By Samwell
 

With the Hate The Hate benefit around the corner, my thoughts turned to the impact gay artists have had on metal, and the evolving history of attitudes towards them and gay metalheads. (Note: I'm aware the most inclusive term is LGBTQ--Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, & Questioning. Sorry, but it's just too long an acronym.)

Today, metal claims a number of prominent, openly gay artists, including Gaahl...

Recently dated clothing designer Dan De Vero (really), whose fashion sense must therefore be called into question.

...Otep Shamaya...

How are your lesbian fantasies now, dude?

...and, of course, the Metal God, Rob "The Half" Halford.

If you didn't know, you were blind and retarded.

For years, conservative Christians have been painting metalheads as unrepentant Satanists, and homosexuals. By God, they were right.

Metal culture can pretty much be broken down into two aspects: the music and the look--and the look, with no exaggeration, is attributable to one man: Rob Halford, metal's fashion Jesus. Searching for clothing that matched the aggressive sounds he was innovating with Judas Priest, Half appropriated the look of the "leather daddy" subculture he was discovering. The impact cannot be overstated. Before Half's leather n' spikes intervention, metal looked like this...

Is there anything less metal than red pajama bottoms?

...and ever after it looked like this...

Kerry King's "iron porcupine" bracer: metal's most metal accouterment.

The next time you're throwing on a bullet belt on your way to see Megadeth, thank Halford that it's not a chiffon scarf.

How accepting has the metal community been of gay artists and fans? I believe Halford and Gaahl's claims that on coming out neither of them received a single piece of hate mail, and I truly believe metalheads, an ostracized community on the whole, are among rock's most accepting fans; I'd put money that they're more tolerant than the Dave Matthews backwards-hat frat boy crowd. Perhaps it's naive to think the metal community would have been as accepting in the '80s, but it should be noted that there was a time when many straight bands looked like this...

You can't buy Aquanet anymore, because Nitro exhausted Earth's supply.

...and people's main objection wasn't that they looked "gay", it was that they looked horrible. Note: most gay men I know, who pump iron at twice the frequency straight guys do, would stomp your nuts if you suggested they were inclined to sport Jim Gillete's late-era-Elvis-as-a-transvestite-poodle look.

I think a good example of evolving sensitivity about gay artists and metalheads can be found in a somewhat uncomfortable--for me--story of our own lyrics, specifically a section of our theme song, "King Hell":

Don't listen to what them preachers say

Earth is dull and Heaven's gay

Get on down and burn that ass in flames

I take responsibility for this lyric. I'm a staunch supporter of equal rights (for all), and believe the fight against gay marriage will, in the not distant future, be viewed as one of of the most shameful chapters in our Nation's history. But I still penned a lyric that this guy would think was awesome:

Bro!

I wrote this lyric with almost no thought--in about 10 seconds--and it made me giggle. But over the years, it bothered me increasingly, and I got to thinking about why I chose the word "gay", and what I should do about it. I concluded I did it for three reasons:

• "Gay", the original adjective, means cheery, festive, light--these things are odious to me. Mark Twain, in Letters From Earth--a seriously metal book, written from Satan's perspective--describes Heaven as an insufferable place where everyone's nice to each other and strums harps all day. Gay--again, the original adjective--is the perfect, one syllable word to describe this nightmare.

• Calling Heaven gay would tweak bigoted conservative Christians, and what sane person doesn't want to piss this guy off:

My crazy goes to 11

• And, finally, I used it because "gay" somehow entered my generation's vocabulary as a synonym for "sucks", or "weak". No way around it: using "gay" this way is a slur, and the fact that it's commonplace doesn't change that. (It also doesn't make any sense.)

Reasons 1 and 2 I think are perfectly valid, and about reason 3, as an avowed language libertarian, I don't believe any word that's in the dictionary but over time got attached to a population should necessarily be off limits. But, again, I couldn't deny I used it as a slur, and that nagged at my conscience. I had two good reasons to use the word, one I couldn't defend. What to do...

Ultimately, I changed the lyric. It now reads, "Heaven's lame, get on down and burn that ass in flames". Why the change? Gut feeling. I look forward to the day when "gay" can't be used as a slur, or even confused for a slur, because gay people have been wholly accepted into society, and calling something gay to indicate it's bad simply wouldn't compute. But today, somewhere, a kid is getting his teeth kicked in because he brought his boyfriend to the prom. And I don't want any part of that shit. It will take effort to mind our vocabulary--habitual slurs are surprisingly hard to shake, maybe because they're so easy to reach for--but it will change the conversation. And some day--hopefully some day soon--we won't be talking about benefit shows at all.

Yup, a Keith Haring painting in a King Hell email. If you look out your window, you'll see the Four Horsemen on the horizon.

P.S. The above essay is the only sincere thing you will ever read from this band. We hope you enjoyed the diversion. We will now resume talking about how Dio is rad. Also, we're not giving up all dick jokes, because, regardless of sexual orientation, dicks are ridiculous looking and therefore fair game.