California Screaming

Blood Moon

Regards,
Peter H.

I mean when have you ever heard of other people go “I’m going to have pride in my self today”

No… forget that . you want to have authentic pride in yourself?

Get over your childhood. Realize it* wasn’t your fault. And in most situations, it wasnt your parents fault either. Realize that nobody owes you a damn thing. And other people are not as obssesed with you faggotry as you are.

* it = the traumas/dramas/ordeals that you’re still holding onto as you simmer in anger and resentment

Berberry, I think the key word here is “vociferous” in your quote of Bruce Bawer. Personally I have no problem in “gay pride.” However, as Bawer suggests in the quote, too much of it becomes problematic. But by not placing too much emphasis on gay pride while also having pride in oneself, one can look at gay pride events and take what good they can from it, and discard the things that one may not agree with or find distasteful. I think the ultimate goal is to reach the point where gay pride parades are no longer needed. I don’t believe we reached that point yet, but we’re getting there.

ILC, I didn’t get that from the quote given in that post. But even if it was, I don’t fully disagree with it. I look at it this way. If a straight kid or adult was belittled by his “friend” for being straight, and for expressing his interest in the opposite sex, I could see the straight person no longer wanting to be friends with the individual in question, while at the same time saying the straight person doesn’t necessarily define his identity by his sexuality. I haven’t read Sullivan’s book, so maybe he goes well beyond that, as your later quote suggests.

P.S. And my own point is this: Life is tough for everyone. Everyone has problems. Everyone has a ‘deepest self’ that they feel a need to hide: some from shame, some from unjustified pride, and some from virtue or justified pride. Everyone’s first real friend is extremely significant. Long story short: Real gay people grow up, get over their personal drama and stop trying to sneer (however subtly and ‘artistically’) at non-gays.

I agree that we all have our crosses to bear. I just believe being gay shouldn’t be one of them any more than it is for being straight. In reality that’s not the case yet for most people still while growing up. And I agree that wallowing in victimhood doesn’t help, while striving to succeed in spite of it is the way to go.

I didn’t believe the “smears”, because (dirty secret) I was a fairly liberal Democrat at the time.

I’ve always been somewhat of a moderate, but back then I leaned more to the right. And even then I believed back then that Thomas was not a good choice for the Supreme Court and should not have been confirmed. However, I was opposed (and still am) with the shameful way the proceedings occurred.

People have promiscuous sex in Dallas’ Gay Pride parades? I’ve been to the one in Atlanta and I didn’t see anyone having sex, promiscuous or otherwise, so I guess things are different in Texas.

Also, you seem to have missed the fact that I was responding to an assertion that gays are somehow lacking in pride because they embrace “group pride”. The blog post that spawned this comment thread didn’t mention anything about people having sex in Gay Pride parades.

And if that’s not what being gay is all about, why in the hell are you putting that out as “gay pride”? Call it what it is, which is a sex and lewdness fair, and leave gay out of it.

But without the sex and lewdness, “Pride” wouldn’t be much use; it would be just a bunch of everyday normal people, and that wouldn’t do at all for the people in the “gay community” who need being gay as an excuse to cover up their socially-unacceptable behavior.

“He suggested that the “vociferous emphasis on ‘gay pride’” was a sign “that, deep down, many subculture-oriented gays don’t really have very much pride in themselves as individuals; for it would never occur to an individual with pride in himself to feel a need for group-oriented pride.” And this wonderful line: “I hate to see people cocooning themselves in victimhood and straightacketing themselves in stereotype.”

I live in the Deep South, a place where it’s not at all difficult to find conservative gays. Of the ones I know I’d say that most, but certainly not all, share Mr. Bawer’s views about Gay Pride.

I don’t get it. What’s wrong with the word “pride”? Why would anyone assume it’s used pretensiously, or even literally? Is it possible to be aware of the gay pride movement and be unaware of the religious right movement and its attempts to portray gays as shameful and immoral? If you find our use of the word “pride” so objectionable, what other available antonym of the word “shame” would you have us employ?

I appreciate the inclusion of the Andrew Sullivan quote, and from what I remember of this blog I don’t find it at all surprising that the writer appears to make no connection between it and the gay pride condemnation just above. In the quote, Sullivan gets to the heart of gay identity. The gay rights movement is often criticized as being somehow less important than the African-American civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. The observation is often made that gays (or white gays, anyway) were never forced to endure the indignities of segregation, they were never denied service at restaurants and hotels, they were never denied the vote, they were never enslaved, etc., etc. While all of that is true, the only thing it proves is that whatever the similarities might be, the black liberation movement and the gay liberation movement each evolved in response to different injustices. Certainly, gays have not been subject to the same sort of public indignities that have been suffered by African-Americans. But I daresay that any black child who was ever ridiculed, belittled or otherwise shamed because of his or her race could, at the very least, count on a sympathetic hearing of his experience from his mom, dad, sisters, brother and friends. That’s not true for gay kids. Not at all. Not until, as Sullivan points out, they find that first gay friend. And even when the child finds that friend, he or she will likely still feel great anxiety over what might happen when his or her family discovers the child’s secret.

But finding that first true friend is crucially important. For many - but obviously not all - of us, finding that friend begins the process by which a gay person learns that, with regard to homosexuality, there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. And thus we begin looking for ways to counter the shame with which society wishes to tag us, because we’ve discovered that we do indeed have just as much right as anyone else to feel pride in ourselves!

As for David Brock, I did believe most of the “smears” against Anita Hill, because I found her story, and the circumstances behind it, unbelievable.

I didn’t believe the “smears”, because (dirty secret) I was a fairly liberal Democrat at the time. I never had an “I Believe You, Anita” bumper sticker, but I thought they could have a point. (Barf!)

I did understand that Anita’s case was weak / unprovable. But I also recognized that somebody was being overly sloppy and personal in his counter-attacks on her. Later, I learned it was Brock. It’s no surprise to me, then, that Brock is still at it (being overly sloppy and personal in his attacks) - just for the other side, the subculture he presumably gets sex from now.

I still conclude re: Hill/Thomas that either she only lied, or they both (Hill and Thomas) lied.

My present view. Great summary, Pat.

Liverwire, I think the point… was you don’t have a true friend until you can be fully honest about yourself with them.

I agree with that universal point 100%, and it would have been nice if that had been Sullivan’s point. But, again, it wasn’t.

Following Sullivan’s own text (as quoted by GPW), his point was that until and unless other people affirm the gay person’s sexually-gay self (that Sullivan posits the gay person to be hiding), the gay person “can[’t] really exist at all” - in whatever sense ‘existence’ counts, for Sullivan. That’s not a universal point about friendship. It’s more the viewpoint of a needy child, and/or of… well… of someone who defines his identity or personhood by his sexuality.

Please note that (as quoted) Sullivan said,

When [teh ghey] finds this [affirming] friend… the relationship has a significance often far deeper than the first friend a heterosexual child discovers.

That’s not a universal point about friendship. He’s subtly implying that gay people feel it and need it more than those brute breeders who have so much more going for them. That’s the envy-ridden, non-universal and unfair viewpoint of “professional gays”, or of “subculture-oriented gays [who] don’t really have very much pride in themselves as individuals” (Bawer).

Of course, I’m sure there are people who have opened up with their (straight) friends before ever having gay friends, and I’m guessing it happens more and more now.

As for David Brock, I did believe most of the “smears” against Anita Hill, because I found her story, and the circumstances behind it, unbelievable. Even though Brock has distanced himself from his own “findings,” I still conclude re: Hill/Thomas that either she only lied, or they both (Hill and Thomas) lied.

It’s been a while since I read A Place at the Table, but I found it to be an excellent book.

So you all loved Brock when he was making up smears against Anita Hill

Nope. Never, never, never. Never given that guy the time of day. Always seen through him.

I have to admit that his book make me want to puke.

I call bullshit! It didn’t make you want to puke, Houndentenor, or else you wouldn’t have been the one to bring it up in this thread.

You thought you were going to score a cute point by bringing it up - and, as usual when your stereotypes about this blog come into play, you were just wrong.

So you all loved Brock when he was making up smears against Anita Hill but when he felt bad about that and fessed up he’s evil incarnate.

I’m so sick of assħoles like this guy who just makes up stuff and then expects people to defend themselves.

Screw off.

Also, any fans of gay mysteries might like Greg Lilly’s Fingering The Family Jewels and Devil’s Bridge. Light, fast and PG. (Shameless plug because he’s a pal of mine. Democrat, but truly decent fellow & up-and-coming writer.)