Washington, PA councilman, Matt Staniszeweski, authored a test emergency alert email from the city’s department of transportation, reading, “Alert: This is a test. Bryan is gay.” The message was sent to all Washington residents subscribing to emergency alerts. Complaints about the immaturity and content of the message soon followed. Mayor Brenda Davis described the email as “completely inappropriate and unprofessional coming from an elected official.” Davis said that she was unsure why Staniszeweski had access to the password of the transportation department’s email.

After facing criticism from the mayor and community, Staniszeweski claimed in a statement that his use of the word gay was intended to mean “happy,” and responded to the mayor’s comments saying, “It’s offensive and unprofessional for the mayor to automatically assume one definition of the word when there are multiple definitions.”

Washington, PA native and GLSEN Student Advocate of 2011, Emmett Patterson commented on the content of the email.

The Matt Staniszeweski case is problematic in the following ways. Firstly, his use of the word “gay” as a means of humor or public humiliation. Let’s face it, the use of gay to equate to stupid is so, as Jimmy Kimmel puts it, “fourth grade.” In addition, as a person outside of the LGBTQ community, the councilman isn’t at liberty to try to reclaim any kind of word that is involved in a community that he isn’t a part of. Some communities have been reclaiming words that may have been detrimental to them. However, words are personal to the communities who they have affected.

Secondly, the fact that this public figure couldn’t even own up to his mistake just reflects poorly on his abilities to be a responsible leader. By saying that he meant “gay” to mean happy shows that he denies the entire history and social implications of the utilization of that word. In the LGBTQ movement, language choice is absolutely critical. True, gay used to mean happy. But it gradually transformed to take on a new meaning. The meanings of words are valid in their social and historical context: they have histories, some volatile and harmful.

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel aired a segment on the email, saying of Staniszeweski, “This guy sounds like a real dumbbell. And by that, I mean he sounds like someone you could use for strength training… not offensive.”

As of today, Staniszeweski has not apologized for his actions. What do you think should be done?