Dallas May Make History, Not that there's anything wrong with that

I should be annoyed at you, but that picture made me laugh.

I dont wanna derail the thread, and for the most part I agree with your take on a lot of other social issues, so if you want to contiune our little debate, lets continue it in the Ninja thread.

 

Even though gay rights are civil rights.

 

I understood your point just fine. I think so did rhad, which is probably why you two couldn't really get a solid grasp either way when you were arguing

 

OK, I meant the blacks struggle for rights and the gays struggle for rights.

 

Who spewed that nonsense pgab?

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there are plenty of cities in our country where gays can be denied housing/work because of their sexual orientation. Especially regarding employment, there are plenty of conservatives out there terrified at the idea that their children are being taught by "perverts" at school, for example. Would equal access to housing/employment be considered a civil right? I know that discrimination in housing/employment against gays was legal in many many places as recently as 10 years ago. If it is more rare now, it is only because of the fight to expand protection from discrimination has been advancing. In other words, expansion of civil rights. Gays do not face equal protection under law in this country, and if they do, it was won only recently as part of the ongoing civil rights movement. The fight for equal treatment and protection under law for gays is a civil rights issue. Period. The same arguments made against the advance of gay rights are identical to the bigoted arguments made against blacks earlier in the century.

pgabriel- did you actually really just say that you don't know if gays are a minority? Could you explain that? Do you think that they could be a majority?

 

"On social issues, the surveys found that African-American young people are more likely to agree that homosexuality is always wrong (55 percent for blacks, 36 percent for Hispanics and 35 percent for whites). A majority of African-American youth also opposed legalizing same-sex marriages, (58 percent for blacks, 36 percent for Hispanics and 35 percent for whites)."

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/070201.blackyouthproject.shtml

This is the most recent survey/poll I've seen, I've seen a few others, and the results are the same.

 

Well it isn't just people here. It was people like Coretta Scott King and the chair of the naacp.

http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/coretta.html

Yet people here are calling that an insult to the people in the black civil rights movement even though it was people in the black civil rights movement.

 

im over 6'3...im a minority and the airlines discriminates against my knees

 

Dude, you are in serious denial, why don't you just google "black homophobia"?

As Al Sharpton has said himself: ""There is latent homophobia in our community"

 

i don't know about this, either. most of you know i'm for treating everyone with respect...everyone fairly.

having said that...when sexual orientation is only manifest in who you're having sex with...well...how does that work in terms of working through such definitions. particularly when you know people who have jumped around with both genders in bed. "i thought i was lesbian..turns out i'm straight and was just experimenting." how do we define status or protection around that?? i think at the very least we can all agree that it isn't as obvious as skin color.

i read in a medical journal that the tendency to be attracted to children was physiological. that it had to do with our wiring. i have no idea if that's right. but if we assume it is...do we afford special status for that? do we call them a minority group?

it seems to me that there is some behavioral component of sexuality. right? l can't begin to pretend i'm anything other than a white guy (insert post from someone with image of Soul Man movie poster, here). but i could conceal my sexuality. i could conceal whether i'm homosexual or heterosexual. i could conceal my sexual proclivites. i could conceal a sexual addiction. and i could resist it as well. in fact, i do. i'm heterosexual...i don't sleep or attempt to sleep with every woman i'm attracted to.

let me finish by saying i really don't have a problem with gay marriage. i have no problem with gay teachers. i have no problem with gay people in any sense of employment. i have no problem associating with gay people. i'm just not sure how we go forward with sexual orientation as a "class" like race or gender.

if you disagree with me feel free to do so without telling me how stupid and backwards i am. i'd rather not be crucified like pgabriel has been.

 

True

Left handed People
Natural Blonds
Blue Eyes
etc

Rocket River

 

There are lots of minority groups. For instance, criminals are a minority group (I hope). Pedophiles are an extremely small minority group. So are the handicapped.

What grants special protections to a group is if they are discriminated against for being who they are, not their actions.

Discriminating against someone in a wheelchair is wrong because they are just in a wheelchair and it's not a statement about their ability, their ethics, their personality or anything.

Discriminating against someone who committed a crime is ok because they have demonstrated that as an individual they can not be trusted to honor the rule of law.

Now, if you believe that being gay is
1. inherihent to one's individual make-up
2. results in no violation of another person's rights

then certainly you can say they shouldn't be discriminated against.

A pedophile has commited a crime - they have violated another person's rights. They are criminals.

But I think it's odd that anyone would compare gays to pedophiles and resist comparing them to a minority group such as blacks....it's indicative of the uphill battle gays face.

 

They have more discriminatory attitudes, isn't that enough to show that they are anti-gay more then other groups?

I mean, are you trying to say that being a racist doesn't result in discrimination? So it's ok for someone to be a complete racist and all, because it doesn't translate into discriminatory behavior?

Interesting. Then why does the NAACP pay so much attention to words and opinions?

I just think that Blacks due to cultural reasons are more uncomfortable with homosexuallity then other groups and more likely to oppose gay rights measures. There are differences in races in terms of support for various agendas - that's nothing new.

 

Being left hand is the closest one to being gay.

They don't really don't know what causes it and you don't have a choice in the matter. Yet you can try doing things with your other hand but it really doesn't work.

If people of certain religions claimed that left handedness was a behavioral choice then people would laugh at them. But for some reason it is ok for them to say that about being gay. I don't get it.

Now if people were not allowed to join the military, adopt, have hospital visitation rights, marry, divorce, claim insurance, assaulted and harrased because they are left handed it would become a civil rights issue.

We pick and choose who and to discriminate against, whether it be physical appearance or some other reason. There are no guidelines and criteria, and nobody is exempt.