Isn’t this billboard Free Speech? I mean, I see eyesores on the side of the road all the time, I don’t see how this is different. Some billboard isn’t explicitly infringing on a gay person’s gay-ness…Frankly, if I drove past a billboard that says, “Incubus, you’re not a white guy, you’re a black man in denial!” I’d probably laugh it up all the way home.
By all means try to get another sign set up that says something contrary- in the same way I have absolutely no problem with that. But to censor the message just deprives you the opportunity to use it as an example to fight ignorance.
People are people. I don’t think some sign in the road is going to change their mind. :rolleyes:
Incubus, I think ome people don’t think the notion of turning a gay person into a straight person is quite as ridiculous as a white person being a black person in denial–some people are much more likely to take the former seriously than the latter.
The few times I have attempted to respond to the idea that a person chooses to be gay even amidst what can be (and is far more often than I like to think about) rampant homophobia, I got some of the most tortured logic I’d ever read consisting of the guy saying these folks just wanted to be different, reveled in their martyrdom and the level of bullshit hurled in their general direction and generally just wanted to be pissants.
I was not able to come up with a suitably respectful response to that, so, if memory serves, I noted my fundamental disagreement with it all and chalked another one up to “will believe anything that makes his worldview easier to maintain in the face of all reason and fact.”
Really? I thought it was a half-decent analogy. After all, we are talking about a characteristic that is ‘hard-wired’ in us, as some other posters have put it. Don’t misjudge me in my criticism, I agree that someone is hetero or they are gay, its not a ‘choice’ they can make. But in that sense, its as inherent as race. Thus, I can’t be black because I’m white, but this billboard is like telling me “I’m not really white, I’m just in denial about being black”
Of course the first thing that came to mind was the Family Guy take on british drive-by debates- driving up to the sign, shouting, "I disagree! :mad: " and speeding off.
In addition to the potential offense, we still have entirely too many people operating under the delusion that, for example, matt and I got together some time ago and decided to be attracted to boys … for the novelty of it, I don’t know. It sure as shit was not the benefits package.
Being black, meanwhile, is no longer something one can attack as being God’s mark or indication of subhuman intellect or any number of things that used to be claimed in the past to support the notion that it was objectively unwise to be black. The same is not yet true of your friendly neighborhood Gay-man.
Yeah, but there aren’t a whole lot of white people out there who are depressed to the point of suicide over the fact they aren’t black. There aren’t white people out there who are so terrified of admitting that they’re white that they’d do anything, no matter how dangerous or self-destructive, to convince themselves that they’re really black. And there aren’t organizations out there that are promising to turn white people into black people despite the overwhelming medical, psychological, and statistical evidence that such transformations are completely impossible, to say nothing of totally unnecessary. I view this billboard much the same way I’d view a billboard that promoted anorexia as a legitimate alternative to dieting. It’s a sick, dangerous, and baseless idea. It’s an idea that destroys lives. It’s an idea that kills.
That said, they do have the right to express their sick, fucked-up ideology in public, same as everyone else. The proper response to it isn’t censorship or vandalism, the proper response is truth, condemnation, and ridicule. In other words, the best way to counter free speech is with more free speech.
caphis, if y’all go with the counter-billboard idea, let us know. I’d love to kick in a little cash for something like that.
As much as everyone around here loves the idea, the funding for such a venture would, indeed, be the primary obstacle. I, for one, have no idea how much one of those things costs, or the shortest amount of time you could rent one would be for.
OK, serious answer: It is a decent analogy, don’t get me wrong. My point is that some people might not see it as so–they might take it at face value, and not see the inherent silliness in the argument.
We certainly have the talent on this board. Think of it- We open on a despairing youngman with an issue of Leather Daddy in one hand and an Exodus pamphlet in the other. He’s trying to decide between a painful ‘cure’ or a life he’s told will be empty and without love. Uncle Rob shows up and explains that this is a false dilemma. Using various historical examples and Biblical cites, Rob convinces the young man that it’s okay to be gay. For an ending “Thank you Rob, for showing me the light! And thank you, Jesus, for loving me just the way I am! I’m going to go spread the Word to Tommy, and then make out with him!”
I’m serious. I think if it was done properly, avoiding parody or satire, it could work.
That’s pretty much what I’ve chalked it up to as well.
I know the exact moment I knew that I liked boys, and it was not some sort of decision. It was more like a bus hit me or something. (He was GORGEOUS! And nice!) So I’m not going to be stupid enough to assume anybody else deliberately picked a gender to lust after. Of course, even if they DID, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about it. I think the phrase “none of my damn business” comes into play about here.
