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Brave college newspaper columnist reserves his right to yell, “I’m not gay”

We really do need an “Entitled idiot douchebag college newspaper columnist” category.

The latest, sent on by Doug, is written by Virginia student Alex Cortes. Cortes finds it extremely important to emphasize how he is not gay, and therefore wants the right to scream out his not-gayness at Virgina football games. The background is this: At the games, fans sing theGood Ole Song” after every touchdown. The song contains the line “We come from old Virginia/Where all is bright and gay.” Sometime in the last 10 or 20 years, people began adding the line ” . . . but not TOO gay” at the end. An LGBT group started a campaign to get people to stop chanting the extra line. No big deal, right? Well, to Alex Cortes, this is a major affront to his religious liberty (yes, this young man somehow got himself into college; no, I don’t understand how). He writes:

The “not gay” chant has been completely written off on Grounds. Some call it a drunken joke while others refer to its adherents as homophobes. Unfortunately, in doing so, this University has completely disregarded the religiously and politically-minded like myself who say the chant out of disgust for the gay lifestyle and support for our natural heterosexuality given to us by God.

Not surprisingly, the chant’s opponents found it much easier to write us off as drunks and homophobes then address our intellectual concerns.

See, using the term “intellectual concerns” implies that you actually have, you know, intellectual concerns. Which, as the rest of the article makes clear, you don’t.

In doing so, the majority suggests that we are only to take the viewpoints of the sober and so called “tolerant.” However, if we were to only take the viewpoints of this selective leftist group, there wouldn’t be many viewpoints, for few of us are completely sober and tolerant to the point of failing to address flaws, especially among politicians. And of course we don’t want a limited scope of purely liberal viewpoints.

This is why the right-wing victim mentality kills me. No one is telling this kid that he can’t blabber on about how being gay is a sin and he is totally straight and likes boobs and pussy a lot (he swears). No one is limiting his free speech rights. An LGBT group is simply expressing their free speech rights by instituting a campaign that promotes returning the song to its original lyrics. This kid has entire football stadiums chanting about pride in not being gay, and he feels victimized because a handful of people are raising an alternate view. It’s pretty incredible.

If everyone’s thinking the same thing, then no one’s thinking, which is exactly what is occurring on the topic of the “not gay” chant. Is anyone else in this University ready to defend the use of the “not gay” chant with academic language?

I would love to hear the academic defense of why UVA students should continue to change the traditional song in order to emphasize their not-gayness; unfortunately, totally-not-gay Alex Cortes does not offer them. Instead, we get this:

As a Catholic I believe in natural law — morality derived from the nature of human beings. With this belief in mind, man was made to become one with his female counterpart in the act of intercourse for the purpose of procreation. That is how we were intelligently designed by God and thus are to live. Any deviation from natural law, like homosexuality, is in effect saying that God created us wrong and is sinful.

Human beings also naturally get sick and die. We naturally smell. We naturally have all kinds of body hair, and some of us have facial hair. We’re born naturally butt-naked. So I’m sure that Alex refuses to avail himself of modern medicine, doesn’t wear deodorant or perfumes, doesn’t shave, and walks around in the nude, yeah? I mean, anything else would be deviating from the way that God intelligently designed us, and would in effect be saying that God created us wrong and is sinful.*

Not only does natural law condemn homosexuality, but many Biblical verses do as well. In First Corinthians 6:9, Paul lists the sins that will bar one from entering heaven. Among them is acting homosexual. The Old Testament, in Leviticus 20:13, goes as far to say if a man has sex with another man, kill them both. Fortunately, Christians condemn this last verse, citing the more peaceful New Testament’s transcendence over the Old Testament.

Well, how kind of the Christians to do that; I wonder how they pick and choose which Biblical laws to follow and which they’re going to fudge? I suspect it has more to do with their own preferences and bigotries than anything else. Otherwise, Alex is gonna be in big trouble for that cotton-poly blend he wore to class last week.

Jesus, the divine inspiration of the New Testament, taught us to love the sinner but hate the sin (leading a gay lifestyle). One of the main reasons he embodied himself was to rid of verses like the one quoted above. Jesus disproved of Judaism’s treatment towards homosexuals and would surely disprove of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s current campaign to wipe out homosexuality in Iran.

Right, the passage where Jesus says, “Love the gays, hate the anal sex. And the oral. Except when straight people do it, then it’s ok. But only on Fridays, and only if you think it’ll make a baby.”

When proudly shouting, “I’m not gay” during the “Good Ol’ Song,” I am simply publicizing my religiously-informed belief that it is wrong to act homosexual. I am not taking away anyone’s life as Ahmadinejad is attempting to do, nor am I suppressing their beliefs as happens so often on these “academical” grounds.

So as long as you aren’t killing gay people, there’s no way you can oppress them, right?

I understand that the word “gay” in the “Good Ol’ Song” is meant to translate as happy, but why is it wrong to assert our religious and political views at the juncture, as we should be able to at any juncture? Clearly there is nothing wrong with exerting our freedom of speech — especially responsible speech supported in Christianity.

Where do you even start with this? It would kind of be like if I decided to shout out, “I’m not Jewish!” at the end of the NYU Fight Song.** Yeah, it’s the truth, and it’s my religious and political view, but it’s not the most appropriate juncture to share it. It doesn’t even make sense. And if I got a whole stadium to do it, over and over again, I can see how people may be a little upset, and I couldn’t really blame them for trying to get us to stop. There is certainly a time and a place to say, “Actually, no, I’m not Jewish.” In fact, I’ve said it before — usually in response to the question, “Are you Jewish?” Similarly, there are appropriate times to say, “I’m not gay.” Collectively screaming it out at a football game, though? It’s just… dumb. And getting all riled up when someone asks you to stop is astronomically dumber.

Is there anything wrong with exercising our free speech rights? No. Is it beyond stupid to shout out “I’m not gay!” at a football game and think that you’re making a profound religious and political statement? Yes.

And if Alex wants his free speech rights, more power to him. But the LGBT community gets to express theirs, too, even if it’s in the interest of influencing people to not shout out their un-gay pride.

I find it pathetic that our Christian American majority, in this case shown at the University, is willing to set aside their religious beliefs for political correctness. The movement against the “not gay” chant is just another example of liberals, for which universities tend to be a hotbed, trying to suppress religious views in the public square.

Again with the victim mentality. No one is setting aside their religious beliefs by not shouting “I’m not gay!,” any more than I’m setting aside my religious beliefs by not standing up in class right now and shouting, “I’m not Muslim!” at the end of my comment about EU Law. If I did stand up and shout out my non-Muslimness or my non-Jewishness or my non-membership in any other group that with some regularity in a totally unrelated venue, my peers would probably first encourage me to seek help, and second tell me that I’m being an ass. It’s not so much a suppression of religious views in the public square as it is basic manners. It’s also a reflection of the utter arrogance of guys like Alex, who think their membership in a Christian Majority invests them and no one else with free speech and religious exercise rights.

During the second half of the football season I have felt uncomfortable saying the “not gay” chant, not because of the content, but because of the stares and criticisms I receive after doing so. Despite this discomfort, I will continue to press on as one of the last beacons of strength and morality. That may sound too pompous for the rather insignificant matter at hand, but courage on any level is hard to find these days. Political correctness, a weakening morality and lack of courage are suffocating our once-great nation. You have an opportunity to stop the suffocation. Promote the “not gay” chant.

Do you hear that, gays? You’ve made Alex uncomfortable. And it is his right as a Christian American to be comfortable shouting out whatever he wants at a football game. But fear not: He will continue to press on as one of the last beacons of strength and morality — by shouting “I’m not gay!” at a football game.

Wow. If only all of our leaders showed that kind of strength and moral courage. I wonder what’s next for this guy? Screaming “I’m not black!” on the golf course of his country club? Declaring, “I’m not a woman!” in the mall? Yelling “I am not Jewish!” in church? There’s just no limit to his bravery. I read an article about a guy who saved an orphaned kitten from being trampled by hordes of grown men and professional athletes, but compared to Alex Cortes, he might as well kick puppies for fun.

*Yeah, that phrasing makes me sic too.
**I don’t think we even have a fight song, but go with it.


49 thoughts on Brave college newspaper columnist reserves his right to yell, “I’m not gay”

  1. And now it’s on the internet, along with his full name, forever and ever. And hopefully all of his future employers will get a good long look at the way his mind works before they decide whether to give him a job.

  2. Jesus, the divine inspiration of the New Testament, taught us to love the sinner but hate the sin (leading a gay lifestyle). One of the main reasons he embodied himself was to rid of verses like the one quoted above. Jesus disproved of Judaism’s treatment towards homosexuals

    Never mind that not once in the NT does Jesus comment on homosexuality. Not once. Not even a little bit. He rarely even comments on sexuality, period, except to comment on marriage itself. (And there’s the story of the woman taken in adultery–John 8–where he saves her from being stoned by saying, “Let him who has no sin cast the first stone.” So what if the story is probably apocryphal.)

    Never mind that there’s good evidence for Jesus healing a man’s same-sex partner.

    I feel like any comment on this kid’s idiocy would just be repeating Jill, who has done a wonderful job responding, so I’ll just leave it at calling out his ignorance of the Bible.

  3. Why are college columnists so uniformly awful is what I want to know. I was using better logic (and grammar! then? THAN!) in middle school.

  4. Hoo boy. You’ve got more patience with this ignorant (and self-important) lad than I would.

    I love me some Virgnina football, but when VaTech runs all over the Cavaliers this weekend, my sorrow will be mitigated by the thought that Alex (“I’m not gay”) Cortes will be miserable.

    And his line about “natural law” reflects his real need for a philosophy course. And as soon as he can show me where in the NT Jesus says “love the sinner, hate the sin” (or anything CLOSE to it), he’ll get a lollipop. A pink one.

  5. [People] like myself who say the chant out of disgust for the gay lifestyle…the chant’s opponents found it much easier to write us off as…homophobes

    You know, it’s no fun when they make it this easy. Come on guys, give us a bit of a challenge once and a while.

  6. I feel as though commenting on this would be a moot point. It’s so stupid, I can’t even get ANGRY.

    Ya know, all I could say is, in psychology, someone who is THAT CRAZED about making sure EVERY PERSON HE MEETS knows he REALLY LIKES GIRLS might be hiding something.

    Like his love of dick.

  7. I’m suuuure the extra little chant is inspired by Jesus and not the desire to appear “funny” and macho.
    He knows that, in the song’s context, gay implies “happy” and not “homosexual.” Right? Does the good lord really disapprove of the use of the word “gay” in that context?

  8. I’m a UVA alumni this column made me sad because (besides all the obvious reasons) by the time I graduated in 2005 it seemed like the “not gay” (btw, people just shout “not gay,” not “not too gay”) chant had died down. Initially, reading this article I felt like maybe there’s been a surge in the chant again.

    But the letter to the editors section the day after this column ran was filled with writers condemning Cortes’ column. Apparently, a local priest also wrote in and labeled Cortes’ column as unchristian. It was great to see so many people at my university speaking out so loudly against Cortes (and the Cavalier Daily, for printing the article to begin with). People even started facebook groups specifically against the piece. (I was also glad to hear Cortes say within the piece that when he does the “not gay” chant people say negative things to him or give him dirty looks.)

    It’s still horrible (in more than one way, the writing is soooooooooo bad) that he wrote this column and that the newspaper published it. I’m just glad there was public outrage accompanying it.

  9. I should also add that the Cavalier Daily has a history of publishing racist, sexist, and homophobic opinion pieces. But this one is so bad, that there’s a rumor circulating that someone decided to publish this piece out of actual malice for Cortes.
    Also, everyone can take comfort in the fact that the next time Cortes tries to apply for a job and they google his name a poorly written, hateful article and the controversy surrounding it, will fill several pages.

  10. Three things.

    1) Getting upset over this song seems like a can’t-see-the-forest-from-the-trees sort of thing, but I’ve walked no miles in the LGBT community’s shoes, so that’s where I’ll stop any of that noise. Actually, as a post-noise point, I’ll say I welcome the day that we can all poke fun at each other when it will be just poking fun, and not a symptom of widespread discrimination/hatred/abuse.

    2) This guy is ridiculous. As Doug can probably attest, we had plenty of dopes clamoring about rights for straights (a hint, fellas: you have them, always had them, that they’re silent means they’re given, not absent) on campus at Georgia, too. The mental gymnastics required to understand how this guy can feel downtrodden are too much for my nerves to take. Which brings me to

    3) Jill, I wouldn’t even bother with these if I were you. Dissecting the aggressive wrongness found on college newspapers’ opinion pages is nuking fish in a barrel. People are dumb in college. They usually figure stuff out more at 23 than at 21. And for what it’s worth, I found that collegiate women were as shockingly incoherent and incorrect about those of the opposite sex as much as vice versa. So we all flail around together, until we don’t anymore.

  11. Em:

    Why are college columnists so uniformly awful is what I want to know. I was using better logic (and grammar! then? THAN!) in middle school.

    I found my semesters grading the papers and exams from college seniors exceptionally depressing. These were, after all, students graduating in one month with a Bachelor’s degree and they could not construct a coherent sentence to save their lives…even with the benefits of spell-check and word processing.

    On the bright side, he’s perfectly suited to join the legions of incoherent right-wing bloggers. Sometimes I think they’re developing an entirely new language based on scrambled syntax and grunts.

  12. Tannenburg,
    Every friend I know who has to grade papers says the exact same thing. I guess I will just never be able to comprehend it.

  13. There is certainly a time and a place to say, “Actually, no, I’m not Jewish.” In fact, I’ve said it before — usually in response to the question, “Are you Jewish?”

    Okay, I kind of chocked on my OJ a little here. Thank you.

    What, you can’t see why he’s defensively protecting his right to proclaim, loudly and repetitively, that he’s NOT GAY? I mean, otherwise, if he, like, used the word in the song and didn’t clarify, people might just assume. Because singing a song with the word “gay” in it, especially an old song using the original meaning of the word, just smacks of homosexuality.

    I have to wonder when he’s going to wake up and realise he has a mission here. It’s much bigger than his school’s fight song. He should be petitioning Hannah-Barbara to add it on to the end of the Flintstone’s themesong, so we can have all our lovely little Proper Christian Children shouting out a ringing chorus of “We’ll have a gay old time – but not TOO gay!” every time a rerun airs. Now there’s education.

  14. Only closet cases have to profess their non-gayness. Someone securely heterosexual has no need to say he’s not gay. The freshman writer here needs to acknowledge and embrace his homosexuality.

  15. Can I express the opinion that this is the second example I’ve seen of straight guys wimpering that the world isn’t all about them in one day, which makes me wonder WTF?

  16. Well, it sure seems like Cortes and Ciaccia would get along really well. I’d try to set them up on a date or something, if I wasn’t so utterly convinced of how very, VERY much they love pussy and how very, VERY totally not gay they are.

  17. Ok, this is going to offend some people here, but it’s something I’ve found myself highly sensitive to over the last month.

    Yes, I am going to go all radical queer on you guys and talk about heterosexuality as a lifestyle choice and cultural construct that needs to be dissected, picked apart, and given a liver and lung transplant at the very least. Male heterosexuality in our culture is all about pecking order.

    The running joke is that women say one thing and mean another. But I’ve found that to be extremely true of straight men. The pragmatics of their language is loaded with a bunch of subtle and not-so-subtle messages that serve to establish dominance.

    And key parts of “male bonding” among straight men IME involve casual expressions of both misogyny and homophobia. Men in our culture bond not only over shared experience, but over the shared gratitude that they are not queers or women.

    So the whole, “gay (but not that gay)” thing is just an obvious example of this in action. Explicitly denouncing homosexuality is central to his identity as a straight man. If he fails to take that opportunity, then he’s less of a man in the pecking order of manhood.

    The whole thing makes me long for more separatism, because it certainly is exhausting to hear how central casual heterosexism and misogyny is to heterosexuality on a regular basis.

  18. Old Testament, in Leviticus 20:13, goes as far to say if a man has sex with another man, kill them both.

    So Alex doesn’t eat shellfish, bacon, rabbit, etc., right? What a doofus.

  19. “And key parts of “male bonding” among straight men IME involve casual expressions of both misogyny and homophobia. Men in our culture bond not only over shared experience, but over the shared gratitude that they are not queers or women.”

    That’s kinda it in a nutshell.

    On a happier note, it’s certainly speeded up the weed-out process on men I date since I noticed a lot of “guy culture” is decidedly homoerotic. If a guy can’t be sexually fulfilled without some form of showing off to other men, I figure he shouldn’t be dating me anyway, but spending that time in therapy figuring out why he doesn’t just go for it if male-male bonding is what really snaps his socks anyway.

  20. “Guy culture” =/= “GUY!!!! culture,” I think is a distinction worth making here. As in, when I talk with my friends about sports, I do it because I like sports. When I talk with my friends about beer, I do it because I’m into beer. When I tell my wife I love her, it’s because I have a genuine fondness/affection for her and I think she’s brilliant. I’m not hiding anything or attempting to gloss over anything. Sometimes a cigar…

  21. Only closet cases have to profess their non-gayness. Someone securely heterosexual has no need to say he’s not gay. The freshman writer here needs to acknowledge and embrace his homosexuality.

    Eh. I’ve never liked the “he must be a closet case” anlysis, personally. It’s not particularly thrilling to find so many straight men so willing to publicly act like total assholes (or to know that it serves as an illustration for what people come to expect from straight men), but it seems really unfair to blame homosexuality (even closeted homosexuality) for his assholishness.

  22. “when I talk with my friends about sports, I do it because I like sports. When I talk with my friends about beer, I do it because I’m into beer. When I tell my wife I love her, it’s because I have a genuine fondness/affection for her and I think she’s brilliant. I’m not hiding anything or attempting to gloss over anything. Sometimes a cigar…”

    I find it freaky that a perfectly sane man feels the need to protest all this when no one remotely suggested otherwise. Our culture is a strange thing to live in.

  23. Hi, Helen. Read my post in the context of this:

    And key parts of “male bonding” among straight men IME involve casual expressions of both misogyny and homophobia. Men in our culture bond not only over shared experience, but over the shared gratitude that they are not queers or women.

    When, in fact, there are I*M*E (take that!) enough of us to make aformentioned dorks the outliers, not microcosms of a culture at work.

  24. I find it freaky that a perfectly sane man feels the need to protest all this when no one remotely suggested otherwise.

    Really? I find it to be sadly predictable…

  25. Never mind that there’s good evidence for Jesus healing a man’s same-sex partner.

    Ok, I’m dying to know what you’re referring to here (the link doesn’t work, and I’m curious).

  26. Roy, I used to agree with you, but lately there’s been a spate of anti-gay agenda, closet case conservative politicians such as Larry Craig, Florida’s Bob Allen, Washington State’s Jim West and now Richard Curtis.

  27. Personally, I think responding to a guy like Alex by saying “He doth protesteth too much..” is not only a bad idea, but also an offensive one because by turning around and saying “Oh, yeah? Well I think you must be gay, based on xyz evidence!” is just reinforcing his idea that being gay is bad and calling someone gay is a horrible insult. And I agree with Roy that we should not be associating his assholeishness with his sexuality one way or the other.

    Hector, I do think there are some men out there who are so vehemently anti-gay because they’re closet cases, but I think it’s far from the norm and I really do not think that we start accusing every homophobe we meet of being another Larry Craig, because it does more damage than good.

  28. Saying “but not too gay” (though apparently it’s actually “but not gay” which sounds worse) might be something I’d be inclined to think of as people being smart-asses. (Which is not to say that I think GLBT organizations were just being oversenstitive about it, I don’t.) But if he’s going to come right out and say “No, we’re not just kidding around, we’re disgusted with the gay lifestyle,” that just really does make it too easy. What part of that is not homophobic? Why am I supposed to feel sorry for the poor oppressed straight men? (Not to mention that that’s not what the song means, but it sounds like he really doesn’t get that either.)

  29. I found my semesters grading the papers and exams from college seniors exceptionally depressing. These were, after all, students graduating in one month with a Bachelor’s degree and they could not construct a coherent sentence to save their lives…even with the benefits of spell-check and word processing.

    Tannenberg,

    In my stint as freelance academic tutor, I’ve come across many native-born American grad students in topflight grad programs who had serious issues with spelling, grammar, and organization. In most cases, their writing proficiency was far worse than those of my Chinese immigrant parents when they arrived in the states. :rolls eyes:

    Eh. I’ve never liked the “he must be a closet case” analysis, personally. It’s not particularly thrilling to find so many straight men so willing to publicly act like total assholes (or to know that it serves as an illustration for what people come to expect from straight men), but it seems really unfair to blame homosexuality (even closeted homosexuality) for his assholishness.

    Roy,

    Agree with you here. IME, it is usually a sign they lived in sheltered environments where assholish and narrow-minded attitudes was tolerated and/or even encouraged by parents, teachers, and other adults until they started their first year in college.

    Saw manifestations of this firsthand one fall when I visited a friend’s frosh dorm and found vandalized hall furniture, rotten food stuffed under doors, and demolished bathroom fixtures. Encountered a different manifestation of this at my own college from sanctimonious classmates who felt they were better than anyone else, loved to put those who disagreed with them down, and didn’t like being corrected/called on it.

  30. Roy, I used to agree with you, but lately there’s been a spate of anti-gay agenda, closet case conservative politicians such as Larry Craig, Florida’s Bob Allen, Washington State’s Jim West and now Richard Curtis.

    If my senator (Graham) can hold it together throughout the 2008 campaign, I’ll be shocked. OTOH he is connected to very powerful people like John McCain and seems fairly invincible.

  31. From the apology someone linked to above:

    The response I have received has gotten me to think “What would Jesus do?” I am beginning to think that he wouldn’t say the chant, although I am not completely sure.

    Bwhahaha! Yes, I’m sure that if Jesus came to a football game, and there was a line in a song that used the word gay, Jesus would just HAVE to declare how ungay he was, right away!

    A bit like when people asked him why he was tending to the sick and the poor, I’m sure, after answering, he quickly added: “But I’m not sick or poor myself, y’know. King of kings, me.”

  32. Oh, that apology was even better than the original. Destructor’s quote was good, but this one was my favorite:

    My article wasn’t about being proud because I’m heterosexual; it was about an issue of substance.

    Which was, what, exactly? He doesn’t go on to say.

  33. Thanks for the shout-out. I was glad to read the comment from the UVA alum who said that the Cav Daily was inundated with letters repudiating this little wanker — as a Wahoo by blood, it does my heart a little good.

  34. #23 – It’s not always “casual”, either. I speak as a former adult shop sales assistant who got really, really bored of the groups of guys coming into the shop in the evenings just so they could stand in front of the gay DVDs and proclaim REALLY REALLY LOUDLY how disgusted they were by it. The gay porn. Which they had deliberately sought out. Fascinating and yet baffling, it was.

  35. And key parts of “male bonding” among straight men IME involve casual expressions of both misogyny and homophobia. Men in our culture bond not only over shared experience, but over the shared gratitude that they are not queers or women.

    I’ve been telling my boyfriend for months that males bond over the shared objectification of women, but you’re completely right. I need to add “and hatred of gay people, except when it serves their purpose in male-centred girl on girl fantasies,” to my sentence.

    I also think it’s a little funny that you thought people might be offended and almost everyone agreed with you.

  36. The Old Testament, in Leviticus 20:13, goes as far to say if a man has sex with another man, kill them both. Fortunately, Christians condemn this last verse, citing the more peaceful New Testament’s transcendence over the Old Testament.

    What alsojill at 3 above said. This young man is an aphasic moron.

  37. And key parts of “male bonding” among straight men IME involve casual expressions of both misogyny and homophobia. Men in our culture bond not only over shared experience, but over the shared gratitude that they are not queers or women.”

    Yep. There are several individuals in my workplace who just love to complain to each other about women and, when the topic comes up, talk in rather coded words about gay people (“not that there’s anything wrong with that” is the favored expression of one of them). I don’t think it’s a coincidence that one of them is twice divorced and another is in an unhappy marriage. There’s another guy who works here who comes in wearing purple, pink, and red shirts quite often and he can’t escape their ridicule for wearing those colors.

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