From: sherw@ocf.berkeley.edu (Gregory Sherwin)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.sex
Subject: Re: Quit Bashing Colorado
Date: 12 Jan 1993 01:49:58 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: sandstorm.berkeley.edu

In article <1993Jan11.225415.9546@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> gjensen@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mountain Man) writes:
>Some thoughts,
>
>Homosexuals decide to be gay.

My aren't we being a bit presumptuous?  Sorry to say, it isn't that simple.
>
>The people that voted FOR #2 in Colorado love the boycott.
>None of them are in the travel business.  What do they care.
>You can only hurt them by not eating corn, wheat or beef.

Not only that, but if the travel business goes bad enough - perhaps
some of these people will have to move away for work ... thus polarizing the
vote even further.

>IMHO, it is asinine for a state like Georgia with a severe
>sodomy law, to boycott Colorado.
True - ironic isn't it?  But - you support what you want to support,
and you don't what you don't want to.  That's the great part about all
of this - personal choice.
>
>Worse of all, is the polarization of the gays, gay
>sympathizers and the red-necks.

I'd like to think of myself as more of a moderate - who sees reasons
and truths on both sides without putting my hands over my ears and
screaming "I can't hear you!" whenever there's something that doesn't fit my
political agenda.  Of course, we're very boring politically, so not many
moderates get noticed -- it's usually the flames coming from both poles.

>Any hate was all on the side of the gays.  They are such
>cry-babies.  All gays think about is hurting people that
>don't agree with them.

Well, that's a one-sided viewpoint.  Gays have reason to be concerned because
discrimination based on sexual orientation does exist, but
at the same time you don't want to take morphine for a minor headache
either.  The funny thing I think is that the whole stupid thing about
#2 is that it doesn't really say so much about rights as it says stuff about
not giving people rights - which seems kind of backwards.  And then when
the arguement for #2 comes up that it is important to have this because
gays already have these certain rights, my only response is "this one
one horrible, convoluted piece of backwards logic that makes no sense
at any level".  I mean, even when you read it it doesn't make any sense -
not from a political standpoint, but a logical/verbal one.

I wouldn't go so far as to stereotype all gays as people who want to hurt
those who don't agree with them, but there are SOME gays who are like
that - just as there are some Republicans, some blacks, some ornithologists,
etc. who are like that.
>
>I am convinced that the two groups will do anything to piss
>each other off.

To some extent, for some of the people in both groups, I believe that
to be true.

>gets physical.  Seems like every time someone looks at a gay
>in they report harassment.  These are very sensitive thin-
>skinned people.  A person must have to be really touchy to
>qualify to be gay.

Now we're getting into some pretty misinformed stereotypes.  Do you know
of any gay people?  I wouldn't exactly say that they, like any other
group so to speak, are punched out of the same injection molding at some
gay-people factory.  Talk to a few - you'll find that some are nice, some
are jerks, some you agree with on some things, some you won't, etc.

greg