Mr. Gay Pride: The Blog

Fiting antihomosexual bigots can be time-consuming, but I had a few hours when I didn't want to do anything else. So I checked out the online comments at a Yahoo News story about President Obama mentioning Stonewall and gay rights in his Inaugural Address ("Obama lauds progress on gay civil rights in inaugural address"), January 21, 2013, and responded to many. Here are 54 substantive posts that gay men might enjoy reading. (I made other comments that were not specific to gay matters, or which made the same points made in the comments below.) Some offer useful argumentation for other gay people's run-ins with antigay bigots.

Would that it were true [that we are witnessing the demise of hatred]. The demise of hatred will happen only as the haters die. Fortunately, a million a year are dying in this country and not being replaced. (2.5M people of all types die; most ARE replaced, but not the haters.)

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Brucieboy, pls cite chapter and verse to Jesus's stance on homosexuality. We're WAITING!

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Brian, I like that "Bible buffet" concept. True Christians are wonderful people, who heed the Golden Rule (which sounds like an exact description of homosexuality), mind their own business, and let "God" judge. Our problem is that there is a small but extremely vocal group of anti-Christians posing as Christians, who give Christianity a bad name.

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Yes, all hate-crime laws ARE discriminatory. They should all be repealed, as applies to everyone. Pls note that I am the guy who in 1970 proposed "Gay Pride" as it is now used. I don't care if somebody attacks or robs me because I'm gay, or white, or old, or just available. It is the crime that matters, not the victim.

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Stupidity is an abomination.

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Actually, Obama is appealing to our better selves, and trying to lead us to a better morality, one closer to the Golden Rule. Read the Golden Rule, aloud. It expressly covers gay men. If you can't read it, or don't understand it, ask somebody better than you. That would be almost everybody.

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ProBono, there was nothing ridiculous about fearing Communism in the 1950s. In 1956, Soviet troops were killing people in Eastern Europe, Ho Chi Minh was starting his war of mass murder to take over South Vietnam, and Communist movements were killing people in a dozen countries, from Latin America to Southeast Asia. One such movement killed a large proportion of an entire country, Cambodia. Do not be naive: Communists killed 110 million people under their control, and many millions more in wars to TRY to take control. THAT is not the issue here. The claim that somehow President Obama is a Communist is just insane, and NO ONE really believes it. Even the people who SHOUT it on message boards don't believe it.

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Ranch, you did NOT choose your orientation. You may have felt strong homosexual temptations and chosen not to act on them, but that is not the same thing. As for 'best country in the world', this MIGHT be that except for about 80M evil people in the South and other benited areas, who keep dragging us down.

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Rome is still with us. The U.S. Capitol is a fantastic Roman building. 2/3 of our vocabulary is from Latin. Christianity was the state religion of the late Roman Empire, and on, and on, and on.

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Yes, prayer WAS taken out of the public schools, tho there are always people who do not respect other people who keep trying to sneak it in again.

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This is an extremely rich and generous country. We can do many things at the same time [such as holding a great celebration on Inauguration Day and tak[ing] care of other responsibilities]. Our own kids ARE fed, by their own parents or with help from Food Stamps. Many kids abroad are also fed by foreign aid, but the Radical Right wants such aid (which is only 1% of the Federal budget) ended, because they WANT foreign kids to starve to death. I don't know why, but that conclusion is inescapable in their desire to end foreign aid.

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Pls stop making things up. There is ZERO support for an antidemocratic world government on the part of Liberal Americans.

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Poll after poll has shown that the majority of Americans favor gay marriage and gay civil rights in the workplace. YOU are the one in the minority. You LOST. Go away and be quiet.

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So you believe in your heart of hearts that if men are allowed to choose, ALL men would choose sex and love with men, not women? What an interesting take! Almost as interesting as your suggestion that people preceded dinosaurs.

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Listen carefully and try to remember: This is the richest country in the history of the world. We can afford EVERYTHING. We just have to tax the right people, who have more than they can ever use.

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Marriage is NOT about procreation, and people who do not have children -- and never intended to have children when they got married -- are still married. Marriage is about keeping the shortsighted human creature in a stable relationship past a rocky stretch, so that when s/he passes the time of troubles, s/he and his/her partner are still together for the better times to come. And it is about creating stronger social units than just one individual, alone against the world. Marriage saves Government enormous amounts on healthcare, senior care, etc. It is a BARGAIN for society.

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There are lots of rights that married people have that unmarried do not. For instance, if your wife/husband is in a terrible accident and is in the hospital, you have the RIGHT to see him/her and make medical decisions that may affect them for life, or even end their life. If your partner dies without a will, you inherit. Married people are entitled to live together in a house in areas where unrelated people are NOT allowed to share a house. And on, and on. If you really don't know how many rights are built into legal marriage, do a little research, with online search strings like "how many rights in marriage" or "what are the rights and obligations of marriage".

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The Ten Commandments are JEWISH, not Christian, 10 of the 613 commandments of Judaism. Pls don't pick and choose which of those 613 you will obey and which not. All or nothing, buddy. There is no such thing as God, and before you dare tell us we must live by His rules, you need to prove his existence. You cannot do that, because God does not exist.

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So if the law were that everyone can marry, but not anyone they love, that would be acceptable equality to you? No it wouldn't. You are a very clumsy propagandist. But I wouldn't forbid you to marry somebody you love. You insist on forbidding me from marrying somebody I could love. You are a bad person.

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Flagged for that ludicrous "vermin" reference. As for Rome, it lasted, West and East, about 2,206 years, and Roman civilization is here, now, evidenced in magnificent Roman buildings such as the U.S. Capitol, in the vocabulary of English, in Christianity (the Empire's official religion), etc. Greece was incorporated into the Roman Empire, where it contributed mightily to Roman civilization and thus to our civilization. Greek words form the base of a great many words in English and the International Scientific Vocabulary. You know NOTHING about history, so might want never to pronounce on it again, lest EVERYONE know that you know nothing of history.

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The fact is, however, that a man cannot find men disgusting sexually, because they would have to find themselves disgusting, so could not function sexually.

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You mistake what people say with what they actually believe. These antigay posters don't actually mean anything they say.

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Armageddon is a stupid fable believed in only by stupid people. Keep your insane, violent fantasies to yourself. Sane people don't want to hear them.

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So, M K E, if a (Moslem) imam pronounced to his congregants that Christianity is a sin for not accepting the word of the Prophet, and Christians are sinners who need to repent, that would not be anti-Christian comments? And Bart, no one on Earth believes your nonsense, so why do you say something not even YOU believe?

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If you don't understand that "equal" and "the same" are different, you need to take a course in logic.

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Pls do not pretend, Silv..., that the right to marry is NOT reserved by most states to heterosexuals, and the Federal Govt does not accord legal -- tax -- rights to heterosexual couples that are denied to same-sex couples. You make yourself look like a dishonest fool. That is, of course, your right, but you shouldn't be eager to assert that right.

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Unc..., JESUS did NOT condemn homosexuality. Quite the contrary, Jesus's Golden Rule SMILES upon homosexuality. But it doesn't matter. Jesus is dead, there is no God, and the Bible is no more a word of authority than are the Twilite novels or any other work of fiction.

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You at once say that we have never been more divided than now, and that we face a second civil war. Make up your 'mind'. We had a Civil War, when we WERE more divided than now. And the Liberals won that one. We will win any OTHER Civil War that the Radical Right forces us to fite. But this time we will ERADICATE the enemy so there will be no third civil war.

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You left out "to me", bigger issues to YOU. You are not the be-all and end-all of the universe, and what is important to you is not the criterion for government action. Moreover, WE are not a one-issue Nation. We can do many things at the same time.

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53% of Americans now say they are fine with gay marriage.

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Stop LYING about what gay organizations have asked for. I have been in the gay-rights movement since 1965, and NEVER did any organization say it would never ask for gay marriage or adoption. Yes, my organization was very early (1979) in demanding gay marriage in civil and canon law, and some organizations at the time thought marriage "hetero-imitative", but no organization EVER actually opposed gay marriage.

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Perhaps you missed the FACT that President Obama is in his constitutionally LAST term, so isn't trying to get any more votes.

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What "extra benefits" are gay people asking for? None.

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Marriage is NOT about procreation. It is about love and commitment -- and married people's taking care of each other saves Government from having to step in when they get sick or old. If you cannot argue the REALITIES of marriage, don't say anything. Your comment just makes you look dopy, lame, and dishonest.

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Marriage was once between one man and several women. Times change. You will have to change too.

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Crook, your mindless bigotry doesn't get any more intelligent from repetition. Heterosexuality is, by your standard, a behavior too, so people should not get legal rights, such as the 1,000 or so rights entailed in marriage, just because of that behavior.

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Kindly stop writing silly, absurd things. The President has a wide range of things he is addressing, including the economy and foreign policy. And homosexuality is exactly as moral as heterosexuality. You LOST. Go away and be quiet.

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Keep your evasive nonsense to yourself. Jesus did not abolish RITUALS only; he OVERTHREW Judaism, and all its nonsense. He substituted a Golden Rule that took the place of all those silly Jewish prohibitions. But, simple and straightforward as that Golden Rule is -- which plainly accepts homosexuality -- some people are too insistent on superstition to obey it. Keep your make-believe God, and your Jewish Old Testament nonsense to yourself. You can't pick and choose which parts of the Old Testament to obey and which not. Either obey all 613 commandments or shut up.

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My father's family came to what BECAME the United States in 1653. One of my direct ancestors fought in the Revolution to throw the British out. The British were the Redcoats, the enemy, like the Red States today are the enemy of everything this country stands for. Liberals created this country and all its institutions, and got rid of unjust institutions, like slavery, inherited from the British, and we will get rid of racism and antigay bigotry and socioeconomic inequity. And there is nothing YOU and your ilk can do to stop it. You LOST. Go away and be quiet.

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No, Republican refusal to FUND Government activities with TAXES added to the national debt. And debt is NOTHING to the rich, who almost always owe a lot more than do the poor, but not as a proportion of their wealth. The United States is the richest country in the history of the world. Remember that. We can fund anything we agree as a Nation to do, simply by taxing the people who have more money than they know what to do with. But doing justice to same-sex couples doesn't cost a CENT.

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Pls keep your Jewish fables to yourself. Christians heed JESUS and his Golden Rule. You might try reading it aloud, and applying it to gay people. You'll see if FITS PERFECTLY, even better than it does to heterosexuals.

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Pls tell us, oh wise one, how many gay people there are, that can be dismissed as "so few". You can't do that, because there has never been a census of gay people. The U.S. is the unchallengeable sole Superpower, and everyone on Earth BUT you knows that. Stop painting your ridiculous world-nearing-an-end picture. We know better. You LOST. Go away and be quiet.

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That is why Jesus, a very nice man, but NOT God (since there IS no God), advised people to forgive, because it takes a lot of energy away from your life to hold hate in your heart.

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You know NOTHING about AIDS, which is plainly NOT following the pattern of ANY infection, and in fact isn't growing at all.

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Do some research before making claims as to fact. Only 77% of Americans identify as Christian. And true Christians obey the Golden Rule, which does not merely permit but exactly describes homosexuality.

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Paul -- the anti-Christian persecutor Saul of Tarsus -- is NOT JESUS and does not have the authority of Jesus. JESUS never said one word against homosexuals. I defy you to find ANY antihomosexual pronouncement by JESUS.

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Gay people aren't trying to prevent straight people from marrying.

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Only lunatics cannot draw distinctions between things that are different. Polygamy is ancient, but we have moved past that. And as for incest, didn't the whole human race arise from incest, if Adam and Eve were the only people at the beginning of the world?

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So this 1 article outweighs the 16,000 articles about heterosexuals, right?

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Shakers did not persuade other people to join their group. There is no shortage of gay people being produced by straight couples.

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Marriage (gay or straight) is in the social interest. Married people do for each other a great many things, like taking care of each other when they are sick or injured or old, that Government would otherwise have to do, at taxpayer expense.

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Tom, if the ENTIRE scientific community issued a statement that homosexuality has been found to be absolutely hardwired in genetics, you would STILL refuse to accept it. Because you don't WANT to believe it. Go away and be quiet.

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Your pretense is that one thing excludes another. Promoting marriage equality STRENGTHENS marriage, and by example urges more people to marry. But whether this has any effect on rates of illegitimacy has nothing to do with whether it is something we should do or not. YOUR issues were not addressed in this particular speech. There are other speeches and other initiatives of many kinds that ARE made, but THIS discussion is not about them.

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More clumsy argumentation from Erik and slander from Heart. Sex ed does not require HETEROSEXUAL experimentation; why would it require HOMOSEXUAL experimentation? You make no sense.