Carson Kressley

[+ glutes]

NCM: I'll bet you Carson Carson can't cook a roast in a dishwasher!

[Rick Munroe]

>The response you chose to write, and the terms

>you chose to publish, says something about you, I think.

 

Exactly, it says that I find "flaming faggot" to be just as repugnant and offensive as all of the other examples I gave. I've never used any of those other words to describe anyone, and I've never called anyone a "faggot," flaming or otherwise.

[Rick Munroe]

>Well said, Rick, and my thanks to the others who have backed

>up your comments.

 

Same to you, edjames. I don't watch TV so I wasn't aware of any details of Kressley's life, other than that he was (is?) on the "Queer Eye" show, hence I just focused on the negative and not the positive. Thanks for filling in the blanks for me.

[Rick Munroe]

There's also Carson Daly. When did that become a popular boy's name? Are they all named after Johnny?

[Rick Munroe]

>I still think there is nothing wrong with calling him a

>flaming faggot 'cause that's what he is. Frankly I'm just

>plain tired of all of this "politically correct"

>shit that everyone is supposed to subscribe to.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcMEL3_YsVI

 

"Laughing at someone because they're gay is just the beginning. It starts with laughing at someone, and then it's verbal abuse, and then it's physical abuse, and then it's this kid Brandon killing a kid like Larry."

[Guest josephga]

I still feel that calling a gay man like carson a flaming faggot, or someone like nancy grace a cunt, is no differnt than calling someone black that you dont like, example oj simpson a nigga

[Rick Munroe]

You're right. They all come from the same bad place.

[Guest n2colour]

Do you have the objection to the use of the word "queer"?

[Rick Munroe]

There is a big difference between "queer" (which was reclaimed in the 1980's by gay activists) and "faggot," which was never elevated above a slur. Kevin Nance wrote a whole feature about "faggot vs. queer" in the Chicago Sun-Times last year (sorry, can't find a link that isn't dead):

 

In the past two decades, the two slurs have evolved in two distinctly different directions.

 

Today, “faggot” seems to have grown even more offensive, and to more people, than ever before...In fact, “faggot” shows signs of becoming the new N-word...

 

While “faggot” has plummeted in the American lexicon in recent years, “queer” is a rising star. Still a sore spot for some — especially gay men and lesbians in their 40s and older, people who remember the Q-word being hurled at them like verbal Molotov cocktails — “queer,” like Isaiah Washington, has gone to rehab.

 

Context is crucial, of course. ‘Queer’ still carries a lot of social power, a lot of charge. It retains some of its old transgressive quality, and it can still be a derogatory epithet. Kids yelling ‘queer!’ out of a car when you’re walking down Halsted Street — them’s fightin’ words. In that context, the distance between ‘faggot’ and ‘queer’ is quite small.

 

But if “queer” retains its power to hurt in certain settings, that capacity now co-exists with a range of desirable meanings. As public attitudes toward homosexuality have liberalized and gays and lesbians have become more assimilated into mainstream culture in recent years, gay activism — once so loud and angry — has toned itself down considerably, so much so that many young gays are hardly aware it exists. But “queer” still carries a whiff of those heady, clenched-fist days, and it confers on those who use it an edgy, urban quality that goes nicely with snug jeans and a strategically placed facial piercing or two.

 

The word has proved handy, too, as an umbrella term for the various groups existing outside the heterosexual norm: gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people, of course, but also “questioning” folk and those of ambiguous sexuality and/or gender. Instead of using the cumbersome alphabet soup of “LGBT,” you can just say “queer” and have everybody covered.

 

None of which applies to “faggot.” You will never find a “faggot studies” department at any university. Nor would “Faggot Eye for the Straight Guy” ever have made it to public access, much less a major network. “We’re here, we’re faggots, get used it”? Certainly not, and anyway, it doesn’t rhyme.

[edjames]

Carson is also a world-class equestrian and has won many medals and prizes in competition, as well as being part of the US World Cup Saddle Team. He also graduated Phi Beta kappa and magna cum laude from Northwestern U.

 

Not bad for a queer guy!

 

ED

[Rick Munroe]

None of those achievements matter, edjames. Didn't you know he "gives us all a bad name. Ick. Ick. Ick."?