Box Turtle Bulletin

I was irritated he didn’t call the intwerviewer out on the idea of “flautning” sexuality.

He should’ve responded to the question by asking why do straight people force their sexuality on gay people by making their spouses and sexual inclinations obvious? What does Spring Break or St. Patrick’s Parade say of straight people?

Burr

What really bugged me was Bob’s constant assertions that the gay experience is nothing like and completely irrelevant to the black experience. That’s just selfish and bigoted to claim civil rights as black territory only.

AdrianT

Now we have gay conservatives – I hope GOProud paves the way for atheist conservatives, too. Or at least people who kind of accept the fact that the earth is 4 billion years old and not 6,000.

Pintuck

I fully agree with Jimmy’s comments about “not like me” gays. “Gay culture” is a shame to all gay people who want acceptance instead of a substandard, “separate but equal”, ghettoized lifestyle. Screw gay culture.

andrew

Pintuck, I think that’s a bit overstated, but a little context here really comes in handy.

Gays are undergoing a radical process of mainstreaming. 30 years ago, the notion that gays could be teachers was highly controversial, that they could be in the military was laughable, and that’s before we even discuss parenting or marriage. Homosexuality was a drop-dead secret that people would kill to keep, and which allowed gays to be victimized — whether by organized crime that owned the bars where gays secretly congregated, or the medical community that vicimized us through reparative therapies. Society put gays in a box, and the response of the marginalized community was to turn inward and develop its own culture with a serious “screw normal” attitude. This is not atypical — we see aspects of this is the deaf community, Aspergers community, racial communities, and religious minority communities.

The community was maturing anyways, but the HIV / AIDS crisis significantly accelerated the change — the LGBT community became more proactive about being “out” as a matter of survival (and indignation). Outing meant visibility. Visibility meant normalization. Normalization meant that hiding stopped being the de facto behavior and became weird and creepy (and weak and sad).

With the maturation of the community, we see the death of many aspects of gay culture. Gay bars are closing in droves or converting to “gay friendly” bars… making them hardly different from most other bars, given the tolerance of the barhopping age brackets. The “screw you” attitudes have been subverted by marriage, SUV’s, baby strollers, and other aspects of normal, married life.

While “being fabulous” will likely always be something that appeals to gays (especially younger gays) and being outrageous, ironic, and even charicatured seem to come part and parcel with the outsider membership of any minority, the days of the 1970’s gay pride parades are going to be increasingly behind us.

So, Pintuck, be patient. “Gay culture” is becoming “just culture” more and more every day. And folks like Bob Parks, who probably grew up in an era in which the LGBT community was more in your face (hence verbs like “flaunting”) are increasingly going to be replace by a new generation of more wordly heterosexuals that says “flaunting? WTF are you talking about, Bob?”

Mel

There is something bizarre about the interviewer keeping insisting gays not compare their struggle to Blacks because their circumstances are totally different. He keeps going on about that. Plus he makes some blatant and absurd logical errors like assuming that before DADT, young soldiers 18-25 never spoke about their lives outside specific job details and remained totally anonymous and asexual. WTF?

Mel

The other thing that really bugs me is how gay Republicans complain about pride parades, drag queens, and the like. The reason drag queens fought at Stonewall, and a lot of queeny gays are the ones who gained our initial rights and visibility is because THEY ARE OUT! You can’t hide in the closet, like so many gay Republicans do, and then complain that you are represented in the gay community profile. You yourselves have created the situation by total cowardice.

Uki

Well..this is good. Sexual orientation should not be a reason for a certain idealism. Gay people should be anything and anyone they want, conservative or liberal.

I never liked how many gay activist distorted sexual orientation with sexual liberation.

And I dislike how gay conservative are being portrayed as cowards. Because from my experience, the mainstream gay people are the one who rejected the gay conservatives. The mainstream gay culture have become exactly like the bigots, reject and shun anyone who doesn’t conform to their idealism.

Maybe it has to do with how they were being rejected the bigots, and they somehow put their revenge on the gay republicans.

Besides, I think the gay republicans had it worse than the mainstream gay. They are rejected by other conservatives, and also rejected by the mainstream gay people. They are, practically, alone.

darkmoonman

“The best thing that gay people can do (from a PR point of view) is just live your life like any other person, and the rest of America will realize that we are no different than them.”

Same BS that the Log Cabin Republicans have been spouting since the early 80’s: don’t show anyone that you’re different and we’ll win our full rights overnight. It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

rusty

Pride Parades, and parties, happen once a year. . .much like Mardi Gras, The Superbowl Party, The party following the NBA finals and even the party following the World Series. Many of these events have similar OUT rageous events and incidents similar to even the most OUT landish PRIDE event.
Let’s see: Half dressed men WWF and women cheerleaders. . .Ever been to a monster truck rally.

Events are not truly representative of any culture. Been to a Revival Meeting and Baptism lately. Not certainly held in high regards by most ‘Organized’ religions.

GLBT folk are living normal lives, taking partners, holding family ceremonies, taking care of friends, family and elders. GLBT folk may go to a parade now and then. . .but they are also attending work sponsored family events, go to political rallies, and even shop for cars. . .and other consumer events.

On the other hand, there are the folk who are trying to promote the ugliness and falsehoods and maybe it should be the conservatives to call these ‘folk’ out on their propaganda ‘bull$41+’!

CIAO

Donnchadh

The squeaky wheel, in my experience, gets hammered or levered into shape, or if that fails, taken off and scrapped.
I don’t cycle much, though.

Pintuck

Andrew,

Thank you for your middle of the road stance, it’s a moderate voice that is welcome. I can’t post under my real name because of the viciousness and hatred that comes from “gay culture” gays toward me because I choose to integrate into culture at large. Truth be told, I never left the culture I grew up in. When I came out, I wanted acceptance, not separation. I still do!

And that’s the key difference between me and ghetto gays: I want acceptance whereas they do not. They WANT to live a “separate but equal” lifestyle and they think that people like me aren’t “truly gay” and are outright hateful and vicious toward them — which is to say, me.

So I find it disgusting that Timothy Kincaid is annoyed that Jimmy (above) doesn’t want anything to do with those ghetto gays. Frankly, neither do I. To me, it shows that Kincaid doesn’t get it. He’s not aware, or in denial, that there is an ever-larger number of gays who are integrating and becoming accepted by society and who have little in common with gay culture. He is wrong to criticize them for that.

Ray

Harvey Fierstein, from Torch Song Trilogy:

“When we take over we’ll sweep the drag queens under the rug just like the black did with Uncle Tom.”

I know what he means. Drag queens are the accepted “clowns” of the Pride parades in every city. And when they show up, THEIR picture is what appears on the evening news and the daily newspaper as if to say, “This is what GAY is, folks.” It’s a distorted view of gay life to have the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence bannered every year in the media as representative of “what gay is” and I did the watchdog work in this subject for six years at the Palm Springs Pride parade, so I know what the media does.

We could have a contengent of 50 military veterans or floats feature 50 of our elderly gays (Prime Timers is HUGE here), or a float with PFLAG displaying gays and lesbians and their parents and children and what would be the story? Why, The Sisters! Of course! It’s STILL that way. I wrote letters to the newspaper and asked them why the picked the most outrageous to represent the gay community and, naturally, I never got an answer. So I started asking them other question.

The Palm Springs paper was pretty good about publishing studies on sexual orientation. It was serious science so the published it under the bold headline – SCIENCE NEWS.

Ah, but there was a catch. Normally when serious science is published in the paper, if there is any criticism of it, it comes from a PEER – an expert in the field in which the research is done.

Who were the “peers” cited in the articles on sexual orientation?

Why, the entire cast of Family Research Council, usually Tony Perkins, whose PhD in Religious Studies qualified him as an expert social science “peer”. I wrote to the newspaper about THAT, too. Haven’t seen ANY studies since then (with or without review by Tony Perkins). The last time the newspaper pulled that stunt, it coinsided with a visit by FRC’S “Love Wins Out” roadshow of professional ex-gays and complete with billboards on the freeway that promised “freedom from homosexuality” in five-foot letters.

So, yeah, I agree with Jimmy LaSalvia to an extent. When we march in a parade we OUGHT to look like nice, right-deserving people instead of Sister Bee Attitude. But with the way the media depicts our lives, what freaking difference does it make. They will shape THEIR image of us even if we all dressed like Mormon Missionaries.

Fred in the UK

Pintuck,

I share your aspirations regarding acceptance versus separation. However minorities that divide themselves up into even smaller competing sects, squander what power and influence they do have.

Ray,

I totally agree that the media will never paint a fair picture of us, it’s too boring. Biased pictures are more interesting, get more viewers, sell more copies, etc. The real solution is for straight folks to get to know us directly, as neighbours, co-workers, etc.

Timothy Kincaid

Pintuck,

You have expressed a great deal of hostility to those whom you imaging want a “separate but equal” life and whom you think “do not want acceptance”. You want “nothing to do with them”.

And you think they mean you harm. You say that they are “outright hateful and vicious” to you and don’t think that you are â€œtruly gayâ€.

But if you look, I think you’ll find that not only has no one here been hateful of vicious to you, no one has criticized you at all for your assimilation or for your rejection of stereotypical or ghetto culture.

Why do you think that is?

Pintuck

Timothy,

To answer your question, I think it is because the type of gay people who typically post here are not the kinds who inhabit the gay ghetto.

Your choice of words is very telling, though. You used the word “assimilation” instead of “integration” or “acceptance”. I’m well-aware that “assimilation” and “assimilationist” are slurs employed by ghetto gays to insult and demean those gays who do not live in the “fabulous” gay ghettos. It’s the same thing as calling me a “sell-out”. That is how you feel about me, correct?

Pintuck

Fred,

You seem to be working under the absurd assumption that ghetto gays and I inhabit some kind of “community” together. Lots of people share that delusion.

Pintuck

“Same BS that the Log Cabin Republicans have been spouting since the early 80â€™s: donâ€™t show anyone that youâ€™re different and weâ€™ll win our full rights overnight. Itâ€™s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.”

This is the “good enough” argument that ghetto gays make. It usually takes this basic form:

“You assimilationst gays think that if we’re just ‘good enough’ then straight people will accept us. You’re wrong! They will NEVER accept us, no matter how ‘good’ you try to be!”

It is nothing but an argument for a “separate but equal” lifestyle for gay people. It is an anti-integration and an anti-integrationist argument. Ghetto gay BS is what it is.

Timothy Kincaid

Pintuck

Your choice of words is very telling, though. You used the word â€œassimilationâ€ instead of â€œintegrationâ€ or â€œacceptanceâ€. Iâ€™m well-aware that â€œassimilationâ€ and â€œassimilationistâ€ are slurs employed by ghetto gays to insult and demean those gays who do not live in the â€œfabulousâ€ gay ghettos. Itâ€™s the same thing as calling me a â€œsell-outâ€. That is how you feel about me, correct?

No, I don’t think you are a “sell-out”. And whatever you are “well-aware” of, my word choice was not intended to insult or demean you.

I think that you have a lot of hostility and anger towards those persons whom you call “ghetto gays”. You are rather abusive towards them. But, as I’ve never met anyone who thinks that all gay people should be apart from society and live in gay ghettos, it’s difficult to know exactly who it is that you dislike so much.

And, frankly, I think you are trying to pick a fight. Perhaps if you find these “ghetto gays” that you and Jimmy so dislike and fear, they’ll fight with you. But I don’t think you’ll find them here.

“It is nothing but an argument for a â€œseparate but equalâ€ lifestyle for gay people. It is an anti-integration and an anti-integrationist argument. Ghetto gay BS is what it is.”

FALSE.

It has nothing to do with separate but equal. Nothing at all.

This way of thinking:
“â€œYou assimilationst gays think that if weâ€™re just â€˜good enoughâ€™ then straight people will accept us. Youâ€™re wrong! They will NEVER accept us, no matter how â€˜goodâ€™ you try to be!â€”

is in direct response to this way of thinking:

“Could all you leathermen, gym bunnies, draq queens, and freaks please just dress like normal people for once?! You’re the reason why they won’t accept us, you’re harming us, you’re making us look bad”

You’ve somehow missed that. I’m surprised.

I read a lot of blogs, and invariably that subject eventually comes up and some “genius” eventually lays the blame for homphobia, hate crimes, and inequality at the feet of queens, leathers, kinksters, and the pride parades —- completely ignoring the fact that it’s the Loud and Proud, Out gays, the queens, the dykes, the in-your-face gays that got us to where we are now. Somehow, some gays honestly think and will EVEN SAY OUT LOUD that we should not let “the freaks” out in public. That somehow, if we all looked just like Wally and the Beave that straight people would warm up to us, no problem. That this whole struggle for equality would be over in seconds. Complete and total lie.

Hal Sparks, who played one of the main characters on “Queer As Folk” was asked in an interview about the critics, some who say that the show was hurting gays buy showing such extreme stereotypes. I can’t find the quote, but he basically said that a lot of straight people watch the show, and if they can accept, care, love, and see the humanity of the characters on Queer As Folk, than accepting everyday gay people would actually be easier. From what I’ve experienced in the past 32, living in several cities and in two hemispheres, that’s very much true.

A drag queen is not more out, or more authentic than a button-down gay man. They’re just different.

The drag queens want integration, but not at the cost of their personal freedom. It’s not freedom, it’s not equality, if it comes at the price of your personal integrity.

Not everyone who lives in the “gay ghetto” (talk about use of words being telling, Pin, take your own advice) is there because they hate everyone else. That’s what we call false dichotomy. That’s what we call seeing things in black and white. Many of those people live their because they actually LIKE living there. They work there. Their friends work and live there. Hell, some of them GREW UP there! Some are there because they needed somewhere that they feel welcome, safe, somewhere that they feel they belong. Birds of a feather, flock together, but that doesn’t mean they hate all the other birds.

For someone who doesn’t like being insulted and demeaned, you seem to care little if you do it to others.

Pintuck

Timothy,

The hostility I feel toward ghetto gays is mutual, whether or not you choose to see it. In truth, they started it. The way I feel about them is a common feeling, but most gays who feel like I do are too afraid to say it openly because of the vicious abuse that usually follows those kinds of sentiments.

I do wish you would take back your “could not resist getting his digs in”. That, to me, ascribes a dirty motive where there is none.

Fred in the UK

Pintuck,

You seem to be working under the absurd assumption that ghetto gays and I inhabit some kind of â€œcommunityâ€ together. Lots of people share that delusion.

I was assuming that you both share the same country, are subject to the same laws, contend with a vocal religious minority determined to deny you the right to marry, etc. How is this either absurd or wrong?

Frijondi

@Timothy. I don’t want to offend, as I have been reading this blog for much longer than I have been posting on it, and greatly appreciate what you and the other writers here do.

But I would like to mention that I have encountered the attitudes that Pintuck describes — frequently, and for many years — and I understand his/her anger. In fact, I think that it is only very recently, and largely thanks to the internet, that other, more mainstream GLBT voices have begun to be heard. Of course, I live in one of those coastal bubbles.

@Pintuck. I think you have misjudged the writers/posters here — I have observed very little of the gay ghetto POV on this blog.

Mel

During her ‘debate’ with Andrew Sullivan, Maggie Gallagher said that she knows and works with several gays at NOM. If GOProud gays consider themselves bold and courageous, wouldn’t the gays working for NOM be the most heroic and noble? How else will we achieve civil rights unless we work and financially support homophobic institutions “from the inside” (that’s the argument GOProud uses). GOProud, why do you idolize the righteous and amazing glbt people who work with Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council?

Mel

How can GOProud demonize drag queens when their #1 hero, Rudy Giuliani, is a major drag queen himself? How about it GOProud – is Giuliani an evil queen?

Ray

I’m a “ghetto gay” as Pintuck calls it. I lived over two-thirds of my life in a “straight ghetto” where my home was shot at, we were threatened, my kid was taunted and bullied, my property vandalized and my teaching career was sabotaged by “straight ghetto” dwellers. We are politically conservative and MODEST in our dress and behavior. We lived in the *best* neighborhood in one of the *best* homes, yet we were taunted and terrorized. That we were the *best* of neighbors mattered not a whit.

The violence and threats were too much. So we moved to that “gay ghetto” of old queens in the Palm Springs area. I live in a 55+community where 30% of the nearly 600 homes are gay families. I’m still surrounded by straight people, I’m still a conservative and I’m still modest.

But I feel a whole lot safer here than I did in the finest neighborhoods in Fresno and Orange County. So Pintuck’s distain for the “gay ghetto” is just like the testimony we heard from Prop 8 Propenents. He can dish out all the imagined negativity but somehow gets amnesia about the horrors gays experience in the midst of the “straight ghetto” that drives them to find at least psychological comfort in having gay neighbors the don’t have to be fearful for their lives living around.

Pintuck seems to think that one loses the ability to maintain a life of modesty and independence once they live among a large population of gays. I’ll ask the question then: Who taught you to believe THAT?

It sounds like you’re afraid of being converted to some slobbering left-wing radical by virtue of your home address. What in fact happens in the “gay ghetto” is that you find more people LIKE YOURSELF than your self-enforced exile from your community will ever produce.

Timothy Kincaid

Frijondi,

I too have encountered the attitudes that Pintuck is describing. There are some nasty people out there.

But that is not – and never has been – indicative of some shared attitude or value of any group of people, be they “ghetto gays” or some other insulting description. Few people actually look down on or have animosity towards those who integrate. I literally have not run into that attitude this Century.

I don’t think that Pintuck knows much about the people that he fears and hates.

Timothy Kincaid

Mel,

Please provide a link to where Maggie says that she works with gay people at NOM. I do not think that is true.

Please provide a link to where GOProud has said that they “idolize the righteous and amazing glbt people who work with Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council”. I think that is a viscous lie.

No Rudy Giulliani is not and never has been a drag queen. He has on two occasions for official comedy effect donned female garb. That’s just hatefulness on you part.

And, finally, kindly point to where you found GOProud demonizing drag queens.

Frijondi

@Ray. Even living in an area with a high gay population, I have been threatened, screamed at, and, on one occasion, assaulted for looking too “masculine” (I’m a woman.) I have no doubt it would be worse if I lived in Fresno.

At the same time, I remember being given to understand by the majority of lesbians I knew in the eighties that I was some sort of traitor, Uncle Tom, or stool pigeon for a)being a Christian as opposed to an atheist or Wiccan, and b)generally not participating in the separatist subculture.

Those attitudes shifted, or course, in the nineties, but with the upshot that one subculture replaced another. The lesbian separatists gave way to lesbian sexperts. I remember encountering a certain, widespread contempt among the gay people I knew in the nineties for anyone who had reservations about pornography, or “sex positivism,” or the word “queer.”

I agree that it’s perfectly possible to “maintain a life of modesty and independence” even in the heart of a gay mecca, but one’s fellow gays do not always make it easy. It sounds as if your gay neighbors do not attack you for being conservative. That’s great. Not everyone has had the same experience.

Ray

” It sounds as if your gay neighbors do not attack you for being conservative.”

Why would they? I’m as modest about being conservative as I am about being gay. I have debates with liberal AND conservative gays all the time and I find most liberals to be Very respectful. The one’s that aren’t respectful are the LEAST informed about gay issues in the same degree that conservative gays who display that same palpable contempt are mostly the LEAST informed about gay issues. I also find an unsettling amount of what seems like self-hated in both extremes. Both of the fringe groups trend heavily toward fabrication in the extreme and show no inclination toward intellectual labor at ALL. What they THINK is what constitutes their “high bar” so to them, it’s never necessary to read social science or study a topic or issue with rigor and discipline. Among them you consistently find people who re-draw the lines and make up a litmus test that will always and forever exclude YOU even when you AGREE with them in principle. If you are a conservative and you butt heads with an extremist gay conservative, you will promptly told that “you’re not a conservative, you commie.” With a liberal wingnut you’re a religious nut even when I openly declare my atheism (BTW, I’m also a modest atheist).

Yet most of my conversation with gays is friendly and respectful. I think there is a great deal of mutual respect in the middle of the gay political spectrum and that’s my life-long ghetto. We all know what is central to our political goal – Equality. We don’t always agree on the detail, but we all DO fight for each other. I’ve no doubt about that.

Mel

Has GOProud ever explained in detail how they differ from Log Cabin? They hinted that LCR is too queeny and gayish, but they never site any specifics. Is there some crucial GOP issue for which LCR and GOProud differ?

Mel

Timothy Kincaid, hopefully you know how to use Google. Sullivan and Maggie Gallagher spoke at the Cato Institute recently and the videos are all over the net. Maggie specifically said that gays (presumably gay males) work for her at NOM to oppose gay marriage. Deal!

Burr

http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6987

Here’s a link to video of the event. I haven’t watched it yet myself..

mel, considering how much, and how often Maggie Gallagher defames, insults, and outright lies about gay people — her suggesting or stating that she works with gays (the old “I have gay friends, too” cliche) is about as surprising as it is believable. It’s page 5 of the anti-gay handbook to say “I have gay friends, and they agree with me” as it’s an attempt to simultaneously distance oneself from the label of “bigot” while suggesting that gay people really, truthfully, don’t think they’re being oppressed.

Yet these gay friends never show up.

We’ve yet to hear from Sarah Palin’s gay friends, and I doubt we’ll here from Maggie’s either. Or any of the other fictious gay people that anti-gay folks claim to know, love, and yet still want to oppress and defame.

I’m not saying there aren’t some Uncle Tom gays out there, wrapped in a Stockholm Syndrome snuggie, I’m just saying that their alleged existence while curious, isn’t a trump card.

Donnchadh

I find the use of “Uncle Tom” here rather strange. To me an Uncle Tom -I think it comes from some blacksploitation novel- is a quietly powerful, dignified character with an understated heroism who is willing to sacrifice himself for those he cares for. Before using the term pejoratively, I invite you to be chained, whipped and forced to work on a cotton farm.
Oh, and I love the idea of a “viscous” lie.

werdna

@Donnchadh-Not exactly a “blaxploitation” novel, the book is “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stow.

Regarding the use of the term, I think the Wikipedia article is not far off:

Uncle Tom, the title character, was initially seen as a noble, long-suffering Christian slave. In more recent years, however, his name has become an epithet directed towards African-Americans who are accused of selling out to whites…

In a gay context an Uncle Tom might be a gay man who seeks to ingratiate himself to homophobic people by denigrating other gay people (e.g., expressing his disdain for flamboyancy or his outrage at the behavior of people at a pride parade).

I was also amused by Timothy’s amusing adaptation of “viscous”.

Pintuck

Timothy,

Jason D is whom I’m talking about.

Notice him trot out the “Ward Cleaver” gay ghetto cliche. This is because he inhabits a world where a gay man either A) celebrates the compulsive pursuit of sex and drugs, or B) is Ward Cleaver and deserving of mockery. It is black and white to Jason D. There is no middle ground. It would be predictable for Jason D or one of his friends to next accuse me of being a “bitter, fat old queen who can’t get laid any more”. If that accusation strikes you as odd, then you aren’t part of gay culture, either.

That said, will you please retract your claim that Jimmy “couldn’t resist getting in his digs”? It ascribes a nefarious motive where there is none. He’s admitting the fact that there is a rift between gays who integrate and ghetto gays who delight in making them look bad.

Jason, I’m glad you disapprove of me. Your approval is the last thing that I want. I agree that you and your people stand in the way of gay acceptance. And I think you agree with me that you don’t want acceptance because that would preclude you and your friends from living your freaky lifestyle, which you wrongly equate with “being gay”. We are two very different people, inhabiting two very different communities with little in common except for our mutual contempt, and I think we both prefer it that way. I think that’s the common ground that can help us find mutual respect.

Pintuck

Ray,

First of all, I am very, very sorry that you endured such horrible and unwarranted abuse from your neighbors. Everyone knows that the principal cause of gay misery everywhere is conservative Christians and their hateful, stupid attitudes toward gay people. What you suffered you did not deserve, and I’m sorry.

It is not fair for you to assume that my “self-enforced exile” is as bad as yours. I have not suffered like you have. We integrate into the area where we live and haven’t had problems like yours.

It’s not fair for you to assume that I equate your 30% gay community of 55+ median age with gay culture. There are plenty of gay men out there who aren’t compulsively searching for sex parties and the best drugs. You wanted a safe place and it sounds like you found it, and I’m happy you did. My criticisms of gay ghettos aren’t aimed at your community and your neighbors.

Go watch the movie “Gay Sex in the 70s” to get an idea of the culture that I bemoan. Are “The Trucks” and “The Docks” in 1970s New York City parts of gay culture that we gay men should be proud of?

I do not think I’m going to become a slobbering left wing radical if I move among a population of gays. I fear that I would be around a bunch of self-important, superficial people who inject sex into every conversation and are very familiar with all sorts of drugs. I don’t want to live like that. I would love having more gay people as neighbors, but not gay neighbors like that. Like you said, I want to find people who are LIKE ME. And there is little in “gay culture” that is like me. When a gay person assumes that I’m going to the pride parade, and I tell him that I’m not (because I despise the pride parade), then he gets mad and accusatory. I don’t want friends like that, but so many gay people are like that. That’s because the pride parade is a big part of “gay culture” and I don’t like gay culture. Gay people don’t deserve a “separate but equal” culture. I want acceptance. It sounds like you do, too, and it sounds like you found a minority-gay community that accepts you. That doesn’t strike me as a gay ghetto at all.

Pintuck

Why is it nasty for me to use the phrase “ghetto gays”? Is it because we don’t want to admit that there is a subculture among gay men who want to live in a pit of compulsive sex and drug abuse, and then equate that lifestyle with “being gay”? What does “PnP” mean, anyway? A little bit of candor goes a long way.

I do not think that gay people deserve to be drug addicts inhabiting gay ghettos, so it disgusts me when some people want to celebrate that lifestyle as part and parcel of “being gay”. Someone please tell me why that attitude is offensive or wrong.

Burr

Pintuck you obviously know very little about the regular posters here if you label both Timothy and Jason D as ghetto gays. Both of them are actually fairly conservative.. Just because they disagree with you doesn’t mean they embrace the entirely opposite perspective. You should restrain your reaction a bit..

Pintuck

Burr,

Jason D stated that it’s the “out and proud” “queens, leathers, and kinksters” who “got us where we are today”. In other words, if not for cross-dressers and gays who made their sexual fetishes public, we wouldn’t have the rights and acceptance that we have today.

1) Is that idea “fairly conservative” to you?

2) Do you agree with that idea?

I haven’t labeled Timothy as a ghetto gay. I think he has the welfare of gay people at heart. But I don’t think his criticism of Jimmy is fair.

Mel

‘Jason D’ are you saying that if courageous gay men are working at NOM and financially supporting it (as GOProud is the GOP), they have no right to righteously create “change from the inside” as Log Cabin and GOProud have so effectively done over the last decade? I think any gay man (not very many lesbians do this) should be applauded for joining and financially supporting homophobic organizations so that it may one day “create change from the inside”.

Burr

I meant mostly in how they carry out their lives.

I don’t see how agreeing that the Stonewall riots and the pride parades have had a positive effect on the fight for equal rights by making us more visible to society automatically turns one into a “sex and drugs ghetto gay.”

It’s hard to argue that we HAVEN’T seen much more progress since the “freaks” got out there and rocked the boat. Remember gays were far more quiet, integrated, and hidden within the community in our closets for centuries before and were put to death or into jail when dragged out without much remorse for it.

Because those people stood up for us, it’s moved the goal posts and created room for us to move out of the closet and out of the ghettos and into a more normal place in society.

Burr

Mel, it’s impossible to make change from within an organization so diametrically opposed to our rights. Unlike the GOP, NOM’s entire existence owes itself to an anti-gay mission statement.

Pintuck

Burr,

I think your ideas are nonsense. The biggest contributor to gay acceptance has been the dying off of previous, more gay-hating generations. The second biggest contributor to gay acceptance has been the liberalizing of Christian beliefs. The second contributor is tied to the first.

You are arguing that:

1. Gays were “integrated” in the closet (I think you put it that way because you are trying to accuse me of wanting gays to “go back in the closet” when I say I want “integration”).

2. Gays came out.

3. Gays responded by becoming very vocal and very public about the things that straights hated them for, with an attitude of, “If you’re offended, then you deserve it!” They also used lots and lots of drugs.

4. We all have those gays to thank, for without them and their antics, the straights would not love us as much.

I think the Stonewall riots had a positive effect on creating a “separate but equal” gay culture, which is what you are standing up for. I think they had a negative effect on gay acceptance, which is what I want.

Were you alive and in New York City or San Francisco in the 1970s as an out and proud gay man?

Burr

You’re really hung up on that false dichotomy, aren’t you?

I don’t want a gay ghetto or separate but equal existence. I live with straight people and have more straight friends than gay ones, and I share the same distaste for what you describe as “gay culture” as well. Stop putting words in people’s mouths and assuming the utter worst of everyone who has the temerity to have a different opinion. It’s very unbecoming of you.

Anyway your whining and our debating with you is pointless as none of us can control what other people do with their lives. Things are changing and this will look like a really stupid gripe in the future.

Pintuck

Burr,

If you share the same distaste for gay culture that I do, then why did you lionize the antics of “queens, leathers, and kinksters” (Jason D’s description, which you agreed with and you didn’t object to his terminology) as the bringers of gay rights to whom we are all indebted? It sounds like you revere them.

Matt

Pintuck,

Stonewall was not about anything besides a bunch of queens who wanted to be left the f*ck alone by the cops–free to dance, drink, make out with members of the same sex without harassment. Just about every freedom we have fought for and earned to-date emanated from that moment (of course that was preceded and succeeded by others–both of the “straight-acting” types and of the “radical” types).

These queens fought back while the “straight-acting” closet cases lived in miserable fear that they would find an anonymous envelope under their door with a picture of them holding hands or kissing a person of the same sex or even–heaven forbid–being seen in the company of a “known” homosexual.

Without Stonewall, there’d have been no Harvey Milk. Without Harvey Milk, thousands of Gay and Lesbian teachers in California would have been fired in the 70s. Without a Milk, gays would have continued to be marginalized and relied on others to represent us.

So don’t act like these were aliens or had nothing to do with you and what you enjoy today.

I am too young to have been at Stonewall, but in NY I have met many Stonewall era people who talked about what life was like back then. I have even been blessed to meet a few actual Stonewall veterans, like the fierce Sylvia Rivera (RIP) who struggled for us while being abandoned by the movement when we got confused about whether the “T” belonged.

Learn some history or shut the f up.

I could pretty much guess where you would have been back in ’69 (probably in hiding like I’m pretty sure I would have been).

Uki

Wow…..decades of gay struggle in America since the Stonewall Riot, and gay people there are STILL not allowed to become whomever they want, because of their sexual orientation?

But in this case, gay people aren’t allowed to become conservative? gay people aren’t allowed to disagree of Pride parade? gay people aren’t allowed to dislike drag queens? etc.

It’s not right to attack the idea of conservatism just because of the believer’s sexual orientation. It’s plain homophobic!

And it’s not right to attack the idea of liberalism just because of the believer’s sexual orientation. It’s also plain homophobic!

Where’s the discussion of ‘gay bashing’? Where’s the passionate talking about the two lesbians being rejected of housing because of their sexual orientation? Where’s the talk about young people being forced to sell their bodies after they get kicked out of their house after he/she came out? Where’s the arguments about debunking the stereotypes to hate LGBT? Where are those kinds of talking?

Don’t sway from the REAL problems LGBT people has. LGBT people out there are still being a subject of hatred. And that’s the real problem is.

And here we are talking about liberal vs. conservative, or monogamous vs. non-monogamous. Like it is supposed to be related to sexual orientation at all.

I mean..come on Box Turtle Bulletin. Surely you can make a better article than this one?

Pintuck

Uki,

“But in this case, gay people arenâ€™t allowed to become conservative? gay people arenâ€™t allowed to disagree of Pride parade? gay people arenâ€™t allowed to dislike drag queens?”

Not only no, but hell no. Any gay person who commits those sins is an “Uncle Tom” and a “sell out” and will be viciously, relentlessly attacked for it. That’s why gay people who have those opinions usually don’t voice them. They have been cowed into submission.

“Whereâ€™s the discussion of â€˜gay bashingâ€™? Whereâ€™s the passionate talking about the two lesbians being rejected of housing because of their sexual orientation? Whereâ€™s the talk about young people being forced to sell their bodies after they get kicked out of their house after he/she came out? Whereâ€™s the arguments about debunking the stereotypes to hate LGBT? Where are those kinds of talking?”

I think it is because many gay men have escaped into a “separate but equal” lifestyle of compulsive sex, superficiality, and drug abuse. We glibly call this the “club scene”. When people think about “gay issues”, they think about this lifestyle. They don’t give a shit about gay teens who get kicked out of their house when they come out. They don’t give a shit about school abuse. They care about meth and sex, and that’s all. It is their life.

And, ultimately, I think they feel a little bit guilty when they look at themselves and realize that they are living lives of unabashed hedonism and calling it “gay”. I think that’s the source of their defensiveness. I think that’s why they call it “homophobic” when someone says that the Folsom Street Fair isn’t good for gay people.

And, on this blog, we have Timothy Kincaid to carry water for those people. And that’s why I keep posting: because Timothy won’t explain himself!

Pintuck

Timothy,

Matt is whom I’m talking about. That’s the ghetto gay POV, loud and proud. Did you notice the outrage and contempt that I deign question gay culture? Notice the hatred for “straight-acting”? Notice his tacit accusation that I want gays to go back in the closet? Completely predictable.

Matt, I’m glad you disapprove of me. I don’t want your approval. I don’t want to buy into your false view of the drug-addicted, compulsive sex freak history of gay culture. I see gay culture and I feel sad and ashamed that straight people drive gay people to depths like those. You, on the other hand, think it’s sublime. I think it’s harmful that you celebrate that ghetto lifestyle instead of wanting a better quality of life for gay people. You and I are very different people, with different values, in different communities. We have very little in common outside of our mutual contempt for each other. It honestly strikes me as strange and incorrect that you and I would both be described as “gay”, and I suspect you would agree with that.

Timothy Kincaid

“viscous”

sigh. an unintentional pun

Timothy Kincaid

Pintuck,

I am very proud of our readers. Even though you are trying your hardest to provoke them, they have been nothing but polite and kind to you.

As for me explaining why I “carry water” for the Folsom Street Fair? That’s amusing.

Timothy Kincaid

Mel,

Maggie specifically said that gays (presumably gay males) work for her at NOM to oppose gay marriage. Deal!

If you want to tell me at what point in the video that she said that gay people work for her at NOM to oppose gay marriage, then I will go listen to the tapes and you will have proven your point. Until then, I think that you are bluffing.

“Go google it” is not the type of support that we allow for unsubstantiated claims.

Not taking sides on the ghetto gays vs. non-ghetto(?) gays, although I certainly have a position. Anyhow, Maggie at Cato was one of my favorite things in February.

In the Cato link from above(http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6987), Maggie is answering a question at the 73:30 mark. She says she has gays who work for her at 75:41. A minute later (76:24), she also says she got an e-mail from a California gay guy who was at a dinner party with eight other gay guys and they all realized they were going to vote for Prop 8.

She also claimed to have gay employees during her campaign for Question 1 in Maine, but I don’t have a link for that.

Now, as for her claims – it’s pretty easy to make up a story about a fictitious e-mail (it’s also easy to have an employee create a gmail account and send phony letters of support from an internet cafe – just sayin), and I’ve never seen Maggie name names of the gays on her payroll. She continually claims that she won’t name the gay employees because she’s concerned that those employees will face retaliation from other gays.

Maggie’s performance at the debate was absolutely abysmal – she won’t answer a question directly and she can’t refute anyone’s argument. It’s all about nailing herself to a cross. Around the 61:00 mark, Andrew challenges her about Catholic Charities in DC and she outright admits she has no idea what she’s talking about.

Truly, this is one of the best point-and-laugh-at-her moments. If only it wasn’t so dreadfully unfunny.

Richard Rush

The following comment on the GoodAsYou blog appears to be from a gay employee working for NOM. It was posted under the name “aNOMymous.” Obviously I cannot vouch for its authenticity, but here it is:

Through the anonymity of the Internet, I would like to say that I hate this stupid [c][u][n][t] to the very core of her pathetic existence.

Love,
A NOM worker and a supposed ex-gay.

A later commenter asked, “aNOMymous, are you the one that leaked the outtakes from the “Gathering Storm” video?” That question was never answered.

rusty

and the page:http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/watch-andrew-sullivan-takes-on-maggie-gallagher-at-the-cato-institutes-conservative-debate/politics/2010/02/19/8027

I did watch Maggie and Andrew at the Cato and remember here saying that she did have gay folk who work at NOM that oppose Gay Marriage but not sure if she was referring to past or current folk. . .Benkof comes to mind.

but at the new civil rights movement David Badash writes:
And then thereâ€™s Maggie Gallagher. I love Maggie. I truly do. Because she so steadfastly believes in her bigotry, she wields and displays it openly and proudly. It makes it so easy to expose her hate and bigotry.

Youâ€™ll see Maggie claim she knows many gay people who donâ€™t believe in gay rights. She claims some of them work for her. I hope she is wrong. I canâ€™t imagine any greater treasonous act to oneâ€™s community.

has the video of the Cato debate. look around 75:40 in the video.

rusty

Not sure what David Benkof is up to. . . GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE seems quite quiet and the last thing I saw was that Benkof was doing reviews of musicals in St Louis and he even had a recent photo.

rusty

http://stljewishlight.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=855031&CategoryID=15048

BENKOF

Timothy Kincaid

Thank you for that sourcing.

Mel,

I stand corrected. You were right. I was pretty sharp with you and I appologize.

Timothy Kincaid

rusty

Thanks for the link to the more current pictures. All I can say is, “oh, my”

Pintuck

Timothy,

I did not claim that you carry water for the Folsom Street Fair. I claimed that you carry water for the people who would say it is “homophobic” to say that the Folsom Street Fair is bad for gay people. Which is to say, ghetto gays. You know, the people I have nothing in common with, and you think I suck because I don’t want to have anything to do with them.

Instead of badgering you to explain why, I’d like to offer that your motivation in criticizing Jimmy is more pragmatic than it is principled. What you are attacking is the notions that gay people should be divided and attack each other, not Jimmy or integrationist gays. In other words, you’re standing up for the notion of “gay community”. And if you’re going to defend unity among groups of people with different values and goals, then someone ultimately has to get slighted in the compromise: that’s just the way things are and sometimes people have to be sacrificed for the greater good. In that sense, you would reject as nonsense the notion of “taking sides” because, in your point of view, you’re standing up for all gay people. It would also cause you to see me as nothing more than a belligerent jerk since, in your view, my “side” is nonexistent and thus I have no legitimate gripe. Let me know if this analysis hits the mark closer than my “carrying water” accusation, because, ultimately, I’m trying to understand, not fight. But I don’t suspect expect you to believe that at this point.

For what it’s worth, I think you have the well-being of gay people close to your heart, and I appreciate what you do here.

Priya Lynn

Pintuk said “It would also cause you to see me as nothing more than a belligerent jerk since, in your view, my â€œsideâ€ is nonexistent and thus I have no legitimate gripe.”.

Gays who are into sex and drugs and pride parades aren’t forcing you to do those things and aren’t forcing you to be their friends so you have no legitimate gripe. You’re free to live your life as you choose so do so and stop whining about others doing the same.

Timothy Kincaid

Pintuck,

You are mistaken in the motivations, attitudes, and beliefs that you have attributed to me.

If you are “trying to understand” and are willing to accept any advice, I’d suggest that you spend more time listening to others and less time telling them why you disagree with what you assume to be their opinions. You have made for yourself enemies that exist only in your own imagination.

While there are no doubt people who would not care for you or your chosen manner of living (that’s pretty much a given for everyone, gay or straight), at present you seem mostly to be tilting at windmills.

“Jason D is whom Iâ€™m talking about.

Notice him trot out the â€œWard Cleaverâ€ gay ghetto cliche. This is because he inhabits a world where a gay man either A) celebrates the compulsive pursuit of sex and drugs, or B) is Ward Cleaver and deserving of mockery. It is black and white to Jason D. There is no middle ground. It would be predictable for Jason D or one of his friends to next accuse me of being a â€œbitter, fat old queen who canâ€™t get laid any moreâ€. If that accusation strikes you as odd, then you arenâ€™t part of gay culture, either.

That said, will you please retract your claim that Jimmy â€œcouldnâ€™t resist getting in his digsâ€? It ascribes a nefarious motive where there is none. Heâ€™s admitting the fact that there is a rift between gays who integrate and ghetto gays who delight in making them look bad.

Jason, Iâ€™m glad you disapprove of me. Your approval is the last thing that I want. I agree that you and your people stand in the way of gay acceptance. And I think you agree with me that you donâ€™t want acceptance because that would preclude you and your friends from living your freaky lifestyle, which you wrongly equate with â€œbeing gayâ€. We are two very different people, inhabiting two very different communities with little in common except for our mutual contempt, and I think we both prefer it that way. I think thatâ€™s the common ground that can help us find mutual respect.”

Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone cherry pick and intentionally misrepresent what I’ve written this much or this badly. It’s like you read the bizarro world version of my post, where some of the words are the same, but everything else is the exact opposite both in tone and meaning.

Nor have I ever seen someone paint a life for me that doesn’t come anywhere close to what is actually going on. I mean, wow, I’m glad my life isn’t a movie, and this post from pin isn’t the trailer — everyone would be greatly disappointed.

I could write a lengthy response, but I think I’d get tired of writing “no, that’s not even close to the truth” that many times in a row.

Suffice to say, nice strawman. Was it fun beating him up?

Pintuck

Priya,

“Gays who are into sex and drugs and pride parades arenâ€™t forcing you to do those things and arenâ€™t forcing you to be their friends so you have no legitimate gripe.”

Likewise, gays who are trying to integrate aren’t trying to force ghetto gays to integrate, either. Way to miss the point.

Pintuck

Timothy,

What I trying to understand is why YOU scornfully criticize gay people for wanting to distance themselves from ghetto gays and their freak culture. If not a pragmatic concern for “gay community”, then what?

You had at least two ways you could have prefaced Jimmy’s comments about pride parades:

Option A) “And Jimmy had some valid points some of the stereotypical behavior displayed at pride parades.”

Option B) “But Jimmy could not resist getting in his digs about the â€œnot like meâ€ gays with whom he finds so little in common.”

Why do you think Option B is a more fitting preface than Option A?

Timothy Kincaid

Pintuck,

I invite you to check out our comments policy.

You might like to note are that we don’t allow derogatory terms, defamation of entire categories of people, or strawman arguments. You should consider those rules before posting again.

That being said, I do not “scornfully criticize gay people for wanting to distance themselves from ghetto gays and their freak culture.”

And I chose to point out that Jimmy was getting in his digs because, well, that’s what he was doing.

Pintuck

Jason D:

“I donâ€™t think Iâ€™ve ever seen someone cherry pick and intentionally misrepresent what Iâ€™ve written this much or this badly.”

1. You are defended the “leathermen, gym bunnies, draq queens, and freaks” who don’t give a sh!t about acceptance or about gays who want acceptance.

2. You accused me of wanting all gays to be like “Ward and the Beaver”.

That is the standard, black-and-white, ghetto gay POV. You perfectly represented yourself and your culture, which is very different from and separate from mine. And that’s exactly how you want it. You think my “Ward Cleaver” culture sucks, and that is exactly how I feel about yours. We see eye-to-eye.

Pintuck

Timothy,

Jimmy made this statement:

“the stereotypical images of pride parades donâ€™t accurately portray the reality of the lives of the vast majority of gay Americans.”

Is that statement

A) true

B) false