We’d all like to claim that our current belief’s have been consistent our whole lives but we all know that’s not realistic. In the not too distant past it was perfectly mainstream and acceptable to make fun of people you don’t like for being gay.
Do I think Joy was trying to slam people for being gay? Just using it as a club to whack Crist? No clue but it doesn’t really matter. If in the past you’ve made some statement that doesn’t match up with today’s new normal then just apologize and move on.
I grew up in a time and place where “gay” or “fag” were perfectly reasonable insults for 12 yr olds to throw at one another. I “know” (believe?) that in my case when I used these terms I intended no particular animus toward LGBTQ people but was just trying to insult my friends. As far as I was aware I didn’t even know any gay people. However, as we often have to remind ourselves intent doesn’t really matter. It’s many years later and my views on what is acceptable and what isn’t have continued to evolve. In the past I have said ignorant, hurtful things to and about people and feel bad about it but I’m not going to claim I didn’t say it.
Own it, learn from it and move on.
sidenote: My wife and I tried to show the movie ‘The BirdCage’ (1996) to our daughters. We thought of this movie as a fairly light-hearted comedy that was ultimately supportive of LGBTQ people. Imagine our surprise when our kids didn’t really think it was funny. Watching it I realized that most of the humor in the movie was making fun of LGBTQ people and as the movie progressed it made them human. From our kids perspective the LGBTQ people were already human and laughing at these behaviors and jokes wasn’t really appropriate. Overall I find this kind of hopeful for society. Does it ruin a lot of old movies? Yeah, sometimes.
