Gay Activists - Adoreable Or Unbearable?

[LeCharivari]

Rather than derail other threads, and in the probably forlorn hope that having a thread specifically on the subject may help in preventing future threads becoming derailed in a similar fashion, I thought it may be worth starting a thread on gay activists and their uses (much as JT opened a thread on gay Pride parades, which came up with some interesting views and facts that were probably a surprise to some).

For the record, and despite unsupported allegations to the contrary, I have never generalised that "gay activists equals men in dresses" any more than I have generalised that "gays all over the world don't face hatred for being gay", nor have I ever disrespected "the pioneers of the global gay civil rights movement". The two former points were individual, not general: the first concerned the GLF and the second one individual. I have never made any comment about "the pioneers of the global gay civil rights movement" as I was unaware that there was one, either now or a century or two ago.

I know nothing about any historical "global gay civil rights movement" and can find no evidence that such a movement ever existed. Pre-WWII /the 1950s the only real global civil rights movements were to abolish slavery and for the emancipation of women; gay movements existed, but as far as I can see they were very much limited to national issues.

The danger with putting someone "of that time" on a pedestal today is that many of their views are also "of that time" and totally out of place today. Magnus Hirschfield, for example, argued that because homosexuals were like disabled people they similarly deserved equal treatment to everyone else and that gay men were by nature effeminate; I would disagree strongly with both views.

More recently the only "global gay civil rights movement(s)" I am aware of are the GLF and Stonewall, as the GLF was formed in both the USA and the UK and Stonewall in the UK, the USA and Europe.

The GLF, fortunately, only lasted for three years (1969-72) in the USA and a little longer (1969-74, with a few local branches surviving for a few more years) in the UK. In the UK they were best known for appearing in drag (as "men in dresses") at the Festival of Light in 1971. They supported the Black Panther Party and the establishment of an "alternative lifestyle" and their Manifesto concentrated on the abolition of both the family (gay and straight) and of marriage. Hardly something most gays supported then and even less so now as even those gays not interested in marriage generally support gays having equal rights to heterosexuals if they want to exercise them.

Stonewall has moved with the times and distanced itself very clearly from other "gay activist" groups such as Outrage!, the Lesbian Avengers and the remnants of the GLF. They are now an accepted political lobby group (which makes it clear that they are not a "democratic member organisation" and do not "speak for all lesbian, gay and bisexual people." Rather than demonstrate and protest they lobby MPs directly over legislation and support legal action (for example at the European Court of Human Rights over the UK age of consent, and the ban on gays in the UK military). How much things have changed, making them an accepted part of the "establishment" are that their annual awards are now prized (and publicized) even by the British Army and their previous director, Angela Mason, has gone from being a member of the Angry Brigade, the GLF and the Stoke Newington Eight (charged with terrorism) to being awarded the OBE for services to homosexuality in 1999 and the CBE in 2007.

Is there a place for "gay activists", in my view? Yes, organisations like Stonewall that move with the times and respect other people's views deserve to be respected. Should that respect be accorded to other "gay activists"? Some yes, if they meet the same standard, others definitely not when their actions and their behaviour are counter-productive and they do nothing more than alienate people who might otherwise be sympathetic to human rights and gays in general (and many gays, into the bargain).

Are those who support "gay rights" necessarily "gay activists" (regardless of whether they are gay or not)? Many would be horrified at the label; when the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Jeffrey Fisher, came out strongly in favour of the Wolfended Report (the de-criminalisation of homosexual offences in the UK) in 1957, it was not because he supported homosexuality per se but because he believed "There is a sacred realm of privacy.... This is a principle of the utmost importance for the preservation of human freedom, self-respect, and responsibility." Active support for human rights that include gay rights does not necessarily make them a "gay activist"

[Jingthing]

Your post is all over the place and too much flotsam and jetsam, flora and fauna to digest all at once.

Three points though stand out as red flags:

I think there IS a global consciousness of gay rights. Not an organized thing like the UN or NATO, but still real as a matter of consciousness. When gay people fight oppression in Russia and Iran, they KNOW there is an international network of support for them, especially today with the internet. Of course gay rights are human rights as Hillary Clinton so wonderfully spoke about at a UN organization.

Since you made it personal, you DID say to me personally that nobody ever hated me for being gay. I thought you meant by that that you actually believed gays don't face hatred and toxic hostility all over the world. I am gay. If people hate people for being gay, then ipso facto your assertion that nobody has hated me for being gay is an absurd falsehood. When I grew up fighting Proposition 6 and Jerry Falwell do you think they were hating on all gays except me? Why do you even bother trying to defend your statement before? A full retraction would be more dignified.

Your last point, equally ridiculous that everyone who supports gay rights is a gay activist. Who ever said that?!? If you think I did. Nope. Of course not.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Jingthing

[LeCharivari]

3 points:

A "global consciousness of gay rights" has no connection whatsoever with a "global gay civil rights movement" in anybody's language, even yours. If there is no such movement (and consequently no "pioneers" that anyone "should have heard of") and you were imagining it, say so. A full retraction would be more dignified.

I did NOT say to you personally that "nobody ever hated (you) for being gay". You have, as usual, misrepresented what I wrote and are trying to de-rail yet another thread. If you want to make this about you personally or why some gays/Jews/Muslims/Christians/blacks/whites/etc blame what they were born as for their unpopularity make another thread on the subject and I'll be happy to respond there - but not in this one.

Dr Jeffrey Fisher testified to the Wolfenden Committee. In response to endure's post where he described those testifying as "just ordinary people" you replied (un-edited, in full): "Those people were indeed very brave and in my view by testifying in a climate where homosexuality was harshly criminalized they were indeed gay activists (whether they thought of themselves that way or not). They came forward and agreed to participate in that historic commission. Sorry, that is ACTIVISM of the highest order." Maybe things have changed since yesterday.

[Jingthing]

...

I did NOT say to you personally that "nobody ever hated (you) for being gay".

...

Your words. I think you did and its hilariously futile for you to deny it.

http://www.thaivisa....e/#entry5463532

"As your mother should have told you long ago, nobody hates you just because you're gay - they never have."

I stand by my first comment about global consciousness about the gay civil rights movement. I believe this exists. You don't. I don't see the point of a further argument on that point just based on twisty semantic spins that you seem to get obsessed with just for the sake of some kind of technical debating game. To me, that's a total waste of time.

I think the core of the thing with you is that you are very threatened by gay being a part of IDENTITY politics. That actually is ANOTHER thread. Both sides are debatable.

Another general comment. Your OP in general is so scattered that the gist of it is rather incoherent. I suggest when starting threads to work on FOCUSING them a lot more narrowly than you did in this thread. Purely from an editing point of view. Take my comment or leave it.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Jingthing

[Jingthing]

Also note. Nothing has changed.

Not everyone who supports gay rights is a gay activist. I never said that they were. I never thought that they were. I won't be held to such an absurd assertion that has nothing to do with anything I would ever think.

Edited July 9, 2012 by Jingthing

[isanbirder]

Activists of any kind are pretty unbearable. Why? Because they disturb the even tenor of our lives (which is what they intend to do).

[Jingthing]

Activists of any kind are pretty unbearable. Why? Because they disturb the even tenor of our lives (which is what they intend to do).

Activists exist on all sides of the political spectrum. Surely there are some activists whose political goals you share? I can't imagine a human being who doesn't have some skin in the game of politics. Actually I find your comment offensive. So Martin Luther King was unbearable to you? Gandhi? Neda Agha Sultan? Aung San Suu Kyi? Do you even realize what you are saying? Edited July 9, 2012 by Jingthing

[JamesBarnes]

To address the original question,

Gay Activists - Adoreable Or Unbearable?

Clearly, activists will fall into both, ahem, camps. Presumably, those who are irrestibly adorable will sway a number of folk into supporting them. Those who are unbearable will, thank goodness, irritate to distraction those who are so jaundiced that they will never agree with the activists' aims.

Gay people who find certain activists unbearable do exist and their view has to be respected but they should check themselves to ensure that they are not complacent in their position, forgetting that unspeakable horrors are perpetrated against gay people the world over- particularly in Africa and the Arab world. Those defending these victims must gain succour from international support.

As Mrs Clinton recently told the UN, "Gay rights are human rights."

[Jingthing]

To address the original question,

Gay Activists - Adoreable Or Unbearable?

Clearly, activists will fall into both, ahem, camps. Presumably, those who are irrestibly adorable will sway a number of folk into supporting them. Those who are unbearable will, thank goodness, irritate to distraction those who are so jaundiced that they will never agree with the activists' aims.

Gay people who find certain activists unbearable do exist and their view has to be respected but they should check themselves to ensure that they are not complacent in their position, forgetting that unspeakable horrors are perpetrated against gay people the world over- particularly in Africa and the Arab world. Those defending these victims must gain succour from international support.

As Mrs Clinton recently told the UN, "Gay rights are human rights."

Bravo!

[isanbirder]

Activists of any kind are pretty unbearable. Why? Because they disturb the even tenor of our lives (which is what they intend to do).

Activists exist on all sides of the political spectrum. Surely there are some activists whose political goals you share? I can't imagine a human being who doesn't have some skin in the game of politics. Actually I find your comment offensive. So Martin Luther King was unbearable to you? Gandhi? Neda Agha Sultan? Aung San Suu Kyi? Do you even realize what you are saying?

I was an activist myself at one time, environmental, not gay. I was very popular with people who agreed with me, and a pain in the neck to the people I was agitating against (the Hongkong Government). Gandhi and Aung San Suu Kyi (I don't know too much about the other two) were a thorn in the side of those in authority. I think it depends very much upon the angle you're looking at them from. I'm not denying that these people are very necessary, but that doesn't make them adorable. Another one who comes to mind is Mother Teresa, a wonderful woman (but I don't think I would have liked her very much; too uncomfortable!).

[Jingthing]

Sounds like a total retraction of your initial statement that all activists are always UNBEARABLE. The question in the OP is totally ridiculous in the first place. The issue of activists is very complex. It can't be boiled down to unbearable vs. adorable.

[endure]

Actually I find your comment offensive.

There's a novelty. Is there anything that you don't find offensive?

[Jingthing]

Actually I find your comment offensive.

There's a novelty. Is there anything that you don't find offensive?

Gay activists?

If you find my posts annoying, I know you know better than most about the function of the IGNORE feature.

Edited July 9, 2012 by Jingthing

[isanbirder]

I suspect Jingthing and I are heading in different directions, not for the first time. I took 'adorable and unbearable' as referring to one's personal like or dislike for a person. For example, I admire Martin Luther King, but I never met him, know very little about him personally, and am not in a position to like or dislike him. I admire Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, but again I've never met either of them, so like or dislike doesn't come into it.

I met quite a number of activists during my 'environmentalist period'. I generally found I didn't like them face to face, even though I admired their work. Particularly I disliked the way they thrust their field of activity at you everywhere and anywhere. For an example, I knew one lady who was a doughty campaigner against drugs. I was sharing a taxi with her one day when she suddenly leant over the seat in front to smell the driver's breath to see if he was on drugs. In one way, good for her, but in my book that was not the place or time for it.

As for myself as an environmentalist, I dare say I was pretty unbearable too!

[Jingthing]

I serioisly doubt the OP was talking about the PERSONALITIES of activists when you are close to them personally as opposed to their public works.

[Scott]

I stand in awe and admiration of the gay people who have had the courage to stand up for what they believe.

[Jingthing]

I stand in awe and admiration of the gay people who have had the courage to stand up for what they believe.

Yes, many of them have been very brave indeed and pay a price for it. That's why it galls me for fellow gay people to show such utter disrespect to them. Yes I have personally done some activist things and yes at one point in my life I paid a high price. But I'm not famous like Harvey Milk or anything, so never mind.

[LeCharivari]

Isanbirder, you got the point in one - I admire and respect Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, etc, but I don't find either of them "adorable" or "unbearable" as they have never affected me directly and I don't know them well enough to consider them "adorable", nor have I ever noted any aspect of their rhetoric or their actions that I would dislike enough to consider "unbearable". Activists (gay or otherwise) obviously don't HAVE to fit into one category or the other- I certainly don't find Angela Mason "adorable", but I respect what Stonewall has achieved, largely through her guidance.

[Jingthing]

Now this is rich.

He starts an OP asking adorable OR unbearable. Normal people would read that as an either or choice question. Now, much much later, he thinks NEITHER. Couldn't make this stuff up.

[LeCharivari]

JamesBarnes, I respect your point but the danger of "complacency" applies equally to the activists who are so sure that their actions are achieving something for those places where, I would agree 100%, "unspeakable horrors are perpetrated against gay people the world over - particularly in Africa and the Arab world".

The problem is that often the activists are so extreme themselves, and so prepared to sacrifice anything for their cause, particularly the truth, that far from contributing anything constructive they end up damaging the credibility of others by association and doing the cause they are campaigning for far more harm than good. Even when they are evidently totally wrong, the screaming, in-your-face fanatic can often drown out the far better informed, more rational and more respected activist.

A prime case is Peter Tatchell/Outrage!/Doug Ireland in the Mahoni/Asgari case in Iran, where they claimed that the two were executed for being gay lovers and attacked anyone who disagreed with them for being racists and apologists for Islamo-fascists. Human Rights Watch's view was that "lesbian and gay Iranians are not abstractions, sheltered from politics—or missiles. Their lives should not be reduced to the agendas of well-meaning strangers in the West. .... If we want to challenge Iran’s government, we need facts. There is enough proof of torture and repression that we can do without claims of 'pogroms.'"; the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said that "it was not a gay case" and the gay Muslim group the Al-Fatiha Foundation wrote that "... the hysteria surrounding the executions was enormous and only fed to the growing Islamaphobia and hatred towards Muslims and the Islamic world."

After the Netherlands investigated these particular reports and found they were untrue they proposed changing their policy of granting asylum to gay asylum seekers from Iran, and it was only after pressure and genuine proof from Human Rights Watch that they continued to grant asylum - the false reports and grandstanding very nearly resulted in gay asylum seekers from Iran in Holland being deported back to Iran.

The very real danger is that "those who are unbearable" will not only "irritate to distraction those who are so jaundiced that they will never agree with the activists' aims" but that they will also irritate those who may otherwise agree and support those aims.

To applaud or "adore" gay activists just because they are gay and vocal without looking at whether or not they are actually benefiting or harming gay rights or gay people must be complacency of the highest order.

[LeCharivari]

Scott, I agree but with some limitations.

I respect and admire those who stand up for what they believe in, but I have little respect for those whose beliefs make others suffer - there has to be a compromise somewhere. Simply standing up for what you believe, regardless of others' rights and lives, does not and should not of itself merit respect. In the case of gays, I don't think that equal rights for gays (human rights) makes anyone else suffer, but I do think that some "activists" have no respect for those they may hurt along the way and exploit others for their own as well as their cause's benefit.

"Outing" is a case in point. I see nothing wrong with what Hirschfield did over a hundred years ago "outing" politicians who secretly practice homosexuality but who publicly attack it, or those who do so now - that is hypocrisy of the worst order and they deserve it. On the other hand I think that if you agree that "there is a sacred realm of privacy" then it should be the individual's choice as to whether he wants to "stand up" and be counted - not some activist's choice. A prime example would be Oliver "Bill" Sipple , who saved President Ford from an assassination attemp in 1975, an ex-marine who had been discharged on psychiatric grounds and who didn't even want his name disclosed, let alone his sexuality, but whose sexuality was revealed for what was very clearly personal political motives by an up-and-coming gay politician who ensured that his name was included in the newspaper reports so that he could bask in the reflected glory.

Sipple's view, which I think reflects mine, was that "I feel that a person's worth is determined by how he or she responds to the world in which he lives, not on how, or with whom a private life is shared".

[LeCharivari]

JT, let me repeat what I said in the OP in the hope that you can understand it this time round, without the flotsam and jetsam:

"Is there a place for "gay activists", in my view? Yes, organisations like Stonewall that move with the times and respect other people's views deserve to be respected. Should that respect be accorded to other "gay activists"? Some yes, if they meet the same standard, others definitely not when their actions and their behaviour are counter-productive and they do nothing more than alienate people who might otherwise be sympathetic to human rights and gays in general (and many gays, into the bargain)."

Even "much much later" that is exactly the point I am still making.

"Couldn't make this stuff up"? Well you're the expert at that, so I'll bow to your expertise in that area.

[LeCharivari]

JT, sorry if your"mental filters" aren't up to it, but no-one else seems to have a similar problem of comprehension with this thread.

As you can neither see nor understand the difference between "nobody ever hated you for being gay" and "nobody hates you JUST because you're gay, etc" (I've capitalised the operative word for you in case you miss it again)when you write them one line apart and you are aware that the point is made to you personally then I can appreciate your difficulty.

The thread title wasn't a poll, but a question rather like the thread title 'Are Gay pride Parades Good for the Gay Community', which I referred to in the OP; I wasn't expecting a "yes" or "no" answer (as I imagine you weren't there) but was hoping for a discussion.

"Very threatened by gay being a part of identity politics"? Not threatened in the slightest - identity politics are very much an American notion generally disliked in "the rest of the West" and I don't believe that politics should have anything to do with identity (sexual preference, gender, race, class, religion, etc) - but as you say, correctly for once, that is a separate issue entirely.

Too much flotsam and jetsam? I prefer that to an excess of effluent.

[isanbirder]

Isanbirder, you got the point in one - I admire and respect Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, etc, but I don't find either of them "adorable" or "unbearable" as they have never affected me directly and I don't know them well enough to consider them "adorable", nor have I ever noted any aspect of their rhetoric or their actions that I would dislike enough to consider "unbearable". Activists (gay or otherwise) obviously don't HAVE to fit into one category or the other- I certainly don't find Angela Mason "adorable", but I respect what Stonewall has achieved, largely through her guidance.

I'm glad somebody understands the English language the way I do! Admirable, yes (with the restrictions you make later, LeC); adorable or unbearable... largely irrelevant, as few of us will have known all that many activists, let alone gay activists (I don't think I've ever known any).

[LeCharivari]

.... adorable or unbearable... largely irrelevant, as few of us will have known all that many activists, let alone gay activists (I don't think I've ever known any).

I've known a few, most "professionally" who were active or borderline terrorists. The problem is that there is a fine line between activism, fanaticism and terrorism and sometimes its all too easy for otherwise well-intentioned people to be persuaded to cross that line on the basis that the end justifies the means. I've never heard of gay activists crossing that line except in the case of the GLF who were so extreme that few, fortunately, took them seriously but that doesn't mean that others don't suffer because of activists' actions, either because they don't realise the consequences of their actions or because they know full well what may happen but they simply don't care as they believe that what they are doing is for "the greater good". Those, to me, fall into the "unbearable" category (and some of them are gay!).I can only think of one "activist" I knew who was "adorable" and she was a dear old lady (in her seventies or eighties) who I remember walking past our house regularly over forty years ago carrying a "Ban the Bomb" banner, going to the bus station to go to every CND rally. Whenever it snowed and we walked across Hampstead Heath with our toboggans she'd invite us in for hot chocolate and biscuits (and CND badges!).

Edited July 11, 2012 by LeCharivari

[LeCharivari]

But knowing that wouldn't serve your curious eccentric agenda, hanging around a gay forum, disrespecting gay activists and the gay civil rights movement at every available opportunity.

Oooooohhhh!

One example of a gay activist and leader of the gay civil rights movement for whom I have the greatest respect and who I believe has done the gay/human rights movement a considerable amount of good both at home and internationally is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, discussed elsewhere.

Rational, reasoned, dignified - the absolute antithesis of so many others.

[Jingthing]

But knowing that wouldn't serve your curious eccentric agenda, hanging around a gay forum, disrespecting gay activists and the gay civil rights movement at every available opportunity.

Oooooohhhh!

One example of a gay activist and leader of the gay civil rights movement for whom I have the greatest respect and who I believe has done the gay/human rights movement a considerable amount of good both at home and internationally is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, discussed elsewhere.

Rational, reasoned, dignified - the absolute antithesis of so many others.

The next time you take a quote snippet of mine out of context, without ellipses, from ANOTHER THREAD please openly state you did that and better yet include a link. I consider it bad netiquette otherwise. Cheers. Edited July 23, 2012 by Jingthing

[LeCharivari]

My apologies, JT - point taken and next time I'll make the origin clear, however I was hardly misrepresenting you as you have made a similar point here and in a myriad of other threads where I have asked you to provide links to support your view and you have refused to do so.

[LeCharivari]

Greg Louganis is obviously now also on my growing list of respected gay rights campaigners.

The problem with people like Greg Louganis and Archbishop Tutu, and why they don't spring to mind immediately as "gay activists", is that they don't really fit the conventional mould of "the screaming, in-your-face gay activists, or the parodies strutting about in some Gay Pride events" (thanks catmac) that the term conjures up, particularly here, who are all too often our own worst enemies.

Unfortunately the only thing many of these "activists" have achieved is being gay - hardly an "achievement" in my book, or something to be either "proud" or ashamed of as its just how we were born - and it doesn't stack up against those who have actually achieved something or done something to be "proud" of, but its all they've got so they have to make the most of it. To me that's not only sad for them, but sad for the rest of us who end up being painted in a similar light by association - as under-achieving whingers looking for an excuse.

[LeCharivari]

..... gay activists ARE required to get things moving in MOST other countries.

Maybe you could NAME those "other countries" where "gay activists" can be identified as having had any positive and direct effect on civil/gay rights legislation?

Maybe not .....

In case facts are beyond you, I'll help you out by starting you off with Stonewall UK's getting legislation passed to allow gays to serve openly in the UK military.

Copied from the Vietnam/Gay Marriage thread, which was/is going waaay off topic.

Maybe we'll get an answer here .... or of course, maybe not.