Osama and the US govt have been in quiet communication for decades as the US makes laws and actions to appease the organization for which he is merely a mouthpiece. His recent aggressions (past few years) and villification have been intended to allow for more radical movement within the US gov't towards that goal, such as the Patriot act and other quiet bills.
He sure looks in love with his AK... even smiling :)
He must be thinking....
This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will …
My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit….
My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will ….
Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!!
Hitler was a vegetarian. If you're a vegetarian, you 'share principles' with Hitler. So don't be a vegetarian or you're supporting Hitler.
Uh, nope! Sorry, that's a very poor analogy. See, read the whole thing. The point is that the religious right wants many of the same things the muslim extremists want, both as a core value in their set of principles. A better analogy, if you're intent on making one, is that the KKK hate blacks, and if you hate blacks too, you 'share principles' with the KKK. This poster series points that out, since most people would be horrified to think they have core ideologies in common with OBL.
Here's a better one, and hopefully one that will get a rise out of you:
GEORGE BUSH WANTS YOU TO OPPOSE OSAMA BIN LADEN ... Do you really want to identify with the principles of President Bush?
Well, you won't get a rise from me on this one. Why? Because on this point I agree with Bush. You'd have to be a whacko not to. Though I dislike Bush in general, he's not a "cartoon character" like OBL is.
Look, we are in the 'hearts and minds' phase of gay rights.
Exactly. Though if you think that means we're past the point where people violently oppose our very existence or that they're no longer willing to do everything in their power to get rid of us, you are sadly delusional; the cultural battle hasn't crested, it's only warming up.
Casting ... assertions like this and trying to paint our opponents as sharing values with terrorists DOES NOT HELP OUR CAUSE AT ALL.
Simply put? I disagree entirely. So you go off and do whatever it is you think will advance gay rights (if you in fact intend to help at all), and I'll do what I see fit.
Lets get the stereotypes out of the way first, before the words fly. I am a white, southern, republican, christian, het, gun owning male american citizen
I vote a mixed ticket, I am FOR civil unions, NOT marriages, personal religious reasons, I am FOR EQUAL rights, no special treatment. As far as I am concerned, marriage is for the churches to decide, civil unions and marriages should be equal in the eyes of the law, at that point its between you and your church.
I am pro war
As the stereotypical person I am, I would, while amused by the poster, be more likely to laugh at it, or tear it down, than be deeply moved by it. Tearing it down would, in my mind, be damage control. The fewer of these out in public, the less backlash. All we need is a public outcry against the gay community, or more politicizing of a personal choice issue.
Feel free to flame me, debate me, post sources for your arguments, etc. An argument similar to the ones you posted:
Gay men like other males Members of NAMBLA like other males Many male/male pedophiles are NAMBLA members Therefor, gay men share values with many pedophiles
While untrue in general, this is a case of a subset being used to target the whole of a group.
You LOSE more support than you gain when using confrontational education
For every person who looks at a poster like this and is moved to look deeper into the subject, regardless of whether they end up, after research, supporting you, you will have several more who either a: supported you, or b: were undecided, who become polarized and come down against you.
Okay, first, anyone who would "become" polarized by it is probably already polarized in the wrong direction.
Second, using rational arguments and reasoning and appealing to peoples' better nature has obviously not been working; they're furious that sodomy is legal, they're about to push through an amendment making marriage and civil unions and all the rest illegal, they're successfully passing similar legislation in state after state, and they're now setting their targets on gay adoption and everything else.
Being nice isn't working. It's time to get confrontational. It's time to start using emotional manipulation. Because that's EXACTLY what the clergy have been doing since day one; every time someone starts to soften on their stance, the clergy threaten them with HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE and insist that GOD WANTS IT THIS WAY.
Enough's enough. The gloves are off. I'm sorry if that unsettles you.
[H]as there been a rash of Matthew Shephards in the last few weeks or years? No.
So, you don't think there's anything wrong until people are stringing you up to a fence?
Has there been this massive popular outcry against the repeal of sodomy laws? No.
Yes. There's a vast number of people outraged about it. Hell, during the Alito hearings, a republican senator decried sodomy's legality.
as there been any progress or even a half-hearted attempt towards passing a gay marriage amendment in the past year? No.
Yes. Just because it didn't happen this year doesn't mean they arent marshalling their resources. And they are, believe me.
I cannot fathom how you can possibly claim what we've been doing isn't working...
It's only worked this far because for a long time the religious right was asleep at the pulpit. They're not making that mistake anymore. They've extended their claws and they are NOT playing nice anymore. And we better not make the mistake to either.
...He's a very renowned member of the furry community...
Wow! I'm in awe! A REKNOWNED FURRY! Er, you mean an absolute nobody that thinks a lot of himself, right? Thought so.
"Go ahead and tell him that you know someone who's gay and yet, thanks to this stunt, now will vote against any gay-marriage proposal, because he thinks we're not emotionally mature enough yet. "
Okay, that's a laughable crock of hyperbole and you know it. So does your 'celebrity' friend.
Congratulations. You're so consumed with hate you've become exactly what you claim you're fighting: A narrow-minded, intolerant zealot who is completely unable to see the big picture or that his tactics are completely counterproductive.
Frankly, I think you're just terrified that I'm involving Americans' distaste for a specific Arabic person, thinking that maybe it will spill over on the rest of you. If that happens, it's not because of this. This isn't the tiniest drop in the bucket compared to the pool of animosity out there.
Meanwhile, what are YOU PERSONALLY, mister righteous, doing to promote the cause of gay rights? This is your chance to bowl me over with a litany of stunning personal successes against gay oppression.
I've been on the front lines for years. I contribute thousands a year to gay causes from AIDS to the ACLU to HRC to the Lambda Legal fund. I volunteer on a number of gay services and politics groups. My husband and I run the region's largest gay services website. I've BEEN there, buddy. And I'm here to tell you that unless we step up the flames, we are going to lose.
So, you don't think that the fact that gay-bashing is a lot rarer and far less acceptable than it used to be doesn't mean things haven't been going right and that times attitudes aren't changing the better? You don't think that the fact that I could go to a gay nightclub here in the south without worry isn't an example of how much more tolerant we've become as a nation towards gays, especially in the past few years?
I think it's excellent progress. Why, it's almost at about the same pace that they move towards acceptance of gays in some of the Islamic states. Those we haven't bombed yet, mind you.
Has there been any progress or even a half-hearted attempt towards passing a gay marriage amendment in the past year? No.
Yes. Just because it didn't happen this year doesn't mean they arent marshalling their resources. And they are, believe me.
[smirks] So you say yes, and then you admit it's actually no? Gee, no contradication there.
The top line is yours. I think it would help if you put quotes from the previous post in italics or something.
Ah! So you admit what we've been doing HAS worked! So once again, where do you get off claming that it wasn't? And why would it suddenly *stop* working now, even with the religious right in gear?
Not saying it's not working, it's just moving too slow. There's still medieval conditions here. Or, at the very least a couple centuries old from the time when people generally thought that gayness could be cured. They sorta gave up on the scientific treatment, but they're still clinging to the spiritual one.
They don't play nice and they start demonizing their opposition, they'll turn more people off than they'll attract--just like you. Don't make that mistake and don't stoop to their level.
If there was a way to have an educated and serious debate about this, I'm sure there would be. But that's just not how you reach everyone. I think it would be great for gay people to see the poster so they could bring up the subject in their own circles in a tasteful manner that suits their social relations.
[shrugs] Oh, nobody much... he just authored a certain 8-issue comic you've almost certainly read. ... He honestly doesn't think the fur or gay communities are mature enough right now to be part of mainstream society.
Y'know for what it's worth, I'm not sure citing the agreement of lance 'frigging' rund helps your case any. For someone who's "left the fandom," like so many, he still seems to be pretty ubiquitous. While his comics were cute, they're about puddle deep-- certainly not the hard-hitting and soulful stuff you see in modern works like "Circles." In fact by comparison they're basically just wankfodder. As such, he's exactly like the other 99.3% of the fandom's artists, and hardly qualified to determine that furries/gays aren't "mature." Why you idolize such a cock-knocker is beyond me. But! Whatever floats your boat.
...[crack-pot celebrity friend] honestly doesn't think the fur or gay communities are mature enough right now to be part of mainstream society.
Good for him. He can join the other bible-thumpers, the rest of the 3rd world countries and fundamentalist theocracies in the world. He can come back to reality when he's mature enough to live in a mature society, and when he's willing to stand up for his principles even when (god forbid) there are people on his own side of the argument who don't think and act the same way he does.
He dropped out of the furdom a while back because he couldn't stand the groupthink and lack of ideological diversity.
There's a chat room for everyone, y'know.
Of course, I'm not so stupid to think I'm going to change your mind. My responses are more for the benefit of others who might be following this.
I'm pleased to find you have no illusions of your role in this debate. I've been through this discussion before countless times and I've changed my opinion and my knowledge on many aspects of it countless times.
Let me tell you something. Respect is a two-way street. So is acceptance. So is tolerance.
A shame that religion is not. See previous posts on dogma.
You don't offer any of those things to people; you just try to bully them, shame them, guilt them, force them to accept you.
You mean in the same way that the religious people try to bully gays, shame them, guilt them, force them to accept salvation? You're absolutely right. Despicable methods. There oughta be a law.
I engage people in discussions and come across as a thoughtful, intelligent person they can relate to and not a freak who tries to get in their face and bully them into accepting him.
I don't think anyone with half a brain would 'bully' someone into accepting them. This of course discounts most of the participants of those pride parades.
I don't lump [people] together just because they're Christian or anything else--I see them as people capable of independent thought, viewpoint and decision making and don't insult them or their faith with cheap theatrics and smear tactics.
this poster all-too-clearly represents the mainstream of gay furry thought, as you're so effectively illustrating. Like way too many others in this community, you subscribe to groupthink and make no effort to comprehend any opinions or viewpoints other than your own. You attack and demonize those who do not agree with you, no matter what the source, and betray your own form of intolerance and bigotry by doing so--one little different than the far-right Christians who oppose us.
Right. Okay. No smearing. Mutual respect all the way through. Gotcha.
Above all else, I offer respect and friendship, and end up getting it return--I win hearts and minds over one person at a time.
I have to agree with triggur, total greeting card material. But a noble cause, nonetheless. You see, the only problem is that if such a conversation, excluding friendship and all that lasts an average of, say, 3 hours (that's a pretty good conversation, you can cover the bases in 3 hours, I think), and there's about 218,000,000 Christians in the US, we'll be nice, you only have to talk to a quarter of those, then with three conversations per day every day it would take you about 50,000 years to 'win the hearts and minds over one person at a time'. And most of us would like to see this debate settled a year or two before that, so I'm sure you understand that we try to resort to other measures.
Now then... what are you PERSONALLY, mister righteous, doing to promote the causes of human rights (OTHER than gay rights, which is way down on the list of human rights in terms of overall importance), democracy and freedom worldwide? What have you done to help Iraqis, Afghans, Lebanese or for that matter, gay people in the very intolerant Islamic world?
Good point, but I think that even with the poor education and zealous religion in that region, the people are still going to be able to see through the transparent hypocrisy of preaching human rights in foreign countries while suppressing them at home. The arguments of "treat your gay people with respect" and "don't torture prisoners" kinda falls to floor pretty quick when you're caught doing the exact same thing.
What have you done to support your troops overseas?
Trying to stop the war that was based on lies and deception, and executed in such a poor manner that it would have made colonel Custer blush. Going on TV and stating repeatedly that we're winning, doesn't make it so. This kind of faith-based warfare just isn't working. Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Give a man religion, and he'll starve to death praying for a fish
what have you done to the help the victims of natural disasters such as the 2004 Asian tsunami or Hurricane Katrina?
But in 'stepping up the flames', you're making things worse with your own brand of hate and intolerance. When you condemn people just because of their faith or beliefs, that is no less bigotry then a religious fanatic automatically condemning someone because they're gay.
Isn't it very inefficient to try to talk down a guy swinging a hammer instead of just smacking him back so he stops hurting people? I don't recall a lot of the states being very thrilled that black people were suddenly legally humans too, you don't need the 'hearts and minds' of all the people, what you need is reason. And that seems to be in short supply in a country with an education system that is the laughing stock of every civilized country. The black people fought long and hard for their right to be members of society, and their right to marry whomever they wanted and hopefully they've made that struggle a little easier for the minorities that will follow.
A closed-minded, intolerant zealot who is completely incapable of listening to or comprehending viewpoints other than your own.
Only a closed-minded, intolerant person would judge others by one stinking poster they've created. This is not the embodiment of every argument and every viewpoint of the religious debate.
It's.. a.. freakin'.. poster..
And I'm sad that it takes an argument from the absolute extreme opposite point of view to even get a rise out of anyone. I would have liked a poster that wasn't quite as extreme too. But why aren't Christians busy putting up posters, condemming religious persecution of gay people? If it's so Christian mainstream to be okay with gays as you claim it is, why aren't those mainstream Christians a bit more active in this debate? Why are the only people you hear about in the media those that stand on a soapbox and preach fire and brimstone against these ungodly sinners? Why can courts time and time again rule banning of gay marriage unconstitutional and still nothing happens in the legislation?
I'm assuming that when you say 'mainstream Christians' you mean the majority? If you can so blatantly trample on a minority without a public outcry, then what can't you do?
If the mainstream Christians that you think really did exist, then every single one of them ought to look at that poster and go "They're right! Those radical fundamental Christians are smearing our faith! Those people preaching intolerance and hate against a minority every chance they have and get their faces on national TV for doing it, are just as religiously extreme as the terrorists we're supposed to be fighting!"
The bible condones slavery, dominionism and does so without ambiguity and several times. The religious right can find only two stinking quotes in Leviticus that condem gay people. And both only mention male gays. I don't know why lesbians are included in this debate at all, it doesn't mention those in the bible. Funny how Leviticus 25:44-46 aren't part of mainstream Christianity anymore. You know, the places where it says you should keep male and female slaves, that you can buy the children of strangers, and that the slaves should treat their master as god, regardless of how cruel he is. If that's not picking and choosing, I don't know what is.
Apart from that, Leviticus is in the Old Testament, Jesus died so that all that crap would go away.
It shouldn't even be part of mainstream Christianity, because.. it's not mainstream Christianity! If you believe in Jesus being the son of god, you don't believe in gays being evil. The bible says that in no ambiguous terms. It even says it in several places. John refers to it in John 1:29 at his arrival when Jesus is introduced as the Lamb of God, and it is detailed much further and explained here if you're interested.
Even Jesus says you are not allowed to divorce or remarry. Try telling that to the modern world. (Then again, it does say that adultery is the only valid reason for divorce, so I guess it's all legitimate)
You've now so steeped in the gay/liberal culture and consumed by your holy crusade that now believe your own propaganda, reflexively demonize anyone who doesn't agree with you and believe that any means are justified--you can't see the ridiculously obvious consequences and contradictions of your actions.
Holy crusade? I think you have your sides crossed here. The gays are the unholy ones, remember? I don't think triggur and others are reflexively demonizing everyone, I think they've all just heard the other side's arguments so many times and they're still waiting for that one non-religious argument, which doesn't exist. There are no reasons to hate gay people other than religious reasons, and I think a lot of gay people are unhappy with their religion because they want to be part of it and they want to be part of society.
Organizations like the Family Research Council and other hate-groups have been successful in getting corporations to stop advertizing in gay magazines through the threat of boycott. Latest example was when the American Family Association got their clammy claws dug into Ford
We've come a damn long way in the past five-fifteen years in getting people to accept us, and we did not do it by trying to accuse people of being terrorists or religious nuts and telling them they sided with terrorists for opposing gay marriage or were no different than terrorists because they were religious.
Maybe that's why the movement doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. The religious far-right use the terrorist rhetoric and fear-mongering and it seems to be a lot more effective in getting the courts and the people to think the same way that they do. It's not pretty, but apparently it's the only way you can get your point across in the current sensationalist media environment.
We did it through courts, through entertainment and news media, through education, through some local/state gov'ts. I cannot fathom how you can possibly claim what we've been doing isn't working, any more than I could fathom how you could possibly believe these posters would have any sort of positive effect.
How about the looming Washington ruling on this whole issue? After their recent top-notch supreme court ruling that medical marijuana should be banned, while one of the judges was actually suffering from a disease that could be treated with it, I'm not so sure you can expect any big surprise rulings from the conservative capital.
Just the very fact that the religious far-right have most people convinced that it's a really good idea to have a majority vote on the civil rights of a minority group defies comprehension. How can anyone be this stupid?
The only way that the mainstream will pay attention to you is if you smack them over the head with something. I think the poster does that quite nicely. Nevermind the bin laden and terrorist thing, that's not even the issue. The idea is to wake people up from that haze they're apparently walking around in and show them the reality of the world. And the reality is that there is precious little difference between Islamic fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists, and as long as anyone in the USA thinks otherwise, we're going to have a problem.
I just showed your posters to a friend of mine. He's a very renowned member of the furry community, and a very gay one at that. Wanna know his response to your 'project', which he just directed me to give to you?
"Go ahead and tell him that you know someone who's gay and yet, thanks to this stunt, now will vote against any gay-marriage proposal, because he thinks we're not emotionally mature enough yet. "
Is he a moron? He's going to vote against it because someone made a poster that he doesn't like? And he calls us immature?
Ask him if he thinks there's any chance this one poster might possibly balance out the deluge of God hates fags! posters that religious nuts are waving on the streets every day?
Congratulations. You're so consumed with hate you've become exactly what you claim you're fighting: A narrow-minded, intolerant zealot who is completely unable to see the big picture or that his tactics are completely counterproductive.
I think we're all open to your suggestions at this point on what a productive tactic is? It sure as heck isn't fighting court battles, because gay couples have won pretty much every one of those and nothing has changed.
I doubt intolerance is the highest purpose of gay people, seeing as how they're trying to get the same rights as everyone else in society. I'm almost willing to claim it's someone else who's being intolerant in this particular argument.
And your previous claims of 'everything is going well' also makes me highly doubt your own ability to see the big picture here. I don't see a lot of statesmen falling over each other to make gay marriage legal. In fact, despite all the rulings of lower courts in various states saying that banning gay marriage is unconstitutional, it still seems to be illegal to actually marry gays.
No, the big picture is that religious nuts are ruling the majority either through fear or force, and the only, the ONLY reason for treating gay people as second-rate citizens are religious reasons, and those reasons are identical in the USA and in the Middle-East, and the Vatican and other places ruled by Catholicism.
I think it would be healthy for the common man to actually be informed that the number one enemy of the state has the same reasons and uses the same rhetoric against gay people, because precious few people seem to be aware of this.
Ironically for Vatican, a majority of Catholic Italians (which is almost the entire population) don't agree with Vatican; they think gay marriage should be allowed and a whole host of other "liberal" ideas the church is harping against. So much for being in touch with your people.
If you think someone's opinion is important because they're famous, then you should stop arguing immediately because if yu're mistaken on such an elementary point, then there's no way you can win a full argument.
there's absolutely no comparison of 'core values' here between mainstream Christians (whom you clearly lump in with the religious right) and Islamic radicals
Provided of course that you discount their views on gays. Which is the issue here.
claiming that Christians are no better than terrorists because they're both openly religious.
The poster isn't even making that claim. The poster says that the view devout Christians have on gays are the same views that the Taliban have. Nothing more. The 9 things you mention are horrible too, but I don't think the USAnian Christians can have a lot of holier-than-thou attitude on these points. They may not be as extreme on all of them and it might not be the government regulating it all, but still. 1) some of them want to kill gay people, some of them even have, but mostly they just preach about burning in a lake of fire and trying to incite others to do their dirty work 2) they're banning the gay cowboy movie in Utah, they're banning Evolution educational films, and the FCC regulates 'naughty words' on radio and TV, so yes, lots of banning going on. 3) there are dress codes in some schools, but that goes for both genders. Anti-abortionists are really just anti-women. They don't want women to have control over their own lives. 4) Hmmm.. how about... banning gay marriage regardless of your own beliefs? If that's not state-sponsored religion, I don't know what is. Banning gays from the army because... well.. have they actually answered that question yet? 5-8) I don't know about brutal suppression, but the republican smear machine has been running nonstop for the past 6 years. People got thrown out of church for having voted democratic last election. The brutality is usual abroad. Several rightwing nutcases have called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez. The bush 2.0b administration tagged foreign aid money to Brazil saying it could only be used for programs and campaigns that were against abortion and against condoms. The Brazillian government told them to take a hike. Not to mention the last 40 years of military missions abroad, mostly in South America where several democratically elected 'dictators' were overthrown because they didn't dance to the USAnian tune. McCarhty's anti-communist witch-hunts. The Cold War. That entire thing was fought against those godless communists, remember? Vietnam. The Iran-Contra scandal. Sending Saddam weapons to defeat the Iran theocracy. Training Taliban troops.. I'm sure you can think of other occasions too. It's not so much directed genocide against faith, more against people of a certain ideology. The USA has been veeeeeeery active in bombing the world until the right kind of democracy arose from the ashes. Most of the people who are pissed over in the Middle-East are so because of all the wars the USA has started there and all the regimes they've toppled and the people they've killed. 9) I think the very definition of turning back the clock is the suppression of civil rights and the mistreatment of minorities, and the prospect of even more of that in the future if you look at who's in charge now and who is being voted into the supreme court
The typical Christian that opposes gay rights would almost certainly say he doesn't want to hurt us
Yeah, because that's against the law.
They want to SAVE us (as they define it), and there's a huge gap between that and wanting to carry out some kind of pogram against us.
Your replies are almost amusing. If you read more than 5 lines at a time you contradict yourself. Explain to me, if you would, how exactly is 'wanting to cure/convert/save/ban/suppress/criminalize' NOT the same as carrying out some kind of program? Nevermind that mainstream, rational Christians might not go to such extremes, but if these vast masses of voting mainstream Christians are so eager to cure the gays, why are they creating legislation to treat them as second-rate citizens? Is that some sort of learning period where you go to jail or an institution until you're cured? We tried that in the 19th century, y'know.
...he was disgusted--not at himself for sharing values with terrorists
Gee, I wonder why that was. The poster wasn't exactly supposed to thrill anyone. We could have put a picture of some Iranian government leader, or a Chinese statesman, but those aren't really as recognizable. Bin laden is a celebrity after all, he just happens to be a terrorist also. I wish there was another face that could be put on there, someone that embodied the true evil of Islamic fanaticism, but the guys that make it that far over there and get famous enough always have a looooot of deaths on their conscience. But, if your friend can find a single untrue statement in that poster, it will be corrected. Until then, I believe your friend might want to think about exactly what it is his faith is preaching, rather than be offended by someone pointing it out to him. The only sad thing here is that precious few of those good, wholesome mainstream Christians didn't know this already.
...made him more likely to support gay rights or less, and he didn't hesistate--"less. Definitely less." He went on to say "this is bullshit", that it was "very offensive and insulting" and "if he thinks this is going to help his cause, he's an idiot."
You don't think gay people find it offensive and insulting that they aren't allowed to love each other in a society that calls itself modern? You don't think gay people think it's "bullshit" that people look at them weird when they're holding hands in the street? You don't think it's "bullshit" that the government spends $200 million annually to encourage straight people to marry while at the same time denying that right to a select group of citizens?
you then turn around and claim via those posters that this is all or nothing; that if you don't support gay rights you must be supporting Bin Laden?
All right, strike one: You know damn well that's not what I said.
No less poor than claiming that Christians are no better than terrorists because they're both openly religious.
This too is NOT what I said, and you f***ing know it.
Theres lots and lots of other bits that deserve to be quoted and countered, but I'm really weary of you distorting everything I say to make your bullshit arguments.
So rather than turn Giza's LJ into a battleground and tell you what I really think of your self-righteous armchair-quarterback attitude, I'm ending my participation in this discussion. The bottom line however is this: I don't respect your position. I don't see any evidence that you've put any personal effort into the gay rights battle, and I think you have no idea what you're talking about.
We're very tolerant people here. If we really didn't give a rat's ass what you thought and didn't want to hear your viewpoint and didn't listen to anyone else's opinions, we never would have had this conversation in the first place.
So stop saying people are predetermined and unreachable, when they're actually engaging in a discussion with you.
Here's a better one, and hopefully one that will get a rise out of you: GEORGE BUSH WANTS YOU TO OPPOSE OSAMA BIN LADEN ...
Again your logic is flawed. If bush 2.0b opposed bin laden himself, he would have caught him by now. He wouldn't have left insufficient troops in Afghanistan and thundered into Iraq where there weren't any terrorists if he thought bin laden was a threat. After 5 years, we haven't even caught the main guy yet?
bush 2.0b had to move into Iraq quickly before bin laden was caught, otherwise the war on terror would have been over. The public would never have stood behind a full scale invasion of Iraq if they thought the guy who was actually behind 9/11 had been caught. He even tried to prolong the war in Iraq further so all the tax-payer money could keep flowing to his industry buddies, but unfortunately those pesky Kurds managed to capture Saddam too soon.
while you then turn around and claim via those posters that this is all or nothing; that if you don't support gay rights you must be supporting Bin Laden?
Again, you have been much too influenced by the political rhetoric and all the "you're either with us or against us". The US administration has been handing out nothing but ultimatums since they came into office and it's starting to seep into the culture. The entire country is polarized and there are only two sides to every story. It's either black or white. The posted says what bin laden believes, namely that the US has too great a separation of church and state, and it treats gays and lesbians like humans. This only shows how misinformed the man actually is. Maybe all he can get from satellite is court TV and Will & Grace, but that's hardly a clear indication of the state of society.
And hell, someone could make an argument that supporting gay rights would be supporting Bin Laden, given that many groups who support gay rights and show up at pride rallies--socialists, communists, greens, and liberals--are way-too-often sympathetic to Bin Laden
I think it's a blatant lie that someone in the USA would be sympathetic to bin laden. The NSA would've dragged those people to Eastern European Happy Camps by now. What I do think is that these sort of people seem to be above average intelligence, and seem to be the only people who actually wondered why he did what he did and found out that there's more to it than religion. And then you can hate the guy, but you still have to know your enemy. That's the sort of approach that enables you to find him in less than 5 years.
Support gay rights, you're supporting terrorists! Of course, that's a smear, pure and simple, and you'd go ballistic if you saw posters asserting that. Why do you think the reaction would be any different going the other way?
I don't see a lot of quotes from bin laden supporting gay rights. I don't see a lot of terrorists blowing up train stations so that gay couples may marry. I admire Spain greatly for backing out of the Iraqi war and giving gay couples full rights to marry. Doubly-insulting to the al-Qaeda and their breeding grounds. That has been a greater move to combat the war on terror more than anything the USA has done so far.
we have made enormous progress in the past five-fifteen years and we've done it in spite of occasionally intense opposition. Sodomy laws have been struck down, gays and lesbians are no longer depicted as freaks and are now regulars in popular entertainment media (TV, movies)
Are you trying to say that entertainment media people aren't freaks? ;) Sure, they have gays and lesbians on a lot of TV shows now, but they're all stereotypical gays and lesbians. The kind of people that real gays and lesbians would want to smack over the head with a 2x4 for extreme drama queenism. That's not an inclusion of a minority, that's an insult and a cheap joke.
and more accepted socially because of it, gay pride can now be celebrated openly in many places, and many companies, corporations and a few state/local governments now have sexual orientation non-discrimnation clauses or civil union/domestic partner benefits
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense sends agents undercover to these meetings and come back with a report labelling them as a 'credible threat' to national security. More laws have recently been passed in the nothern states to remove the benefits of gay state employees. The only ones who get it are the corporations, because they can smell the money. Many gay people are more open-minded and creative than others and the corporations who set official policies of non-discrimination due to sexual orientation are going to attract a certain, valuable part of the job market that others block themselves from. It's pure business, luckily in the gays' favor so far.
Even a couple states with gay marriage. And just think... all of this happened under a socially conservative Republican administration.
Yeah, but the conservative republican administration sure did their best to strike it down every step of the way. All they need is enough reason to pick up the subject again and if they weren't all bogged down in all the corruption and scandals they've created for themselves, you would've seen a federal ban on gay marriage by now that overruled all the laws passed in.. 2 states by now, is it? Spain, an ultra-conservative Catholic country right next to the Vatican managed to turn around and recognize gay people as equal citizens. This place has Santo Toribio de Liébana, which holds the largest piece of the true cross, for crying out loud. Even these people showed they could govern by reason rather than religion.
Casting ... assertions like this and trying to paint our opponents as sharing values with terrorists DOES NOT HELP OUR CAUSE AT ALL.
Where's the trying in this? You're saying bin laden doesn't oppose gay marriage? You're saying good, faithful Christians don't oppose gay marriage? What exactly is this fantasy world that we're painting?
Sure, the poster's offensive to some, but you can't judge the world by what you feel in your heart is right because you've been told your opinions to you every Sunday for your entire life. Sometimes you have to look at the facts. I think any moderate Christian who looks at this should just laugh. That was my first response. I think it gives food for thought, in the same way that an interesting news article gives food for thought. It's not likely to change your life, but you might remember it the next time you're in an associative situation. And maybe you'll think twice.
George Bush opposes Osama Bin Laden. If you oppose Bin Laden, you 'share principles' with Bush. Therefore, in order to oppose Bush, you must support Bin Laden. Do you really want to identify with the principles of President Bush?
Starting to see how ridiculous and untenable this assertion is?
I hardly think the poster will make people stop and engage in advanced syllogisms, that's a bit too much to expect from the average person glancing across this thing.
Granted, this poster might seem offensive to some, but to others it'll be just the nudge back to reality that they need. If people look at this and find a chance to reconsider their views on suppressing a minority because of religious reasons that they might not even share, then it's done its job.
Sure, it's intellectually offensive if you have more than a passing knowledge of geopolitics and religious history, but those people aren't exactly the target group here. If you have an idea for a poster that everyone agrees with and magically makes every person who sees it unite for gay rights, regardless of their background and education, we're all very interested and I can assure you those will be printed instead.
And I don't think you have a clear understand of the people this poster is trying to reach. It's not exactly the intellectual crowd, because they should already know better than to let their principles be dictated by 2000 year old dogma.
It might offend you, but so does a lot of other crap around you. A lot of gay people are very offended by those mindless pride parades that make gay men look like freaks who want to wear bondage gear in the street at all times. How the heck does that fit into the grand scheme of making people feel comfortable about openly gay people?
There you can talk about counterproductive campaigns. Where's the great wisdom in dressing up like a rainbowed moron and tossing pink dildos into the street?
Where's your crusade against these counterproductive nutjobs who are hurting the cause?
here in the deep south, nestled in the bible belt--the supposed heart of American bigotry and intolerance.
Nonsense! You've got KKK, baptists and Neo-nazis :) The south is for everyone to enjoy, regardless of your prejudice.
NC's sodomy law was one of the ones overturned, and there's been no effort here to reinstate it
If you go into an adult video store, you'll see why that's not so odd. Everyone wants to have buttsex, they just don't want gay people to have it. Apparently it's unnatural if you're not doing it with a woman.
But a caveat: it wasn't that they *took away* gay marriage. For most of them, they didn't have it to begin with; the referendums were an effort to make sure it didn't happen. It's hard to say something was taken away when you never actually had it.
This statement baffles me more than anything you've ever written... You're saying that they didn't so much take away the keys to your car as they went ahead and prevented you from buying it. How is this better? How is this different?
"Well, you know, these guys never had freedom to begin with, so if we just make sure that they never will in the future either, then all will be happy."
We attack any portrayal of gays that isn't favorable
I think you may be confusing 'favorable' with 'fair'. I have yet to see a gay boycott against a company because they didn't show the gay couple in their ad as sufficiently responsible, planning for their old age and taking good care of their adopted children. But then again, I don't read a lot of gay literature, so maybe it has happened?
You can't say they're wrong without saying we're wrong too--if we have the right to do it, so do they, sorry. Free speech is not limited to us.
Free speech is not the issue. Freedom of religion is the issue. Separation of church and state is the issue.
We've come a damn long way in the past five-fifteen years in getting people to accept us, and we did not do it by trying to accuse people of being terrorists or religious nuts and telling them they sided with terrorists for opposing gay marriage or were no different than terrorists because they were religious.
Not saying that either. Merely pointing out the fact that Islamic jihadists are attacking the USA among other things because they think gays are created equal there. Their idea of a theocracy is strikingly similar to what the religious right is trying to achieve in the US on the particular issue of gays. I think the fact that bin laden is a terrorist is secondary, at best. That's just there for the shock value.
Considering the shrill hysterics I've heard out of the left over the the past few years, especially during the 2004 elections... WE'RE TURNING INTO A FASCIST STATE!!!! BUSH=HITLER!!!!!
Even respectable journalists have been writing on the fascist state angle, especially with the billions of corporate wellfare being handed out that the middle class has to pay for. The problem is that it's a nono word in public, sorta like 'fuck', so it's impossible to have a serious debate about it, because you automatically lose the argument by even mentioning fascists. Or nazis, for that matter. The only thing the average people know about those two regimes is that they were evil and we beat 'em, and no one can ever speak of them again. That's the only reason people can cry out "a fascists totalitarian policestate is being instituted in the US!" and no one will even check to see if it's right. History is buried and doomed to be repeated until the very day that the average person is taught exactly WHY things were evil and how they became evil.
WE'RE A THEOCRACY!!!!
I'm not sure what other word you have for it when the leader ends every speech with "God bless America", speaks favorably about Intelligent Design, and calls for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, but I'm willing to learn.
THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN!!!!
I think the Diebold connections with bush 2.0b and the testimony of a programmer at that company who was told by his superiors to create code that could make a predictable outcome in the machines is enough. But I'm not sure I would even call it an 'election' when almost half the country are so tired of the polarization and mud slinging and corruption in politics that they've given up voting altogether.
BUSH BLEW UP THE LEVEES!!!!
No, he's not that evil. He just didn't give the funding to them that they needed after several reports had told him how urgent it was. It wasn't blown up, it just deteriorated in neglect by a government that chose to spend $236,338,594,456 billion and counting on a war in a foreign country based on bad intelligence, instead of tending to its own citizens.
THERE'S GOING TO BE A DRAFT!!!!!
Several senators wanted to reinstate it, but even the republican party couldn't get enough votes for that. They would never have been able to drag the war for nearly 3 years now with a draft. So they just kept sending people back there even though they had served their time already. The army is now stretched and broken and the real terrorist states have had 3 years in which to grow powerful. So powerful in fact that they can now officially declare a nuclear weapons program and there's not a damn thing the western world can do about it.
How about the looming Washington ruling on this whole issue? What ruling?
The link is right there.
[ACLU] do show some state rulings, mostly in our favor. So given that, why are you claiming that courts are no longer a viable option?
I'd like you to quote from my reply exactly where I say that. Courts are just about the only way to get this thing through, because the politicians are just going to hold public elections that all mysteriously turn out to be in favor of banning gay marriage (since the majority are religious), and then throw their arms in the air and go "we did all we could". Courts were the one that gave the women a right to vote, courts were the ones that abolished slavery, courts were the ones that allowed abortion. And as you say, most courts rule in our favor. Isn't it really, really strange that the politicians don't adhere to what the courts rule?
Islamic fundamentalists want to 1) stone to death or otherwise kill all gays...
You don't have to repeat yourself, I read the other posts too.
Like way too many others in this community, you subscribe to groupthink and make no effort to comprehend any opinions or viewpoints other than your own.
I think I've just proved you a liar on that point with my other posts. I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks, I read and I educate myself and I devote my entire life to understanding as much of this world as I possibly can. I go out of my way to see things from all sides, but I do make some decisions. Just because I can see an issue from all sides doesn't mean I don't chose a side. I don't even know what groupthink nonsense you're referring to, but it sounds like a standard talking point for trying to demonize your opponent. I'm not in some little isolated group that all think the same way I do, I discuss things with people all day and we often don't agree. But we never stoop to the level of saying the other side is just taking their opinions from someone else who tells them to.
If there's anything I do, it's form my own opinion about things, so don't even try to push me into some conformist category here, I'm not doing the same to you either. And merely shouting that someone else somewhere might possibly think the same thing I do, doesn't make it groupthink. In this particular instance may be on the same side as the rest of the so-called gay furry community, but I don't know who they are, I don't have a membership and I don't automatically assume their viewpoints.
If you want my reasons for thinking the way I do, I'll be happy to argue my viewpoints to you, but don't insult me by saying I base my opinions uncritically on the crap other people say around me.
You reflexively condemn people based on their faith or beliefs instead of trying to understand them and find middle ground, figure out an accomodation.
First of all, religious dogma has no common ground. It is non-existent. Does not compute. If people want to be spiritual then peace be with them, but the moment their desire to spirituality starts to dictate what I should think or feel, and what I can do and cannot do, then I have problems with them. If they want to find a middle ground, they can get off their high horse and they can at the very least respect me as a human being. Their faith requires gays to be pure evil, and when that's their starting point, common ground is pretty damn hard to come by.
The only people you can have a discussion with are the ones who aren't fanatically religious, the ones who can recognize their faith for what it is. A belief. A f-a-i-t-h. You know, the same faith that tells them women are slaves, children should be stoned and adultery should be punished by killing the man's wife. Which, curiously enough, doesn't happen as often anymore.
The moment they respect the fact that someone else may have a different faith that doesn't require them to be evil and go to hell for living the life they do, is the moment you can start finding middle ground.
[shakes head sadly] those posters wouldn't cancel out that hate, they'll just double the amount of it. Hate is hate. It doesn't matter where it's coming from or what it's directed towards. There's no 'balance' there.
Who said anything about hate? The journalists that distributed the words of bin laden were just distributing hate? They weren't informing anyone? They didn't think it was important that we understood the other side of the story?
Besides, religious nuts waving a bible on a street corner are nothing new; they've always been there ranting and raving about one thing or another.
Oh, well that makes it perfectly okay then. Wouldn't want to infringe on the freedom of religion of those persecuted Christians by telling them they can't advocate murder/fewer civil liberties of a minority in public, now would we?
generally making an ass of themselves. My opinion? Let them. They're just hurting themselves and their cause.
Good. Then you won't mind these posters we want to distribute :)
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-21 09:44 pm (UTC)-Ernest Gaines
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 01:32 am (UTC)...and other wild assumptions.
I could be a tabloid writer.
(no subject)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 01:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 05:50 am (UTC)He must be thinking....
This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will …
My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit….
My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will ….
Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!!
FDH
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 05:51 am (UTC)So.. what is the name of your rifle? :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 05:55 am (UTC)Thats classified.
next question...
FDH
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 01:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 01:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-23 07:49 pm (UTC)Well, you won't get a rise from me on this one. Why? Because on this point I agree with Bush. You'd have to be a whacko not to. Though I dislike Bush in general, he's not a "cartoon character" like OBL is.
Exactly. Though if you think that means we're past the point where people violently oppose our very existence or that they're no longer willing to do everything in their power to get rid of us, you are sadly delusional; the cultural battle hasn't crested, it's only warming up.
Simply put? I disagree entirely. So you go off and do whatever it is you think will advance gay rights (if you in fact intend to help at all), and I'll do what I see fit.
I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-24 03:57 am (UTC)I am a white, southern, republican, christian, het, gun owning male american citizen
I vote a mixed ticket, I am FOR civil unions, NOT marriages, personal religious reasons, I am FOR EQUAL rights, no special treatment.
As far as I am concerned, marriage is for the churches to decide, civil unions and marriages should be equal in the eyes of the law, at that point its between you and your church.
I am pro war
As the stereotypical person I am, I would, while amused by the poster, be more likely to laugh at it, or tear it down, than be deeply moved by it. Tearing it down would, in my mind, be damage control. The fewer of these out in public, the less backlash. All we need is a public outcry against the gay community, or more politicizing of a personal choice issue.
Feel free to flame me, debate me, post sources for your arguments, etc.
An argument similar to the ones you posted:
Gay men like other males
Members of NAMBLA like other males
Many male/male pedophiles are NAMBLA members
Therefor, gay men share values with many pedophiles
While untrue in general, this is a case of a subset being used to target the whole of a group.
You LOSE more support than you gain when using confrontational education
For every person who looks at a poster like this and is moved to look deeper into the subject, regardless of whether they end up, after research, supporting you, you will have several more who either a: supported you, or b: were undecided, who become polarized and come down against you.
Re: I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-24 04:13 am (UTC)Second, using rational arguments and reasoning and appealing to peoples' better nature has obviously not been working; they're furious that sodomy is legal, they're about to push through an amendment making marriage and civil unions and all the rest illegal, they're successfully passing similar legislation in state after state, and they're now setting their targets on gay adoption and everything else.
Being nice isn't working. It's time to get confrontational. It's time to start using emotional manipulation. Because that's EXACTLY what the clergy have been doing since day one; every time someone starts to soften on their stance, the clergy threaten them with HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE and insist that GOD WANTS IT THIS WAY.
Enough's enough. The gloves are off. I'm sorry if that unsettles you.
Re: I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-24 05:35 am (UTC)Yes. There's a vast number of people outraged about it. Hell, during the Alito hearings, a republican senator decried sodomy's legality.
Yes. Just because it didn't happen this year doesn't mean they arent marshalling their resources. And they are, believe me.
It's only worked this far because for a long time the religious right was asleep at the pulpit. They're not making that mistake anymore. They've extended their claws and they are NOT playing nice anymore. And we better not make the mistake to either.
Wow! I'm in awe! A REKNOWNED FURRY! Er, you mean an absolute nobody that thinks a lot of himself, right? Thought so.
Okay, that's a laughable crock of hyperbole and you know it. So does your 'celebrity' friend.
Frankly, I think you're just terrified that I'm involving Americans' distaste for a specific Arabic person, thinking that maybe it will spill over on the rest of you. If that happens, it's not because of this. This isn't the tiniest drop in the bucket compared to the pool of animosity out there.
Meanwhile, what are YOU PERSONALLY, mister righteous, doing to promote the cause of gay rights? This is your chance to bowl me over with a litany of stunning personal successes against gay oppression.
I've been on the front lines for years. I contribute thousands a year to gay causes from AIDS to the ACLU to HRC to the Lambda Legal fund. I volunteer on a number of gay services and politics groups. My husband and I run the region's largest gay services website. I've BEEN there, buddy. And I'm here to tell you that unless we step up the flames, we are going to lose.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:20 am (UTC)I think it's excellent progress. Why, it's almost at about the same pace that they move towards acceptance of gays in some of the Islamic states. Those we haven't bombed yet, mind you.
Has there been any progress or even a half-hearted attempt towards passing a gay marriage amendment in the past year? No.
Yes. Just because it didn't happen this year doesn't mean they arent marshalling their resources. And they are, believe me.
[smirks] So you say yes, and then you admit it's actually no? Gee, no contradication there.
The top line is yours. I think it would help if you put quotes from the previous post in italics or something.
Ah! So you admit what we've been doing HAS worked! So once again, where do you get off claming that it wasn't? And why would it suddenly *stop* working now, even with the religious right in gear?
Not saying it's not working, it's just moving too slow. There's still medieval conditions here. Or, at the very least a couple centuries old from the time when people generally thought that gayness could be cured. They sorta gave up on the scientific treatment, but they're still clinging to the spiritual one.
They don't play nice and they start demonizing their opposition, they'll turn more people off than they'll attract--just like you. Don't make that mistake and don't stoop to their level.
If there was a way to have an educated and serious debate about this, I'm sure there would be. But that's just not how you reach everyone.
I think it would be great for gay people to see the poster so they could bring up the subject in their own circles in a tasteful manner that suits their social relations.
Re: I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-25 09:56 pm (UTC)Y'know for what it's worth, I'm not sure citing the agreement of lance 'frigging' rund helps your case any. For someone who's "left the fandom," like so many, he still seems to be pretty ubiquitous. While his comics were cute, they're about puddle deep-- certainly not the hard-hitting and soulful stuff you see in modern works like "Circles." In fact by comparison they're basically just wankfodder. As such, he's exactly like the other 99.3% of the fandom's artists, and hardly qualified to determine that furries/gays aren't "mature." Why you idolize such a cock-knocker is beyond me. But! Whatever floats your boat.
Re: I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-25 10:15 pm (UTC)His opinion is meaningless and matters to no-one.
He has no credentials, or credibility to judge who is and is not emotionally mature.
If you want to listen to what he's got to say, that's your choice.
Just realize that nobody in their right mind is going to take you seriously.
*yerf!*
Date: 2006-01-25 10:20 pm (UTC)Re: *yerf!*
Date: 2006-01-25 11:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:22 am (UTC)Good for him. He can join the other bible-thumpers, the rest of the 3rd world countries and fundamentalist theocracies in the world. He can come back to reality when he's mature enough to live in a mature society, and when he's willing to stand up for his principles even when (god forbid) there are people on his own side of the argument who don't think and act the same way he does.
He dropped out of the furdom a while back because he couldn't stand the groupthink and lack of ideological diversity.
There's a chat room for everyone, y'know.
Of course, I'm not so stupid to think I'm going to change your mind. My responses are more for the benefit of others who might be following this.
I'm pleased to find you have no illusions of your role in this debate. I've been through this discussion before countless times and I've changed my opinion and my knowledge on many aspects of it countless times.
Let me tell you something. Respect is a two-way street. So is acceptance. So is tolerance.
A shame that religion is not. See previous posts on dogma.
You don't offer any of those things to people; you just try to bully them, shame them, guilt them, force them to accept you.
You mean in the same way that the religious people try to bully gays, shame them, guilt them, force them to accept salvation?
You're absolutely right. Despicable methods. There oughta be a law.
Re: I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-25 08:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:23 am (UTC)I don't think anyone with half a brain would 'bully' someone into accepting them. This of course discounts most of the participants of those pride parades.
I don't lump [people] together just because they're Christian or anything else--I see them as people capable of independent thought, viewpoint and decision making and don't insult them or their faith with cheap theatrics and smear tactics.
this poster all-too-clearly represents the mainstream of gay furry thought, as you're so effectively illustrating. Like way too many others in this community, you subscribe to groupthink and make no effort to comprehend any opinions or viewpoints other than your own. You attack and demonize those who do not agree with you, no matter what the source, and betray your own form of intolerance and bigotry by doing so--one little different than the far-right Christians who oppose us.
Right. Okay. No smearing. Mutual respect all the way through. Gotcha.
Above all else, I offer respect and friendship, and end up getting it return--I win hearts and minds over one person at a time.
I have to agree with
But a noble cause, nonetheless. You see, the only problem is that if such a conversation, excluding friendship and all that lasts an average of, say, 3 hours (that's a pretty good conversation, you can cover the bases in 3 hours, I think), and there's about 218,000,000 Christians in the US, we'll be nice, you only have to talk to a quarter of those, then with three conversations per day every day it would take you about 50,000 years to 'win the hearts and minds over one person at a time'. And most of us would like to see this debate settled a year or two before that, so I'm sure you understand that we try to resort to other measures.
Now then... what are you PERSONALLY, mister righteous, doing to promote the causes of human rights (OTHER than gay rights, which is way down on the list of human rights in terms of overall importance), democracy and freedom worldwide? What have you done to help Iraqis, Afghans, Lebanese or for that matter, gay people in the very intolerant Islamic world?
Good point, but I think that even with the poor education and zealous religion in that region, the people are still going to be able to see through the transparent hypocrisy of preaching human rights in foreign countries while suppressing them at home.
The arguments of "treat your gay people with respect" and "don't torture prisoners" kinda falls to floor pretty quick when you're caught doing the exact same thing.
What have you done to support your troops overseas?
Trying to stop the war that was based on lies and deception, and executed in such a poor manner that it would have made colonel Custer blush. Going on TV and stating repeatedly that we're winning, doesn't make it so. This kind of faith-based warfare just isn't working.
Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Give a man religion, and he'll starve to death praying for a fish
what have you done to the help the victims of natural disasters such as the 2004 Asian tsunami or Hurricane Katrina?
I thought the government was supposed to do that?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:25 am (UTC)Isn't it very inefficient to try to talk down a guy swinging a hammer instead of just smacking him back so he stops hurting people?
I don't recall a lot of the states being very thrilled that black people were suddenly legally humans too, you don't need the 'hearts and minds' of all the people, what you need is reason. And that seems to be in short supply in a country with an education system that is the laughing stock of every civilized country.
The black people fought long and hard for their right to be members of society, and their right to marry whomever they wanted and hopefully they've made that struggle a little easier for the minorities that will follow.
A closed-minded, intolerant zealot who is completely incapable of listening to or comprehending viewpoints other than your own.
Only a closed-minded, intolerant person would judge others by one stinking poster they've created. This is not the embodiment of every argument and every viewpoint of the religious debate.
It's.. a.. freakin'.. poster..
And I'm sad that it takes an argument from the absolute extreme opposite point of view to even get a rise out of anyone. I would have liked a poster that wasn't quite as extreme too.
But why aren't Christians busy putting up posters, condemming religious persecution of gay people? If it's so Christian mainstream to be okay with gays as you claim it is, why aren't those mainstream Christians a bit more active in this debate? Why are the only people you hear about in the media those that stand on a soapbox and preach fire and brimstone against these ungodly sinners?
Why can courts time and time again rule banning of gay marriage unconstitutional and still nothing happens in the legislation?
I'm assuming that when you say 'mainstream Christians' you mean the majority?
If you can so blatantly trample on a minority without a public outcry, then what can't you do?
If the mainstream Christians that you think really did exist, then every single one of them ought to look at that poster and go "They're right! Those radical fundamental Christians are smearing our faith! Those people preaching intolerance and hate against a minority every chance they have and get their faces on national TV for doing it, are just as religiously extreme as the terrorists we're supposed to be fighting!"
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:25 am (UTC)Funny how Leviticus 25:44-46 aren't part of mainstream Christianity anymore. You know, the places where it says you should keep male and female slaves, that you can buy the children of strangers, and that the slaves should treat their master as god, regardless of how cruel he is.
If that's not picking and choosing, I don't know what is.
There are other fun bits in there as well.
Apart from that, Leviticus is in the Old Testament, Jesus died so that all that crap would go away.
It shouldn't even be part of mainstream Christianity, because.. it's not mainstream Christianity!
If you believe in Jesus being the son of god, you don't believe in gays being evil. The bible says that in no ambiguous terms. It even says it in several places. John refers to it in John 1:29 at his arrival when Jesus is introduced as the Lamb of God, and it is detailed much further and explained here if you're interested.
Even Jesus says you are not allowed to divorce or remarry. Try telling that to the modern world.
(Then again, it does say that adultery is the only valid reason for divorce, so I guess it's all legitimate)
You've now so steeped in the gay/liberal culture and consumed by your holy crusade that now believe your own propaganda, reflexively demonize anyone who doesn't agree with you and believe that any means are justified--you can't see the ridiculously obvious consequences and contradictions of your actions.
Holy crusade? I think you have your sides crossed here. The gays are the unholy ones, remember?
I don't think
Re: I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-24 06:39 am (UTC)I'm not quite sure what rock you're hiding under, but that's just completely inconsistent with reality.
Has there been any progress or even a half-hearted attempt towards passing a gay marriage amendment in the past year? No.
Well, you don't need to pass one of those every year, do you? How about a year and two months?
On Nov. 3rd 2004 the day after bush 2.0b won the election, 11 states banned gay marriage
Organizations like the Family Research Council and other hate-groups have been successful in getting corporations to stop advertizing in gay magazines through the threat of boycott. Latest example was when the American Family Association got their clammy claws dug into Ford
We've come a damn long way in the past five-fifteen years in getting people to accept us, and we did not do it by trying to accuse people of being terrorists or religious nuts and telling them they sided with terrorists for opposing gay marriage or were no different than terrorists because they were religious.
Maybe that's why the movement doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. The religious far-right use the terrorist rhetoric and fear-mongering and it seems to be a lot more effective in getting the courts and the people to think the same way that they do.
It's not pretty, but apparently it's the only way you can get your point across in the current sensationalist media environment.
We did it through courts, through entertainment and news media, through education, through some local/state gov'ts. I cannot fathom how you can possibly claim what we've been doing isn't working, any more than I could fathom how you could possibly believe these posters would have any sort of positive effect.
How about the looming Washington ruling on this whole issue?
After their recent top-notch supreme court ruling that medical marijuana should be banned, while one of the judges was actually suffering from a disease that could be treated with it, I'm not so sure you can expect any big surprise rulings from the conservative capital.
Just the very fact that the religious far-right have most people convinced that it's a really good idea to have a majority vote on the civil rights of a minority group defies comprehension. How can anyone be this stupid?
The only way that the mainstream will pay attention to you is if you smack them over the head with something. I think the poster does that quite nicely.
Nevermind the bin laden and terrorist thing, that's not even the issue. The idea is to wake people up from that haze they're apparently walking around in and show them the reality of the world. And the reality is that there is precious little difference between Islamic fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists, and as long as anyone in the USA thinks otherwise, we're going to have a problem.
I just showed your posters to a friend of mine. He's a very renowned member of the furry community, and a very gay one at that. Wanna know his response to your 'project', which he just directed me to give to you?
"Go ahead and tell him that you know someone who's gay and yet, thanks to this stunt, now will vote against any gay-marriage proposal, because he thinks we're not emotionally mature enough yet. "
Is he a moron? He's going to vote against it because someone made a poster that he doesn't like? And he calls us immature?
Ask him if he thinks there's any chance this one poster might possibly balance out the deluge of God hates fags! posters that religious nuts are waving on the streets every day?
Re: I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-24 06:40 am (UTC)I think we're all open to your suggestions at this point on what a productive tactic is? It sure as heck isn't fighting court battles, because gay couples have won pretty much every one of those and nothing has changed.
I doubt intolerance is the highest purpose of gay people, seeing as how they're trying to get the same rights as everyone else in society. I'm almost willing to claim it's someone else who's being intolerant in this particular argument.
And your previous claims of 'everything is going well' also makes me highly doubt your own ability to see the big picture here.
I don't see a lot of statesmen falling over each other to make gay marriage legal. In fact, despite all the rulings of lower courts in various states saying that banning gay marriage is unconstitutional, it still seems to be illegal to actually marry gays.
No, the big picture is that religious nuts are ruling the majority either through fear or force, and the only, the ONLY reason for treating gay people as second-rate citizens are religious reasons, and those reasons are identical in the USA and in the Middle-East, and the Vatican and other places ruled by Catholicism.
I think it would be healthy for the common man to actually be informed that the number one enemy of the state has the same reasons and uses the same rhetoric against gay people, because precious few people seem to be aware of this.
Re: I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-25 09:51 pm (UTC)Re: I feel I have to post
Date: 2006-01-26 04:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-25 09:20 pm (UTC)Provided of course that you discount their views on gays. Which is the issue here.
claiming that Christians are no better than terrorists because they're both openly religious.
The poster isn't even making that claim. The poster says that the view devout Christians have on gays are the same views that the Taliban have. Nothing more.
The 9 things you mention are horrible too, but I don't think the USAnian Christians can have a lot of holier-than-thou attitude on these points. They may not be as extreme on all of them and it might not be the government regulating it all, but still.
1) some of them want to kill gay people, some of them even have, but mostly they just preach about burning in a lake of fire and trying to incite others to do their dirty work
2) they're banning the gay cowboy movie in Utah, they're banning Evolution educational films, and the FCC regulates 'naughty words' on radio and TV, so yes, lots of banning going on.
3) there are dress codes in some schools, but that goes for both genders. Anti-abortionists are really just anti-women. They don't want women to have control over their own lives.
4) Hmmm.. how about... banning gay marriage regardless of your own beliefs? If that's not state-sponsored religion, I don't know what is. Banning gays from the army because... well.. have they actually answered that question yet?
5-8) I don't know about brutal suppression, but the republican smear machine has been running nonstop for the past 6 years. People got thrown out of church for having voted democratic last election. The brutality is usual abroad. Several rightwing nutcases have called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez. The bush 2.0b administration tagged foreign aid money to Brazil saying it could only be used for programs and campaigns that were against abortion and against condoms. The Brazillian government told them to take a hike.
Not to mention the last 40 years of military missions abroad, mostly in South America where several democratically elected 'dictators' were overthrown because they didn't dance to the USAnian tune. McCarhty's anti-communist witch-hunts. The Cold War. That entire thing was fought against those godless communists, remember? Vietnam. The Iran-Contra scandal. Sending Saddam weapons to defeat the Iran theocracy. Training Taliban troops.. I'm sure you can think of other occasions too. It's not so much directed genocide against faith, more against people of a certain ideology.
The USA has been veeeeeeery active in bombing the world until the right kind of democracy arose from the ashes. Most of the people who are pissed over in the Middle-East are so because of all the wars the USA has started there and all the regimes they've toppled and the people they've killed.
9) I think the very definition of turning back the clock is the suppression of civil rights and the mistreatment of minorities, and the prospect of even more of that in the future if you look at who's in charge now and who is being voted into the supreme court
The typical Christian that opposes gay rights would almost certainly say he doesn't want to hurt us
Yeah, because that's against the law.
They want to SAVE us (as they define it), and there's a huge gap between that and wanting to carry out some kind of pogram against us.
Your replies are almost amusing. If you read more than 5 lines at a time you contradict yourself.
Explain to me, if you would, how exactly is 'wanting to cure/convert/save/ban/suppress/criminalize' NOT the same as carrying out some kind of program?
Nevermind that mainstream, rational Christians might not go to such extremes, but if these vast masses of voting mainstream Christians are so eager to cure the gays, why are they creating legislation to treat them as second-rate citizens? Is that some sort of learning period where you go to jail or an institution until you're cured? We tried that in the 19th century, y'know.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-25 09:20 pm (UTC)Gee, I wonder why that was. The poster wasn't exactly supposed to thrill anyone. We could have put a picture of some Iranian government leader, or a Chinese statesman, but those aren't really as recognizable. Bin laden is a celebrity after all, he just happens to be a terrorist also. I wish there was another face that could be put on there, someone that embodied the true evil of Islamic fanaticism, but the guys that make it that far over there and get famous enough always have a looooot of deaths on their conscience.
But, if your friend can find a single untrue statement in that poster, it will be corrected. Until then, I believe your friend might want to think about exactly what it is his faith is preaching, rather than be offended by someone pointing it out to him.
The only sad thing here is that precious few of those good, wholesome mainstream Christians didn't know this already.
...made him more likely to support gay rights or less, and he didn't hesistate--"less. Definitely less." He went on to say "this is bullshit", that it was "very offensive and insulting" and "if he thinks this is going to help his cause, he's an idiot."
You don't think gay people find it offensive and insulting that they aren't allowed to love each other in a society that calls itself modern? You don't think gay people think it's "bullshit" that people look at them weird when they're holding hands in the street? You don't think it's "bullshit" that the government spends $200 million annually to encourage straight people to marry while at the same time denying that right to a select group of citizens?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-25 08:32 pm (UTC)This too is NOT what I said, and you f***ing know it.
Theres lots and lots of other bits that deserve to be quoted and countered, but I'm really weary of you distorting everything I say to make your bullshit arguments.
So rather than turn Giza's LJ into a battleground and tell you what I really think of your self-righteous armchair-quarterback attitude, I'm ending my participation in this discussion. The bottom line however is this: I don't respect your position. I don't see any evidence that you've put any personal effort into the gay rights battle, and I think you have no idea what you're talking about.
G'day!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:31 am (UTC)So stop saying people are predetermined and unreachable, when they're actually engaging in a discussion with you.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:17 am (UTC)GEORGE BUSH WANTS YOU TO OPPOSE OSAMA BIN LADEN ...
Again your logic is flawed. If bush 2.0b opposed bin laden himself, he would have caught him by now. He wouldn't have left insufficient troops in Afghanistan and thundered into Iraq where there weren't any terrorists if he thought bin laden was a threat. After 5 years, we haven't even caught the main guy yet?
bush 2.0b had to move into Iraq quickly before bin laden was caught, otherwise the war on terror would have been over. The public would never have stood behind a full scale invasion of Iraq if they thought the guy who was actually behind 9/11 had been caught. He even tried to prolong the war in Iraq further so all the tax-payer money could keep flowing to his industry buddies, but unfortunately those pesky Kurds managed to capture Saddam too soon.
while you then turn around and claim via those posters that this is all or nothing; that if you don't support gay rights you must be supporting Bin Laden?
Again, you have been much too influenced by the political rhetoric and all the "you're either with us or against us". The US administration has been handing out nothing but ultimatums since they came into office and it's starting to seep into the culture. The entire country is polarized and there are only two sides to every story. It's either black or white.
The posted says what bin laden believes, namely that the US has too great a separation of church and state, and it treats gays and lesbians like humans. This only shows how misinformed the man actually is. Maybe all he can get from satellite is court TV and Will & Grace, but that's hardly a clear indication of the state of society.
And hell, someone could make an argument that supporting gay rights would be supporting Bin Laden, given that many groups who support gay rights and show up at pride rallies--socialists, communists, greens, and liberals--are way-too-often sympathetic to Bin Laden
I think it's a blatant lie that someone in the USA would be sympathetic to bin laden. The NSA would've dragged those people to Eastern European Happy Camps by now.
What I do think is that these sort of people seem to be above average intelligence, and seem to be the only people who actually wondered why he did what he did and found out that there's more to it than religion. And then you can hate the guy, but you still have to know your enemy. That's the sort of approach that enables you to find him in less than 5 years.
Support gay rights, you're supporting terrorists! Of course, that's a smear, pure and simple, and you'd go ballistic if you saw posters asserting that. Why do you think the reaction would be any different going the other way?
I don't see a lot of quotes from bin laden supporting gay rights. I don't see a lot of terrorists blowing up train stations so that gay couples may marry.
I admire Spain greatly for backing out of the Iraqi war and giving gay couples full rights to marry. Doubly-insulting to the al-Qaeda and their breeding grounds. That has been a greater move to combat the war on terror more than anything the USA has done so far.
we have made enormous progress in the past five-fifteen years and we've done it in spite of occasionally intense opposition. Sodomy laws have been struck down, gays and lesbians are no longer depicted as freaks and are now regulars in popular entertainment media (TV, movies)
Are you trying to say that entertainment media people aren't freaks? ;)
Sure, they have gays and lesbians on a lot of TV shows now, but they're all stereotypical gays and lesbians. The kind of people that real gays and lesbians would want to smack over the head with a 2x4 for extreme drama queenism. That's not an inclusion of a minority, that's an insult and a cheap joke.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:17 am (UTC)Meanwhile, the Department of Defense sends agents undercover to these meetings and come back with a report labelling them as a 'credible threat' to national security.
More laws have recently been passed in the nothern states to remove the benefits of gay state employees. The only ones who get it are the corporations, because they can smell the money. Many gay people are more open-minded and creative than others and the corporations who set official policies of non-discrimination due to sexual orientation are going to attract a certain, valuable part of the job market that others block themselves from. It's pure business, luckily in the gays' favor so far.
Even a couple states with gay marriage. And just think... all of this happened under a socially conservative Republican administration.
Yeah, but the conservative republican administration sure did their best to strike it down every step of the way. All they need is enough reason to pick up the subject again and if they weren't all bogged down in all the corruption and scandals they've created for themselves, you would've seen a federal ban on gay marriage by now that overruled all the laws passed in.. 2 states by now, is it?
Spain, an ultra-conservative Catholic country right next to the Vatican managed to turn around and recognize gay people as equal citizens. This place has Santo Toribio de Liébana, which holds the largest piece of the true cross, for crying out loud. Even these people showed they could govern by reason rather than religion.
Casting ... assertions like this and trying to paint our opponents as sharing values with terrorists DOES NOT HELP OUR CAUSE AT ALL.
Where's the trying in this? You're saying bin laden doesn't oppose gay marriage? You're saying good, faithful Christians don't oppose gay marriage?
What exactly is this fantasy world that we're painting?
Sure, the poster's offensive to some, but you can't judge the world by what you feel in your heart is right because you've been told your opinions to you every Sunday for your entire life. Sometimes you have to look at the facts.
I think any moderate Christian who looks at this should just laugh. That was my first response. I think it gives food for thought, in the same way that an interesting news article gives food for thought. It's not likely to change your life, but you might remember it the next time you're in an associative situation. And maybe you'll think twice.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 06:08 pm (UTC)Do you really want to identify with the principles of President Bush?
Starting to see how ridiculous and untenable this assertion is?
I hardly think the poster will make people stop and engage in advanced syllogisms, that's a bit too much to expect from the average person glancing across this thing.
Granted, this poster might seem offensive to some, but to others it'll be just the nudge back to reality that they need. If people look at this and find a chance to reconsider their views on suppressing a minority because of religious reasons that they might not even share, then it's done its job.
Sure, it's intellectually offensive if you have more than a passing knowledge of geopolitics and religious history, but those people aren't exactly the target group here. If you have an idea for a poster that everyone agrees with and magically makes every person who sees it unite for gay rights, regardless of their background and education, we're all very interested and I can assure you those will be printed instead.
And I don't think you have a clear understand of the people this poster is trying to reach. It's not exactly the intellectual crowd, because they should already know better than to let their principles be dictated by 2000 year old dogma.
It might offend you, but so does a lot of other crap around you. A lot of gay people are very offended by those mindless pride parades that make gay men look like freaks who want to wear bondage gear in the street at all times. How the heck does that fit into the grand scheme of making people feel comfortable about openly gay people?
There you can talk about counterproductive campaigns. Where's the great wisdom in dressing up like a rainbowed moron and tossing pink dildos into the street?
Where's your crusade against these counterproductive nutjobs who are hurting the cause?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:18 am (UTC)Nonsense! You've got KKK, baptists and Neo-nazis :)
The south is for everyone to enjoy, regardless of your prejudice.
NC's sodomy law was one of the ones overturned, and there's been no effort here to reinstate it
If you go into an adult video store, you'll see why that's not so odd. Everyone wants to have buttsex, they just don't want gay people to have it. Apparently it's unnatural if you're not doing it with a woman.
But a caveat: it wasn't that they *took away* gay marriage. For most of them, they didn't have it to begin with; the referendums were an effort to make sure it didn't happen. It's hard to say something was taken away when you never actually had it.
This statement baffles me more than anything you've ever written...
You're saying that they didn't so much take away the keys to your car as they went ahead and prevented you from buying it. How is this better? How is this different?
"Well, you know, these guys never had freedom to begin with, so if we just make sure that they never will in the future either, then all will be happy."
We attack any portrayal of gays that isn't favorable
I think you may be confusing 'favorable' with 'fair'. I have yet to see a gay boycott against a company because they didn't show the gay couple in their ad as sufficiently responsible, planning for their old age and taking good care of their adopted children. But then again, I don't read a lot of gay literature, so maybe it has happened?
You can't say they're wrong without saying we're wrong too--if we have the right to do it, so do they, sorry. Free speech is not limited to us.
Free speech is not the issue. Freedom of religion is the issue. Separation of church and state is the issue.
We've come a damn long way in the past five-fifteen years in getting people to accept us, and we did not do it by trying to accuse people of being terrorists or religious nuts and telling them they sided with terrorists for opposing gay marriage or were no different than terrorists because they were religious.
Not saying that either. Merely pointing out the fact that Islamic jihadists are attacking the USA among other things because they think gays are created equal there.
Their idea of a theocracy is strikingly similar to what the religious right is trying to achieve in the US on the particular issue of gays. I think the fact that bin laden is a terrorist is secondary, at best. That's just there for the shock value.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:18 am (UTC)Even respectable journalists have been writing on the fascist state angle, especially with the billions of corporate wellfare being handed out that the middle class has to pay for. The problem is that it's a nono word in public, sorta like 'fuck', so it's impossible to have a serious debate about it, because you automatically lose the argument by even mentioning fascists. Or nazis, for that matter.
The only thing the average people know about those two regimes is that they were evil and we beat 'em, and no one can ever speak of them again.
That's the only reason people can cry out "a fascists totalitarian policestate is being instituted in the US!" and no one will even check to see if it's right. History is buried and doomed to be repeated until the very day that the average person is taught exactly WHY things were evil and how they became evil.
WE'RE A THEOCRACY!!!!
I'm not sure what other word you have for it when the leader ends every speech with "God bless America", speaks favorably about Intelligent Design, and calls for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, but I'm willing to learn.
THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN!!!!
I think the Diebold connections with bush 2.0b and the testimony of a programmer at that company who was told by his superiors to create code that could make a predictable outcome in the machines is enough. But I'm not sure I would even call it an 'election' when almost half the country are so tired of the polarization and mud slinging and corruption in politics that they've given up voting altogether.
BUSH BLEW UP THE LEVEES!!!!
No, he's not that evil. He just didn't give the funding to them that they needed after several reports had told him how urgent it was. It wasn't blown up, it just deteriorated in neglect by a government that chose to spend $236,338,594,456 billion and counting on a war in a foreign country based on bad intelligence, instead of tending to its own citizens.
THERE'S GOING TO BE A DRAFT!!!!!
Several senators wanted to reinstate it, but even the republican party couldn't get enough votes for that. They would never have been able to drag the war for nearly 3 years now with a draft. So they just kept sending people back there even though they had served their time already. The army is now stretched and broken and the real terrorist states have had 3 years in which to grow powerful. So powerful in fact that they can now officially declare a nuclear weapons program and there's not a damn thing the western world can do about it.
WE NEED A REVOLUTION!!!!!
Yes we do.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:19 am (UTC)What ruling?
The link is right there.
[ACLU] do show some state rulings, mostly in our favor. So given that, why are you claiming that courts are no longer a viable option?
I'd like you to quote from my reply exactly where I say that.
Courts are just about the only way to get this thing through, because the politicians are just going to hold public elections that all mysteriously turn out to be in favor of banning gay marriage (since the majority are religious), and then throw their arms in the air and go "we did all we could". Courts were the one that gave the women a right to vote, courts were the ones that abolished slavery, courts were the ones that allowed abortion.
And as you say, most courts rule in our favor. Isn't it really, really strange that the politicians don't adhere to what the courts rule?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:19 am (UTC)You don't have to repeat yourself, I read the other posts too.
Like way too many others in this community, you subscribe to groupthink and make no effort to comprehend any opinions or viewpoints other than your own.
I think I've just proved you a liar on that point with my other posts. I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks, I read and I educate myself and I devote my entire life to understanding as much of this world as I possibly can. I go out of my way to see things from all sides, but I do make some decisions. Just because I can see an issue from all sides doesn't mean I don't chose a side.
I don't even know what groupthink nonsense you're referring to, but it sounds like a standard talking point for trying to demonize your opponent.
I'm not in some little isolated group that all think the same way I do, I discuss things with people all day and we often don't agree. But we never stoop to the level of saying the other side is just taking their opinions from someone else who tells them to.
If there's anything I do, it's form my own opinion about things, so don't even try to push me into some conformist category here, I'm not doing the same to you either.
And merely shouting that someone else somewhere might possibly think the same thing I do, doesn't make it groupthink. In this particular instance may be on the same side as the rest of the so-called gay furry community, but I don't know who they are, I don't have a membership and I don't automatically assume their viewpoints.
If you want my reasons for thinking the way I do, I'll be happy to argue my viewpoints to you, but don't insult me by saying I base my opinions uncritically on the crap other people say around me.
You reflexively condemn people based on their faith or beliefs instead of trying to understand them and find middle ground, figure out an accomodation.
First of all, religious dogma has no common ground. It is non-existent. Does not compute.
If people want to be spiritual then peace be with them, but the moment their desire to spirituality starts to dictate what I should think or feel, and what I can do and cannot do, then I have problems with them. If they want to find a middle ground, they can get off their high horse and they can at the very least respect me as a human being.
Their faith requires gays to be pure evil, and when that's their starting point, common ground is pretty damn hard to come by.
The only people you can have a discussion with are the ones who aren't fanatically religious, the ones who can recognize their faith for what it is. A belief. A f-a-i-t-h. You know, the same faith that tells them women are slaves, children should be stoned and adultery should be punished by killing the man's wife. Which, curiously enough, doesn't happen as often anymore.
The moment they respect the fact that someone else may have a different faith that doesn't require them to be evil and go to hell for living the life they do, is the moment you can start finding middle ground.
[shakes head sadly] those posters wouldn't cancel out that hate, they'll just double the amount of it. Hate is hate. It doesn't matter where it's coming from or what it's directed towards. There's no 'balance' there.
Who said anything about hate? The journalists that distributed the words of bin laden were just distributing hate? They weren't informing anyone? They didn't think it was important that we understood the other side of the story?
Besides, religious nuts waving a bible on a street corner are nothing new; they've always been there ranting and raving about one thing or another.
Oh, well that makes it perfectly okay then. Wouldn't want to infringe on the freedom of religion of those persecuted Christians by telling them they can't advocate murder/fewer civil liberties of a minority in public, now would we?
generally making an ass of themselves. My opinion? Let them. They're just hurting themselves and their cause.
Good. Then you won't mind these posters we want to distribute :)