A confused Gay American
A few months ago a new flag was installed at the corner of Normal Street (the name is appropriate; stay tuned) and University Avenue, smack dab (smack dab?) in the middle of Hillcrest.
The flagpole is about 65 feet tall, and you might have noticed that the flag is not the United States flag, or even the California flag. Nope. It is the Gay flag. Some of you might not have known that there even was a gay flag!
Hillcrest is one of the most vibrant gay neighborhoods in the nation (see why the flag being at Normal Street is appropriate?……..lol). Many estimates place Hillcrest’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning citizenry as high as 65% of the population there. Nonetheless, does that warrant a gay flag? I think not. I think it sets a bad precedence.
We have lots of ethnic neighborhoods here in San Diego — African-American, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Filippino, Mexican, Republican and Democrat (not sure the last two are ethnicities, though……..lol). Do they all warrant a flag for their ethnicities? I think not, but under the precedent set with the gay flag, they certainly could be justified in asking for a flag for their neighborhoods. What a mess that could be.
Another problem with this gay flag is that it is not on private property. I suppose that if someone wanted to put it on private property, I would not have a problem as long as it passed appropriate building and zoning standards. This flag, however, is in the public median at a very heavily travelled intersection and was paid for with public money. I’m just not understanding it, and yet it was passed unanimously by the City Council.
The next problem is that since this flag is on public property and was built with public money, I’m presuming that maintenance is on the public dole as well.
I might be a out and proud gay man in an 18-year monogamous relationship — we got married on October 30, 2008), but I’m an American first, and this flag simply is not sitting well in the American side of my brain.
I’m confused. Anyone help me out?
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Posted on September 19, 2012, in Opinion, Photos and tagged hillcrest gay flag, san diego gay flag. Bookmark the permalink. 35 Comments.
Hmm . . . don’t get it either.
Hey there, Robin. How are you?
Sad, tired, worried, and exhausted. How about you?
I can understand tired and exhausted, but the sad and worried have me concerned.
My dad’s condition is not improving. I don’t know if you have been following. He has more fluid on his lungs they will drain tomorrow. His white blood cell count is way up. Gosh.
I’m so sorry. I’ll have y’all in my thoughts.
Thanks Russel. That means a ton to me. Note, I didn’t say “just” means a ton to me.
I don’t get it either, but it doesn’t bother me.
I’m confused too!
First of all, being LGBTQ isn’t comparable to ethnicity or race. People of any race or ethnicity can also be LGBTQ. Secondly, the denizens of most ethnic neighborhoods in this day and age don’t have to worry about their federal government actively trying to take away their rights and relegate them to a position of second class citizenship. It’s wonderful that you had the opportunity to get married, but most gays in this country have been denied that right. The fact that the local government chose to raise that flag isn’t just a bureaucratic fluke. It is a highly political message that the government is “coming out” in favor of the people that it represents, the 65% majority. Sadly, in purportedly liberal parts of the country, that support isn’t something we can take for granted. If you were young and scared and thinking of coming out of the closet, you might feel differently if you saw that flag flying in your town.
Great points, Naomi. I came out in Hillcrest in April 1993. I wonder if that flag would have meant something special to me at that time.
I, like you the think that the flag falls on the bad idea catalog, other let’s say minorities would feel entitled to a have a flag where they think is appropriate specially if it’s something paid with the taxpayers money, I’ll be damn to see a tea party flag in the Village, NYC. I’m gay and I honesty thing that projects like although they are full of good intentions in the end just help to feed hate. I’ve been living in Spain for 2 years and in the city where I live there’s plaza with a giant flag that is change according to what’s “hot”, rainbow flag is up there all June, a different flag every month, the flag can be seen from pretty much everywhere in the city, that way everybody is happy, although haters wil always complain.
Very interesting!
Its a long and winding road mate, hang in there
Aussie Emu
I don’t understand why this flag is there. Any flag, other than American, will cause conflict. Each offended group may soon demand their own flag.
Blessings ~ Maxi
Hi Russel. First of all, wow, 65%! That is a really high percentage, if true. As for your opinion about the flag, I have to agree with you about all of the other groups that would equally be entitled to a flag on this thinking. In the Toronto area, people are so into “multi-culturalism” that this sort of thing would probably be more widely accepted, but I have to agree that the public interest is the national flag–the inclusivity of being “one people” and not a segmented, somehow competing array of different groups.
I never have understood, either, how sexuality gets to be such a matter of public demonstration sometimes because, well, of the public private dichotomy you raise in your post. Demanding respect and equal human rights regardless of your private life, or even flaunting your freedoms upon your private property with your own money, is very, very different from pushing the actual sexuality (versus freedoms and rights which is not the same thing) upon the public. That would go for gays or heterosexuals, IMO. Live and let live.
I think that putting a flag up for one group on public property with (likely) public funds tends to become an inadvertent invitation to other people to take issue with the group it’s meant to celebrate, as Doggy’s points out above. You only have to look at the continual feuding in pre-WWI Europe to see the effect of a having a whole bunch of little kingdoms and flags for every little subset of people upon unity!
The corollary of living in a nation built on immigration and diversity, with many personal freedoms, is that the “one people” and one nation concept has to be protected carefully as well.
The reason why sexuality, specifically gay sexuality, gets to be a matter of public demonstration is because it’s always been that way for heterosexuals but no one thinks anything about it. To wit:
Wife shows up at husband’s place of work. What do they do first? Hug and kiss! Right there in the lobby.
Boyfriend and girlfriend go to a movie. They get their tickets and go stand in line. While waiting in line they kiss, hug, sometimes even hump — yes, I’ve seen it. Some of them need a hotel room instead of tickets to a movie.
The most public display of straight sexuality is the wedding ring. I wear a wedding ring since I got married on October 30, 2008. I have never had a single person see my ring and ask me my husband’s name and what my husband does. Nope. It’s always “What’s your wife’s name?” or “What does your wife do?”. By making gay sexuality a public demonstration, the GLBTQ community is simply trying to make up for 2,000 years of discrimination in a very short time so that people don’t make automatic assumptions about simple things like wedding rings.
I have a good friend in Houston who is gay. He’s been in a straight marriage for 18 years. He’s wife is a lesbian. It’s a marriage of convenience in a red state because he knew that he would never be CFO of a company as a single person or a gay person. As soon as he got married, yep, he got the promotion to CFO.
Back in 1994 when I went to work in Detroit, the office of the president of the company was a veritable orgy room. He had a few hundred pictures of he and his wife in places all over the world, including some naturist beaches in Europe. Soft core porn. It was, of course, his office and company, but try to find a company president who is gay with an office full of soft porn. Ninety percent of his clientelle, and probably employees, too, would be outta there.
So many more examples, but I think the point’s been made.
I cannot disagree about the reasons for making the point you can wear a ring or be able to express love in public, or even about demonstrating which orientation you are if you are gay due to the history of not being able to. However, behaviour like that in the second last paragraph of your comment is just icky, gay or straight, sorry, and that is a perfect example of what I was trying to say. And as a female, I find that demeaning from straight males, besides. As you were uncomfortable in that room, how would a woman feel in that situation–not welcome in business, to put it mildly. Objectified. Excluded from the business club, like you.
I don’t think gay guys should have to be that creepy about each other just to feel they have equality. I don’t think women should have to reduce themselves to imitating the worst of male behaviour to be feminists or feel equal.
I am similarly put off by things like Halle Berry’s assertions in Vogue that she would have nude photos taken every day if prudes (I paraphrase) wouldn’t be offended. God, Halle, take the freaking photos but spare me the details. That kind of statement is that of a savvy self-promoter, and otherwise just so unhelpful to women who’d like to be worth something more than the sum of their intimate workings.
So, while I understand the origins of having to make your point, I wish society had less of a fixation with going over the top sexualizing ourselves and each other. It just reduces us all. I’d rather be defined some other way that is less limiting.
Getting off the issue of waving the flag on the public purse, aren’t we!
Oh, how I agree.
I actually thought America would benefit from President Clinton’s indiscretions. The world was talking about sex, and I think that’s good. Unfortunately, after Clinton left office, the American prudity returned, but to believe that children age ten aren’t ready to talk about sex is disingenuous at best. I remember what I was doing at age 10, and I was a Mormon!……lol
Ha! Well, we may differ about children–the boys in my older daughter’s 7th grade class kept going to the bathroom physically sick and having to be taken home during the main, hard-core, how-to-do-it sex class. Not everybody’s ready as early as you apparently were! I should probably admit I wasn’t either: (
I often went to the bathroom, too. Don’t be fooled!
Hahaha! Oh, heavens. Never thought of that. Did you phone your mum to pick you up afterward too? Perhaps that’s the telling factor.
God, the things we late bloomers stay in the dark about.
Actually, it was my wise old grandmother, and I didn’t fool her at all. She had already raised four sons of her own. She might have only had a first-grade education but she was wise beyond that……..
Raising four sons must be quite an education by itself!
P.S., you don’t sound like a very “confused” gay American, actually!
I retired when I came out and simply spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 11 months studying homosexuality, heterosexuality, religion, etc. I’m not confused about myself anymore, only about Republicans being hung up on me and wanting to come into my house, not to mention my bedroom.
Oh, god, you’re lucky you’re not confused if you spent that much time studying religion! (Kidding–it’s all good to know) I hope your Republicans will eventually evolve. I do not understand why cautious economic attitudes always have to live in the same place as socially oppressive attitudes. It makes things such a predictable cliche.
Hey Russell, let me me first thank you for approaching this subject from a reasonable dimension. I have grown very weary over the years of both sides (gay & straight) screaming and hollering at one another without any respect.
I am with you 100% on the flag issue…what a bag of worms this action could unleash if others decide to pick up the banner (no pun) for their own use. Sometimes you just have to wonder what people are thinking.
Be encouraged!
It is good to confused sometimes! It makes us think a little differently – and remember that what is confusing to us one day will be completely clear to us in the future. In the end, it is all about acceptance of our humanity and community!
With the current state of the Republicans and their wishes to take us back to the 1950s, if not earlier, I think there will always be some who simply refuse to accept the diversity of the human community.
And it is such a beautiful diversity! Love gives hope; hate spawns darkness! I always enjoy visiting your blog!
That was a fascinating discussion to follow. Thank you all for your thought provoking comments.
I don’t know, my friend. I wish everyone would just stop trying to categorize all of us.
I’m with you on this one Russel, it doesn’t make sense. Private property and money–fine with me too. But where do we draw the line? If every identity group, religious group, ethnic group, whatever… starts putting up banners with public money, it’s going to be a big problem. Also, it’s divisive, in my opinion, to announce group affiliations in this way. Even flags for countries are divisive in a way, though national borders are something that is a part of history. Do we want to start allegiances block by block?
Two years ago, the Space Needle in Seattle flew the gay flag from its top for Gay Pride Weekend, just as it does for many different city events and festivals. That made sense to me since it was equally acknowledging that festival as it does so many others and it was for a time period. It was controversial, but I didn’t think it should have been. They didn’t fly it this year, but we may see it again in the future…I hope so.
Interesting blog and opinions. I would love to see implementing the idea from Spain (Doggie’s style’s comment) where you change a flag routinely every month, to acknowledge another group.