If I’m to interest and embrace all types of readers from diverse backgrounds and with different desires, I must stick my pen out there and write about sensitive subjects that might make some people squirm, wince and even deny that such things exist.
When you’ve had eight produced plays, one even landing on off-off Broadway, you’re exposed to things that might make small-town America blush. I doubt it though — unfortunately. Even TV commercials have stripped all things sexual of its secrecy and sacredness. So please, no attitude, intolerance or ‘oh geez’ when I say that in the arts I’ve met many homosexuals who are so bright, so caring, so funny. I can’t understand how people can be homophobic when a person’s sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with them — the ‘offended.’ Look, I don’t want to know either what goes on behind closed doors, be it homosexuals or heterosexuals. We’ve all seen ourselves naked in the mirror and deep down we all know why the Titanic really sank. Nothing was meant to hold up all that blubber. But because our images can be downright scary, we sort of make allowances for our imperfections. Funny, how it’s so much harder to make exceptions when it comes to others who may be ‘different?’
“But the Bible says deviant sexual behaviors are doomed for eternal damnation,” religious zealots tell me.
“But if you’re born that way, how can you be held responsible?” I ask.
“Born?! God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” they’ll rant. “You’re nothing but a misguided fool.”
This is when I get moderately vicious and defend a segment of society that, for the grace of God, I wasn’t born into. “Recent studies claim that a gland situated close to the pituitary gland determines one’s sexuality,” I quickly point out. “I’m convinced people are born that way; they can change those tendencies about as much as we can change our height or our eye color.”
“But people can change their height with hormone injections and turn their brown eyes into blue with colored contacts,” they’ll argue.
Can you stand it when jackasses challenge your every statement? Nothing short of a lobotomy will ‘kill’ their staunch beliefs — myself included. But I’m always praying that I’m open and compassionate enough to look and try to see down ‘the road less traveled.’ This is when I get all huffy and try to stump them on the heated debate of the homosexual’s sense of morality.
“Tell me, why would anyone intentionally put themselves in a position of being ostracized, ridiculed, and clinging to the fringes of society? Only a moron would, and by the way, there seems to be a correlation between brilliancy and homosexuality.”
“I’d rather be dumb, ugly and ‘straight’ than brilliant, beautiful and gay,” they’ll insist.
“Then you should be very happy with your present state in life,” I’ll smile.
Just read, my faithful following, the biographies of those strongly rumored to be gay, and then try to imagine history without them — Aristotle, DaVinci, Michelangelo, Julius Caesar, Whitman, Melville, Emerson, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Cole Porter and a man assisting me with my trip. We met via e-mail because he’s assisting me with making reservations in Europe. I complimented him on his efficiency and breezy personality. His last e-mail read: “Thanks for your nice words that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside — can’t wait to meet you.” Teasingly I told a male somebody who lives in my home that the e-mail was for him. One day you have the Internet and e-mail, the next day it’s gone.
Karen White-Walker is a Wilson resident. Her column appears every Tuesday.
Karen White Walker
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October 30, 2007
WHITE-WALKER: Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve
- Karen White Walker
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- WHITE-WALKER: Weighty words Okay, so you weren’t born into the greatest family, you’ve had to struggle for every earned fifty cents, and when you get up in the morning, the first words out of your vulgar tasting mouth are, “If I’m part of some Divine Plan, God sure must have some sense of humor.” So laugh, He does.
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WHITE-WALKER: Students for all seasons
Imagine iPods hangin’ out of ears, greasy chips and soda smeared all over young faces, cell phones sandwiched between book pages and the camera part of the phone aimed at your face — get the picture?
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WHITE-WALKER: Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve
If I’m to interest and embrace all types of readers from diverse backgrounds and with different desires, I must stick my pen out there and write about sensitive subjects that might make some people squirm, wince and even deny that such things exist.
- WHITE-WALKER: Once upon a time is now “They say the most demanding, difficult, impossible people are the very ones who need love the most,” sighed an old chum of mine who’s on her fourth divorce.
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WHITE-WALKER: Any old pair
Why waste your money seeing a sidesplitting movie, tuning into a weekly sit-com or reading a hopefully humorous weekly newspaper column, when all you have to do is surround yourself with your family’s kids who are five years old and under, and there you’ll have it — lively free entertainment.
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WHITE-WALKER: Ben Gay and Beano
You just know when you’re getting ‘up there,’ and for some people, it IS a million laughs, especially if you hang around with…..well, you’ll see.
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WHITE-WALKER: Hold the sauce
I can never remember a time when there wasn’t a Lockport Reid’s Hot Dog Stand.
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WHITE-WALKER: Stripped of her softest possession
From afar she looked like you wouldn’t want to tangle up with her in some dark alley.
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WHITE-WALKER: Young blood, tired blood, no blood
It’s surprising they’re even talking to me seeing how I’ve never ONCE mentioned my husband’s family. “Are they that bad?” I’ve asked myself.
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WHITE-WALKER: Elvis straightened my eyelashes
1950s: We came of age on the swivel of his hips and that sexy sneer that was supposed to break down all our defenses of remaining pure and innocent.
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