# With all due respect, Polycarp, I think your comment was inappropriate **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 22, 2002, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249 "2002-11-22T22:06:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kirkland1244](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dc4da7/32.png) [@Kirkland1244](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kirkland1244)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/21 "2002-11-23T05:55:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lel \* > \*\ ***Kirk** , you’ve gone way too far. You know, there is such a thing as being loving toward your neighbor, as featured prominently in the Bible. Even the fundamentalists are your neighbors. I’m not saying that you must agree with them by any means, but you might want to try being charitable. Been there. Done that. Turned every cheek there is to turn. I’m too smart to keep that shit up. All I have to show for it is a mountain of scars, and knives in my back. So now I’ve learned better. Kirk ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/22 "2002-11-23T07:33:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Captain Amazing \* > \*\*It’s certainly not my intention to provoke a pile-on. \*\* I don’t think you’ve come anywhere near causing a pile-on. Regardless of what **Duck Duck** may think, mild criticisms from two posters does not constitute a pile-on. My concern is that some posters may feel that **Polycarp’s** well-deserved reputation renders him off-limits. I respect him greatly, but he’s not infallible. He’s not a saint, people. He can make mistakes. **Poly** would be the _first_ one to tell you he is only human, even if some posters disagree about his divinity. This is a pretty mild pitting, anyway, and I am sure he is perfectly capable of addressing the comments made here. **Kirk** , I think what the others are saying is that you come off a bit, um, strident. (read: omigod-go-tell-Atticus-to-get-the-rifle-cause-this-dog’s-foaming-at-the-mouth) I’m not a big fan of the fundamentalists either, but _man_, you sound like you want to eat their first born children. Mayhaps you should tone it down a wee bit. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/23 "2002-11-23T08:05:04Z")
AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I went over to both threads linked by **Beeblebrox** to see just what qualifies as snarky. Evidently only **Poly’s** second post to the BCS thread, because that’s where the link took me. But his first post caught my eye, and I searched the entire thread before coming to the realization that: _Nobody bothered to explain what BCS stands for._ That’s FUNNY! ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/24 "2002-11-23T08:18:50Z")
It wasn’t his confusion of the initials in the first post, moron, it was the attitude displayed in the second. The same kind of thing you sometimes see in CS when somebody says “You all should be reading books!” in a thread about a TV show. He had already figured out it was the college football championship by that time anyway. Incidentally, that is _why_ the link takes you to the second post - not the first. Idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/25 "2002-11-23T12:10:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kirkland1244 \* > \*\*I do not have an “aggressive manner” towards “people of faith,” unless you count fundamentalist human tumors as the only “people of faith” in this world. > > Kirk \*\* You are your own worst enemy, and the greatest obstacle to your cause. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/26 "2002-11-23T18:00:17Z")
You focus on what grabs your attention, I’ll focus on what grabs mine, **Beeblebrox**. So what _does_ BCS actually stand for? I figured out that it was college football-related, but that doesn’t mean I can’t care about learning what the acronym means. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/27 "2002-11-23T18:12:15Z")
“ **B** owl **C** oalition **S** ystem” Most people just think of it as one of the polls (along with the USA Today/ESPN and the AP) but this is the poll that _matters_. The system, just like the acronym, is confusing as Hell. Hence the GD thread. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/28 "2002-11-23T19:00:05Z")
Ah, I get Pitted at long last, and for something actual, rather than my two previous excursions here where people misinterpreted my stance from brief posts and took me to task for positions that they erroneously inferred I might hold from misunderstanding the thrust of what I did say. Lessee – I’ve known **Kirk** for something in excess of two years, and feel he’s gotten a truly raw deal from a number of Christians whose self-assumed sanctity greatly exceeds their charity (and no, that doesn’t include you who are lurking here and probably reading this with interest; you know who truly posted hurtful remarks to him and whom he assumed quoted material was targeted at him by when it actually was not). **Kirk** knows my stance that neither his sexuality nor his religious preference justifies him in demonizing other people, even though some of them may, with equal lack of justification, be demonizing him. And because he knows that “I’ve got his back” where someone is truly abusing or misjudging him, he will accept gentle reminders that he too is failing to show the spirit of Christ in what he does, just as they are. That was what I intended in commenting to him on the Cyrin/Kirk exchange, and I know he took it as just that, and not as a flame on him. As for the other two posts, **Beeblebrox** may be right; I have almost no interest in intercollegiate athletics, and do feel that for many “football factory” schools (and around here “basketball factories” as well) the tail is wagging the dog. In short, in those threads I did not have a dog in the fight, but thought it might provide a little perspective to make an ironic comment about what the purpose for which institutions of higher education is generally thought to be – particularly in the Title IX thread this seemed appropriate in view of the fact that although Title IX bars discrimination between sexes on all matters where Federal funds are concerned, the sole focus of the thread was on its impact on athletics. (As someone pointed out to me in the next post, this was largely because the athletic program was the one place where there was significant sex-based discrimination in most colleges.) And, whether snarky or not, I simply felt that a single post saying, in essence, “intercollegiate athletics is not the reason we have colleges” was sufficient to make the one point I had any interest in making in threads devoted to college athletic programs. If my comments were construed as condescending by posters I respect, then maybe I need to learn something from that and watch just how I use irony and particularly sardonic humor. I appreciate the heads up on the question. **Lel** , I think you might need to examine what it is that Kirk is and is not saying. He is justifiably angry at one subset of religious conservatives – those who abuse and degrade him for his sexuality and/or his Catholicism. I’m quite confident that he (particularly if he realized who you were) would not include you in that subset. Except in the heat of anger, when we all tend to generalize and regret it later, he is not mad at everybody who happens to have a given theological view, just at those who use it to his hurt. So either let it roll off your back or espouse the last Beatitude for yourself, depending on how you see the issue at hand. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/29 "2002-11-23T19:37:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > **If my comments were construed as condescending by posters I respect, then maybe I need to learn something from that and watch just how I use irony and particularly sardonic humor. I appreciate the heads up on the question.** **Polycarp** , you are, as always, a gentlemen. The quoted response is all I wanted - just for you to think twice about what you said. Perhaps this Monday (I won’t really have time to do it proper till then) I will start a thread about the place of athletics in the University system of today. I hope you will participate. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/30 "2002-11-23T20:02:05Z")
I think **Polycarp** , of all people, is certainly entitled to be snarky now and then. After all, most of us around here are pretty snarky. Why can’t **Poly** have a little snark too? ---
**Author:** ![Kirkland1244](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dc4da7/32.png) [@Kirkland1244](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kirkland1244)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/31 "2002-11-23T20:02:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > **Kirk** knows my stance that neither his sexuality nor his religious preference justifies him in demonizing other people, even though some of them may, with equal lack of justification, be demonizing him. And because he knows that “I’ve got his back” where someone is truly abusing or misjudging him, he will accept gentle reminders that he too is failing to show the spirit of Christ in what he does, just as they are. Can’t say I give a damn about the whole “Spirit of Christ.” I no longer consider myself to be a Christian of any sort. Christianity to me appears to be a cancer that does little but elevate evil people to positions of power, people like John Ashcroft, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell. Half the time I don’t believe in God anymore. The other half of the time I hate him for what he’s done to me. But I’ll still defend the Catholic Church. Or any organization or group of people, for that matter, being attacked by fundamentalist sludge. > [@](#): > > And, whether snarky or not, I simply felt that a single post saying, in essence, “intercollegiate athletics is not the reason we have colleges” was sufficient to make the one point I had any interest in making in threads devoted to college athletic programs. Hear hear. College should be for those seeking intellectual enlightenment, not dumb jocks who want to throw a ball. > [@](#): > > Except in the heat of anger, when we all tend to generalize and regret it later, he is not mad at everybody who happens to have a given theological view, just at those who use it to his hurt. Those who hold the same theological views as those who have “hurt me” in your parlance are just as guilty, for by holding the same views, they lend credence to the actiions of their coreligionists. Kirk ---
**Author:** ![Kirkland1244](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dc4da7/32.png) [@Kirkland1244](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kirkland1244)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/32 "2002-11-23T20:05:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > You are your own worst enemy, and the greatest obstacle to your cause. Heh. Only if you assume that my so-called on-line personae is a direct reflection of how I behave off-line. Hardly. This place, particularly the BBQ Pit, is a release, a pressure valve. The only thing that can send me flying off the handle IRL is mention of my former best friend. But since most of our mutual best friends appear to have disowned Todd after the way he treated me, that’s not so much of a problem. Kirk ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/33 "2002-11-23T20:15:43Z")
> [@](#): > > This place, particularly the BBQ Pit, is a release, a pressure valve. This place, other boards, private messages . . . you say you’re a nice guy IRL, but I’ve only ever seen you online. I’m not about to go 'round with you on it again, **Kirk**. I do understand where you’re coming from, and you know I don’t agree with your methods. I’ll leave it at that, and with an apology for bringing it up again. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/34 "2002-11-23T20:20:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > \*\*Ah, I get Pitted at long last, and for something actual, rather than my two previous excursions here where people misinterpreted my stance from brief posts and took me to task for positions that they erroneously inferred I might hold from misunderstanding the thrust of what I did say. \*\* You’ve forgotten the time I started a Pit thread about you? Remember, I hold ill-will towards you for introducing me to that infernal Pizza Parlor. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/35 "2002-11-23T21:27:45Z")
Thank you, **Polycarp**. It’s likely I misunderstood the situation, and a pit thread was probably an overreaction. I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/36 "2002-11-23T21:44:36Z")
> [@](#): > > But I’ll still defend the Catholic Church. Or any organization or group of people, for that matter, being attacked by fundamentalist sludge So youe hate Tweedle Dum, but Tweedle Dee is OK? Dude, that Catholic Church is just as oppressive and antigay as the fundies–defending it is illogical. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/37 "2002-11-23T22:07:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by gobear \* > \*\*So youe hate Tweedle Dum, but Tweedle Dee is OK? Dude, that Catholic Church is just as oppressive and antigay as the fundies–defending it is illogical. \*\* Yeah, this conundrum has me confused as well. Kirk really laid into Pat Robertson et al, in another thread, and then I see him him defending the Catholic Church. Personally, you know who I think the real bad guys are? NAMBLA and a couple of other like minded organizations. Not only do these pricks advocate molestation of children, they’ve tried to piggyback onto the gay rights movements. Certain people here “gay,” and their mind immediately thinks of NAMBLA and the doors of mind close. I’ve always been surprised that gay rights groups don’t really go after these groups in a huge away. ---
**Author:** ![Kirkland1244](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dc4da7/32.png) [@Kirkland1244](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kirkland1244)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/38 "2002-11-23T22:12:19Z")
Yes, NAMBLA is evil. And I will not defend the Catholic Church’s positions on homosexuality. I am so disgusted by recent actions by teh Church that I have left the religion. However, when people lie about what the Church teaches, when they lie about what Catholics believe, I will not tolerate it. I may have had it with the Church, she may be a crazy aunt who lives in the basement. But Goddamit, she’s my aunt, and no one else is going to attack her – at least, not attack her using lies. Kirk ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/39 "2002-11-23T22:56:47Z")
Well, the Catholic church isn’t QUITE as bad as some Jack Chick type fundy organizations. But they still shouldn’t get a free pass. The whole way the Vatican is treating the molestation scandals and homosexuality is very shameful. However, if you’re talking about Catholicism and lies about it, don’t tie in the fundies hating gays-if it’s not a part of the original accusation. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249/40 "2002-11-23T23:03:07Z")
Thanks, **Beeblebrox**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-all-due-respect-polycarp-i-think-your-comment-was-inappropriate/138249.md?page=3)