I have never once asked for or desired the “love and joy” of a state, only THE MOST BASIC OF HUMAN RIGHTS. MLK famously said “You cannot legislate morality; the law can’t make you love me, but it can prevent you from lynching me and I think that’s important”; I’ll water that down a bit to something simple enough that maybe billfish can understand it without handpuppets and Fig Newton rewards: The law cannot legislate love and joy but it can and in some places does make you unable to end my income because of somebody’s disapproval of my being openly gay" (one of those special gay rights- the right to make a living without fear of harassment).
[QUOTE=billfish]
Heck you example proves just that. In your example all that means is that one state has a smidge less gay haters. So I don’t think that state has much claim to some sort of populist moral high ground (ie we are all sooo good and you are all sooo bad).
If you need/want to move for your rights please do so. But don’t fool yourself that where you are going is full of nothing but openminded people.
[/QUOTE]
I honestly think you may very well be the stupidest person on the Straight Dope. Have you ever been diagnosed with a learning disability? And I don’t ask that rhetorically (or with compassion), but because you actually cannot absorb a simple concept. On my holiest oath, I have actually worked with mildly retarded people who are better at understanding and making points in an argument than you are.
Am I missing something? Sampiro, billfish seems to just be saying that the are a fuckload of bigots up North. How in the world is that possibly offrnsive to you? Where the hell is that level of vitriol coming from?
There are numerous posters in this thread more worthy of your scorn than bill.
When it comes to affecting one’s life, 5.1 people in 10 have a hell of a lot more influence than 4.9 people in 10.
Moving somewhere where there’s only fewer people that hate the gays is plenty to have a secure, happy life, because it means things like anti-SSM amendments don’t get passed or even brought up.
And you can fire somebody just because they’re a faggot!
Oh, wait. Unlike every single state in the South, no you can’t. Not in Minnesota.
But other than the fire the faggot laws and constitutional prohibitions against same sex partnerships in every single state in the South, things are exactly the same as everywhere else.
He considers right to work without harassment a special gay right and doesn’t understand how living in a state where 50%+ of the people would support such a ‘special gay right’ on the ballot could be a good thing and he cannot grasp that there’s a difference between wanting a place where basic anti-discrimination laws and a land of endless White Parties. A tremendous number of people hate faggots, a tremendous number of people always have hated faggots, and a tremendous number of people always will hate faggots, I understand that completely, trust me; I’m not looking for their love or their approbation, just a feeling of basic security in my job and in my person, a feeling that has been impeached tremendously by those like some in this thread who REFUSE to believe that there is a difference in me and others getting our faggoty panties in a twist over a CEO saying things that hurt our feelings, refusing to see that there’s a difference in Cathy preaching traditional marriage and Cathy financially supporting organizations that accuse gays of being pedophiles and fight basic
Fuck it, I’m just tired of fighting tired of fighting this. I am tired of the entire battle and you are certainly he’s not but a drop of water in it.
I withdraw from this discussion and from the Dope. It’s his, he can have it.
But don’t claim that state’s population overall is greatly more enlightened and stuff.
A very good fraction of our people hate gays but not quite enough! Yeah, that’s some serious enlightenment there. Sure you wanna move there to secure your rights have at! You’d almost be stupid to not do so if those rights were important to you.
Sampiro, I understand why you’re upset, but personal insults are not allowed in Cafe Society (which is where this was when you posted), or in MPSIMS (whither I just moved it) – or anywhere outside the Pit. Please go there to call people names.
Everyone else – I’m just back from a week’s vacation, and I’m in a pretty good mood, so I don’t really want to wade through a seven-page thread to see who said what to whom, when. If you want to debate gay marriage, take it to GD. If you want to insult people, take it to the Pit.
Here’s a map showing how many of these restaurants are in each state. It’s spread quite a bit more than I’d thought - I didn’t think there were any of them in California, but it turns out we’ve got quite a load of them. Still, there’s hundreds of the places in the South. If every restaurant in California had a two hour line, and every restaurant in Texas had a two hour line, that’s still six times as many bigots showing up in Texas than showed up in California.
That doesn’t, by itself, prove that California is less bigoted than Texas, but it shows that it’s not something you can get an accurate read on just by looking at lines at a fast food place.
If you support laws that specifically limit the rights of a clearly defined minority, you’re a bigot. Sorry, there’s no two ways around it. It’s interesting that we, as a society, have so internalized “bigot” as a negative that people who are actively working to keep a segment of society as a second class citizen are so desperate to redefine the word so that it doesn’t include them, but unfortunately, it’s not going to work. Opposition to ssm is bigotry, plain and simple, and in fifty years time, people are going to look back at folks like you and marvel at the lengths you’re willing to go to maintain your cognitive dissonance on this issue.
It’s not “disagreeing with me,” that makes someone a bigot. It’s actively working to limit or remove rights from a minority that makes them a bigot.
I will be happy to start handing out warnings for ignoring moderator instructions for anyone insulting other posters subsequent to my mod note at post #332.
As far as I can tell, billfish’s logic is that Sampiro is upset at the number of people supporting CFA in the South and thus is going to move out of state where people aren’t so quick to show support for bigotry. billfish thinks this is stupid because there’s bigots everywhere.
What billfish is missing is that on a person-to-person level, it doesn’t actually matter so much. 9 out of 10 people you might meet in a day could be absolute and unapologetic gay-hating bigots, and you wouldn’t be able to tell. Most people are pretty decent when not talking about something they hate. I’m quite willing to bet Sampiro’s day-to-day life and interaction with people hasn’t been a real problem, else he’d have left Alabama already.
Where bigots start interfering with a gay person’s life is in legislation. And while voting down an SSM bill or voting in an anti-SSM amendment is an indicator of how bigoted the state’s population is, it’s still kind of an abstract indicator. But the footage of the crowds supporting CFA was a stark, visceral example of bigotry, and it’s one that overlaps with day-to-day, face-to-face experience, since you can see the individuals lining up at CFA.
It hit Sampiro hard and forced a realization that Alabama isn’t safe for him. Sure, there may still be bigots elsewhere, but the fact that they are in fewer numbers in other states is sufficient to ensure bigoted legislation won’t get passed. Their ability to interfere with his life is far less than the ability of bigots in a state where they have the numbers to push legislation and propositions through. And because those other states don’t pass bigoted laws, and in some cases even pass protective laws, even if Sampiro encounters an individual bigot face-to-face in one of those other states, the bigot can do less to harm him.
The simple observation that there’s bigots everywhere as if Sampiro wasn’t aware of this is less than helpful.
In California, I could come out as a transsexual lesbian, and if anyone tries to discriminate against me, I have legal standing to sue them from here to the moon.
In Alabama, if I’m seen holding hands with another guy, I could potentially lose my job, my apartment, and possibly custody of any children I might have.
How does that not make California more enlightened than Alabama? Yeah, it’s not perfect - Prop. 8 proved that - but it’s still significantly better than most other states in the union, and every single state in the South. That’s a hugely significant difference, and I’m not sure why you’re so strenuously objecting to that simple observation.
I’m not objecting to it. Unlike you people I GET your point. Heck, I told you to move if it was important to you and got you actual benefits for doing so.
Why can’t you get mine? Its not that complicated.
Bitching about the south being nothing but a bunch of bassakwards gay haters because we have more of them than a state that has just enough to pass gay friendly laws is like a white guy asking a black person “what’s wrong with “you people”?” when it comes to crime, education, poverty, overall income, drug use, single parent families…
I mean, stats wise the white guy is 100 percent right. But some black guy who is educated, doesn’t commit crime, isn’t poor, and is generally a good guy and thinks most of that kind of behavior is shit is still gonna get a bit irked at the “you people” question (and all the while thinking about the fair number of, but smaller percentage wise, of white people that pull the same stupid shit).
Yeah, we got shit heads in the south. No shit. You got a bit less. Good for you.