Things that aren't really poems but needed putting down on paper. Or whatever you call paper that's a website.
An Open Letter to the Homophobes (from http://www.novelnovelist.tumblr.com)
Dear homophobes, (Not as in ‘dear homophobes’ like “you know who I like, the dear old homophobes”, but as in ‘Dear homophobes’ like how you start a letter.)
I wish I could write personally to each and every one of you, but have instead devised this open letter for your perusal. I am aware that many homophobes wouldn’t like to label themselves as such (they hate labelling!), so I have devised a short test for you to help categorise yourself:
Q1: Which of the following phrases makes most sense to you:
a) “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
b) “Being gay is a lifestyle choice”.
c) “I don’t mind them doing it, I just don’t want it rammed down my throat *chuckles at witty fellatio reference*”
If you answered with a, please read on. If you answered with b, please read on. If you answered with c, please read on. If you answered ‘none of the above’, why not read on anyway? It’s nice to join in.
I don’t understand the phrase “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”. It makes no sense. Just because one thing exists, that doesn’t mean another thing can’t exist. It’s like saying “It’s Adam and Eve, not Jeremy Guscott”, and then picketing Jeremy Guscott’s wedding as a result. It’s like denouncing ‘The BFG’ because the Bible is also a book. It’s like going to a barbecue and chanting “It’s B&Q, not BBQ”. It’s ridiculous. B&Q sell BBQs!
Lots of people in America got all riled-up last year at the suggestion that Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street were gay. The protestations were about it being unfair to promote homosexuality to children through these puppet characters. Fair point. Why not show decent heterosexual puppet relationships, like Kermit and Miss Piggy? Let’s not be perturbed by the fact that Kermit is a frog banging a pig! (I use pig etymologically, of course, not as an insult to her looks. Miss Piggy is a total babe).
When people say “Being gay isn’t natural, it’s a lifestyle choice”, I don’t understand that either. Disregarding for a moment that this is glaringly incorrect, let’s pretend briefly that the accusation is true. Let’s pretend that being gay is in fact a lifestyle choice. So what?! What has someone else’s lifestyle choice got to do with you? Other famously accepted lifestyle choices include: wearing jeans, playing bingo, dressing dogs in human clothes, clapping, competing in dressage, doing the worm, drinking soya milk, humming and fencing. We’re not born with any of these things. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to do them.
Actually, stop dressing up dogs in human clothes, it’s fucking stupid.
I watched the film ‘Behind the Candelabra’ earlier this year. All the reviews I read mentioned how ‘gay’ or ‘unashamedly gay’ or ‘wonderfully gay’ it was. I found that weird. Here is my subsequent review of ‘Sleepless in Seatlle’:
'Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in this fantastically heterosexual romantic comedy about two straight twenty-somethings looking for un-gay love. Five stars (not faggot stars).'
Sexuality doesn’t have to be the thing which defines us. If you ask people what they think of Elton John, for example, most of them will mention his sexuality before they mention how great a song ‘Rocket Man’ is, or how his hair is reminiscent of a stapled-down hamster, or how his husband looks like a melting Ken doll. I’ve always thought ‘David Furnish’ sounds more like an instruction than a name, anyway.
I write this letter to you, homophobes of the world, to express my disappointment.
I understand where you gathered your views, of course. Homophobia is in fact rammed down our throats (lol) way more than homosexuality is, be it through playground taunting, or 1-dimensional television caricatures, or bigoted Grandads, or those hideous Fosters Gold adverts. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take a step back and think rationally about the way you think, the way you act, and the way you talk.
How would you like it if you walked into a community of lesbian women and someone shouted “Watch out girls, the straights are coming, fronts against the walls!” and all laughed? Admittedly that analogy doesn’t make any sense, but I hope you get my gist.
Thank you for reading my letter,
I look forward to hearing from you soon,
Yours uncharacteristically passionately,
Johnny Jenkins.
I wish I could write personally to each and every one of you, but have instead devised this open letter for your perusal. I am aware that many homophobes wouldn’t like to label themselves as such (they hate labelling!), so I have devised a short test for you to help categorise yourself:
Q1: Which of the following phrases makes most sense to you:
a) “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
b) “Being gay is a lifestyle choice”.
c) “I don’t mind them doing it, I just don’t want it rammed down my throat *chuckles at witty fellatio reference*”
If you answered with a, please read on. If you answered with b, please read on. If you answered with c, please read on. If you answered ‘none of the above’, why not read on anyway? It’s nice to join in.
I don’t understand the phrase “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”. It makes no sense. Just because one thing exists, that doesn’t mean another thing can’t exist. It’s like saying “It’s Adam and Eve, not Jeremy Guscott”, and then picketing Jeremy Guscott’s wedding as a result. It’s like denouncing ‘The BFG’ because the Bible is also a book. It’s like going to a barbecue and chanting “It’s B&Q, not BBQ”. It’s ridiculous. B&Q sell BBQs!
Lots of people in America got all riled-up last year at the suggestion that Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street were gay. The protestations were about it being unfair to promote homosexuality to children through these puppet characters. Fair point. Why not show decent heterosexual puppet relationships, like Kermit and Miss Piggy? Let’s not be perturbed by the fact that Kermit is a frog banging a pig! (I use pig etymologically, of course, not as an insult to her looks. Miss Piggy is a total babe).
When people say “Being gay isn’t natural, it’s a lifestyle choice”, I don’t understand that either. Disregarding for a moment that this is glaringly incorrect, let’s pretend briefly that the accusation is true. Let’s pretend that being gay is in fact a lifestyle choice. So what?! What has someone else’s lifestyle choice got to do with you? Other famously accepted lifestyle choices include: wearing jeans, playing bingo, dressing dogs in human clothes, clapping, competing in dressage, doing the worm, drinking soya milk, humming and fencing. We’re not born with any of these things. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to do them.
Actually, stop dressing up dogs in human clothes, it’s fucking stupid.
I watched the film ‘Behind the Candelabra’ earlier this year. All the reviews I read mentioned how ‘gay’ or ‘unashamedly gay’ or ‘wonderfully gay’ it was. I found that weird. Here is my subsequent review of ‘Sleepless in Seatlle’:
'Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in this fantastically heterosexual romantic comedy about two straight twenty-somethings looking for un-gay love. Five stars (not faggot stars).'
Sexuality doesn’t have to be the thing which defines us. If you ask people what they think of Elton John, for example, most of them will mention his sexuality before they mention how great a song ‘Rocket Man’ is, or how his hair is reminiscent of a stapled-down hamster, or how his husband looks like a melting Ken doll. I’ve always thought ‘David Furnish’ sounds more like an instruction than a name, anyway.
I write this letter to you, homophobes of the world, to express my disappointment.
I understand where you gathered your views, of course. Homophobia is in fact rammed down our throats (lol) way more than homosexuality is, be it through playground taunting, or 1-dimensional television caricatures, or bigoted Grandads, or those hideous Fosters Gold adverts. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take a step back and think rationally about the way you think, the way you act, and the way you talk.
How would you like it if you walked into a community of lesbian women and someone shouted “Watch out girls, the straights are coming, fronts against the walls!” and all laughed? Admittedly that analogy doesn’t make any sense, but I hope you get my gist.
Thank you for reading my letter,
I look forward to hearing from you soon,
Yours uncharacteristically passionately,
Johnny Jenkins.