When they TELL you what their lives were like when they were young, you DO know. I’m not assuming a thing. And I put a few OTHER things together regarding what they are doing now and why.

I’m a jockette. I lived in the world of young athletes and I do it now among older ones. Matt Barber was an athlete, Brian Brown, in a different way. But they are men whose public lives show what they connect to traditional values, masculinity and their sense of what it’s definition is.
Note their obsession more with gay males (as usual) than lesbians.

The world of athletes is especially hard on gay boys. And what ordinary boys outside of that world have to endure.
Their religious self righteousness is another component added already to one of entitlement. It’s not just their appearance my cues are from (give me some credit), it’s a piece of a whole that’s not so surprising.

As a woman, my experience with physically imposing men, who EXERCISE that imposition, followed by having wives that do little else but bear them LOTS of children, tells me how little they think of women in general, and especially women like me: who refused to have children and who in my own way isn’t a reserved traditional woman.

Things are assumed about me because I’m a woman. BB and MB use their masculinity in traditional fashion and put down others who are not their idea of it.

If you don’t mind I’m going to take that for the next time this topic comes up somewhere.

That doesn’t stop me from reading the very thoughtful and useful posts on this blog.

The comments on this particular thread have moved me to post.

It is one thing to maintain political correctness and to make sure posters adhere to the guidelines the blog owners require.

It is quite another to use the double-plus political correctness rules to discount points of view with which one knee-jerk disagrees.

No, none of us can truly know what the physically large adults involved in the anti-gay-rights movement experienced as children. That said – and I speak here as a male who, as a 13 year old weighed 180 (muscle) and was 6’1″ already, there is some very great truth to the bull-necked comments. Nobody messed with me and several gay and physically disabled kids used the size and strength of myself and two other kids at our school to protect themselves against the bullies.

I won’t post here often again, but I do think those who determine the tone of the threads here need to be reminded that they, too, suffer from the same unfair tendencies as do those of us who refuse to toe the political correctness line.

Frankly, it’s our greatest weakness as a community.

This is especially likely when unemployment is high enough to give businesses their pick of whoever’s out there. Which is often the case. (Our business-favoring economics say that unemployment is a sign of economic efficiency. It can be argued that our government runs the economy so conditions favor business.)

When all businesses in an industry are discriminating in the same way, there won’t be big differences in profitability due to negative consequences from discriminating, and investors won’t have a diverse, more profitable company they can favor with capital.

Managers and owners frequently act against what makes sense. The self-righteousness of prejudice and being stuck in the rut of traditional practices can lead to continued discrimination. Leaders can and do take down departments, businesses, industries, armies and societies by refusing to change.

Just because an organization now has a diverse workforce doesn’t mean its decisionmaking will necessarily improve, not if the previously discriminated against people haven’t worked their ways up high enough, including due to glass ceilings, or their opinions are ignored. So it might take some time before improvements from ending discrimination are seen.

All of which are arguments against relying on market forces and foregoing government remedies against discrimination.

Arguments that government is immune from normal business economics don’t apply to present day American military recruitment. Our “all-volunteer armed forces” would normally have little problem recruiting in bad times, but our current war-addicted foreign policy is hurting recruitment of suitable candidates for at least a few important specialties, people who are desirable enough as employees even in these times that they have better options than the possibility of service in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The problem with using market forces (there is no such thing as a pure free market, because that requires everyone in the market to have perfect and complete information, an impossibility) to combat discrimination, is that this only works when all individuals – whether part of a discriminated group or not – are equal as to skills, abilities, education and training.

Good point. However, I think that the primary problem with relying solely on market forces to reduce discrimination is that the anti-discriminatory tendencies of a free market will tend to work rather slowly and incrementally, so that improvement happens on a generational time scale — but meanwhile, people need to “put food on their families” RIGHT NOW, and young children need better quality elementary schools RIGHT NOW (to ensure that they’re not already skills-deficient as they go into junior-high and secondary school and beyond).

I see him and Matt Barber who are thick necked, burly men. As boys, I’m sure they didn’t have to worry about physical intimidation from anyone. Never had to consider it likely that a door would be closed to them anywhere. They always assumed they could walk in and do whatever.

Interesting. So based on what they look like as adults, you claim to have insight into what their lives were like as kids.

Nice way to lead by example, Regan.

P.S. I’m reminded of this article from Cracked.com about Questionable Life Lessons from Teen Movies — Lesson #2 being that all jocks are sociopaths. (Extra sociopath points if they’re blond jocks, à la Billy Zabka in The Karate Kid and Ted McGinley in Revenge of the Nerds.)

Hey, we should be getting together, like…NEXT WEEK.
We live so close together and I love you.
Just say when. Especially since tax season is up, you’re going to be busy.

No punching. But if you want to give him a good talking-to, wait till I get my comfy chair and soda, I want to see it.

:)

What about the cost of illegal abortions/unwanted pregnancies?

What about the cost of foreclosures on all those people who ‘obviously’ bought too much house and ‘deserve’ to have foreclosure happen – the cost to the neighborhoods and to society?

What about the cost of defining ones’ tribe narrowly and refusing to assist anyone who’s not a member of ‘my’ (usually christian) tribe?

What about the cost of deficit reduction?

What about the cost of denying medical coverage?

Anti-gay is but one part of discrimination (most anti-gay folks also have one or more other groups to be anti- to.) DADT is but one discrimination with an associated price of implementation.