Because that is exactly what has me so fucking pissed off in the first place. Matthew Shepard’s murder is not ancient history. And it sure as fucking hell isn’t comedy. Shit like that still happens. People are murdered just for being gay. Still. Everywhere. And people still say “what’s the big deal?” “Why are you getting so upset?” “Everything’s cool, we’re fine with it here.” “Can’t you have a sense of humor?” “Nobody hates you, it’s just a difference of opinion. It’s just politics.”
Why would it be so bad if I had a heart attack, anyway? So the world loses another pervert who can’t have children. Big deal. Just another case of another uppity faggot who got himself all worked up over nothing, when everything in the world is just fine.
Maybe Evil Death can even come in and make a fucking joke about it.
Hey, it’s your health, it’s your concern. I was just trying to be helpful.
We laugh that we will not cry. I’ve already heard my first 9/11 joke. It’s a coping mechanism.
Now you’re just being melodramatic.
Listen, I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. I get frustrated, too. But when you go off the deep end, as you have been, you fail to convince anybody, and you put yourself at a health risk. Is that really what you want?
Give it up, Sol Grundy. If you want to make a difference in the attitudes of clueless straight people, it won’t be on this message board. Something I have realized recently is that, with a few exceptions, people post here to reinforce their own convictions and preach to others, not to learn anything themselves. Posting here has become a pissing match, not a forum for honest debate.
Do you really think that Brutus or Duffer or Bricker will ever see you as a human being with feelings like theirs, with emotions, with rights that are just as important to you as theirs are to them? Do you think they will ever see you as a person instead of as the alien Other? It’s. Never. Going. To Happen.
Ever.
Maybe if you and they could hang out together, have a few beers in person, over time their attitudes toward you and gay folks in general might broaden. It’s a lot harder to despise someone when they have a face. But online, all that will happen is that your attitude will grow bitter, their attitudes more recalcitrant, and neither of you will find any common ground.
You can’t reason people out of attitudes that they weren’t reasoned into. Prejudice is remarkably immune to logical discussion. Message board debates are all about preaching, not learning.
So stop stressing yourself, and concentrate your efforts locally where they will have a greater chance of accomplishing your goals.
The right-wingers here don’t respect you, or me, or any gay person, and they never will.
Oh, I don’t know. Many people here have admitted to changing their minds on the subject. I wouldn’t write duffer off as a lost cause. Maybe even Bricker can eventually be convinced.
There is no hope for Brutus. That cave doesn’t let in any light, and he disapproves of fire because it just hasn’t been in use long enough to tell if it’ll do any damage to his traditional fireless way of life.
The only thing that would happen then would be that they’d hate every gay person exceptSol Grundy. That’s how that sort of mind works. They’d say to themselves that old Sol isn’t so bad, but the’s the exception.
Telling anecdote: A Swedish racist and soccer fan (not to imply a connection) was interviewed on radio about his racism. When he said how much he hated niggers, he was asked his opinion on Martin Dahlin, a black man who played successfully on his favourite soccer team back then. His answer?
I beg to differ. There are many people who have confessed having changed their minds on some issues as a result of their participation on the SDMB. I am one of those (although not on gay marriage or rights, I was clear on that one and haven’t changed my mind a bit). You musn’t give up on trying.
Speaking as a gay poster who has been labelled as strident to shrill and worse, I can understand Grundy’s outrage and frustration.
If we’re not told by our straight sympathizers that we’re outraged beyond their belief in what we should feel or display, more ‘moderate’ gay dopers will shit all over their own seemingly in the attempt to show the bigots and those on the fence that they’re the ones to listen to.
While a few come to an epiphany that changes the mind and heart, cretins like Brutus, Bricker, and their vile lot are so extreme that seeing anyone approaching anything that echoes even concepts in their perspectives makes it look no different in a charged debate.
No, duffer isn’t an idiot who cannot learn, change, and grow. I really doubt that Brutus and Bricker are impervious to learning and growing, it is just incredibly improbable.
To not become impassioned and at times irrationally outraged at the current circumstances of the vile slanders and abuse of gay people at the hands of our government requires either heavy medication or a level of denial that only members of Exodus or the Log Cabin party could possess.
At moments like those, to be called melodramatic can and often does come off as minimizing the feelings and their value of the poster. That doesn’t lead to a more rational discussion, but one that goes further away from the topic at hand and often turns into a dogpile.
I don’t think it’s pointless, although I can see how it’s mindbogglingly frustrating. I’m certain I’ve seen more than one person on this board say that their positions have changed radically on these issues (I can’t remember who it was, I’m afraid). It may not be the person you’re directly debating with, but then a lot of people read threads and don’t post. And speaking personally, gay marriage has gone from being an issue about which I didn’t have a particularly strong opinion (because here in the UK it doesn’t seem to be as big an issue for whatever reason) to being one of the things I’d fix tomorrow if I were King. It’s not a wholesale conversion, but it’s not nothing. Just because you’re not persuading hard-core bigots doesn’t mean you’re speaking into a vacuum.
I disagree. I’ll put myself up as an example. Thanks to posters like yourself and Esprix, my limited experiences and conceptions were vastly broadened and transformed. Granted, I have never been someone to be labelled as right-wing, conservative or Republican, my liberal views were without basis, foundation or perspective when it came to issues of gay rights. I cannot claim that they are now, but at least now I know what I know and know what I don’t know.
Do you think you could possibly stop your knee jerking for a second and actually engage in thought? This is not a joke about Matthew Shepard. It’s aimed at the people who murdered him. If you have a problem with examples of vile gaybashing bigotry being used to demonstrate that Republicans are vile gaybashing bigots, Sol, you’re in the wrong thread.
You understand that I wasn’t trying to minimize anyone’s feelings on this, right? People are pissed, and they have every right to be. And I’ll be pissed right alongside them. But when you focus too much of your energy on your own rage, bad things happen to your physical and emotional health. And when you get too hysterical, you run the risk of coming off as whiny, which makes your opponents far less likely to take you seriously. There are times to rant, and times to step back and take a breath. The latter would, IMHO, be good for SolGrundy at this time. For his own sake.
Is it really possible that you could think this is not an extremely offensive joke?
Mark me down as one who was never anti-gay before, but didn’t really consider it a big issue before. Reading these boards, and hearing some of the lame arguments against gay rights, has moved the issue significantly up my list of Important Things™
Sorry, but I also took the joke to be not aimed at Matthew Shepard, but at the jackasses who murdered him. But I can completely see where it could be taken as anti-gay upon first glance. TMMV.
I don’t disagree with you on the issues of health or rage.
Honestly, there’s nothing one can do regarding the perceptions of other posters. At one time or another we’ve all gotten told we’re hysterical, shrill, one trick ponies.
With trogs like Brutus and Bricker there is no winning. Calm rational posts attempting to reach them through well reasoned debate and human kindness are met with smug condesention and worse.
Many of the gay posters will turn on the one who speaks up because they seem to think that though disassociating with that poster it makes them look better. Mind you, they’d never discuss this in private emails. No, they’ll villify the poster on the boards and then ignore an email.
If there was a gay agenda and there was a solid voice, there wouldn’t be such internal disvisiveness which only allows the external to wield more power. When we cannot stand by each other, what reason does that give those who might be our allies to continue standing with us?
When passions are high, yes I do think well intentioned statements like yours do not help and cause people to feel their feelings are being minimized. I’d say that a private email would do more for you to be heard and for the person in question to appreciate it.
SolGrundy is a very nice guy who has only been out a brief time and is having a great deal of problems as we all are in dealing with the bullshit lying rhetoric of those who want us not at the back of the bus, but under the wheels.
Sol, I think you might be over-reacting just a tidge here. Honestly: I was going to make almost exactly the same joke, until I saw Duffer had beaten me to it. I really don’t think he meant anything by it beyond, “Hey, remember that one guy who got hit in the head with a brick?”
It’s true that on the surface this appears to be nothing but a really offensive joke, but it’s not just that.
Yes, there is the black humor aspect to the joke (the old 'If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry), However it’s also a way to bring up the subject in conversation so that nobody forgets such a horrible thing happened.
It’s easier to interject that joke than to just blurt out “Don’t forget Matthew Shepard and what happened to him, and in my opinon supporting currant Republican politics is akin to doing the same thing on a national scale.”