Box Turtle Bulletin

Several years ago, I was denied admittance to an ICU after my partner was in a very serious and life threatening car accident. It DOES happen; it happened to me. We were living in Chattanooga, TN. When the told me I couldn’t see him, something inside of me died. I felt so small and powerless. I called my now deceased father in Ohio and could barely explain what had transpired through my tears. He contacted a Unitarian church in Chattanooga and within 20 minutes a minister from there was ringing my doorbell. He drove me to the hospital and literally marched me to the ICU. I’ve never heard a minister of church use language like he did in talking to the ICU staff. After he said something about contacting local news-media, they said that “wouldn’t be necessary” and let me in. It proves that when one is confronted with the fact that their bigotry CAN be shown to the world at large, that bigots are basically cowards without the courage of their own convictions! They just enjoy the power trip and don’t want complications.

If this ever happens to you, don’t be afraid to be loud and aggressive. Bigots respect loud and aggressive. Bigots respect threats — it’s all they really understand.

enough already

I don’t think that our enemies are dumb. Just the opposite – while we are tearing each other to shreds over abstruse aspects of political correctness, they are marching from one success to another.

They target exactly those vulnerabilities of voters which are most likely to be influenced: Fear.

They chose highly emotional descriptors for themselves, us, the arguments. They are the “defenders of marriage”. We are those who seek to “destroy” marriage….

Probably their most brilliant move was to place four of the Supremes as a permanent blockade to human status for gays and the transgender.

Am I offended by their hatred? Yes.
Do I confuse their inability to parse a simple argument with a losing tactic? No.

We are the ones who are behaving stupidly.

First, we are distracted, if not hamstrung by our political correctness sensibilities. A house divided against itself can not stand and we of the LGBTxzy community are very much that.

Second, we let them set the field of engagement. The bible, the christian belief is against us from the get-go. There are no arguments we can bring which will stand up against the magic thinking of the blue-mud-belly-button=good voters. They have and always will win that one.

Third, we don’t vote. They do. Always. They may not agree 100% with their candidate, but they vote. We register our disdain by either seeking out a third party candidate with 0% chance or by not voting at all. Well, the argument that it doesn’t matter ’cause they’re all the same sure got blown up in 2000, now didn’t it.

Fourth, they are very on-topic. Get people to put our civil and human rights to the vote. For the good of society. Because that’s what their god-of-hatred wants.
We mumble vague generalities, let ourselves be associated with concepts which Americans as a group don’t grasp.

Fifth, we come as beggars. Americans might love underdogs, but it is our enemies who are taking that position by claiming to be under attack. They only see us whining for “special rights”.
Why aren’t we focused on presenting the pictures of the beaten children, the homeless teens, the dead college students, driven to suicide? Those anti-choice pictures of theirs work. We, instead, focus on abstract psychobable which the average American voter doesn’t understand – even if they didn’t fall asleep digging through the politically correct language before they reach the end of the first paragraph.

Sixth – and I’ll stop here – we have failed to find one single, solitary answer to their best weapon: Fear their children will be attacked. NOM wins over our closest allies, straight women, with that one. All our energies must be focused on finding a counter to that one the emotional level.

In short: No, they are neither dumb nor uneducated. They are winning, we are losing. Do I find it offensive that in a few weeks, my husband and I shall once again be “legal strangers” and our human and civil rights stripped of us the moment we touch down on AmeriKan soil? Yes. The fact remains, however, that they are doing the better job of communicating and we are doing a very poor job.

Jason D

“If this ever happens to you, donâ€™t be afraid to be loud and aggressive. Bigots respect loud and aggressive. Bigots respect threats â€” itâ€™s all they really understand.”

And get it on video.

I think every member of the LGBT community should get a camera phone with video capability and start practicing. Practice filming in all kinds of situations. Find the best grip for that phone, so that it can’t be easily knocked out of your hand.

Then, when the unfortunately inevitable bigotry rears it’s head, there you are, documenting the whole thing. A few clicks from Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and emailing to your local and national news. “You have a choice, Nurse Johnson, you can be internationally known as a heartless bigot via this video I’m taking right now, or you can let me see my partner, the choice is yours.”

Muscat

This appears to be a specific iteration of the overwhelming exception fallacy: a generalization that is accurate but comes with an exception (or set of exceptions) that make the generalization fairly unimpressive as the basis of an argument.

Ben in Oakland

Enough already– i think you are muchly right. but i also think that our campaigns have always been run from the deep recesses of the closet, no matter how open people think they are being. Our highly self-hating, whining campaign against prop. 8 was a perfect example of arguing from the closet with a closeted mentality– can’t show gay people, our lives, our loves,our children and our faiths.

I’m off the the civilized part of south aemrica. have fun, everyone.

MJC

Bravo to “enough already”.

The Rethuglicans have mastered the art of the emotional message: a quick-and-dirty appeal to the older (in an evolutionary sense) and lower emotional pathway in the brain, which passes through the amygdala and triggers fear. No thought required. Those on the left are caught in an outdated (Enlightenment) version of “reason” so they appeal to logic, which, of course takes time and effort, thus boring everyone to death and losing the battles. Watch ANY right-wing talking head on any political talk show when his or opponent is speaking: they all shake their heads from side to side, speak over their opponents without compunction, hog the airtime, and then use the tactic noted above when it is time to speak (and yes, there is a right-wing school for these political commentators. The similarities in behavior were so obvious to me I thought there had to be such a school; last year the NY Times did a story on it).

I am similarly frustrated at people who should know better (David Gregory, Ed Schulz) who could easily expose the outright lies of their right-wing guests but let them prattle on with their talking points–and across networks on any given day, the script is obvious–perhaps because of fear (there’s that word again) of being called biased.

Yes, the left in general needs to be abandon the idea that they usually have the better and more reasonable argument (which they do, having engaged the frontal cortex), and that is they present it, “reasonable people” will be swayed. Sadly that’s irrelevant to the vast majority of voters, who are of course, not in any way reasonable (especially after fear has gripped them)….and the worse education gets in our country, the better for the right wing. Hitler himself said “it is in the interest of the leaders that the people know nothing”.

And by the way, although it is out of fashion to invoke the Nazis in arguments (sadly, it’s done too often and in inappropriate places), anyone well read in the rise of the Third Reich will recognize Goebbels’ tactics in modern Republican campaigning: the creation and constant invoking of the enemy is only one of the more obvious. (Herrmann Goering admitted that, using this tactic alone, it was easy to get any country, totalitarian or democratic, to go to war.)

The left needs to wake up. After all, the Nazis were elected, and seized power with only 33% of the vote.

David in Houston

Their entire argument doesn’t make any sense. If this new policy doesn’t effect them at all, then why are they even against it? The only possible explanation is that they want to intentionally hurt gay people, and don’t want gay people to be considered equal members of society.

justsearching

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-memorandum-hospital-visitation

I might be wrong… but it seems like the guys from the AFA didn’t actually read Obama’s memo correctly. The second guy suggested that the homosexual activists first pushed to allow visitation rights, and that later the policy would be pushed a bit farther to allow LGBT individuals to make decisions for their partners with regards to treatment.

Doesn’t the memo cover both issues?

Riva

It actually doesn’t matter if we are embarrassed by the ‘intellectual stature’ of our opponents or not. We may be winning the war (in that eventually we will be equal….with all emphasis on may and eventually) but they are winning the battles. Stupid or not, they know what to do to hurt us the most.

Priya Lynn

Exactly David. If no one is denied visitation then they have no reason to oppose this policy. Their opposition to it is proof that they want hospitals to deny visitation.

Simpa

Well, they may be dumb, but they don’t hold a mass public event each year in which they have their followers marching down public avenues half naked, in assless chaps, or dressed up as nuns with dildos around their necks. Yet we do, year after year after year. Long after the novelty has worn off and long after it has become clear that these antics are injurious. Nor do they redefine themselves and their movement to mean “anything against the norm”, i.e., “queer”, i.e. lgbtqiapxyz.

This is our stupidity and if we didn’t suffer from it, we would be 30 years ahead of where we are now.

Spartann

to Simpa…

Kudos to you for stating the obvious. However, in this instance it will mostly fall on deaf ears.

Priya Lynn

Simpa, “Lighten up, Francis.”.

Ben Mathis

How are pride parade marchers “followers” of anything? And are you forgetting the Xtians with 15 wives and 500 children, or the ones that literally kill, beat, and sexually abuse their own children? or the Priests that rape 10s of boys?

Either everyone is tarred together and the Religious bigots fair far worse, or you realize we are all individuals that can be separated from the outliers.

enough already

I think this knee-jerk piling on of Simba is counter-productive.

I marched for women’s rights in the 1970’s and got my nose bashed in for it.
I marched for the HIV+ and Aids victims in the 90’s and got pigs blood thrown on me.

I marched against the neo-Nazis at every single protest here in my city until the bastards crawled back into their filthy holes.

I am not only open and married to my husband, I have been interviewed on national radio and TV, published in the serious press on the topic of gay rights.

I do not march in the spectacles which, to me, represent the same level of oppression mentality as the Blackexploitation films of the 1970’s.

I don’t think they portray us as we need to be portrayed to the vast majority of heterosexual and cisgender voters who are not on our side yet are also not strongly opposed to us.

Let’s cut the knee-jerk political correctness bullshit and have a decent discussion instead of the usual attacks.

Remember – our mortal enemies, a very, very large number of christians – are united in their hatred of us. It is our refusal to work together unless people conform to the straightjacked of political correctness which materially hurts us.

Priya Lynn

Ahh, enough, you always find the perfect mix of pompousity and hostility.

enough already

Priya Lynn,
QED – and you would rather see us continue to be treated like second class citizens and sub-human than to set aside your prejudices and firmly held resentments against those in the queer community who don’t march to the drummer of AMERICAN political correctness.

This, exactly this is why these hateful christians are beating the hell out of us – they are united in their hatred. We are too busy being a house divided to stand up against them

John in the Bay Area

Enough already,

Interestingly, the primary focus of advocacy right now is repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, getting equal marriage rights and passage of ENDA.

So the GLBT community is working hard to be able to serve in the military, get married and be employed. It positively has to be the most conservative agenda of a group that bigots want to label as left wing, out of the mainstream characters.

enough already

John in the Bay Area,
well, yes – since I’m married and we’re monogamous I certainly understand why Americans want this, too.
I guess I don’t get your point.

John in the Bay Area

enough already,

You focused your criticism on “spectacles” that somehow demean efforts at equality. I was just pointing out that most of the efforts that I see working for equality are focused on being able to serve in the military, getting married and having employment. These are about as mainstream of goals that any group can aspire to.

Bigots like to focus on the outrageous, but I think more and more Americans are familiar with everyday gay people who want what everyone else in America wants. So, I don’t waste time separating myself from Gay Pride parades and the like. I don’t go to them. I work in other ways towards equality and pride.

enough already

John in the Bay Area,
I didn’t especially “focus” on anything, I was trying to point out that the usual approach here on this forum of attacking those of us who do not happen to share the politically correct view of the week should not be taken, for a pleasant change.

The question of public behavior has been a hotly debated one among many oppressed groups in America throughout the years.

Reading novels written in the fifties by Blacks and ones written in the sixties by Jews, one encounters this discussion every so often – how much do we have to “be” middle-class white bread stereotypes and how much can we publicly just be human beings as we are?

The discussion goes on in our queer community. Since I am loudly on the side of letting effiminate (and no, there is no single good politically correct term for that so let’s not and say we didn’t) men be themselves as well as a very loud voice demanding that the “T” in our politically correct sandwich of LGBTQIIAxyz NOT be left out, I’m used to being on the other side of this argument. And the divisivness pours on, still. It is self-destructive and only serves to drive every voice out of the queer movement who is not totally from the academically driven political correctness police. It is double-plus Orwellism.

I think we do need to consider just what our public face needs to be in order to win. That is a fair and reasonable question and one which deserves comment.

I mentioned my other public protest actitivities through the years only to underscore that I am not some armchair theorist, but a firm believer in the old saying: Don’t bring a gun to a knife fight, bring tactical nukes. While we call this a “culture war”, they are out bullying and beating and raping our children, driving them to despair and suicide. A very large number of the christians are trying very hard to bring the Iranian stonings of these last weeks home to us.

Again – it is a fair and reasonable topic – how do we present ourselves? Brittany Speers makes me cringe as an example of fine, upstanding better-o-sexuality and parenthood. Pink makes me smile.

Spartann

to enough already….

You say you seek acceptance and equality, and yet too many like yourself insist on continuing to use “queer” as an identification tag or term of endearment…. I refuse to use what has always been a deliberately offensive and aggressive term when used by heterosexuals. You think by using the word positively, that you’re depriving it of it’s negative power. Well think again my friend, cause in places like Keokuk Iowa, the meaning of “queer” is the same today as it was in 1957, 1857 etc etc etc.

Now you may think you’re kidding someone, but come on…be honest here and admit the only reason you’re pointing to your past participation in militancy is to boast,,,,Hell if you’re not out to garner some sort of accolade now, why else would you even mention the broken nose and pig’s blood? I’m sure you couldn’t have looked all that pretty emulating Carry.

You see dude, my point is you’re not unique….There’s many folks of a certain age, who have for a long time participated in the fight for equality. I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn even I have sounded off against homosexual discrimination. But I fought so words like “queer” and “fag” would never again be used to label anyone from the LGBT community. I’ve got big fists and many is the time I stood my ground and literally fought on the streets of Chicago in the 70s and 80s against gay bashers that sought to eradicate homosexuals from the streets…

At the Medinah Temple, I along with the only 3 other gay men in attendance at a Shriner’s event, were hauled off to jail for speaking out in protest as Anita Bryant spewed her vitriol against gay men during the rally. But I’ll tell you something now, as I reflect on how great it felt to hurl expletives at the Shriners, I must also admit how bad I felt only a few months later after I and others stood in the middle of Daley Plaza. Where at the time, one by one for 30 minutes during a 12 hour span, each of us took our turn outting famous people by name over a microphone. It was the wrong thing to do then… and it would be the wrong thing to do now.

Some how the effect of all past gains diminish in importance when anyone pushes the envelope and encourages insurrection and labels people as “the enemy”. To be frank with you, I would hope you’re not a mouth piece any young person anywhere pays attention to…. I think you’re an example of what is wrong in the struggle for acceptance… In fact, I think you’re every bit as dangerous as the people you malign.

Emily K

http://www.temple.edu/tempress/queer.html
http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1504_reg.html
http://www.yale.edu/queerpeers/
http://art.yale.edu/Art581b
http://www.csw.ucla.edu/events/ucla-queer-studies-conference-2010

Re: the term “queer” as being offensive and impossible to claim as “proper:”

Emily K

I left a previous comment with many links, please approve it as not spam!

Mark F.

I’m not thrilled about guys dressed as nuns or running around in chaps without pants in public, but the idea that the anti-gay wackos hate us because of the way a few people dress is nonsense. They hate us because we are gay, nothing else. And we were actually more hated before the silly gay nuns and pride parades.

rlk