Stuff Gay People Like: Taking Ironic Photos With Hate Groups

Mobs of loopy, sign-carrying zealots are all the rage nowadays, and their purpose is generally to make their subjects quiver with anxiety or shock. But hate groups rarely have an effect on gay people, who – lets face it – experienced the most viscous verbal assaults in high school. By adulthood gay people have extremely thick skin, so when they watch Fred Phelps or “Americans for Truth” rolling up in a rented suburban full of ugly printed t-shirts and signs, they see opportunity.

A gay man with a camera cannot resist the urge to have himself photographed with anti-gay haters, gleefully projecting thumbs-up signs or a goofy grin. Soon he will post the images on his blog or Internet profile as mockery.

If his friends are present, a gay man’s ultimate win-win scenario is to obnoxiously make out with another guy in front of the scowling protesters, since gay contact is exactly what they are hoping to prevent. This is the equivalent of going to the park to gorge on chili cheese fries in the park in front of the Weight Loss Club’s outdoor aerobics class. It’s brutally personal, and beautiful in its poetic justice; it will be the highlight of a gay man’s month.

The haters often claim that poignantly lip-locked counter-protesting gay men are just verifying their beliefs that gay people are irreverent, rude and aggressively intolerant of “opposing views.” That’s because the single most accurate word to describe these people is melodramatic. They’re the ones who came with big signs to our PrideFest in the first place, so they can stuff it.

There are appropriate places for appropriate debate, but when one’s opponents have clearly swum off to the deep end it is hard to take them seriously. Lets just make sure all the shyer queer people who are watching the mess on their TV sets and newspapers can do so with a grin.

It’s ironic that the protesters would be there at all. According to most anti-gay groups, gay men are sex-crazed animals whose daily orgies are filled with bukkake scenes and fisting. One would think that a reveler of such immodest activities would be immune to shock value intended by gigantic lettering spelling IMMORALITY and SIN. Perhaps the obtuse signage is more accurately intended to disquiet gay folks’ poor, conflicted mums and grandpas; these are, ironically, potential future roles of the younger people currently holding the anti-gay poster boards.

Hate speech is dangerous in any form, but there is a point at which public perception has turned enough that the haters are more marginalized by their actions than the hated. When anti-gay forces are in public office or have real political power and influence, they should be met with righteous indignation, but when most people view them as some loony fringe element… well… See Fig. 02.