First published at 365gay.com on April 28, 2008
Back in the old days, there were those who supported gay rights and those who opposed them-vocally. There was also a third group whose opposition was so deep that they objected even to discussing the issue. For them, to debate gay rights would be to dignify depravity, and depravity merits chilly silence, not invitations to dialogue.
In the last decade or so, a fourth group has appeared mirroring the third. This group's support for gay rights runs so deep that they object even to discussing the issue. For them, to debate gay rights would be to dignify bigotry, and bigotry merits chilly silence, not invitations to dialogue.
While the above sketch is somewhat simplistic, I think it captures an important shift in the gay-rights debate. Increasingly, one finds people on both sides who object not merely to their opponents' position but even to engaging that position. Why debate the obvious, they ask. Surely anyone who holds THAT position must be too stubborn, brainwashed or dumb to reason with.
The upshot is that supporters and opponents of gay rights are talking to each other less and less. This fact distresses me.
It distresses me for several reasons. First, it lulls gay-rights advocates into a complacency where we mistake others' silence for acquiescence. Then we are shocked-shocked!-when, for example, an Oklahoma state representative says that gays pose a greater threat than terrorism-and her constituents rally around her. Think Sally Kern will have a hard time getting re-elected? Think again.
It distresses me, too, because dialogue works. Not always, and not easily, but it makes a difference. Indeed, ironically enough, healthy dialogue about our issues helped move many people from the "supportive-but-open-to-discussion" camp to the "so-supportive-I-can't-believe-we're-discussing-this" camp.
It distresses me most of all because both of the "opposed" camps include families with gay kids. How do we help those kids? How do we let them know that it's okay to be gay, despite the hurtful messages that they're hearing from their parents?
True, it is easier than ever to reach such kids directly, through MTV, the internet, and the like. But some of those messages will be blocked or distorted by their parents. And even those that reach them untrammeled will be counterbalanced by painful opposition. I feel for these kids, and I want to help them. Helping them requires acknowledging their important relationships with people whose views I find deeply wrong.
There are those who find my emphasis on dialogue naïve. As someone who has spent sixteen years traveling the country speaking and debating about homosexuality and ethics, I'm well aware of dialogue's limitations.
Yet I'm also frequently reminded of its power. Recently Aquinas College, a Catholic school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, cancelled a lecture I was scheduled to give because of concerns about my opposition to Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Students angered by the cancellation arranged to have me speak off-campus. The event drew hundreds of audience members, including some who had been critical of my initial invitation. The next day I learned that one of those critics, after hearing my talk, had begun advocating bringing me to campus next year. Over time, such conversions can have a huge impact.
Then there are those who wonder whether the silence I'm lamenting really is a problem at all. My Aquinas cancellation suggests that it is: intentionally or not, the cancellation sent students the message that this topic is literally unspeakable. But the problem is by no means limited to one side. Last year I did a same-sex marriage debate (with Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family) at another Catholic college. A week before the event, my host told me that a student was trying to organize a protest. "Because he doesn't want a gay-rights speaker on a Catholic campus?" I asked.
"No, because he doesn't want your opponent here," she answered. The student thought that opposition to same-sex marriage should not be dignified with a hearing. On a Catholic campus!
That student, like the rest of us, would do well to recall the words of John Stuart Mill. In his 1859 classic On Liberty Mill argued that those who silence opinions - even false ones - rob the world of great gifts:
"If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."
The moral of the story? Let's keep talking.
Corvino, John
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Just for the record, I’d like to note that KingCharles is lying -again.
Mchigan-Matt wasn’t lying, from what I read here and the abuse others’ have felt at the tortured keyboard of KingCharles.
M-M tried to persuade me not to get into a pissing match Charles Wilson usually likes to play out -and has played out repeatedly on many, many blogs, sites, boards, forums etc.
Which we all know is just Charles Wilson’s lonely looney stalking personality (personalities?).
M-M forwarded the emails KingCharles sent to him and they are pretty scummy, threatening, and sick. M-M’s also has gotten a rather interesting uptick in spam emails with his address in them from porn sites, Democrat Party fringe groups, male escort services all implying that he specifically asked for them to add him to their mailing lists. He shared some of those with me, as well.
One of the notifications to “add” MM to a site of former male porn stars turned escort had willsnout’s email address contained. Ooops, KingCharles, I don’t think you meant to do that.
You might also want to know, KingCharles, that MM shared with me the IMs… he archived them. Your baiting and stalking conduct is pretty weird there and comes across screamingly in those IMs.
MM, like many blogmasters, finally blocked willysnout… but the guy will probably just create a new gravatar and circle back around.
Scarey. Sick.
Again, I don’t use IM, and I’ve never sent your friend Michigan Matt any e-mails. Maybe this explains Michigan Matt: “My uncle served 57 yrs in Alcatraz for multiple prison breaks, robbery, pistol whipping and killing a guard, and countless crimes in the 9 adult yrs he wasn’t in prison.”
Scratch a Republican, and you’ll find a criminal? Ha!
You might also want to know, KingCharles, that MM shared with me the IMs… he archived them. Your baiting and stalking conduct is pretty weird there and comes across screamingly in those IMs.
Scarey. Sick
Again, Patrick, I don’t use IM. It’s disabled on my computer. And I have never sent any e-mails to Michigan Matt. He knows it, and so do you. You can kick and scream and stamp your little feet all you want, but that won’t change the facts. Ha!
By the way, why are you so interested, anyway? What’s it to you?
Patrick, just for the record and to be able to cite back to this very spot for future tagging when Charles Wilson begins his lying, deceptive tantrums again…
You said:
Just for the record, I’d like to note that KingCharles is lying -again.
“Mchigan-Matt (sic) wasn’t lying, from what I read here and the abuse others’ have felt at the tortured keyboard of KingCharles.”
Facts checked: truth it is.
“M-M tried to persuade me not to get into a pissing match Charles Wilson usually likes to play out -and has played out repeatedly on many, many blogs, sites, boards, forums etc.”
Facts checked: truth it is… and don’t you regret it now?
“Which we all know is just Charles Wilson’s lonely looney stalking personality (personalities?).”
Facts checked: if by personalities you mean lots of sockpuppets used at sites that ban, bar and block him? Then truth it is.
“M-M forwarded the emails KingCharles sent to him and they are pretty scummy, threatening, and sick.”
Facts checked: truth it is again. Charles Wilson, willysnout, WW, CW, wet willy and other sockpuppets have a long and discredited history of sockpuppet use to avoid blocking.
“M-M’s also has gotten a rather interesting uptick in spam emails with his address in them from porn sites, Democrat Party fringe groups, male escort services all implying that he specifically asked for them to add him to their mailing lists.”
Facts checked: truth again.
“One of the notifications to “add” MM to a site of former male porn stars turned escort had willsnout’s email address contained. Ooops, KingCharles, I don’t think you meant to do that.”
Facts checked: truth it is again… he stupidly used his willysnout email addy in a reply line for spam.
“You might also want to know, KingCharles, that MM shared with me the IMs… he archived them. Your baiting and stalking conduct is pretty weird there and comes across screamingly in those IMs.”
Facts checked: truth it is again.
“MM, like many blogmasters, finally blocked willysnout… but the guy will probably just create a new gravatar and circle back around.”
Facts checked: truth it is again. But wet willy hasn’t shown any evidence of circumventing those blocks yet.
“Scarey. Sick.”
Facts checked: truth it is again.
So Patrick, how does it feel to have replaced wet willy’s obsession over porn star Matt Sanchez or gay civil rights activist Michigan-Matt or gay blogger North Dallas 30 as the new target in wet will’s pantheon of stalkettes?
Got be tickling some hairs on the back of your neck? In a spookey, creepy way.
One of the notifications to “add” MM to a site of former male porn stars turned escort had willsnout’s email address contained. Ooops, KingCharles, I don’t think you meant to do that.
My yahoo address is out there on the Internet. Anyone can add it to a website. I’ve used IM about three times. After trying it a few times I decided that I don’t prefer to communicate that way. IM is disabled on my computer.
And Michigan-Matt, you are well aware that I’ve never communicated with you that way, nor have I ever sent you an e-mail. You keep telling all these lies; as for me, when I make an assertion of fact, it’s documented.
Matt, you’re a pathetic, whining, Log Cabinette Republican liar who can’t tell the truth about a single thing.
Charles, I told you on the 2nd or 3rd email and the very first IM of nearly 40 that I would not hesitate to share those with others if you persisted in stalking me… and I also told you my 11 yr old son, innocent of all your sick perversions, used our home computer as well.
Yet, you persisted. You said, “tough luck Matt; you offended me and if your son or partner read of it, too bad. You probably don’t even have a son”.
And to think that people are now condemning you for your atrocious behavior here… just like the many have protested against your sick conduct at other blogs, sites, boards, forums and threads where you’ve been banned, barred and blocked… as well as all the sockpuppets they’ve caught you using to less effect.
No, Charles, you are the pathetic one. Solely and singularly of all the people I’ve encountered. I would say you are as near to evil as a devil. And about as wiley and unrepentant, too.
Let’s remember, more folks here are now coming to condemn your conduct… calling it, let me see… the word was “atrocious”.
Matt, you’ve always been able to share these e-mails and IMs that you’ve claimed I sent. Be sure to include the full headers, you whining, pathetic Log Cabinette liar. Ha!
By the way, Matt, did you use that same computer that the 11-year-old was also using when you cruised the Internet for hot guys like your buddy Matt Sanchez, who you pronounced “a bargain in any book. Woof. Damn.”?
Wait — it doesn’t matter, because as an A-Gay, never-gay, anti-gay Log Cabinette shyster who thinks he’s better than everyone else, the ordinary rules don’t apply to you. I always forget that.
What YOU always forget Charles is that people here have called you out on the carpet and it just isn’t a few people from that vast rightwing conspiracy you rant against… they’ve called you “childish”, they’ve called you “atrocious”, they’ve called you “a bore and abusive”, they’ve called you “the village idiot”.
So, what you forget Charles Wilson is that, just like countless other blogs PLUS blogs you consider “home and friendly” to your unique blend of arrogance, condescension and hate, people generally have said you’re the problem… not me, not wingnuts, not LCRs, not even the guy who you clearly obsess and stalk with an unusualy passion -Matt Sanchez; to whom you’ve created a site that any 16 yr old gay would see through you as being “worshipful” of Sanchez’s former life as a porn star and escort.
But, you keep going Charles Wilson, because the one thing you’ve learned in all these years of stalking, hate-spewing verbal violence is that… if you keep at it… you’ll end up driving everyone away.
And that’s what you want: Everyone to be as unhappy and lonely and miserable and forgotten as you.
Now, it’s that a bit more like pathetic, even in your mirror?
I would say you are as near to evil as a devil. And about as wiley and unrepentant, too.
And a stalking fag, too, right Michigan Matt, the “moderate” and “progressive”? Are you channeling Roy Cohn again? I must say that you and your buddies do crack me up sometimes. Do you have any idea how utter ridiculous you have shown yourself to be? Ha!
Charles, dear, I never called you a stalking fag… that was other “fans” of yours you’ve gathered from your presence on this blog and elsewhere.
Being a political moderate doesn’t mean appeasing people like you, Charles. I thought you, of all people given your pronouncements and attempts at defending racist, bigoted remarks you’ve made, would appreciate that point.
Of course, I guess I’m about as ridiculous to you as all those blgomasters who have had to ban, bar, block and blacklist you… or the IGF Editors here who reminded you to temper your hate-filled rants.
I will agree with your characterization of ridiculous on one point, Charles… to entertain a discussion with you is folly and for that, I stand guilty of being ridiculous enough to think you’d “get it” at some point.
Well, at least other readers and commenters here know you’re the one to be laughed at… as they’ve told you, repeatedly. And you STILL don’t get it.
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