From what I understand, Jodie Foster IS out-she just hasn’t made a big public announcement, because she seem to discuss her private life to the press. And why should she?
Sure, I’m an equal opportunity bastard.
If the debate is about restricting the rights of adulterers, sure. It would be relevant to his stance on that debate. Since it has no relevancy on the gay rights debate, I’d say no.
Sorry, I guess that wasn’t as clear as it should have been: I said that only applied to homophobes and sexual moralizers, as opposed to actors and other celebrities who haven’t taken a stand on gay rights one way or the other. As a general principle, it applies to anyone who takes a public stand against an activity they engage in privately.
No, relevancy to the debate at hand is what’s important. It’s like wossisname, William Bennet, being a gambler. He may have been a moralizing blowhard, but he never was a moralizing blowhard about gambling, so trying to take him down a peg over that is not fair play.
What, you mean Clinton? I never felt that the charges against him should have been properly considered “harrassment,” but my definition of the term may be narrower than is generally accepted. But that’s not really an argument I’m keen to rehash right now.
To extend your hyperbole, is it moral to kill a criminal who is actively and immediately threatening your life, or should a moral person turn the other cheek, even when their life is in danger?
After all, killing someone in self-defense would presumably have negative consequences for the criminal’s friends, family, and other associates.
If anyone were to attempt to use my sexuality as a weapon against me, I would feel perfectly justified in using their own sexuality to counter the threat. If they can’t accept the negative consequences that could come from me defending myself, they shouldn’t have started the fight in the first place.
She doesn’t discuss her private life with the press. Pretty much at all. Doesn’t talk about her kids, doesn’t talk about her friends, doesn’t talk about her interests.
There are celebrities who will pretty much run on about their personal lives. You know their religion, their politics, their pet causes, their hobbies, their interests, who they are dating. There are celebrities who are pretty private with their personal lives. Foster is one that is pretty private. That may be (and I don’t know or don’t care) because she is gay and doesn’t want to deal with that publically. That may be because she values her privacy. It may be both. I suspect if Jodie Foster were straight (and I don’t know and don’t care) she wouldn’t be the star you see on the front page of people with a new boyfriend every six months.
Its interesting to watch certain celebrities mature. Once upon a time, Johnny Depp and Julia Roberts were publicity whores. As they’ve matured as people, it seems that they are less likely to search out the spotlight - preferring a quietier more private life. Neither of them has become suddenly gay (to the best of my knowledge). Both of them have become a lot more mature as people over the past ten years. Foster has always been a fairly mature individual.
…and FTR, it saddens me that there are negative social consquences for out GLBT-types.
However, the homophobic homos and philandering preachers are the very parties responsible for making it that way, so fuck 'em. Metaphorically.
I’ll try to keep this simple. I’ll start with an analogy. If you believe in the right to free speech, you can’t seek to shut someone up just because you don’t like the ideas he is espousing. If you do, you are a hypocrite.
Similarly, if you believe in the right to privacy in sexual matters, you can’t seek to shed a light on someone’s bedroom activities just because you don’t approve of their actions regarding sexuality when they are out of the bedroom.
Now if you want to say you don’y believe in the right to privacy as it applies to the bedroom, I retract my accusation. Until then, best to be accepting of who you really are, don’t you think?
Which leaves us with your not responding to my post sans illustration. Anything?
I don’t believe that violence towards another human is moral. If I’m physically assaulted, and I defend myself, am I a hypocrite?
The right to free speech is a federal right. In other words, the government isn’t allowed (with certain exceptions) to infringe upon your right to speak. I get to infringe on it lots. I get to shout at you, or deny you a forum, or call you names. I just don’t get to pass a law restricting your speech (again with certain exceptions).
You don’t have a “right to privacy” that is infringed by my actions as a private individual. The government should be required to respect your privacy. I am not the government. If I, as a private individual, find out something that isn’t to your benefit, I don’t recognize any “right” of yours to keep me from speaking about it.
Now, would I? As I have stated explicitly, only if you were attempting to use that information against me or against others. If you benefit from the secrecy and use that weapon against me or others, I will take the secrecy away if I can.
Possibly. But only if you are an absolute pacifist and have stated that you believe that one human can never strike out at another human, regardless of circumstances. If you have made such a declaration and then strike out, yes, you are a hypocrite. Which, in my book, would be better than being dead, but that’s just me.
That’s cool. So, it’s wrong to hit someone… except in certain circumstances. Just as it’s wrong to out someone against their will… except in certain circumstances. Where’s the hypocrisy?
Interesting how you use “infringe”, as if the right can be tread upon today, but tomorrow you can have your right uninfringed upon. Except, as you have correctly pointed out, you only get to out someone once. So this one-time infringement robs that person of his right to keep a sexual fact about himself private forever. It’s like me killing someone and saying, my bad, it’s just an infringement.
And while you do get to excercise your right of free speech to compete with me, you do not get to deprive me of that right. You, as a fellow citizen, can yell your head off from the sidelines, but you cannot stop my legally protected speech.
Secondly, I think you misunderstand rights and the role of the government. Do you know what a right is? The government doesn’t give you rights, it recognizes and ensures them. They exist, and you can depend on the governement to come to your aid if someone seeks to deprive you of them. Claiming something is a federal right makes sense only to the extent you are attempting to distinguish them from state-specific rights.
What? So if I get a zoom lens and take pictures of you in your bedroom with all manner of sexual devices beiing enjoyed, I can own those photos and sell them and post them on the internet and have an art show? I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think that is the case.
You just said in that last paragraph: “The government should be required to respect your privacy. I am not the government.” So people should not respect other people’s rights, just governments need do that. This is worse than I thought. And I’m not sure the policy you suggest would benefit the gay population you are so high-on-your-horse about helping.
Now, I will agree that just because someone has a right doesn’t mean you have to respect it. But you ignore it at your own peril. Two things can happen. One, the law could come after you. Two, if you had claimed to believe in that right, you would be called a hypocrite. And rightly so.
This is self-deluded bullshit. When you out the people you are talking about all you want to do is shut them up because they don’t agree with you. They may espouse the same social philosophy as a straight person, but because they are gay you say they are not allowed to hold that position AND retain their right to privacy. Who made you God and Legislature? You want to shut them up because you want to eliminate dissent and there is a sword hanging over their head. “Swipe”—one less obstacle, not to mention a nice reminder to any other gays who are thinking of stepping out of line. I find this disgusting. Anyone who believes that the right to privacy is actually a right cannot say otherwise and not be revealed to be the hypocrite they are.
Now, if you don’t believe in the right to privacy, or that gay people should be treated equal to straight peope in every respect, that’s a whole other story.
:rolleyes: You wouldn’t, perchance, want to play chess for $10,000, would you? Even though I didn’t answer in a way that would make this post a logical reply, you went there anyway. Alright, I’ll play. You’re using the vague word “wrong” to create a big enough bucket to put these two things in the same category. Here’s why there different. If you hit someone, they have the opportunity to defend themselve. They can even hit you back and kick the living shit out of you. They can also have you arrested. If you’re talking about self-defense still, the difference is that you are responding in kind. And that is not wrong, either morally or legally.
When you out someone, it’s an ambush. If you warn them first, it’s blackmail. You know you have the advantage because you can be anonymous. At the very least, you can be discovered after that fact, when the other person has already lost what he held dear.
You might also be taking advantage of the lax laws. As I said, I am not a lawyer, but does any one know what the penalties are for invadiing someone’s privacy (the zoom lens example above) and if that or any other penalties apply to outing someone against their will (or with malicious intent)?
None of this makes a lick of sense to me. Chess? Buckets? What the hell?
Exactly. And when I out a homophobic politician, I am responding in kind. When someone seeks to prevent me from marrying, or adopting kids, or holding a particular job because I’m gay, they are using my sexuality as a weapon against me. Why am I a hypocrite if, in response, I use their sexuality against them?
You’re bringing in a host of issues that are not necessarily related to the topic. First of all, so what if its an ambush? How is that relevant? Secondly, it’s only blackmail if I try to extort some sort of a concession from them in exchange for not revealing the information. If I call up Jerry Falwell and say, “Jerry, next Tuesday I’m going public with photos of you dancing in assless chaps at the Endup. See you on CNN, you bloated gasbag!” that’s not blackmail. Lastly, why is anonymity a necessary component of outing someone? If I were going to out Jerry Falwell, I’m going to want the credit for doing so.
I’m fairly certain there are laws against photgraphing someone in their own home. But what if, as per my previous example, I see Jerry Falwell partying away in a gay bar? It’s in a public place. If I out him using that as proof, am I invading his privacy? What if I’ve actually had sex with him?
<hang on a sec, I just threw up in my mouth a little>
Ahem. Anyway, what if I’m just sharing details of something I participated in? Do you think that should be against the law?
I have zero idea what you think your point is.
The right to free speech is a federal right. It is a right to be free of the government infringing on your speech without damned good reason. I can be in favor of that right without personally enabling or allowing you to speak.
The right to privacy is a federal right that the Supreme Court has determined to protect you from the government infringing on at least some forms of your sexuality. I can be in favor of that right without personally keeping any secret of yours. It has nothing to do with secrets. It has to do with laws and criminality.
You seem to think you have, or should have, the right to be free of gossip, or that my believing in gay rights means that I have to be in favor of the right to be free of gossip. And that’s just stupid.
Miller, if you mention having sex with Jerry Falwell again, I will have to start a fund to have you assassinated. Gah.
Sorry. They should have been in two separate paragraphs. The chess comment was a commentary on the obviousness of where your questioning was heading, yet it seemed as if you were trying to tee me up with that one post, so you could come back with what you did in your following post.
The bucket mention simply referred to categories. You used the general concept of “it’s wrong to…except in certain circumstances” to create an equivalence in kind between hitting and outing, thus putting them in the same bucket.
I don’t think that quite the case. When someone is arguiing social policy he is not seeking to hurt you specifically. Any social policy will hurt some and help others, or at least help some more than others. That is why social policy cannot look to the individual case. If someone is doing what they believe is right for society, they shouldn’t be blackmailed or threatened. They should be confronted and debated. And if your ideas cant emerge victorious on the merits, well, welcom to society.
I would add, that if someone advocates a social position that seems to run counter to their own personal interest, they are likell taking the moral high ground: advocating for society at the cost of themselves. These are hardly people who merit such reprehensible behavior from their fellow citizens.
I was going with your analogy of hitting someone. There are two scenarios, one you sucker punch him (ambush), the other is that you call him outside and go at it. As far as blackmail, the concession could be that unless the person change their position on the particular issue, that you will out him. You’re example concerning calling up your boyfriend Jerry Falwell seems to be more of an ambush. You are not giviing him any option, and you certainly are not puttiing yourself at any risk. It seems cowardly and cheap. Now IF you were to take cxredit for it, and IF there was a law against it that you would suffer under, I’d respect that a lot more. But my basic objection remains. If you believe that sexual matters are private matters, then you respect someone else’s privacy. Now, I will grant you that there is a line which someone can cross—like your unfortunatley-brain-seering picture of Falwell dancing in public in assless chaps (please make that the only time I ever type those two words)—that can be taken as someone essentially outing themselves.
If you out Jerry Falwell, why would you want the credit for it? Seriously. I think the point is worthy of contemplation. It seems that you’d be satisfying some deep-seeded hate. I hardly think that’s anything to stick your chest out about.
As I just mentioned, the public display can make the outing okay, as he essentially did it himself. But if it was at a small diner party that you and he had been invited to as the only outsider, I think you should respect the degree of privacy that the atendees expect. If it’s a larger party where strangers have been invited, all guarantees are off.
I think it’s different with you having sex with him. Assuming a minimal degree of intimacy, I think what happens between you and your partner is no one’s business. For that reason, my activities with my girlfiends over the years have not been shared with others by me.
And I’ll never be the same. Thanks for the laugh though.
No. And this is the great grey area. You certainly can discuss your sex life with your friends if you wish, but think it is not the hnorable thing to do. If I have an clandestine affair with a married woman (leave the honor in that aside for a second) and I wanted to reveal some details to a friend, I would not offer her name. I wouldn’t offer anything, but that’s just me.
Did you read my post? Do you not understand the conept of rights and the government’s role with them? The right of free speech doe NOT just mean that the government cannot stop you from speaking your mind (as you said, with certain limits). The right of free speech guarantees thet YOU can’t stop me either. The governement is there to punish you if you do. ANd since you cannopt prevent me from speaking you have to allow me to speak. You can yell and try compete with my free speech with your own free speech, but you can’t stop me from speaking, or writing, my mind.
You may be correct, as I am not a lawyer. I will say that if the government is going to recognize a right—any right—it is then obligated to ensure that I can enjoy that right.
So you may be right regarding secrets and gossip. But, fortunately, the law isn’t the only thing that stops some of us from behaving badly. Some of us have a sense of right and wrong, one that applies even to people we despise. I mean, even you, probably wouldn’t sneak up on some anti-gay crusader and shoot him in the back of the head, would you? Now, if you would just hold yourself to a little higher standard, we’d be on the same page.
Eeek. Maybe I was wrong. (I’ll spring for the bullets.)
Please give an example of a way I, as a private citizen, can infringe on your right to free speech without breaking any other laws. In other words, without assault, or kidnapping, or theft or something similar. How can I violate your rights to speech?
It’s fairly well settled that someone can violate someone else’s civil rights, even as a private citizen. And that person may be prosecuted for that violation.
Say you were to show up to a rally for the express purpose to disrupt it, I would imagine charges wouldn’t be limited to a disturbance of the peace. It would be an interference of someone’s First Amendment rights, and thus a crime.
Hmmm…I don’t think this affects the respect I have for a person. Yes, there’s a public perception that needs to be straightened out for gays in general, but why does everyone who is gay and famous have to lead the charge? Sexuality is a private matter first and foremost. If a person chooses to keep it that way, I don’t see how that should have any bearing on the level of respect I hold for that person.
Ummm…
Hi.
I belt out the lyrics to show tunes in piano bars.
Just for anyone who’s taking a survey.