It must be very painful to be trapped in your head. I’m sorry you’re so miserable.
Moderator Note
Let me be a little more clear this time.
Machinaforce, do not post in this thread again. Period.
It’s more like pride for just belonging to a group. It never made much sense to me. Pride for doing a great feat sure, that made sense. But for just being a part of a group? I mean I don’t think everyone American is proud to be one, like other nationalities.
Ignoring other people’s posts wherein they have already addressed this issue is an irritating par for the course for you. But perhaps you shouldn’t ignore the mod notes…just friendly advice.
UrbanRedneck - are you proud to be an American? A working man? Married or a successful partner? A father? A Christian? Is there any group with whom you identify and wish occasionally (or often) to join with to celebrate the things you have in common? It could be Christmas, or the town Fourth of July party. It could be your office picnic, or your son’s wedding. The point is a community celebration and recognition of shared history. I wouldn’t get hung up on the terminology.
I don’t think they addressed it. To me not being ashamed is literally just that, to not be it. I wouldn’t call it pride or being proud but just not negatively viewing it. I guess just plain old regard like “yeah” or “oh, ok”.
sigh
I think you have missed the main thrust of SN’s sound advice.
Moderator Warning
This is an official warning for failure to obey a moderator’s instructions.
Do not post in this thread again.
Not sure he wants to understand.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=756662&page=6
I know Machinaforce is no longer posting in this thread but I wanted to point out that a major impetus for wanting marriage equality apart from societal recognition of the relationship is that marriage as a legal status conveys a HUGE number of rights to couples and families that are not available to non-legally-married couples, from tax and inheritance to medical decisions to status as a parent. And not having those rights meant that people who had been together for 50 years could be barred from visiting their dying partner’s hospital bedside by vindictive family members or hospital staff. It meant that a partner could be bankrupted and/or forced out of their home by inheritance tax when the other partner died because they didn’t have the same rights as spouses. It meant that they couldn’t be recognized as the parent and legal guardian to the child they raised and loved. In short - and again, I’m not diminishing the importance of the public recognition of the relationship - it was a BIG FUCKING DEAL.
The world is better than it was, and that is in a large part due to the same people who put on the Pride parades, who have fought tirelessly for 50 years or more for equality and acceptance. The LGBT community have come a long, long way in the last half-century and the parades are an acknowledgement of that. The fact that you don’t see “any big accomplishment” is in itself a sign of what a big accomplishment it is.
But let’s remember the bad old days, which for many people - particularly young people who are still coming to terms with their sexuality in an uncertain world - are still not over. Imagine knowing you were gay but growing up with a family and community that viewed homosexuality as a perversion and a sin and all homosexuals as disgusting degenerates. Imagine being subjected to relentless psychological and even physical abuse from your parents, being sent to special re-educational camps to rid you of something that is intrinsic to your being, and/or even being thrown out on the streets by your family at the age of 15 because they can’t stand the sight of you even though you’ve done nothing wrong. Imagine being terrified of your schoolmates finding out, knowing you would be beaten up, harassed and ostracized, and that you couldn’t complain to the teachers or the principal because they would blame you for what was happening for “being too faggy”, and might even join in the harassment and mockery. Imagine being attacked on the streets by gangs of queerbashers, calling the police, and then getting arrested and beaten up again by them. Imagine being subjected to years of church sermons telling you and everyone you know that homosexuals are despised by God and damned to Hell for eternity. Imagine politicians campaigning on keeping you a second-class citizen and claiming that you’re a threat to children just by virtue of your very existence. Imagine knowing that you can be fired from your job, thrown out of rented accommodation and refused service at any store just for being gay, no matter how good an employee or tenant or customer you are.
Now imagine that, in a world where everyone - your family, your peers, your teachers, your government, your police, your church, and your entire community - is telling you 24/7 that you are worthless scum and that you should either pretend to change or just die (and frankly they don’t care which) - imagine in that world you are still able to stand up with your head held high and march down the middle of Main Street in broad daylight saying:
This is who I am. This is who we are. We will not be cowed. We will not be shamed. We will not be broken. We are as worthy of love and respect and dignity as anyone. And if you can’t accept that, world, all we have to say is
[COLOR=“Magenta”]FUCK. YOU.[/COLOR]
And if, having imagined all that, anyone still doesn’t understand what an achievement it is, well…I pity them.
You said that so much better than me. But it’s also a reply to all those people who ask why gays have to be so ‘in your face’ and why pride has to be so loud, garish, flamboyant, hyper sexual and rainbow coloured. It is, indeed, a hearty big fuck you.
Urbanredneck and his mates aren’t supposed to understand. Urbanredneck is being given the finger. He just doesn’t know it.
Not a “Hetero” institution; a HUMAN institution. And I’m not talking specifically about marriage, here, so much as about FAMILIES. Marriage is primarily the formal undertaking to voluntarily incorporate as a family unit, with ALL of the rights, responsibilities and privileges that that entails.
K-dad, in that case Machinaforce was actually reporting although taking out of size an actual fact: some homosexual people did and do say that they don’t want to get married because they see that as a heteronormative institution (I always wonder what would happen with their taxes if they did get married; depending on the situation, it may be an advantage or the opposite). It’s very much not a representative attitude: most people do realize that, as you say, the paperwork is merely the official stamp of a social reality. What our solipsist did is similar to TV programs getting Bill Nye to represent “what some scientists say” (98% of them, and the other 2% may simply never have received the poll in the first place) and some other dude to represent “the other side”, making it sound as if both sides were equally important.
I listen to reason, not fingers.
I guess I think more on the practical.
I mean to all the people pushing “Gay pride” is being gay all you are? Dont you have a career? Does being gay pay your mortgage? Does it put money into your 401k?
Dont we all tend to seperate our personal lives from our professional ones?
Now some people mention being proud of other things like being an American. For people like me your right, its just luck I was born here. But for millions every year who take the citizenship test and oath, being an American is indeed an accomplishment.
Now for other things like say pride in your school, well that depends. If its a noted, school with a great reputation like say Harvard, damn right. You worked hard for that diploma. You have pride because your degree means something to an employer.
Well thats the thing we have people selling “I’m Proud to be a xxxx” in darn near anything and everything.
Come on, now you’re being deliberately obtuse. Pride is one day a year. And of course, it’s not all we are, but it’s still an important part of who we are. The world does take notice, whether we ask for it or not.
Gay pride is NOTHING like being proud to be American, or to support a football team, or go to a good school. You have deliberately failed to read any of the responses here. Pride is saying to people who HATE us, we will not be cowed.
Reason was tried, and it didn’t work.
That’s easy… people are usually most proud of whatever took them the most effort/pain/struggle to achieve/overcome.
It’s entirely possible that deep down, your friend’s coming out and other trials of being gay were much more of a struggle for him than (in his eyes) merely getting a master’s degree. Even though you say it was easy for him, that’s probably very relative- you don’t necessarily know what anxiety or fear he had, or how far out of his comfort zone he actually was.
And getting that master’s degree may just have been a matter of putting in the work, without any real fear, anxiety or worry.
Do you? I gave you a quite detailed rationale for the whole “gay pride” thing. You don’t appear to have listened.
To all the people claiming the right to discriminate against gay people: is being gay all they are? If you get a teacher fired by accusing them of being a child molester because they’re gay, is being gay all they are? If you disown your child for being gay, is being gay all they are?
It’s not the LGBT community that started this focus on “being gay”, you know; it’s the homophobes who - for literally centuries - have been persecuting people purely and specifically for “being gay”. And now you’re bothered because gay people are now pushing back and saying there’s nothing wrong with “being gay” and in fact people who are gay are just like everyone else? Because that seems a bit…irrational.
So - are you going to listen to reason this time? Or are you merely here to Just Ask Questions?