Right on!

[gridlore]

Fellow GURPSian (and all-around smart and interesting fellow) jackwalker wrote a wonderful piece on gay rights and acceptance in his journal, and with permission I'm posting a link to it here.

On homosexuality

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I much prefer arguments for equality along his line; of being people entitled to the same rights as others instead of the more typical choice/not choice distraction.

That he has several disclaimers about not being gay rather does point out the stigma still attached, no?

[jackwalker.livejournal.com]

That he has several disclaimers about not being gay rather does point out the stigma still attached, no?

Yeah, it occurred to me later that I was probably protesting too much. Certainly when someone loudly disclaims being X (where X is some thing that's stigmatized, like being gay), one might suspect ulterior motives.

I think the point I was trying to make, though, is that it doesn't matter whether you're gay or not. Even if you definitively aren't, the issue of gay rights is still a challenge to your commitment to human equality, dignity, and freedom. In fact, the challenge may be stronger if it isn't your own humanity you're being asked to defend. After all, it's easy to protest when you're at risk. It's when the other guy's rights are being trampled, and yours are not at risk, that your ideals are really tested.

In any case, it also seemed to me that it might do my GLBT acquaintances some good to know that even someone who doesn't grok that mode of existence can still recognize injustice when he sees it.

[kengr]

The disclaimer (if believed) can actually help.

I'm not only part of the GLBT community, I've also had a certain "kink" since a *very* early age (early enough that I can't see any way for it to be anything but "nature" rather than "nurture")

But every reference to it in popular culture was that it was sick (at best!).

So growing up with that, I'd been indoctrinated to think I was a bad person. And all the folks who also share that kink or had similar kinks saying that there was nothing wrong with it didn't really change that feeling *because* they were like me.

I finally "came out" to someone I was in love with. And then discovered that I'd misread an email as being a reply to one of mine where I'd hinted at things. It hadn't been.

They told me they needed to think about it. And I was certain that I'd ruined everything. A couple days later we talked. And they told me that they didn'tr understand it and they weren't interested in it but that they saw nothing wrong with my being "into" it.

Being told by someone with no interest that they saw nothing wrong with it was what broke the old conditioning.

So your disclaimers may help some folks.

[(Anonymous)]

And alas I forgot to say one other thing...

Would that more folks like him actively spoke out.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Could you please supply a name when you post?

[hartt-tommel.livejournal.com]

Good article...

AFAIC *all* Americans - Gays, Gun owners, straights, Catholics, Jews, Blacks, liberals and conservatives deserve all of their rights and although I do tend to be conservative about some things, it never ceased to amaze me how the Republicans, who claim to be the party that wants a smaller govt. that interferes less with your life, are so interested in policing what two consenting adults do with their sex and lovelives...

-Tom

[nilita.livejournal.com]

Apropo of the topic (sorta) is the fact that I recently bought from a discount barrel of a local book store and read the book written by (the late) Paul Monette, _Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story_ Evidently it was a National Book Award Winner but little known up here in Canuckistan. What a fabulous book; what a great writer. He is now dead of AIDS, but I wished I would have known of him prior to buying this book. Usually I pass my paperbacks on to others, but this one is a keeper.