FCK Marriage, and a (Boring) Kiss

I know I’m a bit late to this party, but you’ll have to excuse me as the last month or so have been devoured by my dissertation. But, seeing as it is in its final stages, I’m excited to be back here, absorbing (and getting indigestion from) the internet’s newest gay/pedophilic panic: FCK H8. For those of you who do not yet know, FCK H8 is a fundraising and advocacy organization for the legalization of same-sex marriage. They combine direct and strong language, a myriad of conventionally attractive people (young and old, people of color, white people, homos, heteros, etc.), snazzy colors, and “hilarious” and “insightful” videos with (Sarah Silverman approved) T-Shirt sales.

FCK H8′s most recent video “Top 5 Reasons to Ban Gay Marriage” (obnoxiously loudly, and of course sarcastically) lists these five reasons why gay marriage should be banned: 1. Gayness is not natural, 2. Gayness is chosen, and homosexuality is against the bible, 3. Homo marriages aren’t really marriages, 4. Gay marriage leads to gay recruitment, and 5. Gays could start adopting children. I’m hoping that you’ll already know their rebuttals to these points (and I hope you know where I can find some Advil to recover from them), so I’m only going to focus on point 4:

FCK H8′s Rebuttal: Gays can’t recruit, and gayness, like handedness, isn’t contagious. Or, in the sarcastic language of the ad: “The same as how hanging around Black people makes you blacker: Heeey! Yo! Wassup homie?!”

Critique: First: shut up. Why do we need to continually rely on racist stereotypes in LGBT activism? Just because you have people of color in your ad doesn’t give you a pass on being racist. A cheap laugh at stereotypes of Black people is both racist and (like all racism) unnecessary. Second, in the words of Queerty: “Can we please just start admitting that we do actually want to indoctrinate kids?” Speaking about issues of homophobia, transphobia and racism with children is extraordinarily important (and apparently, FCK H8, it’s important to continue speaking about them with adults too…). Saying that gayness is not contagious in response to people’s fears that kids might become gay validates that very panic about the sexuality of children. We need to stop saying “don’t worry!” and start challenging the fear of queer, and sexually active, children.

Ironically, and thankfully, this is how you end your ad. The image at the start of this post is a screenshot of the final moments of this ad, in which two 12 year olds (I’m not sure if that is their actual ages, but everyone on the web seems sure it is…) declare, “If I grew up gay… I wanna get married some day!” and then kiss. kind of. (It’s much more of a peck than any of the other kissing that happens in this or FCK H8′s other video.)