Gay PSA

Watch out, there's a new PSA (I'm talking Public Service Announcement, not a prostate related issue) in town from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. I suppose that network basically covers everyone on earth but asexauls. This PSA has made me bow my head in shame and wonder what kind of person I really am.



Okay, I don't say "that's so gay" very often. Usually I just say it with Ken or Joie because it reminds us of being in fifth grade and makes us feel young again. It's what I might've said as an eleven year old when someone brought their pet rock to school in a bed they made out of a shoebox or when my brother wore docksiders with his bell bottoms. I also might have said it after watching the Brady Bunch episode 25, season one when Jan received a mysterious locket in the mail with no indication of who sent it and a manhunt began to find the culprit since the only clue was the typewriter used to type the address dropped its ‘y.’ Meanwhile, the locket mysteriously vanished and Peter suggested that they re-enact exactly what they were doing the night it vanished. Peter was SO gay. Because who re-enacts shit like that?

In my mind, and I might be totally inappropriate and politically incorrect (okay, not "might be," I know I am) saying "that shirt is so gay" is absolutely not the same thing as saying "that shirt is so homosexual." I realize that if someone said "that shirt is so Beth," meaning that Beth meant stupid or ugly or ridiculous, I might take offense. So the key here is to use the phrase sparingly and only with those who truly understand that you are not using the term "gay" to compare an ugly shirt to a lesbian. For example, a recent time I said "that's so gay" was when Joie was imitating someone who had a vicious comb over. I felt I had to call her "gay" just because she looked so stupid, funny and ridiculous all at once.

I am not gay, so I do not know how it must feel to overhear someone using the term in an expensive clothing store and to be reprimanded by Hillary Duff. I don't mean to make total light of the subject, but sometimes it just seems we can't say anything anymore. Don't get me wrong. I don't say this in front of my kids (unless one of them were gay, then I definitely would, just kidding) and I don't say it in public. But I do say it on occasion, in the right company. And if you're gay and reading this, feel free to slap me upside the head with a belittling comment.