opinion

Let's not get concepts confused here...

Wimps in high places
by Eric Jackson

Are bullies courageous? Are people who get bullied weak and timid? Was Jesus a coward? Was Pontius Pilate brave? Are guerrillas who fight and run away unmanly terrorists, and regulars who indiscriminately bombard areas where they think that guerrillas are hiding tough guy soldiers? Were Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. losers, and their assassins winners? Ponder these questions just to loosen up your mind.

And then consider the politician who singles out a minority of maybe five percent of the electorate, a group that causes no more problems than any other yet has been vilified for centuries by the zealots of the monotheistic religions, to gratuitously attack at election time.

Yeah, that's how George W. Bush got re-elected in 2004, by the Republicans putting proposals to ban gay marriages on the ballots of several states. And that's apparently how Martín Torrijos thinks the PRD will retain power in 2009. His party has proposed a new law to prohibit the adoption of children by homosexuals, and as these words were written it was flying through the National Assembly without any serious opposition.

Never mind that gay men and lesbians have been raising children here for a very long time --- sometimes as biological parents, often as relatives taking in children whose parents can't, won't or shouldn't be allowed to care for them, and sometimes by way of formal adoption --- without this presenting any special problems. Never mind that the most vicious and sensationalist yellow journalists haven't been able to identify a single case of abuse to become the emblem of the attack on gays who adopt. Never mind that Panama has kids who need adoptive homes --- most of them children with handicaps, learning disabilities or other special needs --- and a shortage of people willing and able to adopt.

But it's election time and the politicians are playing smear the queer. Wouldn't you expect that from a political party created by a dictatorship that disappeared a small town parish priest for creating a farmers' cooperative?

So what's the opposition's excuse? Which anti-PRD deputy had the minimal courage and ordinary decency to stand up in the National Assembly and say that this is wrong? Which of the would-be presidents of Panama will stand up and say that this sort of hatred has no place in this country's public life?

So you politicians insist that all of Panama's students learn English? Let me give you an appropriate English lesson for the occasion:

wimp, noun: 1. a weak, cowardly, or ineffectual person;

2. (informal, disapproving): a person who is not strong, brave or confident;

3. a person who lacks confidence, is irresolute and wishy-washy;

4. A physical or emotional weakling;

5. One who runs from a fight, one who bails and leaves his friends to fight 10 versus 3;

6. A weak person (typically male) who can't stand up for himself or others;

etymology: Contraction of "whimper," a sound a wimp might make. The term is rumored to have come from "Wimps," a group of French Roma who were kicked out of France, then moved to England and were kicked out again, then moved to the United States. The term was understood in the United States by the 1930s, as it was incorporated into the names of two famous media characters known for living up to that name: the devious but cowardly Popeye supporting character called "J. Wellington Wimpy," and the soft-spoken character "Wallace Wimple" from the radio show Fibber McGee and Molly.

synonyms: coward, candy-ass, wuss, crybaby, chicken, doormat, weakling, milksop, craven, poltroon, dastard

en español: n.: cobarde, gallina, collón, tímido, cortado, parado, enclenque, endeble, débil, calzonazos, calzorras, debilucho,-a, esmirriado,-a, canijo,-a

— wimps plural

— wimp·i·ness noun

— wimp·ish adjective

— wimp·ish·ness noun

— wimpy adjective

— to wimp out infinitive

A couple of examples of "wimps" are guys who think that it's a manly thing to beat up queers, especially by ganging up; and politicians who seek political advantage by berating or oppressing homosexuals. The widely held notion that homosexuals are wimps --- like the false stereotype that they tend to be child molesters --- is not borne out by history. You wouldn't have wanted to have called Alexander the Great or T. E. Lawrence a wimp to their faces, and you'd be an idiot to cast such aspersions in the presence of the many gay men or lesbians fighting in Iraq.

True progress will come to Panama when we repeal the criminal defamation laws and pass criminal wimpishness laws in their place. In the meantime, Panamanians of good character ought to resolve to vote against every politician who supported the anti-gay adoption law, as well as everyone who wimped out and shirked his or her public duty to oppose this obnoxious measure.

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