What is "the gay lifestyle" that the rw is so concerned about?

[Bluzmann57]

A gay couple recently moved in down the street from us and I was talking to the one guy the other day about cars and we bitched about the Cubs. I do that a lot with others too. A lesbian couple that my wife has known for many years seem like anyone else to me. So I'm just asking, what is so evil about this "gay lifestyle"? See, I'm a devout heterosexual, so I honestly can't discern a difference. Maybe I'm missing something here. As far as the sleeping arrangements, WHO THE HELL CARES? You ain't sleeping with me or my wife, so why should I care?

[Endangered Specie]

1. The Religiuos RWers enjoy sticking their nose in other folks business

Especially about how families should be run/constructed.

Its seen as "just wrong" according to (their interpretation of) the Bible, which, is the last word to them on everything.

[pocket]

2. I think they have an aversion to

house music.

[MrScorpio]

7. I don't know about that

I love House Music and I'm straight

[pocket]

20. yeah, but you aren't a

republican.

[unblock]

3. it's a pseudo-intellectual cover for bigots

they hate gays because they ARE gay.
but they understand that that's bigotry.
so they decide say that they only hate gays because they DO gay things.
that way they can say that they have a choice in the matter, they're chosing to do these things, so how can it be bigotry?

well that's the thinking, such as it is, anyway.

[arwalden]

4. I Nominate Bluzmann57...

... as a finalist in this year's Rational Heterosexual Live And Let Live award.

-- Allen

[Bluzmann57]

8. Well thanks I guess

I was taught many years ago that we shouldn't discriminate against others because of race, color, creed, sexual orientation, etc. Heck, my dad is a bit conservative when it comes to homosexuality, but even he says not to discriminate. I also have a cousin, who's had an unbelieveably tough life, who is a lesbian, and she is now attending college and is one of the nicest, sweetest people on the planet. All she wants to do is give of herself. Good ball player too, for what its worth.

[arwalden]

11. This is a good thing... bigotry is learned...

tolerance is also learned. It's passed down from parent to child. (And my parents did their fair share of burdoning me with racist demons that I still wrestle with from time to time.) It's a horrible thing.

I wasn't making light of you or your story... that was just my way of saying "HOORAY" and good for you... and above all else... THANK YOU!

-- Allen

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

18. It can also be unlearned, as I had to do over a long period

of life.
My parents and grandparents laid a heavy racist agenda on me too which included homosexuals.

My parents are now very tolerant, and I am too... even more so.

It is not easy to challange everything you have been taught, but it is possible.

[RodneyCK2]

19. Same here...

I have so many bigot scars from my youth. Luckily, I was smart enough to overcome them.

[Bat Boy]

5. Afternoon cocktail parties...

The work of Satan, dontcha know...

[Terran]

6. They hate our fabulousness.

Seriously...it's the marching in parades wearing leather jockstraps and stuff like that that people like Falwell and Robertson promote as the "gay lifestyle", so naturally they find an eager titillated audience. Try to convince them that most of us just live our lives the same as most people and you'll get a blank stare. The propaganda has been very successful.

edit: typos

[tedoll78]

9. Here's my gay lifestyle..

Mondays and Wednesdays:
awaken at 730am
class from 845 to 1130am
study, do housework, nap until 5pm
work from 5pm to 1am
collapse on bed at 115am

Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays:
awaken at 615am
clinical rotation from 730am to 330pm
work from 5 to 1am
collapse on bed again

Saturdays and Sundays:
study,
sleep,
grocery shopping,
laundry,
bills,
and so on..

===========

So, as you can so very plainly see, I live a very evil and threatening lifestyle. The hard work, the studying, the grocery shopping - it's also window dressing for when I spend my 1 spare hour per week preying on little boys down at the neighborhood park..

[benddem]

10. Homophobia

is based mainly on fear of being gay. Normal heterosexuals aren't threatened by gays...but homophobes are. It is all so strange. Like the banning of books etc. Have you ever read something that made you do something terrible? I think they have terrible thoughts.

One of my friends has a coffee cup with "support the gay agenda" but he doesn't know what it is either.

[unblock]

12. "they hate us for our freedoms"

ah, the irony....

[VOX]

13. Well, my brother works with a construction business...

...he's out in the field or in the office until 8:00 almost every night; his partner works in a law firm all day. They have two dogs, a nice house in a good neighborhood. They go out to dinner once in awhile and a concert every now and then. They've been together for several years.

Oh yeah, I can really see how this "lifestyle" is *extremely* threatening to middle America.

Right.

[Momgonepostal]

14. Excellent question

I still haven't figured out why I should be threatened by the "gay agenda." To me it seems like the basic agenda is to live their lives and be happy and have the sames rights as everyone else. I can't imagine what RWers find objectionable about that.

[SarahB]

15. The people most scared I think are those deepest in the closet themselves.

They're afraid they might enjoy it themselves.

[Rowdyboy]

16. In my case, cleaning house, walking the dog, making dinner for two

and, best of all, getting to sleep with my best friend!

The disposable income that comes when you don't have children helps too.

The right wing isn't "concerned"...they're jealous!

[RodneyCK2]

17. It is all bigotry...

no matter how you slice it. We are the new civil rights movement. Speaking of which, for that very reason, it really burns me to see other minorities come out against gay people. But why do they do this?

Mostly it is just flat out bigotry, fear, and mostly it is masked under a dirty blanket of religious beliefs

[ScreamingMeemie]

21. I really think it's the incoherent fear that somehow they are going to

get to our children. Unfounded, irrational, and typical of the "morally challenged".

Don't look in my windows, and I won't look in yours. It's all the same.

[Lindsey]

22. The RW is against homosexuality due to how they interrupt the

Bible. In their minds, homosexuality is a MAJOR sin. My homosexual lifestyle includes working Mon. - Friday at a job I love (I went to school full-time and went to college full-time to get my Bachelor's Degree at the age of 41). I go to movies with friends (very seldom are they militant/lesbian porno films - in fact - they NEVER are), I go out to eat, I have and go to game nights, I jog, I go on bike rides, and I watch Six Feet Under. I am on a spiritual path/self-actualization quest and try hard to be the best human being I possibly can. In my last relationship, my girlfriend and I did volunteer work with the elderly. Yes, we certainly are a menace to society.......

[uhhuh]

27. I don't know if it was intentional

But when you posted about how the RW interrupt the bible, it occurred to me how true that actually was.

They pull out quotes that they think support their bigotry, and then interrupt the message that that contradicts their positions.

[Blue-Jay]

33. Idiot bible-thumpers.

The Bible (mostly OT) says all sorts of crazy shit, and it's been reinterpreted and translated so many time that many of the original messages have been corrupted. In Leviticus (I believe - No Bible at work...) it also advocates holding slaves and stoning people who don't attend services on the Sabbath. Where are the idiots condoning THAT sort of behavior? Most of these rabid homophobes are probably dealing with their OWN sexual attraction to the same sex, because they all know that it's better to beat the shit out of someone than to fuck them.

feh.

[Nevernose]

23. I suspect most RW pols of being in the closet

Did you see CSPAN last week? It was three days of Republicans repeating "gay sex, gay, sex, gay sex." And occasionally "box turtles."

I don't know gay people who talk about gay sex that much, which is why I suspect them of being seriously in denial.

[TrogL]

24. Pretty much anything that isn't white-picket-fence conservatism

[opihimoimoi]

25. Like maybe they have a prurient interest?

[bookfreak]

26. Let's see,

What they think it is:

We all go out on the town dressed "in drag". We have wild casual sex in public, particularly in front of young people, who we all want to convert to our deplorable lifestyle in droves. Mind you we have as many sex partners as possible, and never settle down with any one person for more than a week at at time. We hand out tracts and invite people to our clubs and coffee-houses to become members of our "cult" (yes, people have actually called it a cult). We spread disease and sin....lots of sin.



The reality, at least from my personal life.


I work two full-time human service jobs. I've been celibate and single by choice for over 15 years. My best friend Paula and her partner have been together for about 12 years and both work at professional jobs and live in a middle-class neigborhood. None of us look like "bull-dykes". My dear friend Mike works like a dog at two jobs to pay for his immaculate town-home which he bought a few years ago. He, like me, is single and celibate by choice and has been for many years.

Although all of us have gone to dance clubs and/or bars from time to time, it's on the scale of once every few years rather than frequently. We don't go to parades, have sex in public (if at all) or any of the other crap the RW nuts claim. They just have their notions and see what they want to see (and disregard the rest).

[jukes]

28. It's all the love

that frightens them. they can't handle folks capable of TRUE emotion, rather than mass hysteria.

[jonnyblitz]

29. you need to see some of the literature they put out about us

in fundraising letters to right wingers. I used to get on right wing mailing lists just to receive them in the 90's. I wish I still had some of that crap. You wouldn't believe the stuff that we do. I stilled haven't quite acquired the taste for eating feces like all of us supposedly enjoy doing according to a Jerry Falwell fundraising appeal I received once...These completely insane people exist and are becoming the mainstream of the republican party...

[baldguy]

30. Homosexuality is not an "acceptable" lyfestyle.

Its never been viewed as right. Society has never allowed people to be openly gay. And the Bible condems it too. Thats what they say, anyway.

Of course, its all bullshit too. What it boils down to for them is gays aren't human. Even the biblical argument is an excuse. The christo-fascists real reason is simple bigotry.

[Skittles]

31. I don't understand why they care either

I don't understand where people get the time to worry about the "lifestyle" of others; I don't do that great a job managing my own.

[LynneSin]

32. Them gays out there are recruiting our children into their lifestyle.....

<evil eye>




Ok, just kidding! I have to wonder if there really is a gay lifestyle? I mean, it just sounds so dumb to say that when it's just really a lifestyle just like I have my own lifestyle to live.

[BiggJawn]

34. I think it's all about the toasters.

the RW is pissed that they don't get free toasters...

[Ellen Forradalom]

35. Here's my hypothesis

From a heterosexual observer of the events of the last 20 years.

A generation of coming out has let everyone see gays as people, not as a threatening (to middle America) subculture (think "inner-city youth" for an example of that.) Instead of suffering rejection from their family and communities and moving to a gay urban mecca, more and more are staying right where they are, living as they always did. Not that there's anything wrong with moving to SF or another major city, but it's no longer the only option for living openly as yourself.

[philosophie_en_rose]

36. The Republican lifestyle is all about control.

Not only does it promote controlling others, it requires a great deal of control to maintain. While liberalism can be summed up into a few statements (Live and Let Live, Don't be a dumbass, Respect the world around you), conservatives have a paranoid list of things to remember, such as:

1. Obey the powerful. Or Else!
2. Might makes right.
3. If people aren't like you, they should be.
4. Appearances are everything.
5. Don't be a liberal.

Except for log cabin Republicans, the gay community as a whole isn't interested in letting the "moral minority" of homophobes control what they do. It doesn't matter whether a person that is gay has sex a million times or not. The issue is that the gay "lifestyle" doesn't include getting approval from bigots or asking for permission.

Notice the "ex-gay" movement ( ), the allegedly ex-gay folks are asking for permission, following programs, and begging to be controlled by the religious and political right. Unfortunately, that's the only way that gay people will be accepted in that culture, by hating themselves to gain acceptance.

[truthspeaker]

37. Easy to hate what you will never do

This doesn't apply to those gaybashers who are closet cases (and I'm sure they exist). I think for a lot of the bigots they just like hating someone, and gays are an easy target for haters who aren't gay have no gay friends or relatives (as far as they know).

The Bible talks about a lot of "sins" but the judgemental types don't like to focus on ones they commit themselves: greed, gluttony, (heterosexual) lust, jealousy, drunkenness, anger, lack of charity, and more greed. So they focus on the one "sin" they never do: having sex with someone of the same gender.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

38. Sodomy - they are intrigued/repulsed by it

I don't know what they have about lesbians - maybe they feel emasculated!

[Malikshah]

39. Here's a list

Referring to myself and my partner...

2 job household
1 cat
Vacations w/ family to Disneyworld etc.
Own a home
Renovating home with help of friends, family, and neighbors
Pay taxes, permits
Registered cars, etc.
The occasional bike a thon for MS


Yup. We're subversive. We're out to destroy the country w/ our un-merkan ways.

[TXlib]

40. The religious conservatives fear god's wrath

They are afraid that all of society will be punished by God if we tolerate what they consider immoral behaviour.

So, they honestly can't live and let live. They'll keep sticking their nose in it, trying to stop it.

Not much you can do other than continually oppose them, and try to catch religious conservatives when they're young and malleable, and give them a dose of tolerance to offset that Old Time Religion.

[phillybri]

41. RW'ers think gays want to fuck everyone and everything they see...

Brilliant...

[phillybri]

42. RW'ers think gays want to fuck everyone and everything they see...

Brilliant...

[terrya]

43. I don't have a lifestyle...and yet, I'm gay. Weird.

Maybe there's something wrong with me.

[RodneyCK2]

45. I don't have a lifestyle either....

which is best, me thinks. *wink*

[malachibk]

44. Let's be honest, though, people

(1) I'm gay, so this isn't conjecture-
(2) I live in NYC, so maybe my experience (and that of my friends) isn't typical for gay man throughout the country.

But here's the shit I'D be afraid of--

GAYS USE LOTS AND LOTS OF DRUGS -- alcohol, X, K, Meth, Coke, Poppers, Pot. LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS. Young gays, old gays, middle aged gays. We love our drugs. Do you have ANY idea how many gay men are in AA/NA etc? It's a whole other sub-suc-culture.

GAYS HAVE LOTS AND LOTS OF SEX -- different partners, multiple partners, multiple times a day. If we can get it, we get it. And if we were born in the 80s (and never saw the ravages of AIDS) we might not always use condoms.) My partner and I have been together for almost 6, monogamous years and NO ONE CAN BELIEVE IT. Gay men here just don't do that, or if they do, they are in "open" relationships -- hell just look how Keith didn't get pissed at David for getting a blowjob from that random plumber on 6 Feet Under. Par for the course.

Feel free to get angry with me, but people, this is just the way it is. I think both issues stem from not feeling loved and appreciated as well as a need to escape (first our town of birth, maybe our parents, then the pattern is set). But at least here in NYC (and I've lived here for just shy of 12 years) this is the way it is.

[Xithras]

46. Yup, drugs & promiscuity

I've had some interesting discussions with fundies over the years (growing up bi in fundyland is fun, especially when the jocks beat you up for being a "faggot" and then try to rape you in the locker room), and most of them actually cited these two issues as their reason for hating homosexuals. The sex, they said, was forgiveable and didn't hurt anyone but the gays themselves, while the promscuity and drug use affected the whole community.

IMO, they have a small point here. Drug use in the gay community certainly seems a lot higher than in the population at large, and the rampant promiscuity is in a large part the driving force behind many community maladies (seriously, what kind of sicko thought up the glory hole? Blech!)

Please don't misunderstand this as gay bashing, but the gay community DOES have a seamy underside that gives the fundie community plenty of ammo to demonstrate our "immorality".

[cosmicdot]

48. I won't get angry with you ... I'm wondering if millions have been slurred

by these stereotypes ... sub-sub-subcultures is probably accurate ... the outcast psychology plays a part, too ...

this is all the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell types want to advertise as they sell hate ......

but, the community is not the circuit party crowd ...
that's a lifestyle which few can 'afford' ...
it takes a lot of $$$ for such lavish living ...
but, even still, that lifestyle is not unique to Gays ...

if the 10% number is accurate, how many of @30 million Americans are slurred by such generalizations?

The original question was:
"What is "the gay lifestyle" that the rw is so concerned about?" ... perhaps post number 44 should have been post #1 ... because that seems to be the real reason of the thread.

if we could classify this sex&drugs as "clubbing" ... enjoying life ... partying ... pursuit of happiness ... whatever ... the last time I looked, this isn't behavior unique to any minority, gender, nationality, orientation, creed, etc.


Drugs are the American economy ... spend a week watching the tube as much as possible, and each time a drug ad comes on put a tick on a piece of paper ... when you get to 5, cross through the 4 ticks, and continue with the next 5 ... report back after 7 days ...

economics

clubs and music exist: people pay admission
the Poppy Bush War on Drugs (haha) Drug Market exists: people buy
cha-cha outfits exist: people buy
conflicts and choices come into play

... whether prescribed or not ... IMO, common hands reap the profits from both ends of the drug market ... but, that's another issue ...

but, it's not a Gay thing ... it's an International thing ... not just an American thing ...


establishment of Gay families might stabilize tendency to be faithful to one's partner

but, again ... what is the divorce rate in the USA today? what was it 54 years ago?


imo, most everything boils down to economics
and, social behavior and relationships are influenced by economics





I'm listening to erasure's The Innocents ... it always touches on so much for me ...

... where were you when I needed a friend ... wanting a little respect ... carrying the weight of the world ... who will be the next victim of the criminal dawn ... we sail on a ship of fools ... it's just your imagination ... river deep, mountain high ... if I lost you would I cry? (yes)



btw ... my disability benefits come with matching lifestyle, handbag, and shoes ... but, it does come with John, Duchess & Windsor ...

[pdx_prog]

47. I know a few "ultra religious", "ultra rw"

peeps, and they are convinced that liberals and gays are out to convert the world to homosexuality. They are quite sure that it is a conspiracy. They get weekly newsletters that tell them which tv shows make any reference to gays or the gay lifestyle so they can be sure not to watch it, or let their kids watch. Of course, they all tune in o Rush's vile spew every single day!

[ronnykmarshall]

49. The RW'ers need to GET a life.

They are so obessed with us homersex'ls they can't live their own drab, dull, boring, tastless lives.