homophobia | Dangerous Common Sense

“Significant Other”

San Francisco, CA
at San Francisco Playhouse

We walked away from the theater disappointed that a witty, entertaining evening ended with the message that straight millennials will couple up in happy marriage while their gay contemporaries are destined to remain single and desperate.

As much as I love throwback memories, reliving the experience of watching a negative stereotype of lonely queens wasn’t what I expected,… or wanted.

The play watches four best friends, three women and one gay man, navigate social life in their late 20’s. The four start out spending all their time together and being jaded about traditional dating/family. But, one-by-one the women fall in love with a man and get married.

The friends all celebrate Kiki getting married (from left to right: Ruibo Qian*, Kyle Cameron*, Hayley Lovgren, and Nicole-Azalee Danielle*). — The friends all celebrate Kiki getting married.
From left to right: Ruibo Qian*, Kyle Cameron*, Hayley Lovgren, and Nicole-Azalee Danielle*.
Photo: San Francisco Playhouse

Our gay protagonist juvenilely attempts contact with lust objects in ways designed to fail.

At the end of the play the women’s lives have changed, matured. The gay guy is still immature, and now he’s facing stereotypical life of a lonely queen.

We expected a better story. I demand a better story in 2019.

There were a lot of fun, witty, well-acted, enjoyable moments. Kyle Cameron as gay Jordan did a terrific job carrying most of the dialogue of the show. The characters felt comfortably overwrought as they progressed through the scenes in a pleasant, predictable, comical procession.

The crafts were fine. Everything except the story was fine.

I’ve looked at reviews of other performances of Significant Other and I am appalled at the lack of acknowledgement of the main theme of the play. In fact, several reviews touted the breakthrough nature of the gay character. In SO Jordan is not relegated to being a bit-playing sidekick, the reviewers applaud. Instead, in SO he is the main character.

So? A loser gay man in the spotlight is a triumph of Pride?

I simply cannot recommend spending time or money on a gay-bashing piece of theater, no matter how wittily it is written and delivered.

Ozdachs rating:

By Galen|2019-06-07T16:14:23-07:00June 7, 2019|plays, San Francisco Playhouse|0 Comments

Talking to LGBT Refugees About the Orlando Shootings

There is no place where you are absolutely safe. No place in the world.

The men and women whom my church’s Refugee Guardian Group has helped all fled their home countries to avoid being beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation.

Most of our clients come from Muslim countries. They know first-hand the deadly acts against LGBT people carried out in the name of Islam. The news from Florida this morning must have sounded frighteningly familiar.

Today I contacted the four men for whom I have been a mentor. I wanted to check in. How were they after the murders at Pulse in Orlando?

The young men I contacted are used to society applauding attacks against LGBT’s. They are used to both the civil and religious authorities joining in the violence against sexual minorities. I wanted to reassure my guys that in the United States the government tries to protect us. In Florida, the police shot and killed the religious terrorist. I wanted my young men to feel safer and not to flash back to the helpless insecurity that they had in their country of birth.

The fight for safety is universal.

None of is completely shielded from attacks by delusional zealots who are certain that they are following God’s orders. We are not safe in Russia, Iran, Tunisia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Uganda, Cameroon, Iraq,… or even in the United States, in the United Kingdom, or in Canada. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or straight: none of us is 100% secure.

But, at least in the United States, the crazed, divisive, self-proclaimed prophets do not represent the spirit of the nation.

Attacks by madmen justifying themselves by spouting their understanding of God’s will are blessedly uncommon in 2016 in the United States. That type of attack is very common and condoned in the countries from which our refugees and asylum seekers fled.

Today’s massacre reinforces how important it is for us to help LGBT people who have escaped the official persecution of their country of birth. We need to find ways to welcome more of them in the [relative] safety of the United States.

Help the San Francisco Refugee Guardian Group if you can, start your own Guardian Group, or simply contact me for more information if I can help.

Let us hold the good things in our lives a little tighter today.

By Galen|2016-06-13T10:36:48-07:00June 12, 2016|Social Justice|1 Comment

Brendan Eich Had to Go

Mozilla’s press release announcing
Brendan Eich as its CEO is gone

Mozilla did good today in obtaining the resignation of its newly appointed CEO, Brendan Eich.

Eich gave financial support to the anti-equality Prop 8 five years ago. His belief that is okay to deny equal legal rights to gay and lesbian people makes him someone I would not want to work for or give my money to as a business.

His continued blindness in 2014 to the issue of equal rights is what made his removal from Mozilla essential. In a March 26th blog post about “Inclusiveness at Mozilla”, Eich sakid that he is going to show an “Active commitment to equality in everything we do…” and then goes on to offer that he will be “Working with LGBT communities and allies, to listen and learn what does and doesn’t make Mozilla supportive and welcoming.”

I read the words and felt patronized by the powerful straight man offering a balm to the queer minorities.

He wrote wanted to “… reach out to those who feel excluded or who have been marginalized in ways that makes their contributing to Mozilla and to open source difficult.”

Really Mr. Eich? You want to “reach out” after you spent money just a few years ago slapping gays and lesbians down, marginalizing their relationships? Or, maybe their relationships and home life happiness is irrelevant to their ability to “contribute to Mozilla” and therefore you’re actually acting consistently?

Aw, thanks, for reaching out. But, no thanks.

If you do not believe that I should have the same legal rights as you do, then you can put as much lipstick as you want on that pig. It’s still going to be a pig.

And, your actions and statements show that you are prejudiced man who does not even recognize his own biases as being anything possibly remotely hurtful. You are stunningly ignorant of your own shortcomings and a bad choice to lead a dynamic, diverse Mozilla.

I am glad that you were turfed today, Mr. Eich. I am not glad for any pain you feel, but I am glad that a corporation like Mozilla would not tolerate that you talk equality while walking down the path of injustice.

By Galen|2014-04-03T16:42:56-07:00April 3, 2014|philippic|0 Comments