If you read my post carefully you would note that I basically had a pre-loaded response to this reply of yours. I acknowledged that “most of you here would deny you were doing any of these things” and technically that would be true, but there is a certain “inference” that is made in quite a many posts that seem to pop up in these threads. As I said, it’s the general atmosphere of intolerance, bigotry, and bandwagoning that I tend to dislike when I see one of these rants posted.
As for comparing America to other countries (specifically Europe) check post #3 in this thread.
Pardon me if I’m daft, but I’m not following: are you saying that to object to and fight against (with logical discourse) national policies that affect you (or people you care about) is inferential of “intolerance, bigotry, and bandwagoning”?
Just like they used to (and sometimes still do) talk about uppity <fill in specific slur for an entire racial group>.
Amusing, they used the same so-called logic to exactly such things - civil rights. Be patient. Quit whining. Stop complaining. It takes time. Etc. Same arguments.
I was taught by my parents that being a man meanss standing for what is right, and for doing the right thing, even if it costs you. It has something to do with honor and respect (pretty old fashioned and out of place these days isn’t it).
On a more basic, animalistic level, if these folks are so “manly”, why does it take a bunch of them to go gay bashing? A real man fights his own fights without setting up a “posse” first, but only fights when he must. A real man doesn’t specifically target those perceived as weak. As Worf would say. There is no honor in it.
So, basically, you are saying that the fact that most people find support for gay bashing from christianity, whether supported by how it is practiced, or simply how it has been (mis?)translated, is irrelevant?
No, they take the words, deliberately out of context and out of sequence, and then twist and pervert them to manufacture an “excuse”. Meanwhile, they conveniently ignore any other words that would be very harsh about what they do.
It can be, but in your case no, that is not what I’m talking about.
I’ll try to explain further.
I feel that if you start threads like this where you mix reasonable stances and understandable anger and then throw in mention of certain “fundamentalists” and such you create a climate where Christians are going to be all lumped together and then much anti-Christian bigotry and intolerance will ensue.
People don’t respect religion on this forum. They don’t respect personal faith, they feel the religious are either stupid or ignorant. Many of you have legitimate beefs with religious groups that are full of and lead by bigots. But that isn’t all of Christianity. But most people on this forum do not care because there is a level of disdain and hatred for Christians that you are all simply waiting to unleash at the slightest provocation.
That’s why I can agree with you that you should be mad about people who are constantly looking down on your lifestyle. But at the same time I can find this thread to be somewhat regrettable because it unleashes barely-restrained anti-Christian bigotry and intolerance.
And of course on this forum anytime we talk about Christianity we seem to start in on the “fact” that Americans are all a bunch of inbred redneck fundies.
This is ridiculous. Firstly it is quite the claim that most people dislike homosexuals or find support for gay bashing from Christianity. I hate to break it to you people that want to blame everything in the world on Christianity but most people dislike homosexuals because they find them disgusting, they dislike their lifestyle, they find homosexuals to be effeminate and they associate that negatively. In many segments of the world there is a cultural distaste for homosexuals. I don’t think it was created by Christianity, I think people use Christianity as an excuse for the ingrained prejudice they have grown up with.
Even if you believe the interpretation that homosexuality is a sin, gay bashing still violates the core teachings of Jesus Christ. It isn’t the job of Christians to denounce sinners via gay bashing or to “punish” sinners.
I don’t think this is even remotely true. Yes, there are some posters here who are outspokenly anti- religion, but they are far and away a minority, easily dwarfed just by the number of practicing Christians (to say nothing of other religions) who participate here. And I can’t think of a single current poster who is specifically anti-Christian. I can, however, think of one or two who were banned for that reason, and one long time poster who declined to re-subscribe at least partially because he was tired of being accused of bias against Christians.
We all know that not every Christian is an “inbred redneck fund[y]”
However, The christian “flag” in the banner most often waved in the fight against equal rights for homosexuals. It’s the same “flag” waved in opposition to abortion rights. Forgive some of us if we remember from history those same christian “flags” waved in support of slavery and separation of the races. It is disingenuous to try and separate the fight against gay rights from the christian fundamentalists. If you don’t like the way the fundamentalist christains are behaving, as a christian, you should be angry with them.
Not all christians are illogical, bigoted and hate filled, but it seems that the more vocal and adamant a christian is, the more hate filled, bigoted and illogical they appear.
That’s what I said. Lately, this sort of people aren’t “manly” enough to come right out and say that though, so the hide behind a Bible, cherrypicking a bit here, a bit there. They don’t even have the balls tho just say “I hate you”, they have to pin it on God. So, if these “heroes” wave a banner of “Christianity”, then to call them by the label they chose is proper and fitting.
Yup, yup. Most of us are not effeminate either, not that we are “offended” by them in any way. I’m more of a fishing, beer and power tools type. I don’t care about track lighting or looking fabulous. Given a choice between watching Straight Eye or Junkyard Wars, Wars will win every time. I can’t dance for shit either.
I can’t dance (couldn’t find the beat if I looked with a flashlight and Sacagawea* on retainer), can just barely tell an Armani from a leisure suit (and couldn’t care much either way if the person wearing it is comfortable in it), L-O-A-T-H-E most gay bars (too loud, too smokey [and I’m a smoker], wrong music and I can be ignored at home without paying a cover charge), consider $100 something you pay for a wardrobe rather than a single item of clothing, and I’m about as much a neat freak as the Collyer Brothers, I’ve had sex with two men in my life (though there’s a third I count as an ex-lover), I’m not a gourmet cook and I never played with dolls. OTOH, I like showtunes, Bette Midler, Cher, I have a few effeminate mannerisms thrown in among the butch, and…what’s that other thing gay men are famous for? Oh yeah, I’m sexually attracted to guys.
The stereotypes exist. I’ve known gay guys who were Nellier than any Oleson- who collected Barbies, carried purses, danced in parking lots, etc.- and people were amazed when these same little fairies slept on ICU floors around the clock to empty the bedpans of sick relatives while still holding down a responsible job. I’ve known gay people who were drugged up abusive losers who weren’t worth the trouble it would take to bury them and blamed every problem in their life on being gay rather than being a selfish asshole and others who had they been any more Christlike they could still a stormy sea. I’ve known gay men and women who lived to be old and died virgins, but identified as gay. I knew a pair of lesbians who were together for 60 years and I’ve known lesbians more promiscuous than any gay or straight man you’d care to meet. I’ve known gay guys who were professional boxers or highly decorated combat veterans* and others who made Liberace look like Rambo, flaming liberals and arch conservatives, rich, poor, etc… There is absolutely no such thing as a uniform “gay lifestyle” and hearing rhetoric condemning it (I’m not referring to Martin’s necessarily because I don’t know his views but to those he mentions as being sickened by this supposed “lifestyle”) just furthers my belief in the ignorance of the person expressing it, and if that makes me guilty of generalization I’ll pay my fucking fine and do it again.
*Memorialized on a coin a few years ago due to being the first search Injun.
I was taught by my doctor that being a man means you have a dick and balls. Really, any other criteria are just macho bullshit.
(I don’t mean that to sound like I’m picking on you; just trying to point out that ideas people [especially those wishing to disparage gays] hold about what constitute “being a man” are pointless, since biology is the only real determinant.)
“Being a man” is just a phrase. Anyone with the right body parts is supposedly a man. So what. The phrase is just an expression, and maybe old fashioned now, so don’t go off on a tangent about the specific word used. I could have said “any and all persons of both genders and all orientations regardless of biological circumstances” but that takes too long.
Well, I didn’t mean to tear a strip off of anyone; I just wanted to say that gender essentialism is a problem, “being a man” is a problematic notion for many of us, and that the thought that was meant to be expressed can exist outside of an essentialist context.