While we progress, gay rights is an ongoing work
A gay couple in Welland are being constantly vandalized and demeaned
I know you should never judge a book by its cover but I do often judge books, papers and people by their spelling.
As you may have noticed, newspapers and other written materials are experiencing an increased population of misspelled words. This is often blamed on automation but it was a human being who decided to forego a proper editor along the way so please don’t make spellcheck your scapegoat. (If, however, you notice a mistake in the words occupying this space, please be assured it was automation and not yours truly.)
Recently I found myself judging the spelling of someone in Welland who insists on spray painting messages of hate on the property of a lesbian couple. Despite numerous cameras around their home and police identifying these acts as hate crimes, the suspect (s) responsible for the nine incidents counted in 2017 alone, has not been caught.
I think a key clue in cracking the case is finding a bad speller. Maybe the perpetrator will be wearing a T-shirt with the great line, “Bad Spellers of the World, Untie!” I know Mark Twain was not a fan of spelling correctness having written, “I don’t think much of a man [sic] that can spell a word only one way,” I think in this case there is only one way in 2017.
While there are some obscure references to “dikes,” particularly in the 1942 edition of The American Thesaurus of Slang, for the majority of the 20th century until now, “dyke” has been the spelling of the word most commonly used as a derogatory term denoting lesbians, women attracted to women.
(Not to be confused with the inhabitants of the island of Lesbos who fought unsuccessfully in 2008 to trademark the name for themselves with a famous campaign line, “If you are not from Lesbos, you are not a Lesbian.” Thankfully they lost so I didn’t need to search for a new identity.)
But let’s leave the Aegean Sea and return to the shores of the Welland Canal. These particular haters in Welland (cameras have captured images of masked men showing up at the door so there is more than one) insist on terrorizing my lesbian sisters with the words, “Dikes must die.”
They have also keyed their car, drained their koi fish pond, and stolen one of their rescue rabbits. The women, who have lived in this otherwise lovely neighbourhood for seven years, have had to cover up the bad spelling numerous times with garage door redos.
This local story of hatred reminds us we must not become complacent about homophobia in Canada, simply because homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969 and legislation was provided for same-sex marriage in 2005. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau showed us this week, we still have a lot to apologize for when it comes to the treatment of LGBTQ+ people.
Yet when compared with at least 70 countries around the world where homosexuality is still outlawed and 11 of those maintain death penalties for LGBTQ+ people, I understand how a superiority complex might set in.
In Australia, where just days ago that parliament became the 25th government in the world to vote in support of same sex marriage, one of their MPs is already making sure people don’t rest on this one laurel.
“This vote … doesn’t fix the decades of discrimination, or the taunts, or the feeling of otherness that so many have been subjected to. So while we may feel jubilation and should celebrate, we should also remember what it took to get here, what we lost and how we can move forward from today trying to do better.”
In this darkest time of the year, both by fact and by metaphor, we are in need of news items that inspire us to don our gay apparel and commence with some major merrymaking. The words of our prime minister this week as he apologized to the thousands of Canadian civil servants and military members for decades of “state-sponsored, systematic oppression and rejection,” is surely a reason to celebrate as much as a reminder to stay awake.