Having spent some extensive time debating the merits of same-sex marriage on the PMNZ page, ground zero of Family First's campaign to valiantly protect marriage from people who want to get married, and advance family values by preventing people from forming families, I've noticed with sad bemusement that they really, really, really enjoy playing the victim. The martyrdom of Saint Me, if you will.
It crops up in a number of ways. At the top, it was displayed in Colin Craig's claim that the vote on the Marriage Equality Bill was a FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY despite the fact that support for the bill was about 65% both in parliament and in public polling. At the coal-face, it extends to opponents of same-sex marriage complaining that gay marriage is being forced on them, without realising the irony of complaining about forced tolerance of other people living their lives as they will, when all they want is the entirely reasonable right to veto the relationships of people they will never, ever meet... O.o
Well, the sense of victimhood at having to acknowledge others' right to self-assertion and self-determination has reared its ugly head again. Following John Key's Gay Red Shirt gaffe a couple weeks back, Bob McCoskrie is upset that there hasn't been public condemnation over the use of the term 'bigot' as a pejorative. This is an example of missing the point that is so audacious, it could only be achieved by ol' Bobby taking the time to carefully line-up his sights on The Point, practising controlled breathing, entering a state of zen to avoid all distractions, and then promptly pulling a 180 and firing his mouth off in a direction diametrically opposed to all recognisable fact!
As a public service, I'll walk through the reasoning behind the Green Party Aotearoa's decrying of John Key's gaffe, and why the same logic doesn't extend to the Dominion Post's political cartoon. First point of order: No, John Key's 'gay red shirt' quip does not make him a homophobe. He appears to be supportive of equality for LGBTs (give him the benefit of the doubt). However, just because he appears to be supportive of the LGBT community doesn't mean he's incapable of saying something stupid, hurtful, or wrong. The beauty of 'freedom of speech' is that it absolutely does NOT come coupled with a freedom from consequence. This means that when you're the nominal leader of a nation, and you say something very, very stupid, it's kind of a big deal. It's a big deal because it's VERY publicly visible, you're an influential figure, and it provides that most wonderful opportunity: The Teachable Moment.
Right, so you know John Key's not a homophobe, so why err'body mad? Because John still made a homophobic comment, and instead of owning it and learning from it (i.e. instead of making an effort to understand WHY it was homophobic and why people reacted to it), he made excuses and effectively blamed others for being upset. Which is something I see entirely too much of. The long-and-short of it is, he used a demographic as a pejorative. He used 'gay' as an insult, as a synonym for 'bad', which enforces the position of homosexuals in society as undesirable outsiders. He may not have been intending to insult the LGBT community, but the use of 'gay' as a pejorative is still an expression of subconscious, societally ingrained homophobia. I suspect no-one wants their sexuality used as a casual insult. I sure wouldn't want to be used as the social boogie-man that people point to in order to say "You don't wanna be like THAT!"
'Gay' is generally a reference to one of two things: being light/joyous/colourful, or being homosexual (the latter may have developed from the former). John Key claims he was using it in the sense that his kids do, to mean 'weird', but this does not reference being joyous, it references homosexuals as something weird, in a derogatory fashion. Sure, you're taking the scenic route to the negative connotation, but you're ending up there all the same. Wanda Sykes puts it more eloquently. Ironically, John Key could've used 'queer', another reference to homosexuals, but one that is a legitimate synonym for weird or peculiar. Of course, it bears mentioning, in considering the two frames of reference for 'gay', that there could well be a third way...
Now, why is the Dominion Post's cartoon different?
John Key used a minority as a pejorative. Tom Scott used pejorative terms as pejorative terms. He implied that being a bible-bashing bigot is a bad thing because being a bible-bashing bigot is a bad thing. Bible-bashers/Bible-thumpers are people who go out of their way to force their faith upon others. Bigots are people obstinately devoted to their own prejudices and often regard members of another group with hatred and intolerance, a term which developed from the original Middle French meaning of a religious hypocrite. The perfect expression of Bible-bashing bigotry in the U.S.A. currently, is the Tea Party, and this was displayed with stark clarity during the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination. At the Fox News debate, the audience of Tea Party Patriots, proud of the US' military tradition, openly booed a serving soldier for publicly admitting to being gay (this would be the bigotry-as-hatred-of-demographic example). At the debate chaired by Wolf Blitzer, the Republican audience who avow so fervently the sanctity of life, cheered at the prospect of letting people die if they could not afford health insurance (this would be the religious hypocrisy version of bigotry). It could easily be said that the Tea Party cost Mitt Romney and the Republican Party the US Presidential election: The hard turn to the extreme right that the bigoted and hypocritical Tea Party is forcing the GOP to take, costs Independent and Moderate votes.
This is not an attack on Christianity, nor does it imply that being Christian is a bad thing. It states that BIGOTRY and HYPOCRISY are bad things, and they ARE. Ignoring the message of love that your saviour graced the world with, in order to use your religion to hurt and belittle others, should be as much an insult to believers as it is to those outside the faith, if not more so.
So really, Bob McCoskrie, you should start pointing your finger at those who actually insult your religion, rather than the people holding them accountable.
