In the wake of the hideous referendum on civil rights by the voters in Maine last week, I wanted to share a personal story with the DKos community about a brief encounter with homophobia and hate speech. I'm not really sure why I wanted to write about it, except perhaps to get it off my chest.
Two years ago, I was working on a short film for a class. It was a public service film on childhood obesity, where I got to go out into the community and interview teachers and physicians about the problem, health issues and costs associated with it, potential solutions to address it, etc. The group I was working with for this film enlisted the help of a professional film editor who, although he was busy with lots of other clients at the time, was generous enough to assist us and helped create a pretty good documentary on a serious public health problem, at a very reasonable price.
For the most part, I had felt this editor was a really nice guy and we got along great throughout the process. He stayed up all night for several nights a week in his office to help edit the movie, even though he had to get up early to feed his kids. He let me stay up with him to assist in the editing. He was personable and friendly, always quick with a quotation from his favorite movies and TV shows. He and I shared similar ideas about which songs would best fit the soundtrack for the film. He even bought us a couple sandwiches at the local Subway (for us poor students). He was also politically left-of-center on most of the issues. He frequently railed against George Bush, hated the Iraq War, and held strong opinions about why the government should legalize marijuana and abolish the death penalty.
That made it all the more heartbreaking when the following conversation took place between him and myself, on the final day of editing:
Editor: Do you watch The Sopranos?
Me: Yeah, sometimes.
Editor: Did you ever see the one with the faggot when he was sucking on a security guard's dick?
At first, I was too stunned to move, let alone say anything. Here was a guy with whom I had thought I had built a great working relationship over a couple of months and thought we shared a lot in common. We both liked the same music, we both liked the same movies, we were both politically liberal....hell, we were both huge NBA fans. All of sudden, he just dropped a homophobic slur like it was no big deal.
I later learned that the character that he was talking about was Vito Spatafore. He later went on to say something else about that particular Sopranos episode, but for the next minute or so, I stopped listening to whatever it was he had said. I was too shocked and angry. A moment later, I said in as stern but calm a voice as I could: "You know, I really wish you would not use that word. It's extremely offensive to me." Here's how he replied:
Editor: Okay, I'm sorry. What do you call them?
That question might have been even more shocking to me than his initial use of the slur. "What do you call them?" It was as if I were expected to assign a label to an entire group of people, and a derogatory one at that. He had not even considered for a second that he was talking to someone who not only despised that slur, but had campaigned for civil rights and had donated time and money to marriage equality campaigns. Of course, his use of the slur would not have been any more acceptable even if he were talking to someone who shared his homophobic view -- but it does illustrate how he had expected me to be intolerant of the GLBT community, even before talking about it at all.
For a brief moment, I had wondered to myself if this editor was not, in fact, a hateful person, but was instead just misinformed and ignorant about gay civil rights. Maybe he had grown up in a culture and environment where using the term "faggot" was considered acceptable and commonplace. But ultimately, it didn't matter. He still made it very clear that according to him, gay people were "icky."
I had strongly considered walking out of the office. But I didn't. I had wanted to shout at him for being an intolerant bigot. I didn't do that either. I had to finish the film for my class, and I felt that if this guy and I were even the least bit friendly with each other, maybe I could get him to listen. The only thing I could say in response was this:
Me: What do I call them? I call them people. Just like you and me.
And after that, we just sort of let the issue drop and got back to work.
What does this have to do with Question 1? Well, I'm not entirely sure. I don't know exactly what motives people had in voting Yes on 1 last week, but I suppose that this brief episode in my life taught me that a lot of people in this country, even those who would consider themselves liberal, are still scared of homosexuality. That concept was perfectly illustrated when Maine voters went to the polls last Tuesday. The episode with the editor also taught me that the word "faggot" is, sadly, still too common in our culture, and is still too commonly used to denigrate gay and lesbian citizens for not being heterosexual. Who knows how many people in this country still use that term as a weapon, and who knows how many young people's minds they're trying to shape by teaching them that homophobic hate speech is acceptable?
I haven't spoken to this editor since. Honestly, I doubt that last statement of mine did anything to change his mind. But I at least felt somewhat proud that I confronted him over his use of hate speech. I do sometimes wish I had been a little more bold and had subjected him to further questioning. What was his opinion on marriage equality? Was he teaching his kids that homosexuality was immoral or a choice? Has he ever used the term "faggot" to a gay man's face? I didn't ask him these things. I still wonder if I should have, and if it would have made any difference.