Every time I hear about “the gay agenda” I want to scream. My father-in-law, when I have to spend time with him, will often wax lyrical on this topic, particularly about how gay people are trying to convert others to being gay.
I’m not 100% sure why I woke up this morning thinking about how stupid the whole “gay agenda” and “gay conversion” thing is, but I did, and so I’m going to talk about it for a bit.
I was talking to my girlfriend the other day about the “traditional Desi dyke” and how single Desi dykes are scary because they’re out to convert the innocent straight girls. Her comment was that this really showed a lack of understanding about heterosexuality. That’s been at the back of my mind for the past few days, as well as the other crap that is generally percolating in my head at any given moment.
To suggest that gay, lesbian or bisexual people are out to convert people or that they have some sort of agenda indicates that those saying this believe that to be gay, lesbian or bisexual is just a choice, and that the choice is so attractive that people have to be warned against it by religion and other forms of societal disapproval.
Because let’s face it, being a second class citizen in Australia, not having the same rights as your straight brothers and sisters, is a very attractive choice. Not being able to marry, adopt children from overseas, obtain reproductive assistance (in some states) and the like is so very attractive, clearly I must rush now and divorce my husband and enter a lesbian relationship. In the US it is even worse. Gay, lesbian and bisexual people can have access to their partners denied in hospital, face discrimination in the workplace, are unable to bring their non-US partners back with them to the US, etc. Why would people choose to do this? Because, as many lesbian, gay and bisexual people state, as science has begun to back up, and as society is actually leaning towards… there is no choice. You are gay, lesbian or bisexual… you can’t change that and you should have the freedom to be yourself just like all those straight people do.
I do love the idea as well that the gay, lesbian and bisexual communities, made up of disparate people with different ideas, wants and needs apparently has some “agenda” that threatens all the straight people. What agenda? The agenda that they want to be treated like everyone else? The agenda that they might want to marry their life partners like their straight cousins can?
Conservative Christians say that gay, lesbian or bisexual people marrying will ruin the sanctity of marriage, and that since god (who the gay, lesbian or bisexual people may or may not believe in) stated that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that is how it has always been done, we can’t possibly change things now… like how we couldn’t change slavery or the role of women. Its not like marriage is “sacred” these days with the ability to marry complete strangers as long as each are man or woman, or beating your new bride and being arrested twice on your wedding night, or the ability to divorce and remarry.
I think it is far more accurate to say that there is a religious straight agenda. They’re the ones who claim that there is some sort of “gay agenda” and are the loudest at condemning gays, lesbians and bisexuals who want to marry their same sex partner or who want equal rights. They’re the ones who claim that being gay, lesbian or bisexual is a choice and that you can be “converted” back to being straight. Of course, they’re wrong.