Here's what's the matter with Kansas (barf alert)

[Sapphocrat]

(As it's just one LTTE amidst a bunch of others, and makes up only a tiny fraction of the page, I'm quoting it in full.)

Here, people, is the mindset we're up against. How many fallacies and strawmen can YOU find?

Gay agenda
Monday, December 4, 2006

To the editor:

I wish to commend the voters in more than 20 states who have had the moral courage and common sense to pass changes to their state constitutions prohibiting same-sex marriage. They recognized that the prohibition is not discriminatory or unconstitutional, but want to protect the institution of marriage from unelected activist judges.

Jim Krieger, in the Nov. 25 Journal-World, states that, “The majority of Americans consider gays and lesbians as people undeserving of the same rights as the rest of us and think they should not be allowed to marry, simply because of who they are.” He conveys his argument in terms of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

This is a very disingenuous argument that is attempting to compare real discrimination of racial minorities to the false discrimination claimed by the homosexual movement. Homosexuals, as a class, are among the wealthiest and best educated class of people in the United States. I have had many conversations with minorities about the many different faces of discrimination they have suffered, and they agree that homosexuals don’t deserve protected class status the same as race, gender, etc. They think the homosexual movement doesn’t have a clue what real discrimination is all about.

The objective of the homosexual movement is to destroy traditional marriage between a man and a woman, not equal rights. Here is a plank, which speaks for itself, from the 1972 Gay Rights Platform, which demands: “Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit.”

Jim Mullins,

Lawrence

Link:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/dec/04/gay_agenda/

Some days, it really isn't worth chewing through the straps... *sigh*

It is, however, worth reading the many comments at the above link, which brand the writer the flaming ass he is.

Sadly, online comments never make it to the print version of any paper.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. And that is from Lawrence, home

of KU, possibly the most blue town in Kansas.

[Phredicles]

5. True, but the Urinal-World is run by an antediluvian nut job.

[Warpy]

2. Those comments are priceless

except the attempt at hijacking it to piss and moan about flag burning (which usually happens outside our borders which makes the yowling about it even sillier). I especially liked this one:

"Jim Mullins is off his rocker. The only thing that the "institution of marriage" needs "protection" from is the wandering tallywackers of self-righteous hypocrites."

Truer words were never spoken.

However, it's nice to see the gay and lesbian community get another promotion. You've gone from a "perversion" to an "agenda" and now you're all the way to "a movement!"

Congratulations!

[Sapphocrat]

4. I thought we were a movement...

...all the way back when "Gay Lib" was still in the public lexicon. Oh well, maybe there are more of us now. (I knew the toaster giveaway wasn't a waste of time!)

I like this Raginbear person: "I would write a larger comment here, but I am too busy secretely (sic) brainwashing your children into being gay. ..."

[valerief]

3. Kansas must be the gayest state in the union considering all that

denial and repression. Their state bird must be the feather boa. Holy cow, talk about being afraid of the bogeyman.

[MuseRider]

7. Hey now

the large gay community is the only thing that makes living here worthwhile. ;)

[valerief]

9. Well, will you get the Kansan loonies out of the closet? They're

scaring the rest of the states.

[MuseRider]

11. ??

They are not in the closet here, most of them are out and proud. Even Western Kansas is beginning to come out. Don't be scared, just work hard on your state and it will help us influence ours.

If you meant that the loonies are closeted gays I would say that I think that is offensive. I am not gay so perhaps it is not but it seems to me that blaming latent gayness for craziness is not right.

[valerief]

12. I guess you didn't get the gist (jist?) of my first msg. The

anti-gay Kansans in the OP are soooooo anti-gay, they must be in denial about their own gayness. Hence, get 'em out of the closet.

BTW, I'm not gay either. I just can't take the loonies in Kansas. (And no, I don't think everyone in Kansas is a loony.)

[MuseRider]

6. Ahh there are wackos like this everywhere.

Kansas is also home to the Kansas Equality Coalition and many other organizations that are working very hard to overcome this kind of thing. We went blue in many races this time so I think it is probably time to stop with that stupid saying. There is nothing wrong with Kansas that can't be found everywhere else.

As an added note, we do have a problem with other groups who face discrimination. It has been very difficult to work with that. Because two of us jumped on a major discrimination case here in our city and worked with ALL the other groups we have begun to make inroads. Major inroads. The distrust is gone and we are openly discussing things through the new coalition we founded with them. There is not a group left out and at our rally we, the GLBT community and their allies, were mentioned right alongside everyone else for the very first time.

I guess I am a little touchy about this because it has taken many years and hours to get this far so please do not paint us with the brush of a bigot, they are everywhere. It always happens when someone from Kansas speaks out like that we get thread after thread calling us names and saying nasty things. After all this work it makes it difficult to bear.

[Sapphocrat]

8. I recognize there are saner heads in Kansas.

But I can't promise you I'll give Kansas, as a whole, a break. You're bucking the worst of the worst there, from the anti-evolution movement to the Phelps clan. I feel for you (in my state, we are all viewed as either stupid, blond surfers or terminally-stoned hippies, and those of us who aren't are merely serial killers), and I have nothing but the deepest gratitude for all you do -- but at the same time I want to beg you to get the hell out.

[MuseRider]

10. I will never leave

I love it here, it is my home. If there are not people left here to fight it what would happen?

Kansas is a victim of the most horrible of influence from the religious right. People who live way out in the boonies have nothing but RW radio in their tractors to listen to all day. When they see people it is at church where they are taught the good old message of hate. It has been happening for quite some time here but who is going to go to the remote little places and fight it? We are. We are doing it little by little and we are gaining ground but it is slow. People have been indoctrinated for years and it is difficult to overcome that. We got new members from Meade, Kansas when we held our last meeting at the Lakeway, home of the infamous gay rainbow flag incident. We had towns people coming out to stand against Phelps with us. Is Meade the home of hatred? Only a few but those few keep the rest afraid. We have to be here to help them gain courage and believe me, out there it takes courage to buck that kind of hatred.

Ahhh, you must be from California? Lol, I love your state. Come visit me sometime. I can introduce you to some of the finest people you will ever know, seriously. We will make it to modernity eventually. Remember, every time Kansas does something stupid (and that is quite often) we end up shutting it down eventually.

It is my home and I love it and will never leave. When you make that kind of choice you commit yourself to working on it, right?

[sui generis]

13. yuppa - the more they feel persecuted by our existence

the crazier they're going to get until they fully implode.

As usual, it's the freaky wheel that gets oiled. I don't think this jerk or jerks like him speak for the majority of decent people in Kansas, but these assbrains get all the press.

I'm a strapping big shapely lad and SO is a former Navy Lt.Cdr. on the Enterprise carrier. These whining bigots whine best in mail; they had better smile sweetly to our faces. And they do.

And another interesting thing for the Kansas detractors:

My Dad's side of family is from north central Kansas - as red and farmland values as they come and we participate in ALL the families business, and have hosted the family reunion for the past 2 years and coming up again in 2007; it's an appointed/elected position and there is nobody who has failed to come for any excuse other than near death or actual death.

And these are red state republican farmers. So you have to put your ass out there and show them you're not a lot different from them; that you have family values just like they do, that you give a damn just like they do, that you're good people just like they are, and all of a sudden there are more similarities than differences. They move on from the grade school LTTE's and get on with more important things, like despising gangbangers in the big cities and making fun of the dumbasses people in the cities and suburbs who hate immigrants since that's who picks their crops and runs their farms.

[sui generis]

14. Here's a test for these bigots

"I know you said you don't have "anything personal" against gays, just against them getting married, but if this were a world where you could push a button and just make all the gays disappear, would you?"

I'd follow that question up with, "even the ones that don't know they're gay? like yourself? or your kid? or your brother/sister/cousin?"

Because the answer to that question is also the answer to whether you're talking to a sociopath.

[NMMNG]

15. That state is like a breeding ground for bigots and fundies.

:scared:

[ruggerson]

16. These fuckers for DECADES now have been referring to this one article

written in a Boston gay newspaper in the early seventies (i want to say 'gay community news'), who wrote a piece that was fairly tongue in cheek and played off of fears of gay people.

Jesse Helms used to cite this one article written by this one person as the "Gay Agenda" and so do most of the religious rightwingers, when they want to present us all as culture warriors bent on destroying civilization.

This is how they operate. They lie about who we are, what we are, and what we believe. This is partially our fault, since no one has ever mounted an effective media campaign to counter their untruths.

[election_2004]

17. Well, I'm a homosexual, and earn less than $5K a year....

But hey, I'm "well-educated," so I guess that makes me automatically set for life...?