posted
I hope so. I can certainly think of some changes to my own. Though I think the truth at the core of it will remain.
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: I agree that they are harmful, certainly from my point of view. However if that harm is largely or in part due to the prevailing belief that homosexuality is "wrong", does it then follow that the belief should be erradicated by fiat?
As in the case of all discrimination, I'm against coercive remedies. If someone wants to refuse to rent to me or sell to me or employ me because I'm gay, that's their right. It's also my right to say that such people are a**hats, and to try and organize boycotts against them and drive them into poverty, despair and death. But it's not my right to force them to rent to me or sell to me or employ me. People have a right to be jerks, so long as they don't violate my rights. That means they aren't entitled to break a contract with me when they find out that I'm gay, unless it specifically said they could in the contract. It means that they aren't entitled to beat me up with baseball bats and spray-paint me purple. And so on.
<sigh> It's really depressing living in a society where the concept of rights has been so devalued that I have to explain this every single time.
quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: Lisa, how do you reconcile what you write above with being part of a society which you have strongly indicated would kill unrepentant homosexual men had they the authority to do so? (or if I have misread your assertions in other threads, please feel free to correct me.)
All I know is that I've known gay men who say they've never engaged in anal sex, and never have any intention of doing so. They say the idea grosses them out.
I have no idea to what extent this is the case among gay men in general. I do know that it's the only thing "gay" for which Jewish law proscribes capital punishment. And no distinction is made between whether the people doing it are gay or straight (such as prison sex and the like).
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quote:I guess my point is Ill have to withold judgement on Exodus until I actually read up on them
And if you had done that, I wouldn't really have had a problem. But you actively defended them and attacked me for criticizing them.
If there were an effective therapy that resulted in a large percentage of people who were gay becoming straight, I wouldn't have a problem with people offering it and other people going through with it, so long as their participation was voluntary. I don't have a problem with these groups counseling the gay people that come to them in how to lead a celibate lifestyle. I do have a problem with people saying that they have a "cure" for homosexuality when their therapy may possibily work only in a very small number of cases, if at all.
I most certainly did NOT defend them. I simply said that designating the Exodus program as evil and therefore all efforts with similar or even identical goals was wrong.
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Can I argue that trying to 'cure' homosexuals through a combination of brainwashing, guilt, and emotional manipulation is wrong? Because from everything I've ever heard about places like that, that's the tactic du jour. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't those kind of programs have fantastically high 'relapse' rates?
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Maybe we should have programs that cure people of their monosexuality.
After all, you monosexuals have only a half life. You miss out on half the beauty around you.
Further, when you sing a love ballad directed toward the wrong sex you have all that awkward changing of the pronouns that can mess up the rhyme scheme.
Face it, being monosexual is sexist. And therefore evil.
So sign up for Pixie's Bisexual Training and I can cure you of the Evil in your heart.
posted
Pix: perhaps you mean autosexuality. Is there a special pronoun with which to refer to one's hand?
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a monosexual is someone who is only attracted to one sex. ie: Not bisexual. (or asexual for that matter)
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quote: I simply said that designating the Exodus program as evil and therefore all efforts with similar or even identical goals was wrong.
Perhaps you could point out where anyone on this thread did this?
edit: And I appologize if I read defending into your statements where none was intended.
Very well,
quote: People fighting to prove the world is flat because they are so afraid of having their religion proved wrong in any way... that their world will come crashing down. Maybe we should do what the Bible says is good and revive slavery, women as cattle, and force all the men to wear beards. These evangelicals are such hypocrits...they claim to follow the Bible to the letter but they just pick and choose like everyone else.
They take advantage of these desperate people who see religion not as philosophy but as a requirement to remain with their family.
emphasis added
He rails on the Exodus program and then makes a statement about all evangelicals. Now if Telp really meant "these evangelicals" as in "these evangelicals of the Exodus program" I remove my complaint entirely and apologize for wasting time in this thread. But I did not get that vibe, and I think its reasonable to have not done so based on the ambiguity of Telp's comments.
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Pix, I think a problem far bigger than homosexuality (that's not saying much since I don't see homosexuality as a problem) is "Anti-Sexuality." Now there is something that needs to be cured. All those people who are not only militantly anti-premarital sex, but not to sure about after marriage either, do more harm than just about anyone else.
Anti-Sexuals:
Osama Bin Laden North Korea's leader Jung (its ok for him to have blonde haired American mistresses, but the lives of his people must be entirely controlled) Phelps Saturday Night Live's Church Lady
In fact, I won't vote for an old man in politics unless he does a Viagra commercial or appears in at least one Men's magazine talking about lust in their hearts.
Its better to be led by those who have come out of the closet than by those nailing the closet closed, for what is a closed closet but a casket without the strength to fall over.
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BB, I took Telp's comments to pertain only to the evangelicals that he was talking about. The ones in Exodus who were fighting to prove that the world was flat (metaphorically). I didn't see much ambiguity there. You obviously saw it differently.
edit: And I was, I think, very clear that I was only talking about Exodus and affiliated groups in the ex-gay movement.
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: As in the case of all discrimination, I'm against coercive remedies. If someone wants to refuse to rent to me or sell to me or employ me because I'm gay, that's their right.
Would you feel the same way if everyone refused to rent or sell to you, or employ you, leaving you with no place to live or earn a living?
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Yes. I don't believe such a thing would or could happen, but it doesn't matter. This is an issue of a very clear principle. Forcing someone to hire you (etc) is no different than mugging him. You can dress it up however you want, but it's still a violation of his rights in order to give you something unearned.
If I needed $250K to save my life, would I rob a bank? That's pretty much the same question. Maybe I would. I've never been in that situation. But I know I wouldn't make excuses about it. I'd at least own up to the fact that I was committing robbery. And I'd like to think that I wouldn't do it at all.
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Actually, 50 years ago, they'd break contracts with you if they found out you were gay. So we're not talking about just doing things that they have a right to do; we're talking about stealing and otherwise violating our rights.
And forget 50 years ago. What about Stonewall? They used to arrest people just for associating with other gay people.
I know this is hard for a lot of people to get, but there is a huge and fundamental difference between forcing people to stop beating us with bicycle chains and forcing people to hire us. The similarity is that beating us with bicycle chains and refusing to hire us are both immoral, and we want both to stop. But beyond that, they are entirely different. I have a right to demand that someone not beat me with a bicycle chain. I do not have a right to demand that someone hire me.
I don't know why this is such a difficult concept. Jobs are not some sort of natural resource, like leaves that have fallen from a tree. A job means that someone is buying something that I have to offer. Making someone hire me when they don't want to is like making someone buy... anything at all, really... that they don't want to buy.
Forcing someone to rent to me is like forcing them to give me anything at all that I might demand, so long as I'm willing to pay some arbitrary price for it. Anything. Housing is not some sort of exception. I don't lose my rights of ownership of my own property just because the property happens to be suitable for you to live in it.
As to your comment about what things were like 50 years ago, I reject it. Fifty years ago, I could have been closeted and miserable and rented any apartment or gotten any job. Being out isn't a right.
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So you're saying that it shouldn't be a right for us to be who we are, but it should be a right for them to force us back into our nice, dark, crowded little closets?
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No. She's saying it's a right for you to be who you are. And it's a right for them to not hire you based on who you are. (She's also saying that following the building of the Temple, Jews will again possess the right to put people to death for anal sex.)
Sadly, I agree, but that's due to the fact that both Lisa and I use similar definitions of the word "right."
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quote:Originally posted by Human: So you're saying that it shouldn't be a right for us to be who we are, but it should be a right for them to force us back into our nice, dark, crowded little closets?
Tom answered this, but let me be more clear. A right is something you're entitled to demand of others. Something they owe you. It's not just something that the law says you can have because a larger mob voted for it than voted against it.
Right and wrong is an issue of morality. And different people can have different views of morality. But people don't have a right to force their morality on others.
If a white supremecist/Nazi/skinhead/bigot opens up a store in my neighborhood, I can refrain from patronizing his establishment. I can try and convince other people to do the same. If I'm lucky, I can deprive him of customers until he's forced to close. Nothing in this involves coercion. Nothing in this involves any violation of rights by anyone or against anyone. He doesn't have a "right" to customers. He has a right to try and have customers.
It's like the whole "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" thing. Notice that no one ever claimed that we are all endowed by our creator with the right to "life, liberty and happiness". Well, not until FDR came along with his "Economic Bill of Rights [sic]".
You have the right to try. You don't have the right to succeed. If you want people to change their wrong views of morality, educate them. Try and persuade them that they're wrong. It takes a lot longer than the shortcut of coercing them, but it's moral. Coercion is not.
If I can be out about being gay and not have doors shut in my face, that's a Very Good Thing, in my view. Similarly, if I can't, that's a Very Bad Thing. But it's not something I'm entitled to force people to change. Their jobs are theirs. I don't own them, and I don't have any right to force them to hire me. Their apartments are theirs. I don't own them, and I don't have any right to force them to rent to me.
Moral shortcuts are bad. Doing bad things just because you think the result is good is a cheat. And trying to convince yourself that it's not really a bad thing because you like the results is a kind of moral blindness.
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posted
Interesting thought, that companies have the right not to hire people based on non-work performance criteria. That means that a company seeking to not hire, or fire someone due to their race, religion or gender should be able to.
Further, that means that any new manager should be able to fire or hire people that they wish. And if they wish to only hire women that enjoy in clandestine and degrading sexual practices, then that is all they will hire. If you have worked there for a long time and are almost vested in that IRA and your new boss informs you that he/she has certain requirements, the sexual practices mentioned above, then you have the choice of being unemployed, or fulfilling those requirements.
In a perfect market world, such short sighted managers and business owners would fail as they are at a great disadvantage. They are cutting out a large segment of the available job market from their searches. As a result those people who do not meet their non-job qualifications, but do meet and surpass their job requirements, will find employment with their competitors.
The problem is that the market isn't perfect. To often Cronyism and Good Boy network work together to make up for the statistical down-braining that limiting ones employement pool results in.
JoeCo has a better product, and better service, and better price than SamCo, but SamCo hires them homosexuals, so RobMart will not buy from him.-
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quote: If a white supremecist/Nazi/skinhead/bigot opens up a store in my neighborhood, I can refrain from patronizing his establishment. I can try and convince other people to do the same. If I'm lucky, I can deprive him of customers until he's forced to close. Nothing in this involves coercion. Nothing in this involves any violation of rights by anyone or against anyone. He doesn't have a "right" to customers. He has a right to try and have customers.
So long as what you tell people is the truth. If you lie or bend the truth to get them to close, it's slander/libel and that's, obviously a form of Fraud.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: In a perfect market world...snip... The problem is that the market isn't perfect.
Exactly. All of those arguments depend on a perfect market and disregard the actual lives of actual people in favor of protecting/supporting a perfect market system...that doesn't exist.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: Interesting thought, that companies have the right not to hire people based on non-work performance criteria. That means that a company seeking to not hire, or fire someone due to their race, religion or gender should be able to.
Correct. Or rather, no one else has the right to judge the criteria on which a company hires or does not hire anyone, so long as they are not violating a contractual agreement.
quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: Further, that means that any new manager should be able to fire or hire people that they wish.
Barring contractual limitations, that's correct. If I get hired for a 2 year contract, and they find out after a year that I'm gay, they can't fire me because of it, because they didn't put that kind of a caveat into the contract. They're bound to live up to their commitments.
But Dan, hiring me means they have to have me in their company and that they have to give me money. What happened to give me a lein on their money? Who could possibly take the basic right of ownership of their own money away from them on my behalf? Who the hell am I that I have more of a right to determine their decisions about what to do with their own money than they are?
quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: And if they wish to only hire women that enjoy in clandestine and degrading sexual practices, then that is all they will hire.
And I'm not saying that's a good thing. I am saying that it's their right. It's also my right, if I find out about it, to publicize that fact and try and get people to stop doing business with them. That's called persuasion. It's slower and less efficient than coercion, just like working for a living is a slower and less efficient means of accumulating wealth than bank robbery. But there's an issue of right and wrong here.
quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: If you have worked there for a long time and are almost vested in that IRA and your new boss informs you that he/she has certain requirements, the sexual practices mentioned above, then you have the choice of being unemployed, or fulfilling those requirements.
Is there a contract? Is his change of requirements a violation of the terms of my employment?
We're used, nowadays, to being able to do everything without the details being ironed out. It wasn't always like that. But our overbenevolant government has time and again ruled in favor of the lazy, and has chosen to protect those who won't bother to protect themselves. With that kind of protection, we've grown out of the habit of seeing to such things ourselves.
A lot of people nowadays work "at will". That means that they can be canned whenever it suits the employer. Unless, of course, they can prove in court that it was for a "bad reason". With that "bad reason" protection, no one really minds working "at will". But it's a relatively new phenomenon. Contracts exist for a reason. They make explicit what's being agreed upon between two parties.
quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: JoeCo has a better product, and better service, and better price than SamCo, but SamCo hires them homosexuals, so RobMart will not buy from him.-
So? Consumer boycott is a remedy. Holding a gun to RobMart's head is not.
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: In a perfect market world...snip... The problem is that the market isn't perfect.
Exactly. All of those arguments depend on a perfect market and disregard the actual lives of actual people in favor of protecting/supporting a perfect market system...that doesn't exist.
With all due respect, Kate, if you think that any of the arguments I made depend on a perfect market, you didn't understand the arguments in question.
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quote: If a white supremecist/Nazi/skinhead/bigot opens up a store in my neighborhood, I can refrain from patronizing his establishment. I can try and convince other people to do the same. If I'm lucky, I can deprive him of customers until he's forced to close. Nothing in this involves coercion. Nothing in this involves any violation of rights by anyone or against anyone. He doesn't have a "right" to customers. He has a right to try and have customers.
So long as what you tell people is the truth. If you lie or bend the truth to get them to close, it's slander/libel and that's, obviously a form of Fraud.
True. But fraud needs to be proved, which can get a little sticky in cases like this.
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: If I can be out about being gay and not have doors shut in my face, that's a Very Good Thing, in my view. Similarly, if I can't, that's a Very Bad Thing. But it's not something I'm entitled to force people to change.
I worked as a dishwasher back in the mid 80's, and at least one of our waiters was gay. One particular fellow really worked the gay-ness hard when he was on the job, throwing little tantrums and being shrill. One day he passed out while waiting on a table. Turned out that his jeans were so tight with his fanny pads on that his legs collapsed from lack of circulation. He was fired as a result.
Gayness-on-display made a lot of coworkers and customers nervous.
Fortunately, sexual preference, unlike race or color, can be turned on and off to suit the situation. If you're looking for a job or working a job it's probably best to leave your sexuality under wraps. It wouldn't do, for example, for a manusexual to go into a job interview and start doing what a manusexual does.
Edit: oops, sounds bad. I'm not saying that it would be nice if people of color could change their color to suit the situation.
Edit: sounds even worse. I give up.
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quote:One particular fellow really worked the gay-ness hard when he was on the job, throwing little tantrums and being shrill.
Dude.
I have to give thanks to the gay guys I hang around with for suppressing their gayness around me and not acting like B movie stereotypes. They are so good at it that I actually see them as three dimensional human beings. It must be rough for them to hold off on all the mincing and shrillness that everyone knows are the hallmarks of being gay.
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quote:Originally posted by skillery: [QUOTE] One particular fellow really worked the gay-ness hard when he was on the job, throwing little tantrums and being shrill.
Thank goodness he wasn't doing the "straight thing",punching people and being violent.!
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That was the 80's. I guess gay people nowadays can just be themselves, but back then the trend was to work the stereotype (example: The Village People). This particular guy acted like Chris Tucker's Ruby Rhod character from The Fifth ElementPosts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: I have to give thanks to the gay guys I hang around with for suppressing their gayness around me and not acting like B movie stereotypes. They are so good at it that I actually see them as three dimensional human beings. It must be rough for them to hold off on all the mincing and shrillness that everyone knows are the hallmarks of being gay.
I don't see that anything that he said indicated that he thought that all gay people acted that way.
I assume you are implying that someone who acts shrill and effeminate can't be known to be gay, and you are making a point that we shouldn't assume that just because someone is 'acting gay' that they can't be straight? Or possibly that it's not something we should worry about. That's cool.
I have a question, though. Of what benefit is it for a straight guy to 'act gay'? I don't get the benefit. We might say that it's learned and they can't help it, but I have a really hard time believing that. I'm sure guys that act 'that way' got teased a lot and I think it's quite possible that they get hit on by more gay guys because they are 'acting gay', so if they're not gay, why would they act gay?
So, what's the benefit for straight guys to act that way? Make a statement? Who are they modeling themselves after that this is something that they would want to do? I mean, given the notiously bad harassment gay people get, why would any guy want to subject themselves to that kind of grief if they weren't gay? I just don't get it.
For what it's worth, I know lots of gay guys that don't 'act gay', but no men that I know of who 'act gay' that aren't gay. So, there it is.
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I know a few. I suppose it is possible that they haven't come out yet, but one is a 45-year-old professor who has been happily married to his wife for twenty years. He works in theatre and history and is very passionate and opinionated. I can't think of a single reason that he wouldn't come out if he wanted to. All signs point to straight.
Except everyone who meets him thinks he is gay and it comes as a shock to find out he's married. *shrug* Flamboyant and artistic men can be straight.
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: Of what benefit is it for a straight guy to 'act gay'?
There have been times, sitting in the cold bleachers at a football game, when I wished I had fanny pads on.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I know a few. I suppose it is possible that they haven't come out yet, but one is a 45-year-old professor who has been happily married to his wife for twenty years. He works in theatre and history and is very passionate and opinionated. I can't think of a single reason that he wouldn't come out if he wanted to. All signs point to straight.
Except everyone who meets him thinks he is gay and it comes as a shock to find out he's married. *shrug* Flamboyant and artistic men can be straight.
posted
Ahhh...that's not more acting gay than having oily hair, wearing tons of gold chains, and speaking in broken English is acting Italian.
It's called acting effeminate. There is definitely a subculture of gay guys who play that up. It doesn't in any way represent how gay people in toto act, not even in the 80s. There are also many straight guys who also act effeminate. We call them the French.
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The culture in general very much disagrees with you. This isn't to say that the culture is right, however . It is to say that it is a role, a way of acting, that is known by everyone in America.
You and the rest of the forum are completely ignoring the substance of my post in favor of a straw man.
quote: It doesn't in any way represent how gay people in toto act, not even in the 80s.
Of course, I never said it did. Also, how do you know this?
I have this weird idea that you think that I'm some kind of rube fresh off the boat, or that I'm some kind of prejudiced Southern guy, and you, unencumbered by prejudices of any kind, see the world as it *really* is.
I urge you to reconsider this idea if you believe this.
I get that there's an ideal of being fair to people and not assuming things based on stereotypes, an ideal of not being prejudiced against someone for the wrong reasons. That's cool. That's great.
On the other hand, it may be that you and I have experienced different things. Maybe there is such a thing as a 'gay culture' Maybe the gay culture thing has changed over time. Maybe we just knew different gay people. Maybe there is a different gay culture in places that you've lived versus where I've lived.
This next is not directed at Squicky.
The Mormons and traditionally religious people are a power on this forum, and they've let their feeligns be known that it's not o.k. to assume things and read crap into what they write just because of who you (general you) think they are. I think this might be a good rule to use with everyone when conversing with them, whether or not they have a ton of other people sticking up for them.
posted
That audacious advertising has probably taken some of the fun out of being gay. Insteady of finding out after a sufficiently long time that the person you're attracted too is also gay, and is also attracted to you, it's right there in your face. No more guessing, or tactful questioning, or tweaking the gay-dar, just move on to the sex. And what fun is that?
I suppose it's also fun sorting through piles of flamboyant, artistic, straight-types, who give off false signals.
Like Telp said once, it's a "hobby"... I would think something like gold panning or rockhounding. If the gold and gems were just lying around on the surface, you'd fill your pockets and go back to being bored.
Edit: I'm talking about the pursuit and discovery part of getting together. I'm sure there's also the true-love and lasting relationship part.
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And, no, I'm not saying the above is conclusive, but it does give support to the idea that there is a distinctive male gay culture with its own voice.
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quote:All of those arguments depend on a perfect market and disregard the actual lives of actual people in favor of protecting/supporting a perfect market system...
Kate, my definition of "rights" has nothing to do with market forces, and everything to do with the role of violence in society. The older I get, the less comfortable I am with authorizing force on someone else's behalf.
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