Quote:
Originally Posted by Toughy
Tolerance implies and reinforces 'love the sinner, hate the sin'......makes me want to bitch slap the person saying that.........
Acceptance is turning on the tv, flipping channels and NEVER EVER seeing Bennie Hinn praying over letters and mailing out prayer clothes he prayed over on tv to those who send $19.95 so they can be saved. Acceptance is not having a murder count on the local news every night. Acceptance means Liberty University, Oral Roberts University, Bob Jones University are closed due to no enrollment. Acceptance means equality and value for each and every human being.
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This I found really discouraging, Toughy. So, assuming that you mean what you appear to mean above, you are saying that in order for queer people to be accepted there must be NO place for a Benny Hinn. You are saying that queer people will truly be considered legal and social equals ONLY when there are no murders. You are saying that queers will only be accepted ni society when there are no Christian universities. I find that discouraging, Toughy, because it seems like what you have said above is that queer people will be considered legal and social equals--acceptance from the larger society--sometime after the twelfth of never. And how would we get to this world? I'm not sure I'm willing to pay those costs, as I calculate them to be, Toughy. NOT because I have any love for Benny Hinn or I think that the Christian universities you mention turn out good scholarship. Benny Hinn is just a carnival barker in a better suit and Bob Jones, Regent's, Liberty and Oral Roberts *combined* couldn't turn out a real top-shelf scholar if they tried. It is because I don't want to win our battle on eliminating the opposition, I want to win by convincing the middle.
The world you are describing, Toughy, isn't achievable by OUR species in a manner that is not oppressive in a broad way. In order to get a world where one will never see another Benny Hinn or where Christian fundamentalist universities have no enrollment, one would have to *outlaw* religion. Are you prepared to do that, Toughy? Are you willing to pay that cost because I'm not sure that I am. That might surprise you. I am no friend of religion but I also recognize that our brains bend *toward* religion and, as such, I view religious belief as an built-in part of human nature. Whether that is a feature or a bug, I don't know. I do know that unless I can come up with something to *replace* one's religious belief I have no business robbing someone of that which brings them meaning.
Then there's the stuff that really says "this will happen when the Winter Olympics are held on the Sun". When there's no murder count? Acceptance means equality and value for every person? What 'value' are you talking about and what kind of equality? Equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. A relatively free and open society can just about manage the first one but it takes a totalitarian dictatorship to pull off the second one. I'm not sure I'm ready to have the kind of state necessary in order to enforce equality of outcome JUST so my 'tribe', if you will, is accepted as you have defined that term. In order to have NO murder count, you would have to fundamentally change human nature or you would have to make a society where surveillance and control was so complete and total that no one would ever have the opportunity to commit a crime because they are *always* observed and *always* monitored. That is a world of cameras on every lamppost and in every corner. I don't want that world, Toughy. I love Jaime like she were the very breath of life itself, and as much as I want to be able to legally marry her, I would rather not be able to than to have to live in the kind of society that would make your vision above possible.
That kind of society would rebound to our sorrow, Toughy. This is the thing I don't understand--we all talk 'as if' we admired Dr. King but, quite honestly, I think that mostly that is very superficial. We, as queer people, face a similar numerical and social challenge as my parent's faced in their time. Their generation could have demanded that the Klan be made illegal--and it would have failed. They could have tried to make America a nation where racist thoughts or speech were made illegal. They could have demanded these things at the point of a gun. You know what would have happened? We wouldn't be having this conversation and no one under the age of about 45 would have any memory of meeting a black person because we would have been wiped out.
This is similar. Sure, Toughy, we could try to create a society where Christianity is made illegal and, quite honestly, it would be far easier for Christians to simply wipe us out to the last than have their religion made illegal. Or we could keep spinning our wheels, generation after generation, telling ourselves 'one day' while making NO discernible headway because instead of rather simple and pedestrian goals--marriage equality, equal employment opportunity, military service, etc.--we set impossible goals for ourselves (e.g. the utter destruction of Christianity, the complete elimination of poverty, everyone being equal and valued).
What you call acceptance, your vision of what it means for queer people to be in a decent enough social and legal position that the queer rights organizations can turn out the lights and go home is nothing I recognize as acceptance. Quite honestly, I don't see what half your list even has to do with queer people becoming full and equal citizens.
Unless we're not meant to take your words to mean what they appear to mean or we are not meant to take your words and try to apply them to the real world, I don't see that you have set achievable or, for that matter, desirable goals.
Cheers
Aj