Richard, that poll doesn’t mean that people don’t associate both words with same sex attracted people. What is likely the case is that due to the efforts by anti-gays “homosexual” is associated with same sex attracted people who have AIDS, drug problems, mental illness, and conjures up images of promiscuity, anal sex and feces eating. The word gay conjures up images of same sex attracted people who get married, love each other, people like Ellen, or Elton John.

While I think you may have gone a little over-the-top there, you are certainly correct. John Aravosis has written about the use of “homosexual.” The difference in some people’s response to the two words would be amusing if it weren’t so depressing.

That’s tragic and I hope you’ll reconsider the damage you’re doing to our cause by blindly using the anti-gay tactics of referring to same sex attracted people as “not gay” and “ex-gay”.

The first time I recall hearing the term “post-gay” was from Exodus, I believe. Until I read this posting here at BTB I just assumed the term “ex-gay” had accumulated some baggage they wanted to shed, and that “post-gay” was the new and improved version – like a fresh coat of paint.

I’m sure that plays a large part. Who wants to be associated with a movement who gave us Richard Cohen, John Paulk, Michael Johnston, and Uganda?

Your paraphrase did not accurately reflect my statement, it’s language, it’s intent, or it’s meaning. It was, rather, a “paraphrase” selected for its strawman qualities.

As to whether you think that I’m “promoting deception”, well, you are entitled to your opinion. I think that readers are adequately equipped to measure your argument against my consistent writing over a number of years.

Some may choose to believe you and agree that I have “bought into the brainwashing and word tricks of groups like Exodus” and am “now spreading lies.”

But I doubt it.

Just so. You undoubtedly made the right decision, and that is precisely the decision that “ex-gay” ministries do everything that they can to prevent people from making, which is why I condemn them.

I have no doubt if you’d have done two polls like this in the 1960′s and asked about whether black people or the N-word people should be allowed the same social access as whites you would have seen a similar disparity but you’d have been hard pressed to say the two different terms refered to two different groups of people.

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Here is one indication of how people react to the words gay vs. homosexual: There was a recent CBS News/New York Times poll about DADT: 70% said gays and lesbians should be permitted to serve in the military, but only 59% said homosexuals should be permitted!

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The first time I recall hearing the term “post-gay” was from Exodus, I believe. Until I read this posting here at BTB I just assumed the term “ex-gay” had accumulated some baggage they wanted to shed, and that “post-gay” was the new and improved version – like a fresh coat of paint.

When you use that to describe self-loathing gay people you are promoting the deception that gay people can and have turned straight.

My statement was a paraphrase of these two comments by you.

When you go around saying Randy Thomas is not gay you’re promoting the anti-gay agenda to decieve people into believing that gays can and have become heterosexual.