A friend of mine recently came to spend the night with me. I’m not openly bi (to her); we’re both religious, though she’s more of a fundamentalist as I am more a freewheeler. Somehow we got on the topic of homosexuality:
Her: I HATE people who say they were born gay.
Me: Why? People are born predisposed to plenty of conditions. Why not homosexuality? I’m not saying it’s a disease but I can see how people could be “born” homosexual.
Her: But it’s just wrong. According to the Bible.
Me: According to the Bible, hate is also wrong.
Later on, watching some sort of home improvement show:
Her: God, that guys acts SO GAY and it’s SO DISGUSTING.
Me: I would like you to tell me, please, what “acting gay” is. Because I know plenty of homosexual males that don’t act like that. In fact, most don’t. I also know some straight males who DO act like that. So please tell me how you can tell when someone’s gay. And please tell me exactly how YOU “act straight.”
I hope you never, ever hit on any women either. I mean, fair’s only fair. You have no right to not be hit on by someone who doesn’t know you’re straight, especially if you hit on other people without first confirming their sexuality.
A gay person has as much right to come up to you in a bar and try to flirt with you as you do to go up to a woman and try the same. Now, once you tell him you’re not interested, that should be that. But don’t act like you get some sort of special preemption.
No, that makes you someone with taste. I abhor that show, personally.
Yes, but you don’t seem to understand that coming out is a big deal. A very big deal. Perhaps the biggest deal and event of your friends’ life so far. It’s dangerous, scary and brave.
It may not be the invention of cold fusion, but it is a big deal. It’s the repudiation of years, sometimes decades of lies, self-loathing, self-hatred, etc. If you’re really that person’s friend, you should be supportive and excited for them. It’s a monumental series of events, with as much impact on the coming outer’s life as graduating from college or getting married (oops, he can’t get married, thank you troglodyte-esque laws).
Heh. Yeah, it sometimes feels like the only thing my coming out did to my close friends was give them something new to tease me about. Which is as it should be. Within limits. IE, “queer” is okay, but “fag” might get you a mouthful of fist. Particularly if you’re my Southern Baptist “friend” who I don’t really trust anymore.
Velma, having once had a co-worker tell me that she considered mixing with other races to be “against God” (in Hawaii, no less!), you’ve got my full sympathies. This woman usually gave me a lift to my bus stop which was a mile away so I didn’t want to annoy her too badly, so all I did was make it quite clear that I disagreed rather strongly, and suggested we drop the subject and never bring it up again. I also did some rather heavy praying.
That or you might want to mention you find hatred and bigotry immoral since they specifically violate Christ’s 2nd commandment.
I wouldn’t hit on a women who I know is not interested me.
I am talking about a gay person who knows me, not some random gay guy off the street or in a bar who just met me. I am reasonable and understand that someone as pretty as myself may be irresistable to both sexes.
And no, I am not worried that I “might like it”.
Good for you!
Yeah, I suppose it would be. It’s not like hes coming out for the first time to me. It’s a person who is more or less openly gay.
Mostly you would have to put up with anal sex jokes and other juvenille humor.
This was supposed to be in response to my second coding error in two posts, and not in reply to anyone else’s opinon or post. Unfortunately, the server chose that moment to hiccup.
Ah, yes we have one of them here. When I mentioned that I had two nieces and he found out my lesbian sister’s partner gave birth to them and my sister adopted them, he said “Well, they’re not really your nieces.” So I ask him about the boy my brother and his (supposedly) infertile wife adopted right before she became pregnant with twin girls “Well, that’s your nephew.”
I can’t tell you how many times you go to discuss homosexuality and they bring in pedophila. Just like witchcraft and Satanism.
I popped into the coffee room one afternoon where several of my co-workers were having a discussion as people are wont to do when they take their breaks. The only problem with their choice of topics was that they were discussing their opinions on gay men and none of them had anything favourable to say. One even suggested that he thought homosexuality was an abomination and gays should be taken out and shot. He followed this up by asking me what I thought.
I think he was expecting me to agree with him so was really surprised when I told him that;
I have nothing against people because of their sexual preferences and actually have a number of male friends who are gay. Even more than this, one of the people I am closest to in this life is gay, I love him a great deal and he just happens to be my brother. I went on to tell him what I thought of his bullshit and quietly and calmly told him that if he chose to continue I would throw him out the fucking window. Our discussions from that point onward were limited to work only.
That was many years ago but despite the passage of time I still run into people who think like this. It is really difficult to work with seemingly nice and kind hearted people who seem to be prejudiced against homosexuals and people from different ethnic and religious groups. The company I work for now actually had to post a memo informing people that racism and sexism in the workplace would not be tolerated and commentary of this kind could be grounds for dismissal.
This fight against ingorance is taking so much longer than I thought.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with her, she’s a leather-wearing lesbian cabaret singer who has been referred to as the dyke queen of cabaret camp. Her material can be very funny…and sometimes not so funny.
Thanks for the support, guys. Update: today people seem to be avoiding me. Not exactly giving me the cold shoulder, but not talking to me, either. I don’t know if it’s just because things got uncomfortable yesterday and now they’re embarrassed ( I hope) or if they feel differently about me now (probably).
I was thinking more about this last night and I guess part of what suprised me was that the guys giving me the hardest time are young (mid-20’s), highly educated people, who I usually find to be the most tolerant. I mean, I went to a private college in a fairly conservative town, and I didn’t hear this kind of thinking there. There were no classes called “It’s ok to be gay 101”, but different interpretations and tolerance were an underlying thought. I know there was an active gay support group there.
Of course, I was a theatre/Communications major, not engineering, and I think the theatre crowd just tends to be more diverse, so my experience there was probably different than many.
One of my best friends from same college is coming to town in a few weeks to stay with us for a while. He is gay. I guess I’ll have to warn him not to come by my work, although on the other hand, if he’s up for it, it could be fun.
On a side note, I noticed coming home yesterday that “Muffler Man” auto shop has a rainbow motiff, and some of the workers’ cars in the lot had rainbow stickers…hmmm. Maybe I’ll casually mention this around the breakroom and watch them work themselves up into a frenzy.
::patting co-workers on the head::
It’s been a hard day, I know. Time to go home, now. It’s all right. I’ll protect you from the scary gay man."
OTOH, I know a woman who has no problem with interracial romances except when the romance produces a baby. According to her, that baby would have no right to claim any heritage other than its mother’s.
:rolleyes:
Very similar experience in my USAF days. A friend of mine, who never had a cross word to say about anyone, and I were talking about women (what else?). I mention a very pretty girl who had just come in who happened to be black. His response floored me. He said, “I don’t date girls outside my race.” Despite being floored (and I’m still proud of my quick retort to this day), I said to him, “I’m human, she’s human, I don’t see a problem.”
I once had a “friend” tell me that I was going against God by dating someone outside my race. Considering that my mother is White and Indian and my father is Black and Mexican, I found this pretty darn interesting. This would greatly decrease my chances of dating! But, because I “look” Black, that was the only one that counted in her mind.
My personal favorite was the suggestion that all gay people were molested as children, but have repressed the memory, put forth by one of my more conservative classmates.
Good lord, Velma - does your company have any non-discrimination policies? If sexist and racist talk isn’t allowed, I’d be surprised if homophobic is. If after this incident you are treated differently, you need to let your HR department know about this.
One last thing - I have found that having co-workers you enjoy spending all your time with is one of the most important things about a healthy job. Start looking for a new one.
hey! i’m obsessed with velma from scooby doo! i have so many action figures and pictures of her… drools :rolleyes: the name velma drew me to this thread, actually…
anyway, i had 4 friends over at one point last year, and 3 of them are lesbians (or bisexual leaning towards homosexual) and one is an extremely conservative christian who basically lacks any sort of sex drive. i also happen to be bisexual, and at one point the conversation turned to sexuality. i felt really bad for poor laura, who was trying to explain in non-homophobic terms why she things homosexuality is wrong to 4 homosexuals. she doesn’t hold it against people, she just doesn’t agree with the whole concept. well, beliefs are one thing, using them as an excuse to hate is just wrong.
I am an engineer, and though there are engineers who have bad ideas, please do not imply that engineers as a group are predisposed to being bigoted assholes. Thank you.
This is how I once met a co-worker on her first day on the job:
“Hi. I’m <co-worker’s first name>. I’m bisexual.”
I still do not understand the point of her making that statement in the first 5 after we had been introduced.
To play Devil’s advocate, why is this a big deal? If he’s only attracted to women with particular physical features (such as a certain skin color), does it make him a bad guy? It’s not like he said ‘Nobody should date outside their race.’
In another thread here I mentioned a former boss who was a German woman who was a “war bride” – her husband being a black Master Sergeant from Louisiana (and, after he retired, the only honest used car salesman I have ever met). Though the family were strong supporters of NAACP and involved in the civil rights struggle to the extent possible, she took offense at the idea that her sons and daughter were black – they’re half German! she would insist.
I was dating a bi-girl for a while and she took me to several get togethers where most of the guests were gay/bi. I got hit on several times, its no biggie, just folks looking for love, just like everyone else.
