Hucksterbee: Answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ- Page 2

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 1:35pm

miss manners' new online course: poli-sci 101.

i agree, touch. 100% which is why i suggested it. the only way to end the stigma is to make america realize that the glbt community is not something that doesn't touch their lives everyday. until americans see that their friends and neighbors and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and doctors and priests and bakers and bankers and firefighters and cops and heros can be gay too, they will always see it as something that doesn't really affect them.

i refuse to accept that the majority of people in this country when faced with such a reality would choose to cut those people out of their lives rather than accept them as they are. sorry, i believe that those of you with horror stories are the exception rather than the rule.

Posted: 12/10/07 at 1:37pm

I hope you are right Papa. I hope you're right.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 1:40pm

i would not want to contemplate an america in which i was wrong, joe.

[Calvin]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 1:58pm

i refuse to accept that the majority of people in this country when faced with such a reality would choose to cut those people out of their lives rather than accept them as they are. sorry, i believe that those of you with horror stories are the exception rather than the rule.

Here's what has more often been the case in my experience in Jesusland, papa. In rare occasions, such as with my immediate family, it has caused the other person to become a supportive ally.

In MOST cases, however, it falls somewhere in the middle. The person doesn't cut me out of their lives. However, when I don't live up to the expectations of the big gay bogeyman that they've built up in their head, rather than change those preconceptions, they just decide that I must be some marvelous exception. A normal gay, if you will. But they still hate gay people in general. And they probably trash talk me behind my back.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:01pm

eventually those marvelous exceptions are gonna add up, cal.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:02pm

Get ready for the next presidential election ;P

The fact of the matter is that you can't end bigotry. But just looking at television and film, at schools across the country, being gay IS mainstream now. People understand that it is a fabric of society. Kids are growing up with it as a norm, a regularity. Homosexuality has a face and a voice. People used to say there would never be equality between blacks and whites either, and look at how that is changing. My generation is not your generation and even the generations younger than I am are growing up with homosexuality having a visibility like never before. Change is inevitable.

The only way the Evangelists can stop that is by completely reversing the tide which is impossible. America is too torn in half. Call me crazy but I think there's still a chance for America to take back its identity as a progressive nation and a positive leader on the world stage.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:15pm

You are talking about people who can't even pick up after themselves.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:31pm

Kids inevitably grow up. I'm sure your mom complained about you too.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:35pm

diva's did. once.

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:38pm

Mom complained about me, once, too. She learned to watch her mouth after that.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:44pm

i don't know if looking at her knocked out teeth in a mason jar constitutes watching her mouth, joe.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:51pm

My mom broke my brother's jaw once. She's a tough cookie.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:54pm

sure she is, ron, sure she is.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 2:58pm

Whatever else, this is a great thread.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 3:03pm

no, no, namo, it's 'orrible, 'orrible i tells ye.

[The Boy From Ohio]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 3:15pm

I just can't see the bigger more moderate states (FL,CA,the northeast. etc.) going for his sermons. He might get the south and midwest, but I'd hope he'd scare the **** out of everyone else.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 3:17pm

Let's all make sure that we help Mike TAKE THIS NATION BACK FOR CHRIST!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 3:46pm

Roninjoey, I don't see how reacting to statements he has made means we're picking the issue to carp on. I don't understand why as a gay man these issues shouldn't be at the forefront of my concern.

As for the gay political leaders, could you name a few? Or at least one?

Your laundry list of issues about Huckabee also applies to our current president and that didn't stop him from serving two terms. The people with the backwater views are the ones who vote - and even with that, it's not like it's just people in their trailers in Dogpatch who vote for anti-gay legislation. Once you start moving away from big cities, small town America is small town America, no matter where that town is.

And I don't know who thinks what about the sun, but I do no that polls say HALF of the population doesn't believe in evolution, so I think you'd be surprised at how much a draw he might just have. Science ain't what it used to be.

I guess I really don't understand what you're saying here. It's not like he's a fringe candidate. He man burn out, but could very well take the republican nomination.

It's like when everyone was talking about gay marriage. It was the wrong issue. Most people thought that they were trying to force churches to perform gay marriages. I think we need to leave people to their religious beliefs but make sure we keep them out of politics.

I'd love that, too, but religious beliefs aren't kept out of politics anymore, particularly with this issue the gays won't stop carping about.

I've heard the line about gay marriage being the wrong issue or the wrong time, but I don't buy that either. Somehow when civil rights for gays are discussed there's always someone who says that it's the wrong time, or that we need to wait for more people to be on board, etc, ad nauseam, but show me an example of any sort of minority rights issue was tabled until enough people were on board.

I don't believe for a second that "Most people thought that they were trying to force churches to perform gay marriages." That's an easy cop-out, but I don't see how that washes.

People used to say there would never be equality between blacks and whites either, and look at how that is changing.

Roninjoey, since you've drawn the correlation to blacks and whites, I'll remind you that the heyday for African-American civil rights was over 40 years ago. As you've noted, a lot of the country STILL hasn't gotten on board with that. Is gay visibility really helping things? Look at all the anti-gay marriage legislation that has been passed since Ellen and Will and Grace. I don't see how suggesting we shut up for a spell is going to do any good but continue to led us be rolled over. Anti-gay soundbites work. Imagine how much easier it would be if we just shut up so that they could be even more easily heard.

Do we look to black voters and tell them to stop being concerned about black issues (or women, or any other minority group)?

The generations ahead of us are going to actually grow up with more institionalized homobigotry than we are. When I was a child there were no defense of marriage acts. Of course, gays were keeping their mouths shut more then, too.

Okay, now on to Papa -

until americans see that their friends and neighbors and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and doctors and priests and bakers and bankers and firefighters and cops and heros can be gay too, they will always see it as something that doesn't really affect them

But again, hasn't this been going on for years? If we look at all the strides that roninjoey noted, how can we expect change the minds of a group of people who at this point have to be willfully and deliberately ignorant. You chide people for dismissing the people in the hinterlands as ignorant buffoons, but if we need to wait for people to realize that, gosh, there are gay people everywhere, I think that's going to set up back even further.

And I disagree that it's going to take throngs of people coming out; what it's going to take is for someone in power to have the balls to stand up and say, "Yeah, I know it grosses most of you out, but there's really basis to continue to oppress this group of people. As much as we like to hide behind our Bibles, unless we are going to biblical guidance for all social issues that deal with sexuality, we have no reason to apply them strictly to homosexuality.

i refuse to accept that the majority of people in this country when faced with such a reality would choose to cut those people out of their lives rather than accept them as they are. sorry, i believe that those of you with horror stories are the exception rather than the rule.

As Calvin said, it more often falls somewhere in the middle. And by giving these anti-gay zealots an unchecked platform, I fail to see how that's going to make the world the gay utopia you seem to think it already is.


Updated On: 12/10/07 at 03:46 PM

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 3:47pm

Maybe Alan Keyes could be his vice president.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 4:00pm

Phyllis Rogers Stone, an interesting article about people and science in this country:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/science/30profile.html

Anyway, let me be extremely explicit with how I feel about gay marriage. I don't think the government has the place to legalize it. I don't think the government should give out marriages at all. They should only give out civil unions. Marriage is a religious and social institution and you could certainly find a church to "marry" you right now if you wanted. The legalities are the only thing I care about, and I don't know why gay people are fighting for "MARRIAGE" when they could be fighting for "EQUAL CIVIL RIGHTS". You could find a church to "marry you in the eyes of God" easily.

Terminology is everything. I also think the pro-choice movement is dumb for calling themselves "pro-choice". How does that sound compared to pro-life? I am pro-life. Pro life that's already here on Earth.

Also, anti-gay legislation is reactionary. It's being struck down and brought back up all the time. Note that it mostly happens in places like South Carolina. This will happen for a while. The Jim Crowe laws had to be around before everyone decided those were unconstitutional too.

I don't think gays need to shut up, we just pick the wrong terms to get excited about. As for gay political leaders I suppose that was poor phrasing but there are plenty of people who are, at the very least, saying some positive things about gays (although they seem to do and say different things).

"Your laundry list of issues about Huckabee also applies to our current president and that didn't stop him from serving two terms."

You say this because you've already been through Bush. Bush got elected as a moderate conservative, rode 9-11 through his first term to get elected again (he wasn't doing so great before that whole thing happened, now was he?), rode the Evangelism for a while before all that backfired on him and now he finishes his term as one of the least admired presidents ever. Also consider all the scandals involving religious figures during these last two terms. I don't know if the Bush comparisons would help Huckabee all that much.

Oh, and I sincerely doubt that as much as 50 % of this country does not believe in evolution in some form.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 4:29pm

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out after I spit out my next ramblings. The 50% was just the first figure that came up when it I googled it. It could be wrong, but it was just a shot in the dark. Up until a few years ago I thought MOST people (even the religious) believed in evolution, but it seems that more and more people are coming out on the side of the world being 6000 years old.

For what it's worth, at its root, I too think that marriage should be a religious institution, but as long as there is civil marriage I'm willing to fight for my right to it. We could just be splitting hairs over semantics, but (and I have no numbers to back this up) I imagine most people who are fighting for gay marriage also are fighting for equal civil rights. While I think the word "marriage" is a sticking point for some people, I don't believe if tomorrow every gay person who wanted marriage would be content to have a civil union it would change anything. At all.

And it isn't just states like South Carolina, though. Look at Massachusetts, struggling to keep gay marriage. Look at California, which said gays can get married and then said they couldn't practically in the same breath. Look at Rhode Island, which wouldn't even allow a gay couple to divorce in their state, lest that somehow be misconstrued as an implicit endorsement of gay marriage. And the point is, that not everyone found Jim Crow unconstitutional, just as everyone won't support gay rights. I realize we may be back to semantics, but your use of the word "everyone" is a little bit of a misnomer, I think. Everyone wasn't pro-segregation then and everyone isn't pro-segregation now.

And while I agree with your thoughts on Bush, there are still people in this country (and on this board) who will defend him to their dying day. Maybe I'm a little more cynical than I'd like to admit, but I think you're a little more optimistic than you'd like to admit.


Updated On: 12/10/07 at 04:29 PM

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 4:44pm

Well I'll admit that I'm erring on the side of optimism. I recognize that there are a lot of problems without solutions but I think when you give too much voice to the racists, to the bigots, etc... you give them power. The whole point of optimism, integrity and idealism is to set an example for everyone else. If nobody stands up in the first place then nobody else can follow. These are the ideas our country was founded on and has found success on, from Washington, to Jefferson, to Lincoln, to FDR, to JFK, to MLK, and so on to today, and these guys aren't remembered for their realism and moderate appeasement :P

There are a whole lot of people out there who DO believe in science, who believe in equality, who believe in choice, etc... but they aren't speaking out because they don't think they need to. The reason the fundies seem to have so much power is that they're always screaming about something, even things nobody is oppressing them over. They are quite literally preaching to their very loud choir.

The dems, liberals, moderates and middle class need to get a freakin' backbone or the extremists, the wealthy and the fundies are going to have us by the balls forever. You can't lead but by example.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 4:50pm

I'm getting to the point where I can't even read your posts any nore.

What planet do you live on?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 4:52pm

I recognize that there are a lot of problems without solutions but I think when you give too much voice to the racists, to the bigots, etc... you give them power.

I guess. It's really a fine line, though.

The dems, liberals, moderates and middle class need to get a freakin' backbone or the extremists, the wealthy and the fundies are going to have us by the balls forever. You can't lead but by example.

Absolutely no arguement there.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/10/07 at 4:56pm

TheatreDiva, I couldn't say without some knowledge of what criticism you have to make. Just don't read my posts or bother replying then.

Unless you mean a planet where a person cites reasonable opinions and provides sources and prominent people who share these opinions and reasons for coming to these opinions.

Phyllis I think you're right though. Optimism has to be tempered by realism, otherwise you're just living in a dream world.