From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Too straight looking
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 92 01:45:02 GMT


In article <vanyel.715034438@camelot>
vanyel@camelot.bradley.edu (Alan Williams) writes:

>In <1992Aug28.202150.13394@PacBell.COM> rjwill6@PacBell.COM
>(Rod Williams) writes:

>>Let me get this...uh...straight:  Bob and Alan and Matthew
>>would have us all act like "normal" gays in the dubious belief
>>that this might give clueless straights a better image of
>>homosexuals and make it easier for "normal" gays to emerge
>>from their closets.  

I think that on this point, Alan, Rod [oh-oh, I should have
said Rod rather than Ry earlier; sorry everyone] is on
fairly solid ground.  You may not take the same positions as
the other two on everything, but on the point raised here,
there isn't much difference between the three of you.

>>When some of us respond in our glorious
>>diversity that we have other priorities, like maybe realizing
>>our full-individual-human-potential-unfettered-by-the-strait-
>>jacket-of-irrelevant-gender-roles-and-expectations, and if
>>those guys had half a clue between them they'd realize that
>>those same clueless straights will hate them just as viciously
>>whether they're in three-piece gray flannel or a fucking tutu,
>>but thanks all the same...

Now what does this mean?  What *doesn't* it mean?  (This is not
a trivial exercise.)

>Let me see if I understand this:

Do you think you *did* understand it?  There's evidence you
didn't.  Some of it may be that you don't say quite what
you mean and you don't mean quite what you say.

>I suggest that maybe Bob has a point,

What does that add or subtract?  Of course he has *a* point,
lost in there somewhere.  I'll say something elsewhere about
the taxonomy of his points, maybe.

At the point where you specifically agreed with Sarver, you
signed up to be criticized for reducing (markedly!) the
options available to people who should be free members of a
free society, but are not because of oppression and
discrimination your attitudes help to foster.  

In a variety of ways, you may differ from Sarver or Melmon
(as they do from one another), but on the issue at hand,
you're all three enough alike that we can speak of you as
like-minded and not be distorting things.

>and I state something about my *personal* likes and dislikes
>about something to do with *behaviorisms*,

I think you mean "behaviors."  But you seem to feel that
being prejudiced is perfectly all right, as long as it's
your personal likes or dislikes.

An excellent counterexample has been advanced wrt to racial
and religious prejudices, asking you if you're prepared to
defend such prejudices on the same basis as you defend
sexism and homophobia.  I guess you don't see that holding
the prejudices you do hold (your personal tastes don't enter
into it, really) is *identical* to defending sexism and
homophobia.  But it is, and you need to think about that
until you see why and how.

>get flamed for it,

Are you positive that's what you got flamed for?  And
suppose that *was* it; what difference does that *really*
make?

>and I'm supposed to smile sweetly and walk away saying,
>"Gosh, how silly of me"?

Unfortunately, this is the classic Usenet whine, and you've
been around here *way* too long to be getting away with it.
If you have a cogent counter-argument, advance it; *that's*
what you're "supposed to" do.

>I don't think *anyone* should be the target of mindless
>discrimination.  Period.

I presume you don't mean to argue for mindful
discrimination, so for this statement to be credible, you
have to rid yourself of your own prejudices.  No one's
standing over you with an axe or anything, but a little
cooking of your brain seems quite in order.  You should be
doing this on your own, anyway, but a few gentle reminders
certainly won't hurt, and if you would really listen to
others, and really listen to yourself, surely you would see
opportunities on all sides.

>I also don't think morons like you have a clue as to how to
>*really* defuse that discrimination, other than to point
>fingers and cast half-truths about others to show the world
>how *baaaad* they are.

I think there's a serious distortion of your perceptions
going on if you can read what Rod wrote and think all he was
doing was pointing fingers.  He *was* talking about discrimination
and how to defuse it, but you weren't listening to that part.
Instead, you got sidetracked by other things.  No permanent
harm is done, especially if you do go back and consider more
carefully what's being said here and elsewhere.

>You might learn something.

Yeah, sort of like that.

<> I have small patience with people who attempt to stand on
<> principles which are smaller than their feet and then
<> complain when they fall off, but I have no sympathy with
<> people who attempt to stand on principles when there are
<> none in sight. -- Jack Carroll
-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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