And remember, kiddies, thus sayeth The Ryan - taking a same-sex date to the prom has nothing at all to do with homosexuality. Really. Just ask the Catholic church. They really, really, really don’t want anyone to bring a same-sex date to the prom, including heterosexuals - because, as we all know, the epidemic of heterosexuals dating members of the same sex is simply outrageous! Scandalous! So, indeed, this brave Catholic school has stood up and said, “No more! No more shall these wanton heterosexuals (and, we suppose, a few homosexuals, too) arrive in boy/boy or girl/girl pairs! It shall stop! The line has been drawn!” Sure, it may look like it’s some kind of anti-gay stance, but, thankfully, we have The Ryan to point out very clearly to us that we are, indeed, all completely and utterly wrong in this issue.
I honestly couldn’t believe he made that claim. Yes, you can read the words the way he did, if you try really, really, really hard and close your mind completely, but the ever tolerant Mary Ann Martin also said she’d use Marc Hall’s boyfriend’s age (21) to keep him out of the prom if this tactic didn’t work. Sounds like someone with a bigger agenda than keeping heteros from bringing same sex dates.
What bothered me more than his claiming to have read it that way, was the fact that he claimed any reasonable person would agree with him.
Jeez, Esprix, it was because this guy’s date was male - not because he was the same gender. You don’t really think this is about homophobia do you? Why, they most surely would have prevented young women taking males as their partners, too - really they would have.
Frankly, I’m curious about the fact that 12 year olds are allowed to attend. Twenty-one year olds can’t attend (actually, they probably wouldn’t be allowed to attend here, either), but 12 year olds can (as long as they aren’t male, apparently).
Come on Esprix, you know the only reason they aren’t letting this young man attend is because he’ll out-sparkle all the girls whose parents have paid hundreds of dollars to make them look fabulous.
Esprix, don’t you know anything? The reason parents don’t want their heterosexual children going out with those of the same gender is because they really want to promote teen sex and promiscuity! Now, a heterosexual kid sure ain’t gonna get a lot of action unless he’s got a girl around, see?
How DARE you promote abstinence, Esprix! Abstinence is an abomination before God and nachos! Begone from my sight!
I’m convinced the Ryan neither believes nor cares about the positions he takes. His enjoyment comes from the challenge of defending an absurd point of view solely by parsing phrases out of context and twisted semantic games. There is no point in arguing issues with him, because the issues are completely ancillary to his fascination with how imprecise language be if you really put some effort into misunderstanding it.
Derleth, being “sent to Coventry” originates in the town of the same name in Midlands England. IIRC there are two possible explanations for the term. The one I’ve heard most often is that Coventry was strongly pro-Roundhead during the Civil War, and royalist prisoners were sent there as a little extra punishment. The other one I’ve heard is that the townsfolk of Coventry disliked soldiers intensely, so for a soldier to be stationed there was a virtual exile.
Either way, it still means what you think it means–a cultural/social exile.
Lesson learned: When you’re eating rigatoni and read something like this, if you laugh, you’ll end up snorking pasta into your nose. It’s quite uncomfortable.
I ignore the guy. For the most part, although I thought the pederast question was worth answering (TR thought the prefix “ped” automatically meant feet, and I corrected him. Hopefully, he learned something. ;))
Truth Seeker, you’re talking about ignore lists through the new board software, and talking about who is on your list is forbidden - Coventry is just an act of ignoring someone, not electronically putting them on a list.
Perhaps you’re correct, Esprix. However, “sending someone to Coventry” was mentioned as a synonym for putting someone on the “ignore” list in a lengthy thread discussing this feature in ATMB. Her comment certainly suggested to me that she had, indeed, done just that. I mean, c’mon, she put someone on a “list” and she put the word “Coventry” in quotes.
Whether or not she actually did so is immaterial. The reason behind not mentioning who’s on your “ignore” list is to avoid bad feelings and flame wars. Creating the impression, even accidentally, that you did so will cause many of same problems. This is such a potentially sensitive topic, we ought to be careful to avoid even hinting at who’s on the list.
