The Usual [Sad] “Discussion” with “Angry”-Type LGBTQ Activists . . .
Photo by Victor Gregory (11-9-07) [Flickr / CC BY 2.0 license]
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I wrote a critique of the article, “Orlando,” by a transgender LGBT activist, Callie Wright. Mine was entitled, “Orlando, “Homophobia”, Terrorism, & Slander.” Callie tried to make the case that Christian right-wing homophobes were the cause behind the Orlando massacre, if not directly, then by fairly close secondary causation. I opposed that, and made the case, that it was jihadi terrorism that caused the hideous hate crime: not Christianity, not political conservatism, not “homophobia” per se; not even Islam. For me, the issue wasn’t religion or sexual orientation, it was terrorism.
Now news reports [one / two / three / four / five] are saying that the murderer was gay. That puts a new twist on it. So he wasn’t a Christian, right-wing homophobe; he was a Muslim gay person. What is it, then: self-hatred? Once he went fanatical jihadi he had to “diss” this aspect of himself? This flips all the politically correct spin and talking points about homophobia on its head, to say the least.
Meanwhile, as expected, there has not been, as of yet any rational discussion to be had about my article, from anyone who disagreed with it. Two people who are still whining about being banned from my site (because of the quick resort to the charge of homophobia and bigotry) are saying ridiculous things on the other page. I went over (despite being the “coward” that they claim I am) and interacted with them (i.e., insofar as that is possible at all with angry, irrational polemicists like this). This is my “discussion” with 3vil5triker and Jeremiah Traeger: their words in green and blue, respectively. I am adding a few more documentary quotes here that weren’t in the other exchange. I have bleeped the R-rated language.
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Hi Callie,
I’ve written an almost-point-by-point reply to your article on my Patheos blog (I’m a Catholic conservative, and Catholic apologist / author by profession).
You’re most welcome to comment underneath it, and we can interact further if you like. You will be treated respectfully, and anyone who doesn’t act that way towards you on my blog will have their comments deleted, and if they persist, they will be banned. But almost always, I have civil discussions on my blog and folks are nice to each other.
Wow. Did you really, among other things, use this tragedy to promote Donald Trump for president?
Depends on how you define “promote” I guess. I simply noted that if someone wants to attack the problem of terrorism, that led to this massacre, that the way to vote in November is for Trump, because he will wipe ISIS off the face of the earth, just as we had to do with the Nazis.
Of course you want them to post on your blog, it gives you the home court advantage.
Of course I want to have a discussion on my blog, because it is an environment for civil discussion, and all are treated fairly. Those who abuse the environment and people (like you) are banned, for the good of civil, charitable discussion and all who desire it.
Hey, one of the commentators indirectly called you a bigot and also called you out on your Trump nonsense. You’re gonna ban him too?
Indeed I did. He shows himself incapable of discussion with anyone who disagrees, by immediately calling his opponents bigots. That is 3rd grade playground discussion, not adult constructive, rational discussion.
Your definition of a civil discussion is that they sufficiently stroke your ego and don’t call you out on your &%^$#@+.
Of course you treat everybody fairly at your blog; you’ll ban them if they say or imply otherwise. If they don’t, you can pressure and corner them into saying what they think of you and then ban them if the answer isn’t to your liking.
You’re so far gone you can’t even see yourself anymore. That’s why you can’t see Trump for what he is either.
But I guess time will tell eventually, and history will be the judge.
He’s a typical Patheos Christian coward, engaging in PRATT [“previously refuted a thousand times”] arguments against gay rights like bringing in NAMBLA as if they have any reasonable connection to LGBTQ rights. When I challenged him on this he deleted my comment and blocked me from commenting on the blog.
He can do some posturing and prop up a demeanor about how he wants a “charitable, civil discussion”, but the moment he conflates pedophilia with gay people, he’s lost a license to that. As well as completely dismissing the humanity and identity of trans people.
I don’t believe that gender is fluid and subjective; rather, it is determined by genetics and biology. It doesn’t follow that I am a bigot, and treat transgender people like dirt. I have an honest disagreement with them. Hence, in my perfectly amiable dialogue with a transgender person (also self-described atheist and Satanist!) on my blog, last August. I summarized my views:
1. I don’t hate anyone, and love all persons. Christians are called to love everyone as Christ loved us. If I met you, you would be as welcome in my home as anyone else, and treated no differently.
2. I profoundly disagree with the trans-gender / trans-sexual concepts.
3. #1 and #2 are not mutually exclusive.
4. Some Christians and moral traditionalists, unfortunately, do harbor hatred or prejudice towards various groups of people. I heartily condemn that.
5. I also condemn bigotry and prejudice coming our way from various groups of people. No one has a lock on hostility and bigotry.
But for Jeremiah, that’s not enough. Any disagreement whatever has to equate to homophobia and hatred. He sees it as “completely dismissing the humanity” of trans people. That is kindergarten thinking: not even rational; plain stupid.
You voided rational, civil discussion the moment you conflated LGBTQ rights with pedophilia. And erasing transgender identity is pretty %$@#&+$ far from civil or rational as well.
Of course I did no such thing. You must have great difficulty either 1) reading, or 2) comprehending views other than your own. And so you must distort and create straw men. Here is what I wrote, in context:
Callie: If you’ve ever given credence to the idea that the gay agenda is harmful to our children, I’m looking at you.
Me: For the most part, no, but I would note that there is such a group as NAMBLA: The North American Man-Boy Love Association. This is the extremist wing of the homosexual rights movement, just as there are extremist wacko groups claiming to be “Christian” which are not in fact Christian.
I never “equated” gay rights with pedophilia. I simply noted that there are extremist nuts among gays just as there are among Christians. It was an analogy. NAMBLA exists, whether you want to pretend it doesn’t or not.
We can quickly agree that it is extremist and fringe and not representative of LGBT rights as a whole.
But nor are “queer-hating” so-called Christians representative of that whole, either (my point). I agree with you about NAMBLA, but the whole point of Callie’s article was to somehow tar “right-wing homophobic Christians” with this outrageous crime, when in fact it was a gay jihadi terrorist (identifying as Muslim) who did it.
You were banned because you acted like an ass and irrational idiot (which is again manifest above). Period. You can cry and whine and pout all day about that if you like. It won’t change the reality of it.
I carefully interacted with Callie’s piece point-by-point, came here to openly announce it, and have commented here. That’s not “cowardice”. But obviously it is cowardice or intellectual inability that has caused no one (here or anywhere) to yet make a sustained rational reply to my piece.
Instead, we get your brain-dead personal attacks, lies about what I argued, and straw men.
It’s not representative of LGBTQ period. It doesn’t pass the sniff test even, when the entire Wikipedia section on NAMBLA pushback is filled with pushback from LGBTQ groups. Somehow you get to conflate a fringe pedophile organization that’s probably more populated with sting policemen to catch child predators than actual gay people. If you know anything about pedophilia, you know it’s about children, not orientation.
If you get to tie NAMBLA into LGBTQ, then it’s waaaaay easier to call you a supporter of fascism and communism since the connections to Donald Trump with Kim-Jong Un and Putin are far stronger. Not to mention the KKK, which continues to endorse Trump.
You can put that I didn’t give a rational response all I want, but I did, as another commenter above, call you out on your Trump %$#@&+$. You can posture and call me irrational all day, but in the end it wasn’t me who deleted the evidence of my supposed “irrational” argument.
You say: “It’s not representative of LGBTQ period.”
I already said: “We can quickly agree that it is extremist and fringe and not representative of LGBT rights as a whole.”
Yet somehow you think we disagree.
I also made it quite clear in my paper concerning the bathroom controversy, that my main concern, and the main one of most people I see complaining about it, is heterosexual pedophiles and sex addicts using the laws as a pretext to get near to naked women, or girls, as it were. Nothing to do with “equation of gays with pedophiles.” But that would require you to properly read and exercise your brain in order to comprehend the point. Here is what I wrote in my recent paper, citing the earlier one about bathroom laws:
I explained how the resistance of, I think, many (if not most), to these laws, is not primarily to gay or even transgender people, but rather, to heterosexual child molesters and sex addicts etc.: potential exploiters of the law:
The objection to the bathroom nonsense is, of course, that it will be exploited by perverts, pretending to be transgender, so they can see naked women. So that is a violation of the right to privacy of our daughters, mothers, sisters, and wives, and girlfriends and female friends. . . . The main reply will likely be that we are exaggerating instances of exploitation of the law by perverts and child molesters, etc. Perhaps. Time will tell. But right now, I could say that I feel like I am a woman today and go to a woman’s locker room to watch all the naked women and girls, and according to this insane pseudo-law, no one could do anything about that.
Now how can this be classed as “homophobic” when my entire objection was focused on heterosexual men who want to look at naked women and use these ludicrous laws as an opportunity to do so?
Now I’m a fascist, communist, and KKK. And I also torture cats and pull the wings off of flies. Thanks for abundantly confirming my original argument, and the reason why you were banned. You are incapable of even rational (let alone civil rational) discussion.
There are gay wackos and Christian wackos. That is reality. We just saw one gay wacko kill 50 people. Deal with it. He wasn’t a Christian right-wing homophobe; wasn’t even a dastardly Trump supporter! He was a homo-homophobe (there’s a new term for ya!). Police your own ranks; don’t push the guilt over to us.
I have repeatedly stated “conflation” of gays and pedophiles. I don’t see how you can say the following:
For the most part, no, but I would note that there is such a group as NAMBLA: The North American Man-Boy Love Association. This is the extremist wing of the homosexual rights movement
And not see that you have distinctly made a connection between NAMBLA and LGBTQ rights. If anyone is skewing what the other person is saying, it’s you. Because I am not telling people that you think that “NAMBLA and LGBTQ rights are equivalent”. I am criticizing you for making the connection whatsoever. You, however, twist my words.
The “bathroom controversy” has always been and continues to be a red herring. There’s no evidence that pervs need to change these laws to assault people, or “pretend” that they’re transgender to invade bathrooms.
Here are several articles demonstrating exactly that: [one / two / three / four / five].
Somehow you lack reading comprehension as well. My point is not that you are a fascist communist racist. My point is that if you are able to somehow making the connection between gays and pedophilia, then I’m able to make a far easier connection to Trump supporters with those ideologies.
Everything you’re accusing me of is something you’re far more guilty of. I’m done talking to you. I should have expected as much from someone who thinks electing Trump is a “reasonable” decision.
They are extremist wackos; as I stated above: “extremist and fringe and not representative of LGBT rights as a whole.”
In other words, they are not part of LGBT rights. They don’t represent them. They are outside of the “whole.” The original analogy was to the self-described “Christian” wackos that are constantly being compared to folks like me: mainstream Catholics, or evangelicals (as I used to be).
Hence, in my analogy of the two extreme fringes, I wrote:
This is the extremist wing of the homosexual rights movement, just as there are extremist wacko groups claiming to be “Christian” which are not in fact Christian.
The extremist wackos who claim to be Christian are not in fact.
Thus, by analogy, the extremist groups that claim to be LGBT activists (NAMBLA) are not in fact. But they are still homosexuals who are advocating for this “right”: just as the right-wing nuts may have some tenuous relationship to Christianity (but not in any essential sense).
As I said, NAMBLA exists. You can’t wish it out of existence. The famous Allen Ginsberg was a member. If I have to constantly defend myself and dissociate from bigoted anti-homosexual nuts, you have to do the same from NAMBLA. They don’t represent you; the right-wing wacko wingnuts have nothing to do with me, either.
But of course I wrote what I did in the context of replying to an article that constantly “conflated” Christianity and political conservatism with hate crimes and homophobia.
It’s nothing new to be despised simply for voting Republican. Ronald Reagan and Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas and George W. Bush and Sarah Palin all had their times being The Most Hated Person in America. Now Trump gets to have that fun.
I’ve never voted for childkilling advocates and I ain’t about to start now. And I am happy to vote for someone who will destroy ISIS: the very perpetrator of the heinous mass murder. I don’t agree with everything Trump says or does. He was my 15th choice out of the original 17 candidates. My guy was originally Rubio. Thus, I can hardly be classified as a “Trumpist.” But now he is running against Billary, and he is the far superior choice of those two (especially with regard to the terrorist threat).
I’m delighted that you’re done talking to me. Have a good life.
As a further function of my alleged intellectual cowardice, I am posting our entire conversation on my Patheos site. I’m utterly confident that 99% of my readers can correctly discern who was the rational, sensible one and who wasn’t. Thanks for the extraordinary display!
The purpose of the paper will be to show how impossible it is to have a rational discussion with irrational, angry polemicists of any movement: folks who are seemingly constitutionally unable to interact with anyone of a different view (i.e., they are grossly intolerant, while constantly preaching against intolerance: exempting themselves).
Ahh yes. I’m the one who can’t have a conversation with someone who disagrees with me. Cause I’m the one posting conversations at a place where the other person is blocked from responding. For someone who wants to exemplify good conversations, you’re picking an interesting way of doing it.
And yes, I’m sure your readers are the rational sensible ones. After all, they agree with you!
Welcome back!
You can respond here, all you like, just as you have been doing. But I thought you were through replying to me because I’m gonna vote for Trump?!
Why is it, then, that you seem to have concerns regarding replying to this paper? After all, any thinker, according to you, will immediately know I am a dumbbell / troglodyte / fascist, etc. [and whatever else you think I am] . . .
I have over 500 online debates posted. I also ban people who violate my stated rules for conduct. The two are not mutually exclusive. You couldn’t follow my rules and so you got the old cane / ejector seat treatment. Live with it. You’ll survive.
Lots of others with whom I disagree have no problem following the rules and being civil. I’ve been having extensive discussions in the last week with a guy who goes by “TheAgnosticAtheist.” We agree on virtually nothing. The conversation is perfectly civil and constructive. He’s not banned. He’s an atheist; he’s pro-choice. He disagrees with me all over the place. He is commenting regularly on my blog. No one is insulting him. I admire and like the guy.
I have a regular atheist commenter on my Facebook page, named Jon. I know him in person and I have gotten together with him and his friends several times. He and some of his friends have been in my home, giving presentations that the Christians then interacted with.
Right now, under my paper about Orlando, a woman named Clare disagreed that I mentioned abortion in passing in my analysis. We’re talking back-and-forth, disagreeing. She’s not banned. She’s free to argue whatever she likes. All she has to do is be civil and refrain from classifying anyone else as a bigot, etc.
Lots of people are fully able to do that. But alas, you are not. Perhaps in time if you work on it, and try to refrain from saying stupid insulting stuff, you can be.
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It’s fascinating that you lecture me on my civil discussion policy, when two months ago, you replied to a guy named Frank:
When you’re here to troll for epistemological and scriptural arguments, I’ll bite. When you’re here to argue against the existence and identity of someone else, which you have no f&%^$#@ way to prove then I have no reason to entertain that. Go educate yourself on these issues and look somewhere other than a 2,000 year old anthology of stories.
[ . . . ]
Ah, back again to spew nonsense like last week. Great job m+&*%^$#@$+$. I’m not going to even entertain you. Flagged for transphobia.
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But of course you are the poster child of rational, constructive discussion . . .
Either you were being an ass there or Frank was. If you were, then that proves my point that you are banworthy. If Frank was, and you were a perfect, angelic saint, then it proves that you, too, have discussion standards that you abide by. If you do, by the same token, I can have standards that I enforce and encourage on my blog.
You just don’t like it because you failed to meet them. That ain’t my problem: that your pride and vanity were wounded by falling short of my minimal standards for civil discussion.
You lecture me, imagining and pretending that I only talk to people who agree with me (imagine that: the manifest absurdity of a Catholic apologist talking only to folks who agree with him! LOLOL). I get disagreed with all the time, and have several conversations going on right now on my blog with folks who vehemently disagree. And I have at least 500 posted dialogues. I just posted this one, for heaven’s sake. All my readers can take in your pearls of wisdom and sage profundities.
Meanwhile, if anyone dares deny that gender is fluid or that homosexuality is genetic, or (worst of all) supports Trump when the alternative is Billary, you treat them like the scum of the earth, and the most idiotic troglodytes who ever walked the face of the earth.
If there was the slightest, itsy-bitsy doubt that I should have banned you, there is absolutely none now.
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Meta Description: Interactions with a polemical-type LGBT activist, who objected to my analogies and statements regarding fringe / wacko elements of gay rights.
Meta Keywords: Gay & lesbian issues, gay rights, LGBT, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, bathroom laws, Orlando massacre, Orlando terrorist incident, homophobia, right-wing hatred, sex change, gender, transgender, ISIS, terrorism, Donald Trump, jihadi terrorism, Islamist terrorism, LGBTQ
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