As we move onward into the 21st century, the LGB community (much more so than the T and the I of the LGBTI umbrella) is gaining a lot of allies, and subsequently a lot of support for public anti-homophobia campaigns.
There’s all the usual, generally fairly productive stuff: outreach in schools (Wear It Purple), celebrity ally visibility (Rainbow Laces), and huge days where we all sit around and honour the gays among us (International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, National Coming Out Day, et cetera).
These kinds of events are all about promoting education, awareness and visibility. Your typical anti-homophobia campaign is really about saying, “Hey! We’re people too!”
But this week I discovered another anti-homophobia campaign that seems to go against the grain just a little bit. The Orthodox Christians of Eastern Europe each year release a calendar designed to challenge the conservative, homophobic opinions within their own church. Sounds pretty good. And, in the words of that other anti-homophobia campaign, it gets better. The calendar this year features one Orthodox priest holding down a jock-strapped lad as he pouts over a dog bowl of water, another priest pulling at the already too tight tighty whities of a fellow with washboard abs, and a third, very bearded, very Orthodox priest looking suggestively at the camera as he feels the inner thigh of his piece of man candy, inside a laundromat, next to a pile of clothes. Dirty.
It’s a move that appears to fight fire with fire. Some Christians are homophobic? Let’s squash those thoughts by showing them their religious leaders in sexually compromised positions with other men. Seems legit, really.
In light of that, I’ve done my best to come up with a few other against-the-grain anti-homophobia campaigns that fight fire with fire, and I reckon we should try.
The ‘don’t knock it till you try it’ approach:
Hate gays but haven’t had a dick in your butt? Afraid of lesbians but haven’t performed cunnilingus on another woman? Well, how can you really know if you never give it a go? This campaign is all about encouraging homophobes to fuck each other before they can definitively say they don’t like gays. It’s sound logic, and all parents have tried it before (“How do you know you don’t like broccoli? You haven’t even tried it!”).
This campaign can also extend to other gay pastimes, like dancing to Cher, wearing plaid, and corrupting the minds of innocent children. Try it before you deny it.
The pro-life approach:
This is another one for the Christians. Because if everyone is gay, there’ll be a lot less abortions. Hate abortion? Support gay rights!
The ‘gay guys won’t sleep with your teenage daughter’ approach:
The thing about homophobic people is that they generally don’t like facts. They don’t like to hear that LGBTI people can be anyone, anywhere, with any job, any appearance, any religion. Instead of facts, they like stereotypes, generalisations, scare tactics. So let’s fight them with their own weapons: stereotypes. I’ve seen Clueless, and from that, I understand that high-school-age girls like gay guys. And gay guys won’t sleep with high-school-age girls, and therefore won’t corrupt them. So, if you allow your daughter to exclusively hang out with gay men, she’ll be chaste and pure forever.
NB: this campaign falls apart a little bit if you think about gay women. But because homophobes generally don’t think about gay women (there’s no dick, therefore it’s not real sex and so not a real thing), it remains solid.
The ‘where else will you host your hen’s night?’ approach:
If you have homophobic friends, your hen’s night won’t be able to take over Oxford Street and turn it into a total hellhole for everyone else. End homophobia, so that on the night before your wedding you can take all your friends to go and hit on gay men and drive everyone else out of Darlinghurst.
Forget about education, awareness and visibility. The best way to stop homophobes is to beat them at their own game – scare tactics, over-generalisations and stereotypes. Don’t knock it till you try it.
[Photo:orthodox-calendar.com]
This Week…
This Saturday October 24, Poof Doof is back at The Shift Bar. The party features Attackattackattack, Adam Love and Jason Conti [below right].
Then on Sunday October 25, recover at the next instalment of House Of Mince’s Super OpenAir at the Factory Theatre. Headlining is NYC DJ Honey Dijon[below left], backed up by local favourites Simon Caldwell, Ben Drayton, Phil Smart, Matt Vaughan and Dreems to keep you dancing all afternoon.
