As I noted in an update to the prior post, Chad Felix Greene has penned a thoughtful essay at HuffPost on LGBT political orthodoxy that’s well worth reading, I’m Gay, But I’m Not ‘LGBT.’ Here’s Why. A few excerpts follow:
The LGBT movement has always been tribal, but until fairly recently it was defined by its great diversity of ideas and ferocious demands for celebrated individuality. …
Cultures either evolve or they become ferociously tribal. The left in the last decade has encouraged tribalism in all minority groups, rejecting cohesive assimilation at any cost. In the wake of equality and social normalcy, the LGBTQIAP+ movement has chosen to follow this path. Unfortunately this has created an almost cult-like environment.
Gays today live with so much freedom, equality and social acceptance the worst thing they seem to imagine is a Christian might hesitate when asked to write ‘Support Gay Marriage’ on their wedding cake. This is what happens when society changes so quickly. … Teenagers fighting for recognition of their identity and causing controversy for taking their same-sex date to prom went to college and learned about advocacy. … But by the time they got old enough to be in charge, all the injustices were gone – but the passion and the narrative remained. Today we have an entire generation of gay people in their 30’s who have not left high school in their minds. They are still fighting Ellen’s 1996 battle. … They are still arguing against Falwell and raging against Reagan. Still trying to prove homosexuality isn’t a choice or sinful. …
Where once the gay movement defined itself by open and welcoming love and support for everyone, including non-gay people, today one can be exiled for dissent. As I have written about for years now, the gay left has become absolute in its authoritarian approach to what is appropriate to believe as a gay person. Where it was once fairly understandable to question why a gay person would be a Republican, today there is actual hatred directed towards individuals perceived as traitors for choosing this affiliation. The gay movement once defined itself as almost ridiculously diverse. Today it holds a single political affiliation: LGBT are Democrats. There are no other options. Even non-conservative alternative parities are targeted.
And they’ll never see the irony of declaring themselves champions of diversity and enemies of intolerance.
41 Comments for “LGBT Tribalism and Orthodoxy”
posted by Kosh III on
“today there is actual hatred directed towards individuals perceived as traitors”
Maybe it’s because Republicans have spent the past 40 years doing everything in their power to destroy the lives of gay people? “Kill a queer for Christ” “AIDS is God’s punishment for homosexuality” Bush43 attempts to write discrmination into the Constitution, Romney fights marriage equality, Trump wants more Scalia monsters on the SC and the list goes on.
I don’t see this lockstep attitude, I see gay people from all levels of life with many different ideas and opinions; but on politics most can see who hates them and vote accordingly.
posted by JamesinChicago on
This is a standard conservative assertion, where minorities are concerned: Liberals have turned them all into brain-washed zombies. If not, they’d be Republicans! It’s so unfair and a definite sign of mindlessness, when they recognize that the Republican party is a haven for bigots of all sorts and, in the case of gay people, when a majority of us recognize that the millions of right-wing Christians, still working feverishly to turn back the clock on us to the 1950’s or worse, to today’s subsaharan Africa, call the Republican party home.
I, for one, have real complaints about liberalism vis-a-vis gay people, such as our dehumanization being generally considered a minor affair in comparison to racism and to liberalism’s use of our movement to promote a broader agenda of sex without emotional attachment and commitment, but a piece such as this one by Stephen Miller only reminds me that I have no place but standard liberalism to go.
posted by JamesinChicago on
To be clear, by “gay”, I mean cisgendered gay people, not the transgendered, whose legal equality I do support, and definitely not the bisexuals, whose only possible political goal is plural marriage, and definitely not anyone who is “queer”, which seems to comprehend everyone who isn’t an anti-gay bigot and has at least one piercing or tattoo or whose hair is pink or green. Plenty of advocacy among liberals for the T and the B and the Q and some other letters and plenty of suspicion among heterosexual liberals, if I’m not mistaken, that the plain old G and L represent white privilege.
posted by JamesinChicago on
Plenty of advocacy for the B and the Q among liberals and never mind that many bisexuals and so-called queers, just like right-wing reactionaries, deny the fundamental reality of sexual orientation. Nothing to do with nature, everything to do with nefarious social forces. Plenty of heterosexual liberals are perfectly content with this nonsense and they fundamentally erase gay people.
posted by TJ on
Well, obviously when a Republican candidate panders to racism, white supremacy, political violence, violence against women and gay bashing…..it’s not the candidates fault.
(;
posted by Kosh III on
This blatant lie sticks out in this kids screed : Gays, trans and anyone with a sense of individuality currently have full and complete civil and legal rights in our country. ”
Another “conservative” who probably lives in a cushy blue enclave and wouldn’t dare live in a “conservative” county. Try Rankin county Mississippi:
http://www.sunherald.com/news/local/article112103427.html
posted by Houndentenor on
Yes, a big lie. In Texas, for example, our governor is fighting to be able to refuse spousal benefits to gay couples. No, we don’t all have equal rights under the law, but Stephen already knows that. He just chooses to ignore it because it doesn’t fit his narrative.
posted by TJ on
Equal opportunity in employment and housing, for starters, isn’t part of federal law. It ain’t covered by quite a few state laws.
Trump pledges to put Justices on the court that oppose the equal rights case law going back to Romer.
Say, “we can close up the equality campaign and start voting Republican “, is just dishonest.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Gays today live with so much freedom, equality and social acceptance the worst thing they seem to imagine is a Christian might hesitate when asked to write ‘Support Gay Marriage’ on their wedding cake.
Chad Felix Greene’s view, I think, is obtuse, born of living young, sheltered, in a safe blue haven. Living in a bubble, he simply cannot imagine that gays and lesbians don’t all enjoy the freedom, equality and social acceptance that he enjoys.
Young gays and lesbians in deep red areas of the county — rural areas in flyover country, anywhere in the red states outside of a few urban areas, and so on — would most likely express a different view of how much freedom, equality and social acceptance gays and lesbians enjoy. And, in my opinion, so would sentient older gays and lesbians, gays and lesbians who are aware of how recently a nationwide anti-equality campaign gripped the nation, resulting in a wave of anti-marriage amendments, and the extent of the “massive resistance” effort now being mounted by the Republican Party nationwide to blunt Obergefell.
Gays, trans and anyone with a sense of individuality currently have full and complete civil and legal rights in our country.
This is, if not a direct, intentional lie, absolute bullshit.
Log Cabin Republicans, however ineffective the group may be as a political force within the Republican Party, has a series of “Equality Maps” tracking legal equality in the states. Review the maps and see if you think that gays and lesbians “have full and complete civil and legal rights in our country”.
I’m no fan of LCR, but the Equality Maps are solid, the most accessible and easily understood as I’ve seen on the web. Good on LCR for having the political courage to keep the facts in sight.
posted by Houndentenor on
No. Not baking a cake is not the worst thing I can imagine. We live in a world where gays are thrown off buildings (Middle East), criminalized (Uganda) or tortured and murdered on video with the killers not being prosecuted (Russia). I don’t have to imagine anything. I just have to read international news stories. Here at home I know that being gay can get me fired or not hired and that is legal. So I can imagine a lot worse than what a baker while write on a cake. Stop drinking the alt-right Kool-Aid, Stephen.
posted by Lori Heine on
Again, the railing at Stephen. Pray, why?
He is not trying to convince the people who comment here about anything. You get madder and madder because of his posts–but they continue.
What does that mean?
I still have a land line because I work from home. So I get tons of political solicitation and polling calls. Most are over once I say three little words: “I already voted.” The rest abruptly end when I add five more: “I voted for Gary Johnson.”
Clang. Mind closed. Subject covered.
I am quite sentient, and very aware that the Republicans have done all the horrible things the commenters (again) remind us they have done–and in many cases are still doing. I’m not a Republican. Perhaps I should become one, so I can work for change from the inside instead of the outside.
But I do grasp one thing many seem to miss. It’s why I’m a libertarian–and would remain one even if I joined the GOP. This is really all about power. It’s ALL that it’s about. It’s about power, and virtually nothing else.
The politicians don’t care what they do to you. They have no principles. As long as enough people reward them by furthering their glorious little careers, they are going to go right on doing it.
Stephen isn’t drinking any Kool-Aid. He’s right on most of the basics, just fuzzy on some of the specifics. And he’s used to being on Team Red, so like most team players he overreacts to some things. Sort of like the commenters here.
I made a remark on a thread here a couple of years ago about the fact that a libertarian left exists. And that it’s as zealously revolutionary (Chomsky, Zinn, Dorothy Day, Emma Goldman, etc.) as anything on the Ayn Rand libertarian right. I did this because the left tells its little doobies none of this. Stephen went ape-poop and accused me of being a socialist or some such dreck.
So yes, I do understand that nuance does not go over big with team players. I will be accused here of everything from being a socialist to not being sentient.
I consider the source.
posted by Houndentenor on
Because like 99% of homocons he’s a hypocrite. He lives safely in a blue area enjoying all the benefits he rails against while ignoring that not everyone in the country, especially people in areas where more people are politically aligned with him for the most part, don’t have it so well. That’s the problem. No, I don’t think he’s going to learn. But I do think it needs to be rebutted. Not that it matters because i don’t get any sense that there’s a lot of traffic here.
posted by TJ on
Yes. (Without sounding like an after school special) laws and attitudes have certainly changed in America. Things do get better.
However, in “fly over” communities and “red states” it’s a very different reality for LGBT people.
If you live in a safe “blue” community, especially in a metropolitan city….u May be believe in a different unreality.
As for gay wedding cake. I think that forcing a small time baker to agree to bake a straight or gay wedding cake is a waste of time and money.
If the religious exemption was written decently and part of a civil rights bill ….I want to talk about a compromise.
Thus far the religious exemptions only apply to people that don’t like gay weddings and aren’t part of a civil rights bill.
Thus far, the people campaigning for these indecent exemptions want to get rid of what the Supreme Court has said about privacy, equal protection and due process.
posted by Jorge on
Maybe it’s because Republicans have spent the past 40 years doing everything in their power to destroy the lives of gay people?
You’re not a very good satirist.
You need to add a hook, a “come hither,” something that says the person you’re speaking to is special enough to share a secret with.
…oh, God, you’re serious!
Chad Felix Greene’s view, I think, is obtuse, born of living young, sheltered, in a safe blue haven. Living in a bubble, he simply cannot imagine that gays and lesbians don’t all enjoy the freedom, equality and social acceptance that he enjoys.
Young gays and lesbians in deep red areas of the county — rural areas in flyover country, anywhere in the red states outside of a few urban areas, and so on — would most likely express a different view of how much freedom, equality and social acceptance gays and lesbians enjoy.
As usual, I would say the exact same thing about gays in inner cities.
You are making the destination is destiny argument, and a very odd one. It is fundamentally illogical on several levels to argue that gay conservatives can only plausibly appear in liberal communities instead of conservative communities. 1) Then where would the socialization come from that made them conservative? 2) It ignores that “conservative” and “liberal” “communities” usually are politically diverse with a slant rather than binary one way or another. Why should gays break that pattern?
On another note, what evidence is there that gays are not free? Suicide, homicide, and mental illness. Nothing more.
The dead don’t talk, and the depressed don’t care.
And, in my opinion, so would sentient older gays and lesbians
Because LGB/Ts are vegetables and sunsets, too.
This is, if not a direct, intentional lie, absolute bullshit.
Yeah, no.
But I do wonder if it’s possible to be self-actualized and depressed at the same time.
Stop drinking the alt-right Kool-Aid, Stephen.
1) You know people are getting desperate when they call center-right conservatism (if that) alt-right Kool-Aid.
2) I can search for what your desperation is hiding and throw down. You want to freak out about being gay can get me fired or not hired and that is legal.
What that tells me is that you don’t have the confidence to argue that it really does happen. You just generalize your disagreement that gays are secure in our rights into a hypothetical concern about what could happen.
It is actually a rather direct rebuttal now that I think of it. Against statement “We are well because we know where we stand”, you say “We are not well because we do not know where we stand.” Or perhaps where we will stand. I think I have always found that difference of opinion irreconcilable here.
But it is not irreconcilable differences that need to be hidden. It is the possibility that the “wrong” story (certainty vs. uncertainty) can be spread and acted upon. Where there is no chance of compromise, victory and stalemate are the only acceptable environments.
Hot or cold?
posted by Jorge on
But I do grasp one thing many seem to miss. It’s why I’m a libertarian–and would remain one even if I joined the GOP. This is really all about power. It’s ALL that it’s about. It’s about power, and virtually nothing else.
Hmm, I wrote my post without reading this. I was looking at the other side of the aisle, but I guess I agree.
The politicians don’t care what they do to you. They have no principles. As long as enough people reward them by furthering their glorious little careers, they are going to go right on doing it.
Hmm.
Actually I really believe Chris Christie, Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, and others are personally honest and honorable patriots who are surrounded by crooks and schemers. But it is not an accident. It’s just that they also want power badly enough to employ people whose success depends on their bosses gaining and maintaining that power.
Now, take Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Ted Cruz and I would come closer to agreeing with you.
posted by Lori Heine on
“You are making the destination is destiny argument, and a very odd one. It is fundamentally illogical on several levels to argue that gay conservatives can only plausibly appear in liberal communities instead of conservative communities. 1) Then where would the socialization come from that made them conservative? 2) It ignores that ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ ‘communities’ usually are politically diverse with a slant rather than binary one way or another. Why should gays break that pattern?”
Jorge, thanks for putting into words the odd note that argument has always struck with me.
Most of the conservative LGBT folks I know tend to hang out with other conservative people. Likewise, most of those who are liberal associate with other liberals. Large numbers of conservative gays may spend all their time in blue-state enclaves on some planet other than ours, but it doesn’t appear to happen very often on this one.
Most of us are people, first, and LGBT only as one attribute of that. The people I know who are gay, gay, gay 24/7 are mostly tedious beings who cluster together with others who think just like them. They’re fun to read about in Ethan Mordden stories, but not so much in real life.
posted by Houndentenor on
Is that the norm, though? Most of the people I work with are straight. All my students so far as I know are straight. (It’s not a question I’d ask.) Yes, there are people who live in a gay bubble, at least for awhile, but they are a tiny percentage of gay people. Maybe you live somewhere that Republicans support gay rights but given how that plays out in national and most local politics, it seems that you are the one in a bubble. Or maybe they save the anti-gay talk until you leave the room.
posted by Lori Heine on
I know personally some of the local politicians. As did my dad before me. Of activists (on both sides) I know more. So I don’t need to rely on what I’m told by the media.
I vote the overall picture, rather than simply gay rights. Many of the things the left wants to do that would supposedly help gay rights, I don’t support because I don’t agree these things (A) would help us or (B) would even do more good than harm.
I guess not everyone uses the same calculus as everyone else in determining how to vote. My area is probably very different from yours, but in my rapidly-shifting-from-red-to-blue state, I have moved (first gradually, now more rapidly) in the opposite direction.
Is it because I don’t care about people outside of my “enclave?” I don’t live in an enclave. I like in Phoenix, not the Vatican.
posted by JohnInCA on
The people I know who are gay, gay, gay 24/7 are mostly tedious beings who cluster together with others who think just like them.
I don’t know about you, but being gay isn’t something I have any ability to (or interest in, for that matter) “turn off”. So gay 24/7? Yep, that’s me.
posted by Lori Heine on
So you’re a one-dimensional character, whose sexual orientation totally defines you. And you actually think that’s something to boast about.
Whatever, dude.
posted by Jorge on
JohnInCA’s no tramp. He’s merely expressing that he feel gay is beautiful freedom and individuality.
posted by JohnInCA on
Let me think… If I weren’t gay, my mother wouldn’t have driven off military recruiters when I graduated high school, and it’s quite possible that my father would have encouraged me to go into the Navy like he, his brother, and my uncle did. I might have dated a girl in high school, gotten her pregnant, and been stuck in an entirely different life-track.
If I weren’t gay, in college I wouldn’t have wound up in a circle of friend who, yes, were just about all queer (we had a few token straight girls that liked to hang out with us gay guys). Friends who I count as my best friends and who I’d gladly die for. Friends who include my now-husband. If I weren’t gay, I wouldn’t have moved in with my then-boyfriend now-husband, and gotten complacent with where things were and let college stretch out for seven years. It’s quite possible that, if I were straight, I would have tried to graduate sooner as the male/female ratio at my STEM school? Wasn’t favorable to straight dudes.
If I weren’t gay, when I did graduate I might not have been happy with a job in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere that took that male/female ratio and compounded it. And even if I had, I probably would have gone the way of most of the guys who were hired about the same time I did: bailed after a few years because they were lonely.
So does being gay define me? No. But I think it’s safe to say that if I were straight, the changes in my life wouldn’t be limited to who was in my bed. Hell, if I weren’t gay I probably wouldn’t no so much about the Bible, wouldn’t have studied religions from all over the world, wouldn’t care about feminism. And (you may consider this a benefit), if I weren’t gay, I probably wouldn’t be having this conversation with you because, like so many straight people, gay rights would be an after thought.
So I’m not sure what exactly you were trying to say with your “24/7 gay” comment. All the obvious answers aren’t very charitable to you. But frankly I think the thought that me, or anyone else, should turn off their “gayness” or “straightness” or anything else? Is horrid. We are who we are, and me? I’m a gay 30-something computer scientist who works in military RDT&E who is cheerfully married to my husband of 2 years and companion of 11. And at no part of the day does any of that “turn off”. I don’t stop being gay when I’m at work, I don’t stop being a scientist when I’m in bed, I don’t stop being a weapons researcher when I’m at the grocery store. My identity, and who I am, is more holistic then that.
And if that makes me one-dimensional character? Then so be it. But it’s one awesome dimension.
posted by Lori Heine on
John in Cali, I’m heartwarmed that loads of marvelous things have happened to you because you’re gay. It gladdens my inner Tinkerbell to hear it.
They have to me, too, because I’ve enjoyed friendships with people who accepted me for who I really am, I’ve been able to live the truth instead of a lie, and all the other reasons that matter to most of us.
It doesn’t change the fact that a political election deals with complex issues and decisions, affecting every area of everyone’s life. To vote on the basis of a single issue–no matter how influential that one issue has been to you or I–is irresponsible.
I don’t care about changing your mind at this stage, because thanks to your sort of thinking the country is too far gone for that. But as the ship goes down, I’ll be one of those trying to help as many as possible get to the lifeboats.
posted by JohnInCA on
Um, no.
What you said, and I responded to, was your suggestion that it was a deficiency to be “24/7 gay”. That has nothing, zero, zilch to do with being a single-issue voter, and there is nothing in your original post (that I responded to) to indicate that is what you meant.
“[…] because thanks to your sort of thinking the country is too far gone for that.”
Seeing as I voted for Johnson (twice now. 2012 and 2016), what does that make you?
posted by Lori Heine on
I just got another political sales call from a chirpy, breathless young thing asking if I plan on voting. I told her I already had. She asked if I voted for Kate Brophy McGee, an Arizona politician with whose aunt I happen to be friends.
I said no, because the candidate’s campaign is making robocalls touting an endorsement from Cathi Herrod, a particularly vile anti-gay social conservative. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. I don’t vote for you, and I make sure your campaign knows why.
That’s how it’s done. Not by making broad generalizations about other people (especially in areas in which one does not live). Does it make me, in the opinion of the commenters here, red, blue, clueless or in the know?
I don’t intend to worry about it.
posted by JohnInCA on
“And they’ll never see the irony of declaring themselves champions of diversity and enemies of intolerance.”
A catching affliction.
posted by TJ on
You don’t t have to be a “24-7 gay”(is that like a 7-11 gay..haha) to care about equal rights.
If you want to argue that you care more about “x”, then equality….you are free to make the case.
Just as people are free to make a different argument.
posted by Jorge on
You don’t t have to be a “24-7 gay”(is that like a 7-11 gay..haha) to care about equal rights.
You also don’t have to be a fair weather gay to not give a crap about equal rights.
If you want to argue that you care more about “x”, then equality….you are free to make the case.
Hey! >:(
posted by Tom Scharbach on
You are making the destination is destiny argument, and a very odd one.
I am making no such argument. I am making two observations in response to Chad Felix Greene’s article:
(1) Gays and lesbians living in communities in which gays and lesbians are not “accepted”, and are more likely to be subjected to scorn and abuse, almost would certainly dispute the idea that all gays and lesbians, including specifically themselves, enjoy “the freedom, equality and social acceptance” that Green apparently enjoys. In many areas of the country, gays and lesbians do not enjoy any appreciable level of “freedom, equality and social acceptance”.
(2) Greene’s assertion that gays and lesbians “currently have full and complete civil and legal rights in our country” is objectively, demonstrably false.
It is fundamentally illogical on several levels to argue that gay conservatives can only plausibly appear in liberal communities instead of conservative communities.
That may or may not be true, but no one has made that argument.
posted by JamesinChicago on
I’m no knee-jerk liberal, but this is ridiculous and you’re off to a bad start, when you sound like a right-wing evangelical Christian propagandist making up a lie about wedding cakes. All the gay couples in this country, who were refused wedding cakes, had requested ordinary wedding cakes, not cakes that said anything at all. Free speech was not involved in their cases, but, as so often is the case, there was an instance of an anti-gay Christian bigot doing exactly what they accuse gays of: an evangelical pastor in Colorado who went to court after a baker refused to make him a cake that expressed in words his condemnation of gay people. As for nothing for us gays to complain about, well, it remains perfectly legal to be denied services on the basis of sexual/romantic orientation in a majority of states and also legal to be descrimimated against on this basis in housing and employment. (Get martied one day and risk being fired the next with absolutely no legal recourse). And as for political parties, how about taking a look at the Republican party’s platform as written this past summer? As bigoted as ever where gay Americans are concerned, but at least the Christian right was beaten back in one regard – they didn’t get their support of ex-gay conversion therapy in it.
posted by Lori Heine on
“Seeing as I voted for Johnson (twice now. 2012 and 2016), what does that make you?”
It makes me want to dance and toss glitter. Does that make you happy?
I’m bisexual 24/7 because that’s simply part of who I am. There’s nothing remarkable about it, pertaining to the subject of this post and thread, which is (as always lately) the political situation in this country. If I was under the impression that you were referring to how you choose to vote, I suppose that’s the very-understandable way I arrived at it.
posted by JohnInCA on
“It makes me want to dance and toss glitter.”
Actually, that would make me happy. People need to dance more, get up and feel the rhythm of their bodies and just move. If more people danced, we’d be in a happier world.
Not the glitter though. Glitter is just the devil’s confetti.
“I’m bisexual 24/7 because that’s simply part of who I am.”
But folks that are gay 24/7 are tedious and dull? Gee, what a peach you are.
posted by Lori Heine on
Yes, John, I am a peach. And you are distorting my point. They are not tedious or dull because of their sexual orientation. It is their political orientation that makes them tedious and dull.
I will, however, do a little Snoopy dance just for you. Be grateful that no visuals are included in this message.
posted by JohnInCA on
“And you are distorting my point.”
…
“The people I know who are gay, gay, gay 24/7 are mostly tedious beings who cluster together with others who think just like them. They’re fun to read about in Ethan Mordden stories, but not so much in real life.”
“So you’re a one-dimensional character, whose sexual orientation totally defines you.”
“[for you] To vote on the basis of a single issue […] is irresponsible.”
“[…] thanks to your sort of thinking the country is too far gone […]”
“I’m bisexual 24/7 because that’s simply part of who I am”
“They are not tedious or dull because of their sexual orientation. It is their political orientation that makes them tedious and dull.”
If your “point” was that you conflate “gay 24/7” with one-dimensional single-issue voters? That got through crystal clear. And if that wasn’t your point? Well, maybe if you’d thrown fewer personal attacks, it wouldn’t be so hard to find.
posted by Lori Heine on
Whoa! Okay, Hilda.
To review: your snark is just good clean fun, but mine is always a “personal attack.”
One standard for me, but another for thee. Got it.
I will proceed in that awareness.
posted by JohnInCA on
So just to be clear… you’ve gone from calling folks that are gay 24/7 tedious, to insisting you meant single-issue voters, to insisting you meant their political orientation, to insisting it was all a gag.
I’d ask just how stupid you think I am, but you already blamed me† for ruining the country, so I guess I already know the answer to that question.
________
†To be fair, you said “thanks to your sort of thinking”, but still. We know your opinion of (what you think is) my thinking.
posted by Houndentenor on
Ugh, this tired old meme. It’s one gay conservatives use to feel better about throwing other gay people under the bus so they can get a tax cut. I am always gay. I’m lots of other things as well. I’m a moderate Democrat which is why I voted for Clinton, not Sanders, in the primary. The entire Republican field was a race to see who could be more extreme on a whole host of issues. They rallied around the most racist candidate to run for president since George Wallace. That’s disgusting to anyone paying attention.
posted by Lori Heine on
Moderates have more than one option open to them, and it doesn’t hurt to understand that.
They can vote one way all the time, and hold their noses when necessary. Or they can choose the side that they most agree with, and work to change whatever they don’t like about it. Again, holding their noses when necessary.
In some locales, this will be more of a challenge (and perhaps a lot more frustrating) than others. You happen to live in a place where you could probably toil for a hundred years and see little progress. So you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
I am fortunate enough to live in what is basically becoming a purple state. This gives me the opportunity to work for change, because it could all go in either direction.
I NEVER vote for anti-gay candidates. Never. And I am very outspoken with anyone who asks about why I don’t. I owe that much to “the community.” I do not owe them more.
posted by Lori Heine on
“So just to be clear… you’ve gone from calling folks that are gay 24/7 tedious, to insisting you meant single-issue voters, to insisting you meant their political orientation, to insisting it was all a gag.”
You really ought to work in the lamestream media. You do a great job of scrambling up what people say.
(A) I never said that people who are gay 24/7 are tedious. Everyone who’s gay is gay 24/7, so I would have been calling everybody tedious. Makes no sense.
(B) Single-issue voters are indeed tedious, and that’s what I was saying all along.
(C) Saying that I was referring to their political orientation is the same as Item B, so there’s no contradiction between the two.
(D) What I did say, I meant, so I make no claim that it was “all a gag.”
This is not medieval Japan. You do not need to save face. You won’t die unless you manage to accomplish that. This election is turning Americans into five-year-olds. I’m not interested in your funny little flame-war, so stop it.
I said what I said, and not what I didn’t. You said what you said, and not what you didn’t. I permitted you to clarify your view. Kindly stop obfuscating mine.
posted by Jorge on
I am making no such argument. I am making two observations in response to Chad Felix Greene’s article:
(1) Gays and lesbians living in communities in which gays and lesbians are not “accepted”, and are more likely to be subjected to scorn and abuse, almost would certainly dispute the idea that all gays and lesbians, including specifically themselves, enjoy “the freedom, equality and social acceptance” that Green apparently enjoys. In many areas of the country, gays and lesbians do not enjoy any appreciable level of “freedom, equality and social acceptance”.
The very idea that there is a competition or comparison over how “accepting” an environment is toward LGBTs is an obvious and easy idea to endorse, given the wide range of experiences.
That it is based on different parts of the country is a false one that ignores the range of truly horrific experiences that happen regularly in so-called “blue” enclaves. That it ignores the occurrence of self-actualization in so-called “red” enclaves is also true.
I stand by my statement.
(2) Greene’s assertion that gays and lesbians “currently have full and complete civil and legal rights in our country” is objectively, demonstrably false.
I think you are overreaching here. It depends entirely on how you define civil rights.
One example will suffice: we have the right to work.
(Except in liberal, union-controlled states.)
I doubt there’s a single state that allows agency-shop contracts that doesn’t have workplace discrimination laws protecting gays.
(Transgendered people?)
Even New York didn’t have that until very recently.
To get back to your statement, in right to work states, gay individuals can choose under what circumstances they will work, and employers can choose under what circumstances gay employees will work. Gays can choose not to work for employers who have a history of firing gay employees. A group of individuals can even blacklist such employers through strikes and picket lines. In this respect, they have full civil rights.
Whether workers have equal power to employers, and whether that is even relevant, is something that is sharply disagreed upon depending on your political beliefs.
Now, In the LCR’s case as highlighted, in rating their lowest state, Georgia, they have included the following categories that you implicitly define as civil and legal rights:
1) The ability to have family leave at work
–Sorry, that’s a privilege, not a right. You want family leave, get a better job.
2) The ability to adopt a child or have a child in foster care.
–Ditto. That’s not even a close question.
3) The right to work.
–On this I have come to a rather nihilistic conclusion.
4) The right to be provided customer service in a store of your choice.
–That’s a privilege, not a right.
And so on.
Here is the crux of the matter: a civil right necessarily involves the ability to do something that is central to functioning adequately and having a full range of choices. A legal right involves a protection against an abuse that can disrupt adequate functioning and choice.
That functioning and range of choices is subjective. It cannot just be measured. It must be categorized, the magnitude of their effects weighed. Things that one generation went “yeah, whatever on” take on greater importance in new generations. Thus our living Constitution. The reverse is also true.
I am aware that you have a very strong equal rights argument here.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I am aware that you have a very strong equal rights argument here.
Of course. And the equal rights argument is the crux of the matter.
It is logically impossible to make the argument that gays and lesbians “currently have full and complete civil and legal rights in our country” if straight citizens enjoy civil and legal rights that are denied gays and lesbians.
You’ve worked hard to deny that reality by asserting that the many legal rights denied to gays and lesbians are “civil rights” (albeit in contradiction of a long line of Supreme Court cases defining those legal rights as civil rights in many cases), but at the end of the road, you are stuck with the fact that gays and lesbians do not, in many/most states, enjoy the same legal rights as do straights.
So long as that is the case, the statement that gays and lesbians “currently have full and complete civil and legal rights in our country” is objectively, demonstrably false.