Tim, I think that many people in the LGBT community, along with myself agree with you. I am personally very boring in regards to the uniqueness quotient, but I love my “out there” people very much. Some get on my nerves and my mother’s old saying comes to mind, “Children will do what ever it takes to get attention regardless of of whether that attention is negative or positive”.
Sadly, the LGBT community is not cohesive enough orchestrate everyone under the umbrella to move and act in unified manner at all times. I often admire the Japanese for this trait, but it takes all kinds to create an open and excepting culture. We are all only finding our way along in this journey, in the final analysis.
When I think about the ways homophobes think about gay people, two things come to mind: they think they're queer, as in deviant, and they are just in it for the sex, again deviant. I don't think this is any big observation, it's pretty obvious what homophobes think. So why is it that the LGBT community seems to play into the homophobes hands so much? I've heard numerous ads on the radio for example of lectures or events at respected colleges about "Queer Politics" or "Queer Art in New York" or whatever. I can just see some homophobe saying "see, even THEY know they're queers and deviants". And then I see various gay pride parades where the emphasis seems to be on being sexual and flaunting it in public. Again, this is playing into the homophobes hands. I just don't get it. If anything I would think the LGBTs would focus more on Modern Family type approaches, or things that show LGBTs as being normal people just like everyone else. Thoughts?You would, but no movement can control the fringes. That's the problem. There are always extremists and rebels who insist in doing things their own way and are blind to the consequences to the group. L
Focussing on the poor behavior of some in no way justifies withholding their civil rights or makes them less worthy of those rights. In another thread, we all discussed the Facebook page that is about “Mary should have gotten an abortion!”. Many people here defended that extreme behavior and would not accept that it was probably unproductive for the humanist/secularist/atheist movements. I think the reason this was defended was because of anger toward theists and religion. Well, I think “in your face” gay people are also reacting out of anger. Anger doesn’t make people wrong, but it doesn’t win very often either. I don’t think humanist anger is any more or less justified than gay anger. Both have very good reasons to be angry. It does not change that fact that even poorly behaved people still deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else.
I recall when, at 17, I had just joined the Young Democratic Club, complaining to our elder advisor about the extremist “liberals” who could upset people and hurt the liberal cause. He responded that, while it was true that conservatives would be annoyed, the loud-mouth extremists stir up and motivate the normally passive people with simliar but milder views to actually get involved. I think the same reasoning can work for the LGBT community.
Occam
And back to the feminist era, why is that we saw women going topless, being “mouthy”, demanding birth control (all qualities that could be labeled as “anti-family” or damaging to the core “cause” and equal standing in society?
To me, public displays often turn into a lot of stereotypes. I didn’t grow up during the feminist era (I am 27), but the above is what I was “taught” by my mother (right or wrong) about what that era and movement was like. Oh and lets net even get started on race and how certain races would have been treated better if they “acted better.”
I’ve been to gay pride events and a lot of the displays that may be more “extreme” and provoke opposition are probably rooted in a desire to say, “hey, people have the right to be different and often taboo displays are used to get attention and show just that”, such as women burning their bras during a feminist movement. Much of it may not make sense at an initial observation level, but it’s symbolic.
The best thing to do when trying to get people to do and understand something new is to ignore the cranky and insulting criticism and the inane symbolism and get on with your agenda. There were intelligent feminists in the feminist era just as there are intelligent people with more recent positions, such as gay rights. You just have to rise above the rabble and look for reasonable people.
You see LGBT people being normal every day. When you go to your 4th of July parade this year, you'll see them on the firetrucks, one might give you some candy, one might even be sitting in the convertible with the mayor. They'll look normal. BECAUSE THEY ARE NORMAL. If that doesn't make sense to you, then the only way to read your question is, "Why don't those gays just be quiet. They can be gay if they want, I just don't to see it." You don't have that right. Any more than you have a right to not see people dressing up in green and dancing in the streets and flaunting their right to drink beer every March 17th. If you want the right to be yourself, you don't act like everyone else. The problem is not that LGBT are not acting like whatever definition of family you mean, the problem is, people don't recognize that gay couples are equally capable of providing society with all the benefits of family that every other version of couple has throughout history. They don't have a special parade showing that, because that is every other parade. They're already in the normal parade.Standing ovation. :-)
The difference is, heterosexuals, as heterosexuals, aren't fighting for marriage equality, against bigotry, etc.Plenty of them are.