Yesterday The Honking Goose, a blogger whose posts I find rather delightful wrote on a topic that strikes me very near to my heart. Gay rights. Her post was intended to be humorous, and me, the ever politically correct overly sensitive excessively earnest individual that I am overreacted a bit. It’s a very thought provoking article, go read it. You’ll maybe understand why it got me all hot and bothered, maybe not. I think part of the problem was the level of sarcasm was lost on me, or hard to read. This JKC bangle represents me overreacting: off with her head!
Regardless, she got me thinking about rainbows. Beautiful magical rainbows and the rainbow flag. The pride flag of San Francisco. And you know what? I love that flag. It’s takes a beautiful natural occurrence (rainbows) to celebrate the most beautiful natural occurrence: LOVE.
But she felt, as a straight person, that the rainbow is gone from her. That she can’t use it any longer. To which I say, why not? There are so many layers here to unpack.
First up, of course you can still celebrate and love rainbows. Rainbows are universal. Really anybody, gay or straight, can wear this Sobral bracelet for $90
The challenge is finding the outfit to go with it.
Secondly, even though rainbows also celebrate gay pride, so what? If the fear is that people might think you’re gay, guess what? That probably won’t happen but so what if they do? What’s the problem with someone thinking you’re gay? I think they’ll figure out pretty quick that you’re not. Worst case scenario it’ll be like mistaking you for someone who likes peanut butter, offering you a Reese’s and then you pass saying “You know, I’m just not a peanut butter eater, but thanks for the offer.” That’s presuming of course that you have any sort of appeal to be offered the peanut butter to begin with. Which, eh, how many people actually hit on you regularly? Sooooooo….. There’s that.
Though actually, whatever you do! Don’t mistake me for a peanut butter eater. I don’t want all those people pushing their Reese’s Pieces and Butterfingers on me. It’s just gross, and unnatural. Seriously tho. I hate peanut butter. This etsy bracelet by LifeTravelDesigns is so much barf to me. Ugh.
Back to rainbows. Go for it. Wear them, enjoy them, celebrate what they sometimes represent: love. I can promise the first thing I usually think when I see someone wearing rainbows is not that they are gay it’s that they are a 90’s candy raver, and for that I’ll judge you.
Very Bangled 
Can I just say, I would totally rock that rainbow bracelet. I love rainbows!
I love the whimsy/spike combo of it 🙂 it’s like Rainbow Brite crossed with S&M
Something I didn’t include in my post but I think you might appreciate: I organize many things by rainbow color, books on shelves, merchandise in my shop like soaps and candles. It looks so much prettier that way.
I love rainbows & Reese’s haha. I always say/wear/ what I feel knowing that the people that matter in my life won’t judge me.
That’s the best policy. And the people who judge aren’t worth having around.
Okay so I’ve read it & if they were truly trying to be humorous by contrasting what’s “been taken” and not taken way in order to support gay marriage I get where they were going but it came off weirdly & I think the reply to you “I know it is a serious issue and all, but its okay to loosen up and joke about serious things sometimes.” is a way of not taking responsibility for being offensive. Nothing’s been taken away anyway, in reality from “us” straight people and that writer genuinely feels the rainbow has been “taken away” that tells me they’re uncomfortable with their sexuality and worried they’d be mistaken for gay because of the association which is silly, especially because in the end it’s suggesting the association has tarnished the thing, and the thing is the rainbow. So dumb. There are smarter ways to go about showing support for gay marriage but this tactic wasn’t one of them. Besides how hilarious is it that a straight person feels something was “taken away” from them by a seriously underprivileged and discriminated group of people…waaa go cry.
Thank you for seeing it the same way. Later I was questioning myself over the glibness, like maybe I just completely misinterpreted. I have a hard enough time face to face telling if someone is joking or serious- it gets exponentially more difficult online.
If they were joking by pointing out the absurdity via the contrast it didn’t come off well but even if that was their intention wasn’t that kind of a weak, stereotypical way to do it? If their intention was good and I found out so I’d say I made a mistake but after their reading explanation to you it didn’t come off that way completely.Regardless I’m so bored with straight people, and I’m one of them, that think “straight” is some default sexual orientation that comes first, as if they can own something over the rest of the humans. Eye rolls for days.
It is hard online! Sometimes I use exclamations to help clarify I’m excited or friendly and other times I wonder if seems like I’m screaming at someone. I also write in a way that I think some may take as being “short” with them where I’m just being efficient or even toned, in my own head, if that makes sense. It’s a tough situation to navigate online for sure.
Exactly! To both statements. But to the second one, I find myself using soooo many emoticons to express my feelings. Ridiculous, right? 😺🙈🌈
Emoticons forever!
Plus, they could have specifically written “I wrote those to make a point about how silly it is to say gay people have stolen from straight people” but they didn’t they said they “didn’t really care” or something along those lines which sounds like they sort of mean it but not really but kind of and I say “meh” to that blurry justification. At least they were mostly pleasant.
Part of what surprised me about the post is how funny and insightful so many of her other posts have been. It confused the issue. And then the comments on her post! Ugh, so many awful people who read her post more literally then I did, but rah rahed it!
I didn’t read the other comments and now I’m afraid to-people are stunning and bum me out with their insane opinions.
Maybe this was just a slip up for the blogger and she feels her heart was in the right place but took something valuable away from your comment hopefully? Maybe she’ll follow up with a new post about it. Maybe she just thought that post out too quickly.
I hope so because I think her heart is in the right place. It just missed the ideal target by a few yards. Progress?
I think that’s safe to say a little progress, whenever somebody has to defend their viewpoint it forces the wheels to turn and regardless somebody out there might read your comment and agree or have the ever-so-slight shift in thinking, you never ever know. =)