Lunch On Me!

My lover and I watched a documentary on Harvey Milk last night. Somewhat of a downer, of course, but a great film.

One segment I found particularly interesting came in a speech Harvey was giving, I believe in opposition to California's Proposition 6. After defending the right-ness of gay rights, he moved into a passionate call for closeted gays to come out to their family, friends, and coworkers. He framed it as an obligation to the gay community, to come out and help break down anti-gay stereotypes. At the very end he tagged on something like "oh, and you'll feel better about yourself too."

I found it interesting that today's mainstream discourse on coming out basically flips these two arguments around entirely: the primary benefit of outness is one's own individual well-being and mental health, and "oh, and it'll make it easier for others" seems sort of tagged on as an afterthought. Or such is my perception anyway.

I find the older framing more appealing, though that might well be due to its novelty from my perspective. I feel like in general we see a lot of arguments, even (or especially) for positive things, made through appeals to self-interest rather than obligations to others: buy local produce because it tastes better, seek out school diversity so you can learn more about others, ride a bike to lose weight¹, and so forth. Any notion of personal sacrifice is limited to religion (or environmentalism).

I can see why people like these arguments, since they do seem more likely to meet with success, but they have the unfortunate side effect of reinforcing the attitude that there is such a thing as a free lunch, and that the more you can live responsibly and morally, the more strings-free personal benefits you will accrue. It's a dangerous implication, because giving up or trying to counteract real privilege (and staying closeted can be a privilege) does necessarily result in personal detriment; otherwise it would not be privilege.

There are movements away from the pure self-interest appeals. Sarah sent me a link yesterday to a Q&A with the author of a book that deals with closeted rappers and the damage they do to their (both gay and straight) communities. There is very much a sense of "yes, coming out could in all probability be disastrous for your career, but you owe it to society." It's an encouraging turn.

¹ This one's a particular pet peeve of mine. One hundred fifty years of technological innovation has gone into making bicycles as poor exercise as possible. Bikes are great for going places, but if you want exercise, jump rope.

Mets @ Phillies

It's the bottom of the sixth now as I watch some baseball on TV. I do enjoy watching Jamie Moyer pitch (nullus).

Speaking of nullus, on this installment of "Baseball is Gay," someone earlier was talking about Merkle's Boner, and just now Keith Hernandez told us about how much he loves The Rose with Bette Midler.

Update: Specifically, he was talking about when he was in high school and went to see The Rose at the Ziegfeld theater because they had the best sound system.

Mets @ Nationals

The game is still ongoing. Indeed, it is even at a dramatic point where it is the bottom of the seventh with one out and the tying run at bat (is that how you say it? Dude on base is not the tying run). So I guess this qualifies as "live" blogging, except that instead of talking about what is actually happening in the game—because that information is available on television and radio and the internet—I am going to talk about the broadcasters. Again.

Okay, now the tying runs are on base.

Alright, broadcasters. Are they allowed to drink on Saturdies or something? They seem unusually punchy. I didn't catch how it started, but there have been like nonstop cracks about Gary Cohen's alma mater being Columbia. I guess it's a hippie baiting thing. He was probably an actual Marxist at that time, so I guess it's fair.

And then there was this conversation about what the best kind of stirrups are. "Hey, bet you like those stirrups?" "Those are the ugliest stirrups! We always hated those." I love how often they "dish" on uniforms. Baseball, so gay.

And then there was this part where for some reason (playing in DC?) they showed an Abraham Lincoln bobblehead (I heart USA), and one of them was like "wow, he looks grumpy" or something along those lines. Which, granted, not extremely clever observation. But homeboy's response was: "well, you would have looked like that if you'd been president at that time. Really tough presidency!" Uh, yeah. I guess the worst time to be president is, by definition, the time when the president is being assassinated.

The tying runs were left stranded!

I don't know, maybe I'm misreading the Lincoln thing. The comment only really makes sense as being humorously understated, but it still seemed off. Anyway, those stirrups, don't get me started. And I love the way this guy swings!