Well, I don’t see how it was a pity party. I don’t recall anything I posted that was “anti-gay” and I don’t understand where all the invective is coming from. Maybe if someone more reasonable can tell me I was so insensitive and point it out, I’ll consider it.
Right now, it just seems like you want to start something with me. If that’s the case, you’re in for a long fight. Or a short one as you’re so far out of the realm of reality that I don’t think anyone could reach you.
Go paly with the children. The grown-ups are discussing stuff.
So tell me, duffer. Can you answer my question? Once again, I’ll ask: Why did you immediately leap to the defense of these homophobic assholes? Hmm? Why did you feel the need to jump right into the thread to stand up for them?
Actually, I was kind of curious about that, too, duffer. I’m not trying to attack you (for once), I just didn’t understand where you were coming from at all in your first post, and your second just confused me even more. You seemed surprised that it was just a “bitch session.” What did you originally think the point of the thread was?
This was in Alabama and not at one of the bigger universities. It’s still legal to deny a student admission even to the university itself for being gay, and while it hasn’t been enforced in many years it has been actively defeated when students and faculty tried to add orientation to the non-discrimination policy.
I work at the largest university in the state. The Board of Regents was petitioned last week to have a hearing on adding orientation to the non-discrimination policy for faculty and staff. They refused to have a hearing about it. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t openly gay faculty and staff (I’m one and I know of several more), but if any of us were ever fired strictly because our new dean or whatever was Baptist or because the state legislature said to (and while that sounds farfetched, this man is a legislator from the same county as the University. It could perhaps be challenged on the basis of Lawrence v. Texas if somebody were fired for orientation, but victory would be far from certain.
Anyway, sorry for the digression, but the point is that while this would have been in the late 80s when that was done a lot more often they still could do it in compliance with university policies and state law, and even in 2006 when it isn’t enforced at the moment, it would still be imprudent for an openly gay player to join a baseball team at a small college. (The last isn’t just an Alabama thing or even a regional thing).
It’s not a digression at all. I think a lot of straight people are seriously in the dark about what kind of discrimination against gay people is still legally permissible in virtually all of the United States.