Text 9610, 100 rader
Skriven 2006-12-28 21:17:54 av Josh Hill (13027.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: My Presidential Pick for 2006
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On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:07:01 GMT, "Vorlonagent"
<nojtspam@otfresno.com> wrote:

>
>Not me.
>
>When your kids are old enough to have sexualities, probably not them either.
>:)
>
>Not most americans, I think.  Europe may be different, I dunno.
>
>My group of friends circa 15 years ago had two of that group fall in love.
>They were all over each other constantly whether in private or in public.
>As it happens, the relationship was heterosexual, but it was vulgur as hell
>and no other combination of genders would have made it any less-so.  They
>have a first amendment right to act like lust-crazed idiots in a public
>place, but that doesn't mean I have to *like* seeing it.  Nor does their
>right to act in a given way demand that I *must* censor myself from
>expressing my DISlike.  Same thing with the sexual devience expressed in
>your average gay pride parade.  I don't have to be prejudiced against gays
>for the expressed sexual devience in the parade to repel me.
>
>This is why I bring the point up.  If "gay" to me is summed up by the 
>devience displayed in Gay Pride parades and in-your-face activists, I'm not 
>likley to invite someone like that home for tea.  Mix it with any kind of 
>religious opposition, I'm likely to be rather closed to accepting gays into 
>my world.
>
>If gayness were repackaged more according to its true face, I think gays
>would be better off.  Gays are the guy in the cubicle next to yours, the
>postman (woman)...they're just people like everyone else.  It's gays 
>themselves that have made sexuality and sexual devience a core part of their 
>public persona.  It never needed to be that way and doesn't need to be that 
>way now.  The activist-presentation of gays seems to say that the US must to 
>embrace the full spectrum of sexual devience to embrace gays.  (more 
>correctly, the US must embrace gays and every sexual devience they display 
>with complete tolerance)  Most people can't make that leap.  Thus they 
>reject the devience and gays with it.  Gays are the poorer for it.

While in general I credit your acceptance of homosexuality, I find
your use of the word "deviance" here chilling, implying as it does
that sexual behaviors that are a bit off the beaten path -- or, not
infrequently, common but not publicly acknowledged -- are morally
suspect or indicative of turpitude or some kind of "disorder."

You said earlier that you believe that government should restrict its
lawmaking to acts that have an effect on others. For the most part, I
agree. And insofar as a sexual act neither harms nor society nor the
individual, e.g., doesn't involve a minor or someone unable to give
informed consent, it seems to me that it isn't our business to
suppress it.

Note that I'm not saying that you shouldn't feel personal distaste for
such behaviors. That distaste is part of our psychological makeup, an
expression of the reaction formation. It's perfectly normal.

But those who express this "deviant" behavior -- dressing as the
opposite sex, engaging in sadomasochistic play, whatever -- are
fighting for the same rights as gays in general, and I don't believe
that we should deny those rights or condemn those who seek them, some
of whom are among the most sorely oppressed people in the country.

Sadly, there has historically been a certain amount of discrimination
even within the gay community, a reluctance on the part of some
"mainstream" gays to for example embrace the cause of transgendered
people. In part, that's because gay people may react with the same
distaste to departures from the "norm" that straight people do. In
part it's been a matter of necessity -- for example, according to the
Ric Burns Andy Warhol documentary that aired a few months ago,
Warhol's overtures were rejected by Rauschenberg and IIRC Rothko
because they were afraid that association with someone flamboyantly
gay would compromise the secret of their own homosexuality.

But in the end, it's all the same battle, and all of its participants
deserve -- insofar as their behavior is not social harmful -- equal
treatment and support. This is true even though gays are still
routinely subject to stereotyping of the sort that ignorantly ascribes
to the quiet majority to which you refer characteristics such as
flamboyance, effeminacy, or pederasty.

Whether as a tactical and political matter that means that lesbians
should parade bare-chested, well, I'll leave my personal and highly
suspect approval aside and say that I don't know, but that it seems to
me that much of the ongoing success of the campaign for gay and
lesbian equality has been a consequence of rubbing people's noses in
the fact that this sexuality exists among our sons and daughters and
neighbors and co-workers, and not infrequently, to varying extents,
within ourselves. So while I'm not sure precisely where the line
should be drawn, I do believe that a certain amount of social
discomfort is necessary to progress, a certain amount of display.

-- 
Josh

[Truly] I say to you, [...] angel [...] power will be able to see that [...]
these to whom [...] holy generations [...]. After Jesus said this, he departed.

- The Gospel of Judas
--- SBBSecho 2.11-Win32
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