I would disagree in that your strident tone allows more folks to immediately dismiss any point you may have otherwise been able to make. People generally are dismissive of rudeness.
Obviously, that thought doesn’t bother you.
But when people who support your position attempt to tell you that you’re hurting your own cause, it is interesting that you turn a deaf ear to them as well. And you wonder why it’s taking so long?
You’re either sexually attracted to women, or you aren’t. There’s no choosing to be attracted to someone. I fail to see what’s so difficult about this.
Yep, it’s my fault.
How the hell do you expect me to take you seriously with this bullshit?
Jodi is my new best friend for so succinctly and dramatically explaining my position.
I mean, there’s Martin Luther King, and there’s Malcom X. There’s Professor X and there’s Magneto. Lissener is Magneto. 
'bout the same way you expect to effect change by acting against your own best interest.
Res, Lissener is none of the above. I am not the Malcolm X of the gay rights “Movement.” I’m certainly not the MLK. I’m the Lissener of the “movement,” no more no less.
You’re the one who invited me in here to explain myself. Howcome no matter how much I explain myself, you still think I’m speaking for anyone other than myself? Or that I’m “trying to effect change,” wring? When I–over and over and over again–have explained to you that neither is the case.
I’m simply done with you.
I’m expending the effort to try to make that clear to you, but I’m not trying to change your mind about anything. I’m not espousing a cause. I’ve simply given up on you, and have turned away. This includes not giving a FUCK about being polite to you when our paths cross on this subject (within the rules of this board, of course).
I’m simply trying to explain my position to you, not trying to change the way you think about anyone or anybody. I feel like I’ve gone WAY above and beyond the call of duty here, because my instinct is to simply ignore you. But, as a participant in these forums, the DONE thing is to at least try to make you understand WHY that is my instinct.
You people are EXTERNAL to me; EXTRANEOUS. Irrelevant–in the real world; I’m still trying to participate in such exchanges, though, in the world of the Dope. In real life, if I heard you say any of these things at, say, a party or something, I would simply move on, find someone else to talk to.
I’m devoting the energy I’ve devoted here to the boards, abstractly; not to you. So your belief that i’m trying to “effect change” or “catch flies” is naive and solipsistic.
You, Res, Jodi, et al., are simply not important to me. You think that just because you hold this opinion or that, that it is my duty to engage with you. Insofar as I am engaging with you, it is only to fulfill my sense of duty to this board as a whole; I could give a blistered fuck about any of you homophobes individually.
Change will happen, but without further effort from me. I’m simply doing you the honor, as fellow Dopers, of trying to make it clear to you exactly how irrelevant you are to me beyond your status as Dopers.
I’ll continue to engage with any of you in Movie threads, or music, or even serious, good-faith debates in GD or the Pit, but I will never, ever tailor my exchanges in such a way as to make it EASIER for you to swallow my basic rights as a human being. Swallow them or not; it’s all about you, and has nothing to do with me.
Tell me if you begin to get it.
why on earth should we? we’re irrelevant, remember?
So you’re devoting energy to the boards, but not to me or the collective group of people who’ve also said that you’re behaving like a flaming jerk.
It’s nice to know that I don’t qualify as a member of the Straight Dope–I suppose I and all the other homophobes should get on a truck and go over to some other boards. Or maybe you’d prefer a mass extermination. Thanks a fucking lot.
Fine, lissener, you’re one of the people following Malcom X instead of Martin Luther King.
I believe it is adequately clear, lissener, that you have no intention of doing anything other than slandering those whose opinions don’t march lock-step with your own on this issue. Whether that makes you a jerk or just an idiot is for wiser heads than mine to say; whether you’ve shown yourself incapable of engaging in serious, good-faith debates is, I would suggest, already established.
Wow. Did that come to you in the form of, like, a voice inside your head?
Who have I been engaging with here, ONLY BECAUSE you’re a Doper? I think your name is pronounced “Non Sequitur.”
The hard part comes when you want something from us (a collective "us’ - all the homophobes who disagree with you on some point).
You want the laws changed so you can marry? You want to be added to the special classes who get protection against discrimination? How do you get that after you have alienated everyone who doesn’t support you? As Jodi points out, gays aren’t anywhere near a majority in this world, and aren’t likely to be anytime in the future.
So how do you propose to convince the rest of us? Rant and rave and call us names? Tell us we don’t matter? Hold your breath until you turn blue?
The genuine homophobes are going to point to you and say, “See what those people are like?” The gay-friendlies are going to be embarassed enough to waste energy and time disassociating themselves from you. And the vast undecided are going to be put off.
If that’s what you want…
Regards,
Shodan
You know, g8r, this is just dishonest.
Can you honestly survey my nearly 3,000 posts and say that I’m “incapable” in engaging in serious debates?
I’ve explained my position on THIS ONE TOPIC; just as many of the religiously motivated homophobes have done. This doesn’t excuse such a lazy, dishonest characterization of my ENTIRE CONTRIBUTION to this board. Please.
Yes it does. You’ll have to work your way up to being respectable again, assuming anyone ever found you that way in the first place. Flexing your e-penis does not impress.
That’s kind of presumptous.
Come on, give yourself some credit, that is the whole idea of debate. Look in the “I hate Rap” thread, musicguy actually began to question his beliefs about rap, I don’t know if he has changed or not, but thanks to the polite attitude of DaLovinDJ, musicguy stopped being condescending, and now has reconsidered his position.
I would call that quite an interesting debate.
Basically, what Tars said.
But you’re right: I should say that you’ve shown yourself incapable of engaging in good-faith in any debate regarding this issue, and for my inaccurate summary, I apologize.
LISSENER –
This is fair, and pretty sane. I should hope we’re largely extraneous to you, seeing as how none of us impact your real life to any great degree. But I still maintain you’re unwise to dismiss people like us as being not worth reasoned discourse. If we don’t help you, who will? You are singularly without a response to that inquiry, or to any inquiry regarding what, if anything, you expect your general snarkiness to accomplish, but hey – whatever gets you through the day. I would only point out that at the end of the day I am happy to take your discourse on your terms – which is to say, to dismiss you as as completely as you would apparently dismiss me, though, I venture to say, with rather more cause. (You have no proof that I’m a homophobe, and precious little reason to think so; your status as a general asshole on this particular subject appears well established.) So we will dismiss each other, and go our own ways, I with the rights I have in this society, in which I am a comfortable member of the majority, you with – well, with significantly fewer rights. But clearly, that’s not my problem. Right?
I seriously doubt that anyone here was under the impression they are important to you personally. Lord knows, I don’t give a rat’s ass about you on a personal level, and only half a rat’s ass on a Board level, since you’ve given me no reason to respect you or to find your opinions well considered. My point was never to make you like me – I see no value in your esteem – but rather to point out the shortsightedness of your position. But then you’ve pretty well summed that up yourself, right here:
It probably won’t, you know. You think your anger is empowering, but I find it sad. You’ll cut off your nose to spite your face, and you’re not even smart enough to know it.
I can actually sympathize with lissener’s anger. When I was younger and living a life which was controlled by others (like, my parents), I was also very angry. I was gay but sexually inactive, living in the homophobic Midwest, very closeted (which was necessary for survival, to a large extent), and I really never became truly happy with my life and my attitude until I took control and moved away (and thank God I did).
I know absolutely nothing about lissener’s life, and little more about his post history, but I imagine there’s something in his life he probably feels … what’s the word … victimized by, or something which tosses him around.
He’s not dealing with that anger in a healthy manner, perhaps, but I do understand how that kind of frustration with life’s unfairness can give rise to impatience.
I’m just saddened by it, really.
Lissener may be strident and unpleasant, but the merit of gay rights does not rest on Lissener’s likeability. Moreover, will you penalize the other American gay folks, like **Anthracite, Priam, Esprix, JayJay, ** and the rest because of Lissener’s behavior? My only complaint with him is his delivery–the gist of his message, that gay folks are entitled to the same rights straight folks enjoy, is right on. One grows weary of the same old arguments posted by people who have no intention of arguing honstly and opnely on the merits of the case; their only wish is to reinforce their irrational disdain for gay people, not to honestly reexamine their beliefs.
OTOH, I apologize for the acrimony I have contributed to these debates. I don’t want to be angry, I don’t want to descend into the pit of hatred and tit-for-tat retaliation. I want to argue forcefully, yet respectfully, for my rights as an American citizen that some people wish to deny me.
And Shodan, you are far too intelligent and skilled a debater to keep trotting out that tired old “You want to be added to the special classes who get protection against discrimination?” argument.
Equal rights are not special rights. When black Americans demanded an end to segregation and second class citizenship, didi you consider their cause to be a plea for “special rights”? When the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, allowing women to vote, did you consider that to be an instance of a special class demanding protection against discrimination? Given that both these advances in American social progress were achieved with Constitutional amendments and judical activism, your logic demands that we send the black Dopers back to the cotton fields and the women Dopers to the kitchen (and the black women Dopers to the kitchens in the cotton fields, I guess).
Do you advocate for the repeal of civil rights for blacks and women? If not, then why do you selectively apply your argument to one class (gay folks) and not to others?
I agre with this entirely, even as I agree with Jodi that lissener is undermining his cause.
I went to a college at which the only good political activism was radical political activism, of the same militant, confrontational style lissener is using. It permanently cured me of any desire to work like that or to be around activists who worked like that.
Maybe it’s just something you grow out of; certainly when I was 16, there was nothing quite so cool as Earth First!'s direct action and confrontational style.
Daniel