From: pentangl@spdcc.com (Scott Moir)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Too straight looking to be gay??? (was re: UNGAY GAY)
Date: 26 Aug 92 11:45:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1992Aug26.114557.2701
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

In article <1992Aug18.183725.13703@microsoft.com> bobsarv@microsoft.com (Bob Sarver) writes:
>
>(elf)
>/What gives you the right to tell people how to behave so that they can hide
>/from the straights?  Why should I even want to hide from the straights.  
>
>Not "hide"; just cease to stand out like a fucking snowball in a coal bin.

Regardless of how you word it, you are still giving the same message.
'Conform so you don't freak the straights'.

>You know, lately I have discovered that several of my friends are
>witches (Wiccans).  I was impressed with how totally average they
>are:  they go to work, they have the same desires that most people do,
>they are very unassuming and pretty cool folks.  I am not a Wiccan,
>but my respect for them has shot up immensely, because they are
>nonthreatening and pretty down-to-earth.  If they had shown up
>with broomsticks, black cats, and pointed hats, I am quite sure
>they wouldn't have gotten the first word out to me.  Some people
>in the gay movement could learn a few things from them.

This brings up an EXCELLENT point, Bob. The bit about broomsticks and
pointed hats is a predisposed opinion you had of what witches should
be like. Until you met some in real life, that is. Your respect for them
went up because of how 'totally average they are'. I do know of Wiccans
who are more out about thier religon, who wear black all the time and 
the appropriate symbols of thier belief (Pentagrams, mostly). This is
normal garb for someone who professes belief in that system. When you
DO wear that garb, you are marked a target for fundies, who call you
a satanist. You are told you are damned, and that you will be punished.
You get neighbors telling thier kids to stay away from your house, you
get snide comments from people on the street.

These people are still quite normal, and they get this shit. All they
are doing is following thier religon in a non-offensive way. By wearing
clothes, and a certain symbol.

Sound farmiliar?

I get it both ways, because I'm Wiccan as well as queer.

>It is not only important to have a good message, but the messenger must
>also be good.  If either the message or the messenger are foul, then 
>people tend to throw the whole thing out as a unit. 

I understand what you are saying, but it reeks of the 'Not one of us'
syndrome. People who think 'you aren't like me, so you could never
understand me.' People who are too frightened by something different
from themselves to deal with them/it. There was a time we dealt with
minorities as if they were Scary Monsters when we were first discovering
other parts of the world (I am speaking from a european discoverer's 
perspective) and we thought they were odd because they dressed different,
they talked funny, and they were obviously unenlightened. :/

Your argument still says to me 'You are too different, you are making
acceptance too much work for the hets.' Why should -I- change because
-they- can't deal? I would be much happier to wait until they can deal
with me as I am, rather than pretend I am something that I'm not just
so I don't scare them.

>My clue word?  Let's use your words to explain *why* these guys are 
>closeted:
>
>   "Leathermen like me, Bears, Queens, Nellies, Camps, Drag Queens. . ."
>
>
>What do you want, elf?  Do you want more gays to come out of the closet
>and join you, help you in the fight?  Or do you just want the bright
>spotlight for a few short hours every year, to exhibit your sexual
>fantasies?  Which is more important, exhibitionism or political
>progress?

You want political progress? You have to TAKE it. You have to WORK for
it. There is legislation happening in Oregon that would make your homo-
sexuality a crime. Not your act, your walk, or your talk.. your very
orientation. I'm not about to go hat-in-hand to people and say 'Is it
all right with you if I get treated like an equal human being?'

Scott

-- 
Scott Moir / Pentangle / Satyr ______ # "There's really only one requirement 
pentangl@Ursa-Major.spdcc.com  \ \/ / #  for a Prophet, and you've got it."
B4 f t+ w g k+(+) s+ m r p+     \/\/  # "What's that?"
These are my opinions, not SPDCC's    # "A mouth." - 'God' to J.R.'BoB' Dobbs
Newsgroups: soc.motss