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Current time: March 28, 2024, 3:32 pm

Poll: Was the Blogger's comment homphobic?
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Is this homophobic?
#1
Rainbow 
Is this homophobic?
There's a controversy that has kicked off recently in my local politics about whether an insulting tweet made by a political commentator was simply cruel or deliberately homophobic. Because the politics surrounding it are so polarised, it's impossible to get an objective reaction because everybody has taken sides with their "team". I know what I think about it, and I think I'm being honest with myself, but you can never fully remove your own biases.

I come to you looking for an honest, impartial assessment. 
I'm going to tell you what happened, with all the politics removed, leaving just the core details. 

Here's the story:
Person A is a prominent, high-ranking politician. He was until a couple of years ago married with (adult) children, that is, until he came out as homosexual.
Person B is his adult son, also a prominent politician, in the same political party as his father.

Person B was recently delivering a long, boring televised speech to his party conference. A Blogger, watching the speech, tweeted the following:
Quote:"Person B is the sort of public speaker that makes you wish his dad had embraced his homosexuality sooner."

The Blogger has subsequently been attacked by his political opponents and labelled as "homophobic" for the comment. He argues that, while a deliberately insulting joke, it was in no way homophobic.



Questions
How do you react to that?
Do you think it's funny?
Do you think it's in poor taste?
Do you think that was a homophobic comment? If so, why?



I would really love to hear some impartial feedback on this to help shape my own thinking.
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#2
RE: Is this homophobic?
I don't see how his comment was homophobic at all. It was just a mean. But it's no different from saying "I wish person A hadn't married his wife so that person b wouldn't exist."
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly." 

-walsh
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#3
RE: Is this homophobic?
It is not homophobic. The tweet merely means if person A had embraced his homosexuality sooner, then person B would not have been born.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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#4
RE: Is this homophobic?
Just stupidity you can get away with in the internet.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#5
RE: Is this homophobic?
FWIW, for me it was out loud laughing funny.

And it's not homophobic, it's heterophobic.


Glad I could clear that up for everyone.
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#6
RE: Is this homophobic?
Given that there is still a lot of social stigma attached to homosexuality, and this person was almost certainly aware of that (I know people live in 'bubbles' sometimes and like to think everything's all la-di-da) if not intentionally drawing upon that to be even more provocative than necessary, yes, I'd say it's homophobic. At the very least, situations where people who are afraid to come out of the closet and start heterosexual marriages are being made light of. I have a close friend who spent decades in that kind of double life and seeing how it's affected his entire life is just heartbreaking. So for someone to just throw around mockery of that so casually without a thought to the reality of it, and seeing so many others also not have that occur to them, it's totally messed up.

The late, great Bill Hicks had a bit in one of his stand-up routines where he came up with a less intolerant yet still crude and hilarious way to imply that someone ought never to have been conceived: "You should have been a blowjob."
Religions were invented to impress and dupe illiterate, superstitious stone-age peasants. So in this modern, enlightened age of information, what's your excuse? Or are you saying with all your advantages, you were still tricked as easily as those early humans?

---

There is no better way to convey the least amount of information in the greatest amount of words than to try explaining your religious views.
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#7
RE: Is this homophobic?
it can't be homo and hetero phobic at the same time


{theory of humor 101}
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#8
RE: Is this homophobic?
No it's not homophobic, I've actually always thought that on some level that being in closet is selfish. I'd rather a person be openly themselves then to pretend for years they're something they're not, and bring pain to other people by keeping up the pretense for so long. While I understand the concerns go physical safety and financial security I don't think it's right use other people. And by getting married to woman and having kids with her the gay guy is super selfish. Hiding behind a woman and the children she bore him is not right. I'm not saying the guy has to wave the rainbow outside his house or anything but man up.
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#9
RE: Is this homophobic?
We can have Jimmy come in and explain why I'm right.

[Image: jimmy%2Bfrom%2Bsouth%2Bpark.gif]
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




Reply
#10
RE: Is this homophobic?
(July 30, 2017 at 2:32 pm)BrokenQuill92 Wrote: No it's not homophobic, I've actually always thought that on some level that being in closet is selfish. I'd rather a person be openly themselves then to pretend for years they're something they're not, and bring pain to other people by keeping up the pretense for so long. While I understand the concerns go physical safety and financial security I don't think it's right use other people. And by getting married to woman and having kids with her the gay guy is super selfish. Hiding behind a woman and the children she bore him is not right. I'm not saying the guy has to wave the rainbow outside his house or anything but man up.

What if you think, or hope, that it's something you can change? What if you've heard from every direction your whole life that that's the right thing to do because to feel or do otherwise is filthy or wicked or worse? If that's the message being hammered into your head, it's sometimes going to take root like with other types of indoctrination. I'm not saying my friend in particular ever had that level of dissonance in his mind, in fact I'm fairly sure he never believed any of that for a minute, but that's not the case with a lot of gay people, so I wouldn't make that kind of generalization. Yes, there's no way for anyone involved in a situation like that not to hurt or suffer in some way, and no one should be made to want that, but that doesn't mean it's all bad. My friend helped his wife to raise her boys (his stepsons, not his actual biological children, so he wasn't one of the sort you mention) where she would have otherwise had nobody to help and little financial support. His heart was in the right place. He's also an older guy (almost twice my age and I'm in my early thirties) so I assume the stigma against that sort of thing was far more severe back in the day, which probably helped motivate him to keep it to himself in spite of the consequences. If he'd grown up around the same era as me I don't think he would have made the same choice but that's just how times change.

So maybe it's not comparable to having a gun held to their head if they dare come out, but that kind of mental abuse can make someone feel like there is one. In the worst cases they're made to feel like they are their own worst enemy while simultaneously thinking that everyone else is also their worst enemy (and mortal enemies at that). They're not taught that it's perfectly fine to do that in order to hurt others, it's out of fear and desperation and false hope. Not like the religions that teach people it's perfectly fine to cast scorn and shame and violence against someone for their fucking nature.
Religions were invented to impress and dupe illiterate, superstitious stone-age peasants. So in this modern, enlightened age of information, what's your excuse? Or are you saying with all your advantages, you were still tricked as easily as those early humans?

---

There is no better way to convey the least amount of information in the greatest amount of words than to try explaining your religious views.
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