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Edited on Wed Jun-15-11 09:25 PM by Renew Deal
I’m not sure what happened now to generate this thread, but it is what it is. I have a few things to say which I didn’t really want to. I think it’s better that I get them out there.
I have never been deeply involved in the drama part of the Gay/Non Gay stuff going on at DU. I don’t know the histories well enough. I haven’t been affected by some of the things going on in the background.
There are two parallel actions going on at DU regarding gay issues. One is the political which includes Obama topics. The other is the (mostly) under the radar (to me) drama. In regards to politics of gay issues on DU. I think DU is one of the best and most active pro-gay democratic political sites there out there. There is almost complete support for gay rights. I don’t think you can ask for much more than that. There are people that don’t support certain rights, but that’s a small group. DU is a large site, so it is understandable that some people have different views.
Issues like DADT or DOMA are easy. I don’t think I’ve seen a single DUer against repeal. Marriage is a little less easy, but still probably over 90% support on DU. Those are pretty good numbers. How we get from A to B is where things get tricky. An ongoing theme on DU is how and how fast certain things change. I agree that a right delayed is a right denied. I disagree with some people about how a political agenda should be laid out and about what’s “possible.”
There are certain people here that refuse to give Obama credit for anything. And some of those people are absolutely against giving Obama credit on gay rights issues. It’s like if they give Obama credit, then people they consider their opponents have been correct all along. It’s BS and intellectually dishonest.
There are others that are dishonest in their characterizations of Obama. The most notable person doing this is John Aravosis. He is a liar when it comes to Obama issues. He flat out lies and mischaracterizes Obama’s views and actions. There are gay members of DU that understand this and chalk it up to “bad apples” in the bunch. I can accept that, but it still pisses me off when people post Aravosis’s lies on DU. The admins should at least consider putting AmericaBlog on the banned list for this reason. It should go the way or Rense and Prison Planet.
I’d say there’s one DUer in particular that falls into the category of generally dishonest when it comes to Obama issues. That person is Bluebear. Bluebear is a long time DUer who deserves credit for being a pillar of this site. I love his non-Obama posts. It makes me happy when he’s focusing on someone else. But when it comes to Obama it ain’t pretty. I think it goes back to the McClurkin business in 2007. He was one of the main noisemakers about McClurkin with the long politically motivated Obama apology thread. At the time it seemed like a political tactic more than an honest complaint. Over time I realized that his distaste for McClurkin was legitimate. But his bitterness over Obama winning wasn’t. He has posted thread after thread of dishonest or unfair opinions about Obama. He is one of the largest sources of the bad feelings for some on DU. And after months of abuse to Obama about DADT repeal, I never saw a thread from him admitting he was wrong or giving Obama credit.
Bluebear claims to have me on ignore, so please let him know I said that. I don’t want to talk behind his back. I couldn’t post in this thread in good faith without bringing up my issues with Bluebear.
The other major issue on DU is the under the radar drama. I don’t have much to do with this area. There are people with bad feelings out there. It seemed like things got a bit better after Skinner posted the big thread in the GLBT forum and let back a lot of good people (Yardwork and Maven come to mind first). I, like others have been shocked at some of the people that have been banned, but I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. Some of that stuff has come up in this thread. I don’t believe there’s a single “homophobic moderator.” I don’t think that’s even possible. I’m a sports official and sometimes coaches will say “you called more fouls against us.” That’s likely true and the reason is that his team committed more fouls. In terms of soccer, if I foul you to take the ball away, and you punch me in the face, guess who’s going to receive harsher treatment from the ref? The guy that threw the punch. There’s not much I can say about the behind the scenes stuff other than people should give each other the benefit of the doubt. Someone that disagrees with you isn’t automatically a homophobe. A mod that shuts down a thread does so for a number of legitimate reasons (usually).
I don’t know if this thread will get us to a better place or not. My view is that we need to give each other more of a benefit of the doubt. Don’t take disagreements personally. They usually aren’t. If you don’t like the moderation, try to become a moderator. Maybe you’ll begin to understand the complex demands of this site. Don’t expect “even-handedness.” It’s not really possible. And if you hate this place because you think the members and mods are all homophobes, then why do you want to be in a place like that?
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