Thursday , March 28 2024
The court's ruling reflects the fact that the prevailing culture in the U.S. no longer considers homosexuality a perversion or a sickness.

Sticks and Stones: Homosexuality No Longer an Insult

Back when I was a kid, a handy way to insult another kid was to call him gay. Before we even knew anything about sexuality, we knew “gay” connoted something un-masculine, which was enough to make an insult.

One sign that times are changing has emanated from a court in New York State, which has held that falsely calling someone a homosexual is no longer defamatory and thus can’t constitute slander. Kids still disparagingly call people and things gay, but in the prevailing culture of the adult world the suspicion or fact of homosexuality is no longer considered shameful.

Recently (and not very originally) I referred to same-sex marriage as the civil rights issue of our time. But marriage is just one piece of the action. While the struggle to legitimize gay marriage continues, a more fundamental (if hazy) sort of human right, the right to be considered a normal person, has been successfully asserted while most of us weren’t even paying attention.

However, to be reminded via an official ruling that in society at large “gay” and “homosexual” are no longer pejoratives is also to be reminded how easy it has always been, and still is, to use such terms thoughtlessly.

The court’s ruling reflects the fact that the dominant culture of the U.S. no longer considers homosexuality a perversion or a sickness; for the most part, the law leaves alone what consenting adults do in the privacy of their home, and psychiatry has ceased classifying homosexual behavior as a disorder.

But as the fury and controversy over cases like Tyler Clementi’s make clear, neither de facto nor de jure recognition of certain basic human rights wipes out prejudice and bullying, any more than the adoption of the former pejorative “queer” by the gay community does. All it does is make us recognize those hostile feelings and behaviors for what they are.

Progress? For sure. But with many steps yet to be taken.

About Jon Sobel

Jon Sobel is Publisher and Executive Editor of Blogcritics as well as lead editor of the Culture & Society section. As a writer he contributes most often to Music, where he covers classical music (old and new) and other genres, and Culture, where he reviews NYC theater. Through Oren Hope Marketing and Copywriting at http://www.orenhope.com/ you can hire him to write or edit whatever marketing or journalistic materials your heart desires. Jon also writes the blog Park Odyssey at http://parkodyssey.blogspot.com/ where he is on a mission to visit every park in New York City. He has also been a part-time working musician, including as lead singer, songwriter, and bass player for Whisperado.

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