Hey, fellow straight shooters, we can finally hold our heads high and acknowledge who we are. We have our own special day now:
SAO PAULO (AP) -- The city council of South America's biggest city has adopted legislation calling for a Heterosexual Pride Day to be celebrated on the third Sunday of each December.
OK, guys, let's call all the women and have a party to celebrate. We can sit on one side of the room, with them on the other, and we can have a dance or two between sharing box lunches that the gals make and the men bid on. We don't want to come out of the closet all at once.
There was an immediate and predictable reaction from the other side of the sexual divide:
"The celebration of heterosexual pride is inappropriate because it belittles the just cause of the LGBT community," the statement added. "Unlike homosexuals, heterosexuals are not discriminated against simply for being heterosexuals."
The LGBT response is a reminder of the unfortunate evolution of human interaction in which group identity is becoming more important than individuality. But there's a kernal of truth there, too -- group identity has always been more important to minorities than majorities, whether it's atheists in a Christian community, vegetarians at a hog roast or conservatives in a newsroom. (Check out Howard Becker's seminal work "Outsiders," which I had to pay big bucks for in college but you can now download on Kindle for $13.99.) Whatever you think of in-your-face parades and festivities and such, their point is to give minorities who feel aggrieved a sense of empowerment. Heterosexual Pride is right up there with White Pride and Male History Month in foolish pointlessness.
