Hiding in the Backwaters Just one more blog on the net.

Gay Games Chicago

At first I was going to bitch about the stifling heat and the idiocy of the planners who left us baking in the hot afternoon sun on an open field because someone thought it necessary for participants to line up for the opening ceremonies 3 hours early. OK. I'm still going to bitch about that.

I must admit it was pretty cool to be standing on the field at Solider Stadium looking up at the crowd. That's about where my enthusiasm for the opening ceremonies ended. For starters it was just too damn long. The fact that we had been standing in the sun for over 3 hours didn't help, I'm sure, but four hours? All afternoon they had been saying that the opening ceremonies was for the athletes, but most of the athletes had bailed after the first hour. Some because they had to compete at the crack of dawn and the rest because the ceremonies were terminally boring.

The opening ceremonies of the Olympics celebrate the contest about to commence. They celebrate the athleticism of the competitors and display something of the culture of the host city. The opening ceremonies of the Gay Games was little more than a glorified political rally. For every 15 minutes of actual entertainment, there was 45 minutes of speeches, some of them rabid in their rhetoric. Not that there weren't some good points made. This is just not the venue for it. We didn't come here for a political rally. Most aren't here to make some kind of political statement. We are here to compete. We are here to focus on the now. We are certainly not looking backward and we have little time to worry about tomorrow. There is much worth celebrating. What was the point of beginning such a positive experience with such a negative message? The opening ceremonies was not for the athletes. It was for a handful of gay activists who used the opportunity to spout their rhetoric from a jumbo-tron.

What, for example, has been occupying my thoughts the last two days? Has it been what a remarkable opportunity the Gay Games is for athletes of any level to compete at a large sporting event and be welcomed and cheered for the effort they make and their personal achievements regardless of whether or not they earn a medal for it? Has it been what a remarkable opportunity it is for a "small town" guy like me—who has never seen so many homos gathered together in one place in his life—to feel more "integrated" into society than in my own home town? I always seem to forget how homogeneous Utah is. For someone who doesn't like the lime light, who doesn't like to stand out, it's nice to feel common place for a change.

These have been good experiences for me, but is that what I have been thinking about the last few days? No. I have been pondering the impotent rage of the gay rights movement and how it seems to be sliding into irrelevance. I have not talked to one single person who though the political nature of the ceremonies was appropriate. The most charitable of them simply dismissed it and moved on. The hijacking of the opening ceremonies his hardly the only example. How many emails from HRC sounding the clarion call to action to defeat the dreaded FMA did you get? An amendment that didn't even have a snowballs chance in hell of passing. Why can't we just ignore such juvenile posturing of the right? Surely there are better things we can be doing with our time and money.

It seems painfully obvious that gay rights establishment is more concerned with its own agenda than with actually discovering what it is gay people care about. It should be no surprise that some are talking of the Stalinism of the gay rights movement. Alienate those whose interests you profess to be defending and watch how fast your movement becomes little more than an echo chamber.