gay thursday: coming out

@Joshua:
If you found my post insulting, why not tell me what you were insulted by? If I indeed made false assumptions about you, why not correct them? I am well aware that all of us make assumptions about people we talk to everyday, it’s pretty much impossible to carry out a conversation otherwise. And chances are they aren’t all going to be correct. The reasonable response to an incorrect assumption is to correct it rather than just saying that my assumptions are false with no actual indication of an assumption you think I made which is false. If I said something untrue or based on a misguided assumption of you, I’d be happy to apologize, but you’re going to have to correct me first.

The main difference in my assumptions and yours, and my insults and yours are this: I made assumptions based on what you said and responded to what you said (admittedly in what may be perceived as an insulting manner in places). You on the other hand made assumptions about a whole group of people (of which you are presumably on the outside no less) and tossed out insults directed at a whole group of people. To put it in perspective, this is like the difference in getting upset with a black person and calling them a jerk for the things they said versus saying that all black people are jerks. These are not two sides of the same coin. One is a reaction to a specific person; the other is racism pure and simple.

In similar manner, reacting to a particular gay person with contempt or anger or even hate is not the same as lumping all gay people together and showing contempt or anger or even hate towards them. One is a reaction to a specific person; the other is bigotry pure and simple. Which brings me to this statement of yours: “I have every justification to hate gay people.” This is simply not possible and a bigoted view regardless of whether or not you carry through with the hatred that you feel to be justified. No, I don’t know your story, but I don’t need to know your story to know that feeling that hatred of an entire people group can ever be justified is wrong. Maybe you’ve had some really bad encounters with some gay people, maybe even with every gay person you’ve ever actually met, but that can still not provide justification for hating all gay people. That would still be bigotry and bigotry is never justifiable. Your limited experiences can never justify bigotry. Similarly, if you had bad experiences with some black people, maybe even every black person you’ve ever met, that would still not provided justification for hating all black people. That would still be racism and racism is never justifiable. And just in case you are one of those people (based on your previous post if I were to make an assumption I would guess you are) that denies all scientific evidence that suggests that sexual orientation is innate and you believe rather that it is a choice we make, let me give you an example of how it still would not be justifiable to hate everyone in a group based on something that isn’t innate. I think you’ll be able to relate to this one. Having bad experiences with some Christians, maybe even every Christian you’ve ever met, would not provide justification for hating all Christians. That would still be bigotry and bigotry is never justifiable.

To your repeating of the so-called health dangers of homosexual activity, may I just say that your own response to Marcie shows that you actually know the difference, but continue to insist otherwise. You said, “Those things are not so different suffered by promiscuous heterosexual counterparts who engage in similar behavior, which is part of the point”, yet you fail to get the whole point. Nobody is disputing that promiscuous sexual activity, gay or straight, is risky for one’s health and well-being. What is being disputed is your unfounded insistence that “homosexual activity” carries its own risk (presumably for some arbitrary reason of being “abnormal”) aside from promiscuity which does not discriminate between gay and straight. Of course, this is where the only thing you can cite are statistics about higher levels of promiscuity, drug use, depression and so forth amongst gay people. Perhaps you simply misunderstand what statistics say and don’t say. Statistics talk about trends and averages and say absolutely nothing about causal relationships. And they certainly don’t say anything about a specific person who shares one characteristic of a studied group but not others (for example, the life-expectancy of a non-promiscuous, non-drug-using, non-depressed gay person). Properly used, they are an excellent tool to identify troublesome trends and a jumping off point to then further explore the causes behind those trends so that solutions can be found. Misused (such as by groups like the one you linked to) they are a malicious tool to attach false causes to in order to support bigotry, racism and the like. Properly used, statistics about higher levels of promiscuity, drug abuse, depression and such amongst gay people lead groups to ask why this is so that we can begin to reverse such troubling threads. As one example, the much higher rate of suicide amongst gay teenagers has been linked to the stigmatization and bullying that they often face. This leads to things like anti-bullying initiatives in an attempt to stem the tide. Sadly, these initiatives are fought tooth and nail by anti-gay groups (sadly pretty much all of which identify as Christian) who want to claim (against all evidence) that being gay makes you more likely to commit suicide not anything that you suffer as a result of being gay, just some arbitrary offense against God thing. It’s utterly ridiculous, but they have statistics to prove that gay teenagers are more likely to commit suicide than straight teenagers therefore being gay must make you more likely to commit suicide, no further examination of causes is necessary as this supports their bigoted view of the world. Just like for racists, statistics that show a higher incident of violent crime amongst black people justifies their racism instead of causing them to look at what has been done by society to black people that has led to the circumstances they are currently in.

Finally, as for your link. The American College of Pediatricians, is an organization that was set up with only two purposes. Fight the so-called “gay agenda” and fight abortion. They are not considered an authority on anything by anyone outside of those who use their junk science to back up their own views. They are not to be confused with the American Academy of Pediatrics which is the pediatric counterpart to the American Medical Association, both of which are considered authorities in their respective fields and neither of which supports anti-gay bigotry. Putting an official sounding name on an bigoted activist organization does not an authority make.

Cindy. Thank you, a million thank yous, for your well written response to Joshua.

I was near to tears reading your wonderful defense of gay people and your being able to set the record straight about the link he posted too.

Unfortunately there are many people who are bigoted; hopefully people such as yourself, Cindy, will continue to speak out against the lies they continue to peddle. x