We need to prove gay really is fine by us
From the editors
Issue date: 10/11/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Correction: The editorial originally reported that the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Assembly distributed 500 shirts; the group distributed 300 shirts. The Daily Trojan regrets the error.
When two men marched around the Free Speech Zone on Wednesday carrying signs declaring "Homo sex is sin," students proved we are a campus with a conscience. We demonstrated our abilities as thoughtful citizens beyond the classroom, protesting these men's hateful words.
This was not the first time these men, armed with signs, props and their narrow-minded beliefs, have come to proselytize gay people on campus. But USC students wouldn't have it.
Students nearby were promoting a different message - one of acceptance and unity as part of National Coming Out Week.
Three-hundred T-shirts with the words, "Gay? Fine by me" sprawled across the front flew off Program Board's table in just 15 minutes.
Students, gay and straight, proudly wore the shirts; some followed with pink signs and marched up to the protestors, questioning and challenging intolerance at its human roots.
Coming together spontaneously as a community, we saw a clear need to exercise our right to free speech and a need to ensure that all sexual orientations are welcome.
We demonstrated that straight people can have gay pride, too. On Wednesday, people of different sexual orientations loudly proclaimed that USC will not tolerate
homophobia.
The views we find unsavory serve to affirm our own beliefs, to engender discussion with opposing views and perhaps, catalyze change. The hateful message these two men tried to spread was loud and clear, but hate and discrimination can come in whispers, too. Our own prejudices are not benign: We perpetuate intolerance when we sport our uclgay T-shirts, when we say "gay" as an insult, when our jokes make gay people into caricatures.
If we are to say that gay really is fine by us, we need to prove it all the time - not only when two men shout so loudly that we are forced to take a stand.
By recognizing and rejecting homophobia's more subtle, everyday forms, we affirm the gay community's vital place in the USC and human communities as a whole.
When two men marched around the Free Speech Zone on Wednesday carrying signs declaring "Homo sex is sin," students proved we are a campus with a conscience. We demonstrated our abilities as thoughtful citizens beyond the classroom, protesting these men's hateful words.
This was not the first time these men, armed with signs, props and their narrow-minded beliefs, have come to proselytize gay people on campus. But USC students wouldn't have it.
Students nearby were promoting a different message - one of acceptance and unity as part of National Coming Out Week.
Three-hundred T-shirts with the words, "Gay? Fine by me" sprawled across the front flew off Program Board's table in just 15 minutes.
Students, gay and straight, proudly wore the shirts; some followed with pink signs and marched up to the protestors, questioning and challenging intolerance at its human roots.
Coming together spontaneously as a community, we saw a clear need to exercise our right to free speech and a need to ensure that all sexual orientations are welcome.
We demonstrated that straight people can have gay pride, too. On Wednesday, people of different sexual orientations loudly proclaimed that USC will not tolerate
homophobia.
The views we find unsavory serve to affirm our own beliefs, to engender discussion with opposing views and perhaps, catalyze change. The hateful message these two men tried to spread was loud and clear, but hate and discrimination can come in whispers, too. Our own prejudices are not benign: We perpetuate intolerance when we sport our uclgay T-shirts, when we say "gay" as an insult, when our jokes make gay people into caricatures.
If we are to say that gay really is fine by us, we need to prove it all the time - not only when two men shout so loudly that we are forced to take a stand.
By recognizing and rejecting homophobia's more subtle, everyday forms, we affirm the gay community's vital place in the USC and human communities as a whole.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 5
alexandar
posted 12/11/07 @ 10:22 AM PST
i need to be gay
i need to boy like me and be bf
i am very sweet and i want be gay
who can help me
please
Guido
posted 12/17/07 @ 11:06 PM PST
The same two obnoxious protesters show up at CSULB at least twice a year to spew intolerance. They essentially hate everybody who isn't a fundamentalist Christian. (Continued…)
donharmon42
Don Harmon
posted 1/02/08 @ 2:46 PM PST
Gay. OK. Live and let live; they aren't harming me in any way and they should get no different treatment from anyone else. Their private orientation and sexual practices are their business, and no one else's, Just don't ask me to accept "it's perfectly normal," though, as that is an assertion that I cannot believe. (Continued…)
lucas
posted 1/02/08 @ 7:06 PM PST
Gays rock. They make life better.
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