Judgement Day for Gays

[CurtCB]

One question Xrimo ,if they say something degrading do you let that go or do you set them straight?

[XRIMO]

Only if I sense genuine malice behind the remark, or if I feel its especially disrespectful. But that rarley happens, most of the time its just simple little quips and remarks that aren't meant to insult.

[CurtCB]

Sorry my friend it always starts as a little quip and then snowballs into let's say a shooting at gay youth in a crowd in Tel Aviv. I live deeper in the south than you do. All my neighbors respect me not because I throw being gay in their face, but because they know I won't keep my tongue bridled if they make, in your own terms, a "degrading" comment. If you look hard enough you can pretty much condemn anyone for anything. I personally would love to hear "because of what happened to Matthew Shepard or because of those guys who get hung for being gay, I don't let anyone degrade me"!
where does it end?
I am half German I totally understand how far intolerance can go.
I think some of you need a a reminder that many of the people put to death in 1940s Europe didn't wear any part of themselves on "their sleeve" until the Nazis put a star of David there or a pink triangle.

[marshlander]

[Yosuke]

It's annoying living in a closed minded area (I live in Louisiana as well, so I've grown up with it all my life). I'm torn on moving away up north as opposed to staying down here 'trying to make a difference'. I'm not chastised so much about LGBT issues, but rather on my political and religious stances. People down here are basically of the mindset: "If you are/arent x then you are inherently evil".
The evil person living inside me, however, enjoys utilizing my debate background to walk circles around such people.

Now for when people use religion to degrade homosexuality, I attempt to tell them all of the lovely things in the bible. For instance, when I told my father I supported gay marriage and he flipped, I basically told him all of Louisiana was going to hell for eating Crawfish (Leviticus). Because he's inclined to be a rational person, he's starting to come over to our side
But there are some people, unfortunately, who act more like fence posts when you try and engage in civil conversation. At that point, I just smile and walk away.

[peterinmalaga]

What I hate is when you think you are getting along fine with someone and they just come out with something which reveals their true feelings about gays. My bf and I were invited to a party by some young Spanish friends and they said to us “Don't tell people here you are gay, some of them are not very tolerant of that”. I was so disappointed in our friends. It meant that we could hardly talk at all at that party, since we do nearly everything together. A lot of Spanish people use the word “marecon” (= queer) all the time as a general swear word for anything they don't like. In many ways Spain is very liberal about homosexuality but old attitudes die hard. If someone says something discriminatory I think we have a duty to speak out. There is no need to label yourself gay if this would put you in a difficult situation but we must fight discrimination at all levels. I always point out when people are being racist, sexist etc. Intolerance and discrimination in any form is not acceptable. There are people in the world who are being tortured and killed because of their sexuality even today. The least we can do is speak out.