Dodge

I have a question.

Actually I have a great many questions. Such as: when you put ketchup on something, is it because you like the taste of ketchup better than you like the taste of that food, or does the ketchup do something to the taste of the food itself? Or: how could you tell in the earliest versions of airplanes if you were low on gas without a computer-chip gas tank, did you keep it in the front seat with you? (The perks of dating a airplane mechanic so he can tell you these things.) But this one’s actually one that I’m interested in learning the answer to, not just something I ponder when I’m driving home alone in my car.

Incidentally I thought of a really cool idea for a character interaction. I imagined an older guy coming home from work every night and, without offering a “hello” or a “I’m home,” he asks some stupid question, taps his granddaughter on the temple, and says, “Now there’s something to ponder.” And she hates when he does that. Ponder what? How long is one expected to ponder something? Until an answer is discovered? Is he really even looking for an answer? Or is he just focused on the act of you pondering? But the big question is: why can’t he come in the house and say “Call me when dinner’s ready” like a normal person.

I digress.

Why is it such a big deal when someone “comes out?” Why do people record videos, make announcements, schedule press conferences, hire skywriters to declare to the universe “I AM A HOMOSEXUAL”? I’m not saying not to do it: however you deliver news is your business. I personally like to announce when we’re out of peanut butter in my house with much laying face-down in the floor and questioning the purpose of my existence in a peanut butter-less household. But what does that do? Literally, nothing. It doesn’t make a new Jif jar appear before me and lessen my burden. (First-world problems: “There’s no more peanut butter, I may as well just cease to be.”) So what does such an announcement do for the world when a homosexual declares something that he or she already acknowledges that they are?

I think the odd thing about being a homosexual (and this is all innocent speculation, I’ve never actually been one) is that it seems like you have to prove something. “I’m gay, now let me show you what I can do.” Is it a general assumption that, because you’re a homosexual, you move a few steps down on some ladder and you have to work extra-hard to make your way back up again? Or is it that it’s such a small (though ever-growing) community that you have to work to secure the status of “your group” (I don’t mean to marginalize, I pray you not to take it as such) within the larger circles of society? One of my former students chose to be “over the top” with the embodiment of his sexuality, even at the expense of his own safety, for the sake of the handful of other homosexuals within that school. And while I admire his courage at such a young age, I had to ask…what was the point?

This “pondering” has been sparked by a video of a country music singer coming out, and it just struck me as odd to announce something that you classify as your identity – part of who you are, a slice of your psychological and physical makeup. I wonder if I stood up and said, “Dear friends and family…I’m a woman,” even though that’s already part of my identity, if I would have shocked responses and people turning to me for support. “Don’t let anybody stifle that part of you, your courage is an inspiration to us all.” Somehow I don’t think it would have the same effect.

I’m not trying to start a fight, and I don’t want to be perceived as a homophobe or a bigot or anything even remotely related to that – you do what you do, I’ll do what I do, tom-ay-to to-mah-to, bada-bing-bada-bam. But I am genuinely interested in hearing an answer: if we’re supposed to be moving toward a society of equality and less of a dichotomy between the formerly-separated “us” and “them”…why must it still be addressed with fanfare and YouTube videos?