Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for April 29, 2022

What Chase is saying is: You will still be a gay man if you wear a business suit!

Hilarious stuff! ..I wonder if Trudeau could get away with it now? Any ideas? (And will someone decide to take offense at this anyway, being that it’s a quarter of a century old?)

There will always be someone that will take offense, that is a given in todays world, and is probably still a topic of heated discussion among members of various sexual identity factions.

I mean maybe he’d have a point if Mark’s transformation had been more extreme, I guess, but….

This gay thing has gone on for long enough, can we get back to normal people now please?

What Chase says reflects on my comments from yesterday.

Chase is a VERY wise man!!

I can’t relate. I’ve never wanted to belong

Chase is really exposing his own self-loathing: “gay = undignified”…

I believe that Chase is saying that being gay is not about calling attention to yourself by assuming a stereotype, but, as someone said above, is normal for you and many others. But you don’t have to advertise it any more than you have to advertise that you are left or right-handed.

I don’t have any meat on this BBQ but I think they both have good points. To each his own. …which is sort of how we got here in the first place.

The thing is if the internet was in full swing 25 years ago when it was first published, OP’s post would be agreed with full heartedly.

Not your first offensive remark and probably not your last.

I would never in real life tell someone that their reason for staying in the closet is bogus…but Chase is cartoon character. That reason is bogus. A polite excuse to cover for a real reason that’s more painful. If my boyfriend said something like that, I would back off and just be supportive. No good can come of picking at the currently exposed nerve.

Homosexuals have always been part of our society in addition to being forced to form their own societies. I am, however, looking forward to a time when the sexual spectrum is broadly recognized. At that point, we won’t have celebrities declaring a new form of “fluid”, “non-binary”, “gender-rejecting” sexual preference every other year. It’s OK to have a crush on either sex. You don’t have to act on it. You don’t have to change your wardrobe or get surgically altered. Just be cool.

While Chase is right that being gay has nothing to do with what you wear he is being a bit disingenuous about why gay people stay in the closet, and particularly why they did when the strip was written. It was for safety, to prevent being disowned by one’s family and friends, to avoid being beaten up on the street, to avoid being fired (or thrown out of the army), all sorts of fun reasons.

The whole point of Mark/Chase is the comic version of "opposites attract "—-and you don’t have to be straight to fall into that category.

Also,there was a very early ALL IN THE FAMILY where Archie found out the biggest,toughest guy at the local tavern was gay.

Dignity in an empty sack is worth the sack.

For some of you, you can tell if a man is gay or Not by the way he dresses? Hmmmm

To answer a question without feeding a troll: Reprinted story arcs always pause, or end, on Saturday. Then there’s a new strip Sunday, and then back to reprints on Monday, which will either continue the previous week’s story arc or begin a new one. In this case I’m fairly certain it will be the latter, so said troll need only Hold on for One More Day.

Why would anyone want to be like everyone else? If everyone is everyone then no one is anyone else and thus anyone is no one. OSLT. ;-)

Besides, Chase is a “right-winger” bowing to the “side” that hates him, so is he really in a position to talk about “dignity”? :-|

I won’t say that I speak for some people, or for most people, or even for anyone in particular, but since you (whomever you are) asked (or didn’t) my opinion is as follows:

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion…. Even though you’re wrong!”

Don’t know if it’s on purpose but I like the way Mark seems to be leaning on the panel frame in #4.