Love, Joy, Feminism
I have sometimes encountered people on Facebook who claim that gay rights have been achieved, and question why anyone is still talking about them. Why are people still being whiney when their rights were achieved? Isn’t this what they wanted? There, are, of course, many legal areas where gay rights have not been achieved—in much of the country it is still perfectly legal to fire one for being gay, for example.
Still, I don’t think it’s worth getting hung up on what is legally protected, when a large portion of our culture is still, well … here. Don Boys, a former Indiana lawmaker is upset about press coverage of Buttigieg. Why? Because Buttigieg is gay, of course! Boys argues that reporters should ask every gay candidate some important questions, by nature of their being gay—and that reporters are currently not doing this.
Since a “gay” Indiana mayor is running for president, journalists should ask him some questions that bear on that office; however, their cowardice and fear of being politically incorrect will keep them from asking these very legitimate questions of Pete Buttigieg.
What are these questions? We’ll get to that. They’re really horrific. Anyone who thinks gay rights have been “achieved” needs to remember that this country is still full of people who think like Boys. We can’t ban this kind of thinking—and we shouldn’t. But until and unless minds are changed (or new generations replace older generations), even full legal equality would not mean true equality. There will still be prejudice and bigotry, the effects of which are not mundane or easy to set aside.
Let’s look at some of Boys’ questions for Buttigieg. If you’d rather not read them, I’d encourage you not to. My goal here is simply to highlight the absolute depths of hate that still exist in this country. We can pat our backs for the progress we as a country has made, but we need to not lose sight of how far we still have to go.
Boys starts as follows:
Pete needs to say if it is possible to believe that homosexuality is a diseased, dangerous, even deadly lifestyle without being a hater? If it is true, as experts have concluded, that homosexuality is dangerous, then is it not true that Pete’s critics are showing love not hate?
Boys thinks he is showing love when he argues that the “homosexual lifestyle” is depraved and dangerous and that sodomy should be punished with twelve years in prison. Yes, you read that right. Boys has sponsored legislation to create 12-year sentences for sodomy.
The argument here is that homosexual behavior is dangerous and unhealthy, and that by jailing people for sodomy we can cut down on the incidence of this dangerous behavior. Anti-gay enthusiasts like Boys frequently misuse and twist data to say things it never said—and there are a lot of things we don’t ban even if they’re dangerous. I am curious, though—would his proposed bill include straight couples who engage in non-vaginal intercourse? Sexual experimentation isn’t just a gay thing.
Pete has boasted that he is very “gay” and voters have a right to know what that means. Just how extreme is that since it could reflect on or impact the office of president? However, it is very interesting that the LGBTQ crowd complains that Pete is not “gay” enough.
What does Boys even mean by this? What exactly is it he wants to know? He’s absolutely right that some people police the boundaries of gay identity. What I want to know, though, is what specific details he is after with regards to Buttigieg. What does he—Boys—think being “gay” means, anyway? Does he think there are degrees?
Will Pete assure the voters that there is no possibility of blackmail i.e., pictures of him in a very compromising position?
Jerry Falwell just got dinged over his alleged dash to buy out compromising pictures of himself—and I’m pretty sure he’s straight. This idea that only gay men have compromising photos is just weird. Anyone who has ever been around a camera could be asked this question, if anyone is to be asked it at all. (Actually, I think that at some point candidates have to be interviewed by the secret service to determine just this sort of thing.)
Since homosexuals are seven times more likely to use illegal drugs, will Pete repudiate their illegal drug use to heighten sexual pleasure, and will he demand prosecution for those who use illegal drugs?
Say what now?
First, the leap from using drugs to using drugs to heighten sexual pleasure strikes me as an odd one. Second, overall percentages—even if these percentages are correct, of which I am skeptical—do not determine the habits of the individual.
There is a larger conversation about the war on drugs to be had here. Prosecuting people for using illegal drugs, when what they usually need is treatment, isn’t working out so swell. This assumption that Buttigieg might be less likely to demand prosecution for drug use because he’s gay is strange, given that most Democratic candidates today are critical of the war on drugs.
As an aside, in my googling I came upon a list of state and national politicians who have been convicted of criminal charge. And guess what? Almost every single one who was convicted of drug use or dealing was a Republican. This may be a complete coincidence, and I don’t think the list claims to be complete. Still, I found it interesting.
But then we get this:
Since many homosexuals have a urine and feces fetish bringing them into contact with numerous lethal bugs, will Pete repudiate that unhealthy practice to save lives? And possibly save the health care system from bankruptcy?
…
No, really.
Actually, I think I know where this is coming from. Not the healthcare system bit—Republicans haven’t been all that well known for caring terribly about fixing our healthcare system—the urine and feces bit. Some years ago, I came upon an anti-gay pamphlet from the 1980s that alleges that essentially all gay people engaged in a whole range of really kinky practices—there were drawings of urine play.
I just did some general googling, and it turns out that conservatives are not only really interested in gay people’s sex practices, but also completely convinced that gay people are totally kinky about urine and feces. I don’t trust them to interpret research correctly—conservatives aren’t great at things like understanding survey design—but honestly, who the heck cares? Should doctors provide accurate information about specific sex acts? Yes. But you don’t see me interrogating straight couples about their sex practices.
So, Boys wants Buttigieg to “repudiate” a list of kinky sex practices. Does Boys ask that of all candidates? No, he does not. Straight candidates aren’t expected to speak for all straight people. Gay candidates, apparently, are.
Pete Buttigieg is not the King of the Gays. It doesn’t work that way.
Advocates for perversion refuse to accept the current stats that refute their narrative but they can hardly say homosexuality is normal. It is abnormal to get pleasure from contact with body waste and in spades when that involves another person.
Who is to say what is normal? And frankly, who cares what is normal? What does “normal” even mean? I’d point Boys to the Kinsey Institute to read several generations worth of sex research, but then, I’m pretty sure Boys probably considers Kinsey the devil. (Coincidentally, this was the point of Kinsey’s research—to show that many sexual practices that people think are “abnormal” are really pretty common.)
Homosexuals use human organs in an abnormal way so no one should be surprised when the results are tragic. They insist on trying to get out of life what God never intended to be there, thus contracting many more diseases. Usually, the taxpayers are expected to pay their medical bills.
This guy writes like we already have universal healthcare. We don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for the U.S. to have universal healthcare, and I know it will come with lots of statements like this—i.e. that people who have unhealthy practices (smokers or addicts) run our taxes up. But I’d far rather have that annoying conversation than our current situation where people who can’t pay die.
Also, I’m confused by this conversation about the “normal” way to use human organs. When I first learned the mechanics of sex, I thought it was the most disgusting thing I’d ever heard. Today, I wish to heck the clitoris weren’t placed right by the urethra. I am way too susceptible to UTIs. So susceptible in fact that I sometimes give a moment’s pause before jumping into sex even when I’m horny, because I’m worried I’ll get another one.
I’ve talked to my primary care provider about this, and I’ve ended up with a list of things to do. In addition to urinating after sex (in the bathroom, just so we’re clear), I take regular probiotics. I also drink a full glass of water after having sex to ensure that I’ll need to pee again in the night, clearing any possible infection. Having to do all of this is a drag, and if there were a God, I’d have a lot of questions about their choices in the area of female anatomy.
My point is, bodies and the things we do with them are weird.
Homosexuality is a public health issue and not simply what two same sex individuals do in the privacy of their bedroom. One has to pay when he plays but why should I pay when you play?
Again, we do not currently have universal healthcare.
Besides, this logic leads all sorts of bad places—should we ban hang gliding and rock climbing? We require bikers to wear helmets, but maybe we should ban motorcycles altogether? We put warnings on cigarettes, but we haven’t banned them—and so forth. How far do we go in regulating people’s personal decisions?
If Pete is elected president of the USA, will he respond the way many homosexuals do by giving priority to homosexuals in his appointments? Any chance of any Fundamentalists like me getting a top cabinet position? I would be willing to accept Secretary of Education or Secretary of Energy and would have either one totally disbanded in 60 days. Would sure help reduce the deficit.
What kind of question even is this? Homosexuality is not a religion. Did people ask Barack Obama if all of his cabinet appointees would be black? Is every minority asked this? If they are—and people who aren’t minorities aren’t—this is a problem.
As for fundamentalists in top cabinet positions—Boys illustrates perfectly why fundamentalists aren’t qualified for these positions. He doesn’t actually want to do either. He just wants to get rid of them. And he’s suggesting he should be appointed despite having zero expertise. And this is supposed to be some sort of gotcha?
Since homosexuals live shorter lives because of illegal drugs, abusive sexual practices, etc., will Pete assure the voters that he will not participate in any sexual practice that might limit his ability to serve his term if elected?
Do we ask every candidate these questions? No. No, we do not. We do sometimes ask candidates to release their medical records—like we ask them to release their tax returns. That’s fine. This? This isn’t.
However, no journalist is willing to ask Pete these very important questions since journalism is dead and truth lies in the street gasping for breath.
Oh jeez. Someone call a waaambulance.
So yes, the country has made strides toward legal equality for gay and lesbian people—strides that are as yet unfinished, and are currently being walked back. But even full legal equality, stuck with ignorance, prejudice, and bigotry like this, will always be incomplete. And no, just so I’m not misread—I’m not advocating putting Boyz in prison or banning people from holding bigoted opinions. People have the same freedom to be anti-gay as they do to be racist. But that doesn’t make either benign.
Anyone who thinks we’re already there—that equality and been achieved and that people still talking about gay rights are just whining—should take a moment to read rhetoric like Boys’, if for no other reason than to see the rank, horrific bigotry gay and lesbian people still have to put up with today. We’re not there yet.
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