On LGBT+, homophobia, country-perspective (EU vs US), democracy, and free speech.

[Vor]

Ok well, I'm going to ramble a lot and get into some history and stuff, but I feel like you need to really dig deep and examine these issues across the centuries to get an understanding as to why the modern world is set up the way it is. I'm also going on a lot of tangents and philosophising here, so consider yourselves warned.

As someone living in Bulgaria, ex-eastern bloc country, now part of the EU, I've always found this subject somewhat strange. Much like Buddha explained about Russia, the sentiment in the rest of Eastern Europe is pretty much the same - homosexuality is just something that's not talked about, but not actively prosecuted. Yes, people here have a reputation for being homophobic and it's warranted, but honestly it's nowhere near the sort of shit that goes down in the US. Or rather, it's just as worse, but in a different sort of way. One of the most common insults thrown around here is...*drumroll*..."faggot" or "pederast" to use the local language, which gets its roots from the Greek word pederasty. Pederasty itself implies sex between an adult male and a pubscent male, though the usage has shifted over the centuries. However, fathers beating their sons, chasing them out of their homes, shit like that? Incredibly uncommon.

My country was under Ottoman rule for about 5 centuries, so while there's been a lot of cultural exchange, a lot of things perceived as stemming from the Ottomans are deeply hated. Prostitution of young boys is one such thing - in the average Ottoman whorehouse you were likely to find as many boys as girls. Note, I'm not saying women or men, these were usually teenagers, hence why I believe "pederasty" is the term that was adopted and not "homosexuality". I find it hilariously ironic that nowadays hardline Islamic countries are severely anti-homosexual, when in fact one of the greatest Islamic empires was not. In a warrior, male-dominated society such as the Ottoman Empire, it's not hard to imagine that masculinity was held in high regard. Strength, bravery, physical beauty, you know the drill....these things were to be admired, by liking these traits in young men, you affirmed your own adherence to these virtues.

Ok, long story short - homosexuality was common in Ottoman society. Also take into account that rebellion among the non-Islamic subjects of the Empire, such as those on the Balkans, were brutally put down. Despite what some revisionists may claim, if you do some research it's appalling - Game of Thrones has nothing on this shit. After the men were killed, rape followed, but it wasn't just confined to females - boys were often taken as well. Now, fast forward 500 years and you can see why these events have created a very skewed view of homosexuality in pretty much the entire Balkans. By the way, I'd wager much of the stigma in Russia is rooted in the same thing as well, only in their case it was the Mongols.

Apart from all of that, you have Orthodox Christianity which is the emanation of the "The Patriarchy". Unlike Catholicism, for Orthodox priests it's not forbidden to marry. In fact, in the older days, priests usually couldn't be ordained if they weren't married in the first place. The pact between man and woman is both a religious and a social norm which has been passed on through the generations. And since religion was one of the main reasons Bulgaria and the other Balkan countries weren't assimilated by the Ottomans, you can see why it has this enormous, long-reaching effect.

Also, I just want to say something about Russia, for the American's.

@Buddha

By the way, did you know that in Lenin's USSR homosexuality was legalised? (along with abortion and divorce) That was back in the 1920's! Afterwards, Stalin clamped down on them hard, but we know how that story goes so I won't get into it.

Anyway, soviet times. My grandmother, who was born in 1930, spent the majority of her youth in rural areas that were REALLY backwards. She's told me stories of homosexuals who were well-known to the locals even back in those times. I mean, when you live in a small, secluded place with 2000 other people it's hard to keep secrets. These men had wives and families usually to keep up appearance, but engaged in relations with other men. And you know what? Nobody prosectued them. People just didn't touch upon the topic, like you wouldn't remark on someone's scar or birth mark. Not ideal, I know, but better than being stoned to death just because you don't like fucking the opposite sex, yes?

In fact, there are a number of famous singers and actors (both male and female) from those times that were known to be homosexual, but again - no active prosecution. (that is not to say that there was NO prosecution, but it was political, not based on sexuality) Keep in mind that we're talking about the fucking Eastern Bloc for God's sake! The "evil empire" as Ronald Reagan so "eloquently" put it. Heck, even the most famous club in Bulgaria for electronic music - Yalta club - started out as a gay bar in the 1980's. And it's not tucked away in some corner either, it's smack in the middle of the city centre - 10 minutes away from the Presidency and the Parliament (and five minutes away from the biggest Orthodox church in town, lol).

And you know what really grinds my gears? When "the West" (sorry to use this politically-charged term, I feel it fits here) points their finger at us and says "Yep, those commies in Eastern Europe are all homophobes".

Right, enough with the history lessons. My stance on the subject? Live and let live. I don't care what your sexual preference is, I care if you are a decent person. However, I feel like pride protests are not only useless, but actively harming the LGBT community. I'm not too familiar with how it goes down in the States, but in my corner of the world these rallies are used as nothing more than PR boosters for politicians. You'll hear them brag on how "progressive" and "accepting" they are, but then look at their lawmaking and it does absolutely nothing to benefit the LGBT community. Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, you have would-be Hitlers rallying deluded teenage skinheads against them, but again - this is all politics.

For all their slogans and promises, I don't see these protests changing anything. Every year it's the same - lots of talk in the media before the actual LGBT pride, promises of politicians to attend, threats by radicals. Then when it happens you have half the town's police there to guard the LGBT community from a pathetically small group of skinheads, usually football hooligans, and it all blows over. It annoys me that many LGBT people get caught up in this and essentially become marionettes for someone else. Like the fucking Sochi Olympics, remember that? You think all these politicians cared about "anti-gay laws" and the like in Russia? Of course not, it was just another round of the usual shit-slinging between the US and Russia, nothing more. I'll reiterate: while the idea behind these protests is admirable, they are "usurped" by politicians and used solely for their own gains, such as putting pressure on opponents and securing more votes for their next election. Sorry for being so cynical, but that's the truth of it, either way you look at it.

Which brings me to my point - politics ain't gonna change shit. Thousands of protests and LGBT prides aren't going to change shit. Going into politics thinking you can do something isn't going to change shit. Even if we imagine a perfect world for a second, where progressive, open-minded people were in charge and wanted to really make things better for the LGBT community...it's not going to change shit. Why?

Because homophobia isn't a political problem, it's a sociological one!

I feel like a lot of people can't grasp this distinction. "Homophobe", "pro-homosexual", "anti-gay" get thrown around on a daily basis between politicians, but do you really think they care what those things mean? What they ACTUALLY mean? It's all smoke an mirrors, people.

As long as homosexuality continues being a social stigma, nothing is ever going to change. You can't force people into liking something they don't, regardless of what the politicians want. Case in point - TTIP. Does the EU leadership want it? Yes. Does the US want it? Hell yes. Does the average European citizen want it? No. And that's why it's stalled and hasn't happened yet, people don't accept it. Not convinced? Look at the Middle-East, the US has tried time and time again to impose democracy on it, but that hasn't happened. The society there doesn't accept it.

Just like people don't accept homosexuality on the whole. That's the problem, not the country or the lawmakers, it's the average Joe out in the streets. You have to peel layers and layers of prejudice and ignorance to reach out to people. That can't happen overnight and I doubt a single generation is enough.

Finally, we get to what I really wanted to talk about - ignorance. Ignorance is the root of most problems in modern society. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, terrorism, sleazy politicians doing whatever the fuck they want. There's this huge disparity, a knowledge-gap that's widening every year. You have people who know four languages, have travelled over the world, experienced many cultures, etc. and then you have people who've can't read and have never left heir hometown, have been taught that foreigners are bad and that "queer" stuff are wrong. Friction between these two groups is inevitable, as evidenced by the refugee crisis in Europe currently.

The only way to change people is through education. That's the only hope humanity has of transcending our petty struggles and going forward - wide-scale education for everybody, regardless of social status. Stamp out ignorance, raise the education level of the average adult and you'll see things vastly improving for everybody, not just the LGBT community.

To finish off, I'll just say that literature is where this needs to start. I assume that as you are RP'ers, most of you know the value of reading. I can quite comfortably say that books have changed my life...more than once. That's why schools should seriously start teaching some modern literature and move away from these antiques they've shoved down our throats for decades. Kids need to read sci-fi, seriously. All these subjects have been discussed by various writers in detail over the years, starting as far back as the 1950's. (you know, back in the decade in which Alan Turing was sentenced to hormonal treatment for being gay...)

Asimov writes about love between humans and robots. Ursuala Le Guin has an entire society composed of hermaphrodites. Lois McMaster Bujold has transgender ship captains and a nation that prides itself on complete sexual freedom. Heinlein has a story in which a guy does some weird time-travel shit and ends up fucking his own mother. OK, maybe that last example wasn't that good, but you get my idea - taboos and social prejudices need to be broken down. Children need to enter adulthood with a completely open mind, unmarred by stigmas. In my experience, literature is the best tool for that.

Obviously, I'm slightly joking about sci-fi, fantasy is just as good in that regard, as are many other contemporary authors. The school system needs a massive overhaul. I can only speak for my own country, but the raunchiest novels kids have to read here are stuff like The Decameron and Bel Ami, which strictly feature heterosexual sexual relations. When young people grow up in an environment that doesn't accept homosexuality, doesn't discuss homosexuality an doesn't even let them read about homosexuality, how do you expect them NOT to be at least slightly homophobic when they come of age?

My 2 (euro) cents.

[Vilageidiotx]

This is going to seem a little bit like it coming out of nowhere, like out of left field or something, but this thread sort of reminds me of a conversation that everyone who knows my father had to have with him last October. In October of 2015, the Kansas City Royals (American Baseball) won the World Series (Baseball championship among the parts of the world that matter, namely the US and Canada). I just happen to be from that exact same city. And really, the entire place got really into it. There was a homecoming parade that basically shutdown downtown. I had to work that day, a few miles south of the event. The foot traffic was enough to make me fifteen minutes late despite planning for it. In a midwestern US city, that type of thing is unusual. Surreal even. If you see pictures of it on the internet, it looks a whole lot like an ant colony in a sidewalk crack.

The reason I bring that up is to set up the conversation everyone had to have with my father shortly after. He is the type of guy who secretly thinks he is the only person in the world doing enough work. Everyone else is too lazy or something. He also absolutely hates professional sports. There have been plenty of "My tax dollar" rants about that in the past, and about how frivolous people are being, drinking and just watching people play a game and all that. So when that parade happened, and when he heard a few co workers complain they couldn't get the time off to go there, he sorta popped. I got a variation of the rant a few days later. The gist was something to the effect that people were childish for being interested, that blocking traffic was denying hardworking people proper access to the roads, that there are better things to do, whatevs whatevs. And he was legit pissed off about it.

How dare anybody do something in public that he had no interest in?

And the sort of "Dude, who the fuck cares?" reaction I had to that is basically the same one I have to the complaint about public homosexual events. Like, your argument seems to be marketing one in essence. A sort of "I think the way you sell your candy-bar is shit because the ad campaign doesn't appeal to me" thing. But that isn't really the point. You'd have to get solid evidence that gay parades don't appeal or effect anybody at all to show them as absolutely useless, and even then, that would be more of a marketing gaffe than anything else. But as this stands, the argument seems to be "Gay parades are bad because I personally am not convinced by them."

And the thing is, I suspect we both share basically the same view on Homosexuality itself. I am not personally gay, I don't know very many gay people, it isn't a part of my life beyond it coming up in political discussions. But the difference I suppose is that, if I were to see a Gay Pride parade, the only effect it would have on me (assuming there isn't something funny to point out) would be to make me think "Looks like Main St is plugged with gays, better take Grand so I can get to where I am going." I mean, shit, we had one of the more brawling Trump Rally's earlier in the spring, with people yelling about the wall and getting in fights with counter protesters and all that fun stuff. I don't particularly like Trump, but when I saw his rally, my reaction wasn't one of disgust, it was one of route-recalculation. It's a public place, and I'm only a tiny fraction of the population. As you said yourself, "Nobody really cares about what you think."

I also feel like you are using the free speech argument backwards a bit here. The vibe I get from your argument is that vehemently disliking homophobes is an abuse of freedom of speech? But wouldn't a person who is gay, or even just really pro-gay, naturally be inclined to dislike people who dislike them? And wouldn't, by the standards of free speech, a person who openly hates group A be open to the rebuke of group A? If you don't like the gays, the gays have every right not to like you. There is a sort of equal and opposite reaction thing that, really, both sides get confused by. If a person is openly homophobic, they should expect an equal and opposite reaction. If I spit on my neighbors cat, I've earned him spitting on mine. We don't seem to have a problem with homophobes being, like, lynched or anything, so I don't think that particular detail is out of control. If the biggest threat is people saying stupid shit on tumblr, I think we're doing okay in the free speech department. And really, except for the people everywhere who seem to think free speech means saying silly shit without being called out on it, I think the western world's free speech situation is doing quite well right now

Democracy is a simpler thing to respond to: I do not think there is such a thing (outside of sci-fi novels and high school essays) as a society that can produce an ideal form of government. The photo on the box for democracy might be the old stiff-lipped citizen society of Athens as we want to remember it, but open the box and yes, it is true, you get a populist mess that veers with the wind. The photo on the box for Republicanism might be the stoic citizen-farmer-soldier Roman, but open it and you get corruption and more populism. But at the same time, look on the box for Monarchy you see the enlightened monarch, open it and you get George III, or Charles II of Spain, or Nicholas II. The box for Communism might be progression to a socialist utopia, but inside that box is Stalinist sycophantic bureaucracy, or whatever the fuck was up with Pol Pot. Fascism had the platonic, meritocratic dream-world, but the reality... i mean, holy shit. Humanity is just a messy species. It's what we do. Democracy as we practice it seems to keep society relatively balanced at least. For better or worse, we don't veer off in the Quixotic directions that modern anti-democracy seems to inevitably take. It seems like you're stuck with limited choices; corruption, or Caligula.

That being said, I am perfectly find with the rest of the world doing their own thing, because I understand that I don't really understand the rest of the world. If continental Europe wants to play with fascism again or something, go for it. I admit my Anglo-Saxoness makes it difficult for me to understand the attraction, but if you want to give everything up to some goofy fuck with a messiah complex and alcoholic-uncle type opinions, knock yourself out. Just don't invade France.

[Dion]

@Vor More or less agree 100% with what you said. You can change all you want in laws (like in Russia) but if the people are unwilling to accept homosexuals you can't force them to like homosexuals.

@Vilageidiotx Gon reply in a quote because I'm too lazy to constantly scroll up to counter your points. Also, it lets me comment while I read which is better.

This is going to seem a little bit like it coming out of nowhere, like out of left field or something, but this thread sort of reminds me of a conversation that everyone who knows my father had to have with him last October. In October of 2015, the Kansas City Royals (American Baseball) won the World Series (Baseball championship among the parts of the world that matter, namely the US and Canada). I just happen to be from that exact same city. And really, the entire place got really into it. There was a homecoming parade that basically shutdown downtown. I had to work that day, a few miles south of the event. The foot traffic was enough to make me fifteen minutes late despite planning for it. In a midwestern US city, that type of thing is unusual. Surreal even. If you see pictures of it on the internet, it looks a whole lot like an ant colony in a sidewalk crack.

Sounds pretty damn fucking annoying. Not anything I'd get mad about. In the same way I'm not mad about gay prides. The reason I find gay prides unnecessary is because they do not offer constructive furthering of acceptance for homosexuals. The fact that it obstructs the city is just a small side note for me.

The reason I bring that up is to set up the conversation everyone had to have with my father shortly after. He is the type of guy who secretly thinks he is the only person in the world doing enough work. Everyone else is too lazy or something. He also absolutely hates professional sports. There have been plenty of "My tax dollar" rants about that in the past, and about how frivolous people are being, drinking and just watching people play a game and all that. So when that parade happened, and when he heard a few co workers complain they couldn't get the time off to go there, he sorta popped. I got a variation of the rant a few days later. The gist was something to the effect that people were childish for being interested, that blocking traffic was denying hardworking people proper access to the roads, that there are better things to do, whatevs whatevs. And he was legit pissed off about it.
Don't assume I'm pissed off, because as I said, I really couldn't care less, gay prides happen like once or twice a year here. Like mentioned above, they are not furthering acceptance and therefore are not useful. Tax funding for these projects, therefore, is nothing more than funding a party. Which is stupid IMHO. If they did it through crowdfunding/entry tickets or some shit like all the other festivals and parades do, then I really, really couldn't care less what the fuck they do.

But that's not how it goes.

How dare anybody do something in public that he had no interest in?

And the sort of "Dude, who the fuck cares?" reaction I had to that is basically the same one I have to the complaint about public homosexual events. Like, your argument seems to be marketing one in essence. A sort of "I think the way you sell your candy-bar is shit because the ad campaign doesn't appeal to me" thing. Then you should maybe consider reading it again, because that's not what I think. But that isn't really the point. You'd have to get solid evidence that gay parades don't appeal or effect anybody at all to show them as absolutely useless, and even then, that would be more of a marketing gaffe than anything else. But as this stands, the argument seems to be "Gay parades are bad because I personally am not convinced by them." I can't prove a negative. If the organizers can come with constructive ways of showing me that gay prides do further acceptance (in my country which is already very very accepting) then sure, be my guest, have all the gay prides you want.



My question then also is; do things like this belong in there?

I suggest you translate and read this because it shows exactly why I have issues with the gayprides here and I am backed up by it by the creator of the gayprides in the Netherlands. Commercialisation of the gay pride has come thus far that it's no longer about acceptance, it's about 'showing you support homosexuals' even if you don't. I mean, even the SGP had a float. For those that don't know the SGP, it's a Dutch party that is notoriously Christian and notoriously anti homosexual. .. does that make sense to you? Because to me it shows that the event is no longer about acceptance but PR.

And the thing is, I suspect we both share basically the same view on Homosexuality itself. I am not personally gay, I don't know very many gay people, it isn't a part of my life beyond it coming up in political discussions. But the difference I suppose is that, if I were to see a Gay Pride parade, the only effect it would have on me (assuming there isn't something funny to point out) would be to make me think "Looks like Main St is plugged with gays, better take Grand so I can get to where I am going."

I can sense you're missing the backdrop of this discussion. There was a discussion about this in the status bar - about how homophobia is inherently bad and all homophobes were evil. I set out to prove that isn't the case and that the number of homophobes is drastically over exaggerated. This wasn't about gay prides to begin with. But I do enjoy discussions about this so I'm just gonna continue.

I don't want to petition to ban gay prides. I think people should be able to do whatever the fuck they want and if they're happy then cool. But it irks me that the government uses it as a PR-pony, funds it to 'look good' and is essentially just funding a festival for no reason. No other festival gets this type of funding, no other festival gets clearance to be hosted in the center of fucking Amsterdam, so why should homosexuals?

We want to accept homosexuals right? So why give them preferential treatment? Let them host a festival on the Malieveld in the Hague like all other festivals. Let them pay for it themselves, with minimal funding.

I think you're mistaking me for someone who really cares for this topic a lot and made this thread because of that. This is not the case. The case is I made this because we argued about it in the status bar and I wanted to continue the discussion.

I mean, shit, we had one of the more brawling Trump Rally's earlier in the spring, with people yelling about the wall and getting in fights with counter protesters and all that fun stuff. I don't particularly like Trump, but when I saw his rally, my reaction wasn't one of disgust, it was one of route-recalculation. It's a public place, and I'm only a tiny fraction of the population. As you said yourself, "Nobody really cares about what you think." Understandably, but you can't do this in Amsterdam. I am not American. We don't have 200 different blocks. We have tiny narrow streets with canals between them, that are hard to navigate, especially in a car, and if you go into a street, find out it's blocked, and then a car pulls up behind you, congratulations, you're stuck for the coming 5 hours before the blockage is removed.

I also feel like you are using the free speech argument backwards a bit here. The vibe I get from your argument is that vehemently disliking homophobes is an abuse of freedom of speech? No. This is not what I am saying. Read again. But wouldn't a person who is gay, or even just really pro-gay, naturally be inclined to dislike people who dislike them? That is their good right, just like it is the good right of homophobes to strongly dislike homosexuals. I am saying this works both ways and homophobes have rights too. And wouldn't, by the standards of free speech, a person who openly hates group A be open to the rebuke of group A? If you don't like the gays, the gays have every right not to like you. There is a sort of equal and opposite reaction thing that, really, both sides get confused by. If a person is openly homophobic, they should expect an equal and opposite reaction. If I spit on my neighbors cat, I've earned him spitting on mine. We don't seem to have a problem with homophobes being, like, lynched or anything, so I don't think that particular detail is out of control. The online hunt for homophobes I'd say is quite equal to that. Doxing someone and getting them fired is easy nowadays. It happened before. If the biggest threat is people saying stupid shit on tumblr, I think we're doing okay in the free speech department. My post really didn't have anything to do with free speech outside of the fact that homophobes have a right to free speech too. And really, except for the people everywhere who seem to think free speech means saying silly shit without being called out on it, I think the western world's free speech situation is doing quite well right now Refer to the comic in my OP. I don't disagree with you. It becomes a problem to me personally when social media platforms that really are just public platforms at this point (yes, twitter is a private platform, but it's so big and so public, it should be classified as such) are becoming echo chambers for those with specific sets of opinions, with the other side being blocked from accessing it or are severely limited in their ability to do so.

Democracy is a simpler thing to respond to: I do not think there is such a thing (outside of sci-fi novels and high school essays) as a society that can produce an ideal form of government. I have a solution, which is simply to switch government forms whenever society needs it. Fascism is great post-war if you lost. Communism is great when you need to carpet-bomb your country with factories. Democracy is great for small countries with good education systems. Dictatorship is great when you lack decisiveness and flip-flop between policies like the USA. There's benefits to all government forms, there is not one ideal form, there are many that in my opinion you need to combine.

But with human beings leading the countries, this can never exist. The photo on the box for democracy might be the old stiff-lipped citizen society of Athens as we want to remember it, but open the box and yes, it is true, you get a populist mess that veers with the wind. The photo on the box for Republicanism might be the stoic citizen-farmer-soldier Roman, but open it and you get corruption and more populism. But at the same time, look on the box for Monarchy you see the enlightened monarch, open it and you get George III, or Charles II of Spain, or Nicholas II. The box for Communism might be progression to a socialist utopia, but inside that box is Stalinist sycophantic bureaucracy, or whatever the fuck was up with Pol Pot. Fascism had the platonic, meritocratic dream-world, but the reality... i mean, holy shit Don't confuse fascism for nazism.. Humanity is just a messy species. It's what we do. Democracy as we practice it seems to keep society relatively balanced at least. For better or worse, we don't veer off in the Quixotic directions that modern anti-democracy seems to inevitably take. It seems like you're stuck with limited choices; corruption, or Caligula.

That being said, I am perfectly find with the rest of the world doing their own thing, because I understand that I don't really understand the rest of the world. If continental Europe wants to play with fascism again or something, go for it. I admit my Anglo-Saxoness makes it difficult for me to understand the attraction, but if you want to give everything up to some goofy fuck with a messiah complex and alcoholic-uncle type opinions, knock yourself out. Just don't invade France. I just want Antwerp back, man.

@Vilageidiotx

[SilentWriter83]

This doesn't pertain to anyone rn, just a thought:

Why is it called homophobia? like xenophobia? You aren't terrified of gay people. You don't see one and start screaming and running for your life. People just don't like gay people and that's that. You won't change their minds but the way I see it. You don't have to like gay people but you can and will respect them as fellow human beings and treat them with the same rights (marriage, not blocking off usage of certain restrooms, not allowing businesses to not allow them inside based on sexuality) and you do this through law.

You're not going to make people like others through law but you can grant them rights. People didn't, and still don't like black people. (I know this trust me) But we were granted the same rights as our white counterparts. Why? We're human. Same thing goes with non-hetero or non-cis people.

They wanna make some excuse that this 'bathroom law' will prevent rapes in bathrooms. False. It's just so conservatives can control the people that don't conform. I've watched a man follow a woman into a bathroom because she had short hair and wore basketball shorts. I've seen a woman, who didn't conform to the female archetype (basically short hair and 'boys' clothes) dragged out of the bathroom because police didn't believe she was born female. Like what, am I supposed to drop my pants and prove I have a vagina before I can pee?

idk. I think it's dumb. No, not everyone will like non-hetero people but laws that specifically target them aren't cool. Who cares if a transgender person wants to use the bathroom that makes them more comfortable. And if, this is a big if, a man tries to claim he's transgender just to get in, the trust me something will be done. No woman really goes to the bathroom alone. We go in pairs as we were taught since we were little to avoid situations such as these. (also no one seems concerned at all about women lying to get into mens bathrooms but I won't touch on the hypocrisy behind THAT one as if men are innately predatory and women are these meak things. bleh)

These are just thoughts. So basically. Homophobia is not a phobia. You aren't scared you just disagree. People will never fully accept gay people because (slight offense) religion won't allow it. You'll always have people steadfast in their beliefs and you won't rid them of them. But everyone deserves the same rights regardless of sex, gender, orientation, skin color, etc.

[Aqua]

I also want to note that while heterosexuals DO have problems, do they have to worry about holding hands in public? Just a thought I had.

[Dion]

@Neurovoid depending on ethnicity, cultural background and their age, yes, they may have that problem.

[Dion]

This doesn't pertain to anyone rn, just a thought:

Why is it called homophobia? like xenophobia? You aren't terrified of gay people. You don't see one and start screaming and running for your life. People just don't like gay people and that's that. You won't change their minds but the way I see it. You don't have to like gay people but you can and will respect them as fellow human beings and treat them with the same rights (marriage, not blocking off usage of certain restrooms, not allowing businesses to not allow them inside based on sexuality) and you do this through law.

@SilentWriter83

There's a difference between legal rights, of which a homophobe will hopefully agree that homosexuals should have access to equal laws and rights. There's also social treatment. Nobody is under any pressure to be friends with homosexuals, to like them, or to accept them.

I can be anti homosexuality, and still agree that homosexuals should have equal access to any rights I have. So you're right. Law = law. Social interaction however is not.

You're not going to make people like others through law but you can grant them rights. People didn't, and still don't like black people. (I know this trust me) But we were granted the same rights as our white counterparts. Why? We're human. Same thing goes with non-hetero or non-cis people.

@SilentWriter83

This is cognitive bias. I'm white, I fuck heavily with black people. I just don't like the ones that scream racism in my face for making a casually racist joke. In the same way I don't get mad when my friend calls me a school shooter. But it's a matter - for me - of knowing the time and place of when these things are appropriate.

White people that walk up to a random black person and go 'ey my nigga' make me cringe. White people that go up to random black people and ask 'can I touch your hair' make me cringe.

White people know no shame.

Same goes for black people. Some black people did some cringy shit to me too, but key part that I took away from that is that it doesn't reflect on black people all together.

One other thing I noticed is that there's not much hatred within the white-people group. Maybe in Europe there's some historical tensions but not racial ones between white people.

Where as in the US, white people love eachother.

Now look at blacks - lightskin vs. darkskin, Carribean vs. US vs. African blacks, it's a lot of infighting and hatred within that group.

Black on black crime is a real and dangerous thing and I don't think it gets as much attention from blacks as it should. In fact it's kinda glorified a lot.

They wanna make some excuse that this 'bathroom law' will prevent rapes in bathrooms. False. It's just so conservatives can control the people that don't conform. I've watched a man follow a woman into a bathroom because she had short hair and wore basketball shorts. I've seen a woman, who didn't conform to the female archetype (basically short hair and 'boys' clothes) dragged out of the bathroom because police didn't believe she was born female. Like what, am I supposed to drop my pants and prove I have a vagina before I can pee?

@SilentWriter83

Disagree. I don't think the conservatives want to control anyone. Keep in mind I'm not a conservative nor a liberal, I am just whatever I want to be when it comes to issues. I can be liberal when it comes to technology and stuff, and I'm very conservative about values, norms and social stuffs. I switch around because I don't want my (political) opinions to be decided by whoever I side with.

If you believe the conservatives want to control people I think that's wrong. Yes they want to control people - to control them into using a certain bathroom. In the same way liberals want to control people - control them into using whatever bathroom, or control them into agreeing with them (with their 'stick' being the act of labeling anyone that disagrees as a sexist/bigot). It's a different side of the same damn coin, isn't it? It's not like they want to powertrip and become these lizard people that control everyone and their mother, with microchips in their brains.

Come on. You know better than that.

idk. I think it's dumb. No, not everyone will like non-hetero people but laws that specifically target them aren't cool. Who cares if a transgender person wants to use the bathroom that makes them more comfortable. And if, this is a big if, a man tries to claim he's transgender just to get in, the trust me something will be done. No woman really goes to the bathroom alone. We go in pairs as we were taught since we were little to avoid situations such as these. (also no one seems concerned at all about women lying to get into mens bathrooms but I won't touch on the hypocrisy behind THAT one as if men are innately predatory and women are these meak things. bleh)

@SilentWriter83

I'm on the fence. Gender has very fucking little to do with how you urinate or shit. Sex is important for the urinate part.
But then I also really don't care for female/male bathrooms and we should just get 1 bathroom for all.

I also doubt women would lie to get in the mens bathroom. If they want to see my dick or anyone elses dick, they can just ask and most men will happily show them.

We're weak in the brain when it comes to that.

These are just thoughts. So basically. Homophobia is not a phobia. You aren't scared you just disagree. People will never fully accept gay people because (slight offense) religion won't allow it. You'll always have people steadfast in their beliefs and you won't rid them of them. But everyone deserves the same rights regardless of sex, gender, orientation, skin color, etc.

@SilentWriter83

[Jig]

You don't do that with gay prides, you don't do that by screaming in their face and protesting.

@Buddha

At least in the UK, modern gay prides aren't screamy protests. They're big ol' carnivals which explicitly go out of their way to ensure that LGBT+ people are welcome. Lots of people go to the biggest ones who aren't even LGBT+, because it's basically a big gay pissup - which, incidentally, is a nice change for LGBT+ from the usual mindset of 'must be vigilant when around my partner in public in case somebody literally beats us up'. Or it's an understanding space where people are uncertain about their gender or sexuality to go experiment with a new version of themselves.

You're right in that most people (at least in the UK) don't care one way or the other - and that's great. However, when people do care, it sucks for LGBT+ people. It results in anything from low-level being made to feel shitty (whether intentional or not) to literally being killed, even in societies where people are broadly understanding.

Still, I can't help but read a chip on your shoulder when you pull up gay prides three times. Unless they're vastly different in the US, it does sound like you're in some way offended by LGBT+ people when they're doused in sparkles and boas and ... you know, gay stuff. It's just gays having a gay party. LGBT+ have historically had a pretty shitty time of it - let 'em party one day a year. If you don't like that stuff, do what I do and just stay at home that day. God knows LGBT+ people spend enough time feeling like the world's ramming one particular version of existence down their throats: I think it's pretty polite of the majority of LGBT+ people who go to prides to condense all their public gay into one day a year in some cities.

Fact of the matter is, you can advocate pro-LGBT+ but at the same time they have a right to advocate anti-LGBT+ and they don't even need a good reason for it. All they need is a gut feeling.

This doesn't make them a bigot

I'm pretty sure you've actually just defined a bigot. At least in my book, somebody who is intolerant and can't live by a 'live and let live' mentality is precisely a bigot. The law in the UK does not forbid the opinion that homosexuality is wrong, or even the dissemination of that opinion, but nor does it protect the people with that opinion from being ridiculed or told, more roundly, to fuck right off. It does, however, explicitly forbid the dissemination of the opinion that LGBT+ people should be harmed. Talking free speech is all well and good, but in the UK at least, it's freedom within the law. That is to say, one cannot advocate committing a crime. Discussing whether or not something (killing gays, for example) should or should not be legal is fine, but until you've won that argument one way or the other, the law's position is absolute.

Most LGBT+ people would be delighted with a world where people can pursue life in their own way (including being homophobic), but it's not unreasonable for them to want and expect the same legal rights and social acceptance as cishet people - the same privileges that the people that advocate against them have historically enjoyed. People who advocate against the rights or the lifestyle of a group that does no harm to anybody whatsoever fall into one of two camps; the religiously insane; or the interminably selfish. The 'god will smite us all' group, I think most people would agree, basically comprises dumbasses. The 'I don't like it so nobody can have it' group, meanwhile, is suffering a serious lack of the ability to share. They have the right to be nuts/selfish, but, you know, it doesn't stop them being nuts/selfish, or being judged for being nuts/selfish in a way that is directly opposed to a group that doesn't want anything more than the equality it typically hasn't experienced.

All of this cuts both ways, of course. I'm sure there are plenty of LGBT+ people (or supporters) who are militant and intolerant of people peacefully disagreeing, and they're bigots too. The only thing is, it's almost never the anti-gay bigots that get the shitty end of the stick. Ain't no anti-gay bigot who's afraid to be with their partner in public. Ain't no anti-gay bigot whose right to marry/have consensual sex with the person they choose is something that has to be fought for. Ain't no anti-gay bigot whose sexuality and how it relates to free speech and the law is called frequently into question.

[Dion]

<Snipped quote by Buddha>

At least in the UK, modern gay prides aren't screamy protests. The screamy bit was meant more towards screamy internet people. Some of them find their way into the real world. They're big ol' carnivals which explicitly go out of their way to ensure that LGBT+ people are welcome. Lots of people go to the biggest ones who aren't even LGBT+, because it's basically a big gay pissup - which, incidentally, is a nice change for LGBT+ from the usual mindset of 'must be vigilant when around my partner in public in case somebody literally beats us up'. Or it's an understanding space where people are uncertain about their gender or sexuality to go experiment with a new version of themselves. Yes, I've been to gay prides, I've seen in person how fun but absolutely useless they are.

You're right in that most people (at least in the UK) don't care one way or the other - and that's great. However, when people do care, it sucks for LGBT+ people. Yes. Just like it sucks to be pro-environment and to hear people say they don't care. It results in anything from low-level being made to feel shitty (whether intentional or not) to literally being killed, even in societies where people are broadly understanding.

Still, I can't help but read a chip on your shoulder when you pull up gay prides three times. Unless they're vastly different in the US I am Dutch., it does sound like you're in some way offended by LGBT+ people when they're doused in sparkles and boas and ... you know, gay stuff. Not at all. Why would that offend me? If anything I think it's a nicer fashion statement than some of the modern fashionable clothes we see nowadays. It's just gays having a gay party. What's the difference between a gay party and a party? IMHO they are the same. LGBT+ have historically had a pretty shitty time of it - let 'em party one day a year. I feel like you didn't read anything I posted after my OP, did you? If you don't like that stuff, do what I do and just stay at home that day. No, I'd rather go out and do stuff I want to do. I'm not going out and beating LGBT people up, in fact, in real life, I don't even say I disagree with the idea of gay pride. So I think that earns me a right to do whatever the hell I want, innit? God knows LGBT+ people spend enough time feeling like the world's ramming one particular version of existence down their throats: I think it's pretty polite of the majority of LGBT+ people who go to prides to condense all their public gay into one day a year in some cities.

<Snipped quote>

I'm pretty sure you've actually just defined a bigot. At least in my book, somebody who is intolerant and can't live by a 'live and let live' mentality is precisely a bigot. Sorry, can you read, isn't that exactly what I just said? I didn't say shit about not letting the LGBT people live their lives. In fact I've advocated nothing BUT that the entire thread. If someone can advocate being anti LGBT and at the same time remain respectful, then you really have no business calling them a bigot, because that's not a bigot, that is just someone with a differing opinion.

Please don't put words in my mouth. The law in the UK does not forbid the opinion that homosexuality is wrong, or even the dissemination of that opinion, but nor does it protect the people with that opinion from being ridiculed or told, more roundly, to fuck right off. It does, however, explicitly forbid the dissemination of the opinion that LGBT+ people should be harmed. Great, we're on the same page then, since I actually wrote that LGBT people should not be harmed even if you are against them. Thanks for repeating what I already wrote. Talking free speech is all well and good, but in the UK at least, it's freedom within the law. That is to say, one cannot advocate committing a crime. Discussing whether or not something (killing gays, for example) should or should not be legal is fine, but until you've won that argument one way or the other, the law's position is absolute. Same as above. I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here.

Most LGBT+ people would be delighted with a world where people can pursue life in their own way (including being homophobic), but it's not unreasonable for them to want and expect the same legal rights and social acceptance as cishet people Hey holy shit!! We both live in countries where this is already the case! WOW! imagine that - the same privileges that the people that advocate against them have historically enjoyed. People who advocate against the rights or the lifestyle of a group that does no harm to anybody whatsoever fall into one of two camps; the religiously insane; or the interminably selfish. The 'god will smite us all' group, I think most people would agree, basically comprises dumbasses. Not at all. I do not agree. They just have differing world views. This is not a battle of right vs. wrong, it's a battle between multiple right's. The 'I don't like it so nobody can have it' group, meanwhile, is suffering a serious lack of the ability to share. They have the right to be nuts/selfish, but, you know, it doesn't stop them being nuts/selfish, or being judged for being nuts/selfish in a way that is directly opposed to a group that doesn't want anything more than the equality it typically hasn't experienced.

All of this cuts both ways, of course. I'm sure there are plenty of LGBT+ people (or supporters) who are militant and intolerant of people peacefully disagreeing, and they're bigots too. The only thing is, it's almost never the anti-gay bigots that get the shitty end of the stick. loloolollolololololololololo Ain't no anti-gay bigot who's afraid to be with their partner in public. Interracial couples, polygamous 'couples', couples where one or both sides have strict parents, couples with differing religions Ain't no anti-gay bigot whose right to marry/have consensual sex with the person they choose is something that has to be fought for. polygamous people. Many anti-same sex marriage people actually advocated that if people of the same sex are allowed to be married, so should they with their 3 cousins and 4 girlfriends. And they're not wrong. Ain't no anti-gay bigot whose sexuality and how it relates to free speech and the law is called frequently into question. There also isn't any sexuality that is as outspoken about their sexuality as the LGBT community. People that have sex with cars are not really heard. There's not many of them but they exist. I wonder how we'd feel if people like that wanted to get vocal about their rights to marry a car.

Because marriage is a lot more than marriage, you know? It's about taxes, paperwork, benefits, etc. I agree homosexuals should be able to benefit. But where do you personally draw the line?

@Jig

[Jig]

The screamy bit was meant more towards screamy internet people. Some of them find their way into the real world.

Yes, I've been to gay prides, I've seen in person how fun but absolutely useless they are.

@Buddha

Fair. You just pulled up gay prides multiple times, so it does read like you had an axe to grind. I'm not arguing they're politically valuable, but they're still a useful social outlet for a group that doesn't typically get to safely be public.

You're right in that most people (at least in the UK) don't care one way or the other - and that's great. However, when people do care, it sucks for LGBT+ people.

Yes. Just like it sucks to be pro-environment and to hear people say they don't care.

I don't think it's comparable. Pro-environmental people don't typically (reasonably) have to fear for their safety in a given situation where they're just being themselves. Walking down the street with your pro-environmentalist partner is not the same as walking down the street with your same-gendered partner. One can be made to feel shitty as a pro-environmentalist in the same way that one can be made to feel shitty for being LGBT+, but the stakes are a lot higher for LGBT+ people who want to live the same way that cishet people do. Being physically attacked is a real threat for LGBT+ people and if you're walking down the street as a transgendered person or holding hands with your same-gendered partner, that's much more apparent than walking down the street as somebody who has opinions about the environment. LGBT+ people are walking targets.

Still, I can't help but read a chip on your shoulder when you pull up gay prides three times. Unless they're vastly different in the US I am Dutch.

[...]

Most LGBT+ people would be delighted with a world where people can pursue life in their own way (including being homophobic), but it's not unreasonable for them to want and expect the same legal rights and social acceptance as cishet people

Hey holy shit!! We both live in countries where this is already the case! WOW! imagine that

Sorry, het leek me alsof je amerikaans was en daarom vond ik het belangrijk, het engels context te beschrijven. Eigelijk hebt je het bijna (maar niet duidelijk) gezegd, dat je Nederlands bent, maar dat heb ik niet echt gezien. But, still, at least in the UK, social acceptability is still at the very least a new thing and, in rural areas (which I know well), not guaranteed. I expect it's the same in the Netherlands for rural areas.

it does sound like you're in some way offended by LGBT+ people when they're doused in sparkles and boas and ... you know, gay stuff.

Not at all. Why would that offend me? If anything I think it's a nicer fashion statement than some of the modern fashionable clothes we see nowadays. It's just gays having a gay party. What's the difference between a gay party and a party? IMHO they are the same.

1) You pulled it up multiple times so it sounded like you had an axe to grind (as I said before)
2) Sometimes, LGBT+ people want to party in an LGBT+ way (which they rarely get to publicly do). So that LGBT+ness would be the difference between a party and a gay party.

LGBT+ have historically had a pretty shitty time of it - let 'em party one day a year.

If you don't like that stuff, do what I do and just stay at home that day. No, I'd rather go out and do stuff I want to do. I'm not going out and beating LGBT people up, in fact, in real life, I don't even say I disagree with the idea of gay pride. So I think that earns me a right to do whatever the hell I want, innit?

Yep, do what you want. Again with the feel I got that you had an issue with prides. Since you're keen to underline you don't, I'll take it back.

I feel like you didn't read anything I posted after my OP, did you?

Nope, genuinely didn't. There was a helluvva lotta text.

I'm pretty sure you've actually just defined a bigot. At least in my book, somebody who is intolerant and can't live by a 'live and let live' mentality is precisely a bigot.

Sorry, can you read, isn't that exactly what I just said? I didn't say shit about not letting the LGBT people live their lives. In fact I've advocated nothing BUT that the entire thread. If someone can advocate being anti LGBT and at the same time remain respectful, then you really have no business calling them a bigot, because that's not a bigot, that is just someone with a differing opinion.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

I'm not putting words in your mouth. You said that X doesn't make one a bigot. I'm saying it kinda actually does. It's not putting words in your mouth, it's just disagreeing with you. I'm not saying you're an anti-gay advocate. I'm saying that somebody who is intolerant (of anything, and not necessarily you) is a bigot.

People who are respectful are tolerant and that has to mean, "I don't like it, but you can do what you want if you're not hurting anybody". Those people are not bigots. People who believe that something that harms nobody* is wrong and that therefore it needs to be banned or curtailed are not tolerant: those people are bigots. They are attempting to enforce their own personal worldview on everybody else - this is not respectful.

*^{unless one follows the 'gay marriage causes floods' policy, which I think we can agree is probably not a thing}

I agree that throwing round the word "bigot" at people that disagree with one isn't useful. But, still, when it's actually bigotry, it is bigotry.

The law in the UK does not forbid the opinion that homosexuality is wrong, or even the dissemination of that opinion, but nor does it protect the people with that opinion from being ridiculed or told, more roundly, to fuck right off. It does, however, explicitly forbid the dissemination of the opinion that LGBT+ people should be harmed. Great, we're on the same page then, since I actually wrote that LGBT people should not be harmed even if you are against them. Thanks for repeating what I already wrote. Talking free speech is all well and good, but in the UK at least, it's freedom within the law. That is to say, one cannot advocate committing a crime. Discussing whether or not something (killing gays, for example) should or should not be legal is fine, but until you've won that argument one way or the other, the law's position is absolute. Same as above. I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here.

You mentioned in the title of this thread, EU vs US contexts. Here's the British context. ^{I know that's a touchy subject recently :(}
Could be different elsewhere.

- the same privileges that the people that advocate against them have historically enjoyed. People who advocate against the rights or the lifestyle of a group that does no harm to anybody whatsoever fall into one of two camps; the religiously insane; or the interminably selfish. The 'god will smite us all' group, I think most people would agree, basically comprises dumbasses. Not at all. I do not agree. They just have differing world views. This is not a battle of right vs. wrong, it's a battle between multiple right's.

Multiple rights? They clearly have a differing world-view, but they're the people advocating that some people do not deserve certain rights to facilitate their harmless lifestyles and that some people do. LGBT+ people are generally more than happy for everybody to have the same rights to live their lives, I think. It's the anti-gay lobby who want to deprive LGBT+ people of the ability to live their lives the same way cishet people get to.

All of this cuts both ways, of course. I'm sure there are plenty of LGBT+ people (or supporters) who are militant and intolerant of people peacefully disagreeing, and they're bigots too. The only thing is, it's almost never the anti-gay bigots that get the shitty end of the stick. loloolollolololololololololo Ain't no anti-gay bigot who's afraid to be with their partner in public. Interracial couples, polygamous 'couples', couples where one or both sides have strict parents, couples with differing religions Ain't no anti-gay bigot whose right to marry/have consensual sex with the person they choose is something that has to be fought for. polygamous people. Many anti-same sex marriage people actually advocated that if people of the same sex are allowed to be married, so should they with their 3 cousins and 4 girlfriends. And they're not wrong. Ain't no anti-gay bigot whose sexuality and how it relates to free speech and the law is called frequently into question. There also isn't any sexuality that is as outspoken about their sexuality as the LGBT community. People that have sex with cars are not really heard. There's not many of them but they exist. I wonder how we'd feel if people like that wanted to get vocal about their rights to marry a car.

Because marriage is a lot more than marriage, you know? It's about taxes, paperwork, benefits, etc. I agree homosexuals should be able to benefit. But where do you personally draw the line?

Okay, so I was mostly thinking the white cishet anti-gay advocates, so you do raise some valid points, but I'll address them:

1) Interracial couples have had the shitty end of the stick everywhere in the past and still do in some places nowadays. Still, the places where they have issues are the same places where LGBT+ people also have issues while there are places where inter-race is cool where LGBT+ isn't, though.

2) Polygamous couples: if everybody is happy with an arrangement where there's more than two people, more power to them. I think the law should also allow for it, in the same way it allows for groups of two. But, still, they come in either the strictly religious (whom I broadly discount from sensible discussion) or the very-much minority of secular people who share partners in some way or other (who aren't typically anti-gay advocates).

3) Couples with strict parents/religion: can be shitty for them at the family level but that shit ain't upheld by law (at least in the EU/US), as far as I'm aware, so I consider it irrelevant.

4) Polyamorous people: genuinely don't know how I feel about incestuous breeding (on account of it being shitty for the kids who have a better-than-average chance of coming out differently abled while I don't wanna live in a world that dictates who gets to breed) but I don't have an issue with polygamy or polyamy in and of themselves, and I think people who want to honestly make a commitment to each other in whatever configuration applies to them should have commitment respected, both socially and legally. So, no, I agree: they're not wrong.

5) Perhaps the reason that the LGB community is as outspoken as it is is because it's the widest, most obvious sexuality-based community whose rights are typically challenged. They're the loudest voices in that field nowadays on account of being the most numerous group.

6) People who have sex with cars: live and let live. Until we invent cars that can have an opinion about their own sex lives, then it's really not my place to say. And if they want to get married to the car, then, fuck it, I don't waive my right to find that a bit weird, but I'm happy for them to do that and I'd like to think if I met them and/or their car in a pub, I'd have the good grace to be polite and, at the very least, not talk about the ins and outs of who/what does what to whom/what.

7) I stand by 'almost never'. You've picked up on the exceptions. The majority of people who advocate against gay rights are people that are heterosexual: quite apart from anything else, it's not in the interest of people with even rarer sexualities to advocate against LGB groups.

[Dion]

Fair. You just pulled up gay prides multiple times, so it does read like you had an axe to grind. I'm not arguing they're politically valuable, but they're still a useful social outlet for a group that doesn't typically get to safely be public.

@Jig

This is where the issue comes with you coming in and discussing (which I'm fine with don't get me wrong. I love a good discussion and I love being the side that isn't usually argued for.) The discussion came from a discussion in the status bar, where I pointed out homophobes have a right to be homophobic. It really just came from that - no axe to grind. I just wanted to advocate for the other side, since this website in particular is filled with liberal left wing people.

In reality I don't give a crap who dogs who in the ass as long as it happens behind closed doors.

I don't think it's comparable. Pro-environmental people don't typically (reasonably) have to fear for their safety in a given situation where they're just being themselves. Walking down the street with your pro-environmentalist partner is not the same as walking down the street with your same-gendered partner. One can be made to feel shitty as a pro-environmentalist in the same way that one can be made to feel shitty for being LGBT+, but the stakes are a lot higher for LGBT+ people who want to live the same way that cishet people do. Being physically attacked is a real threat for LGBT+ people and if you're walking down the street as a transgendered person or holding hands with your same-gendered partner, that's much more apparent than walking down the street as somebody who has opinions about the environment. LGBT+ people are walking targets.

@Jig

The point I was making is that shitty things are a simple fact of life. I agree that it's shitty - anyone will agree. But it's a fact of life. Now it's a fact of life we can do something about.

And I'll find you will see that a lot. In busy streets, if a homosexual or transgender gets attacked, you'll probably see people step in when it comes to blows. At least, that's the impression I have here.

Sorry, het leek me alsof je amerikaans was en daarom vond ik het belangrijk, het engels context te beschrijven. Eigelijk hebt je het bijna (maar niet duidelijk) gezegd, dat je Nederlands bent, maar dat heb ik niet echt gezien. But, still, at least in the UK, social acceptability is still at the very least a new thing and, in rural areas (which I know well), not guaranteed. I expect it's the same in the Netherlands for rural areas.

@Jig

Ik haat Amerika ;) Your Dutch is decent.

In the Netherlands we have longstanding culture of acceptance due to our trading history. We were known as the cradle of acceptance during much of history. We were the center of trade in Europe for the longest time, so it was prerogative we accepted everyone.

Of course it wasn't perfect, but it was necessity.

So yes, even the rural areas here are accepting. There are skits of old, old humor shows that feature 'village-gays'. Exceptions there, I'd advise any homosexual against walking through the Schilderswijk or any other primarily muslim neighborhood.

1) You pulled it up multiple times so it sounded like you had an axe to grind (as I said before)
2) Sometimes, LGBT+ people want to party in an LGBT+ way (which they rarely get to publicly do). So that LGBT+ness would be the difference between a party and a gay party.

@Jig

Still curious what an LGBT way of partying is.

Nope, genuinely didn't. There was a helluvva lotta text.

@Jig

I'd argue you should read it but if I were you I wouldn't either because fuck that shit.

I'm not putting words in your mouth. You said that X doesn't make one a bigot. I'm saying it kinda actually does. It's not putting words in your mouth, it's just disagreeing with you. I'm not saying you're an anti-gay advocate. I'm saying that somebody who is intolerant (of anything, and not necessarily you) is a bigot.

@Jig

Your definition of tolerance must be different from mine then. I agree that anti-gay advocate are intolerant. This is where the whole 'democracy' thing comes into place. If anti-gay advocates are the majority, in a democracy, they have the legal right to make homosexuality illegal.

That's how it works. That's why I am anti democracy. Therefore within a democracy, the concept of 'tolerance' only stretches as far as the majority wants it to stretch. And in case you disagree with that, let me propose a situation, and I'll tell you whether or not we should be tolerant.

As we know bestiality is illegal. Under your logic of not harming anyone, however, there are theoretically some animals that could engage in sexual acts with humans without harm befalling them and without harm befalling the human. Therefore nobody is harmed. Some would even argue that for some animals in the grey area, it's still not harmful.

It's still rather nasty. Do you think we need to be tolerant for these people? Do you think we'd need to offer them legal assistance to do whatever they want?

I don't.

And I also don't think that makes me a bigot. It makes me a rational human being who has social limits. I'm not saying I have these limits with homosexuals, but I could understand they have these with homosexuals.

People who are respectful are tolerant and that has to mean, "I don't like it, but you can do what you want if you're not hurting anybody". Those people are not bigots. People who believe that something that harms nobody* is wrong and that therefore it needs to be banned or curtailed are not tolerant: those people are bigots. They are attempting to enforce their own personal worldview on everybody else - this is not respectful.

@Jig

Under this logic people can do drugs, drink and then go driving. As long as they're not hurting anyone then it's fine.

And there's a paradox in your argument. Aren't LGBT people trying to force their worldview on everybody else - namely that being LGBT is fine? Think about it for a minute please.

*^{unless one follows the 'gay marriage causes floods' policy, which I think we can agree is probably not a thing}

I agree that throwing round the word "bigot" at people that disagree with one isn't useful. But, still, when it's actually bigotry, it is bigotry.

@Jig

I agree. I just think that your standard of 'bigot' is too wide.

You mentioned in the title of this thread, EU vs US contexts. Here's the British context. ^{I know that's a touchy subject recently :(}
Could be different elsewhere.

@Jig

Be happy that UK is out. I hope my country leaves next.

Multiple rights? They clearly have a differing world-view, but they're the people advocating that some people do not deserve certain rights to facilitate their harmless lifestyles and that some people do. LGBT+ people are generally more than happy for everybody to have the same rights to live their lives, I think. It's the anti-gay lobby who want to deprive LGBT+ people of the ability to live their lives the same way cishet people get to.

@Jig

Let me put it like this:

If you ask an ISIS warrior if he is in the right he will say yes.

I can not confirm that he is wrong. I don't know what is right and wrong. Right and wrong is the most subjective of all things that are subjective because they are based 100% entirely on what you think is right and wrong.

So no. It's very much a battle of two right's in my eyes. Both sides think they are right. Neither side will convince the other. The LGBT side will win because they are the younger generation.

Not because they have the moral high ground. It has nothing to do with that. It's pure generational conflict.

Okay, so I was mostly thinking the white cishet anti-gay advocates, so you do raise some valid points, but I'll address them:

@Jig

Why they gotta be white though? Blacks are notoriously anti-homosexual in the USA. Even in the UK they are. So why they gotta be white?

1) Interracial couples have had the shitty end of the stick everywhere in the past and still do in some places nowadays. Still, the places where they have issues are the same places where LGBT+ people also have issues while there are places where inter-race is cool where LGBT+ isn't, though.

@Jig

Agreed. They're still a group that doesn't fall under LGBT that has problems.

2) Polygamous couples: if everybody is happy with an arrangement where there's more than two people, more power to them. I think the law should also allow for it, in the same way it allows for groups of two. But, still, they come in either the strictly religious (whom I broadly discount from sensible discussion) or the very-much minority of secular people who share partners in some way or other (who aren't typically anti-gay advocates).

@Jig

Yes, and being married to multiple partners also brings certain economical advantages that are important to me personally because, allowing polygamy means disadvantaging those that aren't polygamous.

You'd need to rework all the marriage papers.

Good luck.

3) Couples with strict parents/religion: can be shitty for them at the family level but that shit ain't upheld by law (at least in the EU/US), as far as I'm aware, so I consider it irrelevant.

@Jig

Depending on country yes it most certainly can. And even so, what if these kids get thrown out by parents. Don't you think that's a legal issue too?

4) Polyamorous people: genuinely don't know how I feel about incestuous breeding (on account of it being shitty for the kids who have a better-than-average chance of coming out differently abled while I don't wanna live in a world that dictates who gets to breed) but I don't have an issue with polygamy or polyamy in and of themselves, and I think people who want to honestly make a commitment to each other in whatever configuration applies to them should have commitment respected, both socially and legally. So, no, I agree: they're not wrong.

@Jig

See I am most definitely in favor of selective breeding in the sense that I think everyone should get a shot, unless you're proven to be genetically defective.

I'm not talking ADHD or even autistic, but if your child will have a disease that kills them in under a year and we can 100% certainly prove it, I think you should not be granted medical care for that child on the expense of the government. That and abortion should be incentivized by the hospital.

There's more people I'd rather not have children but we can get into that another time.

Point of the story is that you are wrong in a) incestuous couples have a near non-existant risk of diseases in children if they are either 1. far away enough in the bloodline from each other (a distant cousin marrying another distant cousin won't matter much more than any regular child will have risk of a disease) or 2. it's first generation incest. A brother and sister having sex and having a baby have low risk (slightly increased) but in the face of other risks, it's pretty small. It's generational incest (aka the children of that couple having babies, and then those babies having babies) that creates more and more risk.

And b) I was writing something here and then I got distracted with shit and now I can't remember so whatever, score a free point here and call me stupid or something

5) Perhaps the reason that the LGB community is as outspoken as it is is because it's the widest, most obvious sexuality-based community whose rights are typically challenged. They're the loudest voices in that field nowadays on account of being the most numerous group.

@Jig

The point I was making is there are much more marginalized groups that don't raise their voices. That's why homophobia is seen as a giant issue today where as in reality, in most of Western Europe, it's a laughable nonexistant issue where if it happens, everyone gets angry at the homophobe.

6) People who have sex with cars: live and let live. Until we invent cars that can have an opinion about their own sex lives, then it's really not my place to say. And if they want to get married to the car, then, fuck it, I don't waive my right to find that a bit weird, but I'm happy for them to do that and I'd like to think if I met them and/or their car in a pub, I'd have the good grace to be polite and, at the very least, not talk about the ins and outs of who/what does what to whom/what.

@Jig

That's a strange reaction. I'd probably point and laugh.

7) I stand by 'almost never'. You've picked up on the exceptions. The majority of people who advocate against gay rights are people that are heterosexual: quite apart from anything else, it's not in the interest of people with even rarer sexualities to advocate against LGB groups.

@Jig

Well yes. Because, besides heterosexuals, you can really only be asexual or homosexual.

Or anything in between those, such as bisexual. I don't think there's really any other sexualities. Because polygamy is still hetero/bi/homosexual.

[Jig]

In reality I don't give a crap who dogs who in the ass as long as it happens behind closed doors.

@Buddha

Or, indeed, who tups whom in the vagina so long as that happens behind equally-closed doors. If you make a distinction between how closed a door should be between your eyes and a gay couple and a straight couple, then your opinion is definitely biased. I'm not saying yours is, but the 'behind closed doors' is an old phrase that always comes out to describe LGB people as though same-sex partnerships are in some way shameful, sordid, or in any way something to hide. The phrase doesn't exactly reek of acceptance - and never applies to straight people.

The point I was making is that shitty things are a simple fact of life. I agree that it's shitty - anyone will agree. But it's a fact of life. Now it's a fact of life we can do something about.

And I'll find you will see that a lot. In busy streets, if a homosexual or transgender gets attacked, you'll probably see people step in when it comes to blows. At least, that's the impression I have here.

Not here. Metropolitan areas, sure. You go to anywhere in England (I'm talking England here, not the UK) that's not London, Manchester, or a major university town, and LGBT+ people don't have the luxury of the kindness of strangers.

Your Dutch is decent.

Dank je wel.

So yes, even the rural areas here are accepting. There are skits of old, old humor shows that feature 'village-gays'. Exceptions there, I'd advise any homosexual against walking through the Schilderswijk or any other primarily muslim neighborhood.

Again, not here.

Still curious what an LGBT way of partying is.

Unless prides are vastly different in the Netherlands, I think you're being petulant. Sprinkles, glitter, terrible pop music. Gay as in 'that's so gay' rather than LGBT+.

I'd argue you should read it but if I were you I wouldn't either because fuck that shit.

Hahahahanope.

Your definition of tolerance must be different from mine then. I agree that anti-gay advocate are intolerant. This is where the whole 'democracy' thing comes into place. If anti-gay advocates are the majority, in a democracy, they have the legal right to make homosexuality illegal.

That is their right. It doesn't prevent them from being awful (either on account of the religiously nutty or the belligerently selfish).

That's how it works. That's why I am anti democracy. Therefore within a democracy, the concept of 'tolerance' only stretches as far as the majority wants it to stretch. And in case you disagree with that, let me propose a situation, and I'll tell you whether or not we should be tolerant.

As we know bestiality is illegal. Under your logic of not harming anyone, however, there are theoretically some animals that could engage in sexual acts with humans without harm befalling them and without harm befalling the human. Therefore nobody is harmed. Some would even argue that for some animals in the grey area, it's still not harmful.

It's still rather nasty. Do you think we need to be tolerant for these people? Do you think we'd need to offer them legal assistance to do whatever they want?

I don't.

For me, that's an issue of animal rights. With humans, we expect there to be consent given for intercourse to be acceptable. For inanimate objects (say, a dildo), we don't expect that. I can't work out to what degree in the real world I can balance the 'are you upsetting the animal or is the animal into it?' because there's no way to tell, but if a canine could give consent and gave consent, it's no business of mine whether a human gets to do it doggy style.

And I also don't think that makes me a bigot. It makes me a rational human being who has social limits. I'm not saying I have these limits with homosexuals, but I could understand they have these with homosexuals.

I maintain my policy of 'live and let live'. If you find somebody with whom you can't live and let live (when you know nobody is being harmed), then you're probably intolerant of them. And that's most likely bigotry.

Under this logic people can do drugs, drink and then go driving. As long as they're not hurting anyone then it's fine.

You're taking me too literally: drinking and driving is dangerous. It just basically is, and not just for the perp but also for anybody else on the road. An LGB person having consensual sex with another LGB person or committing to a life with them via marriage harms nobody, because it's all consensual. Sober drivers are abiding by the contract all drivers should be abiding by (the law) when they drive sober, and they deserve to be protected from people who are breaking that contract (drunk drivers). That is to say, they have not given their consent to engage in drunken vehicular intercourse with drunken drivers. There's your difference.

And there's a paradox in your argument. Aren't LGBT people trying to force their worldview on everybody else - namely that being LGBT is fine?

Nope. They're trying to exist in a way that is ideally equal to cishet people but at the very least doesn't put them in danger every day of their lives. They are entitled to live (and let live. My arguments have a theme.)

Be happy that UK is out. I hope my country leaves next.

Swap you your Dutch citizenship for my UK one. Discussion for another day.

Let me put it like this:

If you ask an ISIS warrior if he is in the right he will say yes.

I can not confirm that he is wrong. I don't know what is right and wrong. Right and wrong is the most subjective of all things that are subjective because they are based 100% entirely on what you think is right and wrong.

So no. It's very much a battle of two right's in my eyes. Both sides think they are right. Neither side will convince the other. The LGBT side will win because they are the younger generation.

Not because they have the moral high ground. It has nothing to do with that. It's pure generational conflict.

At a philosophical level, you're right, since nothing beyond maths can be proven.
That said, in real life, who're you gonna pick? The people who won't tolerate others or the people who just want to be recognised and allowed to live in their own way and otherwise to be left the fuck alone and ask for just one day a year to party publicly? Or, the ISIS fighter who won't tolerate any version of life other than their own understanding, or the person who just wants to live and let live?

Why they gotta be white though? Blacks are notoriously anti-homosexual in the USA. Even in the UK they are. So why they gotta be white?

Because in the UK, the US, and the Netherlands, it's broadly white people who have actual agency. The house of commons, congress and the tweede kamer are primarily made of white faces. White faces in all three of these countries primarily make up the politically-engaged cohort. I'm not saying that BME communities don't have their own opinions (and I'm certainly not saying that BME communities have great records on LGBT+ issues), but it's white people in the three countries that have power at a legal level. At a social level, it depends very much on your local environment at least in the UK. Being gay in London isn't something anybody's gonna give a shit about. Being gay in a Welsh village... would not recommend to a friend.

Agreed. They're still a group that doesn't fall under LGBT that has problems.

Not legally, in most places (unless the US is more backwards than I thought).

Yes, and being married to multiple partners also brings certain economical advantages that are important to me personally because, allowing polygamy means disadvantaging those that aren't polygamous.

You'd need to rework all the marriage papers.

Good luck.

I don't really believe that beyond next of kinship, marriage should provide any benefits to the people involved. It's a statement of emotional and/or financial commitment to another person, not to the taxman (or, it should be).

Depending on country yes it most certainly can. And even so, what if these kids get thrown out by parents. Don't you think that's a legal issue too?

I can't think of a Western country that forbids, say, a Christian marrying/getting with a Muslim. At a social level for some communities, it may well be an issue that could well cause something like, as you say, kids being kicked out. But the law can't account for parents being intolerant (it can't force them to be tolerant: that battle is won socially and not legally) and I can't help but wonder if the kids wouldn't be better off being independent of people that have disowned them - the law forcing the parents to hold onto kids they hate isn't helping anybody. In the UK, I'm very critical of the state-care of kids, but that's an argument for another day.

Point of the story is that you are wrong in a) incestuous couples have a near non-existant risk of diseases in children if they are either 1. far away enough in the bloodline from each other (a distant cousin marrying another distant cousin won't matter much more than any regular child will have risk of a disease) or 2. it's first generation incest. A brother and sister having sex and having a baby have low risk (slightly increased) but in the face of other risks, it's pretty small. It's generational incest (aka the children of that couple having babies, and then those babies having babies) that creates more and more risk.

My overall point is I don't care who has sex with whom, but thinking of the consequences on kids that might be born is reasonable. I don't know the science and I don't know where I'd draw the line anyway (so I won't bother looking into it), but, ultimately, at the relationship-level, it's none of my business.

b) I was writing something here and then I got distracted with shit and now I can't remember so whatever, score a free point here and call me stupid or something

I'll take my free point. You're stupid or something.

The point I was making is there are much more marginalized groups that don't raise their voices. That's why homophobia is seen as a giant issue today where as in reality, in most of Western Europe, it's a laughable nonexistant issue where if it happens, everyone gets angry at the homophobe.

It might seem that way in the Netherlands, where you've enjoyed equal marriage for ages. In most other European countries, it's only recently been passed or been on the agenda at all. Once England got access to equal marriage, I noticed the LGB community basically stop protesting, because there was little to protest about (at the legal level) - LGB people had stopped being second-class citizens who had fewer rights than straight people. It's not laughable to be a second-class citizen, which is what the legal lack of provision for the equivalent rights that straight people enjoyed rendered LGB people.

That's not to say there aren't other marginalised groups or that those groups aren't worth listening to, but at the same time, their issues don't disqualify the importance of LGB issues for LGB people.

There remain social issues (the whole literal safety of walking around with one's partner), which I sincerely hope will be lessened by the current generation's sexual open-mindedness, but I also think that the law lends a legitimacy to LGB partnerships by putting them on the same footing as straight partnerships, which, at the very least, will give LGB people more confidence that they're accepted socially - and they need some of that.

It sounds like you think LGB issues aren't really a thing in the Netherlands - but you're ahead on LGB issues anyway. So, you might have now found the solution that is publicly accepting LGB people and are perhaps missing the divides that the lack of social and legal acceptance in other countries can cause.

That's a strange reaction. I'd probably point and laugh.

That would be rude.
Your argument is that somebody's different worldview is legitimate, even if you disagree with them. Pointing and laughing is somewhat incongruous.

Well yes. Because, besides heterosexuals, you can really only be asexual or homosexual.

Or anything in between those, such as bisexual. I don't think there's really any other sexualities. Because polygamy is still hetero/bi/homosexual.

Well, you get a variety of people that you've mentioned (amongst others) that the law needs to take into account. LGB people are simply the largest single grouping, as opposed to, say paedophiles, zoophiles, people who're attracted to objects, etcetera. Each of these categories has a smaller cohort than the LGB community, and so the LGB voice is louder. It helps, of course, that LGB people can exist within a framework of adult consent, while the consent of a child, animal or object is much murkier territory.

So, yes, you're right when you say that the LGB community is the most outspoken voice among sexualities - but I'm not really sure who else you're expecting to hear from.

[Dion]

Or, indeed, who tups whom in the vagina so long as that happens behind equally-closed doors. If you make a distinction between how closed a door should be between your eyes and a gay couple and a straight couple, then your opinion is definitely biased. I'm not saying yours is, but the 'behind closed doors' is an old phrase that always comes out to describe LGB people as though same-sex partnerships are in some way shameful, sordid, or in any way something to hide. The phrase doesn't exactly reek of acceptance - and never applies to straight people.

@Jig

AW shieeet homie. You know I don't wanna see a straight couple fuck in public either. Behind closed doors applies to everyone for me.

If I wanna see sex I'll go online and search for it or I'll go out and get laid.

Not here. Metropolitan areas, sure. You go to anywhere in England (I'm talking England here, not the UK) that's not London, Manchester, or a major university town, and LGBT+ people don't have the luxury of the kindness of strangers.

@Jig

Yeah, cause English people are fokken cunts.

Unless prides are vastly different in the Netherlands, I think you're being petulant. Sprinkles, glitter, terrible pop music. Gay as in 'that's so gay' rather than LGBT+.

@Jig

I mean, I think this is exactly the reason why gay prides are so bloody useless. If it was like a regular old festival, I think it'd do a lot more to show that gay people are just like us straight people, except they like a different sex (namely, the same as theirs). Now it's enforcing that they are different somehow and that enforces the 'different than us = bad' thing that you see in our tribal nature.

That is their right. It doesn't prevent them from being awful (either on account of the religiously nutty or the belligerently selfish).

@Jig

Reality is awful. Moving on.

For me, that's an issue of animal rights. With humans, we expect there to be consent given for intercourse to be acceptable. For inanimate objects (say, a dildo), we don't expect that. I can't work out to what degree in the real world I can balance the 'are you upsetting the animal or is the animal into it?' because there's no way to tell, but if a canine could give consent and gave consent, it's no business of mine whether a human gets to do it doggy style.

@Jig

Some people will argue for this and they'll argue for it hard - and if we're being 100% honest, they are probably right in the sense that larger animals probably can't even feel it and therefore it doesn't bother them.

But yeah, there's no visible/audible consent and therefore it's theoretically rape. Which is weird.

I maintain my policy of 'live and let live'. If you find somebody with whom you can't live and let live (when you know nobody is being harmed), then you're probably intolerant of them. And that's most likely bigotry.

@Jig

Tolerance doesn't mix well with democracy. Like I said, tolerance only has to extend as far as the majority within a country wishes it to extend. There's really .. not much more to it except your personal idea of tolerance.

Which we've already established is broader than mine.

You're taking me too literally: drinking and driving is dangerous. It just basically is, and not just for the perp but also for anybody else on the road. An LGB person having consensual sex with another LGB person or committing to a life with them via marriage harms nobody, because it's all consensual. Sober drivers are abiding by the contract all drivers should be abiding by (the law) when they drive sober, and they deserve to be protected from people who are breaking that contract (drunk drivers). That is to say, they have not given their consent to engage in drunken vehicular intercourse with drunken drivers. There's your difference.

@Jig

Let me argue in the name of a religious nut (whether he be Christian, Jewish or Muslim) and say that homosexual sex is in fact dangerous. It does harm people because it means they can't go to paradise/heaven. It does harm people because it is inviting the devil into our society.

As outrageous as this sounds, these are legitimate claims because people believe in this and therefore they deserve to be taken seriously. I'd like to invite you to try and see it from their side.

Nope. They're trying to exist in a way that is ideally equal to cishet people but at the very least doesn't put them in danger every day of their lives. They are entitled to live (and let live. My arguments have a theme.)

@Jig

.. which is forcing their worldview upon others that do not share this worldview. It's really not that hard, dude. The worldview that everyone should have an equal chance at living their life in the same way as others is a worldview in and of it's own. Even though I agree with this worldview I also acknowledge that it's still just a worldview and not everyone has to agree. The majority believes in this worldview and therefore you'll find that this is the worldview that everyone more or less agrees with.

Because if you disagree, you'll be branded negatively in a social regards and that's bad and nobody wants that. So even those that theoretically would disagree are forced to 'agree' somewhat.

At a philosophical level, you're right, since nothing beyond maths can be proven.
That said, in real life, who're you gonna pick? The people who won't tolerate others or the people who just want to be recognised and allowed to live in their own way and otherwise to be left the fuck alone and ask for just one day a year to party publicly? Or, the ISIS fighter who won't tolerate any version of life other than their own understanding, or the person who just wants to live and let live?

@Jig

I make it a point to not judge other cultures, ideas or people. Reason being that yes, I can actually see why Wehrmacht soldiers fought for Hitler, and I respect them for fighting for what they thought was right. Yes, I can actually see why Hitler did what he did - I do not agree with it, but I can see why he did it and to a degree I think he deserves some objective respect for building an empire the way he did.

Note that that in no way means I agree we should kill the jews. It just means I can see his ideology, I can understand it, I can still disagree but respect that he fought for it.

And yes, in that regard, I also respect ISIS fighters who fight for their ideology. Because that's what you do.

So no, I don't pick between either of them. They are both right - or at least both think they are right, and therefore, both have a right to defend their claim.

I am not anti-violence. It's a pretty solid way of enforcing your claim as long as you recognize the damages that you need to repair once you're done. It's just that in the western world we agree not to use violence - and I can agree to that, so I'd prefer that we didn't use violence here.

Because in the UK, the US, and the Netherlands, it's broadly white people who have actual agency. The house of commons, congress and the tweede kamer are primarily made of white faces. White faces in all three of these countries primarily make up the politically-engaged cohort. I'm not saying that BME communities don't have their own opinions (and I'm certainly not saying that BME communities have great records on LGBT+ issues), but it's white people in the three countries that have power at a legal level. At a social level, it depends very much on your local environment at least in the UK. Being gay in London isn't something anybody's gonna give a shit about. Being gay in a Welsh village... would not recommend to a friend.

@Jig

Although the white people have the most agency, they are also the biggest group that is trying to help LGBT people because they have the agency. I believe this comes more from a PR perspective and they really don't care about LGBT people, but they're still helping.

So blaming white people for all the shit isn't gonna help anyone and is more likely to make them feel like not helping. Which is what I feel every time someone brings up slavery in the black lives matter debate.

Sidenote; was in Wales for a karate tournament. Gay community there is big as fuck. Most of the pubs closed at 2.00 at night so we moved to a gay club because we wanted beer. I got hit on a few times and they were generally very respectful about it when I said 'nah mate I'm straight, we just want beer'

Not legally, in most places (unless the US is more backwards than I thought).

@Jig

Like we discussed before, in most western countries, LGBT people too enjoy the freedom that straight people do. Legally. Most of the time it falls under the umbrella 'no discrimination' laws.

I don't really believe that beyond next of kinship, marriage should provide any benefits to the people involved. It's a statement of emotional and/or financial commitment to another person, not to the taxman (or, it should be).

@Jig

What you believe doesn't matter in this case. In every single country marriage is incentivized with benefits due to marriage = children (often) and children = population = more taxes in the long run. It's simple maths.

For 1. Gay couples do not contribute to this because they do not produce new children in most cases. Therefore, government doesn't stand to gain anything except for.. well, moral points? I guess? Because they'll get less tax because married couples pay less taxes than others.

For 2. For polygamy, this means that if you are clever you can just set up a family with 20 people and enjoy tax-boons that nobody else could get.

Because that's how it's gonna play out. I'm not naive enough to think people will respect the law. They'll use it to full extent.

I can't think of a Western country that forbids, say, a Christian marrying/getting with a Muslim. At a social level for some communities, it may well be an issue that could well cause something like, as you say, kids being kicked out. But the law can't account for parents being intolerant (it can't force them to be tolerant: that battle is won socially and not legally) and I can't help but wonder if the kids wouldn't be better off being independent of people that have disowned them - the law forcing the parents to hold onto kids they hate isn't helping anybody. In the UK, I'm very critical of the state-care of kids, but that's an argument for another day.

@Jig

Well actually until you're 21, a parent is supposed to take care of their children no matter how intolerant they are. And until 18, they are supposed to make all the decisions for the children. So.. yes, it does have legal issues. And yes, the law does in some indirect way account for parents being intolerant.

Doesn't help that shelters for children like this are often lackluster and shitty.

My overall point is I don't care who has sex with whom, but thinking of the consequences on kids that might be born is reasonable. I don't know the science and I don't know where I'd draw the line anyway (so I won't bother looking into it), but, ultimately, at the relationship-level, it's none of my business.

@Jig

Sexually you are right, its not your concern and neither is it mine. Like I said, closed doors, for all couples. Medically I'd be a bit more inclined to say 'hold up, you're gonna be using my tax money to pay, and that's fine, but there's limits.'

As for the science - incest is generally said to be bad because, well, it is bad. But the first generation should be fine. Medieval families were fucked up genetically because they had so much incest (looking at you, Karling family) because they breeded within the own family and often, with close links (King A is brother of king B, son of king A marries king B's daughter, etc.). Blood lines were kept pure at the cost of having people on the throne that we'd put in hospitals nowadays.

It might seem that way in the Netherlands, where you've enjoyed equal marriage for ages. In most other European countries, it's only recently been passed or been on the agenda at all. Once England got access to equal marriage, I noticed the LGB community basically stop protesting, because there was little to protest about (at the legal level) - LGB people had stopped being second-class citizens who had fewer rights than straight people. It's not laughable to be a second-class citizen, which is what the legal lack of provision for the equivalent rights that straight people enjoyed rendered LGB people.

@Jig

But that's exactly my point. There's little to complain about nowadays in most countries. The EU actually enforces that member states offer some degree of equality between people legally.

Which is again my problem with gayprides. It's stopped being about acceptance and instead is a commercialized practice funded by the government.

That's not to say there aren't other marginalised groups or that those groups aren't worth listening to, but at the same time, their issues don't disqualify the importance of LGB issues for LGB people.

@Jig

Agreed, I was just raising the point that there's many smaller groups that do not get benefits simply because they're smaller.

There remain social issues (the whole literal safety of walking around with one's partner), which I sincerely hope will be lessened by the current generation's sexual open-mindedness, but I also think that the law lends a legitimacy to LGB partnerships by putting them on the same footing as straight partnerships, which, at the very least, will give LGB people more confidence that they're accepted socially - and they need some of that.

@Jig

It's all generational, man. In 20 years we'll probably have reached the point where nobody cares anymore bar the religiously devoted.

It sounds like you think LGB issues aren't really a thing in the Netherlands - but you're ahead on LGB issues anyway. So, you might have now found the solution that is publicly accepting LGB people and are perhaps missing the divides that the lack of social and legal acceptance in other countries can cause.

@Jig

Oh no. I mean the USA has a long way to go socially, but what I have been saying is that in most western countries, LGB people are on equal footing already. And the transgenders are coming closer too.

That would be rude.

@Jig

Yeah, I'm a rude person.

Your argument is that somebody's different worldview is legitimate, even if you disagree with them. Pointing and laughing is somewhat incongruous.

@Jig

The idea of fucking your car is legitimate.
It's still funny to me.

Well, you get a variety of people that you've mentioned (amongst others) that the law needs to take into account. LGB people are simply the largest single grouping, as opposed to, say paedophiles, zoophiles, people who're attracted to objects, etcetera. Each of these categories has a smaller cohort than the LGB community, and so the LGB voice is louder. It helps, of course, that LGB people can exist within a framework of adult consent, while the consent of a child, animal or object is much murkier territory.

So, yes, you're right when you say that the LGB community is the most outspoken voice among sexualities - but I'm not really sure who else you're expecting to hear from.

@Jig

Actually, we had a political party here called Party Martijn. They were a group that voted for the acceptance of pedophiles - medically/psychologically. They didn't want pedophilia to be legalized but rather wanted there to be more professional help for people that had pedophilic ideas in their head and wanted these ideas gone.

The general public was not receptive.

A petition was started to ban them from participating even though they legally did everything they had to to become a full fledged political party.

I was never against this party, in fact I kind of supported the idea of it even if I'd never vote for them (one-issue parties are a no-go for me). People, even pedophiles, have a right to democracy in our society, and if they had wanted to legalize pedophilia, I would've accepted that if they were the majority. That's how democracy works.

So, I disagree in the sense that there's other sexualities that want to be heard but that others, including LGBT people, do not want to hear.

_{The part was later disbanded after several high-profile members of party Martijn were arrested for ongoing pedophilia rings. Go figure.}

[Ryker Rohrer]

Gay Pride, Feminism, Black Lives Matter, White Lives Matter, All lives Matter, Homophobes, Gay, Fag, lesbian. There are so many ways in this world to justify one specific movement over another, ways to justify treating like other people like dirt under the guise of principles, religion, persona belief. When I look at the issues in our country, (I will not speak of the world for I can not pretend to be the all know guy) all I ever see is some new slogan for people to rally behind, so that their opinions, their beliefs, their right to exist even makes a difference. But in my not so humble opinion, all this is for nothing in the very end. All these slogans, there groups, these classifications, they only ever serve to cause more pain, more harm to others, and it keeps fueling the segregation between us. Everyday that passes we continue to drift farther apart and we drift apart for nothing more then the fact that we are too blind to see that we as a people are tearing this country apart. Police VS AA, AA VS White, White VS AA, Woman VS Men Men VS Woman, Equality VS Racism, there is literally no end to it.

It would be me easy for me to say I don't see color, and that everyone is equal in this country but the truth is that not everyone is. Its a well known fact by now that being within a minority is no better at times then being a slave back so many years ago. An sometimes its hard to see the difference between then and now, both times have two things well in common and that is Racism and violence. We like to believe we have come a long way but we haven't come far at all, a black man can walk down the street free but can a black man walk the same street without being misjudged? An Iraqi woman can walk down the street with the right to practice what she believes but can she still do so without fear of being attack by those who hate her for her heritage? A white guy walks down the same street but can he walk down that same street when everyone around him feels that he has some special privilege that all white people seem to have? No matter the scenario, no matter the race, the color, the heritage, the history, the country, no matter what makes that person who they are there is no such thing as just walking down a street without a care in the world. We preach of freedom yet do any of us truly know what freedom is?

They say Freedom is one man or womans right to openly live there life how they deem fit as long as it does not infringe upon someone elses life. Yet like everything else in the world people use that very same concept as a reason to attack others they don't deem worthy, or normal in their eye's based on bias opinion or personal belief. Very much like religious people use the bible to condemn same sex marriage and love, just like the bible was used to condone slavery, it was never meant to justify cruelty but people did it anyway because they were free to do so in the name of our country, in the name of god, in the name of satan, the name of anyone they truly believed in and they were able to get away with it and they still do day after day. One of our countries biggest problems is that they abuse the freedom they have for their own personal gain and in the process it hurts the people around them, which makes it not freedom but just a convenient excuse to inflict your will on everyone else.

What I am trying to say really through all of these words is that freedom lost its true meaning long ago, its something to be used against others more then it is used as a spirit of being all men and woman deserve to have. It is a device to harm others, and to protect those same people. We live in a democracy that is true enough, and the more people behind the cause the more powerful the cause, but in the end is still means nothing if everything is lost trying to obtain that goal, everything your working for is lost in the chaos that ensues. This topic was about Homophobia, LGBT+, I may have strayed off topic a bit in my writing but when I look at just one issue facing people in this country it is hard to not see the others as well.

Should people have an opinion? Yes they should because one with a voice is nobody in a world like this. Should people respect other peoples opinions regardless of if you like it or not? Yes people should. Should men be able to happily marry other men and woman happily marry other woman without persecution? Yes they should. Should we be allowed to live our lives how we sit fit so long as we don't infringe on someone elses? Yes we should. But that problem is we never will, there is being hopeful and there is being realistic. We will never see this ever become reality not because our personal opinion or beliefs or religion but we because we are so dead set on dividing ourselves up to the point where we fracture. As long as these groups exist, preaching about whatever they preach about there will never be a peace. 10000 small groups, even if they have millions of members or not will not bring about change, only moving beyond our petty devices and differences and banding together instead of apart can we ever make this country back into what it was meant to be. Again something that seems impossible.

Anyways Iv prattled on enough an I probably came straight up out of left field on this one and probably got off the true topic quite a lot, but I figured I would add in my opinion on the matter.

[Jig]

I mean, I think this is exactly the reason why gay prides are so bloody useless. If it was like a regular old festival, I think it'd do a lot more to show that gay people are just like us straight people, except they like a different sex (namely, the same as theirs). Now it's enforcing that they are different somehow and that enforces the 'different than us = bad' thing that you see in our tribal nature.

@Buddha

I think you're overthinking the division aspects. Everybody's welcome at prides I've been to (except sometimes kids in some areas, because of explicit sexual themes and/or heavy drinking) - it's just gay-themed. Unlike basically every other organisation and event which defaults to being straight-oriented and catering for the majority, and nobody's asking for all events to have a token gay thing for the gays. They just gayly do gay stuff and have a gay old time.

Yes, they are pointing out that people are different, but people are different. It's not saying that different is bad, and people that draw that conclusion are the problem.

Tolerance doesn't mix well with democracy. Like I said, tolerance only has to extend as far as the majority within a country wishes it to extend. There's really .. not much more to it except your personal idea of tolerance.

I mean, tolerance is just that: tolerance. Being unable to tolerate another social group (whether at a personal or governmental level) is still intolerant. It has nothing to do with democracy, although I like to think most people would uphold and vote for tolerant parties and policies.

Let me argue in the name of a religious nut (whether he be Christian, Jewish or Muslim) and say that homosexual sex is in fact dangerous. It does harm people because it means they can't go to paradise/heaven. It does harm people because it is inviting the devil into our society.

Okay, I'll expand my definition to provable harm. A drunk driver has a high chance of doing provable, measurable harm. People are more than welcome to raise the concern that their denominational deity might have an issue with Steve and Carl at it like rabbits next door, but it seems to me to be obvious that that is a supposition that can't be proven and therefore holds little weight as an argument. Burden of proof and all that.

... which is forcing their worldview upon others that do not share this worldview. It's really not that hard, dude. The worldview that everyone should have an equal chance at living their life in the same way as others is a worldview in and of it's own. Even though I agree with this worldview I also acknowledge that it's still just a worldview and not everyone has to agree. The majority believes in this worldview and therefore you'll find that this is the worldview that everyone more or less agrees with.

I agree that there's a paradox in that in order to be truly tolerant, one has to tolerate intolerance. But I don't think it's inconsistent to propose a version of events where LGB do their thing behind closed doors while bigots do their thing behind closed doors and nobody is bothered by anybody. And then either group should have the opportunity to be out and proud, if they'd like to take it.

Because if you disagree, you'll be branded negatively in a social regards

and rightly so? It still boils down to whether people can share or not. People that can't share are on the level of five year-olds, and I don't respect five year-olds or think their arguments tend to be very valuable.

I make it a point to not judge other cultures, ideas or people. Reason being that yes, I can actually see why Wehrmacht soldiers fought for Hitler, and I respect them for fighting for what they thought was right. Yes, I can actually see why Hitler did what he did - I do not agree with it, but I can see why he did it and to a degree I think he deserves some objective respect for building an empire the way he did.

Note that that in no way means I agree we should kill the jews. It just means I can see his ideology, I can understand it, I can still disagree but respect that he fought for it.

And yes, in that regard, I also respect ISIS fighters who fight for their ideology. Because that's what you do.

My point was mostly, you can respect people for doing what they believe in (as opposed to being duplicitous), but if it comes to picking sides - which you have to do in a situation with the intolerant (whose mantra by definition has to be "this bar ain't big enough for the two of us") - I'd like to think most people would pick the tolerant.

On a side-note, I've actually read a lot of Hitler and... I don't understand his ideology. Mein Kampf is a mad rag of random assertions based on nothing that wouldn't scrape a pass in a secondary school essay, as is basically everything else I've read by him. Not that I think I'd be won over by his arguments anyway, they really aren't even arguments. I'm not convinced he wasn't a pioneer of postmodernist irony whose art project got really out of hand.

So no, I don't pick between either of them. They are both right - or at least both think they are right, and therefore, both have a right to defend their claim.

They both have a right to defend their claim. Neither has a monopoly on truth.
It doesn't stop you looking at ISIS fighters and thinking "boy howdy, that's fucked up. I much prefer the other guys".

Although the white people have the most agency, they are also the biggest group that is trying to help LGBT people because they have the agency. I believe this comes more from a PR perspective and they really don't care about LGBT people, but they're still helping.

Which is fine: I don't expect all MPs to have a personal experience of being LGBT, but when they see that laws are unfairly affecting a proportion of society and that that portion of society would like them changed and that society would generally support it (despite it having nothing to do with the rest of society), then that's a completely reasonable thing to do.

I mentioned white people because you brought up challenges interracial relationships can face, and I hadn't had those in mind when suggesting that LGB sexualities have the most challenges.

I'm not

blaming white people for all the shit

Gay community there is big as fuck.

Try the villages. Rural places in the UK are backward as fuck. It's getting better, but they're obviously streets behind metropolitan areas.

Like we discussed before, in most western countries, LGBT people too enjoy the freedom that straight people do. Legally. Most of the time it falls under the umbrella 'no discrimination' laws.

There are also many countries in the Western world that do not recognise equal marriage. In (most of) the UK and in the RoI, it's very, very recent. Again, since you've lived in such a tolerant country that's been very ahead on these issues, maybe it's not such a hot topic for you because it has no reason to be. LGB people in the UK have only been equal citizens for a year or so now.

What you believe [re marriage]doesn't matter in this case.

I'm not saying what I believe marriage should be is how it is. But my argument is internally consistent. The state should treat its citizens equally in a way that doesn't advantage or disadvantage straight couples, LGB couples, or single people, unless it can be proven that any of those humans somehow deserves more or fewer rights than any of the others. I'm a big advocate in the UK of Civil Partnerships being extended to straight people because right now we have a funny situation where LGB people have access to rights that straight people don't, which isn't fair, even if it's a refreshing change of pace.

Well actually until you're 21, a parent is supposed to take care of their children no matter how intolerant they are.

Doesn't help that shelters for children like this are often lackluster and shitty.

Neither of these are really helpful the child, I don't think. A parent that wants to disown their kid isn't going to take good care of that kid just because you force them to keep them.

But that's exactly my point. There's little to complain about nowadays in most countries. The EU actually enforces that member states offer some degree of equality between people legally.

It doesn't enforce equal marriage and, at least in the UK (excluding NI), gay people don't really protest against the government any more because, as you say, there's nothing to really complain about. At the social level, there's still strides to go to make sure that LGBT kids in schools, for example, aren't bulied, but that's the social level.

Which is again my problem with gayprides. It's stopped being about acceptance and instead is a commercialized practice funded by the government.

I think it's now both. But it's not a bad investment from the government, because the big gay prides are big money. It may well leave one with a sour taste in one's mouth, but many many events are funded through advertisement (at least in the UK).

That doesn't take away from all of the good stuff there is in gay prides (which I've already tried to indicate).

Agreed, I was just raising the point that there's many smaller groups that do not get benefits simply because they're smaller.

And one can support both, like I support the very small minority of straight people that would prefer civil partnerships to marriage. And then there are some (we use paedophiles as an example) I go into more detail on lower down.

It's all generational, man. In 20 years we'll probably have reached the point where nobody cares anymore bar the religiously devoted.

Let's hope so.

Oh no. I mean the USA has a long way to go socially, but what I have been saying is that in most western countries, LGB people are on equal footing already. And the transgenders are coming closer too.

The USA and plenty of other places, too. It depends on the locality, and not the location.
But, yes, gay people are finally getting to legal equality: and, at least in the UK, now they have, they broadly don't protest. They might still campaign to change the social landscape, but that's not against the government.

<Snipped quote by Jig>

Yeah, I'm a rude person.

Actually, we had a political party here called Party Martijn. They were a group that voted for the acceptance of pedophiles - medically/psychologically. They didn't want pedophilia to be legalized but rather wanted there to be more professional help for people that had pedophilic ideas in their head and wanted these ideas gone.

[...]

I was never against this party, in fact I kind of supported the idea of it even if I'd never vote for them (one-issue parties are a no-go for me). People, even pedophiles, have a right to democracy in our society, and if they had wanted to legalize pedophilia, I would've accepted that if they were the majority. That's how democracy works.

I don't disagree with any of this, apart from disagreeing that I'd 'accept' paedophilia if it were legalised. I would accept the paedophiles were acting within the law, but would not waive my right to challenge that law because I broadly agree with the UK age of consent as it is.

So, I disagree in the sense that there's other sexualities that want to be heard but that others, including LGBT people, do not want to hear.

Or that are inclined to put their head above the parapet, because nobody wants to be 'the paedo guy' and you've already pointed and laughed at a hypothetical guy who wants to get it on with his car. You're right that there's at least an element of the public not being willing to hear their point of view, but I don't think that's the whole issue, and I don't see the connection between LGBT protests and the silencing of more niche interest groups' rights.

Apart from anything else, the LGB question is quite an easy argument to thrash out. It has nothing to do with the very difficult question of consent, and entirely to do with tolerance. No consenting LGB person can be harmed by another LGB person who also consents, so the argument boils down to whether or not to be tolerant of the act of same-sex, uh, sex and whether the people that do it should be on equal legal footing with those that don't. As you say, much of the West (though I think less of it than you) has broadly decided that it's none of their business, which is nice. The paedophile/zoophile case, meanwhile, both boils down to how one measures consent, who/what is able to give consent, and what 'harm' actually is; it's a messy argument. Animals and kids both have different statuses in terms of legal protection to adults, which is something that would have to be taken into account.

I agree that having that argument is going to be difficult for those groups because they will be shouted down and accused of perversion by both straight and LGB people alike, but that's not the only reason those voices are hard to hear. And it's a shame that people aren't prepared to listen, because frankly there's a damn good argument to be made for being tolerant and understanding of people who are attracted to kids provided they're prepared to not fuck any kids. At the most cynical, there's 'know your enemy', at the most sympathetic, there's 'you're a human being and can't help the way you feel', and, somewhere in the middle, you have 'let us know if there's anything you think we can do to help you not fuck kids'.

I don't normally like the 'born this way' argument because it's normally applied to the LGBT+ community when actually the better argument is 'none of your fucking business'. However, it seems highly unlikely that paedophiles or zoophiles choose their orientation given that at least the former are the #1 acceptable target on basically everybody's list and it's therefore unfair to judge them for who they are. If they fuck a kid, well, that's a crime and they're almost certainly harming the child one way or another*, so judging them by their actions is reasonable as they are a criminal in both the legal and social sense of the word.

*inb4 ripostes about statutory rape and such. Kids are idiots and there's no real way to means-test who is and who isn't 'ready for sex' and therefore able to give legal consent, so the age of consent is by necessity an estimate and somewhat arbitrary. The blanket-ban on sex with people under the age of consent is therefore not exactly neat, but does at least protect those that fall within it that do need protection and provides a very deft legal framework for who can and can't give consent, especially when one takes into account a grooming/domestic abuse scenario, where one side is manipulated - kids being stupid, they're vulnerable to this. That said, I don't think it's unthinkable that a 13 year-old could be mature enough to make decisions about their own sex-lives, but the majority of kids are idiots and need protecting from themselves as much as they need protecting from the big bad wolf. So, yes, a functioning adult that lives an adult life who fucks somebody under the age of consent is playing with someone that should be deemed to be too stupid to say yes unless proven otherwise (which one can't) and that basically falls under the same social category of fucking somebody who is too drunk to clearly give consent.

[Dolerman]

its not gay if you dont know his last name......

[Dion]

@Dynamo Frokane Insightful, just like I've come to expect from you. Mature debate isn't possible with you around innit?

@Jig Get back to you once I'm done playing CSGO.

[Dolerman]

@Buddha I remember you complaining that I was too serious in my unpopular opinions thread, oh look how the tables have turned.

[Dion]

@Dynamo Frokane except this is a serious thread where as yours is a thread full of edgy people doing their best to throw shade what 'subtle' unpopular opinions. That includes me.

Cheers mate.

[Dolerman]

I also want to note that while heterosexuals DO have problems, do they have to worry about holding hands in public? Just a thought I had.

@Neurovoid

@Neurovoid depending on ethnicity, cultural background and their age, yes, they may have that problem.

@Buddha

I think the point that the Neurovoid was making that people dont have to worry about holding hands ont the basis of being heterosexual I'm sure a hetero jewish couple in an anti-semitic area might get shit for holding hands, but that would be because of their faith not because they are straight.

Hetero people just dont get shit for being straight in most of the world in the modern world and in history.