Memo to Jack Floyd: The vast majority of Texans are ‘backward’ and ‘creepy’
April 4th, 2008I had mixed reactions to Jacquielynn Floyd’s column in The DMN this morning about the anti-gay bigotry in Collin County.
On one hand, I think it’s good that Floyd has kept the issue in the spotlight for another day. On the other, I disagree with the main premise of the column, which seems to be that a few wingnuts out there are, unfortunately, making her and everyone else in Texas look bad.
First off, I don’t really give a shit how things look. What a way to trivialize injustice! It’s like saying, “Never mind the hate-crime victims, you crazy fundamentalist Christians better stop before you embarrass us self-righteous, politically correct liberals.”
Second, in case Floyd hasn’t noticed, we live in a state where voters approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage by a three-to-one margin a few years ago. Hell, in the Republican presidential race, her own newspaper recently endorsed Mike Huckabee, who believes homosexuality is akin to bestiality.
In my opinion, North Texas isn’t far removed, either geographically or ideologically, from Oklahoma City, where more than 1,000 people turned out at the Capitol on Wednesday to show their support for anti-gay lawmaker Sally Kern.
So if the situation in Collin County makes Texans look “backward” and “creepy,” as Floyd suggests, maybe it’s because for the most part, they are.
April 5th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Mr. Wright.
Jackie Floyd is one of the few pro-gay journalist at the DMN. She sticks her neck out for the gay community and you find fault with it. Perhaps you are far too self indulgent to appreciate it or perhaps you are one of the “creepy” and “backward” people she speaks of. Gay men and women can be just as backwards in their thinking as anyone else. Perhaps in calling her out, you were just trying to have your Ann Coulter moment. In that case, congratulations.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Before readers like Anna bend over backward in praise of Jackie Floyd’s homoliberalism, here’s a reminder. When “Brokeback Mountain” came out, FLoyd wrote a piece for the DMN with the cringe-inducing headline, “‘Brokeback ignores plight of spouses.” Her take: A love story about two closeted men was deeply flawed — she claimed to be “annoyed” — because the screenplay had no sympathy for the wives of Jack and Ennis.
Let’s overlook for just a moment that she was downright wrong about that; in fact, Ennis’ wife is portrayed as something of a victim herself, cuckolded and brokenhearted when she discovers the truth (Michelle Williams justly received an Oscar nomination for the performance). But the movie touches, as much as it needs to, the tragedy to EVERYONE resulting from social norms that didn’t (don’t?) permit people to openly love whomever they love.
But I wonder if Floyd is “annoyed” that “Romeo & Juliet” “doesn’t give enough space to why Lord Montague hates Lord Capulet; after all, children can’t be expected to know as much as their parents — there are probably decent reasons for the family feud — why does Shakespeare give short shrift to the real victims of the doomed love affair, mom and dad?”
In Floyd’s own words: “One of the characters sums up the bleak reality of his marriage when he says, ‘I guess I’m stuck with what I’ve got here.’ He makes it sound like jail.” Anyone who DOESN’T believe that being required to hide your identity is WORSE than jail doesn’t “get” being gay. If that makes FLoyd “pro-gay,” god save us from those who are just indifferent.
The DMN is lucky Floyd isn’t their film critic. I think we’re all lucky she’s not the HRC’s spokesperson, too.
May 20th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
[...] about how she finds women kissing women to titillate straight men “pathetic.” After this recent post, I don’t want Floyd to think I’m picking on her. Besides, any criticism of the column [...]