In the halls and from the stages of the conference, there were constant warnings of fascist, anti-Christian campaigns to break down American morals and sovereignty. Rev. Rick Scarborough, a pastor who advised Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign, pounded the podium at his Friday afternoon speech, warning that the president's pro-gay agenda was endangering Christians who spoke out against gay rights.
"The day the president put his hand on the bible," said Scarborough, "his minions were changing official White House Website to reflect a whole new understanding of civil rights, to refer to homosexuals." The Bible, said Scarborough, called these people "sodomites, which no one wants to talk about because it reminds them of their behavior."
Some activists followed this up with a breakout session on "How to Counter the Homosexual Extremist Movement," where they learned about transgender awareness days at public schools. And some went to "How to Stop Feminist and Gay Attacks on the Military," where they were informed that upwards of 200,000 active duty members of the military might quit if "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is repealed.
When I was young and kids would gather to jump someone, they'd always make up a story to conceal the cowardly act. In other words, instead of just beating you down, they'd say something like, "I heard you were messing with my cousin." Or they wouldn't just walk up to you and take your walkman, they'd say, "Hey shortie, lemme see that." The idea was to create a just narrative for an unjust act. If you'd been messing with the dude's cousin, if you'd let him "see" your walkman, then were no longer an innocent.
I thought of that old custom reading this. The notion of being besieged--the idea that Obama is a threat to gun-owners, that the gays somehow want something more than to just live out their lives in peace--is essential to justifying the fear-mongering. Much like no one says "Me and my friends are going to kick your ass, because we feel like it," no one ever comes out and says, "I hate fags" or "I hate niggers." What they say is that the feminist are attacking our military, or the president "hates white people," or the president is giving out reparations disguised as health-care.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
This of course is the meme by which not only are threats carried out, but by which people are manipulated to fall in line against a common enemy. What beyond pure power, if anything, is the underlying motivation for those laying down this line? In some cases--on health care for example--it's easy to spot; the health insurance industry has a good scam going and doesn't want the government or the people to horn in on their action, but on other issues it doesn't seem to be anything more than I want to rule you. Seeing through it to the core motivation, however, seems pretty important because it is the dynamic of not just conflict, but violent conflict in the world we live in.
When I was in seventh grade, a popular kid picked a fight with one of our grade's outcasts. I mean, this kid was as low on the social ladder as you could get. But the popular kid wound up losing, and losing in a very public and emberassing way. The result was that a group of kids gathered together and planned to beat this burnout down en masse. Somehow the situation fizzled (IIRC, some teachers heard about it and put a stop to it somehow) but the implicit lesson was there - either accept your wrung on the social ladder and the occasional ass-kicking that comes with it fight back and get it at least twice as hard because you broke the 'rules.' The rhetoric from the Far Right these days seems to echo this.
Golly, that's not how it works in the movies, is it? Hollywood always taught me that George McFly punches out the bully and then becomes the school hero, the Karate Kid defeats the bad guys honorably in a fight and earns their respect, and the unpopular geek can score with the jock's girlfriend once she sees his wit, sensitivity, and wisdom.
In real life all these guys would get jumped and left for dead.
In reading your post I get the vibe that your a little tired of this foolishness. All I can really say is so am I.
I think that you are right that people try to justify bad acts by manufacturing good intentions. However, I take issue with the examples you use, as if this is purely a phenomena of conservatives.
Humanity being what it is; this appears to be a property of humanity. No doubt there are big examples of how Communists first in China and later in Cambodia used this mechanism against the intelligensia. In middle eastern nations it has been used by extremist Islamic vigilante sects. In Rwanda it was used by the ruling Hutu government and their media henchmen. In Yugoslavia, Milosovec and his Serbbian media machinery pumped out the same line of bs vs. the Bosnians. However, in the United States this has been the repeated mo of conservatives when it comes to using race, religion, and sexual orientation for the past several decades. That's not to say those on the left haven't resorted to such low life mechanisms, but it hasn't been quite the standard mo that it has been with the right whose media spokespeople make a living by doing so.
I think the left's m.o. (and I say this as a self-confirmed liberal) is more along the lines of "those people on the right are so stupid we don't have to listen to them." There's definitely a smugness from the left that is unappealing and unproductive.
That being said, I do think leaders on the far-right have dominated the realm of fear mongering. This difference in how the left and the right rally their bases and propagate their narratives has to do with their fundamental belief in human nature.
I realize I'm generalizing, but my guess is that many on the left subscribe to the belief that social problems emerge from institutional inequities - that crime, failed families, wars, and any other type of destructive and dysfunctional behavior you want to name stems from some people having too little and others having too much. These kinds of problems have to know with knowledge and access to it, so of course many on the left think that ideas and ignorance tend to be the root of things. This leads to the meme that people who disagree with them are stupid.
I believe - and could be terribly wrong about this - that many on the right have a more concrete view of evil; there is a belief that evil is not just a product of poverty or maldistribution of resources but a very real, even tangible force in the world. Based on this worldview, there is a clear "us versus them" approach to problem solving. And that leads to fear mongering and a need to call some people bad and other people good.
Both approaches are ultimately flawed. We need to take a bigger view of humanity. By that I mean that we actually need to look at people as individuals, and when either the far left or the far right starts making these terrible assumptions about large groups of people, they lose sight of their initial goal of solving problems.
Of course, I'm biased. I'm a liberal. And I do think the fear-mongering on the far right is ultimately more dangerous than the snobbishness on the left. But neither narrative is very productive.
Christinak said, "I think the left's m.o. (and I say this as a self-confirmed liberal) is more along the lines of "those people on the right are so stupid we don't have to listen to them."
It isn't snobbishness to note that the right has been, since the Goldwater era, taken over by proud know-nothings, xenophobes and racists. And that has now been thoroughly mainstreamed into the Republican party. Obviously we have to listen to these ravings to counter them. But taking them seriously as contributors to the national discourse, as the Carter and Clinton administrations did, and as the MSM continues to do, is what's been counter productive.
When the right puts up someone who seems to rationally disagree with us, we bend waaaay over backwards to take them seriously (Snowe, GWB, McCain), because they often seem incapable of (or unwilling to) finding anyone who can do this. When they give us ignorant lunatics (W, Palin, Westboro Babtist Church, teabaggers, etc), there's no reason to take them seriously. Taking them seriously has already pulled our national conversation too far to the right.
On the contrary, CitizenE, that has been exactly the mo on the Left as well. The Left constructs "a just narrative" (e.g. correcting institutional racism, cycles of poverty, etc.) for "unjust acts" (e.g. imposing racial preferences, unequal taxation, etc.).
To borrow TNC's hypothetical - if you've been benefiting from societal inequalities, then you're no longer an innocent.
But then what? Does that authorize the left to "beat you up?" Or does it then justify attempting to remove that social inequality? Or do you see giving people a reason to take a second look at people with a different background equivalent to doing something unjust to those who have had privileges?
And how exactly is that social inequality removed, Polywogy? Not by simply taking "a second look at people with a different background." It's removed by, among other things, discriminating against people based on their skin color (affirmative action), taking people's property by force (redistributive taxation), etc. Those things are generally seen as unjust, unless you can provide a rationale for why the normal moral rules don't apply. The rationale the Left uses, the "just narrative" in TNC's words, is that the people being harmed by these policies have benefited from unearned privilege. Thus, we are no longer harming innocent people, we're simply leveling the playing field.
Okay, you answered my question. You appear to see Affirmative Action, for example, as unjust, whereas I do not.
Basically, I think we're disagreeing about what Affirmative Action does. I believe that it makes potential employers try to look for equally competent people who may have different backgrounds or come from different schools, who without Affirmative Action would be dismissed from consideration whether or not they are competent to do the job.
When people hire someone, they are trying to predict the future, and the easiest way to do that is to repeat what worked before. But the fact that one thing worked before does not mean that it is the only thing that works, or that it is the best thing. So I see Affirmative Action as a way to get people to use criteria other than "he's like me so he'll succeed" to figure out who should be hired. I agree that if Affirmative Action requires hiring someone who is incompetent over someone who is competent, then that is unjust. (Perhaps you have examples of this occurring.) If you want to say it should go to the "best candidate", first that assumes some definition of best, and secondly, people hire for many reasons other than "best candidate" all the time -- they seem congenial, you knew them in some other capacity before, blah blah, blah.
About redistribution of wealth through taxes... well, that's a debate that has gone on forever. Are you advocating a flat tax rather than a progressive one, or that there shouldn't be taxes at all? Obviously I think there are good arguments that the progressive tax rates do good things for society, but that would be a much larger discussion.
Thanks for the further reply, Poly. If AA were really just about taking a broader view of talent and potential, I'd agree that there's nothing unjust about it, but I don't think that's the reality at all. Rather than get into a side-debate about AA though, I'll just say that I think it's unjust for a person's race to be a factor in how they're treated, and deliberate, institutionalized forms of such injustice are particularly wrong.
The point is that people on the Left have traditionally opposed institutionalized discrimination, so in order to justify AA, they have to craft a narrative wherein AA is either "legitimate" discrimination or not discrimination at all. You provided an example of the latter, and the idea of countering "white privilege" is an example of the former.
As for redistribution of wealth, I'm actually Left of Center on that myself, and the "just narrative" I personally rely on is that the means justify the ends in this case: I think a moderately progressive tax system is the way to maximize everyone's well-being in the long run, and the actual harm done to those being taxed is minimal by comparison. Nevertheless, I try not to kid myself into thinking that I'm not committing unjust acts in the process. I am, in fact, taking innocent people's money against their will and giving it to people I think need it more. In other words, Robin Hood may have been a hero, but it's worth remembering that he was still a thief. I think sometimes the Left ignores that by convincing themselves that the rich are all corrupt, greedy, undeserving, benficiaries of unearned privilege, etc.
That's some weak-ass shit the dude is peddling.
"The notion of being besieged--the idea that Obama is a threat to gun-owners, that the gays somehow want something more than to just live out their lives in peace"
I have nothing against gays, but to be honest, I think you have to acknowledge that some gay activists want a little more than that. Consider, for example, some of the recent controversies with the portrayal of homosexuality in the context of elementary schools.
I know it's terribly disturbing for some people, but elementary school kids don't live in a magic bubble. Some of them have gay parents. Some of them are gay (or will be gay if you believe sexuality only is 'discovered' at puberty) or have gay teachers. Gay people want to live out their lives in peace; this means the rest of the country has to acknowledge their existence. That this is 'controversial' in 2009 America is embarrassing.
If the education that children recieved was confined to teaching about the existence of homosexuality, I doubt many people would oppose it. However, most of the "teaching" on homosexuality in many schools is closer to advocacy. Homosexual advocacy organizations know that a majority of parents are opposed to their agenda, and have decided to target children and change their attitudes as they are being formed.
Not to mention that fact that in many cases a radical agenda has been advanced in the classroom, including inapproriate information on graphic sexual practices. Doesn't anyone remember the uproar over the GLSEN presentation about fisting a few years back?
Out of curiosity, in sentences #2, 3, and 4--and arguably 5--you make several assertions. Got any evidence to support any of those?
In other words: [Citation needed]
Probably shouldn't ever have started teaching about African American civil rights either
But, the truth of the matter is, some young teens and pre-teens are engaging in graphic sexual practices that their parents may not have even been aware of (thank you internet). I was part of the GSA in my high school and many of the freshman, kids 14 and 15 who joined the club felt that basic information about HIV was unknown amongst their age group. Our main concern should be reforming the overwhelming amount of abstinence-only programs that were flooded with funds during the Bush years making the teen pregnancy rate and STI rates rise.
Define "advocacy". Are they telling kids how great it is? Encouraging them to try it? Graphic depictions of what exactly—anal sex, fellatio? Really any body got a copy of those teaching materials.
You do realized the NOMs own people in Maine have already admitted that such claims are false—which nevertheless hasn't stopped them from using them in their ads.
If you read much of what comes from social/religious right—it's very clear that they regard any discussion about homosexuality that doesn't explicitly cast it in a negative light as "advocacy".
The only discussion of the topic they want to hear is one that speaks about a "choice" that leads to unhealthy outcomes. Any other tact, is in their minds, advocacy.
@Leo
As far as the graphic sex act described, it was fisting.
A state official who spoke to teens at the conference said:
"Fisting (forcing one's entire hand into another person's rectum or vagina) often gets a bad rap....[It's] an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with...[and] to put you into an exploratory mode."
Regarding advocacy, I consider defining any opposition to the morality of homosexuality as "homophobia" to be advocay, as well as framing gay marriage as a civil rights issue.
If the education that children recieved was confined to teaching about the existence of homosexuality, I doubt many people would oppose it.
That's because you're ignorant. THEY ALREADY DO.
I don't understand what portrayal you're alluding to. By throwing out the red flag of kids and protecting their innocence, people have successfully pressured public organizations like PBS to act against their mission and send out the message that being gay is somehow wrong and not to be mentioned in polite conversation, i.e. the "Postcards from Buster" controversy. Persia makes an excellent point, part of being able to live your life in peace can mean knowing that kids in school may be taught that its not OK to act hateful towards you. And furthermore, these are the same people who tried to convince the public that President Obama was in favor of teaching comprehensive sex ed to 6 year olds.
Interesting that you bring up the "Postcards from Buster" episode, because as the parent of a young child, I happened to watch it. Buster, a cartoon rabbit, travels around the country and meets real kids and their families and learns about their lives. In the controversial episode, he visits a family led by a lesbian couple who live on a farm in Vermont. The point of the episode was to teach kids about life on a farm, growing crops, taking care of animals, etc. The relationship between the two moms is never even talked about. I think they might have introduced themselves in the beginning as "Julie" and "Ann" (or whatever their names were). Beyond that, who they were to each other is never talked about. They could have been sisters, for all a child watching the show would know.
In other words, if some people hadn't gotten into a froth over this, most young children wouldn't have noticed a thing.
That was the lie by which Prop 8 was passed in CA. The homosexual agenda in the kindegarten classroom. It reminds me of when McCain's campaign first went off its wheels by asserting that Obama's backing of legislation that would inform young children how to protect themselves from predators was a form of sex-ed for five year olds.
Ah, Dave beware of little fractions of truth that mask big lies. Many of us, myself included, view conservatism in America as one big bait and switch. My kids when they were little went every year to an Easter egg hunt on the property of a gay couple--whose partnership outlasted most straight marriages in the mountain community where I lived. My kids knew they were gay, and never had a problem with it or even considered one. As young straight adults they look at the world in a far different light than my generation did before there was a so called gay agenda.
Both of my kids had classmates with two moms in preschool. (And for the preschool in Cambridge, also a classmate with 2 dads, a classmate with a single parent, etc.) I can readily picture certain parents preparing to reveal that some hypothetical children might have a single parent, or 2 same sex parents, or live with a grandparent, and being informed "yeah, like Chris."
If the school does a curriculum on families--and it's a normal elementary school social studies topic, tying from your house/apartment out to the community out to the state out to the nation out to the world--then I would want them to mention same sex parents, mixed race, blended, raised by another relative, etc. Because that's what education is: these people are out there, so if you haven't met them yet please don't get into a conniption when you do. There are other ways to do things than the way you do them in your family, whether that's realizing that some kids have two moms or that some people don't celebrate Yom Kippur or that some people have parents of 2 races. Even if that's not the way it's done in your family.
The elementary school curriculum is not a how-to for gay sex, or straight sex; it's informing kids that there are a lot of different people out there even if you haven't met them yet, and if you think you know only kids who live in a house on 2 acres with 2 parents there are people who live in an apartment with Grandma, and that's okay. It may be the "that's okay" part that people object to, but this is another case where gay partners raising children parallels different race partners or single parents raising children--no one is required to play to your personal beliefs about which families can be recognized.
Dude, what the gays activists want is for all gay people to live our lives in peace, now and for the next generations of gay people to come. That includes teaching kids that being gay is not reason to discriminate.
I think there's a basic problem here. In public schools, we end up teaching some kind of consensus view of the world, including (necessarily) morality. But we don't all agree on morality. There are people who think homosexuality is evil. I think they're wrong, but they exist, and they're not some tiny lunatic fringe. When you decide to teach moral lessons that they fundamentally disagree with in public schools, they're going to complain. They're going to believe, rightly, that you're using the public school system to indoctrinate their kids about stuff with which they fundamentally disagree.
It's not at all clear to me that the right response is "suck it up, we've got the power and we're right, so we'll decide what to teach your kids." At least, I doubt that will seem like a good answer at some point in the future when conservatives have gained control of this stuff again.
I think this is a great point. How do we decide what morality to teach in public schools? I think most people would say that we should teach the morality of the parents, no?
This seems pretty relativist to me. A lot of people weren't too happy for their kids to be taught that blacks are not evil, or sub-human. They thought (and some surely still think) mixing of the races is really immoral. Yet there is pretty much a public moral consensus on this issue in this country. It didn't happen by accident.
amichel, if the morality of a public school parent is based on the Taliban interpretation of Islamic law, and they think girls shouldn't be educated, should the public school teach that? Maybe in just that kid's classroom?
Perhaps that's an unfair analogy. I just find it curious that suddenly, on this issue, our society can't decide on a moral issue, so therefore, we can't talk about it in a public school.
@Mr. Shrimp
As schools are funded by local money, and run by local school boards, I find no problem with having them teach the beliefs of their local communities (so long as they are lawful). I think this is preferable than a central authority deciding they know better than the children's own parents and communities, and imposiing their own morality. I would turn that analogy around and ask you, if the government was run by the Taliban, should it be able to overide the local school board and parents that believe in republican government, individual rights, etc?
@ amichel, no, I don't believe a Taliban central government should be able to override local people who believe in republican government, individual rights, etc. That's because I don't believe in their hateful, narrow, and violent ideology. But I do believe in equality, both legal and social (i.e., not demonized, isolated, subject to violence) for homosexuals.
This is not something you appear to believe in, so I doubt we're going to agree on this point.
So, if a central government is promoting a policy of equality over the unequal policy of a local school board, then yes, I think that's preferable. Otherwise we'd still have school districts in this country where unequal treatment of girls, and minorities, would be official policy.
@amichel -
a) Schools are partly funded locally. They do also get federal money, directly or indirectly (see for instance funding effects of No Child Left Behind.
b) What you say is applicable to the teaching of evolution, yes? There are parents who continue to fight against teaching that in public schools. Should publicly funded school boards decide which to teach, the 13 billion year old universe or the 6000 year old one?
You may say yes -- which is why there are private schools and home schooling. But the reason we use taxes to pay for education is that the society benefits from a populace that understands how to read, do math... and how the world works. So in a public school, there is a duty to make sure what is taught reflects our best understanding about the world in an objective sense.
In that sense, it's clear that we need to teach evolution not creationism, because every objective fact we have about our world argues for the former and against the latter.
With other things, it might be more complicated, of course. Teaching "morals" is generally going to be fraught with perils because we see morals in different ways. But a different way of looking about teaching about gay families is that, minus the "it's okay" label, they are teaching about a fact. There are gay families, there are multigenerational families, single-parent families, etc.
So then what do you say about them? Do you just ignore them, and not tell the kids that these things exist? Or do you tell them they exist and that they are right or wrong? I think my inclination from a theoretical view would be to say "and that works for them." Of course, when you are talking to 6 year olds, it's hard to limit it to that...
Anyway, that's basically why I think it's different to teach about gay families in public schools than it would be to teach things that are more purely "moral" -- i.e. that we should stone adulterers, etc. The line is obviously always going to be blurry, but I think there is a difference.
Along a similar line, we teach about representative democracies in school because that's nominally what we have, and it's useful for our citizens to know how the government works. We also talk about other forms of government, so that they know what other options are. We probably do imply that ours is the best system, but in general I think we also say things like "parliamentary democracy works for [a lot of other countries]."
Uhmm. I was arguing in favor of TNC's point, that is, that what gay activists want is that gay people live their life in peace. So educating children to tolerate us is part of that. That's my point and it was a very narrow one.
Another great example would be Mark Lloyd, Obama's "Diversity Czar".
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/23/diversity-czar-takes-heat-over-remarks//print/
That's a little bit more than just wanting to let gays live their life, no?
We live in a defacto affirmative action world in which some groups of Americans are and have historically been discriminated against. Affirmative action is designed to counteract that. Both Clinton and to his credit Bush (the one thing one has to give him props for and one can easily see the Republicans have by and large retreated from) is that they changed the face of Presidential administrations to reflect the diversity of American people. The hiring of Roberta Achtenberg was the beginning. Gays continue to be discriminated against in all aspects of their lives, the workplace as well as everywhere else. Gays are taking your job Ninja Zombie, the brown people from the other side of the border are taking your job, your health care tax dollar, on and on. This meme takes the reality and views it from the wrong side of the telescope insofar as I can see. It is a bait and switch that is used to manipulate people. Period. The small truth to mask the big lie.
I wasn't particularly worried about gays taking my job. I'm quite happy to compete with them on an even playing field.
The point is that Mark Lloyd seems to think that "really truly, good, white people in important positions" should step down to make room for minorities and gays. Mark Lloyd, an Obama appointee, wants more than just equality and fair treatment. He wants unfair treatment in their favor.
You can insinuate that I'm a racist and anti-gay if you want. It doesn't change the fact that TNC is wrong. Some pro-gay activists want equality. Some want more.
@Ninja Zombie.
I don't know you, so why would I insinuate anything. You view affirmative action as something that limits your playing field. I assert that the playing field is tilted your way right now, and something needs to be done to level it.
But what I have stated several times in this post is the same thing. Small truths mask big lies. It has nothing to do with you personally, but I think it is a way in which you are being played. Those gays want to further their own cause! They want
the kind of in group privileging that comes fait accompli to members of other groups. How uppity of them.
Let me put it another way. I graduated my Master's Program with a 4.0, was in the upper top 3 percentile on the GRE's in my field, and had a rec letter from one of the 3 foremost experts in my specialized field of study write that I was the hardest working grad student who had ever worked with him. When I applied to the University of Texas (a public graduate school), I was told that I was not competitive by the dean with whom I spoke. However a grad student in the program told me quite simply I was neither an Ivy League undergrad (only UC Berkeley, though my MA program was at a State University), nor someone who had gone to UT or had family who had gone to UT. There you have it. No level playing field. Privilege. If my slot had been given to a black student under some affirmative action program, I probably could have sued and gotten in. As it was, no such luck--fugettaboutit.
Your job isn't threatened on any playing field by giving gays a second look or promoting gays with equal talent. Oh there may be an occasional case in which that goes on. Let's say without question that will happen, but believe me for every one of those there are hundreds of others in which being gay is a distinct disadvantage not only in getting a job, but once one is on the job. What's more the only reason that the field is leveling is because gay activists and their supporters have made noise to make that happen, noise you don't have to make.
Let's just go to the military, where life and death matters are concerned, not to mention the security of the nation. Don't tell me in that most egalitarian of all work forces in America, the work force through which all ethnicities and races have historically claimed their place in society, there is a level playing field. If not there, then, how about the rest of the US? How about in high level government administrations?
Are you really afraid of gays in America getting a break? Is that really the focus of a political perspective? I just reread his post, and you say that TN asserts in it that some pro-gay activists want more than equality? You seem to be reading things that aren't in his narrative, just as you read an insinuation that was not in mine.
@CitizenE
I interpreted this as an insinuation:
Since I misinterpreted it, how should I have interpreted it?
You continue to misrepresent me.
No. I disagreed with TNC. I said: "...TNC is wrong. Some pro-gay activists want equality. Some want more."
I really don't know how you get from "TNC is wrong" to "TNC agrees with me."
Also Kevin Jennings, Obama's "Safe Schools Czar"
"The group Jennings founded has also been accused of promoting homosexuality in schools. At a GLSEN conference in 2000, co-sponsored with the Massachusetts Department of Education, the group landed in hot water when it was revealed that it had included an educational seminar for kids that graphically described some unorthodox sex techniques.
A state official who spoke to teens at the conference said:
"Fisting (forcing one's entire hand into another person's rectum or vagina) often gets a bad rap....[It's] an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with...[and] to put you into an exploratory mode."
At the time, Jennings said he had concerns about events at the conference, but he also criticized attendees who filmed it."
From the article at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/23/critics-assail-obamas-safe-schools-czar-say-hes-wrong-man-job/
I tend to agree that the state official stepped over the line. It's one thing to acknowledge the existence of a sexual technique called fisting to teens - who knows, some teenage kids there had probably tried it already - and make sure they understand any risks involved. To talk about how great it is is over the line.
So, that official shouldn't be in that position to give that talk, and if the official materials reflect that content, they should be reviewed. But it doesn't follow that basic sex ed, to help teens be safe, and acknowledge homosexuality, so gay teens aren't demonized, should be abolished.
amichel, I have a teenager who goes to public school. If she came home with a story like this I would see it more as a story about the usual government bureaucracy hiring a moron to give a presentation about sex ed than I would the see it as the school system trying to promote homosexuality.
What bothers you so much about this story? Do you think straight kids are going to want to try fisting with their same sex friends after hearing about it in the auditorium? Do you think they are going to "turn gay" because fisting sounds like so much fun? (Besides, I don't know first hand, so to speak, but I don't think only gays practice fisting.)
If you're a kid who has fantasized about fisting, you're gonna do it someday. If you're not, you're just gonna giggle alot and maybe say "eeeew" and then move on. I'm much more concerned with what my teen girl sees on MTV than what she learns about fisting at school.
@Jennifer
I guess what bothers me most about this story is that schools are teaching things that should be the province of parents. Frankly, I don't think its the schools business to get into the details of various sexual acts. Sexual diseases, pregnancy, puberty, the basics of sex education; yes. But even by having a teacher mention something like that they are legitimizing it, and entering into what should be a parents responsibility. You should have a choice of wether or not your child is exposed to graphic descriptions of sexual practices like that.
Just for the record, 'fisting' is not something that only homosexuals take part in, so why is this viewed as promoting homosexuality? Just curious. Maybe I missed something in the link.
Stacy, I believe the logic is that anything that doesn't result in a precious baby is or should be taboo.
So you're ok with them living their lives, but not ok with them having positions in the government?
See this is the problem. You can go on about qualifications all you want. And I agree that generally speaking we should keep the most qualified people in important positions. But there's an implicit assumption you're making that minorities couldn't possibly be the most qualified, in the face of a system that has traditionally rewarded cronyism and bribery
It's also another example of 'Oh, I really have no problem with gays, as long as I never talk to them/hear about them/don't have to admit they exist.'
I have no problem with gays getting positions in government (or elsewhere) by fairly competing on merit with non-gays.
I object to the idea that it's a problem that the positions are currently staffed by "really truly, good, white people". It's not a problem. We've got "really truly, good" people in the job. They shouldn't have to step down because of the color of their skin.
This is nothing more than a poorly-worded statement of support for affirmative action--an existing government policy. If I was Obama, I'd be more concerned about this guy's inability to express himself well than I would be about what he was saying. The first part of that statement is a reflection that the government's highest posts have been traditionally dominated by straight white males. (It takes only a little bit of intelligence to realize the extent to which legal and societal discrimination has caused this.) The second part of that statement expresses a commitment to addressing this historical imbalance.
The gay agenda is precisely to be able to live in peace, and not be demonized, or portrayed as lesser humans than heterosexuals. So, if elementary school kids are going to be taught about sexuality as a fact of life, then teaching them that homosexuality exists is simply equality. It's only "advocacy," and gays are only "activists," because are not yet equal in the eyes of the law or society.
"I have nothing against gays, but to be honest, I think you have to acknowledge that some gay activists want a little more than that. Consider, for example, some of the recent controversies with the portrayal of homosexuality in the context of elementary schools."
you know it's interesting to me that you Dave, dropped this missive and didn't say a word about it again. This is too general of a statement for this thread, and I think you know that. Please be specific on what "the gays really want" and about the "context" of homosexuality in elementary schools. I truly don't know what you are talking about. What school? What controversy? What portrayal?
As a gay activist, I dispute your premise.
The controversies in elementary schools in MA were ginned up by professional Bible-beaters to give you something to look reasonable being against. But that's the start of a road you don't want to go down.
The specific issue was, Does one family have the right to hold the class hostage to their belief that two women can't be married? Despite state law that says otherwise?
The school quite reasonably determined that the child of these bigots, who was moved to the district and enrolled in a second grade classroom with children whose two moms had recently married for the sole purpose of creating a controversy, did not have a right to be protected from that information.
Further, the parents' demand that their child be removed from the classroom before any discussion portraying a same-sex relationship in a positive light would have required the teacher to muzzle other children as well as herself, in service of sending a message to the second grade that Timmy is being protected from the existence of Courtney's family--not a neutral point of view if you're Courtney.
These so-called 'controversies' are easily resolved by the question: Do gay kids, and kids with gay parents, have the right to be equal participants in their classrooms? Or does the moral disapproval of homosexuality that some religions promote void these children's rights to a public education?
It's simple enough. Either all your neighbors are fully human, or they aren't. If they aren't, this attitude of being under siege--by the unworthy minorities who refuse to recognize their rightful place beneath the majority--IS where you're going. Turn back, man.
You know, it's a funny thing, but I thought that our military was being attacked by violent people with deadly intent and armed with IEDs and suicide bombers.
And that the more than three and a half combat brigades who have been drummed out of the military for the fact of who they are and who they love might have helped with that rather sticky wicket (http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/do-tell/)
Oh well. I suppose it's all right if more of our soldiers die, as long as they're not exposed to/protected by gay people. It's being gay that is the national security issue, apparently, not the fact that 13,000 people who wanted to serve their country in a time of war (two wars!) can't.
Fucking hell.
Are you using Earth Logic again? We'll have none of that here.
I tried to reply to you, it got caught, then I tried again, but did it out of sequence (below)....
In my reply, you'll see, I suggest that my dependence on Earth Logic may be my greatest failing. I now suspect that my inability to post a simple comment may be my biggest failing, with the Earth Logic thing running a close second.
Sheesh....
I did my Capstone (That's thesis in the language of the so-called most dangerous school in the country) on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. One of the things that's interesting is that even if people have trouble imagining gay soldiers (which is ignorant, don't get me wrong), there's been so many people lost in mission critical roles such as medics and translators. The translators issue is completely baffling. What it nearly boils down to is we'd rather torture people than trust gays to get information
There's no "nearly" about it, Dan W.
the reason I added it--I actually did think about it--is that it sounds sensationalist, even if it's true. I have a tendency to doubt myself that comes through in my writing at times. I like to leave myself a way out. But it's true.
I get the idea that, for some people, the notion of being besieged is also essential to their experience of the world.
I agree, and its annoying. You can find it in just about any group of people - Irish, Palestinians, Gays, Jews, Blacks, Whites. You get the feeling with people like this that if they weren't oppressed they wouldn't know what to do with their lives.
But then you realize these types only make up a small fraction of those they represent, but by virtue of their grievance, they are usually the loudest and most visible.
So very, very true. For some people, I have no doubt they genuinely feel besieged by forces they can't control and don't understand. For some people, I suspect it just adds a sense of drama to their lives and gives them an excuse for whatever behavior they feel like indulging in.
(Ok, now I'm just trying to repeat what I just said and which, for some reason, has been snagged by the automatic moderation function):
I know, right? It's my worst failing.
I think it nabs links. So someone can be sure you didn't put in a link to something shocking.
I know -- it appears to nab anything with more than two links -- but there were none in that little wee post! And there was one in my earlier post, that it didn't nab! Oh, internet, is there nothing you can't make more confusing?
"...where they were informed that upwards of 200,000 active duty members of the military might quit if "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is repealed.."
Wow if that happened it would seriously hinder our ability to spend trillions occupying mid-east countries in a no-win war. I don't think it would happen; but let's run the experiment and find out.
I wonder how many we could return to active service if "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is repealed.
I'm not impressed unless 200,000 said "I will quit on the spot and I don't care if I go to jail or lose my benefits."
If the ones who quit are the same ones who've been painting crosses on their tanks, or passing out Bibles, or making evangelical promo films in full dress uniform, we'd have way better success at that hearts and minds thing without them.
It's amazing how our military is so full to complete cowards. Oh, and you can't "quit" the military. You can only wait until your term is up, and in the current environment, you might not even get that option.
Erik Hoffer, in both The True Believer and The Ordeal of Change notes -- as does Professor Bob Altemeyer in The Authoritarians -- that the promotion of a siege mentality is the single most common, and effective, tool for consolidating mass movements.
The True Believer is the single best book to read to understand modern society.
You know, for many years, gayness was an uncomfortable place for me, a straight male. Eventually, I got over it, and discovered that it wasn't all that relevant in my co-workers or relatives that happened to be gay. The most memorable moment there was when I had lunch with Greg on his last day of work, and mentioned to him that one time he was looking at my screen (we are both programmers) and put his hand on my shoulder and I kind of flinched internally a bit.
Greg looked me in the eye, put his hand on mine and said, "[Doctor Jay], if only you weren't married!"
Of course, we both got a good laugh out of that one.
The point being that you don't get comfortable with gay people except by being around them out. What many people want is to be able to pretend they don't exist and aren't actually gay. I can sympathize with the discomfort, but tough beans. Grow up and get over it. You'll find gay people that you like to hang out with, not because they are gay, but because they are good people.
Just a couple of points:
"gay advocacy"? Does this concept actually propose that people can be proselytized into another sexual orientation? How would that work exactly? (insert gay porn proselytizing scenario of your own devising here)
The military IS and has ALWAYS been arguably one of the gayest institutions around. Nothing but sweaty, muscley, manly men (or women), working, wrestling, fighting, subduing each other... Their lexicon is full of brother loving references, far in excess of the expression of camaraderie of men under fire. I submit that the expulsion of ALL gays in uniform would deplete the ranks to complete non functionality.
ALL "anti-gay" feeling is simply self supressed homosexuality. So much so that the intensity of anti gay expression is directly proportional to the degree that the individual feels that pull. Genuine heterosexuals don't care about gay behavior, any more than they care about sexual behavior of other heterosexuals who they don't know. You don't know them, you don't know where they live, you never see, or have seen them; how is it even conceptually possible to care about what their private practices may or may not be? The answer is that you DON'T, unless some "aspect" of the idea is strangely attractive to YOU.
This obsessive compulsive repression of their latent homosexuality is the most disturbing aspect of the right. I believe it is the true source of much of their lunacy. Either you accept the principle that all humans have equal access to the common fabric of institutions (housing, laws, employment, etc) or you don't. If you don't, you do not ascribe to the precepts of the country, if that is the case, you ARE in fact free to go.
I think this is oversimplifying a bit. I think that there is sometimes a gut level reaction to things that are different from us that can be interpreted as "Eww! That must be wrong!" Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that if/when you hear about sex before puberty, it just seems really weird and often gross. It's when you start to want to do it yourself -- and get more familiar with it -- that it stops seeming that way.
There are also people who sit around worrying about heterosexual sex... you can find someone who thinks anything but missionary position where the woman isn't enjoying it is immoral in some way. You can say that's about jealousy, but I think it's a slightly different aspect of the way humans work. Sort of like the person on a diet looking around at the people eating fries and feeling superior, or more pure. It's not quite jealousy -- it's pride at self-denial in the name of something "more important" than sensual pleasure.
Of course some of it is repressed homosexual impulses, but I don't think that's all of it. Although I admit that my fries example could be read that way, too. Oh well.
amichel makes clear above that any acceptance of the fact that homosexuals exist, anything that gives gays more than a pariah, second-class citizen status, is advocacy:
"Regarding advocacy, I consider defining any opposition to the morality of homosexuality as "homophobia" to be advocay"
@ST
You are blatantly distorting my position. Admitting that homosexuality and homosexuals exist and teaching that this is so in schools is nothing more than common sense. What is not common-sense is advocating an agenda that defines any opposition to homosexuality or homosexual marriage as "homophobia". Advocacy of homosexuality is when you teach that there can be no legitimate disagreement with the homosexual agenda, and that only "hate" motivates those with traditional beliefs relating to marriage.
What if we were talking about racial intermarriage, and you were arguing that opposition can just be support for traditional customs relating to marriage? Could you really argue that straight out bigotry has nothing to do with it, it's just support for traditional beliefs? Could you argue that hate was no part of it?
When you argue for what's taught in schools, you're arguing for the way a society should be shaped. You want a society in which gay people remain firmly second-class and therefore subject to discrimination and abuse. "The homosexual agenda" -- I believe what they want is to live as you do, free to love and marry whom they choose, do their work and live in peace. That's a frightening agenda.
I appreciate that this society's standards have changed at whiplash speed, relatively, on homosexuality, and it's hard for social conservatives to accept that a traditional religious belief is simple bigotry. But it is.
@ST
Interracial marriage is NOT the same as homosexual "marriage". The argument about homosexual marriage is whether marriages between members of the same sex even are marriages. That a black man could marry a white woman, or vice versa, was never called into question by the anti-miscegenation laws, only whether they should be allowed to do so. Bans on interracial marriage were a historical anomaly. Marriage has been between men and women in all human societies at all times. Interracial marriage was banned in a few states in the United States for about two-hundred years. Homosexuals are not a race, and currently enjoy the same privelages as heterosexuals. That is, they are able to marry members of the opposite sex.
You're wrong about a lot of things, most notably the history of marriage throughout time, and the laws about marriage in this country. Just factually wrong, and I suspect voluntarily so. On the off chance you want to learn the facts, I'd suggest you read the following decisions: Perez v. Sharp, Loving v. Virginia and the dissents to them.
But the assertion that there is some explanation for your desire to restrict legal marriage to mixed-sex couples, that your hope to restore that system of unequal treatment, is coming from anything other than animus is just silly.
If there were any rational basis on which your religious beliefs should control my capacity to choose my next of kin, you'd have spit them out by now. You just don't like the idea of my marriage being equal to yours. Why it's such a big deal to you might be a topic to explore on your own.
While I understand that you've been lied to and scared into that position, the point of this post was that fear-stoked intolerance is the only successful product of the conservative movement--and you're exemplifying that nicely.
My property rights as a woman are a historical anomaly. History is ugly, it's no argument.
What do you gain by your resolute refusal to allow gay people equal status? Children are going to be what they are. If they're not gay, nothing can make them be gay. And if they are, they will be regardless of how society reacts, so what are you arguing for? A life of pain and unhappiness and self-hatred for them? Who does that serve?
@PhoenixRising
In what ways am I wrong about the history of marriage and marriage in the US? I admit I have generalized, which is unavoidable when talking about such a broad topic. I don't consider myself an expert, so I don't doubt I might be mistaken.
Regarding court decisions, I defer to the New York court of appeals which ruled in the 2007 case Hernandez vs Robles
“ [T]he historical background of Loving is different from the history underlying this case. Racism has been recognized for centuries — at first by a few people, and later by many more — as a revolting moral evil. This country fought a civil war to eliminate racism's worst manifestation, slavery, and passed three constitutional amendments to eliminate that curse and its vestiges. Loving was part of the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, the triumph of a cause for which many heroes and many ordinary people had struggled since our nation began. It is true that there has been serious injustice in the treatment of homosexuals also, a wrong that has been widely recognized only in the relatively recent past, and one our Legislature tried to address when it enacted the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act four years ago (L 2002, ch 2). But the traditional definition of marriage is not merely a by-product of historical injustice. Its history is of a different kind. The idea that same-sex marriage is even possible is a relatively new one. Until a few decades ago, it was an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived, in any society in which marriage existed, that there could be marriages only between participants of different sex. A court should not lightly conclude that everyone who held this belief was irrational, ignorant or bigoted. We do not so conclude.[13]
This is one of the most poorly thought out ideas I've ever heard.
a) Many genuine heterosexuals do care about the sexual behavior of other heterosexuals.
b) Many liberals care about behavior they never see, e.g. non-union workers accepting $4/hour to work in a factory with racial slurs painted on it. Does that mean the liberals are secretly attracted to the non-union sub-minimum wage lifestyle?
If you really want to say "private acts are not the business of the government", you basically move into libertarian territory. Most liberal policies consist of regulating private behavior.
"Many genuine heterosexuals do care about the sexual behavior of other heterosexuals."
Yes, and those people also have strange sexual hang-ups. It doesn't mean that they are right. I find it to be one of the most bizarre things imaginable to care who someone else has sex with, assuming everyone is a consenting adult.
So is consent the sole criteria for what is allowable sexually?
Why shouldn't it be?
@ Earning Hemistway
If we establish consent as the sole criteria for what is good, several problems follow. What is the argument against polyamory or polygamy, so long as all are consenting adults? What is the argument against incest between consenting adults? There is none.
Why are any of those things necessarily bad?
I don't care much myself. Then again, I also don't care if people do drugs, or pay their workers sub-minimum wages, or practice unlicensed medicine (provided the patient knows about it), or sell products not meeting certain safety standards (provided the customer knows about it), etc.
However, I'm not so arrogant as to believe that anyone who supports a minimum wage secretly wants to hire workers and pay them $1/hour for dangerous work.
Many people believe certain private acts are immoral or should be regulated by the government for utilitarian reasons. They believe this not because they have weird hangups about the act or secretly wish to do it, but merely because they believe the act is either morally wrong or otherwise harmful.
amichel,
This is where we need to separate out what are legal issues and what aren't. For legal purposes a marriage is two people, the right conferred by the state in a marriage are limited to that.
If 2 women have no issue being in a relationship with 1 man, or 2 women and 2 men want to have open relationships that is entirely up to them, what they do in private is no one else's business.
"So is consent the sole criteria for what is allowable sexually?"
Between adults? Yes. I can think it's gross if three sisters want to have sex, but should it be banned? Of course not.
A large part of this dialogue as well to me is 'it isn't your fault you suck at life - blame [fill in the blank]". Alot of people want someone to blame other than themselves and there are demogauges - of both the left and right - that will provide villians...and the barrier to entry for potential demogauges in this 24/7 newschannel/internet age are pretty low.
It is easier to blame affirmative action (or The Man) as the reason you are unemployed than to work hard and finish college.
Forgive me if I mix up my concepts but this is a form of what I would like to call utopian-scapegoatism. The implicit idea is that someone somewhere is to blame for everything that is "wrong" and if we can just remove them everything will be O.K.
In a sense this is just one more demonstration of the swartout maxim: "That human beings although they have the capacity and the ability to think rationaly they don't often do so." Isms always play a part in this type of thinking, but if it isn't one way of dogmatic thinking it usualy winds up being another. The reason why doesn't matter; however, the emotion behind the reason usually ends up being the root cause. In a lot of instances the emotion is then manipulated to make everyone go in the same direction because it is a lot easier to make someone listen to you when they have been blinded by a deeply held feeling.
You know I was stop-lossed for 7 months and 26 days so I'm wondering how exactly service members can quit. Officers can always resign their comission, and I suppose a person might refuse to re-up when their time is done, but for most people in the service ecconomic factors are a bigger inducement than anything else. This is why retention NCOs love to see married soldiers with children.
The problem with bullies is that they believe they can beat up on anyone they don't approve of or decide are acceptable to them. When they grow up they join tyrannical voting blocs to deny equal rights to people they don't approve of, accept, agree with or tolerate.
They are not rare in America at all. They actually cross economic, ethnic, religious and political lines. They have joined with other tyrants to vote against equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian Americans. Traditional Values Coalitions brag, "30 states have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. Forty-one states have laws banning same-sex marriage either by statute or by amendment."
These TheocRATS rationalize their tyranny with their bronze age sun revolves around the flat earth bible. But their tyranny doesn't end at the ballot box. They teach their children that it is okay to beat up anyone they don't agree with, approve of, accept or tolerate. They fight against programs in school that stop their chidren's tyranny.
Once they get the taste of tyrannical power, they go even further, joining "birthers" or "teabaggers" and bringing guns to townhall meetings to try to intimidate people they disagree with, waving racist signs at Fox News paid for rallies, calling the president a liar in Congress, and threatening anyone they don't agree with, approve of, accept or tolerate.
I wonder how many people commenting here belong to that tyrannical voting bloc or how many could be targets of their tyranny?