Calling all gays

Hmmm not the best advised post title that one… or maybe it is?

First up some ground rules.

1. I’m genuinely curious about this, so anyone flinging insults or nastiness about in the comments will be deleted and banned.
2. If I cause any offense with this then PLEASE let me know (anonymously in the comments or via email) and I’ll correct/retract etc etc. That’s not my aim. Never was.

My query is this: At what point does a homosexual joke become OK? When it’s said by a gay comedian?

From my limited understanding of the gay scene (that’s a crap word, but you know what I mean) there appears to be two camps… aww crap.. OK, rule 3. No puns are intended.

Where was I? Ohh yes, there appear to be two “trains of thought”. One is that the very fact there is a unique gay scene means that they are actively shunning ‘integration’ into mainstream society and are perpetuating the division that currently exists. The other suggests that the acceptance of the gay community into society at large means that …. umm… well something along the lines of ‘if you act like you are accepted, you ARE accepted’.

Naturally there will always be differing opinions on this, and presently I think it’s fairly obvious that homophobia exists and is still widespread. But let’s fast forward a decade or so, what then? How do we (can we?) map the current situation onto a society where being gay isn’t talked about more than, say, the colour of the car you drive?

I’m aware I’m hugely unqualified to be writing any of this, and I’ll admit that I fall into the ‘one of the lads’ style bantering about “shirt-lifters” and whatnot on occasion. Whilst that doesn’t make me homophobic it does create a culture that I’m not entirely happy with.. but enough of me and my morale struggles.

I’d really appreciate your thoughts on this. And yes I’ll be asking some friends about this over the weekend… probably after a beer or three so don’t expect me to be able to remember any of it.