Actually, I don’t care about whether you read gay-oriented newsmagazines. What I want is to have the same respect for my relationship that you would give a straight relationship. What you want, on the other hand, is unfettered license to be a bigot. Hardly the same thing.
You can hate gay people all you want (as you obviously do), but I would like to see homophobes like you treated with the same social oppobrium that racists and anti-Semites receive, for you and they are branches of the same poisonous tree.
Possibly the posters who chastized you assumed the magazine contained erotic or pornographix material?
I’m not sure what your intents were when you decided to “test” your coworkers (I didn’t read all the posts in this thread) but I doubt it would be a good way to test whether one should “come out” or not, as suggested by another poster, since anyway, bringing a gay-oriented magazine is in itself a coming out.
Astro and Shodan, you may not like listening to the drivel that goes on between young lovers (of either sex), but the fact is, it happens every day, and you probably wouldn’t run from the room with your hands over your ears (“Eeewww! Ick!”) if a woman went on about how he sent flowers but he didn’t call. I agree that if the conversation goes too far to the intimate side, it is TMI.
To single out a gay person because he’s complaining that his SO doesn’t pick his underwear up off the floor is biased and narrow. It is standard conversation at nearly every watercooler and shouldn’t be treated as anything other than insignificant small talk.
Then they can’t read, for it has already been explained that the Advocate is a newsmagazine with zero salacious content. I am growing tired of heteros assuming that all gay people think about is sex.
We have the same feelings you do; we want to love and be loved; we want companionship; we want to grow old with the person we love. Who the hell could find that offensive?
The difference is the prostletyzing nature of the material, while the Advocate doesn’t, really. Conversely, if someone put out a tract called “Get cured of your gayness.” on top of the Advocate, I’d be offended by the implicit hostility.
Again, not to repost, but either the offense has to be “pervasive,” “prostletyzing,” or “hostile.” to a reasonable person. An optional magazine without offensive pictures or artwork can’t be any of these, so I don’t see the beef.
I don’t mean to hijack this thread or anything, but there’s things about each and every one of us that others don’t like. You may not like my belief in Jesus, someone else might not like that a disabled person is driving a Vipor, and some people don’t like homosexuals. The point is that if you want to come out to people at your workplace Homebrew, just do it. Tell the people who are close to you and who you care about, if someone else happens to hear about it and they don’t like you for it, screw 'em. I know it’s not that easy but it just seems to me that we all shouldn’t be so afraid of letting out who we really are. No one is liked by everyone in the world and no one ever will be. So enjoy who you are, be confident in yourself and stop worrying about what everyone else thinks.
I figured I should post a link to The Advocate, so people could make more informed posts. There are rarely any articles in it that relate directly to me, but I still find it an interesting and non-offensive magaine . . .
I agree with Dreamer, in theory, but the sad difference is that most people don’t get fired or beat up for believing in god. Not knowing who you’re “coming out” to can be dangerous on a completely different level. I saw a thing on HBO (I think) about a gay guy who worked for a big investment firm, and his co-workers gave him so much shit on a daily basis, that, had it been me, I’d have killed myself. Really.
That said, I also believe that someone needs to take the first step and open people’s eyes to the fact that the world is made up of all kinds of people. Leave the magazine out if there’s no nudie shots in it!
I’m not (I don’t think) singling gay people for pariah treatment. I spent my first semester of college rooming with a wonderful gay man his SO in an off campus house he owned. I have gay friends and acquaintences whose friendship and companionship I treasure. What I am telling you is that I have a somewhat lower tolerance for hearing about the intimate physical aspects of man-man relationships than I do for man-woman relationships. I’m not 100% comfortable with hearing about this stuff. This is obviously my problem and I own it.
I realize that in the big picture it may be a slippery slope from expressing social conversational discomfort about intimate discussion of the emotional and sexual aspects of male homosexual relationships to painting pink triangles on people, but I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m not rude and I would never express this discomfort out loud.
What I am telling you is that I have a somewhat lower tolerance for hearing about the intimate physical aspects of man-man relationships than I do for man-woman relationships.
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Join the club. I have no desire to hear about anybody’s sexc life, gay or straight. But would you be as offended if I mention casually that my boyfriend and I went to see the Redskins, or that we bought a new widescreen TV?
Join the club. I have no desire to hear about anybody’s sexc life, gay or straight. But would you be as offended if I mention casually that my boyfriend and I went to see the Redskins, or that we bought a new widescreen TV? **
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Only if you got one of those new spiffy new widescreen HDTV sets and didn’t invite me over to gawk at it.
That’s what I’m talking about, too. I don’t have a problem with listening to people talk about their lives, as long as no one is giving me a blow-by-blow (pun intended) and detailing every secretion, ad nauseum. I have a girlfriend that does this and sometimes I could just slap her silly.
I regularly pick up the Advocate and can vouch for the content. My wife seldom reads it, generally only when a particular interview or article focus intrigues her (ex. Ian McKellen, Hilary Swank), but there is absolutely no concern about having it around the house (with the sole exception of a landlady of highly conservative olde-North-Carolina-rural opinions; to preclude problems during her visits we generally place Natural History or The Episcopalian atop the magazine pile).
Shodan, it is very rare (though not unheard of) for any article in the magazine to even mention a sexual practice; rather, it focuses on the ongoing fight of gays to establish the idea that their lives – including their lives together – include all the normal appurtenances of straight people’s lives, not merely sex. (Obviously, it’s taking longer than they thought, too, to judge from comments like that.)
It also has some intriguing reviews of music, TV, live drama, movies, art, and other things subsumed under “the arts” – and I tend to learn a great deal about what motivates the typical gay person from those reviews, the columns, and such. Last June the lead columnist devoted his column to his relationship with his father. I don’t think that any element of that article, removed from the magazine and reprinted anonymously, would have led anyone to identify him as gay.
Homebrew, IIRC, Texas does not protect jobs from discrimination on the basis of sexual preference; was that a part of your motivation – to “test the waters” with the magazine to determine how out you can be at work?
[aside]Apropos of nothing, but prompted by gobear’s earlier comment, I just realized how much fun it would be to create and market a snack food called “Quentin Crisps.” Oh crap–I’d better trademark that before some thieving Doper beats me to it! [/aside]
In part, yes, Poly. I am trying to guage whether people will be openly hostile and whether I risk being fired. It was mentioned once in a breakroom converstation that there had been an out of the closet lesbian working here a few years back. Apparently she was accepted without harassment. But there has been a change in upper management since then and the new CEO has made a big deal about being Christian. I’d like to know whether he’s a Polycarp or a His4Ever type of Christian before I erase all plausible deniability.
I’m just being honest, but thank you for saying that.
Actually EchoKitty, in other countries people get very harsh treatment for their religious beliefs, especially if they are different than their families belief or their country. I agree that “coming out” to someone at the workplace can be frightening because you just don’t know how they will react, but we can’t hide inside ourselves for being who we are. I know a few African American friends who are afraid to hang out at some of the local bars or clubs around where I live. They are in fear because it’s an upscale, mostly white community and they really fear for their safety. I totally understand their feelings but it also totally sucks because they are my friends and nobody has the right to look down on them for the color of their skin. And unfortunately they don’t have the choice to tell or not to tell someone what color their skin is.
This all reminds me of the movie “Shallow Hal”, I don’t want to give any spoilers but it’s all about seeing who you are not what you are. Which is much more important IMHO.
If he makes a big deal about being a Christian, I’ll guaran-damn-tee you that he’s a member His4Ever’s Church of the Pharisee and would take great pleasure in firing you for being an “abomination in the eyes of God,” and on company time, too!
A Poly-like Christian doesn’t brag about his commitment to Christ; he just quietly lives it.
If he makes a big deal about being a Christian, I’ll guaran-damn-tee you that he’s a member of His4Ever’s Church of the Pharisee who would take great pleasure in firing you for being an “abomination in the eyes of God,” and on company time, too!
A Poly-like Christian doesn’t brag about his commitment to Christ; he just quietly lives it.
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