Pride is coming up soon, and once again progressives are debating whether to openly call Mayor Rob Ford homophobic or continue to pretend otherwise and keep inviting him to events.
Why not do both? It requires far too much creativity to keep explaining why his snubbing of the gay community shouldn’t be read as homophobia. Even his allies on right-wing talk radio have been reduced to saying things like “I don’t want to believe Rob’s a homophobe, but….” The Ford zealots who troll the nowtoronto.com website have been left feebly trying to argue that his dislike of gays doesn’t give us the right to throw the H word at him.
While I do agree that attacking him isn’t the right approach, shying away from the appropriate designation for his behaviour isn’t helping anything either. The fact is, we’re all a little gay-fearful at some level, and the sooner we admit that to ourselves, the sooner we can work on changing.
Being queer-phobic isn’t the exclusive domain of farm boys with baseball bats prowling outside gay bars in smaller cities. It’s more subtly displayed in every personal ad by a guy looking for another “straight-acting and straight-looking” dude for hot times. It’s part of the culture we’ve all been raised in and is unavoidably part of all of our psyches.
Giving Mayor Ford a label doesn’t mean we have to scream it at him in hate. It also doesn’t mean we can’t keep trying to gently show him a way out. Only a few weeks ago, few could have pictured someone like hip-hop heavyweight Jay-Z equating homophobia with racism, but all it took was the better-late-than-never evolution of Barack Obama’s position on gay marriage to pave the way for such a statement. We are all homophobes, we all have room to grow, and hopefully Rob Ford will join the rest of us on that path someday. In the meantime, let’s use the correct terminology.
benjaminb@nowtoronto.com | twitter.com/nowtorontonews
