# Conservatives Bad-Mouth "No Name-Calling Week" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 25, 2005, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545 "2005-01-25T05:56:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/41 "2005-01-25T14:53:23Z")
> [@ggurl](#): > > No name-calling _week_??? It’s too little, too late. The entire _culture_ has to change before others don’t have to suffer the torture that people like you and I (gay or otherwise) went through as children. Baby steps. It’s like quitting smoking. You set shorter achievable goals. After a week, you just might find you can go longer. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/42 "2005-01-25T14:57:18Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > And **matt** was talking about existing as a homosexual. Which, if I may be presumptuous, you understood perfectly well. I presume you understood because you are not an idiot nor a monkey banging on a keyboard. And yet you treat me like one all the same. > [@](#): > > Take any other fundamental aspect of any human being. (For example: I am black, female, straight and most definitely urban) and condemn them to hell for it. See if they do not feel it is their very existence which is being condemned. And yet, as I already pointed out, I have heard the specific protest that “my sexual orientation is not my identity” when panties are in a wad over the expression “gay lifestyle”. > [@](#): > > And please clarify this: **"I have no problem with protesting equating getting used to a sexual orientation with going to hell.**" because that makes Libsense to me. Gerunds trip you up, do they? I have no problem with (people) protesting (other people) equating (the idea of) getting used to a sexual orientation with (the idea of) going to hell. ---
**Author:** ![Stonebow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/43 "2005-01-25T15:01:35Z")
I guess I don’t see what makes this week any worse than any of the other ‘themed’ weeks they have in school. If you have Drug Awareness Week, are you supposed to not be aware of the consequences of drug use the rest of the time? If you celebrate some sort of cultural week, do you ignore it the rest of the year? Or are these sorts of themes meant as a starting point for discussion of underlying problems? I have a hard time believing that ‘No-Name Calling Week’ will not include some sorts of workshop or lesson accompanying the theme that maybe addresses the fact that schools are pretty shitty about name calling in general and that maybe that’s not the way to be \*any \* of the time. Unless we just want to accept name-calling, bullying, and harassment as a normal, healthy part of our educational process? But no, I’m not surprised that some conservative groups have come out against it. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/44 "2005-01-25T15:10:21Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > And yet you treat me like one all the same. No, I’m treating you as if you are being deliberately obtuse. Which you are. Different than an idiot or a monkey. > [@Liberal](#): > > And yet, as I already pointed out, I have heard the specific protest that “my sexual orientation is not my identity” when panties are in a wad over the expression “gay lifestyle”. You have pointed nothing out. You have only tried to obfuscate. Matt said that some want to condemn him for his mere existence. This is true. He is gay and he exists, therefore he should go to hell. If it were possible for him to exist without being gay, then you may have a point. But he can’t and you are being purposely thickheaded to prove a point you had in a different thread. > [@Liberal](#): > > Gerunds trip you up, do they? I have no problem with (people) protesting (other people) equating (the idea of) getting used to a sexual orientation with (the idea of) going to hell. Still makes perfect Libsense to me. ---
**Author:** ![MrFantsyPants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MrFantsyPants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFantsyPants)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/45 "2005-01-25T15:16:59Z")
> [@Abbie Carmichael](#): > > So next week do the students get to go back to their Regularly Scheduled Heckling? I would imagine that they are hoping the students’ new found respect for each other might carry over past the end of school, friday. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/46 "2005-01-25T15:58:12Z")
No Name Calling Week is just a worthless exercise in feel good lip service. It accomplishes nothing. Anyone who thinks it does something sueful is a big stinky doody head. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/47 "2005-01-25T15:59:30Z")
err useful. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/48 "2005-01-25T16:18:35Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Well, of course the conservatives would be against “No Name-Calling Week.” > > How could they endure an entire week without their fix of Rush, Sean, Bill, and Ann??? :eek: Of course, the liberals will have to stop calling 51% of America stupid, so it all evens out. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/49 "2005-01-25T16:33:16Z")
_“It’s only for a week, so have no fear Be grateful that it doesn’t last all year!”_ ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/50 "2005-01-25T16:36:03Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Of course, the liberals will have to stop calling 51% of America stupid, so it all evens out. Of course, the conservatives will have to stop calling 49% of America traitors. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/51 "2005-01-25T16:43:22Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > No, I’m treating you as if you are being deliberately obtuse. Which you are. Different than an idiot or a monkey. If I need Miss Cleo, I’ll call her. Your claim to know my deliberations is astonishing for its absurdity, and poisons whatever other claims you might make. > [@](#): > > You have pointed nothing out. You have only tried to obfuscate. Matt said that some want to condemn him for his mere existence. This is true. He is gay and he exists, therefore he should go to hell. If it were possible for him to exist without being gay, then you may have a point. But he can’t and you are being purposely thickheaded to prove a point you had in a different thread. You’re not only delusional for believing you’re psychic, you’re a liar as well. And an idiot. You don’t even understand the usage of brackets to substitute one term or phrase for another. For example, in your passage above, one might quote you as saying, “[Matt] is gay and he exists…”. The bracket means that one is making an equivalence between your “he” and “Matt”. > [@](#): > > Still makes perfect Libsense to me. It is remarkable that you call me “deliberately obtuse” while using terms like “Libsense”. If you can’t parse simple grammar, that’s not my problem. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/52 "2005-01-25T16:54:25Z")
Yes officer, I saw the whole thing. The fight broke out after\*\* Liberal \*\* nitpicked **Matt\_mcl** s paraphrasing of a post by **buttonjockey308**. What do you mean that doesn’t make any sense? 😛 As for the OP, this is just a bunch of fat and evil conservatives trying to quelch a stupid idea from a bunch of unwashed and stoned hippy liberals. I personally thing that No Name calling week is a brilliant idea. Anyone that doesn’t is a shit smoking penis wart. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/53 "2005-01-25T16:56:23Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > If I need Miss Cleo, I’ll call her. Your claim to know my deliberations is astonishing for its absurdity, and poisons whatever other claims you might make. And your attempts to demean anyone who disagrees with your nonsense nitpicking killed whatever point you were trying to make with your second post. You don’t need Miss Cleo, you need bullshit preventing lip balm. > [@Liberal](#): > > You’re not only delusional for believing you’re psychic, you’re a liar as well. And an idiot. You don’t even understand the usage of brackets to substitute one term or phrase for another. For example, in your passage above, one might quote you as saying, “[Matt] is gay and he exists…”. The bracket means that one is making an equivalence between your “he” and “Matt”. Again with the anal-retentive sematics. You again hijack a thread to make some obscure and ridiculous point with plenty of help from me. Which, I agree, makes me an idiot. I think I’ll stop being one. You, I’m sure will continue to be an anal-retentive nit-picker. > [@liberal](#): > > It is remarkable that you call me “deliberately obtuse” while using terms like “Libsense”. If you can’t parse simple grammar, that’s not my problem. It is remarkable to me that this is remarkable to you, since this allegation has been flung at you before. Because it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/54 "2005-01-25T16:59:16Z")
You know it occurs to me that there’s a wonderful potential backfire here. You see, among the things kids get picked on for are things such as being not swearing, not wearing the latest, sexy fashions, being devout followers of their religion, and believing in not having sex outside of marriage. I know some of this from personal experience. It seems to me that some of these folks may wind up hurting their own kids because they don’t want homosexuals to be spared. Talk about screwed up priorities! CJ ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/55 "2005-01-25T17:50:38Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > _“It’s only for a week, so have no fear > Be grateful that it doesn’t last all year!”_ On Christmas Day you can’t get sore Your fellow man you must adore There’s time to rob him all the more The other three hundred and sixty-four ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/56 "2005-01-25T18:16:38Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > And your attempts to demean anyone who disagrees with your nonsense nitpicking killed whatever point you were trying to make with your second post. You don’t need Miss Cleo, you need bullshit preventing lip balm. What I need is something that will get your teeth out of my ass. > [@](#): > > Again with the anal-retentive sematics. You again hijack a thread to make some obscure and ridiculous point with plenty of help from me. Which, I agree, makes me an idiot. I think I’ll stop being one. You, I’m sure will continue to be an anal-retentive nit-picker. You should have had a comma after “sure”. > [@](#): > > It is remarkable to me that this is remarkable to you, since this allegation has been flung at you before. Because it’s true. You should know. You fling allegations like a chimpanzee flings shit. Why do you always fall prey to this obsession of yours? Why must you always blow my inoffensive comments into these monstrously huge deals about the world ending and all meaning being sucked into a vortex of Biggirl surreality? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/57 "2005-01-25T18:29:13Z")
> [@ggurl](#): > > > [@Siege](#): > > > > I’m not gay, yet I could not walk down a hallway without being insulted, often by total strangers including freshmen my senior year, ate lunch and rode the bus standing up despite there being empty seats because no one would let me sit next to them, and was generally treated like sub-human detritus. As a result, I thought I was ugly until I was in my mid-twenties. > > **Siege** , holy shit, it could’ve been me writing that. No one knows the devastation of peer abuse except those who have been through it. No name-calling _week_??? It’s too little, too late. The entire _culture_ has to change before others don’t have to suffer the torture that people like you and I (gay or otherwise) went through as children. > > Luckily, I’m 37 now and getting past it, but I’d say that deep inside I felt ugly/worthless until about three years ago. Amen. I’m sorry for the hijack, but I have to ask… really? I’m sorry. That came out as challenging and skeptical, which is not my intent. But I guess I have a hard time picturing such things. In my high school, there were certainly popular cliques, but there was never such active hostility against anyone, no matter which clique they belonged to. Everyone co-existed. Sure, the chess club guys were unlikely to get dates with the cheerleaders, but the cheerleaders never verbally attacked them. The football players (of which I was one) didn’t go around beating people up or verbally abusing them. I can see how someone might feel lonely if they had no friends, and I understand that high school in particular is a time when you want acceptance… but people randomly insulting you in the hallways? Standing up because you can’t sit at an empty seat at lunch or on the bus? Please - these must be hyperbole intended to make a point, not literal descriptions… right? ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/58 "2005-01-25T18:31:20Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Gay is your existence? I’ve often heard homosexuals insist that gay is not what defines them. There is no gay lifestyle and so forth. My existence is a gay one, yes, in much the same way it is a Canadian, male, or anglophone one. If I’m in the room, there’s a gay man in the room. You can’t get away from a gay man when you’re around me. Unfortunately, some people have not yet grasped this fact, or wish it were otherwise, or wish that they could pretend I wasn’t gay when they are with me; they need to get used to it. When someone says “my sexual orientation is not my identity,” they don’t mean that their sexual orientation isn’t _any part_ of their identity. It’s a protest against being ‘othered’ - having everything in their life attributed to their sexual orientation in a way that is not done for straight people. “Gay lifestyle” is another kettle of fish: it suggests 1) that there is one and only one way that gay people live; 2) that being gay is a lifestyle the same way that playing lots of tennis or living in a condo on the Plateau is a lifestyle, i.e. something we do for kicks rather than an immutable sexual orientation; 3) it has connotations of seamy, wanton perversion, and is used to inject those connotations where they’re of no relevance. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/59 "2005-01-25T18:36:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Please - these must be hyperbole intended to make a point, not literal descriptions… right? I suffered a pantload of verbal abuse, mostly from the students in lower grades, for being fat, unathletic, unpopular, awkward, intellectual, and “gay.” (If I had been out in high school, which I mercifully wasn’t, there would be no quotation marks there.) I was humiliated, ostentatiously excluded, screamed at, shoved, and burned with cutlery flexed to make it hot. And that was in the two years I was at my last high school. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545/60 "2005-01-25T18:41:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’m sorry for the hijack, but I have to ask… really? > > I’m sorry. That came out as challenging and skeptical, which is not my intent. But I guess I have a hard time picturing such things. In my high school, there were certainly popular cliques, but there was never such active hostility against anyone, no matter which clique they belonged to. Everyone co-existed. Sure, the chess club guys were unlikely to get dates with the cheerleaders, but the cheerleaders never verbally attacked them. The football players (of which I was one) didn’t go around beating people up or verbally abusing them. I can see how someone might feel lonely if they had no friends, and I understand that high school in particular is a time when you want acceptance… but people randomly insulting you in the hallways? Standing up because you can’t sit at an empty seat at lunch or on the bus? Please - these must be hyperbole intended to make a point, not literal descriptions… right? Sorry Bricker, but although I can’t speak for **Siege** , I know personally that these things are very, very real. No, I’m sure they don’t happen in all schools, and maybe they didn’t happen in yours (or maybe you just didn’t notice so much, not being on either the recieving or giving end of things), but they do happen in a lot of schools. Something needs to be done about it - the “different” kids (regardless of how they are different) are targets of the “cool” kids (at least some of them), and it won’t stop on its own. While I think that the “No Name-Calling Week” isn’t going to be very effective, it is at least an acknowledgement that this is going on. (I’d write more, but I must be getting back to work - maybe later) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-bad-mouth-no-name-calling-week/286545.md?page=4)