Fully Human Law Abiding Contributing Citizens
My response to yet another person who thinks gay people are just troublemakers:
Gay people aren't fighting for and arguing passionately about something insignificant like one's preference for vanilla, chocolate or strawberry ice cream... as you make it seem. Gay people are fighting for and arguing passionately about our status as citizens. As medical and law societies have agreed over and over, gay people are not sick in any way. We are a sexual minority common throughout history amongst all peoples of the earth. We are fully human. And as we're definitely law abiding contributing citizens, we ought to be afforded all the same legal protections, privileges, and responsibilities afforded to all other fully human law abiding contributing citizens. Anything less leads to incidents of unfair discrimination, injustice and suffering. It's really that simple and easy for a rational person to understand and to support. I hope you will.
After all, there is a great long history of small groups of people on this earth asking to be treated fairly and with dignity and to be free from harassment from the majority. Jews have asked for this. Native Americans have asked for this. Gypsies have asked for this. Gays are not different in confronting the ignorant stereotypes and lies that people in power use to paint us as unworthy of being treated as the fully human law abiding contributing citizens that we are.
Luckily many civilized countries and their citizens are agreeing with my point of view. Spain, Canada, South Africa, The Netherlands, England, Ireland ... all have either given gays full rights as citizens including marriage rights OR are in the process of doing so.
I'm glad to hear you're not as crazy as I thought. You just suffer from lazy thinking and stereotyping... hopefully. Your problem is that you haven't thought intelligently about what's going on when you see gay people fight for equal rights as contributing competent citizens. I hope that's your problem and nothing more serious.
There are thousands of rights denied to homosexuals by our exclusion from some incredibly important basic civil institutions like marriage for instance. This causes real suffering not only to gay people but also to their families. Many gay people are foster parents to children that straight couples don't want: the sick, the mentally ill, etc. Guess who suffers when gay couples aren't given the same legal protections of marriage as straight couples? These already disadvantaged children do, that's who. What happens when one person in a gay couple dies? Often, their assets are taken by the state or by that person's distant relatives. Why? Because no matter how long that couple has been together (15, 20, 30 years), their relationship isn't recognized under the law. It is unprotected.
Guess what happens when one person in a gay couple has a medical emergency and ends up in the hospital? The partner often isn't allowed to visit or isn't allowed to be at the death bed of their loved one because THEY HAVE NO RIGHTS! Now do you get why gay people are so passionate about fighting for the rights still being denied to them in the 21st century?
If you believe gay people are fully human beings and fully contributing law abiding citizens then you ought to fight alongside us with our straight allies who fight for social justice. But that takes real courage and a willingness to upset the majority and back an unpopular cause. And that takes real courage!
Have you ever thought of the high incidents of suicide among gay teens? You might wanna think about that. If you knew that the religious hate speech spewing out of the mouths of religious men was causing families to reject their 12 year old child because he or she was (perceived as) gay and that that child was also rejected at school and church.... is it little wonder that many of these kids kill themselves out of despair (and the tragedy is that some aren't even gay... they're just perceived as gay and so are victims of anti-gay bigotry).
Wouldn't it be the greatest cowardice for gay people who survived such vile ignorance as youths NOT to speak out and demonstrate and fight against all the religious lies which instruct straight people to think of us as sick and in need of reperative therapies? Wouldn't it be the height of cowardice for families of gays also NOT to speak out and demonstrate when religious fundamentalists describe their children as sick and abominations?
Surely only a coward would NOT fight against the religious lies. I myself watched videos in college made by fundamentalist churches painting all gays as child molesters and this video was being sent to churches all over the U.S. That cannot be thought of as anything but Hate Propaganda!!
And as for gays "shoving it in your face"... that's just nonsense! Demanding the right to live a normal everyday life free of fear from harassment and treated equally under the law.. which includes holding your loved ones hand in public and hugging in public and sometimes even a quick kiss to your loved one in public ..is not "shoving it in your face". It's called fighting for one's civil rights. It's called normal human affection. Straight people do it every day.
Why should gay people be faulted for loving and caring for their loved ones? If you are offended because some gay people are outlandish well then you ought to as an intelligent person ask yourself why would a community that has been fundamentally rejected until just recently by society, the church and the law .. why would some in this rejected community exhibit outlandish behavior and show signs of being marginalized? Come on surely you know the law of cause and effect... yes?!? Give me a break. Lazy thinking on your part. Bad show.
But I still don't get how some straight people are so intelligent when it comes to the diversity of natural human sexuality and its variations. While others like you are so resistant to seeing the common humanity you share with gay people. Almost always people like you are either just not intelligent or are immature when it comes to human sexuality or just haven't taken the time to think clearly about what's going on out in the real complex world.
I hope you are just one of the latter.
Good luck, Seamus7
P.S. It IS the height of stupidity not to see the deep influence of religious fundamentalists in the lives of all of us. See Israel/Palestine/Iraq/The USA/Pakistan etc. To admit you see fundamentalists as 'whacko' and then to ignore the violence and suffering their non-reality based world views inspire??? That makes no sense. That is indefensible. And like I predicted, you've ignored it completely. And that was the base point of my video. Slap back the fundamentalist delusions for that is our only hope of eventually defeating their irrational weird dangerous and undeniably brutal influence on the world of real people and real families and real human institutions.
Remember: equality is your birthright since time immemorial.