Discussions on Responses to Right-Wing Politics

Here is a map to links of students' conversations on the discussion board regarding how to respond to right-wing politics.

Map of links to students' conversations on the discussion board regarding responding to the politics of the right-wing.

I would like to pose a question to anyone willing to express their thoughts on it. We are taking a class regarding contested sexualities, contested refering to challenging the sexual "norm". Sexual norm obviously being that of the predominant heterosexual sexuality in our society. Well, to get to the point, does anyone forsee an end to this stuggle against the dominant heterosexism in our society? Usually when there is a struggle of some sort there has to eventually be and end to it, some kind of conclusion or outcome. Right? I guess i'd have to say that i definately hope there is a day when I can freely express,without being looked at negatively by most of society, the fact that i am a male and wish to spend my life with another man. However, will this happen? I must say I don't know if it will. I see a lot of inequalites around me, and a lot of bigetry and hatred. It makes me so upset at the fact all my heterosexual friends can freely express their love in public, whereas if I did such things a lot of people would think it was gross. What is gross about two men expressing love? What are people afraid of? I think it shouldn't be to hard for people to get over the fact some people don't limit themselves to having to fall in love with the opposite sex I am here to say that it is possible to love someone of the same sex and be happy. Its not as easy to find a mate i must say, but it can and does happen. So as i've pointed out with stating how people look negatively at sexualities different than the norm, progress seems to be slow in the homosexual/bisexual/transgender struggle. Although i question weather the struggle has and end or not, I must say i'm optimistic that it can and will happen. I think it will take a long time, but that slowly it will. Homosexual people have come so far in their struggle and there continues to be progress made. Can it only get better? I guess what i'm looking for here is reassurance from others. However, I simply pose the question to whether a day will come where my society will embrace me and my sexuality and I welcome any and all views. What do you guys think, is it possible for the struggle to end or is it inevitable that it will go on?

It seems as though there would eventually have to be an end, but I'm not sure as to how long it is going take. Eventually, society's view of homosexuals will change, but it is going to take a lot of time. I personally think that education is a very strong key in making the change happen. Unfortunately, most individuals in society today are very ignorant and refuse to even hear about the new information out there regarding homosexuals and bisexuals. If we can get our school systems and other educational institutions more involved in educating our youths about gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders/transvestites, than maybe we can hope for a new society that is more open and accepting of all individuals regardless of their sexual orientation. I come from a middle eastern family that holds many strong religious beliefs, and whose foundation is also strongly based on old traditional customs. They definitely have a conservative view, but for some reason I never let them influence my way of thinking about any individual I meet in my everyday activities. They were very negligent in my taking this course to say the very least. But I am my own person, and I believe in what I want to believe. We need to get other individuals to feel that it is okay to have their own opinion, and that can only be down through education and through us not jumping down someon's throat for not having the same views as us. What kind of world would it be if we all thought exactly the same, and behaved in the same way. We would never learn anything. Change is good. Differentiation is good. And Homosexuality is okay beacause it is normal. This is what we need to be teaching youths and adults in school. Now that I've completely wandered off the main question, "will the struggle ever end?", time to get back to it. I think the larger struggle over equal rights for homosexual individuals will eventually end because there are many powerful organizations (including the American Psychological Association)putting pressure on the state to pass anti-discrimination legislation. The APA takes the position that lesbian, gay and bisexual orientation should not be the basis for discrimination, and supported the American Psychiatric Association when they removed the term "homosexuality" from the Diagnostic and Statistic Manaul of Mental Disorders in 1973. With powerful institutions providing support of equal rights for homosexuals and bisexuals, and putting pressure on states to grantl these rights, than I do think that the legal struggle will soon come to an end. We just have to be patient. As for individual opinions and hatred against homosexuals, education is our only hope. We need to teach everyone that homosexuality is not an illness, mental disorder or emotional problem. (there is no evidence to say it is). Also, people need to understand that sexual orientation is not a choice, and it is shaped at an early age without any prior sexual experience. Once we can educate the public about the real facts about homosexuality as opposed to the unsound, unscientific, unproven myths, we are guaranteed a struggle every day. Eventually, I think that the struggle on a large scale will die down, hopefully almost diminish, but I'm not certain if it will ever really end.

Don't give up!!! I know at times it seems that the world is against you, and at times it is. But homosexuality has come along way. There are stages and processes that need to happen before a social change will occur. I'm sure there was a time when no one would ever think there would even be a class in a University about homosexuality. This class has definetly enlightened my knowledge on the personal dilemmas a homosexual has to go through. I also feel bad that our society can be so cruel! So what do we do? Well, I have a young child (7 years) and I make sure to let him know that everybody is a good human being no matter what color, race or sexuality they are, and you don't know a person until you really get to know them, so don't judge!!! I feel the next generation might have some hope and may impact social change in a positive fashion. Hopefully oneday we can look back at the struggles the gay community went through, and view it as a historical point of time. One day gays and lesbians will walk the streets holding hands and being affectionate without worry about being apart of societies 'norm', because it will be a norm. So, don't give up, just look forward to the day homosexuality becomes a normative. No matter what is accomplished, there will always be some type of struggle. Look at history with blacks and latinos, though they have accomplished alot there are still struggles.

I do not feel that the struggle will ever end until our society is not framed around hierarchies like heterosexism, race or class based. I believe our system is reliant on inequalities and has been framed in this manner since the beginning. The only way I feel that people will not classify each other into categories, and deviant categories is if our system is changed dramatically. I am not saying that the struggle is in vain, but that it will be a long struggle ahead and change will come slowly. I believe the way to change people's attitude is through education for all. To teach people that we live in a diverse society that has to accept its differences and cope with them in a different way. Instead of classifying something as normal and the rest as abnormal everyone should be equal. Everyone should have the same rights and restrictions not only those that are classified as deviants.

I believe that if people continue to struggle for the acceptance of queers, it may be possible for society's general view of homosexuals to change dramatically for the better. It is true that there are some very extreme cases of homophobia and hatred towards homosexuals. This was demonstrated in today's lecture when people presented their findings about anti-queer sites. However, along with this extreme view comes the other end of the spectrum, where people are supportive of one another no matter what there sexual orientation is. The main reason that I feel there is hope for positive change is that there is definitely a growing awareness and understanding of the queer lifestyle and the problems that they face. Unfortunately, I highly doubt that the anti-gay mentality will disappear completely. There are always people who take stands against all other types of individuals. People are inevitably afraid and resentful of what is different from themselves. They feel the need to gain "power" by belittling others. You see it every day in many different forms. Homophobia and gay bashing is one of the most (if not THE most) dominant prejudices in our society today. With time, perhaps this will change, but who knows if another group of peolple will then face the problems that queers once did in order for many people to feel "better" about themselves.

Darren- (and anyone else who uses this board)
I think that we will always probably be struggling for something, but I think it is really important not to give up and know that slowly progress will happen if people keep challenging the oppressive factors in our society. Unfortunately, major changes don't happen overnight, they are a result of people working hard and standing up for what they believe in. It is so important for people to take the powerful feelings they have (like the ones you wrote) and put them into some sort of positive action. Sometimes people get so down and frustrated with the way things are, that it immobilizes them and they are unable to see the small ways they can work for social change. It's a long fight and sometimes it is good to take a break, but no matter how cheezy it may sound, we really can't give up.

I know how hard it is to deal with people saying that who you love is a bad thing, and I'm with you, how can it be a bad thing? Like today in lecture, how can someone compare people of the same sex loving each other to being an alcoholic? One is a destructive and dangerous disease, the other is usually a huge positive part of a person's life. But, what I really wnated to tell you is that in my time at UCLA (I've been here three years)I've seen and felt some serious progress in terms of living as a gay person. This progress I've experienced gives me hope that one day the fact that people are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered will be something that only a small minority of the population will have a problem with. I hope that it will become something that is just a part of life and is not constantly under attack. I've seen signs that this is possible, but like I said there will always be people who have a problem with it and some sort of struggle to be dealt with. But once those people are in a small minority, hopefully they'll begin to realize they don't have many people on their side and they are wasting their time.

My mother hasn't always been a "saint." She did not go to church on a regular basis, read her horoscope religiously, spoke about others behind their backs, ate without saying grace, etc. Yet one day, a friend of hers showed her the right path to take. She took my mother to a charismatic church group. Ever since then, my mother has altered he perceptions of the world. The bible now dictates her life. She will not listen to the "music of the world." She will only listen to music, which praises her God. She becomes extremely upset if she does not arrive at the church at least a half-hour before mass even begins. My mother feels she is a "saint" because she is living the way God wants all of his children to live. With this in mind, I decided to ask foe her opinion in regards to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people. She expressed that those people have malos espiritos, bad spirits. Those people are not born this way. God does not make mistakes. These people have been "over-powered" by these so-called bad spirits. I tried to have her open her mind by counter-pointing her arguments but she would not hear of it. In her eyes, I doubted my Catholic faith by questioning the words of the bible. This issue is not the only issue I have tried to help her see outside of her "biblical" ideology. So, how does one even begin to change the minds of those who believe that homosexuality is immoral if they do not even want to hear a counter-point?

I totally understand your situation and I know it must be hard to change your mother because my parents sometimes have extremely strong beliefs and no matter what I do or tell them, they stick with their beliefs. I think it is something that is extremely difficult to do. We can't always change how people think because that is how people have grown up. My parents are not going to always think the way that I do because they grew up in a different environment, culture and time period than me and the ideology when they grew up was a lot more conservative and not as accepting than the ideology that is present in our American society today that we all have been growing up with. I don't have a solution to your situation and I wish that we could do something to change how people think but the only thing that we can do is just to at least make them aware and educate them and maybe from there, they themselves can realize on their own.

I think we also should be educating the younger generations beneath us because people are more open when they are younger, so if we can start educating people at a younger age, then maybe when they grow up, they will be sensitive and tolerant of everyone. It's hard to change older people's thoughts because they have had those same beliefs for so many years. That is why I think we should focus our efforts on educating children when they are young before they start forming opinions and biases.

I, too, think that older generations may be somewhat of a lost cause, just because parents and the like are so set in their ways. If my grandparents were alive, for example, I think they would have had a hard time with the fact that I am even taking this class. My mother as well, although not blatantly or openly homophobic, has her issues as well. Educating people from youth is the most important thing, because sometimes certain points are lost on people of different older generations.

In my opinion, children should not be taught that love can exist only between men and women, but between any caring people. Tolerance is also an important virtue that helps to eliminate all types of prejudice and discrimination. Most importantly, I think children should not be sheltered from the real world. They can take it... and the sooner they realize that there are all kinds of people in the world, the better it will be for them.

I would not argue and accept her attitude, since in time and with education she has to realize on her own that homosexuality is deviant because society dictates that it should be. I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion, as long as she does not expect to instill the same attitude in you, and respects that you have a different viewpoint.
I have the same problem with my father. As a Mexican he has a machista attitude about homosexuality. He is really bright and I admire him, but his attitude towards homosexuals bothers me. I do not try to change his attitude because he grew up in a different country, has traditional Catholic ideas and he grew up in a different period. I also follow some Catholic ideals, but I do not judge or oppose homosexuality because I grew up and developed my own views. I strongly oppose discrimination and oppression of any kind. I really do not know how my father could have such an attitude being part of the minorities that are oppressed by “traditional American” ideologies.

Hi everyone
I realize that it is late, however, I recently came accross a very interesting article in the Rollingstone edition March 18, issue 808. (If you can't find it you can log on at rollingstone.com). This article is particularly interesting because it ties in what we have been discussing recently in class regarding the websites that we have been analyzing. This article in particular (pg 40), deals with the FRC, and its allegations and claims about homosexuality. Some of the more interesting issues raised in the article is some statistics regarding "ambivalence toward homosexuality". polls show a kind of schizophrenia: "People seem to strongly favor antidiscrimination measures and other civil-rights protections for gay and lesbians, while at the same time they view homosexuality negatively sort of distasteful tolerance" It goes on to claim that polls show 57% of Americans questioned consider homosexuality unacceptable, however, when asked about gay sex 72% called it unacceptable. Yet an overwhelming 87% believe that homosexuals should have equal rights and the same job opportunities. These statictics have frusturated Christian Rights activists and the article sights the FRC as a primary example, as well as the Christian Coalition. Not only does this article site interesting polls and statistics it also talks about tactics used by many Christian rights activists both politically and scoially. For example, there tactic of stating that your sexual preference is "purely a choice", therefore one that can be changed through a relationship with God. I found this article particularly interesting because I saw how the influences of such organizations as the FRC can reach people through the media and print. It was different to actually look for a website (in regards to our project) that contains negative (or positive) reflections of homosexuals, instead I was flipping through a magazine and found negative actions by these groups as I was reading. I hope you all can get a chance to look at this article and read it in greater depth.

First of all, I just want to thank everyone for participating. The self-regulating discussion is going really well, me thinks. Your patience in engaging other students is commendable. I am touched by your outrage of the injustice gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, intersexuals have to face. It gives me hope that our continuous struggle is doing some good. Anyway, here's my thought...

Many of you seem to suggest that education about glbts would be the answer to end discrimination. I'm not sure if education is always going to do it. One, someone's religious faith will dismiss any "facts" you may have to support queers. Two, people like the Family Research Council will have counter-evidence to present how homosexuality is not a good thing.

There's a Vietnamese saying that in other to win, one must know oneself and one's enemy. So, I would like you to think about what is at stake for you and how you would respond interpersonally and politically to anti-queer sentiments and practices.
Of course, I am assuming here that you all have learned something new from this class about the different levels of homophobia and heterosexism and their effects on your classmates, neighbors, friends, family members, and self.

I would like to play devil's advocate and present an anti-queer view. Let me know how you, as an individual, would respond to these comments.

View by a Devout Christian:
I do not approve of homosexuality because it is a sin. It is plain and clear in the Bible. I know "thou shall not judge" but at the same time I will not tolerate this sin to become an acceptable (legal) behavior in public. This is my faith and I have the right to practice it. I will vote against any legislations that would give any sort of rights and legitimacy to something that I truly believe is the works of the devil. I am not advocating for a "witch hunt" (God will judge them) but I certainly will not tolerate knowing that these corruptors of the souls are out there, protected by the law, to teach my young children, to flaunt and spread their gayness, and to parade their sin shamelessly down the street. Whatever happened to traditional family values? What will happen to the moral fabric of this society when we slowly let these perverts peck away at our rights to live in a decent, Christian society. Some of you may call me not "PC" and not multicultural, but the truth of the matter is that this country was founded and built on Christian values not sodomites. I believe that the 20% of Americans who are still devout Christians will agree and vote with me against this threat to unravel this nation's moral center. I have read an article by Gayle Rubin who predicts that once the gays and lesbians gain their rights and legitimacy, other worse perverts will line up to march out of APA Manual of Diagnostics. This means that if we let gays and lesbians push us over, watch out! Soon you will be sued for discrimination because you refuse to hire a self-proclaimed pedophile in your elementary school. Another scary news is that the so-called queer theorists in the universities are proposing a way to dismantle our Christian way of life. One by the name of Lisa Duggan is proposing the queers to challenge the State's stance that favors "heteronormativity". She calls my faith "the religion of heteronormativity" and compares it to the queers' belief that they have an equal right to express and spread their perversions. Truly, this is getting ludicrous, how can Christian values, the foundation of this nation, be separated from how this nation should be governed? It has always been intertwined. Christian values are what made this nation great and possible. Remember the Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism? Just look at our currency and you will see that it is "In God We Trust". Those who babble about the separation of Church and State don't know their history. The history and truth is that this country is great and strong because we stick to our Christian faith. If we let these queers have their rights to be perverts and sinners, how can we begin to teach our children of what is right from wrong? We got to draw the line now before your child's next school teacher is old pedophile with AIDS or a man-woman health teacher who will be teaching children about sado-masochism as part of the the sex education curriculum. Don't believe me, just look at the safer-sex education debate right now in school. First we say to our children it's okay to have premarital sex. Second we are promoting that sex with prophylactic is somehow good and that as long as you have protected sex, you can have sex with anyone, anytime, anyhow. This is morally wrong! Even if you are not Christian, look at all the studies in the Family Research Council that provide strong evidence of the financial, physical, mental and spiritual problems that homosexuality causes. So, I think every Christian should practice their faith and vote against legislations that would benefit homosexuals and queers because a step forward for them would be a step towards demise for our great nation.

The difference between knowing something and UNDERSTANDING something is experience. You may hear, see, read information about gay people, but when it comes to the melting down of the deep-seated homophobia and heterosexist views, you must also come face-to-face with it, touch it, smell it, EXPERIENCE it. This means getting out of your seat in front of the computer, putting down that soc reader, and walking down to west hollywood, talking to some gay people, befriending them, walking in their shoes. Only when you have put yourself in their position and looked at life through their eyes will you have some level of acceptance, understanding, and empathy.

This touches on the topic of segregation. When people are divided and kept away from each other, a lot of ignorance builds up. There have been psychological studies done on competition vs. cooperation. When a group of kids gets randomly split up into 2 groups, all of a sudden, antagonism appears. All of a sudden, it's "we this" and "they that." For no apparent or explainable reason at all, people have this tendency to favor people in their own group and disfavor people in other groups. Even when the groups were decided by random selection and the individuals had no history with each other.

And I relate this to religion because despite many creedos that praise "loving everyone" or "love the sinner, hate the sin," they are really just segregating themselves from other religions. Being an agnostic myself, I just do not understand how certain organized religions can be so loving and peaceful, yet punish everyone else if they do not convert. Of course, I'm excluding those religions that DO have a tolerant view of other religious ideologies, but I think most religions have egocentric views. To me, it sounds like they're saying, "Our god rules," and "Your god sucks." This is simplifying things a bit, but I think you get my point.

So to get back to my original point, when people arrange themselves in ways that exclude, whether by gender, race, or religion, you create a hierarchical view of your world. To define "man," you must define "woman." To define "heterosexual," you must define "homosexual." To define "Christian," you must define "non-Christian/sinner." But in defining them, you're also inadvertently saying that one is better than the other. Or that one is "us" and the other is "them." And this does not change much even with mass education. It changes when the walls break down and you see yourself through the other person's eyes, thereby creating a circle and blurring the divisions.

View of a devout Christian continues:
"This is what I mean about the moral decay. You liberals are talking about walking down the streets with gays, pedophiles, sadomasochists, and try to understand their point of view. No, thank you. Why would I want to tolerate
sinners? This is kind of advice is like asking me to try to empathize with a mass murderer--get inside their shoes and understand how treacherous they feel about society condemning them for going on a killing spree.

"Your celebration of diversity of cultures and subcultures is unacceptable. It ends in relativism and there is no right or wrong left. We are left in moral ambiguity and pedophiles will become a minority group asking for equal protection in employment. For heaven's sake, this is why I had fought for Meggan's law and I will continue to vote against any legislations that will attempt to give these sinners equal rights.

"Your discussion of segregation doesn't make sense here. Of course, I would want to segregate myself from agents of evil. The boundary between good and evil must be clear so our children will know the difference. We are in a war over what cultural values to uphold. The liberals are gravitating towards moral ambiguity and that is why our infidel, pervert, leader was saved from impeachment.

"I do not want to go back to the dark ages of immorality. I do not want the walls between perverts and decent Christians to break down. I think Christians values are at stake here and we need not recede from this war with morally ambiguous liberals and sinners. I say ONWARD WITH CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION!"

Hi Mimi (and Eric & Elizabeth), what I (Gina) am trying to get you to see is that your reasoning would not work with someone who has strong religious beliefs that are anti-queer. They would just dismiss any "facts" you may present. These people also are very organized and they have political voices to make a difference. Like lgbt activists, these Christians see a "war" at hand because what is at stake is their belief system and ways of life. So,...roughly 10%* queer people versus 20% fundamentalist Christians,...you figure what will happen...

Lest we forget about the "liberals"... Well, although many may believe lgbts deserve the same rights as others, fighting for these rights is not at stake for them. I think they will flip-flop when Christian rights evoke images of pedophiles and S/M people.

So, what I am trying to say is: do not dismiss the religious rights so easily because they are a strong force that we have to contend with. And, we also need to really work on the so-called liberals given the depth of heterosexism. And, within our queer movement, how do we resolve the diversity we have to present an "acceptable, dignified" representation of our "community"? That is, will sexual minorities such as pedophiles, S/M people, sex workers become our scapegoats for the negative stereotypes we receive? We will present "good" lgbt people and win acceptance and further marginalize other sexual minorities? The Christians seem clearer about their vision of a theocratic society. I'm not sure we have a clear vision of our "good" society when the truly marginals are accounted for.

Education, to me is one of the most important things in the world, but I agree that it does have it's limitations. The problem with education is that it can't explain everything in the world. In my view, this is where religion comes in. There is a fine line between education and religion, especially in the area of morality. If someone is so devoute in their religion that they are unwilling to recognize the harm it is causing to other human beings, then it doesn't seem like much of a religion to me, but more like a cult. People need not only to be educated, but also enlightened. By enlightened I mean that people need to take whatever basic life philosophy they have and apply it to every day life in a rational manner. If you have accepted a religion that professes love, but harms other human beings, what good is it? People need to take out their love, spread it all around, and forget about converting others to their chain of thought. If everyone sees how much they are loved by one another for who they are, people may finally begin the process of giving eachother the respect for humankind that each and every one of us deserves. I know this sounds idealistic and not much of a practical solution. Sorry. It's just my thoughts on an immense subject that can be debated for eternity.

i agree with your views about religion. It seems that most religions are very hypocritical in certain ways. One of these ways is that they preach to accept people and not judge them, and then THEY judge people. The concept of homosexuality obviously applies here. In respect to education, it seems that people recognize the importance of this institution, but they don't take advantage of it's function completely. People aim for good grades and learn a few things that can be applied in the world once in a while. Students may learn about homosexuality in an English class or a discussion about AIDS (classes such as Soc. M167 are rare and not taken by very many people), but do they actually understand what they are learning and make an effort to appreciate the different lifestyles that are presented? While most people see the importance of education, I don't think that they always apply their education in ways that help solve the cultural wars that are so predominant in our society.

The good folks at The American Guardian has noticed your class is reviewing our web site. In this review, the writer called our facts
"untruths and lies". Here is one of many letters we receive from our homosexual visitors:

-----Original Message-----
From: Marko Moilanen
To: don@thundernet.org
Date: Sunday, March 07, 1999 9:37 AM
Subject: Confession of a homosexual

Dear Mr. Ellis,
I´m just writing to say how much I appreciate The American Guardian
webpage. In my opinion, there is no other site that gives as accurate
a picture of the homosexual community and its effects on society. And
I should know, as I am homosexual myself.
I am a 29-year old guy in Finland. My first sexual experience was
being molested by a middle-aged man when I was just 6-years old.
However, that was not the only factor obstructing my normal
development. My father died when I was just a baby, so I was raised by
just my mother. I didn´t have much male influence in my childhood,
instead I was encouraged to play quietly with dolls and search the
company of girls. In school I was very clumsy at sports, and therefore
derided by the other boys. I reached puberty much later than the other
boys, and even then the changes in my body were modest compared to the
others. I was constantly comparing myself to other boys and remember
feeling envious of the natural masculinity I saw in them. I still feel
very insecure about displaying myself naked, because of my small,
undeveloped body and genitals (I´m 5´8", 110, 4½"). I have always felt
less of a man than other guys, and rather scared of them. I believe
this has greatly contributed to my abnormal desires.
When I was 17 I entered the gay community, and was soon very
promiscuous and anxious to try every kind of perversion. Since then
I´ve had hundreds of sex partners and tried every kind of unhealthy
deviation. Basically I´ve lived the way most gays live. I feel
ashamed, dirty and unworthy, and yet I can´t control my desires.
I don´t believe there´s any chance of me getting cured anymore, I´ve
sunk way too deep into depravity. It´s the young and less experienced
guys who might have a chance to be saved to normalcy. And they should
be encouraged to try to do so. By exposing the truth about my kind You
might be saving many lives.
Having spent so much time among other homosexuals I know that the
articles on your site paint a very realistic picture of gay community.
I saw a lot of myself in the article about coitophobia, and the
article on Matthew Shepard revealed him in a very different light from
how the gay media has presented him. I think You´re doing a big
service to society.
I´d appreciate it if You took the time to respond to my mail. I´d
certainly respect your opinions. Please feel free to ask me any
questions that might interest You. Sorry for taking so much of your
time.

Wait a minute....This guy "became" gay because someone molested him, i.e., turned him gay and then this was compounded because
he was a late bloomer with small genetalia???? OK, I get it, gays (men) are child molesters with small penises......

Is there any way to get their logo off this discussion board?...perhaps we should leave the message because it is actually very revealing
and impresses upon people how important this class and this topic are. If we don't keep talking about this and thinking about this,
those on the other side will and they will win.

Wow, and I thought the discussions on this board were done. I must say this is the most interesting class discussion board I've ever
viewed.

FYI: I had asked the SSCNET staff to remove the American Guardian logo off of Don Ellis' posting because our class site is not meant
to be a place that supports the American Guardian. The logo indicated that we do, so I had asked for its removal. (The logo with the
bald eagle read that this site supports the American Guardian.) The message by Don Ellis is left intact though for your viewing.

Note how organized they are to find our class site and how they are coming up with counter-evidence about "the truth of homosexual
lives."

Although this discussion board is meant for only students and staff of Soc.M167, I have decided to leave Mr. Ellis' message up for
your viewing. I hope this does not offend anyone. Please let me know if it does. I understand that some of the lgbt students are
already troubled by the direction of these discussions so finding the American Guardian logo and message posting may be another slap
in the face.

Please forgive me for my posting of the banner. By honest error I linked the wrong gif.

As for our finding this discussion board, you must remember we have ways to investigate the entire internet...in our search of child
pornography.

so how did you find our class site? you were looking for "pornography" but
"gay and lesbian" came close enough?

all i saw was a troubled man who is not happy with his sexuality because he was molested. He is confused and equates homosexuality with molestation.

Excuse me but most gay people I know don't molest nor are they victims of homosexual molestations. In fact, most of the women I know, gay or straight, if they were ever molested, were molested by a straight man. So, don't blame the shame of misogyny from patriarchy on gays and lesbians.

as for me, i had no traumatic experience that made me gay. I just realized I was attracted to the same-sex and have found love and acceptance among my friends and family. Thank GOD that they actually follow Jesus' teaching on LOVE and not hate or bigotry. Why can't people let others live in love? Why must you push your hate and intolerance on others? Hah! And to then to gloat on
freedom from censorship. it's pure hypocrisy to me.

Is it consistent to hunt down child pornography and still support the fight against censorship of the Internet?

Many have argued that the distribution of obscene adult material is a victimless crime, that no one gets hurt and that what one does
privately is his or her own business. In the case of child pornography, however, where a real child is videotaped or photographed,
there is always a victim. The distribution of that depiction repeats the victimisation over and over again, long after the original misdeed
took place. Likewise, when the face of a child is superimposed on a sexually explicit photo, even though that child never participated in
any sexual act, the distribution of the altered image arguably produces a similar effect.

There are two ways in which children can potentially be harmed by child pornography--by being exposed to child pornography or by
being filmed themselves. Children who are exposed to pornography are in danger of being desensitised and seduced into believing that
pornographic activity is "normal" for children. It can provide a kind of modelling that may adversely affect children's behaviour and
result in learning experiences which connect sex to exploitation, force, or violence.

Well, I am not a child porno advocate or anything. You post just seemed mysterious. It seems clear to me that your "ways" of hunting
down child pornography are just by employing spiders or robots who comb the web crawling over documents looking for key words,
like, "sex," "naked," "pictures," ect. and then they return to your home with a list of the websites. What I was concerned with was that
whatever method you chose to filter through the internet caught this site in its net. As I am sure is apparent, this site is devoted to the
cultural polticial and social struggles of queer people and not one word was ever mentioned about child pornography. In fact, no real
mention of any discrete sexual act of a particular person was mentioned until your post about the molested guy.

Your struggle against child pornography is clearly motivated by a good concern for the welfare of children. What concerns me is that
censorship of this kind leads to some fairly bizare and dangerous actions as when a law was passed that banned distributions of sexual
depictions of people who "appeared to be" under the age of 18. Also, the effort to hold the service providers responsible for the
content that they host and/or that passes through them is gravely dangerous to the freedom of expression within the Internet. This is
because the internet is soo big and has so much information passing through it, that it is literally impossible for humans to monitor it
all. The only recourse is to use filtering programs not unlike the ones that you use to search for child pornography. The result is that
these filtering programs filter out everything having to do with sex--medical, cultural, and poltiical, as well as salacious. There would
be a presumption of guilt upon sites that contain certain words or that have certian pictures because those sites would be mechanically
blocked from the viewed by the filtering program and then it would be up to the site to discover that it was being blocked and then
work to remove that block.

The point is that humans cannot oversee everything on the Internet. If the major providers/carriers of information and hosts of
personal homepages become liable for the material that falls within their domain, they will be forced to either use a mechanical filtering
program resulting in the what I discussed above. Or the employ hundereds of monitors, thus slowing the freeflow of data and causing
such an increase in the cost of maintaining the service that the price of access to the Internet will rise far beyond the means of large
amount of people's ability to pay and thus restrict acess to cosumers. The struggle of anti child porno advocates on the Internet can all
to easily lead to harmful restrictions both in the access to and content of the Internet. . .

I read the letter that you posted in our class website.
And I wanted to share with you MY personal story.

I am 21 years old and a queer male.
I have never had a boyfriend, much less had sex. I respect myself and my body, I am not promiscuous.

I will most likely have sex until I am married. Whether I marry a woman or a man, it is important to me that sex is a very special
thing, reserved for the one you truly love. I would never engage in casual sex. I have never been molested, I had a Dad, plenty of male
role models.

Well,...here I am a queer male virgin...Nonetheless, I am queer. And your statements and accusations are thrown at me, when they
don't apply to me. I am a 21 year old virgin, for God's sake. This leads me to think that your generalizations are totally invalid. You
cannot just make generalizations based on one person's account. If one could generalize, why don't you generalize stories like mine?
Obviously, because you are out to distort people's perceptions in order to support your goals. It is very self serving and convenient
how you chose carefully what to generalize, always to your political agenda's advantage.
so you call queers these names...I am a queer... I am undeserving of these names...
I am proving you wrong.
The fact that I exist is proof that you are wrong.

Follow Ups:
Re: Re: Confession: What does this have to do with me?? Don Ellis 05:44:22 3/24/99 (1)
Re: Re: Re: Confession: What does this have to do with me?? 14:21:17 3/24/99 (0)

in your world, is it really possible to know that one is straight before one gets married and finally can have sex?

There is a Poll going on asking people whether they think that parents should raise their daughters to become feminists. . . Right now
its 65% "No" to 30% "Yes". Considering that feminism was the forerunner of critical queer theory, does this bode well for the
movement? Also, considering the demographics of the internet, I always thought that its polls would be skewed a little to the Left. I
know that this poll is not scientific, but it is a reminder of what is going on around us. . . unless movements are supported, they tend
to fade.

i think it depends on what people mean by "feminist". feminism has gotten such a bad name so people would like to dissociate from it.
my optimism believes that young women and men nowadays hold many feminist beliefs without knowing it so. they may not want to
raise their child "feminist" because they may think it means man-hating and man-blaming. at the same time, they believe a woman
should have the right to her body and that a NO means NO.

even if you consider the rise in rightist groups, i think queers and feminists are fighting as hard.

in the end, it's a culture war between two minority (small number) groups, the rest of the country are too busy watching TV, and it's
not world news!