“Gay” as a word was coined by early activists and advocates for homosexuality. As you might know, the word already meant “happy,” “pleasant,” associated with warm feelings. It was a good choice for the goal.
Let’s stop for a moment, and talk about the word “homosexual.” You can use it as an adjective, as a description of an orientation perhaps, but even now, it sounds a little dehumanizing as a noun. I’ve seen old documentaries and propaganda films, and using it as a noun sort of “others” people; it defines them by what they do.
I’m naturally obsessed with words and their definitions. “Gay person” is clunky, and drenched in false sentimentality, but the phrase is intentional in that way. Smart people know that the very basis for human rights is the definition of personhood. Someone is hoping that the resonance of the second word in the phrase overrides any possible objections to the first.
That’s why it works. It’s almost impossible to separate the dignity of a person from the quality of their acts in that rhetorical milieu. You’ve pretty much lost, if you accept it.
I can seem a little pedantic by questioning the definition of a word that most people understand, but they probably don’t understand it as well as they think they do.
The Human Rights Campaign is a homosexuality advocacy organization. See how easy that is? Ordinary people aren’t going to want to be against human rights. Human rights helped defeat the Nazis and create the international apparatus to punish them. It’s a loaded rainbow gun, speaking of propaganda.
This is also why activists put whatever label they want in front of “rights.” Because rights immediately puts us in the frame of individuals and their freedom from constraints. “Gay rights.” “Trans rights.” “Reproductive rights.” It’s bite-sized phrasing for low-information thinkers and voters.
And angry fools who picket funerals provide the perfect foils, because it ostracizes everyone who might question the activists as idiots and bigots. If it weren’t evil on multiple levels, I might be impressed.
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