A Boy Dressed as Daphne -- Oh the Horror!

A five year old is gay.  Seriously people?
Read this blog entry and watch this video

Seriously who would make fun of a kid in a Halloween costume??

This video really affected me on a couple of different levels not because of the topic, but because that the entire conflict revolves around a 5 year old boy.  I am a firm believer that people have a right to choose every aspect of their life without consequences, and to this day, I simply cannot understand why there is a problem with homosexuality.  People act as if it is a disease, or a malfunction, when all these people are doing is simply being who they are.  That is why I wear a bracelet ever day that says Erase the Hate, and it kills me to see that people are acting out against this five year old boy, when all he wanted to do was be Daphne for Halloween...because let’s be honest… if a little girl dressed up as Elvis, would she be getting the same treatment.  Probably not.  Everyone is so quick to jump to conclusions about men being gay, and the fact that there is such a double standard for women kills me; I seriously just can’t wrap my head around the fact that there were mothers seriously complaining about  this kid’s costume.  People! The kid is five and he loves Daphne from Scooby Doo.  I mean, Shaggy is  my favorite, so if I dress up as him for Halloween does that automatically make me gay?  I think the real problem in the scenario is that the mother is supporting her son, and the other parents think that she is encouraging him to be gay. 

I personally loved that Sarah titled her blog “My Son is Gay” only to finish that fragment with or he’s not. I don’t care. He is still my son. And he is 5. And I am his mother. And if you have a problem with anything mentioned above, I don’t want to know you. In this case, that phrase represents to me the entire issue at hand here: people are people no matter what their race, color, sexuality, etc. and that it doesn’t change anything about them or how they should be treated.  Plus, I want to reiterate that the child is five. Chances are he probably hasn’t made any type of advance to his sexual identity, and to put a child through this trauma isn’t necessary.  Plus, the horrific part about the situation is that at five years old, the child knew he had something to worry about; that people were going to judge him for his choice. Frankly that disgusts me, especially because when girls dress in boy’s clothing nothing is seen wrong in that.  Like Sarah said, if her daughter dressed up as Batman, no one would have said a thing.  Hello double standard!  I mean, I have played sports since I have been five, and half my wardrobe is boys clothing from Nike to Adidas, to Hanes shirts that I feel are just more comfortable to be in and to work out in.  Does that make me gay?  No?  Then why is it different for boys?

Oh, and as a senior in college, I would like to say that I have seen more straight boys dress up like girls for Halloween than gay guys dressing up like Lady Gaga.  So what about that?

Overall, the suicide rate for individuals that suffer homophobic abuse is sky rocketing, and whether Sara’s boy grows up to accept being straight or gay, he is always going to look back on this and see what both he and his family had to go through just because of what he wanted to dress up as for Halloween.  Also, I do appreciate the pun that Sarah has included on her blog regarding the connation and denotation for the word gay. I like that she calls attention to the fact that it the word also means happy, and that there is no denying that her son is happy in the picture that has traveled the web to millions of viewers.