Take home messages: “Gayness” and “straightness” aren’t as black-and-white as most people would like to think they are. “Friend” and “lover” aren’t either. We have a very narrow view of both, and interestingly it hasn’t always been like this. People always harken back to the “good ole days”, when men and women acted “right”…but what constitutes “right” varies throughout cultures and through history.
I wish we could go back to those days when men holding hands and women writing passionate love letters to each other wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow. That sounds like the “good ole days” to me.
You know, even when I was conflicted about whether or not being gay was a sin or not, I still never ever ever had any kind of thoughts like the ones expressed in that video. Pure ugliness.
They should be ashamed.
I have a young on air coworker who has just a few years in the tv news business, and is new to Washington DC and all it’s diversity. Recently he spotted a ‘possibly’ gay man wearing what I would have best termed metrosexual style clothing, and my coworker made a few negative remarks about what he saw.
I won’t say I lit into him, but I did view it as a teachable moment. I adore Free Speech in all its permutations, and I pointed out that this person had no need to shoehorn himself into a style of appearance my coworker would approve. We talked about how it’s good for a people to be diverse so that the social body can adapt and grow. I reminded him that many of the things we take as normal and obvious were previously viewed as cutting edge, pathetic, or corrosive by society.
And then we spoke about people and who they are. I reminded him he was under no obligation to like or approve of anyone else, but they were not obligated to like or approve of him. I pointed out self segregation was personally limiting. That there are a lot of folks out there he might grow to appreciate and learn from if he stepped out of his self made box.
I think I made an impact. I think he heard me. He has enjoyed many of my ‘war stories’ about the crazy shit that happened to me over the years shooting news, and I tried to say an open mind was a requirement for that kind of stuff to happen to him.
I have often remarked a great personal joy in my life has been watching my own preconceptions and prejudices get destroyed as I travel through this life.
On point with the op - it’s disturbing to hear people vent homophobic ideas, but I am glad they do. It gives you a chance to point it out to those who might learn from it, and to recognize those who might not be able to change themselves, and change how you deal with them appropriately. Like I say I adore free speech - it makes spotting the idiots that much easier.
2gigch1, thank you for fighting ignorance. It’s taking a lot longer than we thought!
Here is a report on an experiment to determine the role of choice in sexual orientation: [thread=347856]I try to become Gay for Science. (Warning, long, Gay)[/thread]
The video in the OP is so full of shit its eyes are brown. Does Marcus Bachman’s voice sound that lispy over a good microphone? He sounds like the winner of the 1974 Quentin Crisp award.
I had an odd experience recently, I met an old friend I had not seen in a long time and after a few hours I came to believe he may be gay. What an strange situation this was for me! Here I am, coming to this conclusion and what can I do, what does it mean? I can’t come out and ask direct questions because it honestly isn’t any of my damn business, and the setting was not appropriate even if I felt so bold.
I had to ask does it matter? Of course not. Yet I wanted to SAY that. I wanted to reassure him that our old friendship would not suffer in the least, and that I was proud that he had decided to follow his heart.
But this is all based on the fact I suspected he was gay.
Which means what? In the end I hope I get to put my money where my mouth is - I want this old friend to be supported. But what the hell, I could be wrong, I could be seeing shadows that are not there. So I will keep my mouth shut and see what the future holds.
In fairness, this is a bit of a strawman. I don’t think that anyone argues that being gay is a choice like pizza toppings are a choice.
The farthest right argument I’ve heard is that it is a nurture instead of a nature characteristic. I can’t understand why it matters either way. Both good and bad things are both inherited and learned. Why does framing the issue of being gay=nurture automatically make it bad, and inductively, if being gay=nature then it is by definition, good?
Heart Disease is an inherited natural condition, but nobody would say that it is good. Giving charity to the poor is a lifestyle choice, but nobody would sat that was bad.
Actually, as a counter point, a lot of the people I know (family and their friends / church), do believe that being gay is just like choosing pizza toppings. That’s why they find it so reprehensible and, supposedly, easy to “turn away from” if gay people seriously wanted to forego their “sin.”
Yeah, that’s why some of us are so disgusted at that belief. It’s so idiotic, it just obviously doesn’t make any sense.
I agree that the “gay isn’t a choice” argument comes across more as a defensive stance than a reasoned one. I don’t think anyone can say with 100% surety what causes an individual’s sexual orientation, although I do think there’s strong evidence showing it’s often biological (which doesn’t preclude the role of the environment).
But I can understand the “naturalistic” point-of-view, political-wise. It’s hard for people to sympathize with stigmatized “outsiders” who choose to be outsiders. If a person can choose to be gay, then that means they can be corrected. Or that sexual orientation doesn’t deserve to be treated as a protected class, like race and gender are.
The most bizarre I ever heard was from my boss, when she found out tat my friend and I were lesbians: ‘how do you feel about all lesbians being butch?’ Since we were two of the most femme people in the entire world, we just looked at each other in surprise.
Then she followed it up with ‘how do you feel about people thinking all lesbians are paedophiles?’ Wha? That’s not something I’d ever actually heard before - I’d heard similar about gay men, but not lesbians.
Wow.
I take it you don’t work in an area where you could have sued for discrimination?
Then again - would you really want to have continued working there?
Once again it shows that, even today, bigots don’t need to hide or find a reason to bully Gays and Lesbians, even as adults.
Martin Luther King Day is tomorrow. As a young white dude, I can remember marching in demonstrations for equality for blacks and getting shit from people on the sidewalks screaming “nigger lover”. I was shocked at the hate and bile from those bigots.
Now, decades later, trying to live my life, I hear shit like this about Gays and Lesbians from the holier-than-thou bigots (and I am looking at you too, black ministers of homophobic churches!). Is it any wonder I am anti-religious, loathe the right-wing Republicans and feel betrayed by the apathy of people who should know better?
It is times like this I am grateful I am not a 20 year old Gay man. Yet, it is because I don’t want Gay and Lesbian kids going through this bullshit that I still get riled enough to work for and vote for candidates and propositions that will eventually give at least a legal basis for this to stop.
Homer: They ruined all our best names like Bruce and Lance and Julian. Those were the toughest names we had! Now they’re just…
John: Queer?
Homer: Yeah, and that’s another thing! I resent you people using that word. That’s our word for making fun of you! We need it!
I’m not sure that’s true, at all. I think that most people are absolutely one or the other for the most part, minus some experimentation.
I do; I could have sued and might have won, but I didn’t.
The stupid thing is that she sacked me by simply not putting me on the timetable any more and claiming I didn’t have a contract. I brought in my copy and ended up with a month’s pay for free, and the other arm of the business - where she didn’t have immediate hiring and firing power - immediately gave me more work until I left of my own free will a few months later.
It was all just utterly bizarre from start to finish and I’m certain it was to do with her comments about my sexuality; work was absolutely fine (and there are disciplinary procedures to follow if they’re not, anyway) and that was our second conversation ever; in the first she’d said lots of odd stuff about gay women too, including that a lot of gay women were ‘polygamous’ - was I?
It’s gayness plus parenting or teaching or anything to do with kids that a lot of people have problems with, IME, even when they’re otherwise ‘tolerant.’
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[li]Who needs a house, the stars are my roof.[/li][li]I can move whereever I want.[/li][li]Who wants to slave around paying a morgage.[/li][li]four walls are like a prison to me.[/li][/ul]
I always thought this was fascinating - OKCupid did a ‘study’ of their members and found that 80% of those who self reported had NEVER sent a message or replied to members of both sexes. A lot only ever messaged opposite sex members and a lot only messaged same sex members.
I thought it was really interesting because if I recall correctly they had really stringent requirements to classify their members as ‘not really bi’. It’s not like they expected bi members to message men and women equally, which would be absurd. All that one needed to do was to ever message both sexes at any time and still 80% of self reporting bi members hadn’t done that.
I connected this thread with a piece by Calvin Trillin, about a yard sale buyer taking advantage of a blind old woman by pointing out a nonexistent stain on a bowl to drive down the price. His rationalization was that in negotiations, you turn your opponent’s weakness to your advantage.
Every one of the homophobic blatherskites in the video are going after a paycheck. Anti-gay-for-pay is a saturated market, so it’s highly competitive (and so they go after sub-nitches; as Victoria Jackson does for the actual mental retarded).
But they have to take advantage of their opponent’s weakness. By that I don’t mean the flamboyant gay guy’s swishiness. Their opponents are the people who have the money they want: the “retards” in the broader sense. Mr. and Mrs. Middle America; who aren’t especially homophobic themselves (since, like everyone, their sexuality is as much a mess as anyone elses’s). Their weakness to be exploited is fear. Demigods are not champions of the common people. They are the predators.
I do love Ann Coulter’s POV at the end there - she’s not actually anti-gay because the only real gays are conservatives and not fighting for rights. The only ones fighting for rights are not really gay.
