Yeah - gay-themed Christmas cards and leather goods. Y’know, stuff that openly declares and celebrates the gay lifestyle. The kind of stuff that might stir up homophobia. Should the Pink Market be taken off-street, then?
That’s true, but they’re not the ones fighting for acceptance and equality. Why should they be the ones calling the tune? Accept gays and lesbians as they are, not as some heterosexuals would like them to be.
There are gay people of this type and gay people of this type. Miller apparently wants to see the streets filled with people of the second type and worse.
Miller also finds the Ozzie & Harriet type of society objectionable (though I would characterize it more as the What’s My Line/I’ve Got A Secret type of society, due the sophistication, charm, wit and relatively elegant dress of most people in America in those days and which is more on display in those shows); and similarly I would find a society full of Bobby Trendys objectionable.
This is why societies have standards: so people can get along. I don’t know of any other group in this country struggling to make behavior that almost everyone else finds laughable or offensive…or both…commonplace, because “that’s who they are”.
What it’s about, is allowing people the right to live their lives as they see fit, provided it doesn’t harm other people. The caveat, here, is that the fact that you might not like the way some people live their lives does not constitute harming you. I have spoken to the appropriateness of context, though. If you know that a particular behavior discomfits other people, it’s polite to refrain from that behavior when you are interacting with those people. However, we have the right to create our own communities, and (within reason) define what is acceptable behavior within those communities. Gay pride parades are not about interacting with straight people. They’re about the gay community interacting with itself. If you don’t like it, it should be easy enough to avoid it: it’s a parade, after all. It’s not like it’s going to sneak up on you.
Of course you have the right to find them objectionable. What you do not have is the right to punish people for not acting the way you want them to act.
And I never said I loathed the society that gave rise to Ricky Nelson. I just said that I loathed Ricky Nelson. And so should you! Did you listen to that song he was singing? The guy’s out there, in front of God and everyone, bragging about how many girlfriends he’s got! It’s indecent!
Ooooh, yeah, that fellow in drag is BAD. Best not to let him out of the house. Lord knows we can’t go accepting anything like that in our society!:rolleyes:
Simply put: Fuck you. Fuck you and your sanctimonious rose-colored nostalgia goggles. If you live in a city, I hope your neighborhood becomes the next gay mecca and you have to see people like that every day for the rest of your life. And I hope the stress of it ruins your health permanently.
No, Christians own Christianity. And many gays are Christian. Gay Christians own Christianity every bit as much as straight Christians.
So there was at least one group in Holland that complained about the nativity. So what? Who is this group? How many people are in it? What else do they complain about? Do they represent mainstream Christianity, or are they a bunch of cranks? Is their complaint motivated by genuine concern over the public portrayal of their religion, or are they just angry that a bunch of dirty fags dared to get their hands all over their Jesus?
The existence of a complaint is not evidence in and of itself that the complaint has merit.
Pics or GTFO 
In this case, there was a behavior (mocking the nativity scene) that some group of people were discomfited by (feeling mocked). Since this was a public event, there could be interaction with those people.
Why does your statement not apply to the situation in the OP. . . or does it?
So that was his point? That there may have been gays in that group, so they’re actually mocking themselves and their own Christianity? Is that your feeling as well?
Perhaps not. But it is evidence that a group of society felt mocked, and that if the original intention was not to mock, then the intention changed when the organizers found out that people were feeling mocked by it and continued on with it anyway.
I don’t want the streets “filled” with the second type. In fact, I’m not really comfortable around really flamboyant people. But I don’t expect people to conform their lives to fit my personal comfort zone. If a guy wants to run around in a pink frock and fairy wings, why should I care? More to the point, why should you?
Actually, the sort of standards you’re arguing for aren’t there so people can “get along.” They’re their so you have a club you can use against anyone who’s different. You don’t want to get along with the “Bobby Trendys*,” you want to force them to conform to a standard that you find acceptable, regardless of what they think of that standard.
Let me ask you this: there are a lot of people who would find the sight of me holding hands with another man outrageous and disgusting. How are they any different from you being outraged and disgusted by the guy in your second link? You’re both demanding that someone conform to your own personal sensibilities about what is and is not acceptable. What gives you the moral high ground over the average homophobe?
*I have no fucking idea what this term is supposed to mean, so it’s possible I’m completely misusing it.
Bobby Trendy
from a google search. I had no idea either.
Because context matters. It would be inappropriate of me to go into a Baptist church and slow dance with another man. It would not be inappropriate of me to go into a gay bar and slow dance with another man. And yet, both are public places. Why is there a difference in what’s acceptable? Because, again, context matters. The context of this nativity was the property of a nightclub in the middle of a well known gay neighborhood. Lots of things go on in that neighborhood every night that would be offensive to all sorts of people. The answer to this problem is for those people not to go into that neighborhood.
Again, you haven’t shown any evidence that the intent was to mock anything. But yes, I do believe that there’s a qualitative difference between someone who is a member of a group making fun of the group, and an outside making fun of the group. Moreover, straight Christians do not own Christianity, and they do not have the right to dictate to other Christians how they are allowed to interpret or react to their faith.
Okay, two thing. First, the fact that someone, somewhere is offended by something does not automatically factor into the motivations of the person doing the “offensive” action. If I’m having sex with a guy in my bedroom, I know that there are a lot of people who are offended by the very idea of it. That doesn’t mean I’m suddenly having sex just to piss those people off. Second, there’s no evidence that anyone involved in the nativity was aware of the complaints while the performance was going on. So you do not, in fact, have any idea what the motivation behind this pageant was at any point during it’s execution.
Huh. Anyone else shocked that Starving Artist watches such witty, charming, and elegant fare as The Anna Nicole Show?
No, you’re into an entirely different area than human rights. You’re into an area of lifestyle. And you’re trying to make that lifestyle about human rights. I have no problem with gays as people, gays as couples, or gays in society. I have no problem with them being viewed and thought of like anyone else. I do have a problem with fucking this society up even further and what you propose will do just that.
Every man is an island has long been the defense of the left. Don’t like the language on TV, turn it off! Don’t like nudity and profanity in movies, don’t see 'em! Don’t like vulgar, misogynistic rap music, don’t listen to it. Etc., etc., etc.
The problem is these things are never confined only to the people who want them. Eventually every movie has these things, every program on television has these things, you work and your kids go to school in environments where all this is commonplace. An example occurred just the other day at a 7-11 near my house. Cute 17-year-old girl, getting a fountain drink and telling her boyfriend right out loud about her day: “Dude! I was so fuckin’ stopped up when I got up this morning that I couldn’t fucking breathe!..Oh, shit, I forgot a straw, blah, blah, blah.” Practically everyone in there over the age of 35 was scowling at her, and everyone her own age wasn’t even paying attention because that’s what school life is like nowadays, and she was totally oblivious to everyone.
And then there was the time I’ve talked about before when I pulled up to a red light and saw another cute, wholesome looking little teenage cheerleader type happily tapping away on her steering wheel to the rap album playing in her car: “Bitch! Get down on your knees, and suck my badass dick!”
Now, you tell me how I’m gonna raise my kids without them being exposed to that shit. Tell me how I’m gonna keep 'em from becoming pregnant or becoming one of the 25% of teenage girls with STDs. Etc., etc.
You know as well as I do that when the entire society has been flooded with that crap, there is no way to avoid it.
Now I’m hardly a prude and my language has been coarse since my mid-teens, but I don’t use it in front of little kids and I don’t use it in front of older people and I don’t use it in public. And I’m not lobbying for people to allow me to do it because that’s who I am, and if they don’t like it they can go listen someplace else.
And if I were predisposed to do so, how would I go about avoiding the gay rights parades you’re so certain it would be easy to avoid. Should I give up magazines, televison news, the internet?
Every society on this planet ‘punishes’ people who behave in ways far enough from the norm…otherwise you get anarchy.
Argue for the same basic rights we all have and I’ll be right there beside you. Argue to behave outrageously and differently than the rest of what is left of polite society just because you think it’s who you are and I’ll oppose you.
Huh, I would have figured you for a “When Johnny Cash sang about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die” he wasn’t really advocating that. Same with Ricky. Someone wrote the song, someone at the record company thought it would be a hit, and so Ricky recorded it.
And besides, big deal! How is that worse than "Bitch, get down on your knees and suck my badass dick!"? I’ll trade you his misogyny for yours anyday.
No! Fuck you! Fuck you and the horse you rode in on! I hope you get hemmies that rip and bleed everyday of your life and that you live long and suffer, you scumsucking dipshit!
Now, see how you sound?
Civility and manners are what keep people from violence and allow us to interact pleasantly with each other. I try to keep up my end even with people I disagree with, provided they show me the same consideration. I’d suggest you do the same unless you just want to be viewed as a hysterical nincompoop.
And having said that, I gotta go. I’ve said everything I’m likely to want to say ,and when it comes to this subject people could me answering challenges and insults all night.
“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners and contempt for authority. They show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
Some people I’m very fond of, young people not surprisingly, watched it and I was unfortunate enough to have been there during several episodes. (And I actually got kind of a kick out of Bobby Trendy; I just don’t think he should be guiding societal mores.)
P.S. - He also has/had a furniture and interior design business. I think I saw Elton in there one day. 
Hi, Finn…and oh, please. :rolleyes: There is no comparison between Socrates/Plato’s day and what has occurred in the last fifty years. Millions of abortions, a 25% STD rate, a rampant drug problem that has also taken and ruined millions of lives, road rage, drive-by shootings and people shooting up schools, glamorization of ghetto life and of its misogynistic/violent nature.
And now, I do have to go. Ta-ta.
I don’t like Ricky Nelson. You don’t like rap music. Why do your likes trump my likes? Why do you get to be the one who determines what I listen too? Why can’t I say that Ricky Nelson doesn’t get air time, because he’s too fucking bland and talentless to live?
This is a civil rights issue. It’s a personal liberty issue. You trying to dictate what I can say and what I can hear is the most fundamental civil rights issue there is.
That’s the agony of living in a free society. People are free to do things you don’t like. If you don’t like it, I hear Saudi Arabia has some very strong legislation on just these sorts of issues.
I dunno. Have you considered parenting?
HA!
You know what sucked about the '50s? Nobody back then understood irony.
Oh, he wasn’t really advocating that. Someone wrote the song, someone at the record company though it would be a hit, and so they recorded it.
Every single one of those things you list either existed in the 1950s, or was a remedy to a much worse situation in the 1950s. Or both. Legal abortions are better than back alley abortions, and both are preferable to a society that forced women who became pregnant out of wedlock to live in shame for the rest of their lives. STDs aren’t more common today, they’re just better reported, because we don’t systematically teach people to be ashamed of having sex. Consequently, the dangers of most STDs are vastly reduced. Drugs have been a social problem in every society that has ever existed, and the modern era is no worse than any other. Violent crime, over all, has decreased steadily since the 1950s. I prefer the glamorization of ghetto life over a Klan rally, and I’ll take misogynistic lyrics over a misogynistic society any day of the week.
Face, SA, the '50s were a cultural cesspool. The violence of the '60s was a direct result of lancing that particular boil, and society has been improving steadily since then.
So now you’re saying that it’s OK for gay people to do whatever they want. . . as long as it’s in an area where gay people congregate? Earlier, I thought you were trying to argue that there shouldn’t be a difference as to where gay people’s behavior is acceptable, but now you’re saying that if some people are offended by it, it’s OK for gay people to do as long as it’s where gay people normally do things?
Only insofar as it’s not possible to read people’s minds. But in the normal sense that we can imply notice was given when someone complained, then certainly the intent was to mock, whether that was the original intention or not.
So gay people shouldn’t be making fun of heterosexuals as a group since they don’t belong to that group?
This wasn’t anyone’s argument–certainly not mine.
See point above about implied intention. It’s reasonable to infer that the organizers knew about the complaint and that they communicated that to the people who executed the nativity scene. Asking for explicit proof about people’s motivations and intentions when the actions are clear is unreasonable.
Thanks for the answer. If it helps at all, I have a friend who might be described as your second type there, and he doesn’t go around goosing people and making lavicious jokes. I don’t know if that helps at all.
I’m afraid you’ll need to translate those references into British for me if you want me to get you. 
A “society full of” seems like quite considerable hyperbole. So if I may ask; what is the acceptable point to you? Would you like to see no such examples of that type of behaviour whatsoever?
I generally tend to think societies have standards because generally that is how people act, rather than from any particular impetus for people to get along. And you do know such a person; you. On these boards, your views are often considered laughable or offensive. In the name of standards, would it be reasonable to tell you to never mention them to others? I hope not. I find, for example, **Der Trihs’ **posts pretty commonly offensive, and yours sometimes also, among many numbers of posters. But I would be far more offended by the idea that, in order to protect me from being annoyed, he and you and they were all prevented from posting at all. And I think i’d say the same about society as a whole; i’ll be the first to admit that I have a low opinion of civility, but I do tend to value actual freedom to a greater extent than I do a really quite small level of offensiveness.
Besides, the cats out of the bag now. On a purely practical level, I agree offense-causing behaviour isn’t helpful. But people know about it already. If gay people suddenly stopped acting like that - if they presented to the world a front of conformity - people would not forget what they’d seen before and say “Ah, yes, they’re just like us”. Gay people wouldn’t be seen as offensive - they’d be seen as offensive and secretive. It’d just be assumed they were doing the same in private, and while being in private would be seen as better, the fact that it can’t be seen would lead to two things. First, the assumption that since the difference between the two types you suggest can no longer be seen, that all gay people are secretly like that. And second, that what they’re actually getting up to in secret is much, much more offensive and unpleasant, thanks to the nature of rumours always being far worse than the truth. I really think it would make matters worse.
I don’t think this makes sense. Simply knowing that something will cause a reaction doesn’t mean that it is therefore done in order to cause that reaction. Certainly knowing it will happen means that it is accepted, but that doesn’t imply direct, deliberate intention at all.
To put it another way; if I said your argument here offended me, and you continued to post it, would that mean you were doing so deliberately in order to piss me off? Or, rather, would it mean that you had accepted that I was offended, but felt that your argument was important enough to overweigh that offense?
You are partially correct. Roughly 2500 years ago the problem was seen as being so serious that he was put to death for corrupting the youth.
Which means millions fewer unwanted babies. You can’t ignore the impact that things like the pill and IUD’s have had on people’s ability to have sex. Or the fact that medical science has reduced (some of) the consequences of even foolish and rash unprotected sex.
Not all that much has changed WRT sex.
I’d also note that even during the straight-laced Victorian age, STD’s were such a major concern that the Contagious Disease Acts were passed.
Check your figures. Alcohol and Tobacco together kill roughly 30 times more people than drugs each year.
It’s also worth pointing out that alcoholism is hardly a kinder, gentler scourge than drug addiction. And while I’m at it, it’s worth pointing out that the first wave of prohibition helped cement organized crime in America, saw Americans drinking more than ever before and radically altered how society itself functioned. The second wave of prohibition has seen, among other things, the rise and strengthening of drug-related inner city gangs. As well as children who are increasingly jaded as they see that the propaganda about drugs like marijuana simply don’t line up to facts, and if adults will use bogus scare tactics to demonize pot, then (they figure) maybe they’re lying about heroin or cocaine too.
Prove that this is not a function of more drivers, more urban congestion, less time spent with the family due to work, a harsh economic climate, etc…
Drive-by’s (as opposed to the Mafia related ones during the first wave of Prohibition) are largely gang related, and thus, drug related. And thus, only kept going because a wildly profitable black market has been created by the second wave of prohibition. School shooting, while certainly disturbing, are still statistically vanishingly rare. Moreover, school shootings were not at all prevalent during the heyday of “turn on, tune in, drop out”. And while I’m at it, I’d note that you’ve committed either the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc or cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
Yes, some people do. Then again, a lot shun “ghetto life” and the more vile side of rap music. The fact is that even in the 1950’s, many children were still rude and rebellious.
Nor was America particularly peaceful in the 1940’s or 1950’s, for that matter. Racial violence, for intance, was a significant factor in the lives of many minority citizens.
All that aside…
Your style of argumentation here is exactly the same as the one used by people to ‘prove’ that the decline of society is due to a lack of prayer in schools. Or those who ‘prove’ that the decline of society is due to increased immigration. Or those who ‘prove’ that the decline of society is due to people being able to get divorced more easily.
And so on.
