From: bruceg@access.digex.com (Bruce Garrett)
Subject: Re: Measure 9 in PBS and CBS
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 16:59:19 GMT

  nelshou1@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu (Roger Shouse) continues his rant:

 > As I have said, Americans are quite tolerant in a general way, but
 > become increasingly concerned depending on the specific issue.

       The ones who actually know a homosexual person, either as a family
member or co worker or friend are less likely to be...ah...concerned then
those who don't; nothing kills a lie faster then experience and when people
actually have an opportunity to see for themselves that we aren't the drooling
sexual monsters bigots have told them we are, and they start seeing for
themselves that we are humans like anyone else, they change their tune about
what our rights are.  This is a main reason why we in the Gay community are
struggling for more cultural visibility, and of course a main reason why
bigots want us to keep us invisible.  The more people actually see of us, the
more their lies look like lies, and that would never do.

 > It has to do with a deep seated cultural belief that families help act
 > as the glue with which the social fabric is held together.

       Your vision of what makes a family is narrow and small minded...but of
course it would be.  When I was growing up my family consisted of not only
my parents but also my aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and so forth.
Some of them were themselves single (I have no knowledge that any of them
were Gay...), but contributed to the overall good of the family each in their
own ways.  I remember growing up in that environment as a happy time; we all
knew we could count on each other in the pinch.  That is a family...not the
isolated and suffocating nuclear family that Right Wing bozos love to promote
for the sake of their own narrow political agendas.

       Families are as different as the people who make them together.  What
makes a family is love and compassion and a willingness to give a part of
yourself to the family's good and the welfare of it's children.  I suspect that
a main reason why right wingers Love the nuclear family model is that it tends
to reenforce an authoritarianism outlook on life in a way that other models
don't.  When you can see your father and his father interacting with his
brothers and his father's brothers the thought of a central omnipotent
authority being the natural order of human societies somehow doesn't occur to
you as readily, and you find that cooperation and working things out together
is at least as valuable a lesson to learn as how to take direction.  You also
begin to get a clue early in life that not everyone lives their lives the
same way as you do.

        Can't have any of that can we Roger...?

 > I might add here that the discrimination between gay and straight sex
 > falls into the same sort of class as that between sex between "lovers"
 > and that between a prostitute and her customer.

       Uhmmm...  Gay people don't love each other...they just have sex.  Gay
couples are like whores and prostitutes.   Tell us again about how you're not
a bigot Roger...  Tell us about how you think this discussion shouldn't
involve calling people names...

 > Culture is of belief, not necessarily of facts.

       In South Africa they    believed    they could create a society
based on the separation of the races.  Didn't work.  But, oh, they BELIEVED.

 > I suspect that it is also a fact that if homosexuality were to achieve
 > equal footing with heterosexuality in the eyes of society that its
 > practice would increase.

       On what grounds do you base this suspicion?  It would certainly
become more visible...though probably not to any major degree, we being a
small fraction of the population in anybodys calculations.  Afraid of
encountering homosexuals more often in your life perhaps..?

 > And as it did, the character (if not the proliferation) of our culture
 > would be affected in a way that most citizens would not like to see.

       Uhmmm...  Just what way Is that Roger?

       You're trying So hard here to look like a gentleman while trashing
thousands of decent people, and watching you teetering on that fence of yours
I can appreciate how hard a thing that is to do.

 > All the protests, all the name calling in the world will not alleviate
 > the concerns involved.

       It's only a protest when homosexuals fight for their rights, not when
bigots fight against them.  It's only name calling when homosexuals call their
oppressors bigots...not when bigots call homosexuals whores, prostitutes or
child molesters...

      Bigots have it so darn Hard...

 >> >Why do you believe that gays are morally inferior to straights, and
 >> >that being against equal rights for gays is not bigoted?

 > Re-read my post.

       Just don't want to answer that one do you?  It would be the end of
pretense...


-Bruce Garrett
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality