I’m really glad I read through this thread. My perspective is much more informed by facts and I’m really appreciate the time put into this. I always like to think of myself as open-minded, but there’s always more prejudice and conditioning to strip away to see the lives of others as I see my own life.
Death threats? Death threats in Jesus’ name? Death threats against a grade-school kid?
Y’know, I started out having some doubts about school athletics, but fuck it. That vanishes into total irrelevance.
These guys think that death threats against minors is how Jesus wants us to behave. Nothing is more important, now, than preventing them from controlling other people’s lives.
(Back in the 1970s, I didn’t care much about abortion. Not my issue, no big deal. Then came the health clinic firebombings, and the issue shot up to the highest priority with me. Congratulations to these shit-nuggets: they’ve alienated me from any possible doubts I may have had remaining. Transgender rights is now issue #3 for me, directly following reproductive freedom and gay rights.)
“The more you tighten your grip, the more voters will slip through your fingers.”
Anger, despair, and, yes, destruction and violence always come before change can occur. Nat Turner. The Boston Tea Party. Solidarność. Watts.
To suggest that anger played no part in obtaining societal acceptance of homosexuality is purely ignorant. To suggest that the people who fought and screamed and begged for their basic humanity in the face of hatred and oppression are morally equivalent to Fred Phelps is purely insulting.
Your dismissal of angry protest as wining asshat jerkery is, well, asshat jerkery on its own. And as you seem to concede, Dr. King was often impolite, and often angry.
But that aside, the Mahatma Gandhi would have had no platform for Indian independence without the Punjabi uprisings. Lech Walesa would have had no Solidarity without angry, even violent, civil resistance to government oppression. Dr. King would have had little traction in the South without a history of anger behind him (and indeed, it’s debatable that his voice would have been heard as loudly without Malcolm).
Gay rights would not have been won without Stonewall. Without “we’re here, we’re queer.” Without “fags bash back.” Without “out of the closets and into the streets.”
Yeah. You’re goddamn right I’m angry. Dismiss me as shrill all you want. Dismiss me as a “whiny asshat jerk” all you want.
I’ve lived through the Plague. I’ve lived through being a caricature. I’ve lived through Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard and Angie Zapata and all the others. I’ve been spat on, I’ve been punched, I’ve been threatened, I’ve had my windshield smashed. I’ve held kids too beaten up to walk and too terrified to go to the hospital. I watch loved ones go through every day terrified they’ll be outed if they make a single slip–and lose their jobs, lose their friends, lose their lives.
You know what? I’ve fucking well earned my anger. And the more people dismiss my anger, tell me I’m just whining, being an asshat, being a jerk, the angrier I get.
No justice, no fucking peace.
I love watching the tone police get a righteous beatdown.
So do I. People who are quick to dismiss truthful and accurate complaints because of ‘tone’ are the worst sorts of assholes. All it is is a passive-aggressive way of finding yet another way to disregard demands for change.
That’s 'cause your brain don’t work so good.
Yeah, you’re definitely a well-informed and useful source for information about the history of the gay rights movement, the opposition thereto, and the most effective tactics employed in its advancement.
Well, in fairness, Gandhi never had to put up with you.
The best book on this topic I’ve read is Blood Done Sign My Name. Short version: a black man is murdered in plain daylight in an NC town in 1970. The murderer is acquitted by an all-white jury. There are peaceful black protests, and nothing changes in town. Some pissed-off Vietnam vets start engaging in strategic guerilla attacks on white-owned properties, by which you should read “arson.” White leaders find their way to the table with peaceful black leaders.
Yes. I’m helping. It’s called Devil’s advocate. And the lawyers, on both sides, use the same technique. I see holes and I challenge you to fill them.
I’m helping by reminding you that the next DOJ and EEOC may change their minds if the GOP wins the presidency and the Attorney General and (eventually) members of the EEOC become Republicans. So that’s not good for a long-lasting solution. Same with courts - I’m glad there’s progress, but this is likely going all the way to the SCOTUS. It may win there because of the 4-4 split, but that’s sheer luck. If the case reaches the court after a Republican president (God forbid) appoints a justice to replace Scalia (assuming the Senate fails to act on Obama’s as it is assured to do) then you’re out of luck.
Why would you object to challenges to your arguments, or even your opinions, anyway? I have never ever insulted or expressed hatred for transgender people - just the opposite. I have even said I fully support access to restrooms. If you don’t like being annoyed by friendly challenges, that’s not enough.
Cool.
So when one of those legislators brings up one of the questions I’ve challenged you with, you’ll be better prepared to answer.
You’re welcome.
This has nothing to do with me.
My question was whether you, and others, are willing to fully live up to your expressed beliefs, or will you compromise with those legislators and slam the door shut on the rights of others after you’ve walked through the door yourself. I’m sure you will, but maybe not everyone else. And this is a problem for YOU.
If someone says “we should respect the rights of all based on X principle,” and someone calls them on it and they back off instead, that could backfire on you.
So what? The law in North Carolina is “enforced law” too, for now.
Duh. But it doesn’t prove they are either.
Generally, when I think I’m helping, but the people I’m trying to help all tell me “hey, stop doing that, it’s not helping”, then I stop doing it.
I think you’re trying to help, but I’m not sure if what you’re doing is actually helping.
I don’t.
Sometimes people need their opinions challenged even if they think they don’t.
In fact, you prove my point by expecting me to just give up based on nothing more than “you’re not helping.” That’s an excuse, not an argument.
The Devil’s advocate role is often misunderstood and resented.
Of course, anyone who doesn’t like my comments can simply ignore me. But most don’t. Why not? Why do you keep responding?
I think so.
Come on, can you not think of one thing you’ve said in response to me that you hadn’t quite contemplated before, because you didn’t need to before? Nothing? You’ve been through all this? Someone else has brought up all the things I did?
“People”=you. You need to challenge yourself on this, ask yourself truly–don’t tell us here, just ask yourself truly–why the people you think you’re helping don’t actually want your help. Why your lanceplaining doesn’t seem to be welcome. Is it because they’re fragile and can’t stand to have their beliefs challenged, or is it possible, just barely possible, that they’ve considered your ideas and find them irrelevant and poorly reasoned?
Sounds like a guy I used to know.
When you’d disagree with him, he’d completely shut down and stop listening to you. He’d retreat into his head and think “I’m obviously not explaining myself properly if they still don’t agree with me” and then he’d come roaring back…
With the exact same wording on endless repeat. :smack:
But Lance, like the guy I knew, only thinks about his inherent rightness and how it is the other person’s fault for not understanding him and agreeing.
It’s possible that you’re being a magnificent “Devil’s advocate”, and many of your ‘targets’ just can’t recognize your brilliance and efficacy. But it’s also possible that you suck at it. Or something in between. Right?
IMO, probably in between – though in the trans stuff, I think you mostly aren’t very good at it. I don’t think the stuff you offer on trans issues is new or adds much. I can’t recall if you’ve made me think about something particularly new, but if you have, it wasn’t on anything related to bathrooms, I’m pretty sure.
But that’s okay (and also just my opinion, of course) – it’s clear that you’re trying to put thought into it, and that’s why I keep responding. I like discussing all kinds of things, even when I disagree, when people are putting effort into the things they say.
What I think rubs people the wrong way is the (as I see it) sheer and incredible arrogance and smug self assuredness that every thought and challenge you offer in this “Devil’s advocate” role comes off (IMO) as if you think you deserve plaudits and acclaim for coming up with some brilliant logical challenge, when usually it’s not that great, thought provoking, or original. You’re probably not intending for this to come off this way, but this is often how I see it, especially when you’re challenging actual nitty-gritty fighters-for-good like Una. I get the impression that you’d feel comfortable challenging Martin Luther King Jr. or Harvey Milk on their protest and social change tactics, and expect them to compliment you on how much you’ve made them think.
But this is all said with love. 
This feels appropriate somehow.
http://d1o2xrel38nv1n.cloudfront.net/files/2014/05/2014-04-10-pltm196-1.jpg
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Yes. And if someone said, “It’s only your opinion,” you could cite that to explode that foolish claim, exactly as I did to explode the foolish claim that transgender rights were “only my opinion.”
Do you comprehend evidence-based debate?
The idea that a “Devil’s Advocate” is even necessary in these sorts of conversations is hilariously stupid. The point of a Devil’s Advocate is that, sometime, you need someone to take a position no one would take in order to test the soundness of a theory. But in real life, on LGBT rights issues, there’s no end to people who are genuinely committed to making sure queers don’t get treated like regular people. We don’t need lance’s tedious song-and-dance routine to test our arguments for us. They’ve been tested plenty, in real life, by honest-to-God bigots… and they work. And we figured out how to make these arguments all on our own, without having lance ride in to tell us poor deviants how we’re doing it all wrong.
Pretty much says it all. We’ve already got a glut of real devils out there doing their own advocating.
If you guys aren’t careful, ol’ lance will just take his help and go home. And then where would you be? Huh? Huh?
That’s impossible. We all know that no one is against LGBT rights, which is why someone needs to put on an opposition to LGBT rights just to show how the people who are against LGBT rights would act. If they existed. Which they don’t. LOGIC!