You are not LIMITED to ANYTHING. You are ALLOWED to say whatever you want. No one’s going to stop you. No one here is going to come to your door and knock your teeth out.
They are ALLOWED to say that gay people are bad. You are ALLOWED to say that Southern Baptists are bad.
I am ALLOWED to say that Baptists are full of shit, they all screw dogs, they’re all white trash, they’re all ignorant and stupid, they all have very small penises.
I’d be wrong, but I’m allowed to be wrong.
No one is stopping you from saying whatever you want. We’re just saying we disagree and we don’t think you should say that. But we’re not STOPPING you.
Not at all. If you will reread I said early on that I think this little campaign of the SBC is stupid, ridiculous…
My point is that to lump Baptists or Southern Baptists or whatever into a stereotype of being beer drinking, trailer living, illiterates and “white trash” isn’t right either.
You said earlier that you could handle someone who in their heart didn’t approve of someone being gay as long as they treated them the same as everybody else, right?
I’m all for you being in the living room (your analogy). I think befriending someone solely to try and convince them that their life is wrong and to sway them over to the “right” side is the antithesis of friendship. I think treating someone differently because of their race, sex, beliefs, who they love, etc. is wrong.
But I think hatred or stereotypes on the whole is just as wrong.
Who was that comic who said, “It’s just silly to be afraid of a Gay propositioning you? All you have to do is say ‘no.’ It’s not like you have to stop, drop trou and say, 'Damn, now my whole night’s ruined–gotta have some sex with a guy before I go home.”
I really see the SBC as the very folks that comic was lambasting. It’s not that they don’t think about what they’re doing or saying. It’s just that they don’t think.
If someone is piss-ignorant enough to believe the whole “Jaysus don’t like it when the wrong people love each other” bullshit spiel, then calling them Springer-bound alcoholic trailer-dwellers is giving them more credit than they deserve. I’ve known alcoholic trailer dwellers who were actually nice people, after all.
The straight supremacists are moral morons, unable to understand the most basic principles of civilized human behavior, who subjugate an entire class of people just to be able to feel superior to somebody. They don’t deserve my respect or my courtesy, but they’re welcome to a heapin’ helpin’ of my contempt. And insulting them doesn’t make me as bad as they are; I’m not trying to limit their freedoms, I’m not trying to push them to the margins of society and get them to shut the hell up. I’m just calling them mouth-breathing, amoral hypocrites, to whom the term ‘primate’ only loosely applies. I’m saying that their moral stance would revolt any self-respecting two-year-old, and that their idea of a deity is so twisted and evilly incoherent that even chimpanzees would recoil in horror, were they unlucky enough to have it explained to them.
The difference between my condemnation of these people and their condemnation of me is that I am outraged by the actions that they’ve taken to make sure that millions of people don’t have the same human rights accorded to everyone else. They, however, are outraged by my very existence.
All the fundies I know are just like the Southern Baptists.
I dunno why homosexuality is such abig deal to them.
Why not go to prisons and try to tell the gospel to murderers?
FWIW, I disagreed strongly with a lot of what Joe Cool had to say, and the perspective from which he said it. But he and Jersey have always regarded me as a friend, and I them, because we’re interested in one thing: the truth. And I believe that this is precisely the same attitude that gobear is talking about – and that they’d back him in standing for it.
FWIW, the course Jesus taught as proper, and which is encompassed in the Golden Rule, is not to give back what you get, but rather to treat them as you wish to be treated, to return good for evil, kindness for hostility.
That’s all kinds of tough to employ in this situation. Believe me, I know – I’ve been getting a lot of the same excrement smeared on me, for standing firmly on the idea that gay people and others {run out your own acronym string here} deserve fair and equal treatment.
One thing that colors my awareness, which will be little help to any of the rest of you, is that the assholes who preach judgmentalism and hatred, and bear false witness, against you, will get their just reward. I don’t throw the Parable of the Sheep and Goats into every religious debate in order to score points – it’s to warn the likes of Reactor and His4Ever that they’re sowing the wind, and can expect to reap the whirlwind – because I care about them too.
But, guys, always remember the “Lurker Effect” – the real “silent majority” (as opposed to Jerry Falwell’s creation) who knows that Liz Lesbian who works in the office is not the evil person that the fundies would make her out to be, and that Joe Gayman who sells furniture goes home to his partner and the kids they adopted, whose daughter has a gay friend – and the more they demonize you, the more the mud they sling will come back to paint them as the hatemongers they are.
Sorry I’m late to the party, but why exactly does this deserve a pitting? Were the Southern Baptists pro-gay before? Do we need to go through all of the Christian denominations with hard-line stances on homosexuality and pit 'em on occasion?
How utterly immature of you. You may think you’re giving as good as you got, all I hear is, “But Mom, they started it!”
That is not at all what I’ve been saying. In fact, if you read my second response in this thread, you will see that what I actually said was:
Now you have not only stereotyped an entire group of people, which is what you are mad at the SBC for, but you have categorically misrepresented what I have said.
You have every right to be angry at what the people in the OP are doing. I am as well. IMHO it is absolutely wrong, and a misrepresentation of everything I believe Christ stood for. However, you must understand that while these people are obviously fundamentalists and Southern Baptists, not all Southern Baptists are fundamentalist. Your calling them “evil people” and making snide remarks about thier intelligence (or lack thereof) is just as bad as them calling you a sinner and disease-carrier.
Please consider the words you type before you hit “Submit Reply”.
“I disagreed strongly with a lot of what Joe Cool had to say, and the perspective from which he said it. But he and Jersey have always regarded me as a friend, and I them, because we’re interested in one thing: the truth.”
—Well. I won’t say what I think of Joe and Jersey (can’t even bring myself to boldface their names), because they’re not here (thank goodness!) to defend themselves.
In Gobear’s defense, one really can’t blame him for snapping, and losing his temper. You can only take so much of this sort of thing.
No. That is not what I am saying. In the words of another poster, “Learn to read.”
What I am saying is that responding to mindless stereotyping with more mindless stereotyping may not be the most effective tactic at your disposal. You have every right to call SBs “trailer park trash”, but by doing so you do more harm to yourself than to your intended targets.
I do not want the bullies to win. Let me type that again for emphasis. I do not want the bullies to win. Matter of fact, I’d much rather see them lose. Big time. When you make broad generalizations, you are not making the bullies look bad. You are making yourself – and by extension, me, and everyone else that wants a more gay-tolerant world – look like a bunch of ignorant whiners.
Frankly, I’d like a Baptist to befriend me. Especially that cute young Baptist fellow around the corner. We’d hang out, watch movies on the couch together, go on picnics, maybe wrestle when we’re feeling playful - you know, healthy, normal, guy stuff.
Have none of you gobear detractors ever heard of exaggeration? I doubt gobear really believes all SBs are trailer trash; yet the organization believes the lies it spreads about gay people.
I asked someone to correct me if they knew what the real text is, which you obviously don’t. And it’s pretty clear already what the opposition believes, they hate gays, they want to get rid of them. It’s all nice and good that they are saying they want to help gays now, but it doesn’t change the fact that they have, do, and will continue to persecute homosexuals and anyone not fitting in to thier clique. Notice my bolding text, you just repeated what I said, wtf are you trying to prove?
Using the word ‘disturbed’ is giving them way too much benefit of the doubt here. it’s more like, “we love everybody, except if you are gay, so change your ways and we will love you again.” Does that give them any moral highground? IT IS hate speech, they are preaching to have 42,000 churches try to end this ‘gay epidemic’ pleague. I call it passive agressive hate speech.
He DID agree with them. He DID fucking approve of thier bullshit. If a friend of mine went around saying things like, “hey everyone, I love jewish people, but they need to be set strait and converted. Lets all go on a crusade to convert jews!” Then I make a speech saying, “My friend John sure is a faithful servent of the lord!” I would be blatantly agreeing with his statement. I ask you to prove me wrong.
Now as for you, Get off your fucking highhorse. Do not flame me when you don’t have a shitstain of a clue as to what you are talking about. All I see you doing in this thread is sticking up for free speech and telling people they are terrible people for saying southern baptists are shiteating assclowns. Me calling them shiteating assclowns does not make me as horrible as them… Stop trying to blur the lines of right and wrong with the eraser of free speech.
Whether he believes it or not is irrelevant. His words are all we have to go by here. When he continues to repeat something like that, it damages his credibility. That’s all I’m trying to say.
Allow me to further amplify what posters such as tdn are saying.
I belong to a Southern Baptist church. I disagree strongly with many of the policies enacted by the Southern Baptists at the annual conventions, as do many (if not most) of my friends in the church. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of Disney several years ago, due to Disney’s recognition of same-sex marriages and partners. (Disney made same-sex partners of Disney employees eligible for benefits.) From my limited observations, this had absolutely no effect on the number of my Baptist friends who went to DisneyWorld on vacation, bought Disney merchandise, went to Disney movies, etc.
In other words, the Southern Baptists I knew decided that the SBC was being idiotic with their “boycott,” and summarily ignored the argument. It was easy to dismiss the SBC’s viewpoint, because it sounded shrill and stupid.
One might disagree with the SBC’s current “befriending” campaign. However, by attempting to stereotype all Southern Baptists as “no-'count white trash” and implying they are poor, beer-swilling ignoramuses seriously undermines one’s argument. All that does is piss off potential allies you might have within the Southern Baptist camp (and I assure you, there are more potential allies than you might think) and allow others to pigeonhole you and your message/fight.
The SBC attempts to portray these issues as an “us vs. them” fight. If you respond in kind, you’ve allowed them to draw the line where they want it. Why on earth would you want to do that? Fight on your own terms. Keep pressure on elected officials, corporations (it flummoxed the SBC no end when the Disney boycott fizzled out) and other areas. That will yeild better results than stereotyping your opponent. (For example, see macabresoul’s most recent post. He just called me, a Southern Baptist, a “shiteating assclown,” despite the fact that I’m on his side in this argument. How idiotic is that?)
And the final benefit: I won’t have to get medieval on your ass.
Bullshit. I’m using the same tactics as they are. That’s parity, not immaturity.
Yes, Southern Baptists are fundamentalists. Read their official statement on the SBC Faith and Message, which contains the Five Fundamentals:
Literal inerrancy of the autographs;
The virgin birth and deity of Christ;
The substitutionary view of the atonement;
the bodily resurrection of Christ;
The imminent return of Christ.
Again, you are wrong. As MrVisible observed, I’m objecting to their tactics; they are objecting to my existence. Nothing I say about them can possibly be bad enough.
You are fooled by their use of the word “love,” which they wield in the same manner as an abusive boyfriend, "I love you SMACK " Their form of love is indistinguishable from the blackest hate.
Frankly, I’ve had enough of you gutless cowards who stand on the sidelines and do nothing as we have to struggle for the same rights you take for granted. You don’t have to put up with getting picketed, having to fear losing you’re jobs or apartments because we’re gay, being beaten and murdered because you’re gay.
And in Berlin 1934, you were saying the same thing.
I can’t believe that you people are more concerned with the literal truth of my attacks on the SBC than you are with the SBC’s tactics.
Fine, The SBC don’t live in trailers (not all of them anyway). Now that takes care of one guys complaints on a message board. Now ehn fdo you plasn to object to the SBC picketing gay bars, harrassing gay people , and encouraging the repeal of equal rights legislation. My comments harm them not at all, but their tactics do harm me and mine.’
Where’s the outrage?
And the next time I get hit by a chain coming out of a gay bar because someone was told by a minister that gays deserve what they get for being sinners, I’ll be sure to think of all you.
