It’s hard to be different. It’s even harder when someone fires you for it.
Steve Stanton, the popular and well-liked city manager of Largo, Fla., is being fired by the city council for announcing that he plans to start dressing a little differently in the next few months.
Based on this information alone, you’d probably assume Stanton had decided he was going to start wearing a clown costume to work.
The truth, however, is that the reasoning behind his termination was that he recently announced his plans to undergo a sex-change operation and begin living as a woman.
The council’s 5-2 decision to begin the process of firing Stanton, who had just received good performance reviews and an $11,000 annual raise, was a result of angry Largo citizens like Pastor Ron Saunders, who stated during a council meeting, “If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he’d want (Stanton) terminated.”
Because when he wasn’t busy with the Pharisees or the prostitutes, Jesus spent his leisure time damning those who underwent sophisticated medical procedures.
Largo Commissioner Mary Gray Black tried to defend the decision with a classic move ““ blaming the victim. She said Stanton’s announcement “caused stress, turmoil, distraction and work disruption.”
Which makes me wonder, why did we ever let women enter the workforce? Surely their cute figures and feminine features are distracting and disrupting male coworkers across the nation.
This incident highlights just how uncomfortable America is when people refuse to conform with traditional gender roles ““ whether those people be transgendered, transsexual or homosexual ““ and the rampant discrimination that exists because of that discomfort.
On Friday, conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter referred to John Edwards as a “faggot” during a speech at the 34th annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference.
There was a small media flurry later, but nothing compared to the kind of outrage that was directed at former “Seinfeld” star and comedian Michael Richards when he called an audience member a “nigger” during a show.
Political pundit Tucker Carlson even defended Coulter on his MSNBC show “Tucker.” “She called me (gay) too!” Carlson exclaimed, and later added, “I didn’t cry about it … who cares what she said?”
It’s not that I don’t think Coulter has the right to use the word “faggot,” just as she has the right to don a KKK costume and advocate white supremacy.
What bothers me is that she felt free enough to use it in public, in front of an audience and TV cameras, and then offer up a cheeky non-apology in an e-mail to The New York Times: “C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”
For whatever reason, the American people seem to find discrimination against LGBT individuals far less odious than racism or sexism ““ and this should not be the case.
It is ridiculous to allow people to be fired because they don’t choose to dress as the “correct” gender. It’s wrong to ignore when someone publicly demeans an entire group of people based on their sexual preferences.
This sends the message that some forms of discrimination are more acceptable than others.
Perpetuating the idea that people are allowed to judge and ridicule others because of how they dress or what gender they are attracted to is dangerous ““ it creates an atmosphere in which intolerance and hate not only exist but are acceptable.
The picture is not completely bleak, however. UCLA recently received a donation to start the nation’s first endowed academic chair in sexual orientation law. The chair will conduct research and bring awareness to the challenges and discrimination that LGBT individuals face.
There are also numerous groups (both on campus and nationwide) that promote tolerance and give information about the discrimination that members of the LGBT community face.
By increasing our awareness of all forms of discrimination and objecting to them, we can make sure that no one else is fired for the way they dress and that public figures don’t continue sprinkling their speeches with blatantly discriminatory language.
After all, if we can defend Coulter’s right to be an idiot, I don’t see what the big deal about Stanton wearing a dress is.
If you’d like more information about LGBT resources on campus, contact Strickland at kstrickland@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.