quote:As I am one of the more vocal pro-gay people in the board, it's not far to say that I use the term that way myself.
I disagree. That would be an unwarranted extrapolation of what I said. It's certainly does not represent what I was trying to communicate, as I never thought that you, specifically, have used that word in that way.
I can understand why you'd be upset if you thought I was saying that about you. I'm sorry if I gave that impression.
quote:When I asked you if that was what you were doing, you denied it. Which is it?
I denied that I was implying it in any passive-aggressive manner. I explicitly said it about me, then implied it about you (in a manner which at the time I thought was extremely straight-forward, but which I now realize unfortunately came across as passive-aggressive), and then at your prodding I explicitly said the same thing about you that I had already said about myself.
Let me also point out that now that I have thought about it and am doubtful of the accuracy of my own perceptions, I will certainly be more cognizant of such events. I will be pleasantly delighted if, over time, I come to realize that either my perception was wrong, or that Hatrack has changed for the better.
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I think his actions fit the definition of bigotry that you just agreed to. Are you saying that my perception is invalid?
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quote:Wondering, or passive-agressively insinuating?
What's next, Squick? Do we get to hear how you wish you were popular now? That is the usual progression once you start accusing someone of passive aggressiveness.
Interesting non-sequitur, Dagonee. The truth is, your particular brand of pedantic logic chopping is very passive-aggressive. God knows what popularity has to do with it.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: If you are wondering, I would love it if you went back through the conversations we've had here (and the OSC articles) about this issue and see how many times people have leveled that accusation and compare that to how many times someone who is not a fringe poster or Lisa actually did it.
Hell, you can even include me. I doubt you'll find much.
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quote:Regardless of the rhetoric that was used, I don't think there was a single German who actually feared a Jewish threat.
So you what, used a Magic 8-Ball Gallup Poll to determine this?
I've never seen any evidence of fear on the part of Germans. Never. And I've seen a lot of evidence of hatred. Now, if you want to suggest that it was fear, you might want to bring something to support it. Otherwise, I'll just stick with what I said, thanks very much.
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quote:Also, I want to remove finge posters because, this being the internet, we have people come up and post inflammatory things and get castigated for it. I don't believe that they can be considered as representative of the community, especially since I am one of the strongest pro-gay people on the board and I castigate them. Lisa, because referring to her is like referring to KoM.
I just saw this.
I don't think it's appropriate to ignore the words of the fringe members of this board. As much as we try to limit it, a single persistent poster who is not interested in real discussion can have enormous effects on the abilities of everybody else to discuss things in a productive manner.
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MrSquicky -- I don't think your definition of bigotry applies here, because I am willing to re-examine my views on this matter. I am currently in a state of active doubt about whether or not they're accurate. When I said "I wonder if I'm guilty of this", I really meant it. I really do wonder.
But I am still not willing to go through old posts looking for ugliness. Bleh. What a horrible way to ruin my day.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Dag, I'm not interested in playing your games.
Now, MrSquicky, is that nice?
I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one, though.
Lisa thinks actually being clear and precise about what one says is a game. Who'd a thunk it?
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Wondering, or passive-agressively insinuating?
What's next, Squick? Do we get to hear how you wish you were popular now? That is the usual progression once you start accusing someone of passive aggressiveness.
Interesting non-sequitur, Dagonee. The truth is, your particular brand of pedantic logic chopping is very passive-aggressive. God knows what popularity has to do with it.
It's not a non-sequitur, it's based on a series of events over the past several months, almost none of which involved me. For the record, Squick hasn't accused me of being passive-aggressive to my recollection, so the entire premise of your post is fiction.
With anyone else I'd explain more, but you'd either ignore it and pretend that the explanation didn't exist or you'd accuse me of being pedantic.
It is interesting, though, that you can be counted on to resort to name calling and disparaging logical thought when you are unable to actually respond to "logic-chopping" in a logical manner.
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porter, As I said, I've gotten very used to people saying false, perjorative things about me in homosexual threads (and many other types of threads for that matter). I'm not upset about the personal aspect of it (other than realizing that false, nasty attacks, especially from your clique, is one of the prices I pay for posting here). I'll accept that this wasn't your intent here anyway (Though I got to tell you the "I wonder if some people aren't do X." followed by "I'm not accusing you of doing X. I'm just wondering if you are and publicly posting that." comes off a realy, really passive-aggressive to me).
I am upset about what I see as a common tactic of people dismissing people by saying that those people automatically dismiss what they say. I'm against people dismissing others' arguments for invalid reasons in any case, but this one for some reason really gets under my skin. OSC and many others on this site seem to me to feel free to level these attacks at me personally and at groups that I belong to. And I do see it as bigotry and as a way of dealing with arguments that you can't answer.
On this site, neither I nor many of my opinions are particularly popular. In many cases, the only way I can have a chance for people to give what I'm saying a fair look is to make it so that people who throw false accusations back them up.
I know I don't use homophobe or bigot the way many people accuse me of doing. I'm pretty sure many of the other people who post here on the pro-gay side don't either. We don't deserve this accusation.
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If I recall correctly, Leto threw this at you. He's one person who got banned and I went head to head to him on multiple occasions for things like that. Lalo may have also done when he was younger. I tried to work on him to soften out his rougher edges and take other people's persepctive into account more. I think I was moderately successful.
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quote:Let me also point out that now that I have thought about it and am doubtful of the accuracy of my own perceptions, I will certainly be more cognizant of such events. I will be pleasantly delighted if, over time, I come to realize that either my perception was wrong, or that Hatrack has changed for the better.
That's more of a win than I expected when I got into this. Thank you for that.
For what it's worth, I can understand not wanting to revisit upsetting threads where you were personally insulted. If that's your motivation, I don't think your actions would fit the definition of bigotry I posted either. I should note that the threads that I think you are talking about are like 4 years old now and that I'm pretty sure that the more recent ones I linked won't have any such unpleasantness for you.
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Not to argue the point, but just because it made me think - I find it very difficult to distinguish between hatred and fear. I think they are very closely linked and more often than not found together.
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I am not sure of the particulars of these arguments about whether people who disagree with homosexuality are or are not homophobes. I do not know if on hatrack there is a tendancy to use the label that way or not.
But I do know there is a lot of aggression and hate on this thread, and I request that it cease.
quote:But I do know there is a lot of aggression and hate on this thread, and I request that it cease.
I don't get this. I get accused of this constantly when people say bad things about me and I won't back down when I try to get them to support their accusations.
I don't feel hate. Being firm and clear in what you are saying and not backing down (and yes, being aggressive) are not indicative of hate or anger to me.
I sometimes wonder if that may cause a big difference between mine and many other people's perceptions here. I rarely ever get angry or personally upset by anything here. celia used to chide me about that.
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quote:I should note that the threads that I think you are talking about are like 4 years old now and that I'm pretty sure that the more recent ones I linked won't have any such unpleasantness for you.
You probably are correct with the specific word "homophobe" as applied to me. But if we expand it to similar words (X-hater, bigot, etc.), implications of such, and don't limit it to attacks on me personally, there's quite a bit out there.
Why, just a few days ago, Lisa said that pooka is bigoted toward adoptive parents because of her views that people across the board desire children who are genetically linked to them.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Why, just a few days ago, Lisa said that pooka is bigoted toward adoptive parents because of her views that people across the board desire children who are genetically linked to them.
Oh, good God. There's such a thing as context, Porter.
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quote:But if we expand it to similar words used unjustified (X-hater, bigot, etc) and don't limit it to attacks on me personally, there's quite a bit out there.
I'm not on Hatrack anywhere near as much as I used to be, but I find that very hard to believe.
And, wow, you mean Lisa said something nasty and unjustified?!? Next, you're going to tell me that KoM was disrespectful of someone's religious beliefs.
I don't think it is reasonable to take one person's predictible flaws that the rest of the community disapproves of as indicative of a general trend in the board.
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quote:I don't think it's appropriate to ignore the words of the fringe members of this board. As much as we try to limit it, a single persistent poster who is not interested in real discussion can have enormous effects on the abilities of everybody else to discuss things in a productive manner.
Only if people let him. Hatrack does seem congenitally unable to deal with people who consistently act in bad faith, but, to me, that's as much a problem with Hatrack as it is with the individual's bad behavior. I tried to introduce the "What the crap are you talking about" meme specifically to deal with this.
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quote:But I do know there is a lot of aggression and hate on this thread, and I request that it cease.
I don't get this. I get accused of this constantly when people say bad things about me and I won't back down when I try to get them to support their accusations.
I don't feel hate. Being firm and clear in what you are saying and not backing down (and yes, being aggressive) are not indicative of hate or anger to me.
I sometimes wonder if that may cause a big difference between mine and many other people's perceptions here. I rarely ever get angry or personally upset by anything here. celia used to chide me about that.
You are not being singled out, and I am not accusing YOU of anything. I am perceiving a strong amount of venom in this thread, and I trust my perceptions as much as you do yours. As this threads author, and as I have not yet abandoned it, feel responsible for it. Please discuss the merits of people arguments rather then talking about people's motives and perceptions and claiming you know more then they do about them. This whole thread has turned into this sort of bickering and I doubt it can come to a useful conclusion.
Again, I am not singling you out Mr S. And if you are indeed NOT doing it, then you should have nothing to get defensive about.
I just do not feel respectful conversation has been taking place over the last 2 pages.
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quote:But if we expand it to similar words used unjustified (X-hater, bigot, etc) and don't limit it to attacks on me personally, there's quite a bit out there.
I'm not on Hatrack anywhere near as much as I used to be, but I find that very hard to believe.
Depending on how you interpret "quite a bit", you are right. I didn't mean that most people on any side of an issue do it. It doesn't happen all that frequently, either.
But one thing I know -- thereis enough of it to put a damper on discussion. I know that I personally am much less willing to discuss certain matters on Hatrack now because of some personally hurtful things said toward me within the last year.
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porter, I'm coming from the perspective of someone who assumes that there are going to be people piping in to say nasty things about him and have no one call them on it, so maybe I'm not seeing it, but, save for our standouts like KoM, Lisa, and the idiot conservative brigade, I think Hatrack is more personally respectful on many of our hot button topics than at many times in the past. But, then again, I've been on less recently than previous and I'm also not seeing it from your perspective.
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quote:And, wow, you mean Lisa said something nasty and unjustified?!? Next, you're going to tell me that KoM was disrespectful of someone's religious beliefs.
Again, I don't think that you can say "Oh, that's just X. Ignore them." Even if you choose to ignore them, their posts have an affect on Hatrack, even if they are "just X".
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quote:save for our standouts like KoM, Lisa, and the idiot conservative brigade, I think Hatrack is more personally respectful on many of our hot button topics than at many times in the past.
Again, I don't think you can ignore the effects that such folk have on the forum.
Barring that, I think that what you said is correct about some topics, but false about others.
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I'm not saying they don't have an effect. I'm saying they don't typify the community at Hatrack.
I accept that they can be prolific and, in that case, there is "a lot out there", but going back to before, I don't think that their behavior or definitions for things can be said to be commonly accepted at Hatrack.
There can be productive discussion had at Hatrack, as the commonly acceptible behavior is conducive to such. That people engage and give extended attention to the bad behavior of others diminishes this, but people who withdraw and aren't producing positive conversation do as well. Which is not to say that I don't do the latter or that it is necessarily something wrong, just that it has an effect.
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quote: people who behave irrationally against gay people, like Hardaway, for example, clearly have issues going on that aren't centered in their intellect.
Lisa, we agree. I'm just not sure that "they must be gay in denial" that is whipped out as the joke-du-jur in these cases is accurate all the time. Hardway may not be scared of his own homosexual tendencies. He could be just a big idiot in love with the sound of his own voice. He could be an attention whore playing the media for his 15 minutes of fame. He could be a clueless follower of the conservative nut of the day. Attacking his motives for being an a..... idiot without even trying to find out what those motives are reflects badly on those who believe he is an idiot.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: porter, I'm coming from the perspective of someone who assumes that there are going to be people piping in to say nasty things about him and have no one call them on it, so maybe I'm not seeing it, but, save for our standouts like KoM, Lisa, and the idiot conservative brigade, I think Hatrack is more personally respectful on many of our hot button topics than at many times in the past. But, then again, I've been on less recently than previous and I'm also not seeing it from your perspective.
The only 'serious' topic that really gets much play by a variety of people, with a variety of substantive opinions, is religion(edit: ish issues).
People like KoM and Lisa and Irami are almost the only ones who have something interesting to say on this forum.
Otherwise, it's just the usual meta-argument of 'You're mean!' 'No, you're mean!' that pretty much every thread devolves into--including this one. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:I accept that they can be prolific and, in that case, there is "a lot out there", but going back to before, I don't think that their behavior or definitions for things can be said to be commonly accepted at Hatrack.
From my perspective, it doesn't matter whether most people do it or accept it. What matters is that if you want to have a discussion about certain topics, you're going to have to deal with people behaving that way. You seem to find that an acceptable price of admission. Others don't.
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With that in mind, do you realize why you saying that people using homophobe as a label to dismiss anyone who disagrees with them is commonly accepted here can seriously discourage people who have tried very hard to remain respectful and encourage/enforce a respectful environment in gay issue threads?
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quote:You seem to find that an acceptable price of admission. Others don't.
I've never known it to be any different. That's the price of a public forum to me. I try to counter act it when these people become ingrained in the community, but fringe nastiness I see as pretty much a given.
To me, the only way to counter-act it is to keep them fringe by not giving them extended attention (but that takes a lot of maturity and responsibility in the forum members as a whole) and/or having and fostering productive discussion.
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As part of this, I often take on the mean guy or hardass role. I don't particularly relish it, but, to me, it's a role that someone has to play. At one time, I used to sometimes get back up from people with a softer approach, but who didn't immediately go to vacuous fluff or "everyone stop being mean." and that often had the best effects.
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quote: people who behave irrationally against gay people, like Hardaway, for example, clearly have issues going on that aren't centered in their intellect.
Lisa, we agree.
It was bound to happen eventually. <grin> I've had these million monkeys typing away for ages now.
quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: I'm just not sure that "they must be gay in denial" that is whipped out as the joke-du-jur in these cases is accurate all the time. Hardway may not be scared of his own homosexual tendencies. He could be just a big idiot in love with the sound of his own voice. He could be an attention whore playing the media for his 15 minutes of fame. He could be a clueless follower of the conservative nut of the day.
You could be right. But since it's not coming from his brain, no rational response is going to have any effect on him. Do I actually think he's worried that he might be gay? If I had to put an arbitrary number on what I think the chances of that are, it'd be 20% or so. But do I think that suggesting such a thing is out of line? No. Do I think I need to care a whole lot what his actual motivations are? Again, no. Someone like Porter, I care what his motivations are. Someone like Hardaway... not so much. Not at all, to be honest.
quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: Attacking his motives for being an a..... idiot without even trying to find out what those motives are reflects badly on those who believe he is an idiot.
I don't really agree. I make distinctions. What you're saying would be true about Porter, kat, and OSC (to an extent). It's not true about, Hardaway, Fred Phelps, General Sax, and their ilk.
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quote:He could be a clueless follower of the conservative nut of the day.
There are a lot of people in this nation who hate gay people. And these bigots aren't a hundred years-old. This kind of bigotry doesn't come from cluelessness, it comes from an unfortunate understanding of religion. I don't know what to do. You can't just appeal to their sense of humanity, because their humanity is founded on a religion that they understand to be anti-homosexual. If someone simply believes that God doesn't support gay people, then there really isn't much one can do, except maybe show how love is love is love.
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