OT: Obama and his principled stand on gay marriage

[Victor Steinbok]

We are not in disagreement about the attitudes and that's not what I
said--I believe that they were in no small part responsible for the
passage of Prop 8 and of Question 1 in NC. But, as much as they vote for
constitutional restrictions on marriage, they don't transfer the same
attitude to politicians who may support SSM but are not themselves
homosexual. In other words, NYT is mistaken that this is a serious
consideration in voting outcome this November. If you have evidence of
any Democrat harmed at the polls by Blacks voting Republican because of
his/her SSM stance, by all means, let me know. Is the culture generally
homophobic? Absolutely! Does this transfer to anyone who expressly
disclaims homophobia? I don't think so.

     VS-)

On 5/14/2012 2:33 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> I'm confused. Are you saying that the NYT is mistaken in its
> assessment of the homophobic black attitude toward gay marriage that
> so shocked California's *white* gay community - IIRC, 70% of blacks
> voted *against* gay marriage - not long ago? That I'm mistaken in
> pointing out that there is *at least* as much anti-gay sentiment among
> blacks as there is among whites - witness a saying critical of
> California common among blacks - "Most places, you use fences to keep
> the people from eating the fruit. Here [in California], you got to
> use fences to keep the *fruits* from eating the *people*!"? Or that
> it's a non-issue for Obama being blown out of proportion by the press?
>
> And, BTW, black, showbiz gays of the RuPaul school are lionized by
> *white* people. To black people, they're an embarrassing abomination,
> because the *real* soul-brother is *not* a do-funny! It's people like
> RuPaul and them who got AIDS from white men and then introduced it
> into the black community, in the first place! That's another CIA plot,
> just like rock (= crack)!
>
> And, just as there are people unconsciously racist, there are people
> everywhere unconsciously homophobic, to a greater or a lesser degree.
> When a buddy of mine, whom I'd known sine I was six and he was seven,
> told me, when we were in our thirties, that he and the
> "flaming-faggot" character in "The Boys in the Band" were the same, it
> was just noise, some joke whose point went over my head. So, I merely
> replied, "Uh-huh," and threw it out of my mind.
>
> About fifteen years later, after getting the word from an
> unimpeachable variety of sources, I realized that Weldon had been
> trying to come out to me. I had always considered myself to be in no
> way homophobic. Yet, when push came to shove, that I had actually been
> enjoying a close, personal relationship with a gay person for dekkids,
> as opposed to merely seeing gay men around, was incomprehensible.
>
> Finding out that Weldon was gay didn't affect my friendship with him.
> But, my mind was *blown*, when I realized that, clearly, I must have
> been, to some degree, homophobic, if the fact that a friend of my mine
> was gay was so unthinkable that, when he tried to tell me about it, it
> was as though he was trying to tell me about his ability to set fire
> to water.
>
> --
> -Wilson

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