In 1994 Mr. Conservative himself, Mr. Republican, Barry Goldwater, said:
“You don’t have to like it, but gay people deserve full constitutional rights including marriage and service in the Military.”
He said it in Phoenix — after he had come to terms with his gay grandson. Just like every family with a gay child has had to deal with the reality of a gay child. Just like my family came to reality about me. I can imagine it cannot be easy. But if there’s one thing Conservatives deal with, it’s reality. And for better or worse, gay folks are real. Of this we are sure, even if you are not. So real that our tiny minority — what? maybe 5% of the population? — has brought about a national debate by first convincing our mothers, or some other sympathetic family member, that we’re just OK, but different. By simply begging, almost literally, for acceptance, understanding and guidance. My father was a Goldwater Republican, and in this regard, his apple did not fall far from the tree. But he sure doens’t think I’m against him. I even wrote a book with him.
Being gay is not a political position. This debate is not an American debate. It’s happening in every country on earth. It’s because regardless of the culture, the religion, the race, or any other factor in our Babel of a world, no more than 5% of the people are insistently gay. There’s not just gay parades here, but in nearly every country on earth. Even in Moscow; though there the police still wade in with batons to beat us. And what determination we must have to try to organize gay parades in such places as Malaysia, Egypt and even Iran! But if we’re 5% of the world’s population, we’re some 350,000,000 people. How is this possible if it’s not natural? How could so many “choose,” so independently of each other, to be gay? And to “choose” means we must have somehow turned off our “natural” heterosexuality. How is this possible? How can we turn off “instinct”?
We have this determination because we simply are gay. We don’t know why; neither do you. You “believe” you know, but there’s too much opinion on why for anyone to “know.” Though we gay folks all know it an an extraordinarily young age. Not a gay guy I know — and I dare say I know considerably more than any reader here — does not have the same story. Somewhere, within the first inklings of puberty, we knew it. Virtually all of us say it was roughly between 8 and 12 years old. We just knew. And no one had to teach us what to do. And there are certainly no fairy tales for, um, fairies. Then the problem became how to deal with it, and anyone around us who found out. An even bigger problem was to figure out if there was anyone else around who felt as we did. For we all come to this conclusion ourselves, with no one to ever talk to about it. And you all get heaps and gobs of support. And you wonder why we have trouble with relationships?
We can’t just have dreamed this up and decided to “fight” society for the rest of our lives. There must be more to it. However, right now, just like I was 10 when I realized it, though didn’t have a word for it, there is another 10 year old boy coming to his realization. There is no “cure” for this reality. We are not recruiting these boys. At most we seek to protect them from bullying and to leave them a better America in which to grow up in. Just like you do for your kids. We’d prefer to call it mentoring. Though we’re pretty clueless about how to do it. We have begged the nation for guidance on this issue, but it’s often still way too dangerous to broach.
Many of you think the gay rights movement — or as I like to call it — “Rights for gays” — started in 1969. Or some time even later. But actually it started in the early 1950s in Chicago. A handful of gay folks formed a group called “The Friends of Dorothy.” They published a few hundred mimeographed fliers and handed them out. The nation was so fearful of us at the time, so against us, that the FBI spent over one year and a million dollars searching for “Dorothy.” How they did not know she was a fictional character in a classic movie we don’t know. We giggle about it to this day. But that was when we began begging for the culture war against us to cease. The one riot we had was 20 years later. It was our “shot heard round the world.” It was our moment of extremism in the defense of our liberty. Then we got back to begging.
But we have not attacked family, church or culture. We have begged for acceptance of our kind. We have begged our families, our churches, and we have begged this culture for a shred of humanity and understanding. We have achieved much. We beg, and many call it attack, which leaves us puzzled, even angry. I’d say more than half the nation has now realized that we are simply a harmless bunch of misfits. The least of God’s creatures, perhaps, but His children too. We are merely the pink sheep in His flock. Perhaps it would help if you imagine on us the autism scale. Something went awry in our brain wiring. There’s no way around the reality, however, that here we are. And we have no where else to go. But we are not fighting you, we are begging for a bit of mollycoddling. Which is something we don’t really get.
We do not expect anyone to come to some love-fest with us overnight. We, especially we, know the difficulties of the issue we present; though it’s not really our issue. It’s the issues you have with us. We’re somewhat self-conflicted with our calls for “Accept us, Include us, Ignore us,” true. We’re as coherent as the TEA Party in a lot of ways. No leader, no organization, just a determination to make a better America. Which includes us. But we’re extraordinarily comfortable with ourselves. We just don’t really think about it at all.
I can liken it to this: when you all are strolling through a park on a sunny afternoon hand in hand and espy a rose, and stop to smell, and have a romantic smooch you are accepted, included and ignored. It’s just a loving couple doing what comes natural. Right? But we dare not do this. Even though we pay taxes at the same rate as you do for the parks we cannot yet stroll through hand in hand, smell a rose and smooch. If the taxation is equal, should not the enjoyment of the parks bought be equal too? And all else too? We pay the same, give us the same.
But I can tell you this: at least half my gay friends are as conservative as you all, except on the gay thing obviously. And in these perilous times our nation faces, to argue incessantly over a tiny portion of the country is pointless. Do you really want to debate this DOMA thing for the next 10 or 15 years? We don’t, but we will if we have to. For it is true, marriage, even by a name special for us, is a Conservative value. We want to settle down, we’re still begging for help in doing it. For we never received guidance on how to have relationships; indeed, some say it’s impossible, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Help us find our prince charming, that’s what we beg of you, too.
And to chase away potential voters, and our parents and friends too, is simply not a way to resurrect the greatness of this nation. We are simply too unimportant to fight over. But we’re all too real. And we vote, mostly for whomever will bear us no malice. The Liberals were good at that, hoodwinking us, but too many of us have woken up to the chicanery of the Left. Most polling data indicate that upwards of 30% of gay folks vote Republican. I know I have, consistently, for decades. What can you do to win the rest of us?
And I can also tell you at least half my friends are rooting for Sarah Palin. It’s a simple reason really, besides the political stuff. She has a son who is different, and we pray to God Almighty that she will have the wisdom to realize we’re just sons who are different too. And then put a stop to this debate about us. Let my people go, and get back to the debt, the deficit, the unions, repealing ObamaCare and the rest.
Perhaps the nation should set up a National Commission on Gay Americans — and move all this debate to it. And figure us out. Just don’t forget to include us in the discussion. A discussion I really just hate having, as I’m sure you’re all tired of having it too. But that’s what happens when 5% of the nation with nothing to lose begs for sixty years. It was beg, or continue with the police raids on our bars. Eventually you started listening. We might be less than rugged individuals — but don’t you just marvel at our fortitude? Do we not get two points for that at least? Our fortitude comes because we are sure God is on our side.
You know, Jesus said: walk a mile in another man’s shoes before you condemn him. Walk but a block in mine and it will open your eyes.
And He said: treat others as you want to be treated. We have done so, mostly by begging.
He also said, “Turn the other cheek.” And that too we have done. That’s our getting up to beg again after we’ve been knocked down again.
We have simply been begging God to change the hard hearts against us. For sixty years. Please don’t make us beg for another sixty. I beg you.
@KansasGirl: Ms. KS Girl — I do not claim the figure — the Attorney General of the State of Oregon is claiming the figure — I’m quoting the man who is stating the figure to the United States Supreme Court. He’s arguing that’s it OK for the police to question children about abuse by parents without a warrant and without permission of the parents and without anyone but the police. I’m not happy with warrantless questioning, and I’ve been the subject of a few bar raids when the police did saunter in and inquire about the “faggots” and “practicing homosexuals” they did fear were running rampant. I think.
As for “homosexual” priests — the Vatican itself claims there’s no such thing. Talk to them. And as the bumper sticker says: “I support the 99% of priests who are good.” And thus, by most reckoning, out of some 40,000 priests in the nation, only a hundred or so, maybe up to a 1000 — the Church does hate to give the figure — has done any molesting. Interestingly, it seems 100% of the boys molested by priests have turned out 100% heterosexual, with kids and wives. So much for molesting boys makes boys gay, eh? Not only that, the Church did transfer the priests hither and yon rather than fire those priests. Or turn them into other authorities. And is still fighting the issue. But I don’t think you can lay the personal policies of the Church at gay folks feet, we’re barely allowed in to celebrate Mass.
Now, when one is Conservative — one quotes the words of government officials, and the Church — one relies on facts. One relies on facing reality to solve a problem. I submit a Lefty would question my motives as to whether I’m TEA party conservative, or religious, or patriotic. I find it odd, ma’am, that you support my very contention: We could indeed go back and forth on this “nonsense” and being concerned with this nonsense. Indeed I specifically call for such action — and if you’re conservative and agree completely with me that it’s pointless and none to clear about what anyone is talking about — then I’d say I’m conservative too. Ya think?
As for Freedom loving, oh my, ma’am, you have no earthly clue. The whole thesis I make is “let my people enjoy all the freedoms you do” — meanwhile, would you like to help me abolish the IRS? Ma’am — you can link to my blog from my name — go back to the first six months and read what I say. Then watch my anger rise as you folks keep going back and forth on nonsense that I just despise discussing. But, then again, I didn’t pen the post which led me to submit mine.
@retire05: Sir, you are quite amazing. You I do believe are willfully ignorant: The news today, oh boy.
There are daily stories of parents and family members abusing GIRLS by the thousands. 750,000 by teh AG of Oregon’s reckoning. I’d think the number better be factual if he’s presenting it to the Supreme Court, you think, sir?
The vast majority of boys molested are molested by married and celibate Christian Clergy and Catholic Priests — not gay men. And they turn out straight!
Meanwhile, Nancy Grace makes a living off the abuse of girls! Her show has been around for a few years and not a day goes by without some heterosexual father doing in his kids or raping them or abusing them.
It’s an “Amber” alert and not a “Jim” alert because GIRLS get kidnapped and molested.
It’s the unwed fathers of girls who rape and pillage through the family.
NBC’s Dateline has for years shown heterosexual, often married with kids, men going after 13 and 14 year old girls. 4 or 5 an hour on that show, week after week — and only the juiciest cases — it’s not gay men their catching doing anything.
It’s Heterosexual fathers and men who sequester GIRLS in their basements and sheds in backyards, kept shackled as sex slaves, and bear their children. No one has ever found a boy so kept.
It’s heterosexual men who kidnap girls. No gay man ever kidnapped a boy.
It’s heterosexual mothers who drown and stab and shoot their kids
It’s heterosexual fathers who shoot up their families.
It’s heterosexuals rampaging through churches, work places, the mall, and everywhere shooting up the place until he kills his wife or ex- or girlfriend. No gay man ever shot up anything.
It’s heterosexuals sir who fill the prisons with violent crazed lunatics intent on destroying all that is good and wholly.
Heterosexual men are the rapers, the wife beaters, the kid killers, they’re the destructive force against the family.
Why recently one fine heterosexual stuffed an entire family up a tree.
It’s hetero men sir, who are attacking the family.
Gay men own the florists where the funeral bowers might be prepared.
You sir, got it so tuckus backwards I think your some Leftist making up facts to suit your convenience.
And if one or two out of our 10 or 15 million did attempt to pimp out son, — well, it would be impossible for him to have gotten far with the enterprise for gay men do not buy up boys for sex.
In fact, the entire sex-slave trade is heterosexual men trafficking in girls and women.
You are a most amazingly furious blind man. I pray for you, sir, I do. Don’t like me because I’m “icky” or something — don’t just make stuff up while ignoring the REALITY of heterosexual sex crimes all around you.
@dscott: My value system is yours. Liberty for All. It’s not Liberty for 95% and a Theocracy for the five percent you don’t like. I’m also not at all happy paying equal taxes for the joy of being denied the fruits and benefits of the taxes paid. As for what goes on in my bedroom — well, sir until 2003 in my state I was subject to 10 years in prison at hard labor for what went on in my bedroom. Or even in my kitchen for that matter if I kissed a man “good morn.” Other than that, it was truly fair. Uh Huh.
Until the mid-nineties cops were still raiding, though more and more peacefully than earlier, some bars in this state, less we have beers unmolested by the police state. Other than that, it was truly fair. Uh Huh. Right now the law of the land is that I am never to be accorded any benefit to couples that the rest of you enjoy on a national level, and only limited benefits in a handful of places, and each differently. Other than that, it’s truly fair. Uh Huh. You know — “liberty for All, except well, you few.”
And pretty much, while being somewhat restricted in the enjoyment of the government’s benefits, privileges, legal methods, and such, for which I pay equal as you — me and my people are still somewhat routinely denigrated in public by elected officials, candidates for offices, churches, and God knows whom else with a sort of insouciant nastiness, disdain and disregard, and borderline foundationless criminal charges in a way that would simply not be tolerated about any other group. Fairness of a kind I’m not familiar with, actually. Surely it’s saying directly: Nope, you’re not equal! Other than that, it is truly a Free Republic for you heterosexuals. And a sort of theocracy for gay folks — indeed, even up to and including denying or restricting my religious liberty– based on your religious belief. Not to mention the “full faith and credit” crisis coming to a Constitutional court near you.
And not only isn’t this situation a sort of taxation without representation — but it’s being taxed to pay for the government lawyers to fight me in court in my quest for equality of a legal nature. Just like we used to pay for the cops to come in and bust our heads before we were whisked off for exlectro shock therapy or something, you know, to “cure” us. Like we were hams. Other than that, yep, very equal.
Pleasant day sir.
Jim, for a while I thought you were just painfully uninformed. Now I think you are just a blatant liar who makes crap up if you think it supports your agenda. Case in point:
The Amber Alert was not named “Amber” because only girls get kidnapped. It was named “Amber” after the child whose father lobbied for the system.
You have NO proof that most boys are molested by clergy. None. So that is just another one of your little made-up talking points.
You claim to be such a world traveler. Then you should be aware of the Anwar Burney Foundation or the practice of banda achi. Oooops, little boys being kidnapped for the purpose of racing camels. And in captivity, they are being raped. Who is doing the raping? It certainly isn’t heterosexual females.
“In research with 942 nonclinical adult participants, gay men and lesbian women reported a significantly higher rate of childhood molestation than did hetersexual men and women. Forty-six percent of homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the hetersexual men reported HOMOSEXUAL molestation. Twenty-two percent of lesbian women in contrast to 1% of hetersexual women reported homosexual molestation.”
Who do you think were raping, and molesting, all those boys? Lesbians?
But the actions of gay men are not limited to just raping little boys. Ever heard of Bradley Manning?
You are the most dishonest person I have ever read on any blog. Your hated for straights seem tantamount to a psychosis. You defend gays as if there is no such thing as NAMBLA, or gay crime against children. You make up facts as you go along, and then, when you are shown to be lying, you run off like a scared rabbit.
You are a disgusting man. No, not because of how you choose to lead your life, but because you are a liar. And I suggest before you evoke the name of God again, you search your own soul for the fact that you are a habitual liar.
Since dishonest seems to be your only strong trait, I am through with you. Feel free to make some more useless, snarky, false comments. It’s all you’ve got.
@dscott:
That’s all fine and well, but the 14th Amendment prohibits the majority ruling over the rights of the minority. Voting is really reserved for electing leaders, not for making and applying laws.
Cary, No sir you greatly misunderstand the point of a Republic, voting is to hold those representatives who make the Laws ACCOUNTABLE to the will of the people. And the 14th Amendment applies to rights you DO have not to ones that NEVER existed. Homosexuality was NEVER a right that ever existed in this Republic, that’s an undeniable fact.
Jim, with that attitude you will never convince the majority of accepting your behavior. The burden to convince the majority of any CHANGE is upon the group who wants the change. Just because you want to do something doesn’t mean we automatically must extend acceptance.
The failure to convince has generally one of three reasons:
1. the person is too lazy to make the full effort to lay out the argument to change the mind of another.
2. the person is not competent to lay out the argument to change the mind of another.
3. the argument being advanced by the person is wrong.
Blaming the person who doesn’t accept the argument of running a hetero theocracy is a rationalization and obfuscation of the fact that since the founding of this Society homosexuality was never accepted as the norm. It’s obvious you don’t accept the judgment of Society regarding your behavior and your resentment shows. In fact, given your responses so far, your attempts to guilt people into accepting your behavior comes off condescending and self righteous, neither of which influences people to consent. I submit you do your movement more harm by your sloppy advocacy than you help it. Having watched TV shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy I am far more empathic to those guys than you.
@dscott: Sir, gay folks are not at all unaware that no society on earth has really ever accepted us. So what? With modern thought and science we can now see that gay folks are natural. The old ways are gone. Come sir, accept this. Jews put up with this for thousands of years, we’re very similar to them
Or are we gay folks really to just be forever scorned for the rest of our lives, and the lives of every 10 year old boy who is realizing he’s gay. So by your logic, for the next 60 or 70 years his only “duty” is to be scorned and hated, and subject to unrelenting attack?
Well, sir, I regret that any gay man gives but one live for this Republic.
Sir this is not a “behavior” – it’s an existence. And you cannot grasp this. And I do not know why. Other than that you “believe” in the face of my insistence based on my reality. And how can you be right about, and I be wrong? Whom are you sir, with such omniscience?
@retire05: Retireo5
Have you not heard of Benedict Arnold? He’s a happily married straight guy, who sold out or Republic in teh beginning. His own sons changed their last names so as to disassociate themselves from their father.
Manning? Arnold? What’s the difference, other than one maybe gay and one definitely straight.
By your logic no straight man could ever be for the nation, for he’s akin to Arnold, for whom HE smooches. Have sir heard of hypocrisy? Ever?
Oh, you selective fact gatherer, you are a friend of mine.
@retire05: A “blatant liar”? You deluded man. I put pictures of my mother and grandmother for my post. I have hid not my name.
And you hide behind some miasma fog and lies. You sir, are so typical of what I’ve been fighting all my life. All attack — nasty, rude, insolent — and nary a fact other than one plucked from within the entirety — and masqueraded as the be all and end all.
Sir I submit, you lie so much you can’t even give me your name!
Bah!
@retire05: Sir, I do submit you are so utterly clueless that I find you fascinating. Nothing would please me more than to sit down with you — laptops at the ready to research every “fact” you present.
But fear not sir, there are millions more of you than there are of me and my kind.
The difference? — we follow the word of God, and you spew the word of unGoldy Royalism without the ermine.
If you despise me this much — I WANT MY TAXES BACK — AND FOR ALL OF US “WHINY” “QUEERS” — GIVE US FLORIDA – AND LET MY PEOPLE GO. SO YOU CAN LIVE IN YOUR THEOCRACY AND I MIGHT LEAD MY PEOPLE TO THE PROMISED LAND.
Lie? You have no clue as to lies, for you are so filled with them as to be beyond belief.
Again – if you hate me because I’m ICKY — fine
Don’t make crud up. It’s unbecoming a Free Republic.
And it’s unbecoming a Christian man.
Have a pleasant life sir. Truly.
@retire05: Sir, I do not want to contest you. I want to embrace you as a fellow citizen. You claim I have no proof that only clergy molest boys> well sir, go argue with the Attorney General of Oregon, go argue with the FBI, go argue with every factual based exploration of reality.
Then when you’re done, return to your beliefs, as if you right – but which has nothing to do with reality.
Are you really this dead set against us?
My thesis is that we’ve been begging for sixty years for a shred of humanity. I begged in my conclusion — please don’t make us beg for sixty more years. With fine men or women like you — again — put your light upon the basket, I hide not – I refuse! — I can see it might take another 100 years.
Thank you sir, for the opportunity to continue my discussion with you — even as you heap scorn upon me: “whiny” “liar” and who knows what else, for it is too aggravating to contemplate.
At least I pay my taxes, turn my cheek, and treat others as they would want to be treated.
And you don’t comprehend the greatest concept known to man – the teachings of Jesus.
I pray for you, sir, I pray.
@retire05: Mr. or Mrs. Retireo5 — I find you the most intriguing person in this debate about my article. Again, I’m not against you. I want you to continue to believe exactly as you do. But again, as Jesus says: walk a mile in another man’s shoes before you condemn him.”
I do not expect you to understand this right now, or perhaps ever. But you know, you are very similar to Carl Paladino, a man who ran for governor of NY State, and lost. He said gay folks are dysfunctional. And yet he has a gay nephew whom he say is a fine man. Cardinal George of Chicago thinks like you, and he too has a gay nephew whom he says is a “fine man.”
Well, sir, I submit — it’s impossible to call some one dysfunctional and unnatural and a threat to society, and at the same time say that the gay man you know — in this case their nephews — are “fine men.”
It’s a logical disconnect. It’s impossible for a rational man to hold for long.
I have great faith that you are a rational man. Just like the Cardinal and the Candidate are rational men.
How can you hold such contradictory positions on such a ridiculously unimportant issue at the same time?
Do you think there are no gay men within your extended family. Oh, perhaps not your son, but a cousin, or a cousin’s son? It has to be. No family in this nation is without a gay relative. How can you continue this attack upon us ? Even as I attempt to engage you in reasonable discussion?
I note sir, that I am the only gay guy here. I must have enormous certitude in my position, no? I put my name up — I hide nothing — I admit readily to all your most hoary positions. What more would you have me do in begging — the very thesis of my article – -for God to turn your hard heart?
I truly marvel at you campaign against me. But will you not say something “Wow, Jim, you do stick to your guns”? — No, you heap opprobrium upon me — “whiny” “liar,” et al –
which is most appalling in a Free Republic where we’re supposed to defend to the death our fellow citizen’s right to Free Speech.
You are most intriguing. In wish to know more of your thinking.
Man, I love them negative votes on my comments! I absolutely luxuriate in the continued dismissal of anything I say. Because you know, I’m an icky gay guy. I think this is the first time I heard this. Um, wait, um, no. That’s right, all my life. And still I come to talk to you. Still. In an effort for understanding. To beg, even, as my article says.
Well, like we did when the FBI went hogwire looking for Dorothy, we giggled. We giggle now. And you know what? In the end we’ll win anyway, for rational thought will prevail. We’re the most peaceful docile productive little group of silly sissies giggling at all you big strong manly men still debating us — and you folks are absolutely freaked about us. We do wonder why. For only us, and no one else, will be just like us. This you seem not to believe. That’s your problem. See a shrink.
It’s a marvel to behold.
Retire05 — I shall comment no more. It’s too silly, and my sides hurt in uncontrollable laughter.
I got things to do — like live a a life and worry about the coming tax due on April 15th – just like the rest of you. Except, well, you don’t still have to debate your existence.
It’s been fun. God bless.
Jim, thank you for proving that you are unable to contribute facts and can only provide useless emotional diatribes, making spurious claims short on detail. Like AG Kroger who is trying to defend himself in Camreta v. Greene, although both sides of the aisle, SPLC and Focus on the Family are both against him. Like refusing to address the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, like ignoring the findings of an extensive survey done by the California School of Professional Psychology.
Unwittingly, you have proved my point that you have nothing of value to offer. Just whining, victimhood.
So I shall boil down your less than rational argument:
you want all your tax money back if society doesn’t accept, as normal, your sodomite practices. Never mind you rely on the same police, fire departments as everyone else, continue to use taxpayer funded roads, get your driver’s licence from taxpayer funded agencies, ask that your local government provide you with some safety with street lights and patrol officers, provide you with a federal military that goes into harm’s way to protect you from those who would hang you from construction cranes if they had their druthers.
you want to relocate to Florida, or Cuba, and kick out all “heteros”
you want to change miliniums of social structure in order to pander to your life style
I can only assume that you are a masochist who enjoys being bitch slapped, and so you return to post more claptrap and seem to fail to understand that you, through your own whining, lost any support you originally had on this website.
Adult, mature people don’t beg. They realize, and understand, that society places limitations on all of us. They don’t act like drama queens whose act has been rejected. You do.
I have three words for you: John Wayne Gacy
Now, I highly recommend that you cease your pathetic whining. You give gay men a bad name.
The governments of the world have been intruding into the lives of gay people as long as there have been governments. Jim’s article is about government intrusion. Gay people have been the target of jealous envious people who desire their property or wish to destroy their social or political power. The accusations levied against the Knoghts Templar by the Pope and asking Phillip of afrance was they were gay. Some probably were. But it was not a gay organization, and the leader was not What they really were was a threat to the power of the other rulers, and the king desired their property. They were ENT on the crusades and their lands were stolen. There was nothing wrong with homosexuality, the King used that as an excuse. Hitler’s cronies feared Ernst Rohm, the leader of the brown shirts, so they used the excuse of the ‘homosexual menace’ to destroy that organization. It was led by gay men. They murdered them all in the Night Of Long Knives. It was not about sexuality, it was about power, and Rohm spoke his own mind, fiercely loyal to hitler to the end.
Retireo5. Your posts at Hlavac are reprehensible. I am sorry you suffered the deaths of so many in Houston. It’s a probable foundation for PTSD.
Zac. Jim is excited and I don’t think he read your posts in the correct light. Thanks for considering our situation and your willingness to consider our side of it. (I’ve known Jim for ages.)
The left has coopted gays the way they co-opted. Lacks in the 50’s. Useful tools and creative hands, nothing more. As soon as Barack gets total power to do whatever he wants, gays will not even be on the list. We are not deemed necessary for building a utopian society. And our creativity could be used to undermine the power structure.
Natural law say I have a right to exist, be my own man, have property, have privacy, have a mate of mutual choosing. It says I am endowed with these and more, including the right to pursue happiness. It does not say I have to kowtow to anyone elses ideas about life and living it so long as I live and let live. But the government is in my life, taking from me and supposedly giving back equally. But I cannot live my life with a male partner the same as anyone heterosexual. We are treated as though we don’t exist as a couple. We have to do many things to secure equal treatment by the law and hospitals for example, that are automatically granted to hetero partners married or not.
It is unjust, and needs to be corrected. It is, slowly. Don’t ever forget that a government big enough to tell me I cannot marry the one I love because he is not a woman, is big enough to tell you how to live any part of your life.
If a church does not want to marry gays, who cares? There are plenty of churches that can and will. I want the government to do what it is supposed to by our constitution.
For the record I am a pro capitalist conservative gay guy that believes this is the greatest country ever allowed by God, that socialism is evil and a breeding ground for tyranny.
I’m a conservative Republican I was not born Democrat but I was born gay.
Bravo Ted, if more Gay people expressed themselves like you have, I am sure they would feel less resistance to their grievances.
I will suggest that you prepare an essay of your views and submit it to Curt; sadly, there will be only a select few, (those who are on this thread), who will read your thoughts on this timely issue.
I am in the horse business, and for some obscure reason a disproportionate amount of Gay people love horses. I won’t criticize them for that, but I do wonder why they have this fascination with horses. Within the horse/people population, there are both scoundrels and genuine people; the anecdotal incidence holds up whether you look at Gays or Straights; unfortunately, too many of us straights tend to group all Gays under a certain Gay scoundrel as an example. This is part of the problem and it is a result of human nature.
To repudiate this identity problem; you need to state your case in a logical and non-confrontational method, just as you wrote in your commentary.
It’s obvious that a large percentage of Gays and Hispanics are entrepreneurs, it is lunacy to have the Left co-opt them because they are made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome with certain Conservatives. Good luck with your essay and your mission, and thank you for your commentary.
An excellent piece by Mr. Hlavac, and I can’t imagine how thinking, feeling people could take exception to it (including straight conservatives like me). Thanks for taking the time to share with us.
retire 05
hi
on your 12, you hit a nerve which many have protested about they are military serving and they did not have the right to say publicly what they thought about it, but they found a way to let the public know that they did not agree on a full disclosure of the gay publicly entering the military career, they where accepting those who anonymous where not revealing their gay tendency by any means, be it exhibitionism of their sexual orientation and other manners showing their orientation,
this is the part that everyone reject which is to display the gay tendency, the manners of excessive body movement, the parade showing degradation of humanity, that is what nobody want them or their children to see, and those who expose themself publicly cannot critic about the showing perversion
in front of sour ly smiling public they want to conquer to their beliefs, the public is instead troubled by the sight, and no gay will change it ever, the only thing is the tolerance of the public at large which turn their rejections of it by humoristic thought to try to feel good when their brain are telling them how bad it is to publicly show your sexual deviation, while if no one know, then there is nothing to see, no revulsion about it , so it make it partly right to the public eyes,
bye
@Ted Baldwin:
So, I see that a year after this thread first appeared, we have another whining, sniveling person show up telling all of us “heteros” how abused they are because they don’t like that society doesn’t provide them with special considerations based on what he does in the privacy of his own home.
And your entire post is so spurious that it is hard to know where to begin.
You are free to live with whomever you choose. You can buy a home together, have joint bank accounts, joint credit cards, create unbreakable wills, grant power of attorney, do every thing that “hetero” couples can do except you cannot file joint federal/state income taxes. So basically, that reduces your argument to one of financial, not social. Oh, then you throw in the “hospital” canard, oblivious to the fact that HIPA laws require of “hetero” couples the same thing it requires of gay couples.
You think the sign of an oppressive government is one that doesn’t permit men to “marry” men. Do you apply that oppression to a government that also doesn’t permit “heteros” to marry their sisters, brothers, first cousins, or parents, if the two people involved are consenting adults?
And the most hilious comment you make is that you were “born” gay. So, perhaps you would like to link to the research paper that proves the existance of the gay gene? Surely, with the advance of DNA science, there has been a gay gene found, right?
Get over yourself. What you want (which was first promoted by Marx and Gramsci) is to change social structure to suit you, not the society as a whole. You want to be treated “special” so that you can be considered a “protected” class. Then you can force your personal beliefs, and life style, down the throats of state legislatures, school boards and even church councils.
“Gay” marriage is a ruse for a political movement. And when gay people admit that they are being used, YES, USED, as a pawn of the left to change society as a whole (read Gramsci for references) then perhaps you will stop lobbying for a sociatal change that will only come back to bite you in different ways.
And think about this: if a “gay” gene is really ever discovered, how are you going to feel when the Guttmacher Institute adds to its list of reasons why women about their children “I didn’t want a gay kid?”
Hello Mr. Retire05.
Sir, most gay folks have never wanted to be a “protected class,” nor sought quotas, or what have you out of the liberal arsenal of government intrusion into people’s lives, and the setting up of, um “protected classes.” Though, I suppose some have, like other liberals, oh well. Don’t blame all gay folks, just those who seek the protected class, just as you don’t blame all heteros for what they might do. And gay folks have never been a protected class, but instead, an attacked class. I dare say being labeled a felon until 2003 in 1/2 the states, despite the fact that those laws were laughably not enforced, you surely don’t believe we had this magical list you give here of rights and such, do you? You are mistaken though in your list of things we may, as gay couples, may or may not do, and where; it’s quite a hodgepodge. It is true, that within the past just few years much of what you have said is true, we may now contract in many ways; some states and legislators are trying to end that too. And in recent years past gay folks could do no such contractual obligations, for most states said we were not of sound mind and body enough to engage in contracts whatsoever. Indeed, in a very anti-liberty bit, we could be incarcerated in mental institutions against our will, and nothing we put to paper was given any credence, but tossed out as the sick delusions of ill people. Oh, let us not forget those recent times, in our very life times, yours and mine.
And, yet, in these many ways, under contract law, civil and commercial, gay unions are thus recognized by the states and even federal government. And we pay taxes at the same rates as you heteros. So it’s clearly, then, a refusal to admit reality that gay taxpayers pay the same, are recognized as couples under the law, and that the government then denies this automatically under family law, and thus we must jump through hoops individually and couple by couple and spend more money than hetero couples to effect the same things. Now, if you want to cut our taxes to the degree we must spend extra to get what you get in family law automatically, well, then, we can talk. Though that would be more “special” than mere inclusion of us in laws that already exist. Still, recognizing gay couples is a conservative value, for fidelity within marriage is a conservative value
As for a gay gene, well, no, no one specific gene has been discovered. Not that anyone is looking. Can you show me the studies that anyone has looked? Instead, in looking at genes, it’s almost an afterthought, “nope, no gay gene here,” as if the gay gene is somehow so different that it would jump out at the researches who aren’t even looking for it. Oh, and not twin studies, which ignore birthweight differences, and other differing factors, and those studies being but a few anyway, less than 1/2 dozen. And who said it’s just one gene? Some scientists have suggested it could be a multiple of genes. Other have argued that it’s actually the absence of a gene or two, and not the presence. Others still, in tiny studies, of oh, less than a 1/2-1/2 mix of 100 gays 100 straights, have shown remarkable physiological differences that can not be laid at the foot of the ever amorphous “environment,” which is never examined, quantified or explained beyond some “unknown” and “unexplainable” factors, and perhaps a dash of what a strong or weak father who did something no one knows what. Or a strong or weak mother who did something or not do something no one knows what. Or perhaps it’s a mix. But we react differently, apparently, to serotonin uptake inhibitors — and we can’t be choosing to do that, can we? I’d dare say the science on gay folks is so convoluted and complex, contradictory and inconclusive that any statement of whether this or that you believe is true cannot be proven.
As to whether a gay gene, or set of genes, is discovered, and all of sudden parents are doing the test, and aborting the future gay man, well, that is a hetero moral dilemma you heteros will have to face. We are not making the gay babies, after all. Heteros are. I’m opposed to abortion now, I’d certainly be opposed to aborting gay folks. What would you do?
As to whether gay folks are being used by the left to further their socialist agenda, well, certainly they are. And many gays are duped; not that the constant anti-gay drumbeat from some on the conservative side helps. But so what? Gayness is not a political position. Plus, the left uses anyone. But perhaps you are forgetting that the left was never gay friendly, but are johnny-come-latelies to the gay movement, and still aren’t “for” us, so much as not “against us that much,” for we had no allies in the past. Indeed, I find it the funniest thing that Socialists in other countries claim that gay folks are a sign of the decadence in the capitalist West, while the capitalist West says that gay folks are a sign of the decadence of the socialist left. Whom then is correct? When there is such agreement that the tiny, consistent percentage of gay folks all over the world are a danger to both left and right, I’d dare say the left and right are in quite close agreement on the issue — and the fear seems to boil down to this: if you heteros say anything nice about gay folks, and gay couples, and recognize our reality of existence, then all the heteros will of a sudden will magically turn gay and run down to the local gay bar looking for a mate, and eschew their natural, innate, heterosexuality. And indeed, by your argument that gayness is some how a post-birth thing, we are really born hetero, and somehow, without explanation, with no known cause, at the same rate in all societies worldwide, the same tiny percentage magically turns off our instinct, and plunges into the, um, abyss. Surely gay men are not of such strong minds and wills to turn off what comes natural, are we?
Still, as I say in the post, it’s begging on our part, and our testimony and example which have proven all said against us wrong, that has won even this current modicum of inclusions and permissions and the end of the police state against us. (Police raids on bars are not very nice, you know.) And so we have some more begging to do. We are quite prepared to do this. And the reason that is so, is that we are all quite sure we are merely born this way. Why don’t you prove we are not, and not us prove we are? Come up with a reason, other than some vague “choose to sin.” But to believe we’re all lying or faking it, or delusional, would, in the words of one perplexed scientist: “it would be the biggest unorganized mass deception the world has ever known.”
Ted Baldwin
you express your point of view very well, and it project good answers, fair and balance,
and you are demanding for GOVERNMENT to abide to your request of normalizing
the not normal which you know and have known from THE CREATION OF HUMAN,
your battle is great and really impossible to be winning, you might achieve to get
some loose morality followers to your cause, but you cannot be happy by winning a point from those, because you find after getting married by one of your own, does not give you nothing tangible,
you want so much to find the inner peace, it is not coming, and the tortured mind of GAYS never have been fill with the sensation of being satisfied because of your own feeling,
not the SOCIETY’S FAULT, but it’s the easiest excuse to blame other for being GAY,
it’s well known of great talents was given to GAY which are greater than the other
for some of those great GIFTS and it fill many of you with pleasure and wealth which come with it,
and your sensitivity is blown up many degree above the normal as study have shown
, it brought many a great success lives, and that is you superior assets over the rest of the citizens,
but you should know at the end of it, where to draw the line in your demands to become a normal
SOCIETY , because the normal is absent, and the other have lived along you , and accepted what cannot be change, for the sake of freedom and peace coexistence together, but the other reject the exhibition of your sexual orientation
any display of it is offensive to the public, but accept the gay living the normal public life, as many found to be the only way to coexist together but remaining different in your own domain
best to you
@Jim Hlavac:
Jim, I find it odd that almost a year after the last post in this thread appeared, here it is again, being used by Ted Baldwin, and you, to reconstitution a dead conversation. I would not have known this thread was revived except via an email notifying me of such.
@ilovebeeswarzone:
Jim, I am also not going to respond to your blathering, meandering post. You obviously have to be searching for discussions of this nature, as you popped up quite quickly. I have said everything I had to say to you. I still find you just as dishonest as you were a year ago. That has not changed. You still offer every false canard you did a year ago. That has not changed.
There is only ONE thing that you, and your partner (Ted Baldwin, perhaps?) cannot do that most heterosexuals can do, legally MARRY. And there is only ONE thing that you cannot acheive for each other without being married; file a federal income tax return. So if your only interest in “equality”, as you call it, is financial, again your relationship is built on sand, not solid soil.
You again make the claim of “begging.” What a sniveling litte whiner you are.
You are gay. You only see life thru that prism. That is the ying and yang of your entire life. How pathetic! So here is my suggestion:
the IRS ceases to tax based on marital status. A married couple should pay taxes on joint income. If their joint income puts them in a higher tax bracket, so be it. And you should pay the rate determined not by marital status, but by income. No deductions for being married (although it serves the states interest to have viable family units with a mother and a father). No deductions for your kids, either. If you decide to have six kids, why should I be taxed at a higher rate to give you a break?
You complain that you are not given the same benefits as those who are heterosexual. Then be honest in your debate and name the state where the question “Are you gay?” appears on any marriage license.
I suggest you learn there is more to life than your sexual desires. Someone who is well into their ’50’s should have learned that by now. Apparently, you are a slow learner.
Oh, Mr. Retire05,
I’m not a sniveling anything. Nor do I whine. I point out facts and logic you don’t like.
I seek to engage in discussion, and you seek to just dismiss it all.
Alas, for you, you shall be whining about gay folks far longer than I shall worry ’bout heteros, not that I ever have.
Meanwhile, due to the modern miracles of email notifications, I quickly become aware of responses to posts and comments that I make.
I find you intriguing, but certainly worthy of the effort to continue the discussion.
I bear no animosity, but merely wonderment.
Cheers, sir, cheers.
Jim
Jim, news flash; if you hold any animosity toward me, I DON’T GIVE A DAMN.
There, is that plain enough for you? Yes, you are a whiner who seems to want to restart a dead conversation (noticed you didn’t deny that Ted is connected to you). Why? You got your ass handed to you last year, and you want to relive that?
You DON’T point out facts, or use logic. Instead, you obfuscate, refuse to answer specific questions posed to you, and you think that you are so smart no one will notice that you do that or that the reason you do that is because to be honest with an answer would basically kill your argument.
I don’t whine about gays. YOU were the one who started this who thread with your whining article about how oppressed you are. Amazing how you seem to be able to redirect the entire purpose of this thread; your own article on this blog.
Here is exactly what I want from you, and the rest of the gay “community”: stop trying to shove your lifestyle down the throats of heterosexuals. End the push to teach about homosexuality in elementary/secondary schools based on the false premise that it is all about “equality.” It has nothing to do with equality, diversity or tolerance. No one, AND I DO MEAN NO ONE, is less tolerant than gay people. Tell your fellow gays to stop events like the Folsom Street Parade where everyone who participates in public exhibition should be arrested and jailed.
You’re queer. So what? Should all of society change to accomodate you and your chosen life style? You agree there is no gay gene. But you never mention that until 1973, homosexuality was listed in the DSM as a mental ilness under the catagory of sexual deviance. It was only until gays started pressuring, and threatening those members of APA, that it was changed. Oh, not by any scientific study, but rather by fiat of a vote by those who had been threatened by gays who infiltrated the APA conventions. I wonder why the APA didn’t just vote that polio was no longer a disease and we could have saved a lot of time, and money.
Heterosexuals don’t give a damn what you do in your bedroom. If you choose to put your manhood where another man evacuates his bowels, that is your business, and frankly, I don’t care. But you want what has been considered abnormal behavior down through the millineums to be now accepted behavior. And you want all of us to change to accomodate you by accepting your behavior. Why don’t you just go about life and do what you want in the privacy of your own home and not try to convince the rest of us that we, NOT YOU, are the intolerant ones?
But you can’t, and that is your own personal shortcoming.
Sir, Mr. Retire05,
your statement: “Heterosexuals don’t give a damn what you do in your bedroom” is not true. If it were, then we would not be so roundly condemned. It is exactly what we do in the bedroom that heterosexuals give a damn about. Indeed, sir, on few subjects have I seen most heteros obsessed but about exactly what we do in the bedroom. It is as if our entire lives are spent in the bedroom. We are so identified by what we do in the bedroom that any other aspect of our lives is somehow unimportant and not seen. So what we are employed, and pay taxes, and contribute to society, and don’t cause a ruckus? What we do in the bedroom exceeds all other considerations about us — by heterosexuals. We sure don’t think about it that much — we are very busy trying to work, play, enjoy life, help our family and friends, fulfill our obligations to society, and in general, try to stay out of people’s hair. And occasionally, and probably not any more or less than any comparable heterosexual, we go to the bedroom. And there, there we turn magical and demonic at the same time; as some would have it. There we attack the family, our own included, presumably. There we threaten society. There we are lurking to destroy good guys and recruit them into the “homosexual lifestyle” that seeks the utter ruin of society, to the point, I’m guessing, that there aren’t any more guys to recruit. Ahem. I don’t know how far afield the logic goes; but it goes pretty far if making us all felons again for waking up in the morning, and well, doing things in the bedroom, I’d say that’s very much heterosexuals giving a damn what we do in the bedroom. And it is what we do that is the exact reason we are denied marriage, and only of late, some social decency. So while you perhaps don’t care what I do in the bedroom, which is normal, frankly, for I don’t care what you do in yours, nor where you stick it or don’t, nor do I wish you ill or bad, but only the best as you can get it, well, I dare say we are both liberty loving Americans. Only, well, I’m gay, and your not. Weird, eh?
Jim, are you totally stupid? I’m beginning to think so. That, and fixated on your own sexuality.
You say that heteros care what you do in your bedroom. I disgree. What they care about is the fact that you make an issue of what you do in your bedroom. You allow your actions to define you. Perhaps you can tell me how I, or anyone on this blog, would have known you were gay had you not gone public with that information? And what the hell did it have to do with anything that is discussed here? It was simply you making up your mind that your homosexuality was pertinent to some conversation so you outted yourself. You, GAYS, demand privacy, then out yourself. How damn hypocritical can you get? You made the conscience choice to not use your powers of logic and rational to debate some issue, you injected your homosexuality into the discussion thinking that gave you a step up.
But then, perhaps there is some magic way that a person can tell is another person is gay. Perhaps you can give us the ways we can see a person, dressed like any other person going to work, and be able to tell if they are gay. Do they have a big mark on their cheek? A special way of walking? And what do you gays do if someone does hold his personal live as private, but doesn’t agree with you politically? YOU OUT HIM/HER AND SUBJECT THEM TO RIDICULE BECAUSE THEY CHOSE TO KEEP THEIR PERSONAL LIVES PERSONAL.
What the gay lobby is attempting to do is exactly what I said: force acceptance on people who disagree with your lifestyle. You already have tolerance (yet you continue to talk about events that happened years ago as if they happened just yesterday), but that is not enough for you. You follow the Gramsci plan and now want to indoctrinate children into your lifestyle. You insist that laws be written to pander just to you. You compare yourself with the plight of blacks, which tells me that YOU must think there is someway to visually identify a person is gay. You whine, you complain, you push and shove, until people are SICK of you and your whining and complaining. You wanted sodomy laws overturned. That was the goal. So the laws WERE overturned, but noooooo, that was not enough. Then you wanted to inject your agenda into the courts, the schools, the standards by which our society was formed. It is never enough for you.
You want to get married? Find a lesbian and marry her. You see, that little act itself would prove that gays CAN marry. One gay man marrying one gay woman.
Do I like you? No, but not because you are gay. Because you are dishonest. You are more than free to share your life with the person of your choosing. You can do all the things heteros can do, in a sustained relationship, but that is not enough. You (meaning the gay community) want to prove your political chops by forcing YOUR agenda on everyone else. And that agenda is not equality, it is proving that you hold political power. You are a liar, a obfuscator, and you are really beginning to get on my last nerve with your incessant whining.
No, Mr. Retire05, I’m not stupid, sorry to disappoint you.
You heteros outlawed what we did in our bedrooms long before we said, “No, this is unfair.” I dare say the laws against us existed long before we came ’round to saying “oh the hell with this.” You all made an issue of it, and you all are proud of your “traditions” and “long time law,” “the way it always was,” etc etc. You outlawed our bedroom gymnastics, and we rose up and said “no.” Now you claim we started this? hahahaha! You all outlawed us first, for what we did in the bedroom, for you all are obsessed with what we do. Well, smack someone down often enough, well, they rise up. We rose up, and now you accuse us of not putting up with the nonsense. Blame you and your kind for outlawing our bedroom fun first; us for refusing to put up with it second. Thanks.
JIM HLAVACK
I congratulate you for your POST, and I believe that you are a man with courage to debate your point
all the way, with an opponent able to come in direct and unafraid to tell what many won’t in order to save you some bad feelings, but a POST is for telling the truth, no pretend on either sides,
and you represent GAYS and you get the feed back from those representing other non GAYS,
I must say that you are a very good AUTHOR and super DEBATER, as RETIRE 05 is of the same strength,
and both of you representing a good segment of society
thank you for your stand on this very controversy subject
@Jim Hlavac:
“You heteros?” I understand that lingo, bubba. It is like saying “you queers.” And you didn’t “rise up”, you (the gay community) intimidated and threatened the members of the APA with physical harm, harrassment and death threats and invaded the APA convention in Los Angeles in 1971 to make those threats verbal and tried to force the removal of homosexuality from the DSM. In 1973, you got your wish through intimidation, and it was eliminated in the DSM II. Why? It certainly was not due to any recent scientific research that proved homosexuality was not a mental illness. It was because American psychiatrists got tired of getting death threats and having queers protest in front of their offices, trying to do financial harm to those that disagreed with them.
You are pathetic, Jim. You don’t know when to let go. You have allowed your sexuality to define you. That is why you outed yourself here. For no other reason. And you are the absolute most dishonest person I have ever had the misfortune to encounter on a website. Fortunately, most gays are more honest than you are.
Why don’t you quit while you are still behind?
One other thing: contrary to what you think, your phony photoshopped bill board is not what God said. And anyone who has even the slightest respect for God does NOT misquote Him or attribute to Him things that are NOT in the Bible. And frankly, I resent you trying to drag God into your practice of sodomy.