Small steps worth taking note of

Sometimes there is social progress that is easy to miss.

Some poor shlep was doing a powerpoint presentation on the importance of giving blood at a high school near Pittsburg the other day, and mixed up some gay porn shots with the shots intended to encourage blood donation. That’s what grannie might call an oops.

Some parents are outraged. They think it was a big oops. The idea that high school kids had never seen porn before in this day and age would seem to argue for a not so big oops, but let’s not quibble over size.

Of course even people who are not afraid of or embarrassed by porn would still support the majority of people who think there’s a time and place for everything and pornography at a high school assembly is pretty indefensible.

I came across this little news item on the Advocate website. A major gay news source. Included in the article was a video in which a guy tells the reporter that it was “all guys” and a parent refers to it as “male pornography".

So where’s the social progress?

Well, start with what gays would call “the straight press” – an AP article on a Pittsburg television news source.

Nowhere in the article does the fact it was gay porn come up. The problem, in other words, is the inappropriateness of porn of any kind, and no effort is being made to single out special condemnation for gay porn.

Now tell me you don’t see the social progress in that.