You mean, other than the statements of the gay people who’ve posted here, telling you how it made them feel? Though I’m sure you’ve found any number of rationalizations with which you can discount our testimony, so that you can continue in your steadfast state of denial.
How about you convince me that calling gay people sinners does anyone any good? In the absence of that, isn’t the mere chance of harming someone with those words reason enough to desist?
Just because you ignore me, doesn’t mean I didn’t respond. From my last post:
Let me talk to you about a culture of abuse, Jodi. I can’t speak to the culture of abuse that surrounds being gay, because I’m not, but I grew up in one of my own.
It’s not the howling looneys, it’s not the nutcases, it’s not the shaggy guys with placards and bullhorns shouting about sin that hurt the most. It’s the people who sound reasonable, sound plausible, about so many things, and can earnestly and without laughing say, “There’s something wrong with you.” They sound so sane, so reasonable; they’re presenting a belief that might have something to it. If they’re good people, maybe even friends, there’s something else that makes it get some emotional consideration – even if one honestly believes that it’s wrong, that’s it’s stupid, that whatever.
Now, a few people, a few people can be ignored. But suppose a situation where essentially everyone who wants to say something is expressing “There’s something wrong with you”. Maybe even going home doesn’t provide a refuge, because people there say “There’s something wrong with you.” It may not be “There’s something wrong with you so I’m going to taunt you constantly,” or “There’s something wrong with you so I’m going to pretend to be your friend, invite you to a party, and give you an address that doesn’t exist” or “There’s something wrong with you so I’m going to behave in a manner that we both know is threatening but is entirely deniable”, but there’s still no escape from “There’s something wrong with you.” Maybe the authority figures who are supposed to stop this sort of thing respond to it with a shrug and “Boys will be boys” or something similar; maybe there are no authority figures. (All examples real.)
There is no refuge from the persistent, driving, “There’s something wrong with you.” It becomes the default expectation; a new person, a new encounter who doesn’t come out with “There’s something wrong with you” right away may still be harboring it secretly, and if that secret belief comes out it’s another betrayal, another condemnation to solitude. Even the street loonies start sounding plausible – “There’s something wrong with you!” winds up feeling personal, feeling like another heart wound. And there will be people who say, “Don’t take them seriously, they can’t hurt you if you don’t let them.” They’re wrong; they’re telling pretty lies (though they may believe them) that only enforce that solitude and abandonment, especially on children, who add to that vast “There’s something wrong with you” the knowledge that they don’t know how to keep themselves from being hurt.
The lucky ones eventually find a place where they don’t hear “There’s something wrong with you” all the time, people they can trust who don’t believe that, and can build up the strength to be genuine, uncrippled human beings who aren’t crippled by these defects inflicted from the outside. Humans need human contact and affection – I’m told that babies will die without it even if all their physical needs are met – and if all the human contact one has available is poisoned, it’s impossible not to ingest that poison, even if one’s entirely aware that it’s killing one slowly. The only way to avoid being poisoned is to have enough clean contact untainted by “There’s something wrong with you” available, and in some situations and some contexts that’s bloody hard to manage, like the situation that many gay kids face.
I have most of the symptoms for PTSD – and psychologists have been known to diagnose it for persistent endemic abuse like what I described above. Someday I’ll be able to afford to get to a psychologist and see if there’s anything I can do for it other than learn how to live as someone who is damned well okay, no matter what the people who would believe “There’s something wrong with you” think.
If you want to believe that holding the belief and expressing the belief “There’s something wrong with you” is essentially harmless, that it doesn’t contribute to the isolation of the people it’s targeted at, their feelings of abandonment or betrayal, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. I can only cite what that belief did to me, and if that doesn’t convince, there is nothing else for me to do but try to heal the wounded.
“Healing the wounded” is a laudable goal, which I commend you for, but respectfully, your anecdote does not convince me.
The fact of the matter is, the people in my church who believe gay sex is immoral, but who do their level best to be welcoming and supportive of everyone, and who are on record as encouraging loving acceptance of gays – those people are in no way responsible for the actions – actions, not just beliefs – of other, less open-hearted people who might confront gay people with disapproval everywhere from on the street to in their very homes. It is not their fault if “essentially everyone who wants to say something is expressing ‘There’s something wrong with you’,” because they are not responsible for what any other independent person believes, or says, or does. They certainly are not to blame if a gay person’s general experience of society is a negative one, when they have done everything they can (consistent with their beliefs) to make it a positive one. And I respectfully submit that even if I were to concede your idea of a “culture of abuse,” you can only reasonably include in that culture those who are in some meaningful way contributing to the abuse. Which, again, is where the proof of your theory breaks down entirely – because you cannot show that merely holding the belief, without more, contributes to or constitutes abuse.
I have never said NO people who hold this belief contribute to the difficulties encountered by gay people. Many of them do, and this moral belief is both the sword they wield and the crutch they rely on. That is unfortunate, to say the least – not just for gay people who must endure it in ways big and small, but also (to a lesser extent) for people like me, who have their religion judged in its entirety by a single belief, not even universally held, or by the actions of a few. Such people should be fought with every available tool, because their actions DO negatively impact the lives of gay people, in a real, demonstrative, and immediate way.
My point – my ONLY point – is that not all people who hold this belief also act in that way, and it is unfair to assume that they do. Associated with that major point are these related assertions: (1) it is unfair to label such people “homophobes” or “evil” based on this one belief alone, and knowing nothing else whatsoever about them; (2) it is unfair (and unrealistic) to demand that they either stop holding the belief or at least stop admitting it; and (3) it is unwise – extremely unwise – for any member of a minority group, out of favor with the majority, to advocate a position of censorship or “thought policing,” given the likelihood that such measures, if embraced, would be used on them. Of these points, the last is the one that should IMO be most obvious, and most persuasive, to members of the gay community.
So I can see your position, and I can appreciate that it is born of personal experience and personal pain. I’m afraid I just can’t agree with it, because not only do I consider it logically flawed, I consider it ultimately counter-productive to the goals I assume you would like to advance, including tolerance and acceptance of alternate viewpoints, even if they are not palatable or popular. In turn, I don’t expect you to agree with my position or conclusions, but I hope you can see where I’m coming from.
Well then, congratulations! The two of you deserve each other. Person number can feel self-righteous by thinking homosexual sex is bad, and you can feel self-righteous thinking that people that think that are bad.
Ironically, this kind of mutual denouncement is just another of useless masturbation.
The one thing a tolerant society cannot abide is intolerance.
In a tolerant society there is no reason why person A can’t have gay sex, and Person B think it’s a sin.
Both tolerate each other, though they disagree.
Both parties are free to voice their opinions, and to have them. But, as far as I’m concerned it is an exact and equal two way street.
If one is to be intolerant to those who beleive homosexual sex is sinful while respecting and tolerating the rights of others to disagree, than one really has not right to expect tolerance in turn.
And vice versa.
The homophobe and the radical activist deserve each other just as a sadist and a masochist do.
The fact is though, that they are just jerking each other off.
But I do. Uselessness extends to so much more than just preposterous penis propositions. That’s why I included Pokemon in my little dissertation. If you’re gonna read my stuff, you need to keep up.
An unavoidable conundrum, I know. Guilty. I am just whacking off here. I also kind of mentioned this, so again, the admonition that if you’re going to jerk off with me please pay attention and keep up.
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I think the bigger issue is that I like to think that it’s a GOOD thing that, after working my ass off to make sure homeless outreach actually works to help people off the streets and into housing instead of wasting taxpayer money, I’m not so royally fucked up in the head that I think I’m supposed to detest myself because I had the temerity to relax and jerk off this particular night, instead of engaging in some Scylla-approved recreational activity.
[/quote[
Well first off sincere congratulations and adulations over your most worthy activities. What I do for a living isn’t the most useful and worthy of activities, but they do pay me.
Second off, you really don’t need my approval, I strive to be tolerant of your God-given right to spank your monkey and I wouldn’t dare to judge you for it. I will however feel free to judge the act of rubbing one out.
And, I have to admit that you have me somewhat confused. How exactly is choking your connected to feeding the poor?
I for one certainly hope there is not a connection. The very image causes me to shudder… Apos the charitable, hunched over his Penthouse, feeding the hungry… ::shudder::
Say it ain’t so!
And, if it ain’t, then why would you draw a connection between the two. Do you suppose that you are somehow more morally entitled to skin the eel after a day of good works than, say, a loanshark is.
How much good work do you need to do in order to justify your penis games?
I would guess that penis games or other forms of masturbation or uselessness or seperate and unconnected morally from your other activities.
Based on this, I construe penis games as void and neutral in terms of utility. Or, useless (though fun.)
With all due respect you would need to understand and consider my views befroe you can pronounce judgement on them. You have demonstrated that you do not, so your viewpoint is without merit.
My words sound “purty” because they sparkle with the inner light of truth. It is their truth that makes them beautiful.
This is why your words are ugly. This statement has no bearing on what I have said. It bears the ugly visage of falsehood (or perhaps you just need to pop your rhetorical zits.)
A threat of course is a very different thing from an opinion. One is freely entitle to their opinions concerning myself or my family, and if those opinions are false or ugly or wrong, it don’t confront me or trouble me unduly.
Such opinions and thoughts do not diminish me, they can only diminish the value and quality of the person that holds them.
I am tolerant to differences of opinion concerning myself as long as that is all they are.
An opinion is a different thing from a threat. I would treat such very seriously.
I however, am an intelligent man, and I am capable of recognizing and understanding the difference between an opinion and an overt threat.
Am I to take it that you are not?
If you are, than why are you troubling me with idle falsehoods?
I’m guessing you wouldn’t be very comfortable with having anyone else determine what is and what is not a threat to you and your loved ones. Why would you be?
Then why do you propose that I take someone else’s word for what is a threat to my own?
You’re guessing wrong. I really don’t care what other people think constitutes a threat or not, and they are free to determine it how they wish.
Since I am the person who will have to actually deal with such a threat and take the responsibility for how I choose to do so, it’s my problem.
Armchair quarterbacking doesn’t bother me.
I’m pretty sure that I made no such proposal, but the fact that you would suggest I did makes that an interesting question. It calls in to question your competance to make sound judgements.
If you are not capable of distinguishing what I did and didn’t say, how are you supposed to be capable of distinguishing threats from opinions?
It doesn’t seem an especially difficult proposition to me, nor is it one that I recall ever having any difficulty with.
Maybe I’m just far more brilliant than you and am thus capable of such basic cogitations.
I really don’t find this all that credible an explanation though, as you are capable of typing in complete sentences you must have some judgement and competance. Are you just trying to be difficult? Is that why you are pretending I said things I didn’t and opining that threats and opinions are subject to some kind of inderscinable relativism?
What would you consider a threat that you would opine that I only consider an opinion?
My position is that stating the belief is contributing to the feeling that there is no port in the storm, and that holding it means that those who wish to take “There’s something wrong with this person” and do something about it are not challenged in their axioms.
Your claim that this has anything to do with censorship or thought policing is an unfortunate strawman. These people have the freedom to have their beliefs, and they’re welcome to it; they have the freedom to voice their beliefs and they’re welcome to that as well. And I have the freedom to consider them responsible for their contributions to pain that I observe, too, because it works that way. I would rather they stop contributing in that way, but I have neither power nor desire to force it. If there is some judgement overhanging them, let it be known to that judge that they chose their path freely even when given knowledge of its effects.
Wow: now tell me. Where did I say different? Of course you can go on stinking up the joint. And I can point out how fucking stupid that view is, in the hope that others don’t stumble down that dead end. You think this is pointless. I’m sure you have all sorts of thoughts. But I don’t accept that premise.
You are nothing more or less than the dull screed who pops into a thread on the latest fan recap of some show being discussed in Cafe Society to tell everyone that the show sucks, so what are they all discussing it for. What purpose are you serving by participating in something you think has no meaning, including that of your own participation?
Where have I demonstrated that I have not? I pointed out two things which you’ve already agreed make your own attempt at a point as moot as what you claim everything else is. You jump straight down the hole of moral relatavism by consigning everything involved to masturbatory bullshit, and you don’t have any out, having carefuly defeated yourself.
However, I don’t think that everything involved here is masturbatory bulllshit, which is my out. I don’t think even masturbation is pointless bullshit, and I surely didn’t want to imply that my line of work had anything to do with my penis, or indeed anything at all. I guess that made too easy a target of your delightful attempt to wriggle out of your own ineptitude, but it certainly drew out your silly bile into plain view, did it not?
What am I to make of that, but a suggestion that you are better capable of distinguishing what is a threat to me and mine, and what is not?
Whatever the particulars, it is up to me to determine what is a threat, the degree of that threat, and the means and severity of response necessary.
For instance, right now, I’ve determined that you’re a joke. And the appropriate response is to hit the Submit button, and go play Suikoden III until late, late at night.
Not even armchair quarterbacking (reflected in many nationwide polls) that embolden people to pass laws, and maybe even a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, discriminating against an entire class of people?
I mean, I don’t think it’s the liberals who support these laws. Who else can it be, other than the people who think homosexuality is a sin? Every time they stand up to be counted, and the ultra-right wing Republicans see those polls, that’s just another step towards that amendment…