One of the tough things about being gay is that it's not necessarily visible. You can't look at a gay person and know they're a member of a minority. For the most part, this is why so many anti-gay hate crimes are committed against straight people 'perceived' as gay. There's just no way to know for sure. And this is not a good thing. As a test, ask yourself: Why do gays need a closet? And, did they determine on their own, free of outside influence, that they should be in a closet? I think the answers to those questions might help form your perceptions on the closet.
As my friend FogCityJohn said, "The closet is NOT a safe place. It's not a physical space to which one can retreat and lock the door. It's a form of oppression that forces gays to try to "pass" for straight. And straight bigots can drag us out of the "safety" of the closet at any time if they feel the need to bash a fag...
Indeed, antigay violence is an essential component of the closet. It is a signal to all gays that straight society is willing to kill us, if necessary, to enforce our silence... Of course, being forced to hide IS discrimination..."
But perhaps the most ingeniously offensive facet of the closet is the fact that bigots can use it to absolve themselves of their crimes.
Let me be clear: it's a feature, not a bug. People know that forcing persecuted minorities to hide in a closet will make them weaker and more susceptible to exploitation, and people know that there are all kinds of ways to use the silence and disappearance of gays from mainstream life to further exploit them. So, you have people committing crimes against gay people in New York in 2011 and then saying "oh, gee, it's not as bad as you think! I'm gay too!"
Would a gay guy beat another gay guy while yelling "you fucking faggot!"? And, even if his attacker were gay, does that make the crime less bad? That people adopt this defense over and over again tells me that yes, beating or killing a gay person and then saying you're gay is deemed as less bad.
And how do we know? If gays were not forced into the closet in the first place, there would be no issue. There would never be any concept of "coming out." Gay men would not be hiding and straight guys could not say "Look! I was hiding too!" People who viciously attack black people or women can't get out of it by trying to claim that "I'm black too!" There is no mystery. Deciding if someone is white/black, male/female is as easy as looking at them, in a way (though obviously that's a bit oversimplified.) Straight people have created this 'mystery.' They've created the possibility that a crime against a gay person may not be as bad because, well, see, there's a closet. And gays are in it. And this killer, this abuser is just another victim of that closet! Really! Victim!
As I said, it's a brilliant strategy. It's a way to thoroughly destroy gay people by creating their situation and then attacking them and then claiming you're a victim of the situation you created for them. Good job. I would almost feel a bit of respect for the brilliance of the whole thing if it weren't directly hurting me and millions of others.
But this is a strategy and it keeps happening. Don't forget the attempt to revise the history of the murder of Matthew Shepard. As Pam Spaulding wrote in 2004, about the murder, the first attempt at a defense of the vicious attack went like this:
Mr. McKinney now says that he and his defense team cooked up a gay-panic defense - the one that said he responded violently when hit on by a man - though it wasn't true. Mr. McKinney's girlfriend, the early proponent of the gay-panic story, has also recanted.
So, first of all, they decided to argue that the idea of being approached by a man who is attracted to other man was so disgusting, so horribly jarring that he drove him to a field and beat him nearly to death, leaving him tied to a fence post. And that it was a valid defense, because, as we all know, anyone would be terrified if some guy said they were hot or something. But the point remains: their entire defense was based on a notion that being spoken to by an "other" can actually lead to a violent murder, that gays are so bad they should not even approach straight men, ever. That was bad enough. That's demeaning toward gays in so many different aspects I couldn't possibly list them.
But then, ABC News decided to tell us that, no, Matt's murder did not have anything to do with him being gay, because, shockingly, one of the murderers says he is gay too. But again, we'll never know for sure, because the closet exists and therefore the mystery exists. Always. That works out so great for bigots, doesn't it?
Even the killer's girlfriend admits that this stuff helps bigots get out of jail:
Price now says that at the time of the crime she thought things would go easier for McKinney if his violence were seen as a panic reaction to an unwanted gay sexual advance.
But today, Price tells Vargas the initial statements she made were not true and tells Vargas that McKinney's motive was money and drugs. "I don't think it was a hate crime at all. I never did," she said.
I do not write this to point out the unfairness. I do not write this to tug on your emotions. I write this to ask: why? Why should "things... go easier" for someone who beats and/or kills someone if that someone is gay? Even if that someone dares to approach and maybe even hit on a male? How is that in any way a rational aspect of our legal system? Why is the closet allowed to cast doubt on a person's culpability in a crime? These are serious questions deserving of more introspection than "this really sucks," especially because it's difficult to ever know the answers.
The New York Times, in 2004, gave validation to this idea, much like the media is giving validation to the current situation today. They called Vargas' ABC News report "intellectually brave." There is nothing intellectually brave about furthering the goals of the people who invented the closet. The brave response would have been to work to tear it down at every opportunity. I shouldn't even have to say that.
And yet nearly the same kind of respect is being given to the comments that this new gay basher isn't gay.
And just to use as much overkill as possible in the warped version of Matt's story (the same overkill as the murder, incidentally) the NYT and ABC News stories also bring out the "rich white gays" stereotype, writing about Matt ordering a limo, or somesuch thing, and talking about "high life in the high plains" I kid you not.
And then? The killer says, "I have gay friends." Read it yourself. I'm serious.
As Pam said in the closing lines of her story, that even if the guy is actually bisexual or gay, "It brings to light, yet again, how much more complicated people's relationships are with their own sexuality. The man is still denying it -- apparently being gay or bisexual is more shameful than killing someone."
And that's the way our system seems to work. It's not a bug. It doesn't just happen by accident. We are told to believe, in our daily lives, that being gay is worse, that we need to be closeted, and we've even been built a nice little closet by heterosexuals that we fit right into all snugly. We've had this system created for us and we've had its creators exploit it at every opportunity to make it work even more in their favor. Because the original concept of the closet isn't enough. Once you have created that kind of dominance over someone you will not stop.
So now, our media buys into it. And now, our justice system buys into it. And our government in general buys into it (my god, we've only recently gotten a bill through Congress and signed by the President which may at some point allow gay soldiers to serve in the military without having to automatically put themselves into the closet.) And this is what we get: straight people now have the ability to beat and kill gays and receive a lesser punishment just by claiming they are a victim of their own system. This is what the closet has done to gays in America and everywhere else. The closet is not, and will never be, comforting, safe, necessary or useful. For anything.
Judy Shepard, Matt's mom, had it right in 2004:
"I'm just not buying into that. There were a lot of things going on that night, and hate was one of them, and they murdered my son ultimately. Anything else we find out just doesn't, just doesn't change that fact," she said.
People are still committing attacks and murders, here. Having the ability to say that there is a mystery involved as to the perpetrator's sexual orientation doesn't change that. In fact, it's a big reason why we're still dealing with the same thing in 2011.