Patti’s Tweet — Page 4

GavestonPS said: "To AADA81:

What PLANET do you live on where straight people (except the very gay-friendly) use the expression "clutching one's pearls"???!!! I was obviously using an inside-the-community expression and you are delusional if you think otherwise. (I also had no idea I was putting you in any particularly "place", but that's another issue.)

Yes, discrimination against gay people still exists, but can't you see how we play into it by treating gay identity as some sort of secret from the criminal underground?

Sorry. I don't normally go aroundouting people, but I stopped treating gayness as a "criminalsecret" game many decades ago.

Sexual orientation is as intrinsic as race, and we don't require anyone to keep anybody else's race a secret. (Because it's harder to hide, of course, but the principal is the same.)

If Lindsey Graham wants to present as straight, while supporting homophobic policies, then he should do a better job of it:One or more wives and at least seven kids."

I agree with some of what you say but can't you see that starting a post by asking me what planet I live on is another put-down? "Clutching one's pearls" may be an "inside-the-community" expression but when you post on here you are not just inside the community, you're public, and non'"very-gay-friendly" straight people may see that and it reinforces an age old stereotype of gay men being effeminate. Calling me delusional is simply a way of discrediting me so that nothing I can say will be valid, which is unfair.

If you stopped treating "gayness" as a criminal secret game decades ago I think that's great. So did I and I continue to do so and I am fully aware of the price I've paid in my professional and personal life for choosing to have done that. My choice.

Sexual orientation is as intrinsic as anything else about a person and should never be minimized, disrespected or devalued. I truly believe that. Many others don't and will do anything possible to hurt or destroy a person simple because s/he is gay. That is why coming out of the closet is, I believe, a personal decision done on each individual's personal time frame. Neither I nor you has the right to say when anyone's personal experiences (that we may know nothing about) are mitigated by the desire to stop gayness from being a criminal secret game. Each person's choice.

That has nothing to do with Lindsey Graham, whom I detest. I have no direct knowledge that he's gay but, given his track record voting against any bill or law that will protect LGBTQ rights and protections, if he is gay he has earned the privilege, as a public servant, to have that information shared with the general public.

I'm sorry if you don't like what I have to say, but I think I've been fair in this post and I also think that we have more common ground between us than either of us might realize.

Updated On: 7/20/19 at 10:04 PM

GavestonPS said: "AADA,

I went on to another site, but your phrase about my attempting "to put you in your place" stuck in my craw. Not because you were wrong or because I blamed you for saying so, but because I had no intention of doing any such thing.

This thread has gotten way overheated, and for my part in that, I apologize.

I don't actually think you are "delusional" nor is anyone here "disgusting", etc. I just got caught up in the language of the thread, when I am more than old enough to know better.

So please accept my apology. (I had oral surgery two days ago and they transplanted a bone graft into my head. From the movies, I know that such grafts only come from death-rowserial killers and the transplant causes the recipient to take on the character traits of the donor. So that's my excuse. Also the regular doses of vicodin. LOL.)

And, in fact, no, I've lived in a small Bible Belt city (Tallahassee in the 1970s) and though I personally chose to come out in that oppressive environment, I wouldn't dream of outing anyone else who lived in such a place. My own brother (who lived in Tallahassee decades longer than I)never came out to even his closest friends until he was literally on his death bed from AIDS in 1993. (Long time ago; I'm not looking for sympathy.)

But I think his reticence on the subject had more to do with our mother's fears and embarrassment than his, so coming out is a complicated subject even in my own family. Despite what I've said here, I never outed him even to our sister until he eventually got up the nerve to talk to her.

Lindsey Graham, on the other hand, is one of the most powerful men on planet Earth (where I'm sure you live as do I). I'm not at all sure the same principle about privacy attachesto both of them.Especially not considering that Grahamhelps confirm SCOTUS appointments who we can expect to try to roll back your rights and mine.

So while I would respect the privacy rights of those who are in actual danger, I think Graham is fair game. Even if he isn't gay, I wouldn't mind if he were thought to be so (something that will not happen because of LuPone's tweet) if only in the hope it might teach him a little empathy.

I apologize for my overheated rhetoric (which was never intended to be as snarky as it sounded) and I'm not sure one principle can encompass my small-town brother in the early 1990s AND the President's righthand sycophant."

I am so sorry about your brother passing and please accept my sympathy. I lost a brother so I know how that can rip into a family. You are a completely different person to me because of what I now know about you. I always say, it's hard to dislike or be angry with anyone once you begin to see them as a 3-dimensional person. It sounds like you've been through your own struggles to be who you genuinely are and for that I respect your courage and perseverance because it ain't easy, my friend, as you well know.

I am in full agreement with you about Lindsey Graham because his discriminatory rhetoric has been intentionally destructive to the lives of innocent people just trying to live their lives. I know why Patti Lupone is so angry with him. I just wish she would have used a less provocative way to express herself because I worry that her clear message will be lost.

Finally, you have no cause to apologize to me. I was just as caught up in the rhetoric as you and I was and am wrong for that. Here's the good thing: we got to learn from one another today. We got to learn that we have some similar experiences and that we do have much in common, which is very human and good. It's also why, I think, Patti Lupone felt the urge to send her message in the first place.

I really appreciate that you took the risk to share so much about yourself and I have great respect for you for that. Take care my friend.

Updated On: 7/20/19 at 11:52 PM

^ And on this note, I suggest this thread be closed!

"I don�t understand why she expects compassion when she herself is terrible at times."

can you articulate this "compassion" she supposedly "expects"?

A Director said: "^ And on this note, I suggest this thread be closed!"

I don't mind either way, but I didn't mean to hijack the thread. I was merely conceding that despite my position on this subject, I'm not in the habit of outing people in everyday life.