Is this accurate? Is there more tolerance for anti-gay posts than for other types of bigotry like anti-black or anti-Jewish posts?
If so, should there be more leeway when it comes to anti-gay posts than for other groups?
While the Great Debates section should have plenty of leeway, even for bigotry, should anti-gay posts get more moderator attention in other sections than they currently are?
In my experience, things like racism, sexism, and anti-Semiticism are not directly moderated, but the sort of people who are prone to those forms of bigotry have a very strong tendency to drift into actions (like personal attacks outside of the Pit) that are directly moderated, and so tend to end up getting banned anyway.
Take some of the posts made by him and insert ethnicity of your choice:
quotes definitely changed by me:
"Do you ever get annoyed with certain members of the black community for being so in your face to non-blacks about it or other behavior?
"Or, they want to be famous in the black community and what better way to get to be the pride of the Pride parade than being the person who shuts down a business.
I mean are blacks just running around begging and pleading for some business to slight them so they can go after them? What’s wrong with just taking your money somewhere else?"
It definitely feels uncomfortable at the least.
This is all because people think sexuality is still in our choice, which makes absolutely no sense to me. It might be mutable, but I knew I liked boys from a very young age, far before puberty or before I even thought about a choice.
I don’t think any of those statements (either the original or the hypothetical edited versions you post here) are worthy of moderation. They may be worthy of derision, pitting, etc., but I don’t think any of those statements as written should be prohibited by Board rules.
In the interest of ‘fighting ignorance’ I think we need to allow posts like this to be made, and responded to appropriately. As long as there is no overt ‘hate speech’, I think the best course of action is to allow the community here to deal with these sorts of actions. In due course, most of the ‘offenders’ will either change their tune, take their opinions somewhere else, or wind up overtly stepping over the line and getting Modded for that. And if they manage to stay here in an active fashion, then they expose themselves for what they are…and the more time they spend here defending themselves the less time they spend elsewhere, where they might find more malleable minds to expose themselves to.
OK, let’s assume it isn’t a choice. It does not seem to me to follow that therefore no one can criticize some members of that or any other group for being in-your-face or seeking victimhood or otherwise behaving in ways of which the poster does not approve.
Gays, blacks, atheists, Republicans, Democrats, Southerners, vegans, omnivores, people who shop at Wal-Mart, people who drive SUVs, Christians, Muslims, pit bull owners, people whose children cry in public, mothers who don’t breast-feed - which of these groups can never have any of their members criticized because it makes the SDMB uncomfortable?
I guess we just disagree on what “being in your face” and “seeking victimhood” entails, exactly. Because I see neither behavior from gays.
Plus you start out good and then end strangely. Gays and blacks can’t choose who they are, the rest of the people can. Nobody has to drive an SUV!
But I don’t believe I came out and said “These should absolutely be banned and the SDMB should never allow it!” Just that it did make me a little uncomfortable to hear them.
Or, take this scenario: someone is talking about issues with their son unrelated to religion. A poster comes in and says religion figures prominently in their family issues. The OP denies it. The poster then says:
To me, that sort of thing would go beyond the sort of antisemitism that is let through the door to be fought, and enters into personal attacks.
I think that a similar hypothetical post about gay folks crosses the line as well.
That. Exactly that. Thank you.
(And just to make sure everyone knows, Lefthand of Dorkness took a post directed at me by Urban Redneck and simply replaced the gay references with Jewish ones.)
OK, but I would go so far as to say that such posts should not come in for extra mod attention either.
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii]
I don’t think it’s appropriate at all to suggest that a parenting challenge is due to the sexual orientation (or race, or religion, etc.) of the parent (in a thread started by the parent) unless that parent makes it part of their question.
[/QUOTE]
The OP made it a point that the son in question “had two mothers”, and explained that meant he was being raised by a lesbian couple in a post shortly subsequent. So it was part of the original question.
Not in any sense that would lead to talk about gay propaganda and a gay bubble and the like. If you mentioned some issue with your family happened on an afternoon after church, then you would have brought religion into the question just as surely as tapu brought in her sexuality–but if some anti-religious poster turned the thread into attacks on all your Christian propaganda, that would also be inappropriate.
Hell, I’ve mentioned my wife in threads before–and that’s me bringing my sexuality into things. If I asked about a family issue (side question, why the fuck would I ask about a family issue on these boards?), and some crazy heterophobe started ranting at me about how my kid might be gay and didn’t have access to a gay role model, it would be just as appropriate as the post in question was.
Gay people should be allowed to mention their family structures without it opening the door to homophobic attacks against them.
I take the fact that a moderator hasn’t replied yet as an indication that the proposal is not getting summarily slapped down and will be discussed among the moderators. If so, thank you for the consideration.
That’s not what I meant by making it part of their question – I meant something like the OP asking “do you think it could be because we’re gay?” (or for an interracial couple “do you think it’s because our son is mixed?”) – if the OP doesn’t explicitly ask about this, then it shouldn’t be part of the discussion.
The fact that there are two mothers in the family does make it a different scenario from the son-forgets-mothers-day scenario that many of us are familiar with, but that’s just a detail of the case being discussed.
It’s neither useful nor should it be acceptable to respond along the lines of “it’s because you’re being too gay”.
I am saying that your argument is the No True Scotsman fallacy, where “true Scotsman” = “legitimate topic for discussion”.
No true Scotsman put sugar in his porridge.
My uncle Angus puts sugar in his porridge.
Your uncle Angus is not a true Scotsman.
No topic is legitimate for discussion unles it is brought out in the OP.
The fact that it was a lesbian couple was brought out in the OP.
The fact that is is a lesbian couple is not a legitimate topic of discussion.
:shrugs:
I don’t actually believe you don’t understand, but FTR.