It's an unfortunate word, but for most it's not an actual anti-gay epithet. I'll always love Ozzie for offering his dugout's services when Greg Biggio's wife got slapped by a White Sox fan during last year's World Series.

But you can't say that kind of thing and not suffer consequences. Hopefully Ozzie will take it like a man, or at least not be a fag about it.

(rim shot)

Its Craig Biggio...not Greg....He's a lock for the Hall of Fame FWIW.

Anybody who complains about this bullshit and tries to make a big deal out of it is a fag.

BTW: When a straight guy calls another guy a "fag", it's the same as if he called him a "pussy" or a "crybaby" or a "whiner' or a "wimp" or any combination thereof.

It has nothing to do with sexuality or homophobia at all.

If however a straight guy calls another guy a "Faggot" he is indeed casting negative aspersions on that guys sexuality.

Hey: fighting white christian male ideology since 1992

what were you doing before 1992?

sorry... the vistor was me. Apparently just now I'm learning to use the internet :)

You know, after Jimmy the Greek got fired by CBS, you'd think these galoots would have learned from his example. Wasn't he a better bookie than commentator, anyway?

I'll lay you odds that the best way to deal with defamation, as a gay, is to own it.

I'd like to see all the 'straight' guys who are secretly bisexual come out. The dance floors wouldn't have room to hold them all.

wha? ozzie has been in this country this long and still doesn't master offensive language?

he should of said "pussy" instead of "fag". "pussy" probably offends women as much as "fag" does gays but women are to busy to whinge about such.

The comment is unfortunate, but it's fun to watch Ozzie try to wiggle out of his idiotic mistakes. Just one more thing...who the hell is GREG Biggio?

Track lighting is gay?

Thankfully, I only have a little over my kitchen sink. Glad I didn't install it over the couch like my wife wanted to.

He needs to apologize and clean up his act. Also...there may be something he can do to make amends. We have a gay/lesbian night here in San Francisco. Maybe something similar? Or a donation to an AIDS organization? By the way I went to see the Giants with people from work once. As I was coming from the refreshment stand a stranger violently called me a fag. I was not even looking at him. I will never go to a Giants game again, not even on gay night. I don't want to go back to a place where I was verbally assaulted. Baseball is a business. Can you imagine if the head of a bank called someone a "fag" at a news conference. Also it's interesting that he mentions he has gay friends etc. Many people do nowadays. I have straight friends. But language hurts, is inappropriate and can foster intolerance. Next time someone you know says "fag" correct them and say "that's not cool." I was at a mixed party (gay and straight) and a gay man told a racist joke. We all just stared at him when he was done. I don't think he'll ever change his opinions, in fact I know he won't. But he might think before telling that joke again.

What alternative universe have you been living in? It's not Judy Garland, boxer briefs, and track lighting anymore, and it never really was. I know you were kidding, but I despise phony tripe like the pernicious smarm depicted on Will and Grace--the show just perpetuates false stereotypes.

Camp acts like the Village People were a lot closer to the truth: the construction worker, the cop, the cowboy...

I did think it was nice that the U.S. Navy wanted to use "In the Navy" for their advertising campaign to recruit the lusty young men of a country so deeply in denial about the true nature of sexuality.

By the bye, I learned early on that when the question, "Are you married?" was answered with a negative, and the next question was "Have you ever been in the Navy?", that the man asking the question was trying to pick me up.

What really gets me about the typical All-American male sports fan is the way he establishes his hetero bona fides by displaying a passion for sports, never mind that 6 of 10 in the 30-40 age group is overweight and 9 out of 10 is so out of shape that he couldn't finish a game of touch football. These are the same broke dicks who think that every woman wants their hunk of burning love. You should see the looks on their faces when the drunken louts make a pass at me, and I give 'em the old heave-ho. Ho, ho, ho.

There's nothing funnier and hardly anything more satisfying than seeing a gay boxer cream one of these lame-asses.

One time a waiter who was a master of fellatio called me a fag, and he was completely unconscious of any irony in what he said. Another 'real' man wanted nothing more than to have his booty plundered by a 'real' pirate. Later he said he should kick my ass for being a faggot, totally unaware of his hypocrisy, until his buddy spoke up (not knowing what happened), and said that anybody who took it up the ass was a fag, of course. What made this little exchange even more hilarious was that this drunkard had enjoyed my services, as well. This is typical of the All-American heterosexual--it's only gay if somebody else does it.

The comment should have never been made and I would have thought he would have learned from his past mistakes,but in the end I guess some just never learn.

I worked as a cook at a restaurant back in the early '80's. At the time, I was concerned that I might have AIDS because of some unusual physical symptoms I had, but was reluctant to get tested because of the weird way some of the nurses acted at the place I'd last been tested.

I confided this to some 'friends', and within a day, the rumor was rampant that I had AIDS (I should have known better than to tell anyone my concerns).

Some people I knew came into the restaurant (apparently they weren't aware I was working there), and as soon as they saw me on the open line, they all got up and left, post haste.

Another cook who worked there was always boasting about his liaisons with various women (he called them bitches). One day, he invited me to his apartment to drink some beer. His roommate was there, and after a couple of beers, the cook grabbed me from behind in a full nelson.

I'm pretty strong (he outweighed me by a good 40 pounds}, and I backed him into the wall. He was straining to hold me, so he yelled to his roommate, "Help me with this!"

The roommate had seen me handle their vicious dog when it menaced me, so he declined to get involved in this attempted rape.

I slammed the stupid thug into the wall as hard as I could, and he let go.

They both looked stunned, so I stood there, and said, "It's a good thing for both of you that my sister's not here, because that 'bitch' would castrate both of you, with ease."

I turned, and left. The cook quit his job.

I've never been one to wear my sexuality on my shirt sleeve, I think it's in bad taste, unless you're in a demonstration for gay pride.

Frankly, I don't need 'gay pride', because I have my own. I don't want any part of 'the gay world', because I think we all live in the same world.

If someone addresses me as a heterosexual, I won't hesitate to say that I prefer men, but I'm not going to go around making an issue of it.

I think it's silly to pretend that sexual preferences are so clear-cut and black/white, anyway. There's plenty of people who dwell in the grey areas.

I look forward to the day when this country is grown-up enough to accept an openly gay movie star who plays leading man roles, or an NFL quarterback who can openly say, "I'm gay, so what?"

Believe me, I've said those very words many times to some vexed queen in a gay bar who just wouldn't buy
my butch mannerisms. I think many gays are as deluded as the straights who think everyone can be neatly categorized, and that they fall victim to the same stereotypes that make cartoons of us.

Rather than label me gay, why not give me a chance to reveal myself as who I truly am? Maybe I'm a little bit Lone Ranger, a bit of Groucho Marx, and just enough Bette Davis to make me interesting.

Remember a few years back when it first started being trendy to have gay friends?

Still, there's a part of our society that despises homosexuals, or, at least, it pays 'lip service' (sorry) to homophobic hate speech.

Most of the people who carry on this way are, shall we say, a bit dull. They don't have much understanding of human psychology, not even intuitively.

You would think that even dullards might recognize a glimmer within themselves of attraction for a member of their own sex, at least once in their lives. Well, they do, but they can't consciously acknowledge it to themselves- they just don't have the psychic framework in place to support the ego.

One thing that can be said for the Greek myths of the Gods is that they portrayed all the deities as inflicted with the same foibles that make humankind so pathetic. I think the Gods' superhuman powers represented the same powers resident in the human mind, but only dimly recognized there, and never fully developed.

Sometimes I wonder if these people, the dullard haters, grew up with any myths at all. I believe the symbolism of myths and tales, legends and stories, is understood on an unconscious level, intuitively, by just about everybody.

The ancient myths are full of violence and reprehensible behaviour by humans and the Gods themselves, but they express the deepest truths about the human struggle with existence. We may share their powers, but the Gods personify those cosmic forces that we can never control.

I always took literally Jesus' statement: "Ye are gods." I still believe it, and as Stewart Brand said, "We might as well get good at it."

Cheers, Amen.

Hear that, ye dullards?

As a secure man who happens to prefer sex with other men, I take no personal offense at Ozzie's gaffe. Nothing he, or any rapper or Rastafarian could say about us will perturb my cool.

Anyone who's spent time in a gay bar knows that gay people have their own glossary of insults--'troll', 'fag hag', 'trailer trash'--most of them just don't have the opportunity to embarrass themselves on national TV.

I couldn't care less what Ozzie Guillen says or thinks. Sure, it was foolish of him to say that, but this news ain't gonna bring down the house.

It's the ingrained attitudes that people show in everyday life that really burn me up. Some people expect you to live up to their expectations of what a 'faggot' is. Some people don't want you to say "I'm gay", and then act the butch way you normally act.

It gets so bad that if I say hello to a man I know in passing, any man at all, handsome or ugly, some so-and-so will
say, "So you had sex with him?" I won't even dignify that with a response.

In the course of everyday life, business or pleasure, I meet men whose sexuality is ambiguous, usually butch guys who seem about like me, at least in their approach to life and sex.

Sometimes it's easier to say, "Hey, no offense, but I'm a faggot." It just sounds more natural and humorous than saying, "I am a homosexual." You might as well say you love reading Tristram Shandy as to say that.

They usually respond with something like' "That's cool, man, I'm a little bit bi, myself."

I guess if if it wasn't for the same-old same-old, I wouldn't have any sex at all.

Knowing publicity people, I'm surprised Ozzie Guillen didn't make a public announcement that the curse of his life had been undiagnosed Tourette's syndrome, and now, by the wonder of better living through modern chemistry, he is a new man, and much happier.

It could even be true.

Ozzie's faux pas doesn't offend me nearly as much as the antics of those portly preachers who mount the podium and yell and scream, point their fingers at Us sinners, shake their fists, and even sometimes foam at the mouth.

They're beyond undignified, they're downright uncivilized. And they want our money--now. That's just the stock in trade for the deep-fried jeremiahs.

The scary thing is that they are the most vital, active "do-gooders" of the congregations.

God help us all if they find a way to seize the government of the United States.

Then we'll find out what Hell really is.

If Ozzie called me a fag to my face, intended as an insult, I'd probably slug him. If I simply overheard him talking about 'fags', I'd just think, "What a jerk", and ignore him. Straight guys (especially ones who don't get laid much), run down gays because it reinforces their personal 'machismo'.

I always think, 'It must be broke if if needs support."

Bashing gays to feel manly really isn't so different from queens dishing each other because it makes them feel more womanly.

It's no wonder so many men are emotionally repressed in the sex-obsessed U.S.A. Men in this country have a larger zone of personal space than in a lot of other places. I spent a month travelling in Italy, where you see men sitting close together, comfortably touching each other, without being thought gay. Some of them noticed my inconspicuous (so I thought) glances, and even remarked on it (I understand a little Italian). I think they were saying: "Those stupido Americanos, you'd think they never saw two men touching each other."

They may not have known it, but I was envious. I'm not big on public displays of affection, it's just nice to see two heterosexual men able to share a little 'touch' with each other without self-consciousness, or without the socially acceptable cover of a pat on the ass in a football game.

I think men here miss a lot of the emotional depth of friendship, and lack some of the richness of feeling that comes with free physical expression of it.

I think that's what Iggy Pop had in mind when he did "I wanna be your dog".

The first thing that happens when you come out is a lot of guy-girl couples are suddenly interested in you. Not as a person, just as the third card in a threesome. Nobody ever has the guts to just come right out and say, "Hey, let's have an orgy." How refreshing would that be? No, they have to make a tortuous ordeal (for me) of it. I was never good at those silly little games, and like as not, I'd probably take them literally, whatever stupid innuendo they were using this time.

I may kid about it, but I'm too much of a lover to go for orgies. I'm not even into man/woman threesomes. I never have a clever 'comeback' for their timid come-ons. Occasionally I'll have one of those 'esprit d'escalier' moments, where a really clever retort will pop into mind, about three hours too late.

If it was me, I'd just come out with it, and say what's on my mind. It's almost always the guy's idea, anyway, they send their woman as the bait. That's when I think (of the guy), "You idiot, don't you know you're the bait?!"

Men are so goofy.

I'll probably have a heart attack the first time one acts like he actually wants to know me.

I'm proud to call myself a fag. How many times have I sat at a bar, unwillingly listening to guys (most of them 30-40 pounds overweight) carry on and on about sports. I don't despise sports, I actually like football and soccer, but I'd rather play them than spectate. I find it amusing that these bar stool 'heroes', each with his gut hanging in all its amplitude, imagine themselves to be more of a man than any 'fag' walking. What a joke. None of them could run half a mile or even do twenty push-ups consecutively.

I think that if the United States is ever to become the enlightened society it pretends to be, masculinity in this country will have to be redefined.

Telling the construction crew you're working with that you're a fag doesn't sit too well. Those guys will harass any newcomer with incessant glee in a ritual hazing to prove your mettle as one of the guys, so how do you think they would receive a self-avowed queer? The only way you could weasel out of that one would be to offer everybody blow jobs, on the house.

If you live in certain areas, and you decide to come out, you have to be prepared for receptions like this:

You walk into a bar. All conversation stops and every head turns to stare at you.

The best thing to do in a tense situation like that is make a Jett Rink arm swoop and order a scotch on the rocks, single malt, please.

Back when I smoked, I would have leaned against the bar, put my foot on the rail, and lit a cigarette with style and panache. Now I just give 'em my best Steve McQueen on acid. Works every time.

Deciding to be a fag, officially, was the most liberating thing I ever did. Every horndog, 'straight' or 'gay', knows the routine of looking for sex. It was easier to just say as soon as possible after meeting somebody of interest, if they starting talking about sex with women, "Hey, look, I'm a faggot, O.K.?"

That way you give them an easy out, if they don't want to talk to a fag. Mercifully, they usually don't care, but they do appreciate the notice, so they can define the situation and their side of it.

I mean, it's just common courtesy, really. Besides, half of them are bisexual anyway, they just can't psychologically define themselves that way, unless they're drunk, naturally.

It's all cool with me, I'm a realist. And I always admired Paul Krassner.

Just exactly what is a "fag", anyway? The first time I saw a drag show, there were a bunch of guys I would have called rednecks sitting at the front tables with their girlfriends. When the drag queens came up to shake some T&A, more than one of the good ol' boys buried his head in their ample silicone cleavage. They were the best tippers in the house, too, and could stuff some cash into a he-she's crotch with style and panache (some of them did it with their teeth), even if they were polluted drunk.

Are they fags?

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