Let's agree to disagree

One hears constantly that San Francisco is the capital of the gay world ' it must be; I was only called "faggot" once the entire eight days of my recent visit.\nThis was from a young African-American male to whom I wouldn't sell a cigarette. To be fair to him, he did start with "bitch," but inevitably it rolled around to "faggot."\n Flashback to the 70s ' being the high school nerd, I was called "faggot"; flashback to the 80s ' as an undergraduate at IU, I was daily called "faggot"; flashback to the 90s ' living in Washington, DC and NYC, I began to think my middle name was "faggot."\nIn the year 2000, I understand why I've never owned a gun: I'd use it. I'd knee-cap the next bastard who called me faggot with my pearl-handled Saturday Night Special. \nDon't say the n-word (rhymes with "jigger"), don't call the next woman the b-word (rhymes with "witch"), no way should you use the k-word in reference to anyone Jewish (rhymes with "hike"), and for God's sake don't say the g-word to an Italian (rhymes with "Speedo").\nTake it out on the fags, for Christsake! Faggot, faggot, faggot.\nThe only advance I've seen recently is that girls say the word as much as boys. I've been so honored as to be called "faggot" by Britney wannabes just as much as by slouchy boys in oversized pants. Grown men love the word, and grown women do, too. Nice heels and outfits from Talbot's don't, it seems, prevent disgusting vocabulary from dribbling out their Lancômed mouths. \nIt's a perfectly safe word for heterosexuals to use. It will get you a back pat from Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan, and a luncheon date with Trent Lott and Dick Armey in the Senate Dining Room. Family values value the avaricious tendencies of groups to hunt and kill the Other. You know, those people not like you. For my psychological friends, it's autosuggestion at its autosuggestive best. \nI'm considering a stun gun and a bottle of pepper spray; a swift shot of both and a kick to the nether regions. I fantasize about telling these abusers after they are administered to go home and tell their Mommas that a faggot with AIDS just ensured they can't breed. \nI shouldn't sound this angry, because I'm not as angry as I am fatigued by the entirety of the problem. I'm just as fatigued by the process of social accommodation we call political correctness in this country. We are stuck between two extremes ' entirely non-offensive language (now there's an oxymoron), and the extreme acceptance of the word I've used already in the column too much. \nSo let's call a truce. I don't want to spend the next years of my life flinching every time I walk into a heterosexual encampment, and you don't have to like my gayness. Deal?\nI've rarely felt the need to wear a T-shirt that says: "I'm not queer but my boyfriend is." I have felt the need to have my Pride Flag on the front porch ' you might not like the fact that I'm gay, but there it waves. My Pride Flag is the symbol of a lot of beatings, murders, words, lost jobs and deaths both social and physical that my community has gone through to reach this momentous year. It's an honor, not to me to hang it on the porch, but an honor to every man and woman, fag and dyke, who has suffered to continue, been tortured for expression, been reviled for the fact they live and breathe honestly, openly, and that they held on to love. \nThey held on to love. It seems that would be the simplest, most human act, facile to the point of comparison with walking or breathing … but it's not. Just re-read the first few paragraphs of this column, and I think you'll see what I mean. \nEven now, in my 40th year, I only understand love in part. I love when it's convenient; I indulge anger when I don't understand. Every day is a new struggle to understand how to live as Christ lived, to turn the other cheek, to ask God for mercy and not just for myself.\nIt's my painful reality that I need to change just as much as those faggot-spouting minions out there. Because I live with words, believe words are important, believe words are the windows to the soul. I believe I know something about people who use that f-word against me. \nI'm a destiny freak, I have to admit it. While free will and intentions rule the everyday play of human events, I see behind them the acts of a Supreme Power ' call it what you want, I think we are all speaking of ultimately the same thing. Placed in the position of feeling oppressed a few hundred thousand times in my life, I've never been able to separate the hate from the truth, to love instead of react.\nA word humans invented has annoyed me, angered me, made me angry with God and the United States and the whole world for that matter. I should have been better than that. If at first you don't succeed …\nBut forgive me if I ask God constantly to change the world in my favor ' I expect He gets a few billion requests like that every single day. \nAnd forgive this fag for ever wanting a gun instead of understanding. It simply is never the proper answer.