Monday, December 08, 2008

Prop H8: Can You Live Without Your Gays?

Now this is a protest! On Wednesday, December 10, gay people are "encouraged to call in 'gay'--and donate your time to service!" (Presumably they will have lots of time to donate to service after being fired for calling in "gay.") Read more about the protest here.

Why a day without the gays? Well,

Gay people and our allies are compassionate, sensitive, caring, mobilized, and programmed for success. A day without gays would be tragic because it would be a day without love.
You see, gays are like giant love sprinklers who spray love all over the lawn of the world, nourishing the fragile heterosexual plants. And without your love sprinkler, what will happen to your lawn? That's right: love-lawn brown spots.

Silly rhetoric aside (what does it mean that gays are "programmed for success"?), this is actually a pretty great idea--assuming that there is strong participation. It might just surprise some Californians how many people in their everyday lives are gay. And once you realize that there are gays all around you, you might be less willing to fuck with their civil rights.

Of course, this protest is also a boon for comedy, as there is the opportunity for numerous jokes here about hair-dressing, gym-teaching, etc. Hopefully, this piece at Gawker has preempted most of those jokes by doing them well in advance. The better quote from the Gawker piece is this one:
people will see that nice gay and lesbian folk are everywhere around them. Stopping traffic for their kids, delivering mail, folding t-shirts, baking bread, teaching maths, governing cities, practicing medicine, hilariously defending your civil rights in courts of law, fighting impossible wars so you don't have to, and so and so on, forever and ever.
Or even grading your final exams! That's right: Fosco has a bit of a conflict here on Wednesday as his students' final exam is scheduled for that day. Would it be a good lesson in tolerance for them if Fosco didn't show up?

2 comments:

m said...

Since I'm bi, is it OK if I take a half-day?

Anonymous said...

The way I see it... wouldn't you be punishing students that are also gay? Or punishing gay people that look to do business and didn't "get the memo?"