Homophobia

[bronzeage]

Thank you, Bronzeage.

I find it hard to believe anyone needs it spelled out so carefully--I just assume he's being a troll.

You are welcome. The process of confronting incorrect ideas is very slow.

 

[WRJames]

If homosexuality is biology, certainly is, then it will always be a small percentage of the population. Anyone who's a part of a smaller group has a reason to fear what the bigger part of the society is up to regarding them. Something like marriage is the unnecessary rendering of sexuality into law. Government shouldn't have anything to do with favoring any type of sex patterns.

Is our sexuality innate? When I was growing up, the sight of naked male bodies was quite commonplace -- female not so much so. Is that a sort of reverse cultural conditioning? Or are there men who always found those other male bodies arousing, because of an innate predilection?

Is it accidental that the size of the rectum, the location of the prostate, are just right for men to receive pleasure from anal penetration? This is a piece of biology common to all men, straight or gay.

As for marriage being an unnecessary legality -- perhaps you are not making your point clearly. I agree that the gender restrictions on marriage are not needed. However, the tradition of fortifying a sexual union with religious and legal status is an ancient one.

 

[squarejohn]

Your argument sounds like, "homophobia does not mean fear of homosexuals, therefore, there is no such thing."

Okay. I will allow that some people fear homosexuals, although I have never seen any evidence of it. I am not talking about fear of homosexuals. I am talking about the word "homophobia." I am making the point that it is not the correct word to describe a fear of homosexuals. Anything else, such as beating and killing, is beyond the scope of my argument.

 

[Stella_Omega]

arrgh! fripple post!

 

[Huckleman2000]

So, homophobic women have been getting short-shrift, here.

Is this what a closeted stone-butch looks like?

Campaigning against gay rights was too central to her mission.

It still is. Battling Mike Castle for the Republican Senate nomination in Delaware, O’Donnell spread innuendo about her opponent’s sexuality. A firm her campaign employed released an ad that baselessly accused Castle of cheating on his wife with a man, and O’Donnell accused Castle of “un-manly tactics” and told him to “put his man-pants on.”

For O’Donnell, such gay-baiting was very much in character. Toward the end of the Clinton administration, she protested the appointment of James Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg, a posting the religious right opposed because Hormel was gay. “The SALT was concerned about Hormel’s ties to the pedophile-rights movement,” her website said, though there was not a shred of evidence behind the slur. In 1997, in a clip recently unearthed by Talking Points Memo, she appeared on C-SPAN, where, looking fresh, lovely, and innocent, she objected to AIDS sufferers being called “victims” because the disease is the product of their own actions. In an appearance on Fox in 2000, she exclaimed over the horrors of New York’s gay pride parade: “They’re getting away with nudity! They’re getting away with lasciviousness! They’re getting away with perversion!”

O’Donnell’s demonization of gay people is especially striking given the fact that, according to Richards, she has a sister who is openly lesbian.

 

[Stella_Omega]

So, homophobic women have been getting short-shrift, here.

Is this what a closeted stone-butch looks like?

Quite possibly so!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Okay. I will allow that some people fear homosexuals, although I have never seen any evidence of it. I am not talking about fear of homosexuals. I am talking about the word "homophobia." I am making the point that it is not the correct word to describe a fear of homosexuals. Anything else, such as beating and killing, is beyond the scope of my argument.

That would have been worth saying in the first place, and then people would have said;
"What do you think would be more accurate?"

and pointed out that we are talking about actual behavior that impacts actual people, regardless of your lexicological quibbles.

 

[bronzeage]

Okay. I will allow that some people fear homosexuals, although I have never seen any evidence of it. I am not talking about fear of homosexuals. I am talking about the word "homophobia." I am making the point that it is not the correct word to describe a fear of homosexuals. Anything else, such as beating and killing, is beyond the scope of my argument.

You are welcome to coin a new word and try to put it in circulation.

Do you dispute the meaning of "Vampire" because you have never seen any evidence of one?


If you have never seen homophobia in action, either you have always lived among tolerant people, or are insensitive to it, or just not paying attention.

You should not be surprised by the reaction to your etymological protest. "Deniers" are a common part of any political or social change. There are plenty of people who want to keep the principles of Nazi Germany alive. They have trouble peddling the political philosophy because the Nazis killed a lot of people. It always comes up in the discussion and derails everything. Someone is sure to ask, "Why did Hitler kill all those Jews?"

The solution is to deny it every happened. It's all very explainable, death camps, gas chambers, etc. None that is what people say it is. Not holocaust, no problem. Now we can have nice Nazis.

In the case of homophobia, those who deny it exists also want to deny the need for any particular legal protection for homosexuals. You can understand why their reaction.

 

[xssve]

Clearly an example of the "forbidden fruit" syndrome...

 

[squarejohn]

You are welcome to coin a new word and try to put it in circulation.

Do you dispute the meaning of "Vampire" because you have never seen any evidence of one?


If you have never seen homophobia in action, either you have always lived among tolerant people, or are insensitive to it, or just not paying attention.

You should not be surprised by the reaction to your etymological protest. "Deniers" are a common part of any political or social change. There are plenty of people who want to keep the principles of Nazi Germany alive. They have trouble peddling the political philosophy because the Nazis killed a lot of people. It always comes up in the discussion and derails everything. Someone is sure to ask, "Why did Hitler kill all those Jews?"

The solution is to deny it every happened. It's all very explainable, death camps, gas chambers, etc. None that is what people say it is. Not holocaust, no problem. Now we can have nice Nazis.

In the case of homophobia, those who deny it exists also want to deny the need for any particular legal protection for homosexuals. You can understand why their reaction.

Whoa! Slow down, bronze, before you go off the rails.

All I did was express my opinion about a certain word. How do vampires and Nazis and death camps apply to that?

I'll take a shot at coining a word, just for fun. I couldn't afford to hire the public relations firm to get it in circulation, as was the case with "homophobia." If you know anything about the early Greek lifestyle, the meaning of the root will be obvious. The new word is "platophobia."

What do you think?

 

[squarejohn]

In the case of homophobia, those who deny it exists also want to deny the need for any particular legal protection for homosexuals. You can understand why their reaction.

I may be wrong, but I think I'm right, when I observe that homosexuals are in one of the protected classes. If someone hits me with a baseball bat, and is convicted of doing it, he gets the standard penalty as prescribed by law, because I'm only a straight white man. If someone hits a homosexual with a baseball bat, he receives the standard penalty plus five extra years in prison because hitting a member of a protected class is deemed a "hate crime."

 

[Dragonlipz]

Do I get burned at the stake if I give the "wrong" answers?

God made homosexuals, like he made everything else. I'm cool with that, no axe to grind, etc, etc. I can't believe people are still discussing this shit.
Oh, yeah. Some of my best friends are queers.

Your best friends may be queers, but are they homosexual? Not likely.....It bespeaks a certain level of honesty, trust, and tolerance to be friends with anyone, much less a gay person.......I know that you have NO friends, fantasize about having one, just one, but since that requires honesty, trust and tolerance, it's a losing proposition. I wish ya luck, though......somewhere there's someone as vile and unlovable as yourself (AmiCoot?) who has as little to offer a friendship as you do.....

 

[squarejohn]

I know that you have NO friends, fantasize about having one, just one, but since that requires honesty, trust and tolerance, it's a losing proposition.

How do you know whether I have friends? Your hallucinations and delusions, vivid as they might be, have no connection with reality.

 

[bronzeage]

I may be wrong, but I think I'm right, when I observe that homosexuals are in one of the protected classes. If someone hits me with a baseball bat, and is convicted of doing it, he gets the standard penalty as prescribed by law, because I'm only a straight white man. If someone hits a homosexual with a baseball bat, he receives the standard penalty plus five extra years in prison because hitting a member of a protected class is deemed a "hate crime."

How would you feel if you were on the trial jury for man who was charged with hitting a homosexual with a base ball bat, and his defense was, "I thought he was coming on to me."

 

[sr71plt]

How would you feel if you were on the trial jury for man who was charged with hitting a homosexual with a base ball bat, and his defense was, "I thought he was coming on to me."

More pointed than that, how would he feel if he was the one hit with the baseball bat and the defense was that the assailant thought SJ was "coming on" to him?

Not that I'd mind all that much if SJ had been hit by a baseball bat.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I may be wrong, but I think I'm right, when I observe that homosexuals are in one of the protected classes. If someone hits me with a baseball bat, and is convicted of doing it, he gets the standard penalty as prescribed by law, because I'm only a straight white man. If someone hits a homosexual with a baseball bat, he receives the standard penalty plus five extra years in prison because hitting a member of a protected class is deemed a "hate crime."

You think you're right, but you are wrong.

Go look shit up.

 

[bronzeage]

More pointed than that, how would he feel if he was the one hit with the baseball bat and the defense was that the assailant thought SJ was "coming on" to him?

Not that I'd mind all that much if SJ had been hit by a baseball bat.

Speaking as a fairly heterosexual man who was born and raised in the south, I think anyone who denies the existence of homophobia, or dismisses the dangers of it (chiefly to homosexuals) is either being disingenuous or simply unaware of the world.

It is pervasive and as dangerous as virulent racism. For most purposes there is a very close parallel to racism in the way people talk and justify their feelings and actions.

 

[squarejohn]

More pointed than that, how would he feel if he was the one hit with the baseball bat and the defense was that the assailant thought SJ was "coming on" to him?

Not that I'd mind all that much if SJ had been hit by a baseball bat.

What do you have against me? Are you a homophobe? Or just a plain homo?
Ain't this fun?

 

[squarejohn]

You think you're right, but you are wrong.

Go look shit up.

I looked "shit" up. Here is what I found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit

 

[Stella_Omega]

What do you have against me? Are you a homophobe? Or just a plain homo?
Ain't this fun?

Show a little consideration. Please.

 

[squarejohn]

How would you feel if you were on the trial jury for man who was charged with hitting a homosexual with a base ball bat, and his defense was, "I thought he was coming on to me."

I'd have to see all the evidence.

 

[Guest]

. . . .

 

[Stella_Omega]

You know what-- this thread is NOT about squarejohn and his blind spot.

 

[cloudy]

You know what-- this thread is NOT about squarejohn and his blind spot.

Blind spot?

The man's as blind as a fucking bat.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Blind spot?

The man's as blind as a fucking bat.

It's still not about him...