Umm, what the fuck does PETA have to do with this argument to begin with besides being a non-profit that you have disagreements with? Does PETA discriminate on any basis that Connecticut laws ban? If it does, then you DEFINITELY have a point and I’ll stand beside you in this injustice. Otherwise, leave PETA out of your asinine equation.
I have known Christians who have gotten the crap kicked out of them for being Christians. I have been verbally assaulted for being a Christian.
I do not believe that gays should be assaulted for who they are. I don’t think they should be beat up, yelled out, verbally or physically abused. I don’t think they should lose housing. I don’t think they should be discriminated in a job. And if someone does any of the above, they should be dealt with.
I also don’t believe homosexuality is genetic (they find the gene, I will believe it. They haven’t). I believe it is a choice. You choose to live that lifestyle just like being a Christian is a choice.
Getting back to the Boy Scouts, they are a private organization and have a right to exclude anyone they want to. Sorry, welcome to the real world. I am Girl Scout Leader and they are more inclusive but homosexuality is not allowed to be discussed just like God is not allowed.
There was alot of scoffing at the idea of Christians being persecuted. Well I find enjoyable when non Christians go around telling Christians how to act and telling them what they go through. You don’t know and you don’t get it. A big reason why you don’t hear about this sort of stuff, is because 1) it is not reported as that would show that Christians are discriminated against especially in free speech. CNN could not have that. 2) Christians don’t report it because you know when you become one, that this sort of stuff is going to happen and it is not much of a surprise (The Bible talks about it). Most people who choose to follow Jesus know that it isn’t an easy ride. Besides, alot of Christians see the reporting of this sort of thing as as sign of weakness.
But if Christians are so evil and opressive and horrible then why
) do they set up maternity homes for girls who get thrown out of their homes by their parents for being pregnant and provide girls with medical care, food, housing, clothing, training in a job. You know, there is not a feminist organization who would support something like that. In fact I asked the feminist organization on campus that I belonged to if I could present the idea of doing a baby supplies fundraiser for the one we have in town. They said no because the facility does not support the ideals of the feminist community. oh yeah that’s right, taking responsibility for your mistakes is a bad thing.
-
Why are Christian Missionaries in Africa right now providing social services because many of the countries in that region can’t afford to. I don’t see any secular organizations (with the exception of the fine organization Doctors without Boders but even they have a pretty good percentage of Christians.)
-
Setting up facilities for HIV patients and try to make them as comfortable as possible in thier last days when thier families and lovers leave them. They make sure they have dignity until their last breath and sometimes they are the only ones who attend the funeral.
-
Feed. shelter and clothe the homeless. I have worked for an organization that gave clothing to the homeless along with providing work training for mothers on welfare. They never recieved a penny from any secular organization, it all came from churches and Christian orgs.
This is the work of the “Jeesuzers”. Now you guys can call me whatever you want. You don’t know me personally. You don’t know me enough to make any crass judgments on me. I think that people who scream homophobia are narrowminding and a little senstive. When you come out with anything, there are going to be people who are going to be against you. And this is common ground for Christians and gays. You take a stand for anything you are going to get it from somebody.
And for whoever put “friends” and questioned that. Well once again, you don’t know me or my friends. But even my gay friends who have friends who will only deal with gays think it is a pretty narrow minded point of view. And they also tell me not to take it personally. I love all my friends, they are all gold to me. And the mark of a true friendship is that someone can do something you don’t like but you can still love them. It is a real shame that most people have not experienced that. But then again, you have to give it to recieve it.
No, you are right, only the straight, christian kids deserve wonderful experiences. No rolleye big enough for that one, sweet jesus…
Seems like all the scout-parents here are taking it for granted that their kids are straight and will not be made to leave the BSA in a few years time. Are there no other forms of scouting that you could involve your child in that do not discriminate and that your child will be able to enjoy for as long as he or she wants to?
Iteki - scout* for over 10 years, gay, girl.
*yeah, scout, not girlguide or whatever.
So, let me get this straight. You claim that as a Christian you are persecuted because someone has yelled at you before, and so you identify with the predjudice gay people face? Man, if I told people that I knew what it was like to be descriminated against because one time, a black guy refused to hand me a flyer saying it was “only for blacks” and because of that I know what it’s like to be descriminated against as many black folks are and have been, I’d be rideculed and mocked and rightly so.
How about this: When you have to worry walking out of church that a couple of guys are going to beat the shit out of you, then we can talk. When you find that simply wearing a cross around your neck leads people to refuse you service at stores, deny you the ability to move into the house that you want, and causes them to worridly shephard their children to the other side of the street when you approach, then maybe we’ll have a basis for discussion. Until then, I suggest you look at the myriad number of churches in this country, revel in the fact that as a Christian you are part of the societal “norm” and realize that you can put fish logos, “God’s Gym” stickers and paint all the bible verses you want on your car and get nothing more than a few amused glances and a lot of “Atta boys” from your fellow Christians and realize that claiming to be the victem of persecution is going to get you nothing more than mockery and ridecule, as such a claim so richly deserves. Here’s a hint, being told that you may not use government money and facilities to push your particular brand of superstition upon the masses is not “persecution”, it’s called “following the rules everyone else has to follow”.
As to the rest, so what? Secular charaties do good works too, and with a lot less strings attached. Let me ask you, would your touted women’s shelter provide all of those services you boasted about to a pregnant woman who has opted for an abortion and needs some short term help before the procedure or only to women who are willing to buy into your belief system and do exactly what you say they should do? Would those missionaries you hold fourth as examples of Christian love be in Africa if they were told they could only assist the locals in their worldly needs and were prohibited from trying to convince the natives that they were going to hell and needed to convert to your team? Clothing the homeless and ministering to the sick are wonderful things to do, and I applaud you for doing them, but your implication that ONLY Christian organizations do this is just flat out wrong.
Being a Christian is a choice, but the choice is not the Christian’s.
There have been times when Christians were mightily persecuted. And even today, there are places where Christians are persecuted. In the US, they have generally enjoyed majority status (this is a majoritarian society after all), but even here there are pockets of anti-Christian discrimination. Even in what you might call “Christian” environments (like WASPy neighborhoods), it can be a trial to profess Christ. Consider a person who actually lives the Christian life as exemplified by Jesus Himself, and living in an area populated by Bible thumping rednecks. You are naive if you do not believe that they will ridicule him and make his life, ironically, a living hell.
Well, Lib, I concede your point, but I would contend that we are talking about an entire different order of magnitude here, and I suggest that geewhiz might want to read this thread to get an idea of what being gay in America in the late 20th/early 21st century is really like. It might open her eyes to what “persecution” really is.
I agree, Weirddave. And I heartily endorse reading that thread. However, having long ago joined two other juvenile hoodlums in routinely beating a boy simply because he actually believed all that Jesus stuff, I know personally of at least one who suffered real persecution.
Are you admitting then, Otto, that all Democrats are homophobes? Remember, as has been pointed out in this thread, the Great Demmy Leader of a couple years back folded to the pressures of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Going by your logic, that would make all Democrats guilty of instituting that policy…
Unless you’d wish to… ::ahem::… “amend” your comments. Though you seem to be unable to admit when you misspeak…
I think all kids deserve wonderful experiences. And I’m not a Scout, never was a Scout, think that the Scouts are wrong in banning gays and atheists, and never plan to give any money to Scouting. I just don’t think people who do support scouting are prima fascia evil.
Sure they do. But if they’re going to exclude people, then they shouldn’t ask for government funding. Can’t have it both ways, Sweetheart.
At least one other poster on this board shares a common experience with me.
Picture Scylla, Catholic School boy at St. Cassians Elementary School. Scylla is wearing green plaid pants, a piss yellow shirt, and a green plaid tie.
Every day on the way to school, and on the way home, Scylla must pass Mt. Hebron Elementary School. Mt. Hebron Public Elementary School. This was at the time of bussing for integration. Mt. Hebron Elementary was in large part populated by some very tough kids bussed up from Newark.
Every day, dressed as a Leprechaun, we would be terrorized, chased, and occasionally beaten up.
So, until the fucking day we can make you nine years old, dress you like a leprechaun, and prance you past an inner city public school, don’t fucking talking to me about not being persecuted for my religion.
You don’t know much about the history of the Irish Catholic in this country, do you?
**
When (Wilson was it?) integrated black people fully into the military he simply did it by executive order and made it a fact. Certainly, that was a much tougher and more courageous stance to take, and, the correct one.
I don’t recall Clinton making any talk about full integration for gays, and I really didn’t see “don’t ask, don’t tell” as being a compromise. It was not Clinton’s fall back position. It was his initial position.
As far as I’m concerned, it required zero courage. It was a token gesture of minimal import. In my eyes it did more damage as it gave credence and codified the institutionalized bigotry.
One can understand how this occured. As recently as the 60s the best minds considered Homosexuality to be a mental illness and a valid reason for denying military service.
As our knowledge on the nature of homosexuality changed, so should our stance have. Clinton had the opportunity to do that to say: “Homosexuality is a part of the normal human condition and not a mental illness as was thought. Therefore the ban on gays in the military is without merit, and there is no reason that they should be denied the full respect, citizenship, and right to serve as any other citizen. Therefore by executive order I am integrating gays fully into the military.”
There is certainly precedent.
I dunno. If there’s one thing Bush has shown us, it’s that he’s willing to make controversial and unpopular decisions, if he beleives in it.
Here we have a conservative instituting the biggest social entitlement in history.
I wouldn’t put anything past him.
Here’s a question for you Scylla, were you persecuted for your religion or for your leprechaunish leanings? That’s not to take away from the experiences you’ve had or demean them, I think it’s more appropriate to assign the blame to the problem.
Here’s an example. I used to know two people, both gay, both out in the same high school. One of them routinely got the shit kicked out of him, the other was good friends with the people that were doing the beatings. The person that was getting beat claimed that these were gay bashings and sued the school for not doing anything. He won a
$900K settlement and paraded about as a hero for gay justice. The real reason he was getting beaten up was because he was a little jerk to everyone according to the other gay guy up there. The two were actually semi-friends even after high school and both moved to the Twin Cities. They both had different views of what happened in high school and I’m more inclined to believe the non-victim than the victim.
clairobscur:
Well Clair, I look at it like this: I agree with almost everything the BSA does and stands for. I think they are an enormous force for good and a positive influence for generations of young men and boys.
I find myself to be in 99% agreement, and about 1% disagreement.
More importantly, I feel the battle is won. The BSA’s standpoint on gays is simply untenable. It will have to change.
My basic beleif is that we are at the point with gay rights where we need to work towards reconciliation not ostracization. We should not be trying to destroy these groups because of there failings. We shouldn’t be trying to ostracize and punish them.
All that’s happening is that the divide gets cemented. As has been mentioned there are a lot of Scout Troops out there that are quietly disobeying the directives, and doing what is right simply because it is the right thing for their troop and the children in it.
The Boys Scouts has a lot to offer, I’m not going to throw that away because some irate activist types that don’t see beyond their moral outrage have a problem with the old fogies over at Boy Scout central who set the rules.
Ultimately Boy Scouts is not about the fogies or the activists, it’s not about gay rights.
It’s about helping young boys become young men, about instilling repsonsibility, confidence, knowledge and the willingness to use those things as a force for good.
The BSA will change. It’s mission. It’s goals. The nature of the organization itself will and is forcing it to.
That is why it will change. Not because angry activists give them shit, but because it is the morally correct thing to do.
I think we were beaten up because we were little white kids in plaid.
I don’t really see how that changes anything.
I’m not sure how many times we have to have this discussion. Our Den and Pack are as far from the BSA, organizational-wise, as can be. The BSA is not some monolithic structure that has absolute power over every single person that comes within its purview.
I reiterate: The instant a seven-year-old is drummed out of our Den or Pack for being homosexual, count me right there among the protestors. For the nonce, however, I fail to see how this particular issue affects our Den.
Well, thank God you threw that last modifier in there, or I’d just be SOL, now wouldn’t I?
As Polycarp mentioned earlier, my wife and I belong to a Southern Baptist Church. We disagree with some of the policies of the Southern Baptist Convention, but since the SBC doesn’t really affect us a whole lot as a church, we cheerfully ignore those policies. In a discussion we had in Sunday School a few months back, every single person in our class agreed that the SBC was overstepping its bounds regarding a policy they instituted. So in that instance, yes, I’d say it’s entirely possible for a group of people to voluntarily belong to an organization and not fully agree with every single policy of that organization.
In fact, to bring this example back to our little group of six seven-year-old boys in the Tiger Cub Den, should one of them announce at our next meeting that he’s decided he’s gay, I seriously doubt we’d drum him out. But that’s just my own personal experience talking. Feel free to ignore it in favor of that bloodydamn huge brush you’re waving around there.
Is that another strain of the “My friend must become my enemy if he doesn’t agree with me in complete lockstep” rhetoric?
What all this boils down to, I guess, is I tend to make decisions based on my own personal experience, rather than allowing others to tell me how I should think. To date, I have not personally experienced any examples of homophobia or discrimination as it relates to the Tiger Cubs. Should something like that occur, my wife and I would discuss whether it was appropriate for the Stepminion to continue with the Scouts.
My fiance is an Eagle Scout (I say ‘is’ because he still participates and helps with his old Scout troop). He strongly identifies with the values taught by Scouting (I’m not referring to God or gays here, just in terms of morals - helping others, etc), and he thoroughly enjoyed his time in Scouting.
However, he’s against their policy on gays and atheists. He thinks it needs to change. He doesn’t agree with their policies and he knows my very strong feelings on the subject and feels just about the same way. He believes in marriage for gays, equal rights for gays, etc. His political leanings are completely opposite of what the Scouts seem to imply.
Yet, he has said that if we have a son, he’d like him to participate in Scouts because of what the boys learn from it. And while I do strongly hope that this whole debate is over by the time we have a child old enough to be in the Scouts, if it’s not, I hope that perhaps we’re able to teach our son the difference between what an organization teaches and what it practices through his involvement in the Scouts. And who knows…maybe the boys who participate in the Scouts in the next few years will be inspired to change things themselves.
Ava
You think little black kids in plaid would have been embraced?
It negates your entire point. I got beat up because I went to an Episcopal school where we were required to dress like dorks and because private school kids are seen as pansies by the kids that go to public school. Calling it “religious” persecution is complete bullshit. Putting it on the same level as racism is ludicrous.
And BTW, I am plenty familiar with the history of Irish Catholic persecution in this country and I’ll tell you this, unless you’re 90 years old, saying that it affected you is more bullshit. Why can’t you just admit that you’ve never experienced descrimination or persecution anywhere close to what blacks and gays have gone through and thank your lucky stars for it? Why all this desire to claim victim statis when none exists? Get off the cross, buddy, nobody is buying it.
Ditto what Weirddave wrote, Scylla. You were beaten up because your mom dressed you funny, not because you were Catholic.
If you were a Catholic kid at the public school and thus didn’t have to wear a uniform that screamed “please beat me up,” do you think you would have been beaten up? Even if you had worn some kind of Catholic identifier, like, say, a crucifix around your neck?