Monday, September 10, 2007
Slouching Toward Gomorrah (It's not called "Decline and Fall" for Nothing)
I might have predicted that now that a few people are actually reading my blog, posting on something as controversial as gay marriage would bring out the hataz. Here's the comment "anonymous" posted:
Wow. Thanks for the disturbing image. I'm glad such a paragon of decency deigned to comment so vividly on my humble blog. I'm sure my traffic will increase even more now that my blog can be reached by googling "circle jerk daughter."
This comment shows many of the problems that homophobes have when trying to actually think about homosexuality:
1) Their assessment is based completely on the fact that they think homosexual sex is disgusting. First, given the vividness of this commenter's hypothetical scenario (I'm betting he got a little turned-on just thinking it up), I'd wager that a tour through his hard drive would reveal plenty of evidence that he doesn't find anal sex disgusting per se, just when it's a guy getting penetrated. He's probably got a copy of "ANALyze This 14" or "Weapons of Ass Destruction" and a box of kleenex just waiting for him when he gets home from his Klan meeting. But that's OK, because it's, you know, chicks getting it.
2) They refuse to separate the activity from the orientation. Actually, they usually deny that being gay is an orientation at all, but rather a choice, as if people are just lining up to become the next Matthew Shepard. But notice that in my post I didn't mention the activity itself even once. I focused it on love, because that's what marriage, and brotherhood, is about. The thing that small-minded people like Anonymous don't get is that the love that one homosexual man feels for another homosexual man is indistinguishable from the love that us heteros feel for the special women in our lives. My personal transformation occurred when I realized that, and discovered that my pathetic dogmas were no match for my much stronger conviction that
3) They frequently invoke indefinable terms like "fabric of society" to support their arguments, but that's where their analysis ends. What is this "fabric" of which they speak? In a nation as multi-faceted as ours, that's not a question that lends itself to a short answer. The "fabric of society" line is just intellectual laziness. Guess what: even if there is a definable fabric in American society, it's much more likely to consist of things like liberty, individualism and the Golden Rule than discrimination, repression and pretending the world isn't as it actually is. If you insist on living somewhere where those are widely-shared values, Tehran is lovely this time of year.
4) They are always ready to impose their sense of "ewwww, that's disgusting!" on others with the full force of the State. This guy probably came here via a link to my Blackwater Air Force post. It's generated about 80% of the total traffic to my site, so that's a fairly safe bet. You would think he'd be all about keeping the terrifying power of the State at bay, but you'd be wrong. It's only within very well-defined parameters that he is willing to stand for freedom. He's just like Ashcroft or Gonzalez: infringing the rights of others is fine as long as he thinks it's justified. Civil libertarians such as myself, however, tend to be unwilling to grant the State that much authority, no matter what the circumstances. It's the old, "your freedom ends where my nose begins" line, but it applies to other people's noses as well.
5) They actually believe that the world will be better off if homosexuals continue to be relegated to pariah status and have avenues toward healthy, long-term commitment cut off from them. This guy's so worried about the damage to the "fabric of society" done by the acceptance of roughly 10% of the population that he completely misses the damage that is done by the ghettoization and oppression of that same 10%. I submit that normalizing and accepting people who are different from us will not only improve their lives, but ours as well. I submit that opening up the opportunity for that 10% of our people to live openly in fully committed, legally-binding relationships will only strengthen society.
Why are some people so unwilling to just let others be? What could my brother's or Andrew Sullivan's love possibly do to harm him? The answer, of course, is nothing. Nothing, that is, except force him to see that the world is full of people that aren't like him. And thank god for that.
Just because someone you know has skills or qualities that you admire but who turns out to be a homosexual does not mean you should support or condone his homosexuality. What if your uncle was a talented writer who also saved a bus load of senior citizens from falling over a cliff... but you discovered that he also likes to get together on the weekends with a group of guys and circle jerk on his 21 year old daughter, with her permission. Are you supposed to support his love of shooting sperm on his daughter with his buddies? Of course not. It's disgusting and wrong and is detrimental to the fabric of society. (Your blog just went downhill fast.)
Wow. Thanks for the disturbing image. I'm glad such a paragon of decency deigned to comment so vividly on my humble blog. I'm sure my traffic will increase even more now that my blog can be reached by googling "circle jerk daughter."
This comment shows many of the problems that homophobes have when trying to actually think about homosexuality:
1) Their assessment is based completely on the fact that they think homosexual sex is disgusting. First, given the vividness of this commenter's hypothetical scenario (I'm betting he got a little turned-on just thinking it up), I'd wager that a tour through his hard drive would reveal plenty of evidence that he doesn't find anal sex disgusting per se, just when it's a guy getting penetrated. He's probably got a copy of "ANALyze This 14" or "Weapons of Ass Destruction" and a box of kleenex just waiting for him when he gets home from his Klan meeting. But that's OK, because it's, you know, chicks getting it.
2) They refuse to separate the activity from the orientation. Actually, they usually deny that being gay is an orientation at all, but rather a choice, as if people are just lining up to become the next Matthew Shepard. But notice that in my post I didn't mention the activity itself even once. I focused it on love, because that's what marriage, and brotherhood, is about. The thing that small-minded people like Anonymous don't get is that the love that one homosexual man feels for another homosexual man is indistinguishable from the love that us heteros feel for the special women in our lives. My personal transformation occurred when I realized that, and discovered that my pathetic dogmas were no match for my much stronger conviction that
3) They frequently invoke indefinable terms like "fabric of society" to support their arguments, but that's where their analysis ends. What is this "fabric" of which they speak? In a nation as multi-faceted as ours, that's not a question that lends itself to a short answer. The "fabric of society" line is just intellectual laziness. Guess what: even if there is a definable fabric in American society, it's much more likely to consist of things like liberty, individualism and the Golden Rule than discrimination, repression and pretending the world isn't as it actually is. If you insist on living somewhere where those are widely-shared values, Tehran is lovely this time of year.
4) They are always ready to impose their sense of "ewwww, that's disgusting!" on others with the full force of the State. This guy probably came here via a link to my Blackwater Air Force post. It's generated about 80% of the total traffic to my site, so that's a fairly safe bet. You would think he'd be all about keeping the terrifying power of the State at bay, but you'd be wrong. It's only within very well-defined parameters that he is willing to stand for freedom. He's just like Ashcroft or Gonzalez: infringing the rights of others is fine as long as he thinks it's justified. Civil libertarians such as myself, however, tend to be unwilling to grant the State that much authority, no matter what the circumstances. It's the old, "your freedom ends where my nose begins" line, but it applies to other people's noses as well.
5) They actually believe that the world will be better off if homosexuals continue to be relegated to pariah status and have avenues toward healthy, long-term commitment cut off from them. This guy's so worried about the damage to the "fabric of society" done by the acceptance of roughly 10% of the population that he completely misses the damage that is done by the ghettoization and oppression of that same 10%. I submit that normalizing and accepting people who are different from us will not only improve their lives, but ours as well. I submit that opening up the opportunity for that 10% of our people to live openly in fully committed, legally-binding relationships will only strengthen society.
Why are some people so unwilling to just let others be? What could my brother's or Andrew Sullivan's love possibly do to harm him? The answer, of course, is nothing. Nothing, that is, except force him to see that the world is full of people that aren't like him. And thank god for that.
Labels: homosexuality, liberty, personal
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I especially like your point 4, DF -- Irony nicely pointed out.
But things could be worse. I don't like tomatoes! I WILL have them outlawed! They are disgusting. Absolutely. Poisonous, too. Try eating 100 of them if you don't believe me. And their redness is clearly communist in intent.
But things could be worse. I don't like tomatoes! I WILL have them outlawed! They are disgusting. Absolutely. Poisonous, too. Try eating 100 of them if you don't believe me. And their redness is clearly communist in intent.
Better to be going downhill fast than to be on the slippery slope of eating tomatoes! What's next? Cooking goat-meat in goat's milk? Lobsters?
You cannot defend homosexuality. I lived in San Fransisco for eleven years and knew many. The more you get to know homosexual men the more you understand from a practical point of view that they cannot be trusted with children. A well functioning family unit with well behaved male father and female mother is far superior to anything homosexuals can dream up. End of story.
Well, I grew up in the Bay Area, have known many homosexuals in my life, have found that they are no different than the rest of humanity when it comes to trustworthiness, and learned to spell "San Francisco" by the time I was five years old.
Your "practical point of view" is nothing but a cover for your bigotry, and your "end of story" sign-off tells me a lot about how open you are to reasoned debate.
Your "practical point of view" is nothing but a cover for your bigotry, and your "end of story" sign-off tells me a lot about how open you are to reasoned debate.
You cannot discredit someone because of a typo (of which I'm sure you have made many). You are simply being blind to the truth. I seriously doubt you have as much worldly knowledge as you claim to have. Homosexuals cannot be trusted with children. PERIOD! And if you can't trust them with innocent, helpless children then you can't trust them with anything.
The typo thing was just snark, but I stand by it because, well, snark is all that declarative statements with nothing to back them up but insecurity, fear and hatred deserve.
By the way, writing "PERIOD!" in all caps doesn't make you sound more reasonable.
By the way, writing "PERIOD!" in all caps doesn't make you sound more reasonable.
Snark may be all you deserve, but because I'm a generous person who actually wants people such as you to see the light, here's a bit on your topic from an actual authority on the subject:
"The empirical research does not show that gay or bisexual men are any more likely than heterosexual men to molest children. This is not to argue that homosexual and bisexual men never molest children. But there is no scientific basis for asserting that they are more likely than heterosexual men to do so. And, as explained above, many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on children."
Feel free to read the whole article.
"The empirical research does not show that gay or bisexual men are any more likely than heterosexual men to molest children. This is not to argue that homosexual and bisexual men never molest children. But there is no scientific basis for asserting that they are more likely than heterosexual men to do so. And, as explained above, many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on children."
Feel free to read the whole article.
I have no idea where this myth that gay guys molest children comes from. I'm Australian, and we have plenty of anti-gay people and arguments around, but the molesting charge is something I never heard until I came online. Is it a US thing?
Of course, some do. Some straight folk do too. But the idea that gay guys are more likely to do it is the single most baffling anti-gay charge I've ever heard.
Even "my magical sky wizard doen't like it" makes more sense than that.
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Of course, some do. Some straight folk do too. But the idea that gay guys are more likely to do it is the single most baffling anti-gay charge I've ever heard.
Even "my magical sky wizard doen't like it" makes more sense than that.
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