There have been an abundance of threads about homosexuality.
I’m not just talking the Esprix threads… no. There have been threads discussing the pros and cons of being gay. Threads discussing Christianity and Homosexuality, and a myriad of other threads going into many other aspects.
I’d like to know why people care? The information about gay men/lesbians/transgendered people has been all over this board in great detail. These threads often turn into a pitched battle between Christians who don’t like it, call it icky, and quote either Bible verses or Bible references, and their counterparts who are tolerant and don’t understand why a book over 2000 years old with massive edits is being taken as literal.
Many of these threads seem to be started by heterosexuals.
Why? The information is out there, it hasn’t changed in any substantive way between the threads, and it isn’t as if we mutate quickly and make people wonder what we are going to do and be next…
I’m all for education, but the general thrust of these threads is not to educate, but to debate if being gay is ok, and what the appropriate expression of being gay should be.
If you aren’t gay, and you don’t just want knowledge, why do you care so much about homosexuality that you have to debate it?
Anything sexual is always going to interest people, as is anything that is considered a deviation from the norm ( and no, I don’t believe homosexuals are deviants). People are always going to be drawn to topics they feel are exotic or foreign - add the sexual element and it becomes even more of a hot subject of discussion. Add to that many people’s religious/“moral” hang-ups about sex, as well as others’ belief that homosexuality is “unnatural”, and I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about its drawing power. In short, I think it’s curiosity, mixed with social taboos and maybe a bit of “we’re superior to them”-type self-aggrandizement that gets people going.
I only care because I see people I know and care about get hurt by the kind of ignorance some people on this board are spewing on an almost daily basis.
Hm. Something’s dangling there, but I’m not sure what it is. People I know and care about get hurt on an almost daily basis by the kind of ignorance some people spew on this board. There. That’s what I meant.
Oh, and Torgo - you might want to consider lesbians in your thoughts about homosexuality. Also not a group generally into “anal sex.”
As far as the rest of it goes, I really don’t care if the people I meet, here or IRL, are gay, straight, bisexual, asexual or polka-dotted. Unless they prove to be an asshole I really don’t give a rat’s ass one way or another.
I’ve wondered this myself. Why do people care so much?
But then today I got an email from my friend Mikey. He’s a jr. diplomat in Romania. He’s gay, JUST started coming out.
He’s the son of a Lutheran Minister. His Dad left one church because the congregation’s stance on homosexuality was “too liberal.” So he’s scared shitless of telling his parents. They might stop talking to him, forever.
Last night, he went to a gay disco in Bucharest. The scene there is very underground, by necessity, as the concept of “gay rights” or tolerance is completely foreign. Right before he arrived, the cops rounded up most of the patrons and took them down to the police station for “identification purposes.” This means that their names go in a file somewhere. It could have been a lot worse.
What if the next time that happens, my friend gets taken to the police station? What if they make trouble for him at the embassy? Look who is president - do you think anyone will care that a U.S. diplomat got harrassed because he is gay? What if they hurt him?
I don’t know if this answers the OP or not. I think people want to talk about it because it is an issue - some dumbfucks are so scared and ignorant that they will use homosexuality as an excuse to hurt people.
If this board (and, I guess, the Internet) had been around about 15 years ago, I might well have been posting these sorts of “question threads” about homosexuality. I grew up in a school where there were no openly gay students (yep, way out there in the country). If I’d wanted to know something about homosexuality, where else exactly could I have turned?
BTW, multiply the above by about 100 if I was gay, in my school where there were no openly gay students.
Well, for me, personally, I don’t care all that much. I found esprix’s thread to be enlightening, as I also found one of your earlier threads concerning paganism. I’d been ignorant, and didn’t understand why a gay person might be drawn to that particular religion.
In both cases, I learned things. Not so much about being gay. That seems straightforward enough. I learned about the interactions and dynamics of differing social groups. To me, that is always a fascinating topic. I also learned about how one’s mebership in a particuar social group may characterize their personality, and improve or diminish their value as people.
Personally, I am still puzzled by some of the more militant and agressive aspects that characterize some gay people some of the time. I’ve come to the conclusion that some people hold deep scars which still cause them pain, and not personally sharing in that pain it is best to respect it. Sadly, I’ve felt that at times others have used these scars or the perception of them as an excuse or a crutch.
It is not always possible to seperate the former from the latter. Even when it is, attitudes are deeply rooted, and a lot of legitimate pain can occur while seperating the wheat from the chaff. In the final analysis it’s not worth it.
Still, as an amateur writer, as one who seeks to empathize, and gain knowledge and understanding of human attitudes an motivations, gay culture and issues present a particularly fertile microcosm. That is my interest.
I’ve started a few threads myself since getting here a couple of months ago. Lets face it, where am I going to be able to have a good exploratory exchange with a gay or gays and learn how they think or feel about the gay issues of the day, or be able to clarify some of my preconceived notions. Sure, I’ve got friends and relatives who are gay, but I feel uncomfortable by putting them on the spot, and I’m not going to ask strangers . Well you guys are strangers, but at least we can remain anonymous. The sexual aspects don’t concern me. Its more like what is it like to be gay. I do not trust the mass media to deliver that message to me, or the gay organizations demonstrating a political agenda. It would be like listening to NOW and thinking they represent the average woman.
I’ve pretty well exhausted my questions I think, but newbies are arriving hot and heavy, seeing the current gay postings and its an invite all over again to ask their particular question. I think this will be the norm until the Chicago Reader goes bankrupt.
If an American diplomat was detained, or punished by officials of another country, I think both the President of the United States, and the American people would be prepared to kick some serious ass on behalf of our representative.
I think such an instance would show the U.S. at its most United and fearsome stance.
George Bush may loathe gays. Maybe they don’t matter to him one way or the other. Maybe his religious convictions suggest tolerance based on love for humanity, or maybe he is shallow enough that he is intolerant. Maybe he’s a closet gay himself. I have no insight into his true attitudes or convictions.
I would suspect that the worst gay bashing intolerant sonovabitch in America may despise the diplomat and condemn him for being gay, but he’s also gonna say he’s an American and he’s our despicable gay American diplomat and woe be unto any fuzzy foreigners that think they can mess with our people.
On the theory that only Americans are allowed to screw over other Americans? When it happens in Nowhere, Alabama, nobody gives a crap, but when it happens in Bucharest, Romania, suddenly everyone’s going to get riled up about it?
