Happy Pride!

[Holly Taylor]

Straight people don't run around flaunting their straightness. Ok sure you have the odd couple kissing in public, but really for the most part it's not flaunted the same way gay people do running down a street proclaiming their gayness like it's what everybody needs to see.

More from sociologist Todd Schoepflin:

A follow-up question I sometimes receive when handling this topic is: “But why do they have to flaunt their sexuality?”

What, by the way, does “flaunting it” mean? How does a person flaunt their sexuality? Am I flaunting heterosexuality by wearing a wedding band? By having pictures of my wife and kids in my office? By making references to my wife?

I think that every time a romantic comedy comes out, straight people are flaunting their straightness. Every time I see a man and woman couple holding hands in public, they are flaunting their straightness. Every time I see a newlywed couple getting their photos taken in Gastown, they are flaunting their straightness.

Every time a straight couple is kissing goodbye in public, they are flaunting their straightness.

Every time a man is invited out and asks, "may I bring my wife too?" he is flaunting his straightness.

It sounds silly, doesn't it? To call any of the above "flaunting one's sexuality"? And yet when gay people do the exact same thing, people say that they are "flaunting their gayness."

It seems that something is not quite right with that state of affairs.

The gay pride parade is one day out of the year when gay people can celebrate gay sexuality in the midst of a hetero-centric culture, and proclaim: We're here, we're queer. GET USED TO IT.

 

[LADY-VIA]

I just don't care if people are gay/lesbian/transgendered It's not hurting me in any way,if you treat me with respect, you'll get the same in return.

ditto... as far as Im concerned none of us asked to be here to begin with.. yet here we all are because we were all brought into the world.. none of us can help what religion class system or race we were born into and all of us have the right to our own feeling and beliefs.. so I think we are all equals regardless of who we chose to love.

 

[Unpossible]

No, of course not! My comments are being slightly misconstrued and not taken for what they really are. I don't have a problem with a persons orientation, none whatsoever. What I take issue with is the "in your face" aspect of it.

Your comment is being misconstrued because it's extremely vague. What do you mean by "in your face"? What "in your face" behaviors do homosexuals exhibit that heterosexual don't?