You are such a paradox.
You can snarl at someone over this, and yet when it comes to posters of bannings past such as JoeCool, who have levelled homophobic bile, you’ve almost bent backwards to defend them.
So, if it’s a group that does this, it’s bad. When it is the individual spewing hate, you have to stand up for them?
Either you find it intolerable to be an object of derision that needs to be redeemed*, or you find it acceptable.
Because you know, gobear, you might accidentally breathe in their airspace and infect their children or something. And maybe one of their kids will be gay and they can blame it on the fact that you breathed in the wrong place. By ‘liberating you from your sins’, they don’t have to keep such close tabs on the air of the world.
:rolleyes:
And Bush scares me. He really does. I’m not talking in a funny kind of way, I’m talking in a “there’s a real fear for loss of female civil rights and human rights if he stays in office” kind of scary. And I am not exaggerating. The fact that he endorses something like this makes me even more worried. Hell, why don’t we start tossing people in water to see if they sink or float? If they float, they’re obviously guilty and should be killed. It worked for the Puritans!
Ava
You may retaliate as much as you wish. I just don’t see how it does any good.
Typically, I think if someone attacks someone for something, then turns around and does the same thing, it might look a bit hypocritical.
Just sayin’.
Yup.
Acting like the Southern Baptists are trailer park living, cousin fucking, Jerry Springer rejects is as bad as them feeling we need to be redeemed for the good of our souls.
I know I’m gonna get slapped for this, but I’m grateful they’re not going after the Jews again this year.
Seriously, though, having been a lone Jew in a town full of Shiite Babdists, I know what it’s like to be singled out, told I’m worthless because of my religion, and that I’m gonna go to hell 'cuz I don’t believe in Jesus.
Eh, screw 'em. If I go to hell, I know I’ll be seeing a lot of these people there, too.
Robin
I don’t think I ever defended Joe_Cool for spewing homophobic bile, and if you go back and read relevant threads, you’ll find that he and I got into some extremely nasty arguments. I did defend him from being misquoted or from having attitutudes attributed to him that he never espoused.
I have a more nunaced view that allows for more than two options. I have no quarrel with people who disapprove of homosexuality but who do not let that color their treatment of me. One has to support freedom of conscience for everyone, not just those you agree with. As long as they are fair and just with me, then I don’t care what they believe in their hearts.
My quarrel with the idiot fundies rises when they try to evangelize me, or when they try to write their barbaric religious views into legislation.
Bullshit. I am so tired of the fundies getting their way unopposed, but if gay people respond in kind, then WE are the bad guys.
I refuse to be a victim. I refuse to be quiet. I refuse to submit to religious tyranny.
Here’s a metaphor. I view the American polity as a house where everyone has their own room. We all pay equal shares of rent and share equal responsiblity for household chores. Despite this, the fundamentalist tenant says that I, the gay tenant, have no business in the living room. I’m not allowed on the sofa or on any of the chairs. I can sit in the corner, but only if I don’t say anything. Not only that, but he says I’m not allowed to have my own room, and he constantly comes into my room to put up posters of Jesus and replaces my original cast albums with recordings of gospel singers (white ones, so it’s not even good listenable gospel, but that awful country droning).
Do I have a right to feel aggrieved?
gobear, I agree with you that your rights should be equal to mine. You should be allowed in the living room, as you put it.
What I was objecting to before (and perhaps you weren’t even responding to me) was an apparent appearance of hypocritical behavior. You say that it is not okay for Southern Baptists to portray all homosexuals as promiscuous, disease-carrying, evil people who need to be saved. But in the same breath you stereotype all Southern Baptists as people who need to
Do you see what I’m talking about?
Sure, gobear.
But, first – fundamentalists are emphatically not the same thing as Southern Baptists, unless I’m severely mistaken. There’s lots of fundamentalist Baptists, but not all Baptists are fundie.
Second – My grandmother considers my former living situation (live-in boyfriend) immoral. She doesn’t approve of the fact that I never got Confirmed, I don’t go to church, and I’m far more liberal than she is. I tell her that I love her very much and I will respect her opinion…but I won’t change my actions because of it. She’s resigned to this, because she’s a mostly reasonable person.
Let me put it clearly. You. Don’t. Have. To. Care. What. They. Say. They are going to believe that your lifestyle is immoral. They can even say so. That’s their right. You have the right to say whatever you want as well, but many people won’t take you seriously if you demonize them as much as they demonize you.
I find it worrying that their beliefs are becoming widespread and acceptable among lawmakers, but I also think that this is a separate issue.
i get your point, but you don’t get mine. THEY started this, so I am doing unto them what they have done unto me. Jes’ following the Golden Rule. As long as they call me sinful and destructive, I shall call them no’count white trash.
If they don’t like it, then they shouldn’t have started the fight.
This was by far the most disturbing part of the article, in my opinion. I expect the religious fanatics to behave in ways like this–I don’t expect the leader of my country to endorse this kind of hateful bullshit. I’m honestly disgusted by Bush. I never liked him much, but his attempts to get his war on in Iraq couldn’t prompt the kind of loathing I’m feeling right now–that seems far away, and less black and white. But this? This is an open and unashamed endorsement of bigotry, pure and simple, and I’m incredibly disappointed in my country.
There is no difference between these southern Batizts and fred phelps. Just because they say they hate gays in a nice way does not give them any moral leverage above Fred Phelps.
AvaBeth I agree, having Bush endorse this BS and watching him always name dropping Jesus like they are college buddies is scary shit. Now I know Bush probably has trouble reading long books or, say, constitutions. But I remember this thing called seperation of church and state. Oh well, who reads the the constitution anymore.
I simply cannot fathom the mindset of people who interpret the bible to fit thier own agenda. I mean, anyone who can correct me, please do so, but doesn’t the bible just say something like, “the people of Sodom were all nasty and they all needed to die.” Or something vague and retarded like that. How can you conduct a lifelong vendetta to cure homosexuality based on something so weak.
oh well, let me give a nice warm fuck you to the southern babtizts
(I Think Babtizts sounds better and describes thier beliefs better.)
Ditto. Just because the Southern Baptist Convention issues a statement like that doesn’t mean we all fall right in line with it. I mean, jeez, do all Catholics toe the line to the church? Give us a break!
You may want to read up on the text involved, macabresoul. It’s always good to know what the opposition really believes. Educate thyself, and then howl about it. I will say that most of the lines in the Bible used to disparage homosexuality are either A) vague, C) of uncertain origin and translation, or C) in Leviticus, which modern Christians really don’t pay much attention to. If they did, they’d refrain from eating pork and cheeseburgers, for one thing.
And I think they do have a moral high ground. They’re not saying “We hate you, but in a nice way,” they’re saying “We love you, but we’re disturbed by what you do.” They’re wrong and they’re overgeneralizing, but I honestly don’t think that this is hate speech, and I think it’s more morally sound than picketing funerals, bombing abortion clinics, and advocating violence against innocent people.
Perhaps, but by painting them all with the same brush, it’s your own credibility that suffers. Already I am prepared to take you far less seriously because of the comments you made.
But do what you will.
Then where’s the pint of your post? They’re saying what they want and I’m reesponding. Or do you think they have a right to speak unopposed?
Really? IMO, the Southern Baptists are evil people, as bad in their way as Nazis or the Taliban. Overkill? Despite their ingenuous disclaimers, they are the driving force behind the GOP’s determination to maintain antigay discrimination laws. They have attempted to force comapnies that support gay people to reverse their stands. They harrass us every chance they get. Did you not read the OP?
And I. Do. Have. To Care. What. They. Say because of your next point
Have you ever seen the movie Bent? It’s about a gay man sent to Dachau by the Nazis. Lots of gay men went to the concentration camps where they were beaten, tortured, gassed, and cremated. This wasn’t very long ago. My mother was born when this was happening. Adn it all happened in a modern, industrialized nation just like ours.
And I am sure that in 1934, right when the persecution began, people like you said, “Don’t demonize them or people won’t take you seriously.”
Ease up there, chief.
A stereotype is a stereotype no matter what side of the fence you are spewing it from…IMHO.
How nice it must be–to not be required to take opposition to bigotry seriously.
It is unfortunate that if gay men and women want to continue retaining the basic civil rights of heterosexuals, they don’t have that option.
So [bAries28**, tdn, and Lord Ashtar are saying that the Southern Baptists can spew their poison and I have no right to respond in kind. They can use any tactics they please, but I am limited to the high road or polite response. They can enclourage an atmosphere of hate, but I have to smile and turn the other cheek.
In other words, you want the bullies to win because that is the practical upshot of the tactics you advocate.
No. You have the right to say whatever you want. But when you say that all Southern Baptists are
then you’re being just as bad as them. Really.
I read it. And no, I don’t agree with the President. I think his advocation of their position isn’t unusual, and it’s the nicest thing I can expect from him, but where does it say that he’s advocating discrimination against gays? The OP doesn’t say that.
Now if you want to talk about sodomy laws, adoption bans, etc., that’s another subject entirely. Saying “We should be nice to these people even if we think they’re wrong” is a start in the right direction.
And just as soon as the government starts shipping homosexuals into their own “special communities”, I’ll be all over that like white on rice. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, I’m saying it isn’t.
Bush is not going up there and saying “Gay people are the reason America has problems. It is because of gay people that America’s economy is down the tubes, it is because of them we are no longer taken seriously by anyone else.” That’s the 700 Club talking, and they are not, thankfully, in charge.
Oho, you say, but Bush probably agrees with them! Or he’s giving them tacit approval by not condemning them and belonging to the same religion.
And yes, gobear, I find that appallingly disturbing. I don’t like the fact that the President believes so strongly in the beliefs he grew up with that he wants to force them on other people. But I don’t think that’s what this thread is about, is it?
We can start another one about that, if you like, and I’ll agree with you. 
Isn’t Bill Clinton at least nominally a Southern Baptist?
And can someone please explain to me why?