Maybe There’s a Reason It’s Straight to Hell Not Gay to Hell FUNNY BUTTON
This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.
View more Anti-Homophobia Buttons.
I like this design for many reasons. First, it uses a pun that maximizes the meaning of both meanings. By utilizing the ancient phrase “straight to hell”, it captures both the clarity of judgment and the eternal significance or importance of such a judgment. Of course, then comes the pun! The pun on “straight” is not actually made clear until the new phrase “gay to hell” is read. Then, the full force of the pun on “straight” takes effect! Since anti-gay judgmentalism is so deeply rooted in religious bigotry, a complete reversal of this judgment upon the judgmental homophobe is particularly delicious. I humbly submit that this is more than enough to classify this design as an instant classic. Nonetheless, there is more than one layer to this hell. Using the freshly minted phrase, “gay to hell”, or more specifically, “NOT gay to hell”, besides laying waste to the classic ‘straight to hell’ phrase, offers a couple more layers to reflect upon. Most people recognize the pun on gay, meaning both homosexual or queer in contemporary usage, and meaning happy in more colloquial usage. This play on words has been used in many ways and it is quite familiar. Juxtaposing “gay”, eliciting both of these meanings, with the concept of hell, can pose some interesting reflections and can get pretty deep pretty fast. The most obvious meaning is supposed to be the simple assertion that being gay has nothing to do with going to hell, and, in fact, the commonly accepted homophobia in our society puts us at risk for damnation. The secondary and tertiary meanings get more complicated with the relationship of happiness to hell. Evil people are often portrayed as miserly and unhappy people. People who take the time and effort to align themselves with the good are generally understood to experience joy and happiness, at least for those of us who see reality as beneficent. I think that when gays truly accept the reality for who they are, there is very often a playful joy that is manifest. This is true in the arts, heavily populated by queers, and generally correlated with flamboyancy. 
Plus, there is a much more bearable lightness of being represented by joy as opposed to the connotations of happiness with moral goodness and right behavior. It is this playful and more bearable lightness of being that I can identify with and by which I even consider myself “queer” as a straight man who happens to be funny (what could be more queer!). There is a quote that I can really relate to: “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God,” which is one of the quotes I have on a peace sign design. What could be more of the opposite of hell than the presence of God! I suspect that it’s more likely that moral goodness and right behavior emanates from deeply experienced joy than the other way around. While this may be viewed as a radical and mystical concept, that is simply because it is a radical and mystical concept. However, it’s not completely incomprehensible. To truly be in the presence of God is a joyful experience. To be in the presence of God greatly increases our probability of behaving in sync with the nature of God, and honoring the joy that comes from experiencing that nature. On the other hand, the conventional wisdom of the world is usually reduced to the notion that if we argue about what is morally good and what is right behavior that all will be well. Unfortunately, this plays into our ungodly nature; that would be when we live out of fear and focus on controlling others. Religion has led the way in oppressing and repressing sex and sexuality. Sex and sexuality are very powerful realities in our lives. Sex and sexuality requires a mature level of respect and responsibility. Healthy sex and sexuality is not simple or easy. This is probably exactly the reason why religion has been so concerned, quite appropriately, with sex and sexuality. Nonetheless, fear and our desire to control one another has seriously polluted religion’s ability to effectively deal with sex and sexuality. While I’m a big fan of the social Gospel, which implies a responsibility for one another, the good news that is the Gospel, is predicated upon our own healing and achieving some balance in her own life so that we can be healthy enough to help others. We can’t give people something that we don’t have. Yet, perhaps mysteriously, we can be more together than we can alone; thus, we must recognize the reality that we are social creatures in the same boat together, and some isolated piety disconnected from the real needs of others is of little value to God or others. Hey, I told you that there were a lot of layers and that it would get pretty deep. In the end, in regard to this design, I think it puts right side up something that religion has gotten upside down for so long, and the irony is that religion at its best is supposed to turn things right side up. Let’s make it so. Amen!
P.S. in case there is any confusion, I don’t believe in hell, at least not in any way that construes God as wanting to hurt people.
Maybe There’s a Reason It’s Straight to Hell Not Gay to Hell
Maybe There’s a Reason It’s Straight to Hell Not Gay to Hell FUNNY BUTTON
This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.
View more Anti-Homophobia Buttons.
I like this design for many reasons. First, it uses a pun that maximizes the meaning of both meanings. By utilizing the ancient phrase “straight to hell”, it captures both the clarity of judgment and the eternal significance or importance of such a judgment. Of course, then comes the pun! The pun on “straight” is not actually made clear until the new phrase “gay to hell” is read. Then, the full force of the pun on “straight” takes effect! Since anti-gay judgmentalism is so deeply rooted in religious bigotry, a complete reversal of this judgment upon the judgmental homophobe is particularly delicious. I humbly submit that this is more than enough to classify this design as an instant classic. Nonetheless, there is more than one layer to this hell. Using the freshly minted phrase, “gay to hell”, or more specifically, “NOT gay to hell”, besides laying waste to the classic ‘straight to hell’ phrase, offers a couple more layers to reflect upon. Most people recognize the pun on gay, meaning both homosexual or queer in contemporary usage, and meaning happy in more colloquial usage. This play on words has been used in many ways and it is quite familiar. Juxtaposing “gay”, eliciting both of these meanings, with the concept of hell, can pose some interesting reflections and can get pretty deep pretty fast. The most obvious meaning is supposed to be the simple assertion that being gay has nothing to do with going to hell, and, in fact, the commonly accepted homophobia in our society puts us at risk for damnation. The secondary and tertiary meanings get more complicated with the relationship of happiness to hell. Evil people are often portrayed as miserly and unhappy people. People who take the time and effort to align themselves with the good are generally understood to experience joy and happiness, at least for those of us who see reality as beneficent. I think that when gays truly accept the reality for who they are, there is very often a playful joy that is manifest. This is true in the arts, heavily populated by queers, and generally correlated with flamboyancy.
Plus, there is a much more bearable lightness of being represented by joy as opposed to the connotations of happiness with moral goodness and right behavior. It is this playful and more bearable lightness of being that I can identify with and by which I even consider myself “queer” as a straight man who happens to be funny (what could be more queer!). There is a quote that I can really relate to: “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God,” which is one of the quotes I have on a peace sign design. What could be more of the opposite of hell than the presence of God! I suspect that it’s more likely that moral goodness and right behavior emanates from deeply experienced joy than the other way around. While this may be viewed as a radical and mystical concept, that is simply because it is a radical and mystical concept. However, it’s not completely incomprehensible. To truly be in the presence of God is a joyful experience. To be in the presence of God greatly increases our probability of behaving in sync with the nature of God, and honoring the joy that comes from experiencing that nature. On the other hand, the conventional wisdom of the world is usually reduced to the notion that if we argue about what is morally good and what is right behavior that all will be well. Unfortunately, this plays into our ungodly nature; that would be when we live out of fear and focus on controlling others. Religion has led the way in oppressing and repressing sex and sexuality. Sex and sexuality are very powerful realities in our lives. Sex and sexuality requires a mature level of respect and responsibility. Healthy sex and sexuality is not simple or easy. This is probably exactly the reason why religion has been so concerned, quite appropriately, with sex and sexuality. Nonetheless, fear and our desire to control one another has seriously polluted religion’s ability to effectively deal with sex and sexuality. While I’m a big fan of the social Gospel, which implies a responsibility for one another, the good news that is the Gospel, is predicated upon our own healing and achieving some balance in her own life so that we can be healthy enough to help others. We can’t give people something that we don’t have. Yet, perhaps mysteriously, we can be more together than we can alone; thus, we must recognize the reality that we are social creatures in the same boat together, and some isolated piety disconnected from the real needs of others is of little value to God or others. Hey, I told you that there were a lot of layers and that it would get pretty deep. In the end, in regard to this design, I think it puts right side up something that religion has gotten upside down for so long, and the irony is that religion at its best is supposed to turn things right side up. Let’s make it so. Amen!
P.S. in case there is any confusion, I don’t believe in hell, at least not in any way that construes God as wanting to hurt people.