The warning was official. That’s why my post said Mod Warning up at the top.
What the fuck is up with you lately? I really think you need to handle whatever personal issues you’re having - it’s evident something is wrong - instead of flaming out on this board. At a minimum you’ve stopped paying any kind of attention to how you’re expected to treat people around here, which isn’t exactly a great way to win friends and influence people. (Nevermind the whole Christian thing!) And as a straight guy, by the way, I’d like to say your repeated homophobic taunts are disgusting. You’ve pulled that shit on Valteron, matt_mcl and a couple of other people now, and it’s fucking repugnant.
You should get some help, but if not, you’re still expected to follow the same rules as everybody else. So wake the fuck up.
What a lot of fuss could have been avoided had the Gideons just left a copy of the New Testament instead.
Leviticus (I don’t know why the OP singles out only Christians to blame for its existence) is a list of laws and rules that basically has no force in either secular or religious life, and Christians, including Protestant evangelicals, have long accepted this. It has not been excised from the text (nor should it be), but it exists now as an artifact, as history rather than poetry or prophecy or law. Once in a while some enterprising bigot will trot out the two verses in support of his ignorance, but the devil’s been quoting Scripture a lot longer than the Gideons have been around. Leviticus may occasionally be abused as a prop for intolerance, but it isn’t the cause of it. The Bible is full of passages to please everyone and to offend everyone, and if you can’t pick and choose, best to just leave it alone. In any case, as I read it the Lord was merely talking about a man who lies with men “as he lieth with a woman,” which may mean just that you should pick one or the other, or at least, you know, vary your technique, or, failing even that, just keep it to one at a time.
Anyhow, to label the Bible hate literature just strikes me as incredibly self-defeating. It would serve the OP’s interests much better not to literally declare himself anathema. If he needs to relieve his feelings about the passages in question, and just placing the Bible outside won’t do, well, there are the offending text, his partner, and a bed. Little imagination should be needed to find an appropriate expression of his beliefs using these ingredients. Then they can turn their attention to the other inanimate objects in the room, and decide which of them are made by child slaves in China.
If you were allergic to flowers, when you made your reservation, you’d ask them to make sure there were none in the room.
How be, when you make your reservation, you ask them to remove any bibles that might be in the room?
I’m with your spouse on this, way, way too much unnecessary drama.
That the bible has been used to oppress is a pretty disingenuous argument, by the way. Trees were used to hang black people too. Just because someone misinterprets something and twists it to their own purpose hardly invalidates the original work. Almost every controversial work of literature has been put to one nefarious purpose or other. Over time, however, thinking people have been able to see past that.
Don’t know why I’m telling you any of this though. It could not be more clear that you have both an agenda and a huge chip on your shoulder. Somehow it’s not enough that you live in freedom in a country that embraces your rights, including the right to marry. Something tells me, nothing will never be enough, though.
Men are men regardless of sexual orientation. It’s kind of sad but many homosexuals here wear it like it’s some kind of badge of honor. It’s like some think just the fact their gay is going to garner respect. My respect is for what’s in ones mind, not who you choose to spend your life with. Some of the finest men I have ever known are homosexuals and the only way I ever became aware of it was their partner.
So I guess in closing, why don’t you piss up a rope. :rolleyes:
Do not quote my posts in yours and then follow up with a bunch of drivel that has nothing to do with what I posted - especially if you are not going to quote my whole post and not even bother to indicate that you have edited my words.
Nothing in my post referred to your view of homosexuals. My entire post referred to your childish use of an worn-out insult implying that women are inferior to men.
Do not use my words as a platform for yours unless you have some intention to respond to something I actually said. Do not edit my posts to the point of meaninglessness and not indicate that you have done so.
By the way, when you write ‘their’, you mean ‘they’re’.
Can we now look forward to a post full of your patented incomprehensible nonsense?
Believe it or not, your belief that somebody else is breaking the rules doesn’t give you license to do the same. Your mom probably mentioned that at some point early in your life; I know mine brought it up a couple thousand times. And if you need some kind of help (which I really think is true, by the way) I don’t know what the hell it was to do with Two and a Half Inches of Fun anyway.
Yeah, actually, from a mod standpoint that’s the only thing that counts: if you’re being a dick, it doesn’t matter if I agree with you or if I don’t. Plenty of people called out Valteron for what he said, a couple went up near the line, but you went over it and you know it. Drop the excuses already and act like an adult. You’ve been here long enough to know the rule about insults, am I wrong?
Uh… not to ruin your angry party or anything, but since the hotel doesn’t own the Bibles and the Gideons might be argued to have abandoned them, is there any legal reason you can’t deface/destroy them?
Am I allowed to think Valteron is a pretentious, self absorbed jerk, and not kill any queers?
I don’t find him annoying enough to trigger mass murder impulses, and to be honest, before this thread, I didn’t even know he was gay. By late this afternoon, I probably won’t remember that he is gay, but I will almost certainly remember that he is a self important pseudo sensitive asshole.
I think the practice of placing a Gideon Bible in every hotel room is an anacronism that should be discarded.
There are other practices and artifacts that, in their time, were common and accepted. Racial attitudes (not only slavery, but think of minstrel shows in blackface and oriental stereotypes in cartoons and movies). Lack of accomodation for the handicapped. The words “under God” were added to the Pledge in the 50’s with little or no opposition. It was how things worked. So the Gideons volunteer to bear the expense of the books, it seemed like a win-win situation at one time.
Then came challenges, changes in moral attitudes, concerns that things should be and could be different. Some were changed by laws, some by a shift in society’s point of view.
I suggest that the time has come for hotels to take a bold stance and avoid placing ANY religious literature in any hotel room. Make it available on request, just like fresh towels, room service or today’s newspaper.
Eh…it’s never bothered me. I don’t think it harms anybody. It’s not like you have to read it, or even see it if you don’t want to, and I think it probably has helped a lot of people who needed something. I think I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get a Bible in the room.
For those who want hotels to stop this practice, has it occurred to you that they might get more complaints about the lack of a Bible than the presence of one? My wife spent a year in college manning the desk of a motel and she said the only time anyone called the desk and complained about Bibles was if there was not a Bible in the room. I think complaints about “hate literature” are so rare, and complaints about the lack of a Bible common enough (this happens frequently as people often take them – the Gideons actually want you to take them, by the way, so don’t feel like you’re stealing if you take one), that the much more sound business decision is to keep them stocked.
Yeah, I’m an atheist, I have no real love towards Christianity and am for gay rights in all forms, and yet I really don’t give a crap about having a Bible in my hotel room any more than I care about what type of painting is on the wall.
Forgive me if it’s already been said, but it’d be fun to slap stickers on them saying something like “WARNING: This is Fiction And Not To Be Taken Literally”. It’s be even more fun to have the name of the hotel printed on the sticker, so that angry people think the sticker is the official statement of the hotel, and watch them complain at the front desk.
We are packing up for our flight home and the old laptop has to go into its bag, so I will say adieu to all you nice folks. I do not like to abuse or insult people, even in the PIT. Oh, I may have done it once or twice, but that accomplishes nothing in my opinion. Tomndebb’s decision to send my thread to Marley’s domain, and Marley’s decision to send this thread to the Pit is typical of the contempt I am regularly shown by some of the mods.
I have brought up an issue that has received extensive input both pro and con, with intelligent points being made about the nature of religion and scriptural interpretation. Sure SOUNDS like a debate to me. But if Valteron started the thread, it deserves nothing but the contempt of Marley and Tomndebb, I guess.
Keep the Bible stocked you say? I agree 100%. Make it available to those who WANT it and actually request it. By the way, Diogenes, did your wife say what percentage of people called to complain there was no Bible in their room? Because my guess is it was probably about 1% if that.
And if they can call to complain that there is no Bible in their room, why can’t I call to complain that there IS?
I certainly hope that’s allowed, although I’ll have to insist on the second part before I can claim the privilege of the first. I strongly doubt that this OP was triggered by his sudden awareness that Bibles are routinely found in hotel rooms - as someone’s remarked, Sir Ian McKellen got there first - so I wrote this one down as an attention-getting anti-religious hissy-fit, which considering the source is by no means unlikely, although putting it in MPSIMS was spineless.
To the OP, my little meatball friend, build a bridge. That’s my holy book you’re talking about, and yet the only time I can ever remember homosexuality even being mentioned in any church I attended was five years ago, in Gloucester Cathedral, and the context was a sermon calling for greater tolerance, acceptance and love. Sorry to disappoint you, but fag-bashing is not exactly a participation sport in the churches I go to, even if you’d rather it were.
When I was traveling in Indonesia, I found a Quran in my hotel room, placed there by the Muslim equivalent of the Gideons.
This is an outrage! An OUTRAGE, I say! That I should choose to travel to the largest Muslim country in the world, and choose to stay in a hotel, and choose to open a drawer, and choose pick up the book that said “al-Qur’an” on it, and choose to open it, and choose to see with mine own eyes the awful contents within.
No, she didn’t say a percentage. I don’t think the phone was ringing off the hook or anything, but it wasn’t unusual either. The point is that however many complaints they got about Bibles “missing” from the rooms, it was still more than they ever got about them being there (which I don’t think ever happened once during her tenure there). The presence of a Gideon Bible is so ubiquitous and so expected now, that a lot of people think they’re getting short-changed if it isn’t in the drawer. They exect it like they expect the towels and the soap.
You certainly can. I’m not suggesting that you can’t or shouldn’t. By all means let them know if you think it detracts from your experience there. I’m just saying that – from a business standpoint – far more people complain if a Bible is not in the room than if it is, so they’re going to grease the squeakier wheel.