Ask the Gay Guy III!

Great Debates
121

Well, I’ve had. I was married for a good number of years and have twin boys (didn’t know it was a BOGOF month :wink: ). I guess now that I’ve procreated the species (with a spare), my job here is done. I have since sworn off women. :stuck_out_tongue:

Seriously, tho… I didn’t come out to my self until a few years ago, hence the children, which are my pride and joy. :smiley:

AFAIK, gays adopting children is not as easy as straights, regardless of domestic status. Would there be more adoptions if it were easier? I would imagine so, but I don’t think it would be a dramatic increase. Those that really want children will jump thru any hoop. The increase would be the one’s who would like children, but can’t afford the expense.

Children were not a major issue when I was married, so I doubt if I would go thru the hassles of adoption. If my partner wanted to have children, then I would go along with his wishes.

OH, BTW, welcome to the thread!

122

What is your first memory of being discriminated against or treated wrongly because you were gay?

123

Probably in 8th grade when the rumors went around and the entire student body save 6 people would talk to me.

Oh, and the teachers and students alike did the gay bashing thing.

124

I was just kidding around. Drama and interior decorating are both arts that are associated with homosexuals. Neither of them strikes me as leaving something for posterity. The thrown objects were for using the term “gay lifestyle”.

125

Tell it to Shakespeare and Louis XIV!

126

What are you, drunk?

vanilla, I can’t remember the first time, but it’s certainly happened. No doubt I’ve been passed over for promotions, jobs, whatever, but oftimes I ignore it and assume people had legitimate reasons for being pricks. Perhaps I’m wrong. I try not to let it bother me and make my own way in the world.

Esprix

127

Esprix, someone would have to be a dedicated homophobe to discriminate against you. You’re intelligent, highly articulate, and judging by your posts, you have outstanding WP skills.

Vanilla, I have no idea if anyone has ever discriminated against me because of my homosexuality. I’m a
masculine guy who nobody ever guesses is gay, so I make sure never to hide it. I just think it’s a point of pride to treat it as just a matter-of-fact part of my life so that others will, too, plus I don’t want to think that I should benefit from others’ ignorance.

128

Aw, gawrsh, thanks. :o (123 wpm, baby!) But if somebody meets me and assumes I’m gay, they might not bother to see all that. You know how prejudices go… :frowning:

Esprix

129

Yeah, but there are different varieties of homophobes.

There’s the Full-on Hater (All fags must die.)
There’s the Religious Bigot(I love you, but gay people make Jesus vomit.)
There’s the Exception-Maker( I don’t like gays, but you’re one of the good ones.)
There’s the Statistician (Studies prove that 87% of all homosexuals have had non-monogamous relationships with gerbils.)
There’s the Really Unattractive Closet Case (“Stop looking at my ass!”–Yeah, like I could miss something that big)
There’s the Screaming Mimi (You’re OK, but keep all that gay stuff to yourself because it makes me queasy.)
So some one could be anti-gay, but still overlook that glaring defect and reward you for your work.

Of course, I’m sure that all the other gay folk on the board will mock me for my naivete in thinking that hard work, a winning personality, and being a mensch will eventually win over the most hardened homophobe, but I persist in my optimism. Like Gandhi said, “The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.”

130

The episcopalian church has not completely enveloped homsexuality in the warmth of its bosom. Go ahead, ask any active episcopalian. There is, in fact, a huge debate over this subject within the congregations of episcopalian churches, but the people at the pulpit have not issued a final verdict. This is a very important fact: yeah, they usually are very, very cool about the issue in word and in practice, but the official church doctrine has not changed.

There are three really big (read: old money) epis. churches in my town and only one of them openly accepts homosexuals in their congregation. The other two get a cloudy, confused look on their faces when asked about the subject.

Let me know if I’m wrong…I’d love to be.

131

Sophie, check out the resolution from General Convention 2000, in the current issue of The Episcopalian. It is very carefully worded to be gay-inclusive without offending the conservative contingent.

In my hometown, there were only a handful of “out” gays (no pun intended). One of them was the son of the Sr. Warden of the smaller Episcopal church, which was strongly behind the activism for the poor and for the environment in which he was involved. The other church, which we attended, was a case of classic Frozen Chosen.

In the Diocese of North Carolina, gays are welcomed virtually without exception at all parishes (there are one or two exceptions), and deeply involved in parish life. Our parish is 2.4% openly gay, with a membership of about 375, which translates to about 10 who have come out. One of them advises me that the actual number is about quintuple that.

But you are right, there is a lot of dispute at the national level and in many dioceses and parishes.

132

Good Lord, I recognize every single one of these people.

vanilla I don’t know if this counts as discrimination per se, but it sure felt like it : I lost my closest friend of 23 years because he couldn’t deal with the idea of me having a gay relationship. That is, four or five years after coming out to him and his wife, I got involved with someone quite seriously and suddenly he thought I wasn’t his friend anymore and was quite angry at me; whereas if I had been straight and gotten involved with a woman (as he, being married, obviously had), I think it would’ve been a non-issue. Essentially, he seemed to think that he could choose to respect or reject my relationship because I was gay.

That’s how it looked, felt and sounded. If he was coming from somewhere else, I certainly don’t know where that was.

133

Hi all:

I just finished reading this thread, so I decided to answer some questions that have cropped up.

AFA when I knew I was gay, I knew for years that there was something different about me. Nothing I could put my finger on, I just thought I was just different, I just didn’t know how different. My first gay relationship was when I was 16 with a man 7+ years my senior. I enjoyed my relationship with him and should have figured out then, but this was 1974 and, well, homosexuality was not discussed. I married (or should say “guided” into marrying) my wife. It was a good relationship, but as I look back now, I was never really comfortable. Something just didn’t click.

I started to questioning my sexuality about 5 years ago. Like why my erotic dreams revolve around men. When my ex and I would watch adult movies, I’d be more interested in the men and their “equipment”. I should’ve seen, then, that those were flags to my sexuality instead of wondering why.

As I said before, I’ve been out to my self for couple-three years. It was not until 5-1/2 months ago that I met the love of my life. The perverbial “love at first site”… well… maybe second or third. :wink: I didn’t date or go out until that “fateful” night that I decided to see what al the fuss was about this local gay bar. (After over 4 years of, some severe and violet protests, it finally closed :mad: ) It was there that I met Marvin.

My ex knows about me being gay and she’s slowly coming to term with our relationship. My boys don’t know… yet. Their 9 and the “talk” will be happening soon. I have not came out to a lot of people, but I am becoming more and more open about my relationship with Marvin. (like, “Marvin and I went to see this show.” “We went to bed early last night” Nothing specific to being gay. I figure they can do the math) To me, it’s shouldn’t be a real big deal. If someone asks, I’ll tell the truth, but I’m not going to take an ad out in the local paper. This area is very rural and bigoted, so we have to be careful about being openly gay. :frowning:

I am definitely not your stereotypical gay man. (Not that there’s a lot of those). I’m not into disco and dance clubs, tho I will enjoy myself there. I like sports and will crawl under a car and do some shadetree mechanical work. I don’t dress gay; flannel, t-shirts and jeans is my main dress. AAMOF, when I walked into the Casanova my mate thought I was some redneck checking out the bar and possibly to agitate the clientile. He has since found out how wrong his first impression was! :smiley:

AFA being discriminated against, nothing overt, but I’m sure I’ll run into some. My company is very small, so nowhere for advancement. Marvin has been discriminated against off and on for years. The worse being the fiasco at the Casanova.

I guess I’ve wasted enough bandwidth for now. I would like to extend by thanks to Esprix for starting this thread. I did learn a thing or two along the way.

Cheers!

134

I’m trying to phrase this very carefully, not because I’m afraid of offending, but because I don’t want to be misunderstood.

One of the first groups of people taken away to Nazi concentration camps were homosexuals. Do any of you, then feel offended when the media make the Holocaust out to be about Jews alone?

I ask because my ancestors were members of one of the other non-Jewish groups taken to the slaughter (they were gypsies) and I feel slightly offended when they are forgotten in the wake of the millions of Jews who were killed.

Am I overreacting, or do others feel this way too?

135

I definitely feel this way, Suo Na. I know a lot of people who were surprised to find out that gay people were murdered in the Holocaust too.

Fortunately, many Jewish and Holocaust-memorial groups acknowledge gay people as fellow victims of the Nazis. For example, when I was in cégep, the Hillel group asked me to put together a display on gay victims of the Holocaust to go with the displays they put up on Yom ha’Shoah.

136

As someone who is both Jewish and gay, I’m very familiar with the attitude of excluding non-Jewish victims (and survivors) of the holocaust. I’ve found that this attutude generally correlates with the person’s level of orthodoxy. The Reform Jews I know have no trouble acknowleging gay and gypsy victims (among others), whereas Orthodox Jews generally don’t want to hear about it or talk about it.

137

And something else just occurred to me:

If gays/lesbians account for 10% of any given population (and I believe we do), then 600,000 of those 6 million Jews were also gay or lesbian. And I imagine some of those Jews were also gypsies.

It was a holocaust, not just for Jews, but for Humanity.

138

I’ve noticed that when people speak of gay stereotypes, dance music and fashion are almost always brought up, as well as a dislike for sports. Are these stereotypes common enough in the gay community that they’re often brought up and considered key when people talk of being unstereotypical? I have almost no experience in the gay community so far (only being out to anyone within the past year), so any of you guys who have, can ya help a brother out? :slight_smile:

139

Well, speaking for myself, I think the dislike for sports is a load of hooey. Here in DC, there are loads of gay sports teams and clubs to participate in, and, for some reason, there seems to be a large number of gay hockey fans. Go figure.
The gay guys I know don’t know or care much about fashion; they dress just like regular straight guys. Gay bars play dance music just like straight clubs do. So it seems to me
that gay folk are as diverse and individual as the hetero population.

{quote]
I don’t dress gay; flannel, t-shirts and jeans is my main dress.

[/quote]

Ummm, clearly you haven’t been to a leather and levis bar yet.

140

I have a different answer for these questions, so I thought I’d add my view - I’m not sure if I’ve felt “a need to procreate,” but I have often thought about children and how nice it would be to be able to have one. But there are still strong barriers against adoption by gay couples - some states allow it, but some don’t, I dont’ think. Some states even allow children to be removed from the homes of their natural mothers, providing the mother is gay and therefore “unfit”.
The additional monetary strain without the relief the tax benefits of marriage would provide is also, I’m sure, a deterrent for gay parents. The advantages are, of course, gay parents for the most part are people who have really worked hard at getting their kid(s) - no unintended pregnancies, “The Next Best Thing” aside - and so I’d guess we’d be extra-good parents, IMHO.

Me, I think I would like to have a kid, but I don’t know if my boyfriend will ever want one. It’s something I need to think about in the big picture.

I mean, I know it was supposed to be a comedy, but I watched “Big Daddy” this weekend and it just made me cry. I guess I don’t have a need to “procreate” as in create a kid with my genes specifically, but I sure would like to have a kid, teach him how to be happy and love everyone, sorta create a nice happy childhood for him (or her).