I understand why people on our side use that phrase — it’s to make a point, as Gabe Ortiz did today, that when someone is proud and unafraid, they can and do confront homophobia and continue the positive shift in public opinion. Just as the Prime Minister of Ireland did in addressing an audience with Pence (and his sister) watching and listening:
I stand here leader of my country, flawed and human, but judged by my political actions and not by my sexual orientation, my skin tone, gender or religious beliefs.
It’s only in the last couple of decades that many actors and public figures have come out and become openly gay. For example, George Takei (pictured above in his pre-”openly” days) didn’t come out to the general public until 2005.
So I’m not in any way criticizing Gabe (who does a great job on Daily Kos) or anyone else using it in that context.
But I’m struck by how odd the whole thing is.
Imagine saying:
openly male Vice President Pence
or
openly Catholic Chief Justice Roberts
or
openly rich Howard Shultz
How about:
openly Jewish Benjamin Netanyahu
(for which one has to respond, Is the Pope Catholic!)
To bring it back to our side of the aisle, how about
openly Black and Tamil Kamala Harris
or
openly White Beto O’Rourke
or
openly Methodist Hillary Clinton
or
openly female Kirsten Gillibrand
Looking in the mirror, how about
openly old Tamar
(a description which applies even more to two of our candidates).
Of course we never use “openly” with most categories other than gay because people haven’t had to hide those characteristics in recent years (members of religious minorities in various countries often do hide their religion but Jews and Catholics in the U.S. haven’t needed to do that for many decades).
I look forward to the day when “openly” will not need to be applied to anyone in the LGBTQ community but when it will be so shameful to be a right wing extremist that it will be used on them.
For example,
openly right wing Fox “news”
openly right wing nut job Ann Coulter
openly failed right wing nut job Jacob Wohl
I’ll enjoy seeing that!