Now that he has repeated the behavior in a way that just happens to be uncomfortable to you, you feel the need to distance yourself. It's ironic because his latest post comes in a context that clearly identifies it as satire, albeit very poor quality. Not so for the original post: an off-handed gratuitous smear that was just simply in poor taste.
Nick Seraphin wrote:
Well now that Alex is imploding himself on the list, whether he really is a bigot or not, he sure wants us all to think he is. So I'm not defending Alex anymore. However, I stand by my original position that what he said, if it had been said by anyone else, should STILL not be considered a bigoted statement, and that taken out of the context of Alex's other statements, this by itself was not worth Matthew or anyone else blowing a gasket over. Alex's implosion hurts my argument by association because he was the original subject, but again, said by anyone else who doesn't make other contextual statements to support it, the "gay" thing was not worth getting upset over, nor is it, by itself, bigoted. -- Nick On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Brent Wagner wrote:For what it's worth: I won't do business with Alex, because his comment was juvenile. And, yes, there has been a pattern of mistreatment of homosexuals for a long, long time. And yes, it seems about as bad ( to me, at least ) as mistreating someone due to race. But, we're each entitled to our own opinions and actions in response. So, like I said, I won't deal with Alex. Not because I believe that he's a homophobe, or a racist, but because I don't believe that a comment like the one made by him is remotely mature or professional. By the way, I'm about as conservative as they come. Your assertion that condemning pejoratives is somehow liberal is silly.On Nov 14, 2007, at 12:47 PM, Nick Seraphin wrote:On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Matthew Rubenstein wrote:You're going way off the deep end here, buddy. First, *I* never used the word. I'm simply saying that calling Alex a bigot for using it in the wayPeople call something that isn't a sexual human "gay" to insult it,because lots of people have treated gay people as really bad things. Wedon't say a bargainer tried to "jew us down" any more, either, even though "Jew" isn't a bad word when referring to Jewish people (except when people mean it that way).When you use the term for a group of people as an insult to something, you are insulting those people. If people called some things "christian" as an insult, for example, the way people have called things "gay" as aninsult for a long time, then "that thing is christian beyond words" would insult not just the thing, but christians, too.he did is totally going overboard. I'm simply defending Alex on thisbecause I don't think it was the end of civilization like you seem to beindicating now.You sound absolutely ridiculous. Go back and read what you just wrote. You're implying that calling an inanimate object "gay" is as bad as makingBlack people sit on the back of the bus in the 1950's. You're being totally irrational.Because I defended Alex's benign comment, you now called me a bigot and a racist (where did racism come into this? Is being gay now it's own race?) and "people like [me]" are the reason there's oppression in the world andwhy life is so horrible in this country. You're obviously liberal politically from your statements below... aren't liberals supposed toDEFEND free speech and the first amendment? Or maybe you only defend YOURright to free speech? Anyone who disagrees with you is a bigot or a racist. Classic lines from the MoveOn.org playbook for arguments. I suppose anytime you don't agree with someone, you just "gang upon them" and beat them into submission until they succumb to your pointof view? Doesn't that make YOU the oppressive one here?If calling something "gay" is such a bigoted slur, then why don't I see any outrage from the community at all the thousands of times I've seen itused on TV or in movies in the past 10 years alone? REAL slurs, like the N-word, don't get used on broadcast televisionanymore and haven't for years. Yet I've often heard actors on broadcasttelevision saying something is "gay" or "so gay".If it's such a horrible thing to say, where's the outrage over it's common use in everyday life? Don't tell me this mailing list is the first timeyou've ever seen someone use that word that way in recent history.Or what about all the times in TV or movies where there's a situation inwhich someone questions whether another man is gay or not, and theyflinch, give a horrified facial expresion, and say "God No!"... that's not more insulting to gay people than Alex calling an inanimate object "gay" on a mailing list with a tiny fraction of the viewers of any TV network?You think what Alex did was worse? Yet the other thing is clearly acceptable in today's society.I guess Hollywood (which is full of gay people too) didn't get your memo.Any other common words or phrases we have to stop using on here so as tonot offend you or oppress you?This is a basic point of elementary manners. Ask yourself if you wouldGeez, Just call me Hitler so I can invoke Godwin's Law already. You'refeel safe in a gay bar full of gay bikers, asked if you like the new version of Windows, and you replied that you didn't, LOUDLY, saying "THAT IS SO GAY". Would you feel safe? Would your rationalizations protect you?You're one of those people who thinks you've carved out a whole zone of bad behavior because you call rules against it "politically" correct, asif the behavior is actually correct, but there's some arbitrary rule against it. "Politically correct" refers to all kinds of correct behavior that had to be forced on bigots by oppressed groups, becausebigots, usually in the majority, could be stopped only by a "political"process, like long appeals like this one to people's sense of decency buried under their convenient traditional bigotry. People like you have long insisted from your conveniently protectedroles in society that all kinds of ethnic slurs are OK. But their common use is a reminder to people they insult that the insults are accepted,will not be opposed, that the insulter has power to offend that theinsulted does not have power to stop. The reality is referred to by theinsult. To remind everyone that the target is an acceptable victim,which perpetuates the abuse. Including physical and political abuse. Gay people, even in America, are often second class citizens, with all kinds of rights and privileges denied them. And your calling something "gay" as an arbitrary insult to it is helping keep it that way. If you don't understand that, it's because you understand nothing about politics orhow large groups of people operate. And now you're defending your ignorance, just because it's convenient to you.almost there with the above statements anyway. :-)I didn't say that making that slur was the sole action keeping everyone down. But it is part of it. And people failing to confront those little, everyday abuses is the essential part of it. Every time a White personWell based on that statement, I now know you're a far-left liberal nut and there's no way I can win this argument with you, so I'm not even going to try. Go ahead and claim victory... tell me "you're giving up because you know you're wrong" or whatever canned phrase liberals are using this week.in Alabama let a bus driver direct a Black person to the back of thebus, or any other of the little acceptable codes of racism was indulgedrather than confronted, the racism was kept propped up by the person going along as much as by the person enforcing it.I also didn't say anything about "Christmas". But your bringing it up refers to you acting like there's some kind of "war on Christmas", theidiotic culture war that lets privileged people like you act likevictims, when you're not. A sad perversion of what Christmas is supposed to stand for: the birth of someone who brought compassion for everyone, no matter their station, regardless of how socially acceptable it was totreat some people like animals or objects.You've proven you're irrational, and I don't have time to waste arguingwith an irrational person. If someone else, who isn't irrational, wants to discuss this with me privately, I'll be happy to continue off-list.Bigotry is *real*. It ruins lives. Just because you're privilegedYes... calling an inanimate object "gay" is ruining lives. The bodycount must be in the thousands. Got to be George Bush's fault! Just likeKatrina!BTW, ending your excuses with an insult and a smiley doesn't make itOK. And your saying that your bigotry is no big deal, just because *you*are so casual about it, doesn't mean it really is like that.It wasn't an insult. Again, you see something where it doesn't exist.My God, I still cannot believe that you went this ape over Alex's comment.I'm literally shaking my head in disbelief as I type this. -- Nick _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz--------------------- "If you can't do something smart, do something right."_______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
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