Behavior and prejudice

Why start a thread and ask for thoughts when you already have your mind made up? Exactly what input do you want? You tell people you don't want you kid to go to a gay person's house for a birthday party then act disappointed when people call you prejudice? What did you expect?

 

I have been fairly active in this thread over the last couple of days. If I have made ugly accusations to you, I would like you to point them out. I certainly did not mean to speak about you negatively in any way.

 

When I grew up, there was a couple that was gay that lived right next door. I had absolutely no idea. They came to our house every now and then and vice versa. But I was absolutely clueless.

But one thing I will note, is that your response to the situation IMO is driven primarily by fear. And its not entirely irrational. We all want the best for our kids and sometimes we feel it is necessary to protect our kids from things in the world. I think most parents would agree that they believe in a picture of the world that is ordered and simple for their kids and in the opinion of some, exposing their child to the concept of homosexuality (hell let alone sexuality in general) at a young age raises many more questions that make parenting a little harder.

But that being said, I still vehemently disagree with you. As I said, I grew up next to a gay couple and I find that my interactions with them, far from raising questions, made the whole process of understanding homosexuality much easier. Because in the end they're people and as a kid I understood only that. Sexuality was never an issue at all. My family never acted different or uncomfortable around them. They were treated like any other family on the block. And if they're treated the same, there's no reason for a child to start questioning things. I mean we see single parents today and that in and of itself raises a tough concept (divorce) that I think is difficult for parents to explain.

On the flip side, refusing to allow interaction with them does the opposite. It raises more questions because then the question becomes "why couldnt I go" etc.. It raises questions as to why they're being singled out and treated differently.

I'll refrain from calling you a bigot or some other type of insult because I think most people really do view this in a vacuum. In a vacuum when you take other considerations out, what you did smacks of prejudice but you're a parent too and in someways I understand that you're trying to do what's best for your kid even if I disagree with what you're doing.

I'm not a parent so I'm not the best person to answer a question like this, but I think no parenting question is clear cut because its not an exact science so while I still think you're wrong, I get where you're coming from.

 

That's because you're wrong.

 

And I am pretty sure that he thinks you are wrong.

So...who gets to be the one whose view is universally right? Should we just give that divine right to thadeus? Should we have the two of them slug it out in Thunderdome to see who is really right?

My point is that you believe he is wrong. You just assume that your way of thinking is the only way and that all others are categorically and absolutely wrong.

If life were only that simple....

 

i don't know what kind of neighborhood you live in but it's curious that you daughter has very few friends there.

 

i wasn't friends with anyone on my block cept maybe 2 or 3 growing up.

 

well, every block is different. but he said neighborhood. i was friendly with a few kids on my block growing up but had tons of friends in the neighborhood. i'm not trying to put him down, just curious if there aren't many kids in the vicinity.

 

That statement is incredibly laughable. Denied certain rights? Like what... the right to marriage? How is that a right that's denied? Plenty of homosexuals are married, to people of the opposite gender. Maybe it won't make them "happy" or whatever, but they're married right?
Publically shunned? Ok, mister, do you live in backwater, MI or something? The vast majority of the public don't bother gay people, even openly gay (gay pride!) people, and at most they're uncomfortable but won't confront you about it unless you make a point to start a confrontation.
Ridiculed? hmm ok you got me. Too bad EVERYONE at some point in their lives have been ridiculed by someone about something. So what, should Ugly People Everywhere rise up against the tyrrany of EVIL GOOD-LOOKING OPPRESSORS?
Discriminated against? Puh-lease. I've seen more discrimination based on "that guy looks like he's up to no good, bounce him" than "omg, that guys a gay, get him out of my bar!!!"

Fact is, it's downright disappointing to see such a lack of historical knowledge when calling upon historical injustices as a backup to your crusade against the oppression of your sexuality.

Are there lynch mobs going after guys if they look at a straight mayor's son the wrong way? (Well, aside from some radical hate-groups. but then again there are hate groups against anything. In fact, there are hate groups against the herb cilantro).
The fact is, homosexuals have rights and means to redress a violation of those rights (the courts) that no slave ever had. Don't like your neighborhood? Gay people by and large have the means to move and resettle. Someone sent you a death threat? The police are on it, sir.

There are no death squads searching the swamps of southern louisiana for escaped homosexuals.
There are no auctions where gay partners are divided up and sold to separate families hundreds of miles distant.
There is no constant fear that something terrible will happen to you or your family because some white folks got displeased at something that's not your fault but decided to blame on you anyway.
No lesbian women are raped and cast aside by the evil oppressive American anti-homosexual male.

You guys make it sound like you're at the mercy of an awefully unjust legal system, and that is just flat-out wrong.

Now, you may say "OMG kokopuffs is an anti-gay bigot" and disregard the rest of my arguments.

But get this: I actually think gays should be allowed to marry. There is, after all, an amendment in the constitution providing for "the pursuit of happiness", however you'd like to construe it.

In fact, I personally think the government shouldn't be legislating on the subject of matrimony at all, but then again it wouldn't work out with the tax system.

HOWEVER, that right ceases as soon as it comes into conflict with the rights of another individual, vis-a-vis adoption. A child who cannot legally exercise his rights relies on the "parent" or "guardian" to act in good faith in exercising those rights. When the state delegates responsibility of such parenthood/guardianship to a gay couple, I believe it does so wrongfully because the couple's self-interest in the adoption comes into conflict with the child's self-interest in avoiding excess peer stress.

You may pooh-pooh that all you want and say "screw the children, we want our adoptions" but IMO that's incredibly selfish and should not be allowed.

If, however, at some point in the future the social stigma of homosexuality is lessened to the point where it's considered no different than, say, being too tall or having a big nose, then adoption should be no different between gay/straight couples.

Of course, that's the intellectual argument. The reality argument says there are lots of kids in foster homes that need parents, and you should give 'em to whoever qualifies. In the end, some compromise needs to be made between these two extremes.

But really, gay rights people need to simmer down some on the rhetoric. They (for the most part) have no idea what persecution really means.

 

i have three kids myself and my block has tons of children as well as gays, lesbians, a transvestite, various ethnicities, artists, union workers, etc. diversity is a good thing in my opinion. hell, i live in brooklyn, it would be impossible to shield my children from the world even if i wanted to.

 

There are many countries that have laws against homosexuality and several countries that still have the death penalty for practicing homosexuality. I don't know of any that has the same for being black.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_laws_of_the_world

 

Those countries aren't America.

There are lots of countries permitting slavery, communism, the owning of females, child prostitution, domestic abuse, polygamy, and yet the argument focuses on the "plight" of homosexuals in America...strange.

 

What is "The Argument"? It is just one issue amoung countless issues.

"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group."
-Coretta Scott King, the wife of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

LMAO

Rocket River

 

Democratic Presidential candidates Al Sharpton, and Carol Moseley Braun squarely bucked black opinion when they called the fight for gay marriage a civil rights issue. Blacks seethe at any comparison of the fight against gay marriage bans to the civil rights struggle. A Pew Research Poll taken immediately after the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld same-sex marriage found that far more blacks than whites disagreed with the court's decision.

Sharpton and Moseley-Braun have risked much in taking their courageous stand. Both candidates are the longest of long shots among Democratic presidential contenders. To have a faint hope of making a blip on the political chart, they must bag a sizeable percentage of black votes in the early 2004 make or break primaries in South Carolina and Michigan. They could have easily kept their mouths shut on the issue, or taken the politically safe way out as most of the other Democratic contenders have done and issued a bland statement opposing discrimination against gays. Polls show that most blacks would agree with that.

But that would have been politically disingenuous at best and cowardly at worse, and besides they are historically correct in regarding gay marriage as a civil rights issue. The same powerful social and legal taboo against gay marriage prevailed for decades against interracial marriage, and integrated schools. The taboo was based on a deep-seated belief by many whites that blacks are socially, and genetically unfit to share a classroom and a marital bedroom with whites.

In 1948, the California Supreme Court fired the first legal salvo against the racial marriage ban when it dumped the state's ban on interracial marriage.

Six years later, the Supreme Court in the Brown decision banned school segregation. A decade after Brown, the U.S. Supreme Court finally scrapped all state laws against interracial marriage and declared that the "freedom to marry" is a basic right of all Americans. The court understood that a state that tells
a couple they can't marry because of their race blatantly, and outrageously tampers with one of the most fundamental civil rights, and that's the freedom of individual choice.

The gay rights vs. civil rights comparison have long been a sore spot for many blacks. The debate drew national attention last year when a group of black clergy in Miami circulated a flier with the picture of Martin Luther King Jr. to hundreds of black churches in Miami-Dade County. The fliers denounced gay rights. The group claimed that gays were expropriating the civil rights cause to push their agenda.

Given King's relentless, and uncompromising, battle against discrimination during his life, it's absolutely incredible to imagine that he would back an anti-gay campaign. Yet, it's hardly a surprise that a group would be brazen enough to enlist King as their ally. Since his murder in 1968, legions of groups
and individuals have snatched at King's picture, name and words to push their cause, agenda, issue, and even commercial products. But an angry Coretta Scott King was having none of this when it came to using King's name to back bigotry.

In a public statement she insisted that King would be a champion of gay rights if he were alive. She demanded that the group immediately cease and desist in evoking King's name

Then there's the brutal memory of slavery and segregation. Blacks insist that there's absolutely no way you can compare a state barring same-sex marriage to the centuries of slavery and the near century of relentless racial violence and apartheid like discrimination laws they've suffered. But this is a terribly, lop-sided, and self-serving read of history. It also ignores or denies the fact that gays have been murdered, socially stigmatized, and have suffered gender Jim Crow like discrimination in America and countless other countries. In creating a pecking order of oppression, a kind of my oppression is worse than
yours, blacks can then pick and choose when and where they will fight discrimination, or worse, to denigrate another group deemed less worthy of support their battle against in discrimination. This is foolhardy, and irresponsible.

Homophobia and racism are frequently two sides of the same coin. Many ultra-conservatives who oppose gay rights have been staunch opponents of affirmative action.

Despite that, conservative groups have corralled a few black churchmen, some with stellar civil rights credentials, into endorsing their campaign to get Congress to pass, and the states to ratify, a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage. And some black conservative political groups are imploring Republicans to aggressively tap into black hostility toward gay marriage and use that as the wedge issue to drive more blacks to support President Bush's reelection bid in 2004.

The mantra of the civil rights movement has always been that an injustice committed against one is an injustice against all. That's still true. It's risky, no dangerous, business for blacks to forget that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. Visit his website thehutchinsonreport.com He is the author of The Crisis in Black and Black.

http://www.blackamericatoday.com/article.cfm?ArticleID=296

 

What is so funny about the quote?

And America had laws targeting gay persons, and some state still do (though not enforced). And gay persons have been tortured to death in this country because they were gay (or perceived as gay). And gay persons still don't have the protections of other minority groups. And gay bashing is still more of an accepted sport than most other forms of discrimination/hate.

Of course there are some differences in the historical context of bigotry based on specific races/ethnic groups, creed, sexual orientation--but the parallels are profound. And yes people used to use religious reasons for racism (and some used religious reasons against racism at that time, and some today use it against homophobia).

If you someone posted a thread and said they were thinking about not letting their child attend a party because the host family was [insert race] or [insert religion] do you not think position should be challenged? Plenty of us took the time to express the underlying commonalities, historical contexts, and the fallacy of trying to base exclusion based on being gay relative to exclusion for any other group differences (typically a different race, ethnicity, class, culture, religion/creed, special needs child, etc). It doesn't mean you are a bad guy or atypical guy that you were in this conflict--but many of us tried to give you a different perspective from having many experiences from interacting with gay persons. You opened this door, and can choose to be more informed from what we wrote or not, I personally hope you keep the door open.

 

The way most garbage TV debate works (and continues attracting viewers) is by working from the presumption that opposition implies equality - meaning, if two opposing viewpoints are presented in the same context, then neither can be right - they can only be equal, and what one agrees with is simply that position that is most in accordance with their unsubstantiated beliefs.

But opposition does not mean equality.