Statistically speaking, there should be more gays on campus. 10,000 students at Waikato and three regulars at the weekly Askew meetings? Get out of here. Where’s my gays at? I have decided it’s my job to hunt them down and, if need be, out them. I don’t mean with a crossbow and garlic. I don’t even mean with a snazzy red suit and some beagles and a fat peasant running behind me with a little trumpet. I am hunting them in the same way one ‘hunts’ for flowers or ‘hunts’ for a bargain at Chartwell (which, during a recession, is remarkably easy).

I want the gays out there to know that they don’t have to be afraid of being out and about. Wear it on your shirt, for crying out loud, if that makes you feel good. Or don’t, if that’s what you want to do with your sexuality. But, whatever you do, don’t hide it like a bad case of the herpes or an embarrassing tattoo. I want to see gays holding hands and laughing and not being afraid of some spray tanned goon in a rugby shirt calling them a fag. What’s he know, when he spends all his time in showers with men and grabbing other chaps in the mud? And who is he to call you a fag? He probably shaves his legs, cries when he’s hungover and has been dumped more times than I’ve got laid. And that’s a lot. Cos I’m engaged.

I want the gays to know that there’s no more Stonewall Riots and hitmen hunting Harvey Milk. I mean, sure there are, but not here and certainly not on my fucking watch. It’s safe in New Zealand. We’re the first place in the world to give women the vote, we’re the first place in the world to have an openly gay (transgender can I add) mayor or member of parliament. We had two women prime ministers when most of the world was still banging two rocks together and refusing to let women ride shotgun. We’re a socially, sexually liberated country. You want to be a homo? Then fucking go for gold! If you’re being hassled in the street because of your sexuality, don’t just take it lying down. Tell that thug, that Neanderthal, that National Front pseudo-Christian Fascist to suck your giant gay balls and fuck right off. Or, if you’re the fairer sex, tell him to kiss your labia and make nice.

On the same line, we need to stop hassling the gays. Us straight folk, the sexually unenlightened cave-men and women who seem to think that gays are the Jews of the 21st Century. It’s no more okay for us to discriminate against gays than it is to discriminate against vegetarians and blacks.

But Art, I hear you moan, gays are unnatural and horrible things, going against nature and God and all his angels. Kiss my circumcised disco-stick, you stupid goy fucks. If that’s true and you hate the gays on a scientific, religious level like Fred Phelps and his hate-Nazis in the USA, then  you don’t really have a place in this beautiful, liberal country we call Aotearoa. Oh, you’re a Nazi and you think we should get rid of all the gays? Well, how about you go and have a look over your own beliefs and a few motivational films from the Third Reich. The latent homo-eroticism in the ideology of the Kraut’s Third Reich is about as straight as a New Years party at Michael Barrymore’s house. Ernst Rohm, head of the feared SA (the way tougher predecessor of the SS) was a raving gay. Loved to gobble up the Spear of Destiny anytime he wasn’t kicking the shit out of immigrants and Communists. I don’t have proof, but anecdotal evidence also leads me to believe that Hitler was gay. The first time he ever kissed a girl in public was in the bunker a few days before he topped himself. He probably killed himself out of disgust for getting girl germs. So there you are, you Nazi fucks, your beloved Fuehrer would rather make out with cute Aryan boys than listen to whatever Rammstein-derivative shit you’ve got on your mum’s car stereo right now.

If you hate gays so much, stop going on about ‘300’. In that movie, those guys are all gay. Gay gay gay. You know what they were doing when the Persians weren’t attacking them? I’ll give you a clue: it has little to do with witty discussions and poignant speeches about freedom and a lot to do with buggering each other. Yet, how many rugby teams and high school gangs like to refer to themselves as Spartans? You may as well call them the Boy George Death Militia or Elton John’s Screaming Murder Eagles.

So in closing, here’s what I have to say to you, straight gay or otherwise: let the gays be gay. Don’t let the gays be afraid. Don’t let jocks and other high-school through backs chase you back into the closet. Be proud, be strong and for god’s sake, be gay as hell.