I think some of the people at GOProud are straight people pretending to be "gay."

[Ian David]

I think they're actually straight dudes with their own agenda.

GOProud Member: 'I Don't Really Like Gay People'

Ebone Bell of Metro Weekly made the rounds at a recent nighttime GOProud event at the CPAC conference where she interviewed members of the conservative group, such as 22-year-old college student Matt Hissey. Aside from declaring his dislike for gay people, Hissey believes that only "straight-acting" gay men are "normal."

"I don't really like gay people that much. Gay people frustrate me, the stereotypical gay people, it frustrates me...someone who puts on a total act. I understand that some guys are feminine, which is fine. But some guys, at some point, are normal, straight-acting, whatever and the next minute they're jumping up and down. It just frustrates me. The whole conservative thing is just be yourself, be an individual and just don't be someone you're not. If someone does or does not accept you, that's fine but don't change who you are to look different to others."

Hissey also wants Sarah Palin to run for president in 2012 because she reminds him of his mom.

His bit about not liking gay people comes in at 1:39 in the video AFTER THE JUMP.

More:
http://www.towleroad.com/2011/02/goproud-member-i-dont-really-like-gay-people.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+towleroad%2Ffeed+%28Towleroad+Daily++%23gay+news%29

[msongs]

1. straight acting = acting like something you're not. nt

[Hosnon]

7. That's really just a misnomer. nt.

[FreeState]

23. Its also inherently sexist

What people really mean by "straight acting" is masculine acting. Not only does the saying degrade gays (somethings wrong with us, we must act like heterosexual men) but it puts a blanket statement on the feminine that offensive and uninformed.

[RKP5637]

2. Not me syndrome with a mom identity problem. n/t

[RandomThoughts]

3. Many straight people are smeared with being gay.

Not judging 'gay' but strictly because it is the easiest way to get a 'block' of people against some group. I been smeared with that a few times in clips.

The thing about it, is it is a smear because it is not true and used to degrade in that example, not because of some view on people being gay.


And I am due beer and travel money and many experiences.

[RKP5637]

5. Yeah, due beer and travel money! n/t

[Webster Green]

6. Who's the dude in your sig pic? He looks familiar.

Does he have anything to do with the beer and travel money? (Or the experiences?) :shrug:

[verges]

10. Burgess Meredith

[Webster Green]

11. Ah yes.

I knew I had seen him a million times, but couldn't think of his name.

Thanx!

[toddaa]

13. The librarian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Obsolete_Man


One of the best episodes of the Twilight Zone.

[patrice]

14. Burgess Meredith DID do one of the best George -s ever in Of Mice and Men.

[tavalon]

17. Smeared?

Being "judged" gay is pretty neutral. Or, as is my favorite phrase these days, "Ain't no thang!".

[Bluenorthwest]

19. Burgess would never insinuate that being called gay was a

smear. He was a good man, who was very clear spoken and direct and honest.

[Dot Com]

4. Didn't say if he

was gay or not did it? That comment about Paylin, from anyone, disturbed me too.

[CurtEastPoint]

8. Well, Ms. Matt Hissey is having a fit befitting her name.

Ass.

[Hosnon]

9. I dunno, you'd have to be a pretty hardcore operative to do that.

Self-hating or plain old human desire to feel superior is more likely, in my opinion.

[patrice]

12. I wouldn't be surprised: Kevin Yoder, the Republi-TPer who replaced our blue dog has a "Gay" PAC

who helped him get elected.

[markpkessinger]

15. Lots of gay people think like this when they're younger

There are certainly gay people young and old who share this attitude. But I think it is probably more common among younger gay people who have still not come into the full confidence of their adult identity. I suspect this is partly what is going on with the 22 year-old Mr. Hissey. Much as it is with high school students, the issue of what other people think can still, even at 22, be an overriding concern. What they don't yet realize is that, wittingly or not, they are operating under, and are accepting, the premise that bigotry has a rational basis in the first place, and that if only people on the receiving end would do this or would not do that (i.e., act or behave more like what he thinks is normal), the bigots will stop being bigots because they would then "have no reason to" be such.

What people like Mr. Hissey don't understand is that bigotry never requires a rational basis in order to continue. He also may not be aware of some of the cultural history of the gay community in this country prior to the Stonewall riots. In decades prior to the '69 Stonewall riots, one of the major gay organizations in the country was The Mattachine Society. The Mattachine Society's objectives were laudable enough: to try to find ways to make life more tolerable for gays and lesbians in the hopes of one day attaining a measure of tolerance in some quarters of society. Mattachine's philosophy was that if only gay men would "act like normal men" and lesbians would "act like normal women," then gay people wouldn't be perceived as such a threat and would eventually find some degree of acceptance. The key word was "assimilation." Mattachine advised its members to "keep their private lives private," to blend in with straight society, to avoid calling attention to themselves. Unfortunately, as comforting as that might have seemed in theory, if you happened to be having a drink in a gay bar when the police decided to raid, it really didn't matter how discreet you had been or how straight acting you seemed. Your name would be published in the newspapers as having been arrested on "morals" charges, following which people often found themselves fired from their jobs, evicted from their homes and shunned by their families. In short, no amount of conforming to anyone's idea of what constituted "normal" was ever enough to protect people from harassment and persecution.

Finally, there's another aspect of our history that our younger brothers and sisters need to understand. The patrons of the Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village on that warm June night in 1969 were not the young, buff, perfectly-coiffed corporate types one might expect to see nowadays in some of the sleeker, more upscale gay bars of today. They were, by and large, gay men who were at the very margins of even gay society. They were predominantly drag queens and hustlers and drug addicts and runaways and the like. These were folks that didn't have a whole lot else to lose, who finally had enough of the brutal police abuse and repression to which they were routinely subject, and finally braved a stand-off with the police that is now commemorated as they birth of the modern gay rights movement. So, before any young person passes judgment on others who are perhaps more flamboyant or more effeminate or (in the case of lesbians) more masculine than he or she is comfortable with, he should consider the debt of gratitude he owes to people just these, and remember that were it not for the bravery of people just like the ones he now does not "much like," his little Republican ass wouldn't enjoy the luxury of openly belonging to a group like GOProud.

[Ian David]

18. Excellent insight. Thanks! n/t

[Skeeve]

20. Rainbow fistbump! n/t

[xchrom]

16. maybe -- maybe not.

but there is a long standing 'feud' in the gay male community.

and it surrounds feminine, effusive, etc males and the very straight, uber macho males.

[ruggerson]

21. I think you're completely wrong

He's a young gay guy who is not yet comfortable with all the diverse parts of the LGBT community.

[Ian David]

22. Reply #15 pretty much sealed the deal on making that case. n/t

[donheld]

24. Wonder if Patricia Cornwell was there

[RetiredTrotskyite]

25. Could be....

Either that or they are the biggest bunch of self-hating queens I have seen in some time.

[Iggo]

26. Matt Hissey is heterosexual, right?

I didn't watch the video, I admit.