Does The Term "Gay" Diminishes a Person?

Mark Barnes argues it does

NOTE - his language is blunt but not hurtful:

If you think these are days in which women are objectified, well, you’d be right. The crown jewel of evolution is used to sell cars. But women have nothing – infinitesimally small potatoes, really — on the ridiculous amount of objectification and abstraction heaped upon men with same-sex attraction. Let’s break it down.

First, we’ve got the names we call these gentlemen. If the names come spewing forth from the homophobe, the objectification is obvious: Faggot, queer, fruit — all these terms are designed to make a total, negative definition, a non-existent and detestable class in which to place a human being: “You’re not a man, you’re a queer! And all queers hate Jesus and can be ignored.” Because as we all know,

If the names come from the super-with-the-times gay rights activist, then they’re incredibly worse, though admittedly more subtle. The Activists are forever encouraging men with SSA to “accept your identity!”, “come out!”, and to otherwise claim the title of Gay Man. It’s just another brilliant form of objectification.

Because the last time I checked, the unique identity of man is not defined by where he wants to put his penis. Identity is not gained, nor will it ever fulfill, if it is no more than a great narrowing of the human person to a single characteristic — in this case his sexual characteristic. Gay Man? Really? No one demands heterosexuals to “accept their identity” and define themselves as Straight Men. Such a thing would be a grave insult to the fantastic complexity of their being. Yet this is the modus operandi of the Activist, and the end goal given to the high-school kid with same-sex attraction — to come out of the closet and love himself for Who He Is.

(And yes, of course I realize there is no stigma against being a heterosexual. That’s not the point here. The point is that our super-cool-culture, in its drive to be accepting, tolerant and all the rest, has decided to defend the Gay Man and largely ignore that beautiful, noble piece of work — the actual man.)

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