Kirkland, my friend, can we talk over here,please?

The BBQ Pit
1

Kirk, you know that I respect you. I know where you’re coming from. I understand your frustration. However, I have to disagree most vehemently with the degree of your anger and the manner in which you express it.

This thread is only the latest example.

Kirk, you’re not helping. As a matter of fact, you set us back every time you post in a thread involving homosexuality or religion. Your irrational mission to paint every single Southern Baptist with that mile-wide brush does nothing but make you look like a total kook and make the cause of better relations between straight (especially religious straight) folks and queer folks fall back a step or five.

First of all, it’s hypocritical. I’m sorry, Kirk, but I have to call it as I see it. There is absolutely no difference between happyheathen implying that all active Catholics are enablers of child molestation and you condemning all Southern Baptists as evil homophobic gaybashers. The Southern Baptists are possibly the most diverse single denomination in the US, despite the Convention’s attempts at conformity. No sect that includes Bill Clinton and Oral Roberts can possibly be monolithic.

Secondly, you turn a lot of straight folks who aren’t SB off when you go on your raging tangents. Let me repeat a phrase I’ve written to you before: “No minority has ever won their rights or equality by themselves.” Public opinion has to be turned our way. It’s all well and good to sit back and say “We don’t need the breeders! The Supreme Court has to give us our Constitutional rights!” But it often doesn’t happen that way. It took 100 years before the SCOTUS actually required the states to treat African-Americans as equal to whites. Plessy v Ferguson was a Supreme Court decision. Dred Scott was a Supreme Court decision. The SCOTUS is not guaranteed to rule in our favor without a national atmosphere of acceptance.

Third, it makes you look like a reactionary nutcase. I know you’re not. I’ve spoken to you offboard more than once. You are not a nutcase other than on this one subject. But if that one subject is 90% of what you post, and you sound like a nutcase every time you post on that subject, guess what? People who don’t AIM you or e-mail you are going to think you’re a nutcase. And they’ll be justified in doing so under the evidence they have.

Fourth, you’ve already been banned (under two incarnations) from one message board. I’m guessing (but I’m no expert and not privy to moderator/admin decisions) that you’re probably darn close to being banned here. And banning here is pretty much permanent, because they won’t just wink at you when you come back under a different name. They will check up when you start to show your signature posting style and they will ban you again. Lock, stock, and barrel. And they will continue to do so for as long as you continue to try to sneak in under the aliases.

We live in a society (sorry…had to get the Seinfeld ref in). You can’t just shoot off your mouth (or fingers) without being called on it, especially when your rants are a) non-factual, b) insulting (in the inappropriate forum, and c) (ignore Opal).

Please, Kirk. Consider the fact that I’m almost certain that 98% of the gay posters here look at your posts in threads like the above and cringe. You’re out of line. Please moderate your tone…

jayjay

2

Why isn’t this in the Pit instead of GD? Is it that you only want people to say nice things?

3

Ugh! I thought it was in the Pit!

Mods? Please?

4

Moderator’s Note: Casting thread into the outer darkness.

5

Pssst , don’t look now, Jayjay but you also double posted it…

(and I’d email the mods vs. posting it, it works quicker).

On the OP, I tried making the same point to him w/o success, but then, I’m not in his shoes, so I suspect it’s easy for him to dismiss me.

6

way to prove me wrong** MEBUckner** harumph. see if you get the traditional moderator bribe package…

:wink:

7

MrVisible asked a question about why there’s such a lack of communication/mind changing in any homosexual thread* where fundamentalism comes about.

Kirkland gives a very good example in that same thread.

Fundamentalist: I think homosexuality is wrong, for <reason>,<reason>,<reason>, and because God said so.
Random Poster: Okay, but I can counter your reasons and I don’t agree about God.
Foaming at the Mouth Poster: You’re a hateful bigot! You’re teaching your kids to be hateful bigots!
Random Poster: Um…
Fundamentalist: Oh yeah? Well you’re trying to convert my son/daughter to your lifestyle and you’re immoral and…
Random Poster: Guys?

And the arguement continues.

The problem is, both sides want respect. Kirk is not the only poster that can come across in this hostile fashion, but he has been the most notable of late.

He’s also the first poster in a long time who I want to grab and shake and say, “stop helping!” Because, although three posters were interacting in my example above, a whole bunch more were reading it. And probably a bunch got turned off instead of educated.

But that’s MHO, of course. YMMV.

8

The * was supposed to lead to a footnote that said that I don’t know what a homosexual thread is, really, but I support its right to define itself.

9

Of course, you’re right, jayjay. But I think you know that this can’t possibly have any effect.

10

I am a certified Shrill Faggot, and I’ve never been terribly thrilled with arguments that say we have to market ourselves to the straight people.

Nevertheless, kirkland, I have to associate myself to some of the remarks of my learned colleagues, to wit: you are not helping. Accusing all Baptists or all Christians or whatnot of being exactly the same stripe of bigots, all of them, and in a tone so unpleasant and vicious it makes my head hurt, are not helping.

Condemn, with all your voice, the people at the top of the church who are pushing its policy into bigotry and violence. But making false, vicious attacks that tar entire groups with the behaviour of the worst of them is exactly the bigotry that we are fighting against.

Recognize. Make parallels. Trust your Queer brothers and sisters. And please, examine your behaviour and eschew those parts of it which are totally unhelpful.

11

sigh

I too have noticed this-even when it was pointed out to him that there are Southern Baptists who disagree, he said it didn’t matter-as long as they stayed with the Southern Baptist church, they condoned it. (Said when I pointed out that Jimmy Carter and his wife were Southern Baptists-although they now belong to a different Baptist sect.)

It’s no different from people telling me to leave the Catholic church.

12

It’s also, perhaps surprisingly, easy for him to dismiss me, as he already has. shrugs I tried to help. When he’s banned and finds that our mods aren’t quite as willing to give second chances as those at the Pizza Parlor, I can at least say I tried.

And matt, I abhor the whole “We’re all just like you straight folks” thing, too. That’s not what I’m talking about or asking Kirk to do. I just think there are much better political and diplomatic stratagems than “scream in their faces and call them irredeemably evil down to the last adherent legally capable of making a decision about their faith”.

jayjay

13

RE: the ‘appeal to the breeders’ type of thing.

Realistically, for those posters living in the US/a democratic nation, unless gays are about 50% of the population and/or somehow you manage to get most heterosexuals to stay home on voting day, you’ll actually need some of our votes to change the laws that you find abhorant.

How is this most effectively achieved? I would suggest that the approach that jay jay suggests is more likely to succeed.

14

I think, what we’re saying is, not all straights are like you-but what I always say is, you’re my friend, so I stand up for you.

I would hope you would do the same thing for me.

15

I figured that’s where you were, Jayjay. I just know that it tends to slip down to “oh, must we have those drag queens at Pride?” despite our best intentions. Also, I have my street cred to think of. :wink: We’re understood.