Dox47 wrote:
Descartes wrote:
Out of curiosity, are you referring to Ragtime's
Homosexuality Decoded topic?
Nope, different member, he'll know who he is if he see this but I won't name him unless given permission. What happened was inexcusable though, people created phony accounts here using picture and information about him and his wife gleaned from his social networking sites to make posts suggesting that he was gay himself or into kinky sex practices, etc. Then after the mods cracked down, that same info was used to create dummy profiles across the net on both social networking and dating/sex sites with similar insinuations worked in, but with enough accurate info including his real name to make it look legit. This went on for several weeks, and you know how hard that stuff is to take down and if an employer or someone googles you it can really mess you up, so the guy is still beyond distraught over all of it. This is a fellow Aspie we're talking about here, and this was all done by other Aspies who still think they were in the right because they were doing it to a "homophobe". That's what I mean by people taking the "rightness" of their cause and using it to justify odious means, and it's especially dangerous because it can be used as a hammer when religious types claim the mantle of victimhood for themselves. Read this:
http://advocate.com/printArticle.aspx?id=156878I've heard of things like that happening, actually. Gay rights supporters get into a discussion with someone who is fiercely anti-gay, and then start joking that that person's anti-gay sentiments stem from his own repressed deviant sexual desires. Admittedly, I do often find that amusing, and I even harbor little sympathy for Rick Santorum and his so-called "google problem" (I personally think he had it coming, what with his comparing gay sex to incest and bestiality).
Of course, I don't condone what happened to that one particular member (even if I would have found his views repugnant). But just as I wouldn't condone what happened to him, I probably wouldn't have initially felt much sympathy for him as it was happening because, since I'm gay, I always take anti-gay remarks personally. It feels particularly dehumanizing to hear people say that you're perverted for desiring the same sex, and that your sexual orientation makes you equivalent to people who commit incest, bestiality, and child molestation. Maybe some people should amend their opinions about us if they don't want the object of their bigotry to react so negatively.
As for the article you linked, I agree with the bulk of what was written. I have no problem with private businesses being exempt from anti-discrimination laws. I do have qualms over organizations that receive our taxes being free to discriminate, though.
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What fresh hell is this?
14 Jul 2011, 5:39 pm
