Does Homosexuality Leave You Easily Offended?
My lovely wife, Amy, and I like to verbally spar with each other. It’s good mental exercise, and it keeps our relationship fun. A few years back, one of my standard ripostes was, “Gee, you’re easily offended. What are you, a Democrat?”
Needless to say, neither of us are Democrats, and generally, we’re not easily offended. But there are some folks at Harvard University who are easily offended, and you may assume that they did not vote for G. W. Bush last November.
Jada Pinkett Smith appeared at the Cultural Rhythms show at Harvard on Saturday, Feb. 27, and she said this:
“Women, you can have it all–a loving man, devoted husband, loving children, a fabulous career. They say you gotta choose. Nah, nah, nah. We are a new generation of women. We got to set a new standard of rules around here. You can do whatever it is you want. All you have to do is want it.”
When I first started reading about this on Taranto’s Best of the Web today, I thought there was going to be some comment from the right about how women should carefully consider making the choice between career and children. I mean, someone really ought to stay home with the kids. (Could be the husband or the wife, but someone ought to do it.)
Nope. The offended parties here are the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA), a student organization. They have pledged to begin working “to increase sensitivity to issues of sexuality at Harvard.” They called for an apology from the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, the sponsors of the show.
Apparently, “Some of the content [of Smith's speech] was exteremely heteronormative, and made BGLTSA members feel uncomfortable.” According to BGLTSA Co-Chair Jordan B. Woods, heteronormative implies that standard sexual relationships are only between males and females.
The good folks at dictionary.com say:
normative: adj. Of, relating to, or prescribing a norm or standard.
And for norm, they say
norm: n. A standard, model, or pattern regarded as typical.
“Typical.” The gay rights movement has never claimed that more than about ten percent of men are gay, and about five percent of women are lesbian. Let’s stipulate, for the sake of discussion, that these numbers are correct. (Many researchers believe the correct numbers are closer to one percent for both men and women.) Heterosexuals make up more than ninety percent of the US population; how high does the percentage have to be in order to call heterosexuality “typical?”
But I guess that’s how easily offended the folks on the far left are these days: if your speech isn’t specifically addressed to them, then you are “taking the narrow view” and “offensive.”
