Proud To Be Gay, Ashamed To Be Straight

Originally posted by RANT

Can we call it Mardi Gras? Hold it every year and make it a week long? No that probably won't cut it.

If you'd ever been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras you probably would not have used MardiGras as an example fpr your "rant".
Mardi Gras in the Big Easy is as much a gay pride party as it is a drunken bash for heteros.

It seems here that the best way to solve all of this bickering is to simply homogenize the United States. Therefore, it is the responsibility of our Federal government to pass legislation which will require all people to wear the same style clothes, listen to/watch only state approved radio and television, and perform all duties for the benefit of the Federal government. (seriously, that was a joke....)

The original conversation topic of this thread has been lost, (which is not anyone's fault) it is human nature to compare and contrast seemingly similar topics. Even I am guilty of this in posts. However, to get back to the original topic:

Homosexual pride parades are used as a measure to bolster pride in the homosexual community. This community does not have the same equal rights afforded to other American citizens. There are restrictions on their rights as citizens, as compared to Heterosexual couples. Indeed, until recently, their sexual activities were legally punishable in Texas. Homosexuality is not a choice. It occurs later in life for the same reason that the inclination to be straight occurs later in life...Kids aren't usually sexual, at least not until puberty. Then, once there, an individual who is gay might hide it or try to fight the feelings because it is not socially acceptable, further delaying their 'gayness.'

The purpose of a heterosexual pride parade would be used to reaffirm to straight people that yes, they are in fact still the dominant sexual preference. I do not see where this is an equivalence issue, as Homosexuals are not equivalent to heterosexuals for certain rights.

To compare other pride type events to the homosexual pride parades is irresponsible unless the other compared pride event can express a similar inequality. For example, we can refer to the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's, or the women's lib movement, but the modern day black history month is irrelevent because african-americans are no longer treated separately (at least on paper, I'm not talking general discrimination which unfortunately does still exist, and I agree it also exists in reverse from their community).

Gay pride events are an expression for want of equality for their community. Any community that already has an equality of rights should not need to express this.

Parades in general are an expression of the right to assemble, and any group can host an event as such and exclude whoever they wish from participating. This can be illustrated by the KKK being allowed to assemble and have a parade, peacefully, with the protection of the law, despite what anyone feels about their beliefs. It is well within the rights of a group of heterosexuals to gather together and have a parade. I encourage you to do so. It does not matter if there are groups that would dislike a group of heterosexuals for it, they are protected by the same right to assemble as homosexuals. However, in my opinion, any such act would merely be a reactionary spiteful event simply because some heterosexuals feel it's not fair that homosexuals have a parade and they don't.

Originally posted by SimonColynAdrian


The purpose of a heterosexual pride parade would be used to reaffirm to straight people that yes, they are in fact still the dominant sexual preference. I do not see where this is an equivalence issue, as Homosexuals are not equivalent to heterosexuals for certain rights.

No one wants to compare apples to oranges. Those of us advocating the straight day are simply implying that there is this unspoken thought that says if you are straight you cant celibrate. Why does it have to be a reaffermation of dominance? Why cant it be a celibration of Heterosexuality? Its OK to celibrate homosexuality but NOT heterosexuality? This is the exact double standard we are protesting.

I am an advocate for equal rights for all. No man or woman is any better than another. Cut me and my blood is the same color as the guys who host Queer eye for the Straight Guy. I am in NO way advocating the dominance or prefferential treatment of one section of society or race over another.

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone will) but it seems that the primary arguments against the celebration of a "majority" group fall into two base arguments:

1) The majority, being the majority of course, celebrates their status through virtually every television show, magazine article, song, etc.

2) The majority was not oppressed, and therefore a celebration is not only unnecessary, but in its frivolity is an offense to those who were oppressed.

In regards to the first argument, just because the majority of the media is run by straight people or portrays straight life does not mean it's a celebration. In fact, the only "celebration" I've seen in popular media is Comedy Central's The Man Show, which is merely playing on a stereotype. I'm not eternally glued to the set, so I've probably missed something.

But the reason there are so many shows that play towards white, straight people is because they are the majority. The people who run the stations, with maybe the exception of PBS, are out to make money. They know that the largest demographic in this nation is the white heterosexual; therefore those are the largest percentage of people who are going to be watching the ads that pay the bills. If you were running a store, you'd probably try and make everyone as comfortable as possible, but if your primary customers were 15 year old boys you probably wouldn't be selling tampons, would you?

Everything in this thread that has been denoted a celebration of "straight pride"--holidays, parades, media attention, whatever--is because the group that makes up the bigger percentage of the population also holds the bigger percentage of the market. If heterosexuals were outnumbered 2 to 1 in this world, then most of what you see on television would be geared towards homosexuals. That has nothing to do with equal rights or anything, it's merely from the worship of everyone's favorite god, the Almighty Dollar.

As far as the second argument goes, again this topic is, in one way or another, about equality. When did equality change from the base ideal of being equal to one group having more rights than another? I'll admit it, I don't want equal treatment, I personally want more rights than everyone else. I'm selfish that way. But I'm not going to go out and start a movement calling for equality, then complain when someone else tries to do what I'm doing.

Strip the labels off. Bring it a little closer to home. The people on the block a couple of streets over demand the potholes in their street haven't been fixed because there's fewer of them that live on that block than anywhere else in the town, say ten people. They get a pothole fixed, although there's still quite a few left.

On your street, where there's twenty people, you start to realize that you've got a couple of potholes that you'd like fixed also. Not as many as the other street, but they still bug the hell out of you. By some of the reasoning I've seen in this thread, you have to suffer with your potholes--even though there's more of you than on the other street--because they didn't get all of theirs fixed. And as soon as someone on your street asks to get a pothole fixed, everyone on the other street starts raising hell. Is that right? Is that fair? Shouldn't the city fix all the potholes, regardless of how many people live on which street? Or at the very least, shouldn't the people on each street try and get the city to fix both streets?

Ok, that might be a bit of a stupid analogy, but I hope it at least gets the point across. It seems to me that everyone clamoring for equal rights, but nobody wants to be equal. They want to be special, they want more than their fair share of the pie. Once another group starts demanding the same rights as the oppressed group, the oppressed group starts raising hell about it. That's just my opinion anyways.

What a bunch of crap in this thread, unbelievable.
Gay pride and gayweek and whatever versions of them are a direct result of years of suppression, discrimination and utter horrors that gay people have been forced to face every day, because of what straight people thought about them.

Now I personally think being proud to be gay is pretty ridiculous, you can't help it that you were born gay, neither do you know you're "better" being born gay than straight, being proud to be straight is even more retarded.

We saw the same with blacks, the EXACT same actually, and today people ARE allowed to be proud to be black but people are NOT allowed to be proud to be white.
It is understandable, it is logical, and trying to question it like this and demanding equal "rights", makes you look like you have forgotten all about what horrors these minorities had to face just for being different.

Originally posted by Jakko
What a bunch of crap in this thread, unbelievable.
Gay pride and gayweek and whatever versions of them are a direct result of years of suppression, discrimination and utter horrors that gay people have been forced to face every day, because of what straight people thought about them.

Now I personally think being proud to be gay is pretty ridiculous, you can't help it that you were born gay, neither do you know you're "better" being born gay than straight, being proud to be straight is even more retarded.

We saw the same with blacks, the EXACT same actually, and today people ARE allowed to be proud to be black but people are NOT allowed to be proud to be white.
It is understandable, it is logical, and trying to question it like this and demanding equal "rights", makes you look like you have forgotten all about what horrors these minorities had to face just for being different.

I proud of being Muslim from the Middle East , i am not quit relgious but i totaly disagre on gay thing and pride and stuff happening in our place

The thing is that "gay pride" does not necessarily, as I understand it, mean "pride" as in "wow being gay makes me so great"...

It's "pride" as opposed to "shame" in this sense, a rejection of the internalized self-hatred that comes with being gay in a society that condemns it.

There being few, if any, people that are actually "ashamed to be straight", there is very little need for "straight pride" events...

Originally posted by Jakko
It is understandable, it is logical, and trying to question it like this and demanding equal "rights", makes you look like you have forgotten all about what horrors these minorities had to face just for being different.

So does that mean that those of us who didn't do a single thing wrong to a homosexual or a black person or any other minority need to be treated alongside those who did? If that's the case, screw it; I'm no longer white, I no longer have any sexual orientation, and I consider myself gender-neutral.

I was never part of the KKK. I've never gone out gay bashing. I've made jokes that were sexist or racist, but only to those who I knew would take them as a joke and would come right back with something of their own. So why should I be denied my rights because someone of the same race/gender/sexual orientation denied rights to someone else?

Just because I want my slice of the pie does not mean that I've forgotten what someone else has been through. As far as being different, hell, I'm different too. So is everyone else reading this thread. I get laughed at because I want to pursue music instead of something that will earn a living. I've been mocked at for being white, for being too skinny, for being nerdy. I've even been denied jobs because I'm white and was living in a primarily hispanic community. Just about everyone individually has been discriminated, oppressed, and mocked in one way or another. How about we start in with a fat pride parade? Or a computer nerd parade? Or a parade for people with buck teeth?

I'm all for everyone having their fair share, but that does not mean that a fair share for one is bigger or smaller than a fair share for the other.

How about we start in with a fat pride parade?

OoooWeeee! can you imagine the hottie cheerleaders in that one
*druling*
ahhhhhh

Well said.... I think you summed it all up.

[edit on 4/6/2005 by SportyMB]

Originally posted by bios

Originally posted by RANT

Can we call it Mardi Gras? Hold it every year and make it a week long? No that probably won't cut it.

If you'd ever been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras you probably would not have used MardiGras as an example fpr your "rant".

Mardi Gras in the Big Easy is as much a gay pride party as it is a drunken bash for heteros.

Well let's just say I celebrated heterosexuality so much at my last Mardi Gras, I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to go back.

I'm aware there be gays there Admiral. In fact segregation such as it is, the deeper you go down in the quarter past Johnny Whites (where no proper local celebrant goes beyond) it becomes almost exclusively gay.

That's not Mardi Gras. At least according to my elitist friends holding coveted crue spots that treat it more like a high holy week of family, exclusivity, and last fling debauchery before penance. I actually don't think I've seen a more segregated city or event when it comes right down to it.

They may even have some all gay parade in some section, I have no idea. I know they've got Barkus for dogs. But when it comes to the long standing mentality of those on the "in" that's not real mardi gras.

Of course, my friends could just be full of # and bigots to boot. But they do throw nice balls.

None of this really relates though, except in that (to Kidfinger's point) what do you people want?

Go celebrate!!! Have a straight parade. Who cares? If you bothered to read the article this guy could have. He just chickened out and spun it into "gay people so mean to me" so people could post crap like "ashamed to be straight" propaganda on the Internet to stir up trouble and anti-gay sentiment. That's all he wanted. Trouble. Not to celebrate heterosexuality.

But by all means, you go for it. I celebrate heterosexuality every day, and I don't have to bash gay people to do it.

Originally posted by RANTWell let's just say I celebrated heterosexuality so much at my last Mardi Gras, I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to go back.

I can understand that one, I wasn't there for Mardi Gras but 2 weeks before once and had a complete blast....

O'Brien's and the Hurricanes keep Tylenol in business......ah my head still hurts and that was 14 years ago...

Oh, gee, where to begin. It gets so tiring to hear the rantings of people in the wrong trying to justify what they do and point fingers to others to take the focus off of themselves. If homosexual people have a problem with straight people celebrating their normalcy, then they need to shut the heck up and stop publicly displaying their crap.
Since the beginning of time the vast majority of all human beings have believed it wrong to be queer. Now the liberals in this country are trying to imply that billions throughout history have been wrong and that queerness is infact alright and should be accepted. Bullcrap.

A cartoon ran in the New Yorker some years back, depicting a small child and his mother at the gay pride parade. The kid and mom were in the foreground, a gaudy, disturbing float in the background. The kid is saying to his mother, something along the lines of "I used to think gays were normal people like you and me, but now I know they're sick, demented perverts."

I think this sums up nicely how I feel about gay pride parades. That's why I don't attend.

Now, on to the question. RANT nailed it, this was an instance where the straight parade could have continued, but was cut short because of potential political fallout. I think it's a stupid idea, personally, because straight people aren't (for the most part) ashamed to be straight.

Certainly straight people feel ashamed, about a wide range of personal flaws, but their sexuality isn't on the short list.

I never really understood the need for a gay pride parade, I think gays can be proud without being sexually offensive in the public square.

I've befriended a number of gay men and women over the years, and they've never displayed the sort of wanton perversion and indecency these parades promote. None of my gay friends would be caught dead in a 3 foot feathered headress, nor would they consider riding around town on a motorized phallic float. This stuff is simply not representative of normal gays, it's representative of the fringe.

It's immaterial though, because nobody is forcing me to watch the parades. Anybody has the right to organize a parade, go for it, knock yourself out. But if there is a straight pride parade near me, don't expect my attendance. Being straight and being proud, sure, I can handle that. Making an ass out myself in front of the entire town, nope, not my style.

Let people do what they want to do, and let them eat the consequences. It's the only way to encourage good decision making skills. Trial and error.

Originally posted by deesw
Oh, gee, where to begin. It gets so tiring to hear the rantings of people in the wrong trying to justify what they do and point fingers to others to take the focus off of themselves. If homosexual people have a problem with straight people celebrating their normalcy, then they need to shut the heck up and stop publicly displaying their crap.

I understand exactley your way of thinking. You do not see gays as "normal" people.

Since the beginning of time the vast majority of all human beings have believed it wrong to be queer.

You have not been educated in world wide human history. Fine, but you are very wrong.

Now the liberals in this country are trying to imply that billions throughout history have been wrong and that queerness is infact alright and should be accepted. Bullcrap.

Liberals? Or do you mean people who are not extremist Christians? Or is that the same thing to you?

Of course it should be accepted, why the hell not?

[edit on 4-6-2005 by Kriz_4]

Gay parade is very obscence scene for the children what drunk guys as well as some other wearing next to nothing doing something .

GOT DAM IT THERE IS CHILDREN!!!

You cant let children watch these parades even on TV

Originally posted by junglejake
Ahh, political correctness. Again.

A Yellowknife city councilor suggested there be a Heterosexual Pride day. His reasoning wasn't to butt heads with the Gay Pride parade, but to offer a pride day for those who are not gay. You know, so all people can be represented. This action made national news.

This day has been canceled after it was decried as being anti-gay and homophobic. The message I got from this reaction is what the subject of this thread states: you are permitted to be proud of your sexuality if you're gay, but if you're straight, it's best you stay in the closet.

So what's going on? If you are part of a small minority, you are given holidays, special privildges, and the like. If you're part of a majority and don't have a problem with being part of a majority, that makes you a bigot. After all, you don't hate yourself. Imagine the outcry if there were a White History Month like there's a Black History Month. It would be called racist, white supremmisist, etc.

So why do we have to be ashamed of who we are if we don't agree or change our politics/race/sexuality to be in line with these special interest groups?

Source

Methinks the poster protest too much.
Hmmmm

Originally posted by jupiter869
Methinks the poster protest too much.
Hmmmm

Hehe, I'm protesting the protesting...What would that be called? Would that be anti-protest, or pro-protest, or pro-anti-protest, or...Yeah...

What do you mean?

Hey, I have an idea, why don't we stop using labels? If everyone could just accept everyone else, we wouldn't need special days or parades. Do I have to be gay in order to accept that some people are gay? No, I don't even have to approve. Guess what, the only two people in the world that are exactly alike are identical twins

No where in the Bible does it say "Go ye into all the world preaching that homos are going straight to hell." Yet so many "Christians" take this point of view. As I said in another post, if God is offended by homosexuals, let Him deal with it. It is not my job as a Christian to tell you what is wrong with you. I'm supposed to love you and tell you about God's love. And if you don't agree, then I can move on.

Let's stop dwelling on our differences and trying to out-special each other, and start celebrating our similarities. There is one race, the human race. Love can not be defined, so who is to say who is right and who is wrong. The Bible is a book about how Christians are supposed to live their lives, not a weapon to be used on those who believe differently than you.

This is why I don't believe in evolution. You'd think after 6,000 years of evolution we would have better sense than still harbor hate and resentment against our fellow men and women.

Originally posted by eazy_mas
You cant let children watch these parades even on TV

Quick fix: be a responsible parent and either

1) teach your kids what exactly the parade is about and why it's right/wrong/whatever, or

2) don't let your kids watch.

Just because something is there doesn't mean that kids need to pay any attention to it. People expect the media to be their babysitters

Originally posted by darkelf
This is why I don't believe in evolution. You'd think after 6,000 years of evolution we would have better sense than still harbor hate and resentment against our fellow men and women.

Unless, of course, there is a stronger chance of survival by harboring hate and resentment. Who would be more likely to survive and pass on their genes, some psychotic running around with guns, knives and grenades shouting "kill the hippies!", or the person who steps in front of him and says, "Just love, man, love." Sadly, my money's on the psycho...