No Animated GIFs Duck Fuc**** Dynasty has ruined my Christmas!

[Alnitak]

I don't have the power to change gay progress (nor the desire) ...

That's obvious.

It is obvious you are not pained at all, nor more than I am stupid. Just because a kid gets worked up over a public scandal doesn't mean his perceptions are accurate. Teens are notoriously hyper-emotional and often hysterical. It's true whether they are gay or not.

Wrong!

Gay kids are nothing like their straight counterparts. They are WAY more likely to attempt and commit suicide. Every study on youth suicide confirms this, not to mention gay youths make up 40% of homeless Americans.

The Duck Dynasty controversy isn't about gay teens. It's not about suicides. There isn't any sanctimonious high ground to be had. It's about a bigot admitting his bigotry in an interview. He didn't go out to campaign for it -- he admitted it when asked. Howling at the moon and asking for his head on a platter doesn't help the gay cause at all -- it serves to galvanize those who oppose gays. We prosper as a civil rights cause much more by treating his comments for what they were -- bigoted comments, nothing more.

And, the tendencies for gays to become extremists in taking positions on it reveals inherent weaknesses in gay political strategy when it becomes evident that the cause is needlessly divided by such esoterica.

It has everything to do with LGBT suicides, whose only cause is culturally reinforced hate.

Our political strategy has paid dividends in Canada, one of the most pleasant places for LGBTs to live, and where hate speech is banned.

 

[xbuzzerx]

No. What bothers me is that you seem to think that an argument which is based on such a lack of caring for actual information, facts, and rational thought, is one not only worth having, but one worth blowing into some big 'scandal' or 'rights movement'.

Your post criticized A&E specifically for the fact that they aired these views on their program and their network. When I mention that they're not, you're next post fails to even acknowledge this wrongful blame. You just go on to blow things out of proportion.

First paragraph: ' Happily spouting off rhetoric' and 'Every appearance' are at best an exaggeration, at worst a bold faced lie. Have you bothered to check out even five minutes of him ON the show? Or maybe look into something ABOUT him aside from his current infamy? Did you know anything about him before he was "a homophobe"?

Final paragraph: Right sorry. I guess I missed the part where Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, and Charlie Sheen (read: big time hollywood names) were comparable to someone "milking their 15 minutes of fame".

I'm sorry that I'd rather look beyond my own biases, and take a look at someone else's point of view before deeming them an immoral and corrupt human. Maybe it does make me sheltered, but I always thought that's what we wanted them to give us... I just thought y'know "do unto others" is the GOLDEN rule afterall *shrug*

Yes, A&E when they found out about this first suspended him, then un-suspended him. They knew this guy was a redneck and probably had some out there views and when he voiced them, they first worried how that might impact them financially, then decided after the redneck fan outpouring of outrage that he was suspended that they would reverse and do nothing about it.

So under their pay for a program they profit off is a reality show featuring a guy who holds these views.

So yes, I do hold them partially responsible. In fact I'm pretty sure if you re-read my post you will see "partially" quite a bit in the post. Affirming that we're going to keep someone like this as a nationally televised public figure sends a message, no matter how much A&E would undoubtedly insist that they do not condone or agree with anti-gay sentiment for PR, that there is nothing wrong with these viewpoints.

That's sending a message to managers, bosses, employees in charge of hiring, it's sending a message to everyone aware of this story. No matter how much television networks have always tried to wash their hands and say they are only engaged in providing entertainment, those messages go out regardless. And this guy isn't on a show where we watch his surgical skills or his acumen as a businessman or inventor, this is a reality show about the day to day lives of these people. So it is profiting very directly off the same part and parcel real-him that went off and made these statements in interviews.

Your whole "objection" to this is "oh, you didn't correctly list all the details of where the statements were made." And I'm telling you now for the second time that's completely irrelevant to the above.

 

[xbuzzerx]

That a kid feels insecure is not the equal of the Duck guy's message creating insecurity, even if the kid perceives it so. There are plenty of people in the kid's own home town that disapprove of his homosexuality, but that is far different than creating a hostile or threatening atmosphere. Nothing I read about the Duck controversy suggests he said anything at all menacing.

Where, exactly, do you think the hostility comes from? Out of thin air? It has nothing to do with bigoted attitudes, unchallenged prejudices and reinforced negative imagery in society?

Perhaps you've never seen the rhetoric and political cartoon depiction of Jews in Germany in the leadup to the rise of the Nazi Party.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

...and that makes us even because I will always hate that someone hates this statement.

Thank God for the ACLU...I better write them a check...

The problem with the statement is that people always say it when no one is trying to deny someone the right to say something. And people tend to say it in defense of people saying hateful things.

 

[Rolyo85]

I will always hate this statement.

I both agree and disagree with you. I think that he should always have the freedom to say whatever he wants, btu I also believe we should create an environment where the repercussions - the NON-GOVERNMENT repercussions - would be so severe that it would be unthinkable to say it, even though he's free to do it.

 

[Rolyo85]

It has everything to do with LGBT suicides, whose only cause is culturally reinforced hate.

It thoroughly disgusts me that people don't get this. I think this utterly twisted notion of "free speech" that exists in this country gets some people as irrational as the 2nd amendment...

 

[eastofeden]

The problem with the statement is that people always say it when no one is trying to deny someone the right to say something. And people tend to say it in defense of people saying hateful things.

Psstt...actually in this very thread a lot of people are doing EXACTLY that...trying to deny the man the right to say what he said.... and if you (gasp) disagree with them you are either naive or stupid or helping people commit suicide...which again I support their right to say it but disagree completely with what they are saying

 

[Alnitak]

It thoroughly disgusts me that people don't get this. I think this utterly twisted notion of "free speech" that exists in this country gets some people as irrational as the 2nd amendment...

It is a legal fetish. People follow it blindly without counting the consequences - even death. Even more disturbing - people who acknowledge death think it is a fair price to pay. I find it often on both ends of the spectrum, but more often among conservatives.

 

[pat grimshaw]

....I think this utterly twisted notion of "free speech" that exists in this country..

You talk as though you're just visiting the USA on a holiday; aren't you committed to American values?

 

[Rolyo85]

Where, exactly, do you think the hostility comes from? Out of thin air? It has nothing to do with bigoted attitudes, unchallenged prejudices and reinforced negative imagery in society?

Perhaps you've never seen the rhetoric and political cartoon depiction of Jews in Germany in the leadup to the rise of the Nazi Party.

Cue random assdouche comments making fun of comparing anything to Nazi Germany, because Nazi Germany was so much more evil than anything that ever was, is or could possibly be, that any comparison is laughable and by default false.

 

[Rolyo85]

You talk as though you're just visiting the USA on a holiday; aren't you committed to American values?

I am committed to those American values that I don't find suicidal, destructive and rotten. And until I am at least a permanent resident here, I will keep referring to Americans as others.

 

[Rolyo85]

Meanwhile, on JoeMyGod:

http://www.joemygod.blogspot.com/2013/12/television-boycotts-in-name-of-jesus.html#disqus_thread

Censorship! Freedom of speech! Religious liberty! OUTRAAAAAGE! Oh, wait. That deafening sound you hear is crickets, because the weekly boycott demands by the American Family Association, one of the nation's largest Christian advocacy groups, are totally OK with the Tea People. Because when Christianist groups call for nationwide boycotts of television shows and their advertisers, that is a righteous use of the free market in order to preserve morality, marriage, family, and the American way. But when GAY groups use or threaten the use of a boycott, THAT is homofascist intimidation, intolerance, bullying, a stifling of religious liberty, and an attempt to deny the freedom of speech. Just so we're clear.

(I've quoted the entire post because its actual value comes from the numerous links in it.)

 

[pat grimshaw]

... Nazi Germany was so much more evil than anything that ever was....

I can tell you're speaking out of utterly twisted patriotism because you know that the evil-doers in your country are much more evil than those of the over-publicised Germany.

 

[xbuzzerx]

You talk as though you're just visiting the USA on a holiday; aren't you committed to American values?

You talk as though things in America remotely affect you, and you are often very vehement in that reaction; aren't you committed to life in Australia?

 

[pat grimshaw]

.... until I am at least a permanent resident here, I will keep referring to Americans as others.

I bet you don't; I've met quisling people here who have 'proudly' retained their 'otherness' for over fifty years.

 

[Alnitak]

You talk as though things in America remotely affect you, and you are often very vehement in that reaction; aren't you committed to life in Australia?

Australians don't get the nuclear fallout from the Northern Hemisphere. They're insulated

 

[Rolyo85]

I can tell you're speaking out of utterly twisted patriotism because you know that the evil-doers in your country are much more evil than those of the over-publicised Germany.

I am sorry, are you referring to Bulgaria? Where we protected our Jews even though we were pressured into being on Germany's side, and where we never had gulags or any sort of racial cleansings even under the Communist regime that was enforced on us from the West abandoning us to Russia? Are THOSE the evil-doers in my country who were much more evil? Or am I now suddenly American?

 

[Rolyo85]

I bet you don't; I've met quisling people here who have 'proudly' retained their 'otherness' for over fifty years.

So have I. Except I am already more integrated than people who've been here for decades. You don't know me and your off-topic remarks on my assimilation status are both limply inane, and completely unimportant to the topic. Restrain your logorhea or gtfo of here.

 

[Alnitak]

What? There were depictions of Jews that were racist, derogatory, and unfairly prejudiced against an entire class of people? That was directly responsible for the Holocaust (rather than merely a product of the existing anti-Semitism)?

The world watched Germany pass the Nuremburg Laws.

The world went to the Munich games as it will to Sochi.

Americans did nothing, because people like you think free speech can do no wrong.

 

[pat grimshaw]

... we ....our ...we ... we ... us ... us ... my country ...

You're taking as a Bulgarian until the day some Washington bureaucrat gives you the paper saying you can reside here.