I didn’t say it wasn’t appropriate to have it in this thread, I’m saying it’s not appropriate to apply it to every argument that’s made in this thread. There was an argument put forward that was crafted in such a way to eliminate social context as a significant variable. Yeah, sure, doing that moves the conversation perilously close to “angels on the head of a pin” territory, but so what? We’ve had more abstract conversations on these boards.
No, I brushed past miss elizabeth’s post because it had absolutely nothing to do with anything I’ve posted. She criticized me for saying that sexism is okay if it’s a joke. But I haven’t said anything like that. I’m not defending sexist jokes, I’m saying that this joke isn’t sexist.
If he apologized for it, why are you still attacking him over it?
No, I’ll likely be bringing it up again.
Well, probably best to keep this to one hijack at a time.
I disagree pretty strongly that you have to be a member of a group to properly gauge the reasonableness of a complaint from within that group. It’s a particularly useless standard when the response from that group is far from uniform. In this thread, Myrnalene says the joke is offensive. olivesmarch4th says it isn’t. I’ve got to make some sort of decision about which of them is right, don’t I? Is that functionally different about making my own mind up about the issue without polling the group in question?
Yes. That is the whole of my position in this thread, succinctly and accurately stated.
Fine. It’s a dumb question. It’s still not the question you were responding to.
Yeah, he was wrong about that.
Seriously, if your definition of “homophobia” is broad enough to encompass a guy who marches in pride parades wearing a “Straight not Narrow” t-shirt, your definition is fundamentally broken.
You didn’t say this, with the implication that the over-the-top nastiness of the comment was ok because it was a joke?
Because I was all, k he says he doesn’t care for vaginas but the actual problem here is that he was a real ass about, and you were all, he’s a humorist, man!! He’s got to jazz it up! He used the greeting “Hey Faggot” in his column, he’s all irreverent and shit! What was the point of all that if “it’s a joke” was not part of the defense? :dubious:
[QUOTE=Miller]
If he apologized for it, why are you still attacking him over it?
[/quote]
Um ok, two things. First, I was not aware that he had apologized until miss elizabeth said so. Secondly, the entire reason we are discussing this quote is that you brought it up as an example of “heterophbia” (which does not exist) and have been mansplaining to me for three pages about how it isn’t sexist. I don’t actually particularly care one way or the other about Dan Savage in the context of this discussion, my dislike of him predated this thread (although I am glad to hear he did apologize and my attitude toward him is slightly elevated, now).
You will be bringing up a disingenuous strawman argument after it’s been pointed out as such multiple time in this thread? I don’t believe for a second that you aren’t smart enough to know the difference between a neutral and a negative (and rudely phrased) judgement. So, if you insist on conflating the two, I honestly cannot speculate on your motivations for doing so in a way that won’t get me warned. But I sure would love to know the reason why.
Answering a moderator’s direct question is a hijack now?
I think a better way of phrasing it is that you are likely to be in the wrong when you tell a member of a group you don’t belong to that they are wrong to be offended, since you automatically lack the experience to know exactly why something that strikes you as minor might be highly troubling to members of that group. I don’t appreciate it when people tell me I’m in the wrong to take offense at slurs or, say, the use of “that’s so gay” as a pejorative. I try to extend the same courtesy even if I don’t quite understand exactly why descriptions of how disgusting vaginas are might be offensive.
Uh, no, no you don’t. There was no call for you to do that at all.
Is it? I’m honestly not sure. It seems like a bizarre opinion to hold, but “It was a joke so you are wrong to be offended!” wouldn’t make sense as an argument unless you did in fact have a problem with any criticism of any remark by a “humorist”.
You’ve invented your own question here and are repeatedly complaining about my addressing the contents of the thread and not your inane question. Obviously the topic of discussion wasn’t about some social phenomenon entirely absent of its contents; that’s on its face as stupid as asking a question about whether it’s bad for a species to go instinct and then interrupting the person answering to clarify that you want an answer that doesn’t involve the “ecological context”.
You’ve gotten to the point where your argument depends on claiming that another person is incorrect in his description of his own opinions. You know better what he thinks than he does.
Your assertion doesn’t change the fact that these attitudes reflect and thus are probably caused by broader social prejudices. I also think you’re excluding the middle a bit here: as I’ve said, I have no problem with Trinopus, and I much prefer his honesty than, say, someone who insists “they have no problem with gay people but they don’t believe in gay marriage” as people will, at times, say.
It doesn’t change the fact that these attitudes are rooted in our society’s homophobic attitudes; that doesn’t make him a bad person any more than anyone else (i.e. just about everyone) who has internalized negative attitudes towards minority groups. Being open and honest about it is a mitzvah.
Look, you’ve obviously dug your heels in here if you’re resorting to arguing that other people are wrong in describing their own feelings.
Um, what? Do you also believe that, since divorce is legal, jackbooted government agents force Catholic priests to marry divorcees? Do you think the government requires Rabbis to officiate at nude pagan weddings just because they’re legal?
What kind of insane troll logic leads you to think that people being permitted equal rights results in the scenario you describe?
I don’t even know what to say to someone who thinks that equal marriage rights might somehow entail forcing anti-gay clergy to officiate at gay weddings. That’s not right, it’s not even wrong.
I posted --maybe–because I think that alot of homophobic people do not know that it is evil. It is like racism, and it can be a cause of evil to happen, but a person can be unaware that it causes evil to happen, and will remain homophobic, feeling justified and supported by church and state.
Jumping in with all the others: huh? Can you point to anyone who does want to require churchmen to perform services for people? I’ve never heard anyone argue this, ever! It just plain doesn’t happen!
Yes, I seriously think that is a very likely outcome. No, it won’t be that direct but it isn’t hard to envision calls to strip a church of its legal status (tax, etc.) if they don’t bend their beliefs to match the values of society. Most recently it was the church that didn’t welcome the interracial couple.
I don’t want to hijack this into the merits of churches getting tax breaks, but if some do they all should.
The cries “homophobia” for every slight or stupid comment will soon render the word irrelevant.
That is a stupid religion that lots of people genuinely believe. Those believers neither hate nor fear homosexuals, the just think they are making a poor moral “decision”.
I know that my dream wedding involves an officiant who is forced to be there and clearly doesn’t want to marry me and my partner. I’m sure gay people are lined up around the block to get hitched by tim-n-va’s brother.
Okay, so you’re making up fantasy scenarios in which gay weddings become not legal rights but legal obligations in order to explain why you feel . . . conflicted . . . about supporting our rights.
Even though as I have already pointed out there is no obligation upon clergy to perform marriages. Because I mean the actual facts weren’t what you were getting at here, obviously, or you wouldn’t have brought this issue up in the first place.
The church which wasn’t forced to acknowledge an interracial marriage, you mean? Or are you saying your support for the legality of interracial marriage is as lukewarm as your support for gay marriage?
I think I’ll trust queer people’s judgment on that point. Because, well, you’ve illustrated the value of the advice of straight people when it comes to fighting for queer rights. Straight people’s advice has amounted to “sit down and be quiet” for way too many decades for me to trust it at this point. Something I say as a politically active queer who has worked in both volunteer and professional contexts to advance queer rights and has a fair amount of knowledge which techniques are effective and which ones are ineffective in gaining votes for our side.
And those people, who somehow fail to apply the same judgment to those who mix linen and wool or those who fail to sacrifice pigeons after they get the runs, use the force of law to oppress me and people like me. I don’t care what arbitrary rationale they invent to justify their hate, I’m just happy that their kids and grandkids are increasingly realizing that religious beliefs that oppress gay people are not an acceptable source of law in a free society. Someday, people like your brother will all be dead, and the world will be a better place without them.
I do not consider homophobic people necessarily evil; some certainly are, others are just- imo- wrong but hold irrational prejudices. Prejudiced people are not necessarily evil.
As to whether homophobia is a social evil, it depends on too many definitions of the term, so I’ll cop a Lucille Bluth: “I don’t understand the question and I won’t respond to it.”
I am unconvinced by your top-finding capabilities, let alone the accuracy of your perception as to whether something is over it or not.
Sure, he’s an ass about it. The joke was crude and immature - which is what you should probably expect from a column called “Hey, Faggot!” But crude and immature are not the same as sexist.
No, I’ll be bringing up a relevant and on-point argument, which you will continue to dismiss as a disingenuous strawman. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Of course it’s not a neutral argument. Dan Savage is not neutral on the topic of vagina aesthetics. Dan Savage thinks that vaginas are unpleasant to look at. He has a negative opinion on the topic. Being a humorist, he expressed that opinion in the form of a joke. Being a humorist who specializes in crude and often immature humor, he did it in a way that was crude and immature. Addressing a topic relating to women in a crude and/or immature fashion is not automatically sexist.
I hope that’s sufficient mansplaining for you. I mandid my best to manake my position as clear as I possibly mancould. If you still don’t understand what I’m mansaying, I manay manave to manhrow up my hands and manake my manscape from this thread.
Wait, that last one came out weird.
No, you answered another poster’s direct question. Since both you and miss elizabeth seem fuzzy on this, let me directly state that nothing I have posted in this thread has been done in my role as a moderator. Nothing I’ve said here should be interpreted as either a moderator’s instructions, or any form of official censure. If I feel it necessary to moderate anything in this thread (which is unlikely, as I’m not a moderator for this forum), it will be clearly delineated through use of [Moderating][/Moderating] tags.
Also, when I said one hijack was enough, I was talking about me, not you.
As a general rule, first hand experience is always superior to second or third hand knowledge, I agree. But it’s not a trump card. It’s possible to have an educated opinion about issues facing a group of which you are not a member - moreover, it is possible for that opinion to be superior to that of a member of the group.
Now, certainly if the majority of the members of the group disagree with you on the subject, it is almost certainly you who is in the wrong. But I don’t think there’s anything like that kind of unanimity here.
I enjoy it when people do that to me. Does that make it okay for me to do it to other people?
I’m only half joking there. I really do enjoy talking about why I find certain things homophobic, and why I think that’s not okay. It’s a big part of the reason I started posting here in the first place. I like those sorts of conversations, and this entire board is ultimately geared to facilitate them. The Straight Dope is, ultimately, a debate board. This is the place you go to when you like it when someone says, “That’s wrong!” and someone else says, “Why?” or, even better, “No, you’re wrong!” If you want a place where people will accept, “You can’t argue with me because I’m X,” as a valid defense, you’re really not in the right place.
I’m honestly baffled by this. I’m… not allowed to evaluate competing claims? Huh?
I honestly don’t see what’s remarkable about that. People can be incorrect about the descriptions of their own feelings. It happens all the time. I mean, don’t tell me you’ve never heard someone say, “I hate the sin, but love the sinner,” and thought, “Bullshit!”?
Anyway, in this particular case, I’m not disagreeing with Trinopus’s feelings, I’m disagreeing with his definition of “homophobia.”
If Dan Savage had said instead “I like asses but most assholes look like someone shot a shit cannon into the face of dried apple doll”, would that be a slur against all humanity?
Homophobia could be called a social evil because I believe homosexuals can be fine members of society, so friction against them going about there lives is counterproductive. I’d have picked “social irritant” if it was on the list.