They wonder that, not because of the state of the world, or the ills that fall upon too many of its citizens, but because you nut out. Completely over-the-top NUT OUT on us, dude.
Sure, things can get tense, and sure, there are ruffled feathers with these sort of debates, but dude. You are in a class by yourself. Few others react in such an extreme manner, and no doubt they feel just as strongly about the issues as you do. So why is that? Can you explain it? Do you feel that they should all react as you do? Do you believe that they are not melodramatic and distressed enough? What is it, exactly?
I say this as someone who has reasons to be fond of you. I bear no ill feelings towards you. But I’m just telling you—it’s because you are nutting out more than most anyone else we’ve seen on this board. That’s why this thread was started. That’s why people wonder why you react the way that you do.
You go through it, yosemite. You have the Jesus-trash debate whether you’re human. You have the fucking President come on TV and call you a danger to the American family and to society and call for you to be stripped of full citizenship and shunted into an abyss of neverending persecution and restricted freedom.
You know what, when your parents stop talking to you, when they call you a pervert, when they don’t let you come home from the holidays because they’re fucking Jesus Bigots, then you can talk to me about “over the top.” Until then, shut the hell up about things you can never understand.
Maybe I’m more honest. Maybe I’m more raw. Or maybe I just care. Or maybe I’m just a worthless jerk and an asshole. Who knows.
All’s I’m going to say is this:
Before this thread started, I didn’t get spectrum, either. Before I came out, I didn’t believe anyone could hate and fear homosexuality as much as I hated myself. Now I realize how naive I was.
But I’ve seen a lot of stuff written on this board since then. And I’ve had my own flare-up of indignation and rage that someone could spew a load of shit all over Great Debates and I end up getting called on it. That was justified; I did let my temper get the better of me, and I did break the rules I’d agreed to when I joined these boards.
I know what spectrum is talking about now. A poster can come into a forum, and say that homosexuals are diseased, are unfit parents, we deserve to be discriminated against, it’ll be great when science can come up with a cure so there’s no more gay people, and that we’re uncapable of understanding true love. And then claim that he’s not bigoted and that he treats everyone with respect. And this is “acceptable.” You can say hateful things as long as you word them politely.
It’s frustrating, and dehumanizing, and it doesn’t seem fair. But you know what, them’s the rules. There’s a lot of shit that’s not fair. You’ve said it yourself: the “answers” are not going to be found on this message board. The best you can hope for is to enlighten people who are willing to listen.
It’s not worth it, spectrum. Just let it go. For your sake. Not for the sake of the people you might offend. And sure as hell not for the sake of gay people that you may be “misrepresenting.” Just for yourself.
Some people are just dicks. You can’t reach them. And if you let yourself get too angry about it, then they’ve done what they set out to do, indirectly – they’ve made your life worse. Say what you feel like saying, and speak up for yourself. But don’t let any asshole come along and fill your life with hate when all you’re trying to do is defend who you love.
I don’t want to reach them. I wouldn’t want to touch them. I wouldn’t lower myself to offer them my hand.
I want them to stop swiping at me, with their teeth and claws. I want them to stop trying to rip apart my life. I want them to stop denying me and my boyfriend the ability to live where we want to. I want them to stop.
And I’d expect more from a board that supposedly wants to fight ignorance (bullshit that) than to let them rant on and on and on. If this Board gave a shit about fighting ignorance, scum like SHAKES would be banned the moment they called gays “diseased.”
Decent people don’t tolerate gaybashing anymore than they’ll stand for racism. This board gives gay bashing free reign, claims that my status as a human being is a worthy topic for debate. How is that consciounable? Can anyone tell me?
How the fuck can that be reasonable, to allow that sort of debate?
I’m not pretending that I understand. That wasn’t what I was commenting on. Where did I say that I personally “understood” the level of pain that you have experienced? Nowhere.
No, my question was simply this: Why is it just YOU that flips out, and not gobear, not Homebrew, not SolGundy? Why YOU? Do you seriously think that you’ve cornered the market on pain? Do you?
No, I don’t think that’s it. “Honest” isn’t what this is. This is a melt-down.
That’s a nice way of putting it.
And the other gay Dopers who manage to get their point across without nutting out don’t care? Doubtful.
You are certainly not a worthless jerk, so don’t go there. I have never met you so I can’t say whether or not you are an asshole, but I’m betting that you are not.
In fact, you seem like a really cool guy in a lot of ways. You appear to be very intelligent and sensitive. I’m betting that you are a pleasant fellow to be around most of the time.
All I’m saying is that you go OVER THE TOP. It is not mandatory to go over the top. It isn’t. It isn’t mandatory to express your frustration, rage, pain and outrage by nutting out. Trust me. It isn’t mandatory. You make a choice to react this way. All your choice. This has nothing to do with the level of pain that has been inflicted upon you. You have every right to be royally pissed at what you have endured. Nobody wants to take that justified rage away from you. But you choose to nut out.
Frustration and rage do not necessarily equal nutting out. If that were the case, many people, including many, many gay folk, would be nutting out, and I don’t see that happening. So there’s something else going on here, but I don’t know what. That’s a mystery only you can solve.
And in preview, what SolGrundy is saying. Especially this:
I’m an atheist, and I’ve been called depraved, evil, incapable of morality, physically abused, lost jobs, and in other ways marginalized by many in this country.
I’m not exactly a militant atheist either. I could probably best be described as “live and let live.”
While I have no idea what it’s like to be a homosexual, I do know what it’s like to be marginalized for being honest about a trait of mine that is utterly harmless, so yes indeed, I am entitled to an opinion. I earned it.
I have no idea what it is like to be homosexual either, but growing up as a fat chick with bad skin in the Valley is like being treated like you haven’t got a right to exist. Okay, maybe not that bad, but being treated like you are invisible, like you are a waste of space, being yelled at by passing cars as you walk down the street (I dreaded walking home from school, every damned day, because I usually get hateful jeers). On and on. No, it isn’t even a fraction of what most gay folk have suffered, but I know what it feels like to be treated like a leper. I know what it feels like to have your personhood summed up in what you look like and what dress size you wear. That no matter what else you do—no matter how smart, accomplished, how good you try to be—you are always going to be less than the person who wears a size 2. I would never, NEVER wish that kind of crap on anyone else.
The thing I learned to do is to stop giving a damn. As SolGrundy says, some people are going to be dicks, no matter what. So I try to not care so much, and focus on the aspects of my life where I excel. Oh, I won’t say that it is 100% effective, but as the years pass, it hurts less. To try to fit into someone else’s skewed idea of what is “normal” and “right” is too exhausting. Screw them.
Because the alternative is even less conscionable. Restricting the speech of all the hateful bigoted idiots out there would do nothing more than give them justification. They’d be able to dismiss the entire SDMB as a bastion of liberal gay-lovers who only listen to what they want to hear. You’ve already seen this in just about every argument that comes up – the moment someone is hit with an argument he can’t counter, he starts going on about how he should have the right to say whatever he wants, you can’t be the thought police, etc. etc.
It’s better, and easier, to let them say what they want and let them dig their own hole. Silence is not the same as agreement. In that very thread you linked to, you saw how SHAKES revealed more of what a total fucktard he is (damn, it’s good to be back in the Pit) with every post he tried to make.
He tried to prove he wasn’t a moron and had something worthwhile to say, and it didn’t work. Everyone called him on it.
But he also tried to piss you off, and he succeeded like gangbusters in that. He manipulated me, too, into trying to reason with him like a respectable person until I realized that I was getting played.
It sucks, but sometimes you need the assholes to be out there, and visible, so that everyone else can see who they’re not. I like to think that there are people out there whose biggest problem with homosexuality is just “the ick factor,” and they’re desperately scrambling to re-think their worldview after considering that they might get lumped in with people like SHAKES. Maybe I’m just being naive. Who really cares?
And I really think Denis was just trying to help out, man.
After the election, I am way too tired for this shit. I’m too tired from being stressed from whether or not I’d wake up last Tuesday morning to find out that the toehold on human rights we’d reached in this country had been snatched away because I was being governed by a hundred and sixty SHAKESes.
So how about this: when the next SHAKES comes on board, we simply roll in, post the links to Ask The Gay Guy I-V for any youngsters who happen to be reading, and roll back out.
Trolls go unfed. Freedom of speech is unhindered. spectrum’s blood pressure is reduced. We’ve done our duty, and I can go to bed.
You do? Okay, I’ll take your word for it. But—I don’t think your flipping out is quite on the same level or with the same frequency. But perhaps I just missed something.
Well, certainly. It’s obvious that many of us are mighty offended by some of the stuff that is said. Feeling and expressing offense isn’t the same thing as nutting out, however. Few nut out to such a degree, and with such apparent regularity, as to warrant a thread such as this. I’m just sayin’ . . .
It’s so much easier to let it go on and not speak out, especially when there are so many out there to be armchair quarterbacks who claim they are on your side.
What? I don’t know where do you get that from what I wrote. Where do I say that we should not speak out? Or do you feel that the only two options here are complacent silence or screeching and nutting out?
Oh, please. [breaks out the worlds smallest violin] I wasn’t playing you friend. I was actually starting to like untill you and everybody else went ape shit on me for calling gay a sickness.
And yes I totally get the point you guys were trying to make by saying "being gay is the difference between being left handed or right handed. "
Right, gotcha! .
I still personaly believe it’s like being born with a condition like asthma
just because I don’t agree with something doesn’t mean I don’t understand or follow your logic.
No, that does seem to be the mode in dealing with the bigots.
It is far too easy to jump on spectrum for his understandable indignation. I remember when that was my mode, and much as he seems to express himself, I felt alone with a bunch of complacent people who acted as if I had no reason for my sense of outrage.
While the true bigots are generally small in number, they do work hard to make themselves heard and to troll like Shrek on amphetamines.
It would be far easier to not respond that way if one felt that they were being backed up.
