It's 'okay' to be X-Men

"Have you tried not being a mutant?"

One of my long-standing beefs with the newer X-Men live-action movie franchises can be summed up in that line from X2. For generations, X-Men has been a story about outcasts, weirdos, and freaks struggling to find a place in society and just be themselves. It calls out to virtually every teenager alive, who feels as if he or she is the only person in the world going through this bizarre body-morphing process while struggling to figure out whether he or she is a child or an adult.

Originally, mutants were sometimes seen as a rough analog to racism. (In one extremely cute moment in the Larger Universe of the franchise, a mutant sent back in time is almost 'charmed' to be denied a seat in a restaurant, not because she is a mutant, but because she is black.) The more recent trilogy, though, especially the second movie, leaned heavily on a connection with homosexuality instead. Of course, they probably immediately alienated everyone who wanted to make that connection in X3, when a mutant 'cure' was found and at least one pitiable case decided to take it...

The more I began to think about this connection, the more I realized that it was actually pretty useful in untangling the modern 'gay rights' movement, much more useful than it could have been in understanding racism. The standard factions of the X-Men franchise actually correlate fairly well to the factions in this particular struggle. Of course, it isn't a perfect correlation, as a significant group of people (myself included) do not believe that homosexual behavior is inborn, unavoidable, and morally neutral. (Granted, arguments could be made about the morality of a mutant ability that can only be used to make other people deathly ill.) Still, for what it's worth, here are the correlations:

Charles Xavier and the Rank-And-File: On the good side, you have Xavier's school for mutants and his undying efforts to tweak society gently into one in which a blue-skinned girl can walk down the street alongside her 'normal' friend without fear. He simply wants mutants and regular humans to live in peace. To that end, he encourages mutants to show a sense of propriety in public. Being blue-skinned isn't an invitation to walk around naked. There is no harm in using your ice power to cool your tea, but don't go flinging shards at the neighborhood bully. Live in peace inasmuch as you can. On the other side, he opposes the Mutant Registration Act, which tends to lead to big stomping robots going about genetically identifying mutants and putting them in prison.

In the realm of 'gay rights', these would be the people who are quite willing to work with a gay person, or have one in the apartment complex, as long as he and his partner aren't tongue-kissing out in front of the children or doing drugs... things that are utterly avoidable no matter your sexual preference.

"Friends of Humanity" and the genuinely afraid: Everyone can agree that these people are basically either bad or misguided, so I don't need to spend a lot of time on them. They are analogous to the people in the gay 'rights' debate who want to throw all homosexuals in jail, the ones who see these people not as sinners with the rest of us, but as being in some way subhuman. In an irony that carries over to the real world, some of the angriest anti-mutant folk have mutants in their family, and the hatred spills over from fear.)

Now here comes the interesting part of the discussion.

Magneto and his followers: Unlike Xavier, who wants peaceful coexistence, Magneto sees himself and other mutants as superior to humans and believe that mutants should rule. He takes it as a no-brainer that mutants should not only appear in their natural shapes in public, but should have free and unfettered exercise of their mutant powers. He believes that they are the next step in human evolution and that the regular humans should submit to them.

This is a clear and not often-explored goal among the gay 'rights' activists. Many homosexuals are just as willing as many non-homosexuals to simply live in peace, respecting each other's rights. Gays don't claim religious significance for acts that religions ban; straights don't confront them in alleyways telling them to 'repent' or take a beating. That would be the Charles Xavier way. Gay activists, however, insist that homosexual behavior will "strengthen" marriage... how? By redefining adultery and removing 'old-fashioned' notions of longevity. The gay relationship is, to them, the next step in human evolution, and they will ensure that everyone be forced to submit.

Mystique/Raven, being a blue-skinned shapeshifter with golden eyes, is drawn alternately in the most recent movies to Charles Xavier, who says that she should be able to go to school with the other children in the proper school uniform and not ostracized for her skin color, and Magneto, who says that she should be able to go to school utterly naked (the actress wears a latex suit) and the other people should have no right to object. I can't help but be reminded by the school officials who are willing to extend to a single-stalled bathroom to a physically male student who thinks he ought to be female, and the activists who insist that he should be allowed to enter a bathroom full of girls and neither the girls nor their parents have the right to object.

I have consistently taken Charles Xavier's side in the gay 'rights' fight, affirming the right of any peaceful citizen to live and travel peacefully. I wonder what would happen if I started referring to the gay activists as "Magneto". Perhaps that simple act would be enough to get the homosexual lobby to leave X-Men alone... and for the next generation of geeks and freaks who are not homosexual to feel comfortable, as has been for generations before us, identifying with the mutants.