I wrote this one time for some contest in some gay magazine in East Lansing, MI. I'm still waiting for a reply.
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Halloween: The Anti-gay Holiday
Badly carved pumpkins, four feet tall vampires, middle-aged adults trying to scare 8 year olds, butt-loads of candy, sugar induced indigestion followed by 30 minutes of diarrhea. These are the shapes and sites of Halloweens. The one holiday we have left that still retains at least a few subtle reminders of its former pagan beginnings. The day when ghost and spirits possess small children, and the greed of our youth over flows in a lust for skittles, snickers, and sex. (Sex being a metaphor for the rampant sugar lust that embodies each and every child on the night of all hallows eve.) Halloween, a day of fun, candy, and good old American values; but it also hides something more sinister for us in the gay community. It hides a secret training rite that has been past down for ages, a training that may be the reason why coming out of the closet is so hard.
On the surface Halloween is a great ceremony of candy and the giving spirit of America. In our modern times war and hurricanes, where the spirit of giving is needed more then ever, our focus often zeros in on the giving and receiving portion of Halloween. Yet, us queers should be more focused on what is really going on. We need to be aware of the underhanded subterfuge are American culture is handing our youth, and feeding to the International gay and Lesbian organization, via this so called holiday of giving. Our eyes, our very powerful queer eyes need to be focused on the costuming and disguising aspect of Halloween.
What republicans, Christians, and right wing ‘moralist’ spew at us is the giving aspect of Halloween; but what about the costume portion of this anti-gay holiday. Have we all overlooked this blatant use of disguise? To get and to receive candy, a child must hide their true identity; they must cover up their ideas, their morals, and their soul. They have to put dark face paint on their rosy cheek, and put disgusting, sometime blood covered linens over their soft child skin. You see, this disguising of self, this covering of the natural being of a person, simply in an effort to get what everyone else is getting, is a metaphor, for how us gays are treated in America.
You see as gays we are labeled as second class citizens. Our fashions, our speech, and even our demeanor is automatically labeled as second rate. We can’t go to church, we can’t have a family, and we can’t participate in normal middle-class society with out hiding our face, covering our self, and being someone we’re not. In the same way, Halloween is training out youth to hide their true selves. You see, Halloween is changing the cognitive outlook of all our youth, in such a way that teaches them to hide their differences, be who they aren’t, and to not be gay.
When I found out I was gay, I wanted to tell everyone. I wanted to tell my parents, I wanted to tell my friends, I wanted to tell my god. But, I realized that if I did I would be labels a sinner, a heretic, and a fag. I would be kept from everything I loved (i.e. my lover, cartoonist Rick Boven). When I realized this, I had to hide my true self; I had to become someone I wasn’t. I had to put on the metaphysical make-up of a straight teenager, and the artistic mindset of a brain-dead frat boy. When I did, I fooled everyone. I fooled my friends, my parents, hell, I’m sure I fooled god. I was a natural. It wasn’t until I grew in to a true patriot of gay rights, did I find where I learned these disguise skills. Where did I learn to be someone I wasn’t? Where did I learn to hide my very being in such a convincing manor? Then, while participating in a gay/straight out reach program in downtown Lansing, I realized where I was taught to hide my homosexuality. Not at church, not at school, and not at home. I learned it at Halloween.
The anti-gay training ritual known as Halloween is a holiday/training program built by Christians, Republicans, and the anti-gay agenda, to keep queers from ‘coming out of closet.’ It is a carefully constructed event that targets children before puberty, all in an effort to equip them with the tools they need to hide their queer self-nature. It equips and instructs young child on how not to be gay. It gives them the tools they need to run from their true god given identity.
Coming out is hard enough, I know. It is a scary time of uncertain change and indefinite change. But, coming out is the most important, and most liberating moment of any ones life. It is a moment that shouldn’t be denied from the youth of America. Yet, every time we give a child a piece of candy, every time we positively condition a child for wearing a costume on Halloween, we telling them, that it is ok to hide their true self, that it is ok to hide their sexuality. Like Pavlov’s dogs, when we give candy to children on Halloween, we are subconsciously conditioning them to hide there true self, and to not be gay.
This Halloween, when you give a young boy or girl candy, and you see their smile, know that behind that smile is a homosexual soul crying, for to them, what must seem like an eternity.
By: Nicholas A. Vandermolen
Contrary to what the article says, Nicholas A. Vandermolen is actually a heterosexual, conservative Christian.
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