myself in a “gay ghetto”.  It just doesn’t hold any water with me. 

And, once again quite honestly, I would think that when straight people see me, or people like me, gay people would only stand to benefit in the area of civil rights and human equality.  I don’t quite “fit” their preconceived stereotypes of the limp-wristed flamer or the man who dresses in drag.  I’m rather ordinary and probably kinda boring, certainly nothing to be feared. 

The word “Assimilationist” when used by other gay people, is a SLUR.  Plain and simple.  It is designed to malign a group of individuals who don’t quite walk the walk or talk the talk that the Majority would like for them to do.  And in that sense, I would WANT to be an Assimilationist just to piss people off.  Because that’s the way I’ve lived my life for the last twenty years or so, doing whatever I wanted, especially if it went against what someone else expected of me or told me to do.  I am an INDIVIDUAL and for that, I am proud. 

Who made up these stupid rules anyway?

In closing, I have probably missed the point entirely and I don’t have the time to reread it to see if any of this even makes one iota of sense.  It probably doesn’t.  I don’t know, from now on, maybe I’ll start actively calling myself an Assimilationist just to piss people off. It sounds kind of fun.  I’m all about fun and being retarded.  Thank you BlueAlto for the comment!  I’ve decided that, no matter what I say, it isn’t going to change anything anyway so hey, whatevah.  I’m hap-hap-happy!