I Think We Gays Already Know Something About Outreach

[bluedawg12]

I think we gays know something about outreach and politics, just ask Mary Cheney and Candy Gingrich.

I think we know gays know something about outreach and dialogue at the dinner table, around the hearth and with our “friends,” that our straight friends who encourage us to “just reach out and all will be worked out eventually,” don’t.

Some have said that the gay rights movement is “not identical to the AA civil rights movement.”

Others have said, if we don’t engage our opponents, nothing ventured nothing gained, “why just look at the AA civil rights movement.”

To be clear, as I understand it the two have civil rights in common. Therefore, to quote then Candidate Obama they are “parallel” civil rights movements.

There is one difference though, as this story illustrates, bigotry is an irrational prejudice, but the underlying social impetus that keeps anti-gay bigotry reinforced in society comes from the pulpit of many - not all- denominations and the group norms are reinforced every week. That's quite an uphill battle for gays.

Many Churches spoke up against the immorality of racial bigotry, whereas today, many Churches speak up against the immorality of homosexuality. The prejudice is ingrained, reinforced and gives a sense moral superiority to even the most unlikely speaker.

That’s what came to mind when I read about the girl in this story.

This Christmas story is a good illustration of ingrained bigotry and why outreach is not a simple matter of dialogue and why if we wait to change minds and hearts before we fight to change laws, we will wait till the end of time.

http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/
My Christmas 2008
Timothy Kincaid
December 26th, 2008

[xchrom]

1. anti-lbtiq bigotry is SO deeply ingrained

in culture -- that is hard to see all the threads that make it up.

i think that straight people think when we come out -- we come out into a happy raucus party -- or something like that.

that we automatically have a our families at our support -- and we don't.

it's why away from the computer -- i don't really like the company of straights.

[closeupready]

3. "don't really like the company of straights" - heh, you and me both, sister

It amuses me to no end how men who claim to be straight or "straight-acting straight appearing" think that all gay men have a fetish for "straight" men.

There certainly is no dearth of openly gay men who are completely dateable and sexy and everything a gay man could want in another man. So, please, no I won't be hanging out in "straight" bars (where you'll find handfuls of gay men trolling for the 'straight-acting straight-appearing straight man', lol), no I won't count all that many straight people among my friends.

I prefer gay people for my friends and family, thank you very much. And also, of course, bi people, because of course, they don't have the sexual/identity hangups that "straight" people do.

[bluedawg12]

4. That brought up an interesting notion - bigotry about sexuality

can hit home with every person.

In another words, one could have just been distanced from civil rights equality by saying: OK, so what, if that group gets their rights, I don't have to eat with them, have them to the house, my kids will never grow up to be "that" group.

Whereas, everyone has some stake in sexuality. Some project it onto themselves, the "eeew," defense.

"Eeew, I wouldn't want "them" hitting on me."

Or, "Eeew, I am disgusted by them."

Everyone has some emotional response to sexual themes where as, it is easier to give over to pleas for justice when it is more of an abstraction: "Sure, they should have access to jobs, and housing..etc"

This fight is unique and much more difficult to even win over progressives, I think, for those reasons.

[xchrom]

8. yep -- you're hitting the nail on the head. nt

[mitchtv]

11. me too

I follow what Bian says on QAF "there are two kinds of strates : those who hate you to your face and those who hate you behind your back". I realize we have many wonderful allies, but until I know better, they are strates.

[patrice]

2. Yep. The Churches have their thumb on the scales and pretending that they don't will KILL outreach.

If it were I, I would be "handicapping" various categories of feedback, bracketing different kinds of sources for a "tournament".

[bluedawg12]

5. Outreach is part of the armamentarium but not the top tactic.

[patrice]

6. Agreed. True Priorities must be clear at all times.

I used to teach highschool seniors, so I see this from a semi-fluid systems perspective, though objectives change for various circumstances, those changes have to be defined sets of alternatives (plus one ((or more?)) "wild card((s))" perhaps) that ALWAYS serve where you're going and that includes the wild-card(s). There needs to be at least a potentially identifiable relationship.

:hi:

[bluedawg12]

7. When considering fluid systems recall the route of least resistance.

The wild card notion is valid.

It is historically, in battle, the reach around your enemy move and flank them, tactic.

The danger with flanking is encirclement.

If flanking fails, one might find themself surrounded by the enemy.

The issue then becomes, what is a good flanking maneuver?

Flanking requires, surprise by the enemy, a good exit strategy and overwhelming force when the maneuver is launched.

Premature flanking can lead to unplanned failures.

Edit to add: :hi: heh heh got caught up typing :)

[patrice]

9. This clarifies/limits the definition of outreach for me and adds a higher order principle

that I very much agree with.

:grouphug:

Happy NEW Year, bluedawg12!

[bluedawg12]

10. good dialogue, patrice!

Happy New Year to you and yours, patrice!

:grouphug:

After thought: don't you wish we had a crytal ball, to know what we will all be discussing as important one year from now? heh heh.

That would be so cool.

[Creideiki]

12. Most of the religious arguments against civil rights for gays

and same-sex marriage are rife with the Appeal to Tradition logical fallacy.

[bluedawg12]

13. That's why those who cling to those fallacies aren't changing

anytime soon.

The story in the OP was just so frustrating, been there, had that debate all I ever hear: "but it's just wrong." :banghead: