Support for The Others at 1:05 PM

My class was assigned a few reading for Tuesday that delt with homosexuality, marriage, and the morality surrounding both. It's a moral philosophy class and we cover a wide range of topics; cloning, abortions, capital punishment. The prof. is awesome and does a rather good job dealing with some tough topics in a calm, scholastic manner. We covered the paper against gay marriage and moved on to the paper arguing the morality of homosexual sex. After a short bio of the author she added, "and he's gay obviously." From someone else I would of skipped over this and assumed it was just part of the typical effects of a heteronormative culture but with her it was different. I expected much more and have come accustom to her picking her words very carefully. So I asked. "Why is it obvious?" I expected her to catch on to my joking tone. I figured she would notice her slip up but no. "Well if you read the paper it would be. Did you read?" Another student jumped in with some hostile tone toward her and I dropped the subject not wanting to make a big deal of it and get too far off topic. I do have some restraint you know.

The whole event stuck with me though. In no way has she made herself appear prejudice. The opposite is in fact true. This makes me think she's unaware of the implications of her words. Professors are educating future thinkers. They have a duty that falls above the average speaker to be aware of the words they choose.

The Alphabet Soup community has allies and support outside of the direct community. The only ones who see the illogical nature of arguments against us aren't only of the queer variety. The paper had no personal information on the author. The only way to glean he is a homosexual is outside information or if you assume only a homosexual would argue for the morality of homosexuality. This is a dangerous idea, if your aware of holding it or not, because it limits the possibility of action and change. Does supporting a group require membership of that group? If so, support for civil and human rights everywhere is going to fall sharply.