A Closed Letter.
The Sodomite Hal Duncan has a wonderful letter to share with you all this fine Friday afternoon.
My own letter is below.
To Mr. Wright,
Two things, before I begin.
First, if people have attacked you for your religious views, I don't approve of that. I am an atheist, not an anti-theist. As easy as it is to take pot shots, I cannot insult you for your beliefs without also insulting people I love.
Second, I had not heard about the incident with your wife until after discovering your entry. Going into what I think of that issue would not be appropriate here; I merely wished to point out that I'm not part of the mob that descended on her, lest you believe that everyone who took you to task is simply nursing a grudge from that whole affair. That's all I have to say on the matter.
Moving on, I was not the only person to link to that entry, but I concede I was one of the first, and my readership, for reasons I have never quite understood, is wide. I never would have called out your appalling remarks had you not been a published author whose books I have purchased in hardcover, and as gifts for others. You aren't a random dipshit on the internet yodeling into the vacuum of his own ass. You are a published writer in a field I love, and thus you are a person of whom I had stupidly assumed better. As someone who does not apply her money or loyalty to those who believe that I or my loved ones are perverted or defective, I felt betrayed.
If gay and gay-friendly folks choose to support you despite your views, that is their choice, but I believe they deserve to make an informed choice. That's why I pointed them your way. The fact that I pointed 1,500 people your way while saying "fuck" a lot is just how I do things. Because if we don't laugh and make fun of people who use ridiculous arguments to deny the validity of our relationships and the humanity of our brilliant, brief lives, well, that would just be too depressing.
It is unfortunate that the people who came to comment on your journal were angry, and not up to your desired level of discourse. I asked them not to troll, and apparently I misjudged their restraint. That was an error on my part. I didn't rile them, though. You did that on your own. Your words were offensive. Your words were hurtful. When a person says offensive, hurtful things, those who hear will lash out. When compared to pedophiles and necrophiliacs, they will come in mobs and be downright cruel. This is not the most wonderful facet of human nature, but nor is it proof that you were right all along or that everyone who disagrees with you is an illogical maniac with no internal censor. When those people bitchslapped you for being offensive, that was proof that what you said was offensive. Your own words condemned you, and as many of us have taken screenshots of the original entry, they will continue to do so.
The fact that you were mobbed -- "trolled" does not apply to most of the comments, most of which were expressing genuine disgust and displeasure, and were not being made, as they say, for the lulz -- does not free you from the offense you gave. When you say something offensive and are called on it, even if the people you have offended are rude to you, you take responsibility for the harm you caused, you apologize, and then you listen to how you can do better. You turn the other cheek, not so you can show people how smooth and righteous it is, but to show that you are willing to listen, to put the hurt done to you behind you. You swallow your pride and you listen. Which, you know, I would have done, save that there was nothing to learn from your words. It was just more of the same fearmongering fags-as-monsters bullshit.
I'm not under the illusion you were just misunderstood, or your words taken out of context. You clearly hate and fear homosexuality, even if you probably wouldn't say you hate homosexual individuals (we'll leave the stupidity of that alone for now, and the matter of your own hypocrisy re: perversions). Love the sinner, hate the sin, blah blah blah. But you have been complaining about how rude and nasty and profane people have been. You've been using others' entirely justifiable anger to dismiss what they are saying, because you don't like how they say it. The tone argument. They aren't being respectful enough of you while you insult them. Your journal, you don't have to put up with people swearing at you or mobbing you, but it makes you look like an asshole to venomously insult a group of people that includes many of your fans and their loved ones, and then get all butthurt when they let you have both barrels in return. If nothing else, this should serve as a lesson to just how many of us there are, and that we are listening.
After comparing homosexuality to a litany of completely repellent nonconsensual crimes, you have no real grounds on which to complain about what anyone said to you. True, they said it in a great, rage-filled mass, but I will point out that each of those individuals felt personally wounded, personally hurt enough to comment and tell you exactly what they thought of your reprehensible screed. For them, your characterization of homosexuality as akin to bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia, was not some abstract thing. You were talking about them, about people they know. Many -- self included -- actually held back or didn't comment at all. You're entitled to your opinion, hate-filled and foolish as it may be. Many might have engaged you in debate except for the fact that it was -- and is -- clear that your mind is tightly made up, the justifications you use for not listening so perfectly constructed as to allow no argument to penetrate.
Would you argue if you saw a published author whose works you own making ridiculous and stupid statements about Catholics? Called you lot baby-eaters, claimed that you engaged in incestuous orgies in secret temples, had congress with animals, and offered up the corpses of virgins for the carnal delights of your depraved priesthood? Would you engage such blatant stupidity in rational debate?
Adults do not answer the petty name-calling of a schoolyard bully with elaborate explanations of why we are not stinky dirty poopy-heads. That would be dignifying it with a response, which it does not deserve. You aren't a child, though. You are in a prominent position, and gay people and their friends pay to read your work, so we can't just ignore what you think of us or let it pass.
Protesting that you didn't mean your offensive words to reach so wide an audience is such foolishness I can't respond beyond pointing out your age. Few people actually mean to make enormous fools of themselves. They figure nobody's paying attention. But you are a published author on the internet, accessible to all of fandom. Your words can never be assumed to reach a small audience, and you aren't talking about abstracts solely to people who agree with you. You are insulting real people who are or who love someone who is gay. To those people, being anti-gay makes you look stupid no matter your reasoning. Defending or advancing that stance with blatant nonsense only means they will be more inclined to tell you to drop dead while throat-fucking a rabid weasel than actually try to educate you (which is not our duty, I might add, but yours) or debate with you.
If you want to argue the point, shore up your logic and start dealing with facts, stop regurgitating the same garbage. It's the internet. It's all computers. The rule of 5150, shit in, shit out, applies here. If you spout ignorant, hateful bullshit, you will get hateful bullshit in return.
I am posting this with comments disabled. This is not cowardice. I have no real desire to invite you to converse here, where such views as yours are not welcome, but I also have no real desire to allow the carnival of wank to continue in comments on my journal. That would simply make more work for me without putting people's scorn in front of you. If people want to register their displeasure with you, they can go to your journal to do it. If they wish to register their displeasure with me, there are many other entries where they can do so. I thought I would let this stand alone, a letter to you, in case you cared to read it.
I'm not holding my breath, but I hope that you will find some people to debate with you and perhaps help educate you. I hope that you will change your views. I personally suspect the damage has been done, and I know I won't ever have anything to do with you or your work again. I regret I ever did.
I am a generous woman, or try to be. I would wish you well, but I find the most I can wish you is wisdom, and a clearer vision. Those are not, as anyone who lives in interesting times will tell you, always pleasant things.
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My own letter is below.
To Mr. Wright,
Two things, before I begin.
First, if people have attacked you for your religious views, I don't approve of that. I am an atheist, not an anti-theist. As easy as it is to take pot shots, I cannot insult you for your beliefs without also insulting people I love.
Second, I had not heard about the incident with your wife until after discovering your entry. Going into what I think of that issue would not be appropriate here; I merely wished to point out that I'm not part of the mob that descended on her, lest you believe that everyone who took you to task is simply nursing a grudge from that whole affair. That's all I have to say on the matter.
Moving on, I was not the only person to link to that entry, but I concede I was one of the first, and my readership, for reasons I have never quite understood, is wide. I never would have called out your appalling remarks had you not been a published author whose books I have purchased in hardcover, and as gifts for others. You aren't a random dipshit on the internet yodeling into the vacuum of his own ass. You are a published writer in a field I love, and thus you are a person of whom I had stupidly assumed better. As someone who does not apply her money or loyalty to those who believe that I or my loved ones are perverted or defective, I felt betrayed.
If gay and gay-friendly folks choose to support you despite your views, that is their choice, but I believe they deserve to make an informed choice. That's why I pointed them your way. The fact that I pointed 1,500 people your way while saying "fuck" a lot is just how I do things. Because if we don't laugh and make fun of people who use ridiculous arguments to deny the validity of our relationships and the humanity of our brilliant, brief lives, well, that would just be too depressing.
It is unfortunate that the people who came to comment on your journal were angry, and not up to your desired level of discourse. I asked them not to troll, and apparently I misjudged their restraint. That was an error on my part. I didn't rile them, though. You did that on your own. Your words were offensive. Your words were hurtful. When a person says offensive, hurtful things, those who hear will lash out. When compared to pedophiles and necrophiliacs, they will come in mobs and be downright cruel. This is not the most wonderful facet of human nature, but nor is it proof that you were right all along or that everyone who disagrees with you is an illogical maniac with no internal censor. When those people bitchslapped you for being offensive, that was proof that what you said was offensive. Your own words condemned you, and as many of us have taken screenshots of the original entry, they will continue to do so.
The fact that you were mobbed -- "trolled" does not apply to most of the comments, most of which were expressing genuine disgust and displeasure, and were not being made, as they say, for the lulz -- does not free you from the offense you gave. When you say something offensive and are called on it, even if the people you have offended are rude to you, you take responsibility for the harm you caused, you apologize, and then you listen to how you can do better. You turn the other cheek, not so you can show people how smooth and righteous it is, but to show that you are willing to listen, to put the hurt done to you behind you. You swallow your pride and you listen. Which, you know, I would have done, save that there was nothing to learn from your words. It was just more of the same fearmongering fags-as-monsters bullshit.
I'm not under the illusion you were just misunderstood, or your words taken out of context. You clearly hate and fear homosexuality, even if you probably wouldn't say you hate homosexual individuals (we'll leave the stupidity of that alone for now, and the matter of your own hypocrisy re: perversions). Love the sinner, hate the sin, blah blah blah. But you have been complaining about how rude and nasty and profane people have been. You've been using others' entirely justifiable anger to dismiss what they are saying, because you don't like how they say it. The tone argument. They aren't being respectful enough of you while you insult them. Your journal, you don't have to put up with people swearing at you or mobbing you, but it makes you look like an asshole to venomously insult a group of people that includes many of your fans and their loved ones, and then get all butthurt when they let you have both barrels in return. If nothing else, this should serve as a lesson to just how many of us there are, and that we are listening.
After comparing homosexuality to a litany of completely repellent nonconsensual crimes, you have no real grounds on which to complain about what anyone said to you. True, they said it in a great, rage-filled mass, but I will point out that each of those individuals felt personally wounded, personally hurt enough to comment and tell you exactly what they thought of your reprehensible screed. For them, your characterization of homosexuality as akin to bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia, was not some abstract thing. You were talking about them, about people they know. Many -- self included -- actually held back or didn't comment at all. You're entitled to your opinion, hate-filled and foolish as it may be. Many might have engaged you in debate except for the fact that it was -- and is -- clear that your mind is tightly made up, the justifications you use for not listening so perfectly constructed as to allow no argument to penetrate.
Would you argue if you saw a published author whose works you own making ridiculous and stupid statements about Catholics? Called you lot baby-eaters, claimed that you engaged in incestuous orgies in secret temples, had congress with animals, and offered up the corpses of virgins for the carnal delights of your depraved priesthood? Would you engage such blatant stupidity in rational debate?
Adults do not answer the petty name-calling of a schoolyard bully with elaborate explanations of why we are not stinky dirty poopy-heads. That would be dignifying it with a response, which it does not deserve. You aren't a child, though. You are in a prominent position, and gay people and their friends pay to read your work, so we can't just ignore what you think of us or let it pass.
Protesting that you didn't mean your offensive words to reach so wide an audience is such foolishness I can't respond beyond pointing out your age. Few people actually mean to make enormous fools of themselves. They figure nobody's paying attention. But you are a published author on the internet, accessible to all of fandom. Your words can never be assumed to reach a small audience, and you aren't talking about abstracts solely to people who agree with you. You are insulting real people who are or who love someone who is gay. To those people, being anti-gay makes you look stupid no matter your reasoning. Defending or advancing that stance with blatant nonsense only means they will be more inclined to tell you to drop dead while throat-fucking a rabid weasel than actually try to educate you (which is not our duty, I might add, but yours) or debate with you.
If you want to argue the point, shore up your logic and start dealing with facts, stop regurgitating the same garbage. It's the internet. It's all computers. The rule of 5150, shit in, shit out, applies here. If you spout ignorant, hateful bullshit, you will get hateful bullshit in return.
I am posting this with comments disabled. This is not cowardice. I have no real desire to invite you to converse here, where such views as yours are not welcome, but I also have no real desire to allow the carnival of wank to continue in comments on my journal. That would simply make more work for me without putting people's scorn in front of you. If people want to register their displeasure with you, they can go to your journal to do it. If they wish to register their displeasure with me, there are many other entries where they can do so. I thought I would let this stand alone, a letter to you, in case you cared to read it.
I'm not holding my breath, but I hope that you will find some people to debate with you and perhaps help educate you. I hope that you will change your views. I personally suspect the damage has been done, and I know I won't ever have anything to do with you or your work again. I regret I ever did.
I am a generous woman, or try to be. I would wish you well, but I find the most I can wish you is wisdom, and a clearer vision. Those are not, as anyone who lives in interesting times will tell you, always pleasant things.
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