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

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in scare quotes because many of the people in question probably haven't met a homosexual in their life--at least, certainly haven't had much extended contact with one.

my mother was doing door-to-door canvassing in wisconsin and numerous times people sympathized (in their own hazy way) with the democrats' economic agenda, and were miffed over the war in iraq, but intended to vote bush "because of the homosexuals."

because WHAT the homosexuals? because they'll be raiding your towns like someone out of a george romero movie? because they'll find you in a dark alleyway?

i mean i understand homophobia, a least a little bit. but not to this extent...not to the extent that it becomes, for a portion of the country perhaps sizable enough to tilt the vote, the central, defining issue.

what's at the bottom of this?

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:11 (twenty-one years ago)

oh right: Same-sex marriage bans winning on state ballots

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Marriage dumbass

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:13 (twenty-one years ago)

XPOSTXPOSTXPOST

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:14 (twenty-one years ago)

do "homosexuals" in rural wyoming = "jews" in rural (contemporary) poland???

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:15 (twenty-one years ago)

"election 2004: i voted bush because i have a weird thing about guys fucking each other up the ass"

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:17 (twenty-one years ago)

There aren't any Jews in rural contemporary Poland. Or am I missing the point or something.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:18 (twenty-one years ago)

yes

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Who can think about unemployment, education or the environment when fags are queering everything up?

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.

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:20 (twenty-one years ago)

"The homosexual is the jew in the age of desire." I don't know who said that.

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

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I like my homosexuals soft and compliant.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:29 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah funny but it's also funny to think that the united states might invade iran or syria or etc. thanks to a lot of people being afraid of "homosexuals."

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:31 (twenty-one years ago)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drg400/g414/g41472d74cm.jpg
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drg100/g186/g18607xbhar.jpg

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"because of the homosexuals."

at least they agree with the terrorists on something

grrr

― Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:33 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah funny but it's also funny to think that the united states might invade iran or syria or etc. thanks to a lot of people being afraid of "homosexuals."

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.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Amateurist, we KNOW several million of your fellow countrymen are disgustingly stupid, bigoted freaks. The only hope is that enough of them will be killed in Bush's wars that the Dems'll actually get their act together next time.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I currently live in a poor part of the most poverty stricken city in the US. When I was looking for an apartment in the neighborhood one of the locals showed me around, pointing out the various places that were available. She flat out asked me if I was gay because "we don't like them types living around here". As I looked around at the boarded up crack houses, at the litter that covered everything I couldn't imagine that me being gay was the most important thing on her mind. I simply don't understand why people think in these terms.

Her and crack addict husband later moved to the suburbs.

― lawrence kansas (lawrence kansas), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't really find humor in your posts, markelby. for what it's worth.

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:39 (twenty-one years ago)

This is a stupid question. Gays are "different" and dumb people are scared of "different". Didn't you learn that in the playground?

― L.H.O.O.Q., Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

On the bus this morning, I heard one guy talking to another passenger about the gay marriage ban. He said, in his very thick mid-western accent, "You know, I don't approve of what they do. No, I don't. I don't approve it at all, but you can't legislate that sort of thing." He was talking about the gay marriage ban, obviously. I was a bit annoyed with him, but at least I live in Illinois now and not Virginia or Lousiana.

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.

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

An evangelical christian former boss of mine told me homosexuality is only mentioned in the bible three or four times, whereas stuff like "Love your neighbor" and "Do not kill" come up hundreds of times. He says the bible doesn't make a big deal out of it, and if it's a sin, it's no more a sin than lust or greed or disrespecting your parents or things that just about everyone does in their lives. Why don't more christians take his semi-enlightened view? How did it become such a big issue?

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Well I'm sorry about that, Amateurist. I'm not very funny but surely you can detect the efforts at a smidgeon of humour?

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?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, and right now, I do want the far-right religion-abusing ignroant selfish fucks to die, so yeah, joking about them getting nkilled isn't a difficult step for me to take.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I find the passing of these constitutional amendments to ban gay marraige (and in some cases take benefits away from all domestic partnerships including heterosexual couples) even more depressing than the fact that people are actually dumb enough to vote for Bush. In Michigan, where Bush has lost, the anti-gay measure has passed 59 - 41. Is there any recourse to this? Ways to get these things overturned?

― marianna, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

america hates fags.

― m. (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:16 (twenty-one years ago)

this whole thing brings to mind something i mentioned once before one this board, a 'joke' in a leno monologue: "intelligence now reports that osama bin laden is moving from afghanistan to pakistan. Y'know why he's doing this? Pakistan just legalized gay marriage."

― m. (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:17 (twenty-one years ago)

so i suppose these guys won't be touring the US anytime soon, then?
http://www.angloplugging.co.uk/release_images/hiddencams.jpg

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

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think people are ready to give up the image of "man + wife + kids = family" and they see gay marriage as threatening that.

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.

― bnw (bnw), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

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

I agree. (I hope so)

― marianna, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought everyone thought that!

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

unfortunately homophobia transcends the generation gap far more than racism, sexism and xenophobia. i hope 50 years isn't too optimistic.

― Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

It isn't

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Tho maybe you could explain why you think that way

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd have thought there were uncanny parallels re: generation whatevers w/all those

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

unfortunately homophobia transcends the generation gap far more than racism, sexism and xenophobia. i hope 50 years isn't too optimistic.
-- Freelance Hiveminder (stevem7...), November 3rd, 2004 10:25 AM. (blueski)

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

― Emilymv (Emilymv), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 15:40 (twenty-one years ago)

gay marriage isn't even something people should NEED to vote on. i hope you're all right anyway.

― Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

People are afraid that homosexuals are laughing at their poor dress sense and general style deficit.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 16:15 (twenty-one years ago)

L.H.O.O.Q. OTM. also, for middle American homemakers, it's a status insult (with overtones of abandonment fears) - their lives have no meaning outside of their family role.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I really do feel confused by the virulent popularity of gay marriage bans, in part because it is a literally *negative* issue: "let's not let those people over there have something". It's just hard to believe that *that* motivates people more than the desire *for* a positive something. But it confirms a kinda basic Lacanian psychoanalytic claim: the jouissance of other people is obscene, unbearable. Fundie heterosexuals are voting out their rage and disgust at what they imagine is some incredibly pleasurable thing they don't have: the fantasy of gay existence as a high income, no kids hedonistic free-for-all. They are transfixed by that fantasy and are voting to exorcise it.

― Drew Daniel, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 16:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Take "marriage." TAKE IT. JUST GIVE ME MY GODDAMN ****CIVIL RIGHTS****

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Fundie heterosexuals are voting out their rage and disgust at what they imagine is some incredibly pleasurable thing they don't have: the fantasy of gay existence as a high income, no kids hedonistic free-for-all. They are transfixed by that fantasy and are voting to exorcise it.

ok, yeah, that's also OTM

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:16 (twenty-one years ago)

for middle American homemakers...their lives have no meaning outside of their family role

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.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:20 (twenty-one years ago)

i'd vote against the Hidden Cameras any day of the week.

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

its a way for christians to make themselves feel better about sinning. they think "well, we dont do that and they still do all the bad things we do so they are the scourge of the nation."

i want 50 some million people to die right now.

― todd swiss (eliti), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:24 (twenty-one years ago)

OTM 1000%

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:26 (twenty-one years ago)

What precisely ARE Bush's religious beliefs?

― adam... (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:26 (twenty-one years ago)

i think the abortion/'partial birth'/stem cell issue plays a big (related) role in the republican's successfull mobilization

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

― artdamages (artdamages), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:27 (twenty-one years ago)

(Oh, but replace "Christians" with "heteros." Homophobia tolerates all religious persuasions.) xxpost

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Cain rocks!

xxpost

― Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Go watch an episode of the doughnut man.

xpost

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 17:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 52 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

No one said Christ's Word was easy to follow.

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:37 (twenty-one years ago)

but trying to sneak around it may be even harder to follow

― A Nairn (moretap), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

why does everyone have to be so corny when they're talking about christ?

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Christ was kinda corny, at times.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:43 (twenty-one years ago)

crap, me? how?

― A Nairn (moretap), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Those same people probably wouldn't mind giving some civic benefits to homosexuals.

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??

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, I saw this after I posted. A portion of this is because the vote on civil unions was tied to the definition of marriage.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't want "some civic benefits." I want ALL civic benefits.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd give you some civic benefits, Jeanne, but I'm afraid it would lead to you marrying your cat.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

i still can't get over the fact that some kid in syria is gonna be a cripple because a housewife in iowa doesn't like fags.

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

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I am very drunk but I would like to point out that on this and other threads, A Nairn is a fucktard.

― adam (adam), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:53 (twenty-one years ago)

And you posted that because...?

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:55 (twenty-one years ago)

C'mon, Jaymc, "cat" = "box turtle."

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!)

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I think gay couples could sue any state in the union for denying them civil liberties. In fact, they should.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:59 (twenty-one years ago)

And you posted that because...?

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.

― adam (adam), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:00 (twenty-one years ago)

If you give me all my civic benefits, I may very well destroy the foundation of liberty.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

i still can't get over the fact that some kid in syria is gonna be a cripple because a housewife in iowa doesn't like fags.

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."

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Play Katamari Damacy, adam! That world is a nicer place than ours!

― adam... (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

It just simply blows my mind that people are more concerned with what I do in my bedroom than they are with what the GOVERNMENT does or fails to do. Unfuckingbelievable.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:04 (twenty-one years ago)

adam, what are you disagreeing about? (other drunk adam)

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes! I'm a Fucktard. I love the internet!

― A Nairn (moretap), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Homosexuals use the bedroom for sex???? Just like heteros!

― adam... (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Someone asked about gay couples who want the religious sacrement of marriage. I think in some ways (depending on what church you belong to) this is easier to obtain, you just need to find a nice unbiased minister who will read a blessing over you and then have a celebration with your friends and families. It's getting the civil rights that go with marriage that is harder.

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.

― isadora (isadora), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:11 (twenty-one years ago)

adam, what are you disagreeing about? (other drunk adam)

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.

― adam (adam), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i still can't get over the fact that some kid in syria is gonna be a cripple because a housewife in iowa doesn't like fags.

???

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

― briania (briania), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Amateurist was using "Iowa" as a stand-in for "the heartland" or "mid-America" in general. Plus, it goes beyond whatever states had proposals on the ballot. There's a sense that a strong portion of the Republican base is guided by these kinds of moral attitudes.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, of all the states to single out, IOWA? I mean, yeah I give Iowa shit because I grew up in MN but COME ON NOW; coastal people plz remember that in general the upper midwest is just as liberal as you assholes ok thx.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Am's point was that this issue has played to Bush in a wider way, whether there was a specific initiative on the ballot or not. (See discussion above, and on other threads, about the singular reasons some voters have for going one direction or another.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

it's amusing how American foreign and domestic policy can still be partially determined by the misunderstood teachings of a spectral bearded entity who may or may not have existed

― Riot Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Iowa kind of a reasonable example, too, if the idea was to play up how a whole election could hinge on a gut-level reaction in a key area.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost JONATHAN FRAKES EXISTS!! WE UNDERSTAND HIM PERFECTLY!!

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm trying to think of what the queer activist response to this wave of state wide bans should be. The 90s identity politics focus on "visibility" seemed to segue all to easily into the numb post-queer "we've got Will & Grace and Ellen on TV so we've won" complacency. So this slap in the face might wake people up a bit. I can't think of many models of "celebrated" queer coupledom that would just come to mind for the culture at large as living proof that gay people can love each other for years and years and years, that they are already living marriage even if they are denied the imprimatur of the state. Gilbert & George? John Cage & Merce Cunningham? But maybe thinking in terms of "role models" is the old politics and we need a fresh start.

― Drew Daniel, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

all too easily, that should say

― Drew Daniel, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 21:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Gay-bashers can die a slow and painful death. Fucks.

― Core of Sphagnum (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 21:49 (twenty-one years ago)

my mom thinks that gay activists and sympathetic local politicians were misguided to push for gay marriages around election time, given the other, larger issues at stake and the real possibility (possiblity now realized?) that, having become an "issue" (i remember a full week of cover s tories on gay marriage in CA and MA in the chicago tribune), well you know the rest.

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.

― amateur!!st, Thursday, 4 November 2004 04:50 (twenty-one years ago)

do "homosexuals" in rural wyoming = "jews" in rural (contemporary) poland???

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.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 4 November 2004 04:56 (twenty-one years ago)

and it isn't as if EVERY male i know BEGS his girlie for buttsex!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 4 November 2004 04:58 (twenty-one years ago)

also, does it AT ALL faze these homophobic bible-bashers that their beloved King James Bible was sponsored by A HOMOSEXUAL?!?

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 4 November 2004 05:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Amateur!!st, that reasoning would require the radical leap of faith that it was gay activists and leftist politicians who were doing the most active "pushing," indeed that they were the ones who put the issue on the table in the first place.

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

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 4 November 2004 05:11 (twenty-one years ago)

fwiw, i AM serious about what i wrote re the King James Bible. it's pretty well-known that King James I was gay -- so what DO the fundies think about THAT? and using the King James Bible?

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 4 November 2004 05:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I did not know this.. but that is VERY COOL ammunition... have you a cite somewhere I can fling at people? =)

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 4 November 2004 05:17 (twenty-one years ago)

what pisses me off the most is that we try to be like breeders, and they hate us. we need to keep to ourselves, we need to go back to the ghettos, we need to stop asking v. nicely for those in power to give us basic dignity and start snatching it for ourselves.

now!

― anthony, Thursday, 4 November 2004 05:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I did not know this.. but that is VERY COOL ammunition... have you a cite somewhere I can fling at people? =)

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

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 4 November 2004 05:26 (twenty-one years ago)

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.

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.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 4 November 2004 05:37 (twenty-one years ago)

also, does it AT ALL faze these homophobic bible-bashers that their beloved King James Bible was sponsored by A HOMOSEXUAL?!?

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.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 4 November 2004 07:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Jess just quoted this from the NYT in his blog:

"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

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 4 November 2004 22:46 (twenty-one years ago)

OK I am totally on the side of 'the gays' but ... isn't the reason why people are scared simple - just because sexuality almost needs to be regulated in some way, and though these people's regulations might seem stupid, they're really just on a continuum from other ones like 'don't have sex in public' or whatever. And I don't think - I mean the way things are, the total deregulation of sexuality can just go so wrong, with these pictures and sounds and messages foisted on you all the time and for the worst reasons. So I think that though these anti-gay people are really in the wrong, at the same time, the liberalisation of sexuality has gone pretty wrong too and ... that has to be addressed simultaneously to homosexual liberation. Not that it's the same problem. But people's anti-homosexual impulses might in some way be related to a fear of a laissez-faire sexual world. But I don't want to be some kind of 'vice' reactionary so I just want to stress that I am a left-wing pro-gay pinko-liberal commie etc.

― xx, Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Again, in the quote above, though I think the idea of 'good and evil' is really dangerous, you can sort of see how Americans confronted with a totally deregulated economy might translate their need for stability and a sense of order into an over-ordered social code.

― xx, Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Contrary to popular belief, a gay wedding does not involve anal sex in the streets.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 5 November 2004 00:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Drunk. Also tolerance has kind of fizzled out to the point where anyone who doesn't agree with me seems evil

hi dubya!

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 5 November 2004 00:34 (twenty-one years ago)

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