SA Ma'am;

This is one of those sad truths about our species that I wish were not true about our species. The *best* we can do is make certain that whatever the person's prejudice, they cannot make it *our* problem. Let us admit that unless we are willing to see society become extraordinarily *less* free--which I guarantee you would rebound to our sorrow--all we can do is make the discrimination illegal. After that, it is on a one-to-one basis. We win people over, one interaction at a time. It is illegal to discriminate in housing, education, employment and public accommodation based upon the color of one's skin or one's gender. Has that stopped people from holding bigoted or sexist views? No. Has it made any nation that has adopted such laws a paradise of racial harmony? Not hardly. It has drastically raised the stakes for behaving in a bigoted fashion in the aforementioned. As a *process*--and that is what I think we can change directly are processes--we can constrain by law whether or not someone can decide to not rent to transgendered person purely because they are transgendered. We can mandate that the relevant factors for, say, employment do not include race or sexual orientation or gender presentation or what-have-you.

We cannot make it so that those laws are unnecessary. Not without severely restricting the freedom of others to express beliefs that we might find abhorrent.

Tolerance, to me, is living in a nation of people where some non-trivial number of them believe, things that I might find either offensive or blindingly wrong, but not letting that get in the way of having good interactions with them. Acceptance is simply not allowing some trait to have unnecessary meaning. By that I mean, as I've stated when talking about 'color blindness' that the problem isn't that someone notices that I am black. The problem is caused when they attach *meaning* to my being black beyond what that characteristic can justify. My blackness gives no one any insight into my character, competence, intelligence, generosity, honesty or any other relevant trait. Bigotry is when someone takes my being black to mean that they *do* have insight into my character, that their insight is accurate *because* of my race, and to then treat me accordingly as someone lacking in one or more desirable character traits.

If my neighbors are giving me the stink-eye, then they are not tolerating me. What is happening is that they are restrained from making their feelings known to me in a more direct sense only because of the law and social stigma. If my neighbors invite me over for BBQ, say hello and generally treat me as just another neighbor, then they are *at worst* tolerating me and if they are not already accepting, then may very well be on the road to acceptance. Acceptance, to me, is when my neighbor, upon hearing someone make a derisive remark about queer people says "you know, the ladies across the street are nothing like what you say and given that they're really nice and you're obviously an asshole, I'd prefer their company over yours any day".

All the above can be true without, even once, us ever having a conversation on the topic of "do you accept homosexuals".

My forty-five years black in this nation has certainly taught me that bigotry cannot be legislated away. The direct expression of bigotry can be legislated away and then, slowly, painfully, never-fast-enough, people's minds are changed. As was pointed out by a couple of people, the *best* predictor for how someone feels about enshrining equality for queer people under the law is whether that person has an intimate who is queer. It cuts across most other demographics. Laws--or really just folding us into most existing anti-discrimination laws--can create conditions *enough* that contacts will happen. After that, what will happen is that people will start working next to the queer guy and he'll *stop* being whatever bigoted image the person was raised with and become the guy who helped them out when they were under the gun at work. They'll start living next to a queer couple and they'll no longer be the folks who are a threat to families but the one's who, when the kids got home and no one was there, contacted the parents and drove the kids to the babysitter. That makes them a neighbor.

Look, let us say that there are, essentially, three sides in the national argument about the place of queer people in society. There's our side. Their's the anti-queer people. There's the vast majority of people who hold no active hostility about queers but haven't really thought about us very much. The preference of the first two groups is to win by fiat. The religious right, if given half a chance, would simply make being queer illegal and be done with it. If given a chance, particularly after some infuriating outrage, we would take the easy route and simply pass a law making it illegal to be anti-queer or express such sentiments. The religious right can conceivably have their way. We *never* can. We simply lack any possibility of a majority. So we must win by persuasion. We must win over as many people in the non-aligned group as we can. We do not need ALL of them, we need enough that they are allies and we and our allies are then a majority. This is, essentially, the strategy any numerically overwhelmed group must do--win the argument.

That means that while our opponents *never* have to be realistic, we *always* have to be realistic. That means we have to determine not what the best world would be, but what is the best *achievable* world given the species we have to work with and the fact that we cannot impose our will upon the majority.

Cheers
Aj

Snow:

That is not tolerance. If your neighbors were tolerant you would never know *what* they think of your being queer. Breaking into your car is not an act of tolerance. Going out of their way to give you the stink-eye is not an act of toleration. Toleration would mean them nodding as you see one another leaving for work, saying Happy Thanksgiving when you see one another walking the dog, and largely not engaging you very much. If your neighbors tolerated you, they would not respond to your presence in a negative fashion.

So if they are not being tolerant what are they doing? They are trying to do as much as they can get away while not bringing the law around them (which is why the car break-in, it's relatively easy to get away with) and at the same time, trying to find some way to use the law to punish you for being queer. The critical thing, however, is that *they* are restrained by the law. Given that they have broken into your vehicles, that means that they would--if the law did not prohibit it--likely break into your home. But they haven't because the law precludes them doing it. There is no law that says "you cannot break into straight people's homes but queer people, go for it". The law says 'you cannot break into people's homes' and has done with it. What I believe should be our focus is to make certain that queer people are covered equally by ALL laws.

What you should do about your neighbors, I don't know. I *do* know that what they are doing is not showing toleration. They are showing that they do not want the law to come down around their ears. That's not toleration. That's being restrained by the law.

Cheers
Aj

Hmm.
 

:| I'll point that out when someone says their only tolerating it cause they have to.. In Spanish if someone tolerates you it's never a good thing.

Snowy:

I didn't say it was a good thing. I'm not describing the world as I would like to see it. I'm trying to discuss the world as it appears to be. No, tolerating isn't the ideal. But what is living in a society but tolerating people and ideas and things you would much rather not have to? I don't *want* to live in a world with racists. But I *do* live in that world and since one of us has to act right, I will extend to a bigot all the tolerance I am able to. Tolerance is also not a switch, it is a slider. I will tolerate some things more than others.

You have said what you do not want but you have not said what you *do* want. What is tolerance to you? What is acceptance?

Let me illustrate what *I* mean by tolerance. We live in a religiously plural society. I am an atheist. As it turns out, I tend to think that the case against there being a divine being is much stronger than the one that can be made for there being one. I have to deal with people who believe, quite wrongly, that the Earth is 6,000 years old. I tolerate that. We live in a complex society filled with lots of people many of whom, perhaps large swaths of whom, believe or behave in ways we do not like. We do not have to like them. They do not have to like us. We DO have to get on with one another because they aren't going away and we aren't going away. I do not expect, for instance, a Christian to be thrilled about there being atheists. I do not expect her to think that I might have a point. In fact, I *fully* expect her to believe that I am wrong, to put it mildly, and seriously deluded. But we still have to work next to one another and so we must *tolerate* one another.

The Constitution does not promise that people of different religious beliefs will see one another's point, it says they must tolerate one another. That means you don't go about passing laws designed to make the other lot's life miserable. That means you do the job in front of you and focus on the commonalities.

Again, I do not believe that our rights come FROM our identities. Our identities are--or at least should be--completely beside the point. I am not ever going to live in a society populated by people entirely like me. I do not feel like living inside a hermetically sealed bubble where the only people I associate with and who feel comfortable associating with me are people who are like me or very close approximations of me. I can't have it, wouldn't like it and so must live in a society where we will disagree but where we must get along in spite of all that.

In a world without prejudices tolerance would truly be a bad thing. This is not a world without prejudices. There will, for any foreseeable future where the human brain works like it appears to now be bigots. There will, for as long as there is commerce, people who are better off than others. There will always be an uneven distribution of talents and depending upon completely arbitrary variables of time and place, one's abilities or talents may or may not be valued higher or lower. We cannot, not in any society where people are treated more-or-less equally before the law, have equality of outcomes. We can't. Believing we can is believing that one can make the garden grow not by planting and watering but in believing that unicorns will take care of it all. So the question I think we have to answer, as a community, is what *can* we achieve. If you think that we can have a world where people who hold the attitudes that your neighbors do can be eliminated, I would be interested to hear *how* we get there from where we are.

Cheers
Aj

I thought I had, I simply want to be treated as I treat others. I don't walk out the door with no other intent than having a good day, being friendly, polite, kind, work hard, go to the kiddo's boxing, do my walk and sweat and curse cause it's hot. WITHOUT some ass hat being grossed out or look like they are cause of who I am.

I could even throw in there that as a woman I want my space and place to be equally valid if not more valid than the guy next to me who gets it just cause he's a guy.

Sometimes I think I'm expecting to much when I try to take my place in the world but I'll be damned if I won't take it it's mine and my right. I don't just want it for me me me, I want it for alll women, childrens, queers, geeks, underdogs, poor, forgotten people out there.

Sounds kinda corny huh?

It would be nice to not be treated differently because of the gay. I'm still thinking and typing. :|

Okay but since we cannot *force* people to behave that way, what then? Are you saying that until any person you encounter, anyone particular person taken at random, is utterly unconcerned with your being gay or Latina, etc. we will not have reached--not the best imaginable place--but the best *achievable* place? Again, I can imagine a perfect world but I cannot drag all the rest of you into it and, trust me, many of you would NOT like my perfect world. Since I can't have a perfect world and since no one else can either and since history is quite literally bloody with all the attempts to create utopias, I want to aim for the best achievable world.

That's why I keep coming back to this idea that we cannot have a world where your neighbors are simply *incapable* of giving you the stink-eye. It appears you want to live in a world without bigots. While that would be nice, I see no way to get there. I do see a way to get there through creating laws and processes that treat people equally. No bias and no favor. Since that is *also* not possible for humans, the law should be as non-biased as limited humans can manage.

I'm trying to deal with the world as it is, with the human species we have to work with. We cannot make a world where no person is poor. Poverty is relative at any rate and unless we make certain that everyone has the same outcomes--a prospect very few would willingly sign on for--there will always be *some* people who have less resources than others. What we *can* do is have a society where people are treated fairly and equally. Where people have access to those things that allow oneself to be economically empowered--things like education, laws to protect one from workplace exploitation or bigotry.

All societies are a series of trade-offs. So what does this society you wish for look like? What are the trade-offs? What are you willing to give up in order to have a society wherein your neighbors are simply not *capable* of being anti-gay? Or anti-anything for that matter?

And no, it doesn't sound corny, Snowy. It sounds vague. So you want some asshat to not *appear* to be grossed out when he looks at you. So what does that world look like? Is that a world where he simply does not think--because the category is foreign to him--"there is a homosexual, I don't like that"? Or is it a world wherein he dare *not* think that thought for fear of the consequences? Or is it a world where the thought is not thinkable? Or where it's expression is what; illegal? Socially unacceptable?

Walk me through this, Snowy. In your world, please explain how this works:

1) You walk out your door, your neighbor sees you. What does he do?

2) You walk out your door, your neighbor sees you and sneers. What happens then?

In your world CAN your neighbor think a thought that is anti-gay? If he can't, why can't he? if he can, what are the consequences of him doing so. You say this is your right to have this. So what does a world in which your right is protected look like?

Cheers
Aj

I'm going to give this some thought A LOT to be exact I'll be back laters it's late (kinda) and there's still stuff for tomorrow that needs to be done (kids take up A LOT of time) thanks Aj for the push to keep thinking.

Kobi:

Thank you for this. These are the questions I think we have to address as a community. It is one thing to say "queer people should be free" it is another thing to determine what freedom is and to understand our part of the bargain. As a nation, we've become so accustomed to asking the question "what's in it for me" while ignoring that the other woman is probably asking herself the same question. Once we recognize that others also have agendas and that your agenda and my agenda may not be identical we can then start doing politics. Politics is the art of the possible. Not the ideal. The possible.

Your examples are precisely the kinds of trade-offs that I think we, as a community, need to start asking ourselves.

Cheers
Aj

I can't either, Kobi. There many things that I just don't believe the world will stop spinning over if I don't have my way. And some things are just more important than others and serve building more positive relations among differing peoples.

I love my neighborhood and feel totally accepted as part of it. Exercising common courtesy as a neighbor has contributed to this- BY ALL that I share my block with. I join in with neighborhood Watch and Take Back the Night activities and meetings. I let folks know when something they do has an impact on me (like allowing their dog to bark at night), but also make changes for others when they let me know about something I do- like changing to a lower wattage porch bulb that shines into their bedroom window.

My neighbors see me sometimes in men's formal wear and a couple at first took a double take- then asked if I was going to something special. I have had more than one fruitful conversation about the B-F dynamic as a butch lesbian. I have learned that there are leather straight couples nearby that have had their own share of feeling "different" or weird.

My adjacent neighbors check on me when they see I am having major problems with my joints and pain- and call or stop by and offer to go to the store if I am not getting out. They also stop by and say "Great" when I am doing well.

My neighborhood is multi-cultural and racial, lower-middle class and working class with a couple of professionals scattered about. There are 2 lesbian couples that are main-stream lesbian and me. There are home owners and renters. Our age range is 6 months to 92 a (just lost our 94 you and a woman that was 103).

I don't go naked in my yard because my next-door neighbors have their grand kids over a lot and there is just not good privacy between our yards. I do, however, go in my spa (when it worked) nude because I built privacy around it- for myself and my neighbors. Its called respecting other people. I watch my mouth when working in the yard- which sometimes I have to remind myself, because the old couple behind me doesn't like foul language. It is just not a big deal to me to do this. They have stopped using any poison for rodents around their yard at my request. The stay at home, mother of 3 4 houses down apologized to me after Prop 8 passed in 2010 in CA. She has also talked to me about one of her sons being gay or perhaps trans and sought out support for him. I don't park my car hanging over other people's drive ways, or bang trash cans late at night because I think about my neighbors- and they return this courtesy.

Reciprocity and realizing that we all have boundaries is just important. If I had moved here and not gotten to know my neighbors or assumed that ever one of them was going to be against me or had no interest in learning who I am, I would not be very happy here at all. I don't feel like I compromise who I am at all. I feel like I am surrounded by good people that want to share who they are as well and that I am actually not all that different.

Yes, there is one man that I don't care for and have had words with. Nothing is ever perfect. And I am not the only person on earth. Nor do I want to be. I'm also not a very defensive person overall. I try not to jump to conclusions and figure out what is really going on with people.

I had a situation in which I rented a room to a queer friend in which the person had no regard for my neighbors and had to kick her out. There was no way that I was going to allow her total disregard for community cooperation to ruin my relationships with my neighbors. The compalints were numerous and well founded. This is my neighborhood and she would just be moving out eventually- I, however, will remain here and have worked hard to build relationships with these people. I had to choose between our friendship and my neighborhood. Not fun, but necessary.

Walk me through this, Snowy. In your world, please explain how this works:

1) You walk out your door, your neighbor sees you. What does he do?

Well the guy across the street sneers, the lady behind us looks at us like she's smelling shit or shakes her head, the other two besides us now ignore us and keep their kids away.

2) You walk out your door, your neighbor sees you and sneers. What happens then?

I say nothing, we say nothing. what can we say we can't change their minds about not liking homos and them thinking we're disgusting and going to hell.

In your world CAN your neighbor think a thought that is anti-gay? he ifcan't, why can't he? if he can, what are the consequences of him doing so. You say this is your right to have this. So what does a world in which your right is protected look like?

Cheers
Aj ___________


I moved recently from a world that was pretty good for *me* where I lived, Columbus is kind of a secret cause no one really knows what a great city it is. I never had a problem with a neighbor due to me being queer, not even when I walked out in full leathers. If something did happen the police were there, our rental place took care of it and at work it was no issue since our project manager was gay.


This new world I am living in there is rare times of acceptance, rare understanding and togetherness. This is not only cause of the queer issue I'm stuck in limbo right now because of race and class issues amongst what has gone on here. I feel tolerated but not the the point where it's accepted. Make sense?


I am at the point that I don't care what the neighbors think because I have done everything to be nice and friendly. I don't try no more it's been a year, my kid don't need to be hanging out there because frankly why would I let him? So to answer the neighbors can keep being jerks as long as I am not and I keep working on my house, taking my kid to boxing or any other sport and well packing up going to the beach. Hell even then it's problematic.


I may come back and add more I figured I would come in so it did not look like I was ignoring the questions. It may take a couple more days cause this thread is making me think a lot.

Thanks and sorry if my answers don't make sense:|

To me acceptance is never changing as for tolerance can and will change with conditions. I hope that changes as time goes on here, people are pretty closeted here if they are queer, they are quiet it about it and discreet I'm not used to it cause of having always lived in areas that were queer friendly.

Actually, Snowy, I wasn't asking how things are *now*. I was asking, in your ideal world, in the world you were talking about having a right to, how things would be different.

You had said:

What does that world look like? So in this world, where your space and place are equally if not more valid, how would things be different with your neighbors? What would that look like? If it would be different HOW would it be different? That's why I asked if, in the world you envision, your neighbors could even *be* anti-gay and if they couldn't, why would they not be able to be?


Yes, tolerance does change with conditions. But here's what I'm driving at. I do not see *how* we can have a free, open society where there is only acceptance and no need for tolerance. I agree that tolerance is learning to live next to people with whom you might disagree vehemently on one or more points. However, while several people see that as a bad thing, I see it as the *least* bad thing given the species we have to work with. IF America were both ethnically and religiously homogenous then there would, ironically, be less need for tolerance. The reason for that is that if this nation had that kind of homogeneity we would be more culturally homogeneous. But we aren't. We are ethnically and religiously pluralistic. We will *always* have a heterogeneous society and so we have to figure out how to get along with one another. Otherwise, we will rip ourselves apart.

This is where tolerance comes in. I do not have to like that which I tolerate. I just have to tolerate it. Tolerate does NOT mean that I'll put up with X until I can find some way to squash it. Rather, it means that I will let X be if X will leave me be. It most certainly does not mean trying to attack X either physically, verbally or through the law. This is why I'm curious about those who disagree with me about tolerance. If tolerance is unacceptable--and at least two people have stated that it is neither enough nor is it a good thing--what's the alternative? If acceptance is the ONLY thing, then how do we get there from here? In other words, how do people envision creating a society where tolerance doesn't happen because there is universal acceptance?

For the life of me, I cannot see how you can convince an *entire* society to accept ALL difference and treat them as irrelevant. I just don't see it. Tolerance, I think, you can teach because one can attack it from a couple of different directions. But how do you teach *acceptance* without squashing out less accepting ideas? That's why I asked the question about whether, in your best of all possible worlds, your neighbor is capable of sneering at you because you are queer. If he isn't then why isn't he? Is it because we have made it unthinkable? If so, how? Is it because we have created a society where certain facial expressions are taken as prima facie evidence of bigoted behavior? Are we, in the name of queer liberation, ready to embrace the idea of thought-crime? I don't think we should.

Because of my background in evolutionary biology, I see everything as a trade-off. There are no perfect worlds, there are no perfect animals and there are no perfect societies. Because there are always costs, it becomes important to determine what those costs are and consider whether those costs are outweighed by the benefits. So we can have a society that is largely tolerant of difference while still being open and free enough to allow for people who are *not* tolerant, provided that they do not attempt to directly threaten either individuals or the stability of the community as a whole. On the other hand, we can have a society that has no need of tolerance because everyone is accepting--or at least they behave that way--but I think we would then have a drastically less open and free society. I don't think we can have a society of universal acceptance that is free.

Cheers
Aj

June:

But that's not really the *kind* of cost I'm talking about. The kind of cost I'm trying to drive at here is what compromise are you willing to give? In my read of the Civil Rights Movement, the black community made a bargain with the majority population. We will play by the rules, go to school, work hard, etc. and in *return* we expect to be treated as citizens and people. We'll do our part if you lot will do yours. The tax issue isn't really a trade-off. WHEN our marriages are legally recognized in all states--and that will happen--we'll be obliged to pay taxes at the same rate so that's not really a *cost*. Even if it were the kind of cost I was talking about, I'm not sure that would be enough to sweeten the pot for a straight person standing on the sidelines.

What do we put on the table that will appeal to the heterosexual majority. Our demands are pretty straightforward, treat us as people and citizens. My question is what are we, as queer people, willing to give for that? Like I keep saying, there's always costs and as a community we have ignored costs for far too long.

Cheers
Aj

Be back Later
 

FFS!!! I had me a fucking A-HA moment reading you 5x's!!!

Though I have to disagree about the there are no perfect animals, I think the horse is...

Sorry, Snow. I have to disagree with you there. And I love horses.

I was going to put a great quote in here, and then I realized that the actual quote is "A camel is a horse designed by committee."

Regardless, having known quite a few horses in my time, if horses were the perfect animal they wouldn't need to see the vet nearly so often. And they'd be able to lay down for more than an hour or two at a time without crushing their own internal organs.

/derail

I love their fuzzy nuzzles and smell!
 

Well that's ok, cause I think they are..... I'm ok with that, but thank you I'm well educated on equine behaviours, health do's don'ts and other random stuff. I love them that much. They bring me great great amazing joy and happiness.:)

:hk2: <I also think she's damn perfect too

See, now we're in danger of a major derail, because I also love horses, and I've desperately wanted a Fresian ever since the first time I saw Ladyhawke when I was a wee little bit.

Someday, when I've won the lottery or something and we're independently wealthy, I will have a stable full of Fresians and Gypsy Vanners. :drool:

http://www.lakeridgegypsy.com/images...ter8581-37.jpg

That's not really what anyone is talking about, though. No one has said you should compromise on your basic human rights. What's being asked is, what are you willing to do get those rights? A lot of people seem to be under the impression that they should just be able to say "I deserve it, gimme" and the people in power should just say "Oh, okay, here you go." That's a nice fantasy, but not how the universe actually works. In order to actually get those rights that we deserve, we need to get other people on our side. People like straight, conservative Christians in the midwest. Hell, even just your average, semi-religious, moderate straight person in the midwest. If we're going to make any real progress, we need more of them on our side. How do you propose we do that? We don't have the numbers to get anything by brute force. We need to convince people. What's your plan?

I don't have a plan, don't need nor want one, and here's why, they and their approval isn't necessary for me to be me, I don't need to convince any one of my right to be, my right to marry my right to fight for my country, I just do it. I refuse to beg them for anything, if they can't be like the Christ they so solemnly proclaim then nothing I do will change their minds. These are petty jealous and ignorant people, and I don't buy into their hate and fear. The best revenge is a well lived life.

If I lived my life according to their rules, they win, I don't, and they wont.