On Monday, the Australasian National Rugby League issued a two-game ban on Mitchell Moses of the Wests Tigers for using a homophobic slur on-field during a televised match.
According to reports, Moses was found to be in direct violation of the league’s anti-vilification policy when he called Queensland lock Luke Bateman a “fucking gay cunt,” a phrase that was picked up by a referee’s on-field microphone and broadcast to the entire stadium and live TV audience.
Moses later issued an apology, and right as it seemed the storm had passed, an archaic reporter for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph named Miranda Devine stepped in and wrote an insanely offensive article in defense of Moses. In it, she claimed the ban was enforced on behalf of “the gods of homosexuality” and claims that “gay” is not an offensive word.
Devine, a self-described “sci fi nut” and complete asshole, believes her lived experience as a heterosexual woman gives her the authority to determine what words are offensive to minority groups:
There was no problem with the players trying to punch each other. No problem with the foul language. No problem with the sexist c-word.
But woe betide the player who offends the gods of homosexuality.
Let’s get one thing straight. “Gay” no longer just means “homosexual”. The word has changed meaning over the last decade. Young people use “gay” to mean lame, or dumb or stupid, as in: “That’s so gay.”
…
He was being offensive but he was not being homophobic, which last time I looked meant, “an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people”.
Bateman isn’t even homosexual. What more evidence do you need that Mitchell didn’t say “gay” as a homophobic slur?
…
They could have given him counselling or community work to teach him to keep a clean mouth in a game full of microphones. But the NRL wanted to parade as a champion of homosexual rights, so who cares about fairness or honesty.
Yes, Miranda. Tell us. Who cares about fairness or honesty?
Without missing a beat, token Australian and openly gay Olympic diver Matthew Mitchum chimed in with his opinion of Devine’s insanity: “Miranda Devine is a ‘f…ing gay c…’ & I can say that b/c it’s neither homophobic nor sexist, according to her.”
Miranda Devine is a "f…ing gay c…" & I can say that b/c it's neither homophobic nor sexist, according to her. … http://t.co/BaJzHQymu6
— Matthew Mitcham (@matthew_mitcham) May 7, 2014
Well done, Matthew. Well done.
toberlin
Let’s get one thing STRAIGHT.
“Gay” is not an offensive word but the way you f*cking c*nt abuse it is f*cking offensive.
Sincerely yours, a straight woman
gskorich
i wouldn’t give this story any more press than it has already gotten, this woman is obviously using this as a platform for something else, we all know what she is saying is hurtful and she knows it to but if it can better her career and give her some air tim then why not say it.
Nowuvedoneit
@toberlin: I find it offensive that as a straight woman you can say what is or isn’t offensive for me as a gay man. I don’t find it offensive what you said as I don’t find it offensive what that reporter or coach said. Just look at the words that where said gay c@nt. I know as a gay man I don’t have a c@nt, it’s nonsensical to be mad at such a stupid combination.
Elloreigh
The thing that Miranda Devine gets right is that the word ‘gay’ has taken on an additional meaning (lame, dumb, stupid, etc.)
The thing ignored is that this usage is still found insulting by some, because it associates being gay (homosexual) with being ‘lame, dumb, or stupid’. I have trouble believing that this shift is spontaneous and unrelated to the perception of gay people in a negative light by so many, for so long. I think it springs directly from that longstanding, anti-gay prejudice. The intention of the person using it to mean ‘lame, dumb, or stupid’, placed within its specific context, does little to make this usage any less offensive, as I see it.
Miranda Devine’s argument is very seriously undermined by her obvious, reactionary attempt to paint the response to the incident by the NRL as some sort of orchestrated effort “to parade as a champion of homosexual rights”.
“woe betide the player who offends the gods of homosexuality” is a dead giveaway as to this “reporter’s” agenda.
Nowuvedoneit
@Elloreigh: Yes she is a talking head for the right wing and I say let her say what she wants to. I rather know my opponents than they go into hiding. If she moves up in conservative circles that’s fine she’ll just be that more visible.
toberlin
Nowuvedoneit:
How often I have to write here: I AM NO ONES ALLY!I write MY point of view.I don’t know you how can I talk for you.If the use of the word gay =stupid is fine to you i’m fine.But don’t tell me that I have to feel the same .You just can speak for yourself like I do.I learned as a girl that even if I can laugh about stupid blonde jokes ,not every boy can laugh about stupid gay jokes.I do not defend you.It is MY Personal Opinion.Go get you another Fag Hag\Gay BF or however you call girls/women
Nowuvedoneit
@toberlin: Long post to say you don’t care. I feels the love.
Chris Vogel
Evidently, it would be far more accurate, to denote stupidity, to use the words “hetero” or “straight” or ‘Miranda”.
Lvng1tor
@toberlin: So, in other words, you’re just a trolling on here to screw with people. Let’s be clear dumb blonde jokes and gay jokes are not the same. That you equate hair color/intelligence and sexual orientation as equal just highlights how ignorant and ridiculous you are. Please enjoy my proper use of punctuation.
toberlin
Novuvedoneit:
:)Queerty -Police ,is there a way to say it more polite?
Yes ,I do take good care of myself
This does not mean if YOU bla on me ” I feels the love”….(is it english?)
DonW
So I suppose Miranda would be fine with the now-unacceptable phrases “to jew someone down” (bargain over a price) and “n*gger-rig” (=jerry-rig) — because they had developed meanings separate from the offensive slurs they were based on?
toberlin
Lvng1tor:
You know as 6 years old girl I couldn’t tell you the difference between haircolour and sexual orientations.My mom explained me because of her friends .So I learned being gay is about Love and not a STUPID joke .She called people out for that .If it is O.K.to you that people use gay=stupid .Good Luck with that.Just don’t bla on me to do the same!
Throbert McGee
Miranda Devine said: “Let’s get one thing straight. “Gay” no longer just means “homosexual”. The word has changed meaning over the last decade. Young people use “gay” to mean lame, or dumb or stupid, as in: “That’s so gay.””
The only thing I disagree with here is the claim that the meaning only began to change in “the last decade.”
“That’s so gay” in the sense of “That’s lame and stupid” was definitely in currency when I was in high school in the late 1980s. On the other hand, I’m from the U.S. and Ms. Devine is from Australia, so it’s possible that in Australian English, “gay” began to be used in the sense of “stupid” only in the past decade.
@toberlin:
Toberlin, the word “gay” has an extremely long and complicated history in English slang. For instance, in Victorian Britain, if a man said “Do you know where I can find some gay women in this town?”, he wasn’t looking for lesbians; he was looking for heterosexual female prostitutes who rented out their vaginas by the hour to male customers.
So, the meaning “gay as in homosexual” isn’t a sacrosanct definition that was handed down by God and should never be changed; it’s a mid-20th-century development that has been in vogue for several decades now, but may be passing out of fashion, because that’s the nature of colloquial language.
To put it another way, if you say “shame on you for using gay in the sense of stupid because the PROPER meaning is male homosexual“, it’s not much different from conservative idiots who say “you shouldn’t use gay in the sense of homosexual because the PROPER meaning is cheerful.” Words change their meaning sometimes, and that’s that.
I should add: toberlin is from Germany and probably is more familiar with UK English than US English. The word c*nt is used a bit differently in UK English than it is in US English, so no one should give her grief for that.
Throbert McGee
@DonW:
“N*gger-rig”? I’ve never encountered that expression before, but I don’t doubt that you’ve heard it — what part of the English-speaking world are you from?
As to “jew someone down” — it’s an apt comparison, but to me it’s slightly different because the English word “Jew” is many centuries old and there really aren’t a whole lot of synonyms for an adherent of Judaism (or a person who is “ethnically Jewish”). But “gay” in the sense of “homosexual” is largely a post-WW2 development in US English, and I’m not sure that it’s reasonable to insist that “gay” MUST remain the polite colloquial term for “homosexual” forever and ever.
For instance, some African-Americans shy away from the term “gay” and prefer to use expressions like “same-sex loving” — not because they’re closeted about being “same-sex loving,” but presumably because they feel that “gay” has Excessively White connotations. Nothing wrong with that.
Then, too, there are white guys like Jack Donovan who reject the word “gay” and prefer to call themselves “androphilic.” While I think that the word “androphilic” is kinda silly (to me, it vaguely suggests “having a fetish for androids like Commander Data, or Ashe and Bishop from the Alien franchise”), I completely agree with Mr. Donovan that the word “gay” has acquired a lot of undesirable baggage, and that Men who have Sex with Men don’t have an obligation to be loyal to the word “gay”.
Throbert McGee
@gskorich:
*I* don’t know that what she’s saying is hurtful. Then again, I’m pretty sure that in a distant past life, I was an Ankylosaurus.
Cameron Thomas
Honestly, this article has gotten so much air time in the past 48 hours, Miranda Devine (a fantastic drag name) is probably rolling in the limelight. Personally, I feel that the use of the phrase “f’ing gay c’t” can be heard as a homophobic slur regardless of the person it’s aimed at’s sexual preference.
Devine’s lack of tact in writing the piece has clearly ruffled a few feathers, probably the amount that her and her editors wanted. Everyone has the right to voice their opinion and that is hers. I’m not saying she’s right or wrong, just that she had an opinion and voiced it, just as everyone above me has done.
yupwhatever
Miranda Devine is the same moron who swears that there is no evidence whatsoever that gay kids get bullied. Like it’s completely nonexistent. She also sent a tweet to a gay person who criticized her, something about “rogering gerbils”. She’s not a fan of gays and she loves getting attention, so she’ll spout out as much anti-gay garbage as she can as long as it gets her name out there. Classy.
@ toberlin
Seriously, you’re a very confusing person. First, you’re flat out saying what words are offensive and what words are not, period. Then you are saying that you can use words if only the person you are talking to does not get personally offended by them?
Throbert McGee
@yupwhatever:
What were the exact words of the gay person’s “criticism”? If it was like, “Dear Ms. Devine, you seem to be totally unaware of the statistics about anti-gay bullying,” then the response about “rogering gerbils” was incredibly vile and inappropriate.
On the other hand, if the gay “critic” had said “OMG, Miranda Devine is worse than Hitler!!!!”, then “Go stuff a gerbil up your wazoo” would not be hitting below the belt.
(Incidentally, I would’ve thought that “rogering a gerbil” would imply that you were TOPPING the gerbil. But I’m an American and “to roger” isn’t in common use here, so I could be mistaken.)
Throbert McGee
@yupwhatever:
What’s so “confusing” about this?
If you’re a white person and you’re hanging out with a black friend who doesn’t take offense when a white person says “n*ggaz,” then you can feel free to say “n*ggaz” all the livelong day. In other people’s company, however, you should avoid this controversial word.
Not very complicated, that I can see.
tricky ricky
why should I care what a woman in a country populated by the descendants of convicts says?
BitterOldQueen
Odd that she considers c*nt a “sexist c-word” but “gay” is somehow ok because it’s come to mean “stupid” or “lame” (sit down, otherly-abled persons; you don’t own “lame” anymore either). In her case particularly, I suggest that c*nt no longer has sexist connotations, because it’s come to mean an annoying, unpleasant person with questionable hygiene habits, i.e., Miranda Devine.
Throbert McGee
Outside the US (and maybe Canada, too), the word-rhyming-with-stunt has had this meaning for quite some time, as far as I know.
And regarding “gay as in lame/stupid”. We spent years scoffing at prissy conservatives like William F. Buckley who sniffed that “gay used to mean cheerful until the pre-vert lobby STOLE it.” And we responded, with some justification, that “language evolves and word-meanings change by themselves, without any big conspiracy by the sekrit gay cabal.”
Only, now, when people say “OMG, u r so gay,” suddenly that “language evolves” argument goes right out the door — and a lot of LGBT folk morph into reactionary hyper-prescriptivists: “You CAN’T say gay-as-in-stupid because the meaning gay-as-in-homosexual was revealed to mankind on tablets of gold personally engraved by Jesus!”
nevereclipsed81
We’ve all said “that’s so gay” once or twice. Granted that phrase has been outdated since 2005. But you can’t go on and say it’s not a slur because gay means stupid, congratulations, you just made it a slur.
Throbert McGee
@nevereclipsed81:
Where? Maybe on Earth-Beta or whatever parallel world you come from, but on my planet (which is to say, “plain old regular Earth”), that’s so gay has been in currency at least since the late 1980s, and is still very much in use.
Well, obviously “that’s so gay” is a slur, but it’s a slur against stupid persons, and not a slur against men who enjoy putting other men’s penises in their mouths.
I very much like to put penises in my mouth, but I’m well aware that I’m not stupid, and therefore “that’s so gay” doesn’t apply to me.
Volvoguy
I guess it would be the same if you called dumbass
Brunette, but I would say that not derogatory
Since stupid can mean several different things ,
Isn’t it amazing you keep saying stupid ass things, they
sound smart.
Gay means homosexual when are directing it toward gay remarks
and gay people, unreal!!
DarkZephyr
Personally, I don’t think toberlin’s original statement was off the mark at all. I got that she said “gay” is not an offensive word unless its abused. I would agree with that. I call myself “gay” all the time and if someone identifies me as a gay man, there is no reason for me to take offense at that either. Nor do I think she was trying to declare how we should define the word “gay”. She basically said “gay is an OK word to use as long as you don’t abuse it”. I agree with her.
DarkZephyr
@Throbert McGee:
“Only, now, when people say “OMG, u r so gay,” suddenly that “language evolves” argument goes right out the door — and a lot of LGBT folk morph into reactionary hyper-prescriptivists: “You CAN’T say gay-as-in-stupid because the meaning gay-as-in-homosexual was revealed to mankind on tablets of gold personally engraved by Jesus!””
I think that there has to be some legitimate evolution involved though, don’t you think? I don’t see how this could be considered an “evolution” of a word. How can you possibly trace the origins of “gay as stupid” in any way shape or form that suggests legitimate evolution that has NOTHING to do with and NO negative connotation whatsoever with people who are attracted to their own sex?
Based on what I read in Wikipedia, here is a possible evolution of the usage of the word that came to reference homosexuals: Gay started off meaning “joyous, happy, carefree”. The “carefree” definition gave way to a usage that referenced “frivolous” and “showiness in dress”, wikipedia gives the example “gay apparel”. This gave way to the usage of gay referencing camp and effeminacy. This in turn gave way to the usage of gay referencing homosexuals, especially homosexual men. This all seems to have a natural, organic evolutionary flow to me. But where would gay referencing “stupid” fit in with this? I see no organic, legitimately evolutionary flow from this towards “stupid” that has nothing to do with a negative view of homosexuals. I am quite open to being shown otherwise.
toberlin
Hey People,
there is a thing called equality…I am not the one who say I have the right to have an own opinion here to the use of the word “gay” just because I grew up with people who are gay or because I have friends who are gay.It is about my ethical standarts/freedom in the society .If I have a clear feeling or think somebody abuse words like “gay” as an offense/put people down I do feel offended and I say it clearly!This does not mean that using the term gay(=schwul) in german to me is an offense or can be used to joking around with people or whatever.Its about the context/bad intention to me.( i know the history of the word).And to the people here who feel offended or not offended ? that I didn’t interview every queer person on the planet before I allow myself to have an own opinion ,I am not sorry , I just speak for myself. I am no ones mouthpiece or doormat.I do not feel or talk in “we” all the time.But I am open and interested into other peoples point of view and able to change my opinion …was it really necessary to explain this?