You can say that again. In my town (admittedly a pretty liberal one), there was one precinct that voted something like 98.5% for Obama. The rest of the town was more like 90% or so.
should read:
Barbara Johnson, the woman referred to in the links that Abbie Carmichael posted. Like this one, on how to deal with the “grief” of having a gay child.
That’s exactly what they’re saying, and there’s nothing “legitimate” about it. It’s how you get comments like Keyes’ “selfish hedonists.” It’s self-serving and hypocritical. It lets people rationalize discrimination and pass off their prejudices about morality as reasoned arguments. It attempts to put the focus on the question “Is homosexuality a choice?” instead of “Does homosexuality matter one damn bit to anyone?” It trivializes the entire civil rights movement in the US to nothing more than “black people are all right because they can’t help being black; but those homos should just stop acting all gay and shut up already.” It’s disgusting.
Wow, I expect threads like this to get Godwinized in the Pit but wasn’t expecting it in MPSIMS.
Hope you didn’t bang your chin with that knee jerking so hard.
Where to start with the fuck-uped-ness of this statement?
Good to know there’s some outrage mixed in with your outrage.
I don’t know for sure – but my earlier impression was that what Spatula was trying to do was to get parents et al. past shock to acceptance – sort of an evangelical PFLAG. I’d be glad to be proven wrong, and the more I see of material on them, the more I read it as yet another instance that mealy-mouthed “we’re not condemning, really; we’re just standing up for…” BS. If someone has more information on specifically where they’re coming from, I’d enjoy seeing it.
Whenever I hear “the homosexual lifestyle” I cringe as much as any gay person – it’s a vile way of relegating people to a “chosen” subculture. But over the past year as I’ve argued with conservative Christians, I’ve found that a few use a variation on the phrase (which always gets picked up by the Falwells and Dobsons of the world as the classic “the homosexual lifestyle”) to reference the rather hedonistic club scene that figures greatly into the obnoxious stereotype of homosexual-as-profligate – but that those few at least do draw a distinction between that (for which “lifestyle” may be an appropriate word choice), and, say, a gay couple in a suburban split-level raising children, whose most hedonistic excitement is bidding and making a small slam at bridge. Not exactly total acceptance, but given their moral codes, a bit of progress beyond the Great Divide that seems evident in most polemics. It was to that that I was referring in responding to Abbie.
This is so weird. There were rumors going around before the election that Maya Keyes was gay, and her dad stomped them out loudly. Trying to figure out all of the politics behind all of his decisions is hurting my head.
Has he gone back to Maryland yet? We don’t want him in Illinois.
Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., from “Mother Night”
Betty Friedan’s anti-gay? What’s up with that?
Gee, I was already gay (and pagan!) by the time I started playing D&D. My character is a half-elf sorcerer and part-time boywhore, though, so I guess that sort of makes up for it 
Guin, in 1970 Friedan defeated a NOW resolution calling for lesbian rights, and referred to lesbians in the feminist movement as “the Lavender Menace”.
Damn, that’s fucked up. I know some real hardcore nutty feminists have it in for gay men and transgendered persons, but lesbians? Hell, some of them try to claim you can’t be a TRUE Radical Hardcore Feminist Womon without being a lesbian.
That’s weird.
That’s the early second wave for you,.
It’s like back in the “old days” when being left handed was punishable. We laugh at it now, but are really still doing the same thing.
You’d have to be the one to find out; I have to confess I wasn’t able to get through all of Abbie Carmichael’s first link because I found it repulsive. The sheer selfishness of the woman for focusing on how her son’s sexual orientation affected her, how she had to deal with it, and how he was only accepted once he renounced his sexual orientation and lived his life by her rules – with no mention of how he had to deal with being kicked out of his mother’s life for so many years. Instead of making the distinction between his self-destructive and empty acts (his “lifestyle”) and his homosexuality, she made him equate the two and believe that he would never be capable of living a good life without renouncing his sexuality. If I ever saw the hateful woman in person, I’d be glad to tell her where she can stick her damn geraniums.
And again what I’m saying is that that “distinction” is an artificial one that exists only when it’s convenient to their argument and when it makes them feel better about themselves. They can say “well, I’m not a bigot, because I acknowledge that they don’t choose the desire, they only choose whether or not to act on that desire.”
And I try to give them the benefit of the doubt, to think that they just aren’t putting enough thought into the question or that they’re just suffering from a lack of empathy. To them, it would be preferable that I spend the remaining 40-some-odd years on Earth (God willing), constantly feeling ashamed of my desires, never able to enjoy the romantic love of another human being, never able to have that love acknowledged as something special, because just the thought of something as mundane as sexual intercourse with another consenting adult makes them uncomfortable.
Homosexuality is either innate or behavioral as it suits them. They say that gay people are fornicators and hedonists, and they use that to justify marriage bans, which would allow gay couples to acknowledge that their union is lifelong and devoted and sacred. They say that gay people are selfish, and use that to justify keeping gay couples from adopting a child and giving the child what he or she needs to grow up healthy and loved.
I have no sympathy for these people, I see no concessions, I see nothing of merit in their arguments. I see only selfishness and hypocrisy and self-righteous condemnation.
Whaddaya mean? She’s a turkey baster away from having a bun in the oven!
You’re saying Hitler was a left-winger?
Dude, remind me to never go to any political rallies with you.
Actually, a few of my conservative friends are perceptive enough to realize that he is both.
If they find the originator of this statement, they’ll only need eleven more people with no preconceived knowledge or ideas concerning Michael Jackson.
Perhaps you’ve forgotten that Godwin only applies to posters?
Perhaps you’ve also forgotten that Hitler was head of the National Socialist party?
Perhaps you’ve forgotten that Stalin was a communist?
Is that like the now-defunct German Democratic Republic being democratic? Or the People’s Republic of China actually being owned by the people? Or The Most Glorious Supreme Beloved Leader His Excellency Kim Jong-Il actually being glorious, supreme, beloved or excellent?