Ex-Gay Watch

Hi Sterling,
When you’re a member of a minority who are deliberately separated from each other, it’s easy to buy into the stereotypes as well. And also the low expectations that come with it.

If you’re taught that those bars, promiscuity, drug use and so on are what gay people do, and what’s expected of you, and you have few examples or opportunity that contradicts that experience, then it’s not hard for a young person especially to fall into that trap that is set for them.

And that trap is set by all the anti gay forces that benefit from it.

I would suggest a prayer circle, book club, PFLAG, you have internet access, you can start a social group that gathers specifically for a healthy supportive environment for you and your gay friends.

I’ve done it myself, for gay teens especially who are the most vulnerable.

The grapevine works eventually and who needs to know will know where the safest, most supportive place is.
A big crowd isn’t necessary, but even though I’m not gay…I do try and understand what you mean.

I’m a black woman. And I hate us being defined by stereotypes too and being treated that way before anyone knows who we are as individuals.

Believe me, I know….if any two of black or gay people were seen talking together, someone voices suspicion as if a conspiracy were in effect.
Annoying as hell, and a sure sign of the bigotry in the individuals who harbor such suspicions over simple and innocuous social contact.

Nonetheless, sometimes you have to be the one to initiate contact and grow a system of support and collective protection.

Stirling, have you considered congregating socially with friends?

I hardly think a lack of openness and opportunity for gay men and women in the rural south is ‘our’ fault. I can understand, intellectually, your self-described battle; but you seem at pains to avoid asking who may be to blame for that situation.

I also don’t need you to demand that I or others “get some values”. There is no monolithic ‘gay community’. There is no monolithic ‘gay scene’.

Nothing you have described is compulsory, and I’ve had no difficulty avoiding drugs, promiscuity or crimes. Bars and clubs are a place to socialise with friends, not visit fugitively. You need to be willing to commit to having a stable relationship before you can have one.

If you don’t like some of your own behaviour, stop it. If you don’t like the behaviour of others, avoid them. If you don’t have decent and supportive friends, find some. If where you live is suffocating you, consider moving. If you cannot yet, make plans. Or don’t.

I’m sorry if that’s all too blunt, but honestly what exactly would you like me or anyone else to personally do for you? Seriously.

I agree. I go to bars and restaurants that are frequented by other gay people at least once a week. As Grant said, there is no “monolithic” gay scene, and I’m in the South too.

Actually, I tend to believe that those who wax moralistic on the evils of the so-called “gay scene tend to be projecting their own internalized self-condemnation onto others, which is not useful.

Sterling (and David)

I was not meaning to be harsh towards you, and I truly apologize if it sounded that way. I absolutely knew you were gay, and i do understand the struggle to unite these two warring halves, though i personally never saw it as much of a struggle.

I will try to write later today if I have time. A lot of what has been said after my comments is what I wanted to say anyway.

while gay culture was created around bar culture, it has expanded into many realms beyond that.

I found my partner through a gay dating site, our 4th Anniversary is in just a few weeks. Neither one of us is a drug addict, we’re monogamous (if that even matters), we go to bed early, do what we can to eat right.

If there isn’t anywhere else for gays to congregate in your area perhaps you’re the one to make such a place exist. When there isn’t a door, you make one.

I have been with my partner for 6 years now. I too understand fully what each of your are saying. The last thing I will say is this, get some values.

The last thing I will say is this, get some values.

That’s an ignorant thing to say about people you don’t know. But, as others have pointed out, it’s not a message we hear infrequently – just usually from anti-gay conservatives.

so maybe I wasn’t being so harsh after all?

I am sorry that you don’t accept me because I do not hold your points of views. Isn’t that what we are fighting against anyway. Yes I am a very conservative gay, republican actually. Doesn’t change the fact that I am gay, it just means that I have strong views and they lean to the conservative side. I don’t believe in gays in the military. I don’t believe in gay marriage. I don’t think it’s appropriate to dress like a woman if you are a man (homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1976, NOT gender identity disorders). I don’t think it’s appropriate to be in a relationship and say, “We allow others into our relationship, we have an open relationship”. I don’t think alot of things are appropriate and I feel it is these things that the world sees and groups us gay men and women in along with the lot of those who shed a negative light on our community. Now you can go ahead and whine and cry and bitch and moan but the truth of the matter is that I believe what I believe. Now you can cry about wanting your way and you can moan about people accepting you just the way you are or your can WAKE UP. I am gay and do not accept certain things that are widely accepted by the gay community or at least tolerated. All under the auspice of “They are just expressing themselves, that’s just who they are”. Not me! I think there are a lot of gay men and women who are waking up to this reality and doing something about it.

So you’re gay, but you don’t believe in your own dignity or freedom of choice, but rather that all of society should live up to whatever dictates have been seared into your conscience.

Got it.

Hi Sterling,
You’re lecturing the people on this thread about things that have nothing to do with being gay.
Not at all.
Such as promiscuity or non monogamous relationships…and there are heteros who don’t like the idea of marriage.

However, regardless of not wanting those things for themselves, they are not on a crusade, nor would engage in one that denies it for OTHERS who want and need it.

Gay people who DO want to marry, have children to secure, are monogamous and committed to serving their country and localities in uniform ARE delivering on the very values that create better things for everyone.

I have a question for you, why would things that are considered HEROIC among straight people to do, are considered the opposite when gay people do it?

The goals are the same, the RESULTS are the same, and the self respect for those involved is the same, so how can one be good when it’s straight only, and bad when gay people accomplish it?

Fair question.

Despite systemic discrimination that works against gay people accomplishing more than allowed, it’s remarkable how many manage it anyway, and not surprising and an unfair indictment if many don’t.

You’re very contradictory in so many ways. The point isn’t how YOU feel about marriage and military equality for gay people, because the straight majority agrees with you.

The point is the gay population having the same choices, regardless of being gay or whatever they feel about it, the SAME as straight people.

Being obtuse about that reality isn’t making your case.

Sterling,

I think you misunderstand what it means to be either conservative or Republican.

Interestingly, there are two organizations right now that represent gay Republicans. One is moderate and the other is very conservative.

But both favor open service in the military and marriage equality. Because both are based on principles that include equal access to civil law and freedom to achieve each person’s potential. These are conservative principles.

And as for the whining and moaning I’m hearing… well, let’s just say that no one else is saying, “you don’t accept me”

Gay’s in the military pose a security threat to the unit they are in. I know how I am treated today without being in the military. It is not a question of heroics or bravery, more a question of security. Imagine a gay soldier in war who is in a unit with some who strongly disagrees with who they are. Will they assist that person when they need it. Will they put that person in a more dangerous situation than lets say one of their buddies who is not gay. The issue is not being gay in the military but what ramifications it holds in the unit and overall operations in a war. Not that a gay man or woman cannot serve or doesnt have what it takes. As for marriage? Marriage is a biblical institution. Why would we want to align ourselves with the very faction of society that is persecuting us. To have a union with the exact same rights as those who do marry would be the ticket. I just believe that MARRIAGE was and is for a man and a woman. Period.

Gay’s in the military pose a security threat to the unit they are in. I know how I am treated today without being in the military. It is not a question of heroics or bravery, more a question of security. Imagine a gay soldier in war who is in a unit with some who strongly disagrees with who they are. Will they assist that person when they need it. Will they put that person in a more dangerous situation than lets say one of their buddies who is not gay. The issue is not being gay in the military but what ramifications it holds in the unit and overall operations in a war. Not that a gay man or woman cannot serve or doesnt have what it takes.

This is a serious argument? You could ban all manner of people from the military for the same reasons. Ban Christians. Ban atheists. Ban Muslims. Ban Republicans. Ban Democrats. Ban blacks. Any soldier who can’t tolerate being in the same unit as someone with whom he “strongly disagrees” is not fit to be a soldier.

“Not that a gay man or woman cannot serve or doesnt have what it takes.
”
So the problem is, once again, not gay people, but straight people.

Here is something I wrote to another self-hating gay man. I don’t have time to edit it to apply to just you, but if the shoe fits, wear it.

You’re a gay man– excuse me, you’re a homosexual. I would never have guessed. I just thought you were a garden variety bigot. Surprise, you are a carefully taught homosexual. And, as you know, you must be carefully taught.

so, here are two related questions for you to answer, the first of a pile of them I hope you will answer. Pulled from Boys in the Band, it seems particularly apropos, especially since you didn’t answer my previous lengthy essay directed towards you and your good buddy Dick Wood.

Why do you hate yourself so much? And why are you so invested in it? Actually, I know the answers. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Transactional Analysis!

And along the same lines, why is it so necessary to you that other gay people hate themselves as much as you do? and why, a la exodus, NARTH, and the whole of the AXIS (Anti-eX-gay-Industry-Stupidity) powers, is it necessary that people in general hate gay people, or at least deny them normal participation in society?

DADT doesn’t go far enough, in your opinion. Why? Are YOU so unfit to serve? Can YOU not be trusted in the showers? Are YOU such a misfit that you can undermine unit cohesion? Can you say “projection”? Does any of NARTH’s psychobabble include studies on THAT?

Are YOU such a danger to family, children, faith, freedom, and all that is decent and holy in the world that YOU should not be allowed to marry another man? You give yourself far more credit, and powers far beyond those of mortal men. Actually, no you don’t! NARTH does, because then they can deal with their own demons. and make money out of it to boot. And get a bit of social approval from people who would otherwise despise them. It’s a win-win-win situation, except for the victims.

Marriage is a biblical institution, as in “It is better for a man to marry than to burn?” How can you claim to be a conservative when you don’t know that marriage is a civil institution? Meaning, how can oyu know so little yet claim a title to anything htat requires some reading and some thought?

Your problem is not your homosexuality, your problem is your self hatred. Fix that, and I think your “objections” will easily give way to an improvement called OBJECTIVITY.

Here’s something for you to consider as well. I’m not gay positive because I am not objective, because I have failed to consider the garbage the AXIS powers produce in their quests to earn a living, punish themselves for who they are, or anything else. I’m gay positive because in my 59 years, I’ve seen next to nothing of the gay-negative stuff prove to be anything but plain old bigotry, whether dressed up in its Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes, or admitted for what it is– fear and hatred.

I will freely admit, because I am objective, that there are some things in the “gay lifestyle” that I think are bad– sexual promiscuity among SOME gay men, for example. And I say that as a former, major, big-time slut. But I love my husband and my totally monogamous marriage of seven years. I’m also objective enough to realize that the Church and the AXIS powers have spent decades, if not centuries and millennia, doing everything they can to make sure that we gay people are as marginalized, stereotyped, repressed, and as deviant-ified as possible. They’ve succeeded brilliantly with you, much to your detriment. (William’s advice that you just move on is quite good. You should follow it). Not surprisingly at all, when such major efforts are made to marginalize, the objects of the marginalization react as they are expected to. It’s just basic sociology, which I happen to have a couple of degrees in, and one of the things that taught me about– guess what?– objectivity.

Teach gay men that their lives are worthless, that they are deviants, that their lives are only about sex and sexual gratification, and that nothing else, especially true and abiding love, is possible for them. Allow them to be men and act as many men would if given the opportunity, and then act surprised and shocked– SHOCKED!!!!– that that is how they behave. The REAL surprise is that so many gay people have rejected that pernicious, vicious nonsense over the centuries, and more and more are doing so all the time. We have a whole generation that is growing up with a brand new idea– that they can live normal, fulfilled lives. Too bad you can’t. Your life would be so much better. And the Catholic church could actually be doing something for the poor, as Jesus demanded, rather than paying out billions of dollars because of its pedophile priests. Jesus said NOTHING about that.

As I’ve said in another context, the real surprise is that so many gay relationships, and gay people, succeed and thrive despite all of the social forces arrayed against them, while so many heterosexual relationships– and people– fail despite all of the social forces arrayed to support them. That alone is sufficient evidence about the innateness of homosexuality, that it is neither better nor worse than being hetero. It just IS, and THAT is objectivity for you!

I’m gay positive because I recognize a shoddy defense of flim-flam when I see it. I’m gay positive because I have seen very little in my life that supports that flim flam. And the little that does can be traced to the hatred, fear, self-loathing, and their expression and support through religious and spiritual idiocy, not through anything innately connected with being gay. There is not one true thing that could be said about gay people in general that could not be said about straight people in general except this– we prefer members of our own sex for love, sex, and romance. And even that, thanks to Ted Haggard and his ilk, is not as true as it might be. Anything after that, you’re just making it up. And what you’re making up just boils down to one of three statements: I hate queers, my religion tells me to hate queers, or anything about sex scares the living bejesus out of me.

Eliminate what is so carefully taught, and you will finally come up with a new reality– gay people will finally be no better– and no worse– than straight people.

The argument my friend is that people in this country feel strongly about homosexuality insomuch as to kill them. I think the murdering of christians has long ceased as being ok. I think the hanging of blacks is no longer looked at in a good light, right. But the feelings and emotions emitted from one that has strong emotions about another being gay is way to strong to have that conflict in out military. Yes there are a lot of things that people dont agree on but when it is a subject that has some humans going out and killing another for who they are…? Well its clear to me that the subject is not one to be wrangled over. Until the world sees us for who we are and doesnt go out and tie one of us up to a fence and beat us to death, then I say NO GAYS IN THE MILITARY. Period.

Sterling,

You are entitled to you opinions. Each of us are.

But it is my opinion that you have not carefully thought through your suppositions and are, instead, retreating to an identity that you think determines what you must believe.

Folks aren’t rejecting your views because you are conservative; they’re rejecting them because you are making pointless silly arguments in support of them.

And, just for your info…

Ending an argument with “Period.” doesn’t make it seem more true or authoritative. It only makes you seem strident, close-minded, and unwilling to consider alternate viewpoints.

Ben you babble on about nothing. I love myself and who I am. You just want your cake and eat it too. Are you too much of an idiot to see that I have no effect on the man that looks at me and says I should just kill myself because I am a waste to humanity. That I have no effect on the man who just last month threw a sign in my yard that says die faggots. YOU ARE A GODDAMN IDIOT to think that a lot of straight men would not want to see harm done to one of us. Wake up. Less than 3% of the world is gay. Where does that leave you. Standing there looking stupid. Wake the heck up folks.

David, you are quite right. I did have this much to say, so I will.

Good for you. It’s not about self-hatred. The jury is probably out on that one, but I’l take your word for it.

You just want to protect us from those mean old straight people out there. So it is really just about fear. I suppose that is better than self-hatred, at least for you.

But i have a BETTER idea. Why don’t we try to educate people instead? Why don’t we stand up for ourselves? Why don’t we try to eliminate one more fear-based mindset in the world, instead of cowering in the corner hoping they won’t hit us?

Guys, please stop feeding the troll. This is a typical case of concern trolling by a heterosexual who claims to be a gay man who is so afraid for the safety of the gays.

Sterling, years ago, I was friends with a Jewish family that had newly arrived in the US from Russia.
I have known black members of my family deeply affected by Jim Crow.

In that Jewish family, their eldest boy said he hated being Jewish. Not surprising that he felt that way, the USSR made life extremely harsh on the Jewish who were not free to be educated about it, congregate or be a part of their faith culture.
That boy broke my heart when he said it.
And RIGHT AWAY, I told him what would be needed for him to heal that tear in his heart, appreciate his roots and get to know the diversity of Jewish life in our neck of Los Angeles.
I have done the same for gay youth for a lot of the same reasons.
There are some essential similarities in what one is conditioned to know, be and expect when part of one or ALL of those minorities.

Self respect is attacked and damaged DELIBERATELY.

You think you might love yourself, but you have no love or respect for OTHER GAY PEOPLE, which is just as bad or worse.

While I was talking to my young Jewish neighbor, my best girlfriend sat beside us and listened to what I told this boy, whose family we cared about. And my gf was the one who was Jewish, born in post war Romania.

But there we were, from as disparate a situation as you can imagine, and yet…thoroughly on the same page.

History, and one’s firm grasp of it will do that.
You Sterling, aren’t caught up to the rest of us. You fell WAY behind and haven’t yet appreciated that’s what happened.

You have no sense of the sort of inherent obligation one has when belonging to the groups we do who have a history of being denied their very humanity and equal status and the standards that go with them.

I’m not gay, I’m not even Jewish. But there are no gay people that have told me I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Same for Jewish people for that matter.

So it’s interesting that from a thread where the majority is gay, you’re being challenged on what you say.

You might want to consider why that is.

See majorities have been exceptionally wrong before when it’s come to understanding what civil equality means. Especially to those traditionally denied before.

Equality, and justice have an acceptable, exceptionally righteous and socially moral LEGACY that systemic bigotry and civil discrimination never have.

Consider that too, more than Biblical interpretation, more than ideology that demands it’s power come at the very expense of equality and how little time gays and lesbians have had in owning their identity for themselves.

Even if you feel not so obligated to support other gay people, and if you’re going to get in YOUR own way, fine.
But you better get the f**k out of the way of other gay folks.
Otherwise, it puts you in a position you’ll hate even more later on.

Another thought.
I think what I’m trying to say is, Sterling…

I know it’s hard to live as a gay person. But if you don’t have enough brass to step up, at least say THAT, instead of denigrating those who do and calling it something else.

It takes a LOT of courage in some quarters to be an unapologetic gay person who is fighting the status quo.

If gay soldiers didn’t step up, and BIGOTRY were allowed to prevail over honesty in uniform, then that would be very wrong.
And NOTHING towards the better would be accomplished, would it?

I sit here a black woman supremely grateful to my family and all the other black people who took whatever risks, indignity and so on that I could be free to be who I am.
And I’ll be damned if I’ll sit and enjoy it, while gay folks take these same risks and indignities without ME putting the time in.
I know some people aren’t born or understand being an activist or what might be asked of them.

But you putting down those that DO carry on without running from the challenges that get tough isn’t right, let alone forgivable and forgettable.
And doing it in front of the very people who CAUSE and maintain homophobia in the first place is another wrong piled on.

And I shouldn’t be the one that had to tell you.

“Gay’s in the military pose a security threat to the unit they are in. I know how I am treated today without being in the military. It is not a question of heroics or bravery, more a question of security.”

Uh. So you’re saying the Israeli army is weaker than ours? Or you’re saying that the thousands of American servicemembers who ALREADY serve openly pose a threat? My military family would argue back, but we’re currently laughing.

“Marriage is a biblical institution. Why would we want to align ourselves with the very faction of society that is persecuting us.”

Wrong. Marriage predates the Adam & Eve myth. By several thousand years, actually.

That’s all the response necessary. The troll is most likely not an actual gay man, but a self-hating wingnut. Hell, it could be David Benkof, crawling out from under some rock. Have you checked IPs?

“You think you might love yourself, but you have no love or respect for OTHER GAY PEOPLE, which is just as bad or worse.”

Worth the price of admission right there, Regan.