why do people hate/are people scared of "the homosexuals" so much?

Besides, we got welfare and who gives a shit about book-learnin and spotted owls? Just let me keep my guns and I can feed myself and protect myself.

The idea being that it's "them" who are greedy, narcissistic, soft, compliant, weak in the middle of tough times. Not "us."

at least they agree with the terrorists on something

grrr

But on the plus side, a suitcase nuke might go off in New York City, or NK might target San Francisco, ushering in the end times and offing a whole lot of the queers in the bargain.

Her and crack addict husband later moved to the suburbs.

When I try to understand the conservative vote, I have to think about my relatives, most of which are EXTREMELY far right. They believe homosexuality is evil, evidenced by the Bible, which a lot of people in our country are into these days. Since "the gays" align themself on the left, the left is thusly evil. Also, my relatives believe that either the Holocaust didn't really exist - it was just a ploy by the jews to get attention - or it had good consequences - god works in mysterious ways. Oh, I could go on and on.

Of course, you shouldn't listen to me because, as my relatives told me a long time ago, since my parents got divorced, I am sadly going to hell no matter what I do.

If you want to read into my humour, then why not just read it like I find the concept of threatening homosexuals so absurd and inexplicable that all I can do is make jokes about it? I mean, the answer, for what it's worth, is a combination of fear of the Other, being brought up bigoted, the overuse of the words "fag" and "queer" as abuse, possible latent homosexuality and the fear of giving in to a "weakness", religious misunderstanding, disgust at homosexual archetypes (protrayed by both qwueers and their enemies), instinctive reaction to liberal values, etc. etc. etc.

Does that answer your question better?

but considering the name of their big 'hit' single (pictured above), will this cause some sort of mobius strip?

I do think in fifty years, these battles will appear like those images of racial segregation look today.

I also think this issue didn't have anywhere near the effect on the presidential election as Osama bin Laden did.

I agree. (I hope so)

i have seen info to suggest the exact opposite. unfortunately, we can see from this election that the younger voters arent. voters, that is.

ok, yeah, that's also OTM

Really? Isn't this painting a picture that isn't actually there? If a middle American homemaker stated that gay rights protestors' lives had no meaning outside of protesting about gay rights would that be a sweeping and unreasonable judgement?

Are there no gay homemakers in middle America? Do their lives have meaning beyond their domestic roles?

I'd need to know someone _very_ well before I could say what meaning their life had.

i want 50 some million people to die right now.

why killing people in iraq isn't moral issue i don't know

xxpost

xpost

http://www.donutman.com/i/read1.jpg

why do you wish death on those who disagree with you? perhaps there needs to be something more optimistic along the lines of the religious rights "i'll pray for you" for liberals

How about you ask this question to all the people who'd like to see my dyke ass burn in hell?

More specifically, these people hate the fun they got up to at 15 in public school. (Ok, that's a horrible generalisation - but mocking the rich is all we have). I think Greer put it more crudely, though, something like if you experience anal sex, no vagina will be ever be good enough. Or something. Hey, I think she's funny.

I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken and the other left.

Any reasonably intelligent reader knows how many different ways that can be interpreted, but still.

i am rambling i know.

The most OTM thing I've read on this or any forum for as long as I can remember. Bravo.

who is this directed at?

ive often fantasized about this, actually

The scary thing is that I'm starting to fully understand the depth of their righteous anger.

Cos, they ain't Christians.

I agree. people who do not love homosexuals beacuse the bible tells them homosexuality are huge hypocrites. They are the ones sinning more by not loving.

I really expect no better from people who reject all scientific/social/political ideas that aren't rooted in this deeply hypocritical Book. (I am a Christian, by the way... just one who is more or less convinced that God's followers fudged a lot of details back in the day just as they do now.)

you're saying the Democrats made that the issue? when GOP put gay marriage initiatives on multiple ballots?

the relevant policy doesn't matter; it's the metaphor, and it would work in either case

xpost A Nairn OTM.

yes! these referendums are winning by such wide margins that it can't be chalked up to the evangelical vote. (although no doubt the referendums wouldn't be on the ballots without the evangelicals.)

from my limited experience, and the anecdotes my mother and others tell me, a lot of these homophobes have only a glancing familiarity with the bible. they often are not regular churchgoers. the whole supposed biblical injunction (which as noted above is considerably weaker than evangelical consternation would have you believe) is just a faint pretext. the *real* reason or reasons are elsewhere, i believe. drew daniel and michael daddino seem to have the best handle on that.

i'd like to read a book about this, preferably not by lacan. because i don't understand lacan.

In Ohio, several leading Republican politicians, including the Governor and the Attorney General, came out against Issue 1, the 'gay marriage / civil unions' amendment. The argument was not about the 'gay marriage' end, but about the civil unions end--the Issue 1 opponents argued that it would have a negative impact on Ohio's economy, and would subject all sorts of currently recognized arrangements to legal challenges, including private domestic partner benefits and things like powers of attorney. It didn't work.

(xpost obv)

i think you highly underestimated the bigotry and its depth. the religious argument is a cover for the fear of rampant butt sex. it isn't about the lord, it is about the average man's fear of being anally penetrated. i would be willing to bet money that it would be much easier to pass a bill for lesbian rights only.

My fear about this issue turning out to mirror ideas about racial segregation is that, well, the current Democrat line on it is absolute bullshit, a sudden championing of state's rights (c'mon!) to allow them to take the left-er position without actually being forced to take any position whatsoever. And this will look, through the lens of history, unprincipled and opportunistic in the extreme, or just half-assed and depressing.

Nairn: "Penance" is a sacrament, too.

no, this oversimplifies. or to put it another way, it's wrong.

i think it's more a matter of:

(a) the idea of/need for "difference"--projecting fears and anxieties onto a minority (distant) population
(b) the related point that other people's joy and freedom somehow threatens the ideas and mental/social structures that govern and make sense of your own life.

xpost

there: we've clarified our positions.

It's cultural, and not even in a very rational sense. The bottom line is that for a great many people, the idea of someone being gay is equivalent, in their minds, to a person's being insane, or an alien; they've somehow trained themselves to find the concept so foreign and abhorrent that it's impossible for them to believe that anyone with same-sex desires could possibly share any of their values or perceptions of the world whatsoever. This is where the fear of the "gay agenda" comes from -- that nebulous "agenda" isn't just meant to be the "promotion" of homosexuality, it's the fear that there must be some entire alternate value system attached to it, one that involves pedophilia and Communism and eating babies and turning the sky green and marrying bacteria and attacking every single foundation of human culture. (See also anti-Semitism.) That's the root of this, and it's completely paranoid and irrational; even for the most radical of homosexuals -- even for those who think of homosexuality as being part of a broader radical stance toward our culture -- the bottom line, particularly with regard to marriage, is just to let people have relationships with one another. And the paradox is that if you let people do that -- if you normalized the status of homosexuality and let people get on with their lives -- there's actually less of a chance that gay people would come to think of homosexuality as a critique of culture at large.

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but you do realize that seven of the 11 states banned not only same-sex marriage but civil unions as well??

i took an undergraduate course in "models of world history"--i think we put far too much faith in history as a rational subject.

Has anyone at all yet discussed the possibility of these initiatives undergoing some judicial review? (NB: imagine how judicial review would fuck over the Democrat stance on this!)

Drunk. Also tolerance has kind of fizzled out to the point where anyone who doesn't agree with me seems evil which seems kind of sinister while listening to that stupid Rough Trade indie pop compilation. Election fallout. Perhaps another thread.

I had a similar thought this morning when a co-worker told me about a friend of hers who works to stop AIDS in Zambia; when the co-worker heard that it was all over for Kerry, she thought, "Well, more kids in Africa are gonna die."

If you belong to a church opposed to gay marriage then even if it were legally possible in the country you live in you'd still be unable to find a minister to officiate. So the marriage issue is separate from the civil rights issue because the clergy make it separate, I don't know why people keep conflating it. Well. I guess I do but it is so patently dumb.

At this point, Nairn's devil's advocate stuff rankles me. I know it's a perfectly legitimate way to stimulate discussion where otherwise the ILx hivemind (to give credence to an annoying meme) would be 100% dominant but right now it seems like salt in the wound. I apologize for half-assed trolling.

???

No such proposal on the ballot in Iowa (still a "white" state as of latest count). I'd have noticed.

i don't know what i think about this line of reasoning. it seems a bit like wishful thinking anyway, because gay activists aren't likely to lay low for some larger agenda. but i'm inclined to agree with it nonetheless.

yes.

see also "we can't say we hate the Negroes any more, but Negroes hate faggots too so we win!"

sadly, this is not a joke.

To my thinking, Scalia clearly made the first move by twisting the sodomy ruling into a debate on gay marriage.

now!

see here and here (better still ... his gay lover was FRENCH! that'll REALLY blow their minds!)

(a) the idea of/need for "difference"--projecting fears and anxieties onto a minority (distant) population
(b) the related point that other people's joy and freedom somehow threatens the ideas and mental/social structures that govern and make sense of your own life.

I think you've pretty much nailed it. People have always been scared of change. scared of what they've known, what they're comfortable with, the way things we when they were growing up being altered. They don't wanna get up for a beer and come back to find their favorite chair has been moved and the remote doesn't work. (terrible metaphor, yes, shut up, i'm drunk) And there have always been scapegoats, something or someone or some group that they could latch onto and say "THIS is the problem. If we keep THIS in check, it will all go back to 1950s Doris Day HI honey I'm home type shit." Or it at least won't get further away from that.

what is even stranger about the love for the King James is that it was a highly politicised translation. Undertaken by many government committees to give a version of the bible that emphasized the divine right of King james and his successors, the primacy of the church of england, and to reign in the religious nutcases who founded the evangelical churches a few decades later. Many parts of the king james bible are twisted translations designed to make political capital in a Kingdom where it would be the only text.

"Jim DeMint, the new senator from South Carolina, said during his campaign that he supported a state G.O.P. platform plank banning gays from teaching in public schools. He explained, "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend should be hired to teach my third-grade children."

Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that "the gay agenda" would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between "good and evil" and said he had heard there was "rampant lesbianism" in Oklahoma schools."

ARGHHHH

hi dubya!