by Jed Minor (Editorial)
Email: jed at ufvcascade dot ca
In this week’s Cascade, we have included an article entitled “Interview with a homosexual.” While some people might find it offensive that we are interviewing one member of a particular group and asking him to speak for the group as a whole, this is how society often treats people. When they talk about the “gay agenda,” people act as if every single gay person has this so called agenda on their Iphone and uses it to organize their life. What is often found when talking to a member of a certain group is that no social grouping is homogenous, and there is infinite diversity that exists within some of society’s most stereotyped groups.
I am a heterosexual male but I have as much in common with certain other members of my sexual orientation grouping as I do with a dog. In fact, I might have more in common with a dog than I do with your garden variety redneck/gangster because at least dogs are friendly, loyal, and mostly non-violent.
I want to continue to interview members of particular societal groups, whether religious, heathen, asexual, and otherwise. I hope that these interviews will be informative in that they will show the individual humanity of the person, and the fact that, although they may align themselves with a certain group, their group does not define every single aspect of their existence.
It should be self evident, but we need to start treating people as individuals and stop labelling them mentally before getting to know them. Humanity has always been very diverse, and I hope that our social perception will finally be able to catch up with that reality. Labels hurt, and stereotypes often kill.
