Monday, January 13, 1997
CHALLENGE:
Passive passersby constitute source of frustration for targets
of homophobic slogansBy Matt Pearson
As you were passing along Bruin Walk on Thursday, I’m sure many
of you noticed the man in the sweater who was standing on one of
the low walls across from Kerckhoff shouting so-called "Christian"
slogans and holding up a sign which read (and I’m paraphrasing)
"Homos are an abomination," followed by the usual Biblical
reference from Leviticus.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen one of these intruders on
our campus. They’re regular unwelcome guests at our UCLA Coming Out
Week rallies.
And as all seasoned activists in the
lesbian/gay/bisexual/trans-gendered community know, most of these
people  with their brightly-colored banners and obnoxious
voices  are not even genuine proselytizers, but paid actors.
We come to expect them as one of the hazards of queer visibility,
and after a while we stop taking them seriously.
In fact, it looked as if very few of the students on Bruin Walk
were paying the slightest attention to this person: They just
passed on by, no doubt thinking to themselves, "Another ranting
religious nut."
And yet, as I watched him, my blood began to boil. How DARE this
man trespass on MY campus, spreading his twisted, hate-filled lies?
And WHY are people ignoring him, rather than shouting back, telling
him where he can stick that sign of his? If he had been spreading
racist or anti-semitic propaganda, I felt sure, he would have been
run off campus.
I wanted to confront this guy head on and to humiliate and
offend him the way he’d humiliated and offended me. But I’m not a
confrontational person. I tend to freeze up. And so when I passed
him all I could manage was a half-hearted shout over my shoulder:
"Bigot! You don’t know what God is or what He stands for!" I didn’t
wait to hear his reply.
Since that incident, I’ve been trying to figure out the source
of my frustration. Obnoxious as he was, I don’t think I was really
angry at the man with the sign. After all, how can you be truly
angry with someone you don’t even know, even if his actions fill
you with pain and disgust? No, what bothered me, and what still
bothers me, is how this kind of homophobia is silently tolerated,
even by those who accept gay people and understand that
homosexuality is a natural part of life. Why, as a gay man, should
I be subjected to this kind of abuse on my own campus? Where’s the
outcry?
Actually, I didn’t intend this to be a soapbox letter.
Perhaps I should be grateful that people were ignoring this guy,
forcing him to shout into space, rather than legitimizing his
message by providing him with an audience. And yet, I can’t help
wondering if his message DID get through to someone  perhaps
some freshman, questioning his or her sexuality, and full of
self-loathing. Would the rantings of that man with the sign push
this person deeper into the closet, or worse, to suicide? Such
things happen. When I was an undergraduate in Oregon, an
acquaintance of mine threw himself off of a bridge rather than
accept the fact that he was gay, so I know what the dangers
are.
Perhaps the next time I see someone on Bruin Walk holding a
"Faggots Burn in Hell" sign, I should stand next to him with a sign
of my own: "Don’t Listen to This Man. He’s a Crazy Person. God
Loves You for Who You Are."
Anyone care to join me?