Thank you, Lamia.
I’m afraid that my emotional involvement in this particular argument has, at times, caused me to be less clear than I might have been on some points.
You’ve stated it beautifully.
OK, Sauron, let’s try an illustration here.
You are climbing a steep hill, and I’m at the top enjoying the view and the clean, fresh air. Very nice indeed.
Oops, now I see you clambering up the rocky slope. I don’t want you up here because I don’t need the view spoiled by some upstart valley resident who thinks he’s got the right to come up here. So I stick out my foot, put it directly in contact with your face, and prevent you from moving further up the slope. In addition I start calling you names such as “bottom feeder” and “river rat”.
Rather irritating, is it not? Oh well, too bad - I’m proud to be up here at the top and I’m celebrating the fact that I’m up here. “Hilltop Pride!”
I love the fact that these two posts were made within three minutes of each other. It seems to me that you two are the ones taking the phrase “straight pride” out of context. I haven’t seen the shirt in question, but I seriously doubt it lists all the information mentioned by mrvisible. “Context” means just that – taking the words in their immediate surroundings and imparting meaning to them based on that.
So you would argue that it would be okay to put “Black Pride” posters with the clenched fist symbol in school classrooms? That carries the same message.
Were they killed because they were straight or because they crossed paths with a possessive and/or drunken partner to the object of their affections? Context, Sauron! Context!
They were killed for engaging in “straight” behavior. I don’t have the specifics of the attack mentioned earlier, but my understanding is that the victim was set upon for engaging in “gay” behavior. Would it help if I found a cite for a woman shooting a man who was hitting on her?
My point remains the same: If the school is going to allow one group to demonstrate pride in its behavior, it should grant another group with different views that same right.
Bravo, Lamia. I’m with MrVisible on the kudos.
The only sign of respect I know is either to tip a pint in your direction or to offer you one if you’re ever down DC way.
Well done, lamia.
Esprix
Actually, I think the cites are an excellent argument for what “straight pride” actually means. The people who make the shirt come right out with what they believe it means, and provide links to several anti-gay organizations. The shirt has actually been put in its proper context, and quite well to boot.
Context is much more than immediate surroundings. Say you come home to find your wife holding a smoking gun and a man with his brains splattered on the wall where he’s slumped. The immediate surroundings don’t give much indication of why this happened. Did she surprise a burglar? Has she lost control of her faculties and lured the man in here just for the pleasure of killing him? Or is it the culmination of months, or even years, of this fellow stalking her mercilessly?
Straights picking up members of the opposite sex in a bar does not carry the same amount of risk of getting beaten or killed, and does not happen nearly as often, as gay men or lesbians doing the same thing. The fellow you cite probably got nailed for hitting on the wrong woman and not just a woman, period. Just because some people get beaten trying to pick up a member of the opposite sex doesn’t mean that straights suffer from the same oppression as gays and lesbians.
We’ve been through this, you blinkered idiot. The stickers are there not to promote gay pride or to allow students to demonstrate pride in their choice of lifestyle, but to LET TROUBLED STUDENTS KNOW THAT THIS FACULTY MEMBER WILL LISTEN TO THEIR PROBLEMS AND NOT JUDGE THEM.
Sauron, you asked “How is “straight pride” hate speech?”
I showed you that the slogan has been adopted by organizations that engage in the continued suppression of homosexuals.
The context of your post is a discussion as to the rights of students to wear certain messages on their shirts, and whether the establishment of safe zones for some students is an equivalent expression.
The context of the shirt that Elliott Chambers was wearing is an environment in which said safe zones existed, and also a nation in which divergent viewpoints on these issues are in heated debate.
I pointed out the shirt’s place in this context. It displayed a slogan associated with a particular ideology and set of tactics.
Your definition of context: “taking the words in their immediate surroundings and imparting meaning to them based on that.” is incorrect. Context, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning” or “the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs”.
As long as we’re gonna set up strawmen …
Let’s say I’m a student at this school. My dad works for a ruler factory. The factory gives out “straight pride” t-shirts to their workers, because they’ve made umpty-million rulers without a glitch. My dad gives the shirt to me. I wear my “straight pride” shirt to school. Should I be sent home?
I’m not saying that gay students shouldn’t be proud of who they are. I’m saying the school is giving more rights to one group (i.e., by displaying that group’s symbol) than it is to another group (by not allowing a student to wear a t-shirt with a similar message). That’s wrong.
Well, I guess the only thing I have to say in response to that is “Life is unfair.” Although I’d prefer it to be unfair to the advantage of students who need an ear to bend when they’ve got troubles they want to discuss rather than twits who make a court case out of being told they can’t promote bigotry and hatred in school.
Fascinating. The posters (not stickers) are not supposed to promote gay pride, yet they carry a symbol that means “gay pride.” Can I put up a swastika in the school, and then explain that it’s just the emblem of my club, and does not represent Nazism? Could I then complain if someone put up Stars of David?
I believe that everyone should be equally represented, symbolically, in schools.
However, this is not the case. Schools sponsor events that feature a prom king and queen, a blatant promotion of the heterosexual lifestyle. Teachers, paid staff, and even some students display wedding rings, flaunting their ability to marry the people they choose. Kids openly discuss their heterosexual proclivities, in class and out, without fear of ridicule or reprisal.
And you think a little pink triangle pisses you off. How do you think we feel?
Sauron it’s not a straw man - they linked to the site where the actual shirt that he was wearing came from. It’s reasonable to assume that the wearer of the shirt agrees with the website, hence the purchase in support of, the wearing in support of, the allowing his story to be told on their website etc.
You’re certainly welcome to try. Just don’t be surprised if you’re laughed at, treated like an idiot, or actually punished for your behavior.
Why? Because the swastika, unlike either the pink triangle or the Star of David, is a universally recognized symbol of intolerance, bigotry, and hatred. Of course there are intolerant Jews, and militant gays who wouldn’t touch a straight with a ten-foot pole if you paid them. But the symbols of their religions and lifestyles doesn’t unite them as intolerant Jews or militant gays. The swastika unites Nazis as homophobic, anti-Semitic thugs.
No matter how much you really, really want it to for purposes of your “let’s be fair to all the students” argument, the messages behind each of these symbols are not the same and do not deserve to be given equal amounts of consideration. One proclaims a faith in God, one proclaims a demand for equality and acceptance, and one proclaims a belief in the racial and moral superiority of a small segment of the human population, and flew over a political system that attempted the complete extermination of whole other sections of the populace.
Guess which one I wouldn’t want in the schools my stepdaughter attends? With any luck, Mrs. O and I will raise her to be able to object to these kinds of things as well. Not only object, but act.
You’re exactly right, wring. But why do the words “straight pride” have to have an inherent meaning that the “gay pride” symbol does not? I’m just pointing out that the words “straight pride”, in and of themselves, have no more meaning than a pink triangle. It’s the explanations behind those words or symbols that others find distasteful or wrong. So, why would the school allow the placement of a symbol that some find distasteful or wrong, yet disallow another symbol or group of words that represents something that others find distasteful or wrong?
This is not a gay-vs.-straight issue to me. This is more of a free speech issue. If the situation were reversed, and there were “straight pride” posters all over the school and a student wore a pink triangle shirt, I would argue for his right to do that.
As I said earlier, the school screwed up when they used the pink triangle as part of this effort. Come up with a different design, one that doesn’t incorporate any recognizable symbolism to either gays or heteros, and the problem goes away.
It wasn’t at one time, though. The swastika initially was seen as a good-luck symbol by many cultures. That’s my point. The meaning of symbols changes over time. What happens if a group of militant gays uses the pink triangle as the rallying symbol for their massive coup attempt on the U.S. government? Would the school see that symbol as harmless then?
What the heck is wrong with just writing “SAFE ZONE” in big black letters on a poster? That defuses the whole argument, and the same message is sent.
Nobody’s saying the pink triangle doesn’t, or isn’t supposed to have, an inherent meaning. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t be using it as a symbol for gay pride in the first place. Not that the meaning is inherent in the first place. It was given meaning first by the Nazis, then by the gay rights movement. No symbol “inherently” means anything.
Ah, so you do grasp the principle. It’s a start. True, they have no meaning in and of themselves. It’s the meaning people give them that makes them important.
Well, we certainly do seem to be on the same page here, so far…
Ah, here the reasoning falls apart. People find the pink triangle distasteful or wrong are homophobic and bigotted. People who find “straight pride” offensive are people who are opposed to bigotry and intolerance.
Do you really think a gay student, who probably feels alone in his troubles in the first place, would feel brave enough or comfortable enough to wear a gay pride shirt in a school that shouted “STRAIGHT PRIDE” from every corner? It’s hard enough trying to find acceptance from people you’re not sure about, let alone make a statement for tolerance among those who loudly proclaim their intolerance.
And then that symbol becomes one equated with the demand for tolerance, equality, and acceptance. Why reinvent the wheel?! We have a symbol that works quite nicely already. Do you really think that bigotted homophobic parents are going to relax their crusade against discussion of homosexuality in the schools simply because the safe zone symbol is different?
Well you would be wrong, homosexuals did have to wear them, but so did a lot of other prisoners. The pink triangle was a symbol the meant “mentally defective”. It was also worn by the retarded amongst other groups.
Oh no, I think it has made you far more than “less than clear”. It has made you a melodramatic boor, telling me that I am an “ass” and that I should “shut up” for merely having a different point of view from you. And, also making it clear that you are only out to care for “your own”, which to me makes you to be the biggest self-involved bigot around. Also, even though it’s on the previous page (light-ages ago) I am still waiting for you to back up your claim that I want to deny help to children in pain. Come on, you made the claim, twice. So - back it up, or retract your accusation.
Lamia - if what you say is really a reflection of what is going on, and ALL kids are really made to feel welcome, then that sounds a little better. However, the message I was getting from our wonderful Mr.Visible is that if I wanted “my own” helped out and included, I’d have to wave my magic wand and lobby for it, because he didn’t give a damn, since he only cared about “his own”.
Flesh-after seeing your website-you visit Something Awful?
I kinda got that impression…
Hmmmm…Hehehehehe.
Good guess, Flesh, but not quite accurate. Prisoners in camps all wore triangles, but for the most part only homosexuals’ were pink.
Of course, it did vary from camp to camp. But the reason activists began using it in the US was indeed because of its Nazi associations. Whether others wore it in camps or not is irrelevant.
For more, check out http://www.sbu.ac.uk/~stafflag/pinktriangle.html
Oh, and Flesh and Cessandra, please start spelling “bigoted” correctly. It doesn’t help your arguments any to call someone a bigot at all, and less so when you misspell it.