The judges’ problem with these guys had NOTHING to do with them being same-sex, and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that they switched roles every 3 seconds: instead of one dancer leading and one dancer following (as is normal in ballroom dancing), these guys kept alternating – which totally ruined the traditional ’story’ of the dance.

If it had been a hetero couple doing this role-switching – and then falling on their asses because switching roles leads to difficulties with the dance – the judges’ comments would have been exactly the same.

It’s really a shame: Perez Hilton and GLAAD have the ability to change the world here, but by picking stupid battles they waste their political capital.

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/SYTYCDantigay/

Please sign it and forward to your friends!

If anything, the show is extremely gay friendly. Several competitors including the season 3 runner-up have been openly gay, and Nigel didn’t seem to have any problems with them. His opinion that the viewers wouldn’t enjoy watching 2 men ballroom dancing together is a valid one. I thought it was nothing but a silly gimmick.

Now, moving past the disclaimers –

I fail to see what about his remarks was homoPHOBIC, exactly. His comments were not belligerent, and, from my point of view, were actually quite restrained. Basically, he objects to the idea of two men dancing competitively together. At best (worst?), his statement may be prejudicial, but there’s nothing in it that made me believe he felt fear, hatred, or resentment (since the definition of “…phobic” seems to have widened quite a bit from its literal meaning) towards the one homosexual male of the pair, or the homosexual community at large. Listen to how deliberate his speech is, and how carefully he chooses his words. He admits to not knowing what to say, compliments their dancing style, states an unfavorable opinion, and then thanks them for being the first same-sex couple on the show.

I also know absolutely nothing about dance, or about judging dance specifically. But (going out on a limb) it seems to me that a large part of what makes a good dancing couple probably has something to do with how they look visually, and how believable they are as a couple. If the judge thinks that the pairing of two people doesn’t look right because they’re both men, then is that judge not allowed to diplomatically voice that opinion? Should he ignore it completely? I’m not sure that’s a fair solution either.

It’s an interesting topic, to be sure. I’ll be interested to follow this one.

Which brings us to Nigel and co.’s comments.

Latin partner dancing has ALWAYS been about telling a male/female ’story’. All of these judges expressed how odd they felt seeing this very traditional dance style (and we know, from previous seasons of SYTYCD, that these dances have very strict ‘rules’ about how they’re done) performed in a new way. That doesn’t make them homophobic.

In fact, given that the one guy said up-front that he WASN’T gay – and yet was happy dancing with a gay partner – this could have been spun as a very very positive story about acceptance.

Here’s the thing: a lot of this stuff is new to people. IT’S OKAY if they find it odd at first. When my father-in-law had a sex change 3 years ago, we still loved and supported him and everything, but when my husband went to a GLBTQ support meeting and expressed how weird it was that his ‘father’ was now ‘Mary’, he got accused of being homophobic. He wasn’t homophobic – he was just acknowledging that when your father is your father for 30 years, and then suddenly isn’t a man any more, it’s disconcerting at first.

When non-GLBTQ people are not allowed to have or express any feelings of awkwardness along the path to true equality, everyone loses.

What this organization should be up in arms about are the zillions of individuals who posted comments all over the internet since January in reply to blogs, media articles, etc. about their opinions of Adam Lambert and his sexual preferences and actions, including their horribly ugly statements about gays in general. His failure to win American Idol was due to direct bias and prejudice against members of the gay community and they were simply horrible statements. Your time would be better spent fighting the public in general, it is a much larger target certainly, and it is a more guilty target if you ask me.