The Bo Show

Boys Club Degrading Gays, Again

Straight men… damn the things that come out of their mouths. Today I witnessed yet another example of how the “boys club” singles out gay men and tries to make us appear as “less than.”

I was standing in the marbled lobby of my office building. As I was waiting for one of the many elevator doors to open, I saw a group of five “bandwagon brothers” walking my way. It was kind of funny, they all were dressed very similar, and acting the same… talking very loudly and gawking at the women who were also waiting for an elevator ride back to their office.

As one of the doors opened, it was only the six of us who got in… me and the “bandwagon brothers.” As the doors closed, I couldn’t help but listen to their loud conversation. One of these men was going on-and-on about one of the girls he seemed infatuated with. He mentioned to his buddies how he met “her boyfriend” over the weekend. His words exactly, “He’s very artsy, like a gay Bob Saget.” They all laughed.

I was offended. I immediately turned to them, specifically the one who said the comment. I gave him a disapproving look. The doors then opened and all five got off the elevator.

The rest of the ride up to my office floor I couldn’t help but wonder. Do all these men suffer from group think… it is disgraceful to call a straight man gay. Is that a bad thing? Is gay bad? I then thought, would these guys act this way if they were one-one-one with me… not in their wolf pack? Was it the safety in numbers that made each one more powerful and boastful and derogatory? My thought, yes.

But, I wanted to pull them aside and ask if they have any gay friends. I wanted to know if they would consider that gay friend’s feelings before saying that comment. I was really bothered

It’s little comments like this that keep the LGBT community “less than.” To me, this wasn’t just a joke, it was the beginning of something which leads into discrimination against me and other gay men and women.

It reminded me of a comment Ellen made on one of her shows about being gay and the discrimination and hatred towards our community, she said, “I would like you to start paying attention to how often being gay is a punch line of a monologue, or how often gay jokes are in a movie, and that kind of message… laughing at someone because they are gay is just the beginning… we must change the message.”

We are not second-class citizens!!!