I've had a change of heart: gay civil rights isn't like black civil rights

The BBQ Pit
1

Hatred for gays run much much deeper, more than I can imagine

A Harps supermarket in Arkansas received a complaint from what I can only describe as a Klan member, though I have no direct knowledge, carrying a burning cross and tatooed with swastikas, about an US Weekly magazine cover of a loving family welcoming a new baby.

The family in question?

Elton John and David Furnish, notorious gay militants seeking to destroy the heterosexual way of life (though that is simply conjecture from what obviously is a valid complaint from the bigot)

In response, Harps censored the magazine cover using a plastic family shield generally used to block images of Playboy or similar magazines from impressionable eyes.

I know a lot of gay people and their supporters think they can frame their fight for civil rights in the same way that was done 50 years ago, but hatred for gays run so much deeper for a reason I cannot even guess. Years ago the whites didn’t much like the blacks, or other races, but they didn’t pretend they didn’t exist. This complaint by the pitchfork and torch wielding peasant seeks to erase gays from existence completely. People like that once enslaved blacks, but they kept them around, even had sex (raped) them. But with gays, there doesn’t seem to be a way for them to even acknowledge their existence

Even on this board, I’ve heard some say that being gay is a choice, or that isn’t not immutable, like that makes it better to discriminate against.

Of course, once the story got out, Harps got calls to change it back, and the article mentions that they seem to have removed the “protection” cover

WTF is wrong with some people? Kids cannot even know gays exist now? Though I’m definitely not fine with what these homophobes teach their kids, I can somewhat respect it if their decision is to ignore the issue, that’s their right. But to censor it? Pretend it doesn’t exist? Or pretend that one look at the loving couple with their new baby is enough to turn little Steve Linebacker into Stephon Assbanger?

I don’t know what kind of environment these people grew up in, but the sight of men doesn’t turn me gay any more than seeing tall people makes me taller. So what if these particular gays got married and have a new baby? Fuck you, shithead and probably closet homosexual, from trying to pretend these people don’t even exist.

You can teach your kids that this lifestyle is wrong, but you cannot teach them that they don’t exist.

2

I seem to have missed the strange fruit of hundreds of lynched gays, so yes the hatred of gays is much worse than the hatred of black folk.

3

Luckily, gay rights have come into the forefront of issues way later in history, beyond the time when such mob rule would be tolerated.

You can’t spot gays by looking at them, unlike blacks, which is probably a huge reason why they weren’t rounded up and killed. I get your argument, but its simply a consequence of gays being able to speak up without being killed nowadays.

It’s good enough for me that right now, racism is seen as a Very Bad Thing but hatred towards gays, to the point of claiming their just making it up, that they don’t really exist, is beyond what blacks faced. We’re a more civilized society now and homophobia is still tolerated, and even catered to. Does that not tell you something?

4

To be perfectly honest, I don’t think a family shield is a bad idea – children could be scarred – not because it depicts a gays in a happy, loving family, but because Elton John looks fucking creepy. Has he had a crapload of work done or something?

<shiver>

5

Because parents don’t want to have to explain to their kids that some families have two daddies instead of a mommy and a daddy.

After all, gods forbid they should actually have a conversation with their child about their values!

6

Oh, jesus. “Beyond what blacks faced?”

Before I just freak the fuck out, could you do me a favor and just tell me what that was?

What did blacks face? Just, like, summarize.

7

I agree with the thrust of this pitting, but I have to say that a 63 year old having an infant weirds me out a bit. I mean, he’s going to be 81 when the kid graduates high school!

8

…how old are you YogSosoth?

9

Well the store in question has reversed its decision.

To respond to the OP, I can’t recall too many incidents during the Civil Rights Movement that resulted in this quick and painless a reversal of policy.

10

You hope. He’s in my death pool every year - he’s given his body a hard life.

11

Matthew Shepardwas murdered in 1998.

12

But they did pretend people of other ‘races’ were less than human. As peoples have done throughout history.

Um, didn’t you study World War II?
Or ever hear of Matthew Shepard?

People seem to have some evil need to define a group as ‘other’ and attempt to eradicate it. Often, in order to justify their actions, they define the other as less than human, evil, and unnatural; the justification leads to more and more vicious violence.

Removal of body parts, particularly genitalia, often results, while people still try to justify their actions by demonizing the defined ‘other’.

And you’ve got your knickers in a twist over a magazine cover?

13

I’m all for gay civil rights, and I think that it’s shameful how they are treated both officially and unofficially by society but…you are delusional if you think that gays today are treated anywhere in the same universe as blacks have been treated, or that gay civil rights is anywhere near as painful as black civil rights were for the black community, as well as for US society in general.

This isn’t to take anything away from gays or gay civil rights but, really, they can’t hold a candle to what the US put black through (and it’s not like all the issues have been worked out and everything is hunky dory for blacks today either). Personally, I think that society (US society) is in flux, and it’s only a matter of time (much shorter time than for black civil rights) before this stuff all fades away. To me, it always gets worse just before the wave breaks, because the idiotic reactionaries start getting desperate when they see how horrible they are being, and as they see public opinion shifting against them.
On a side note, I agree with those who are going WTF about Elton John… :eek:

-XT

14

I get a link to photos of Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, and “your other favorite Aussie celebrities.” Is that just my homophobic iPhone again?

15

I don’t think you people have considered that gay rights is more than about how they are treated in one specific country. They still execute people for homosexual acts in some countries. My SO says in his “little country” in Mexico they set people on fire if they acted gay. That was almost 30 years ago so I don’t know if it’s better there now, but it’s different in the little villages. In Mexico City there are openly gay people everywhere but when you get out in the hills it’s just a different attitude.

16

And I didn’t even notice Elton because I couldn’t take my eyes off that shiny wooden puppet next to him.

Baby’s cute though.

17

Two thought patterns on this, neither of which are my own, despite the use of pronouns.

  1. Black people are rather obvious. Gay people are not. They can hide among the “normal” people and you don’t know who they are. Thus they are more insidious and dangerous to moral culture.

  2. I can’t possibly be Black. But I might be Gay, or turned Gay. That scares me.
    2a. “Gay” has sexual connotations. That makes me think I can be raped by Gay men and turned gay, or humilated by them.

Again, these are not my own thoughts, but can be used to explain or examine some people’s fears. And as I say, Anger finds it’s roots in Fear.

18

I’m rooting for gay rights 100%.

But you’re not going to persuade people by downplaying the black people’s struggle for civil rights. I’ve got no problem with people comparing the two groups, but the OP is bananas.

19

It’s possible to be privately gay. It’s not possible to be privately black!

Gays who wanted to live openly as gay always faced a lot of societal pressure not to, yet traditionally, at the TOP of society, it’s usually been something that you could get away with. Lots of European noblemen lived homosexual lives without any real consequences, during the middle ages and later. But for common people, it was much harder to do.

I suspect that the virtriolic hatred of gays and constant denuciation of their lifestyles is a relatively recent thing.

20

Why compare and contrast anyway? Both prejudices spring from ignorance and insecurity. It’s all about the same thing. One of my teachers was murdered along with his companion many years ago. The horror is the same when experienced on an individual basis. Do we want to make a chart? Where would Jews fit in? Women? How about homosexual black militant women?

Why are you using “closet homosexual” as an insult? If there is nothing wrong with being gay, then there is nothing wrong with a person’s choice to be private about it. The same is true for heterosexuality.