..and here's something you really should read.

[thedilettante]

"I don't have a problem with gays, I just hate it when they shove their lifestyle in my face

(Link via ginmar. nerdanel, do you read ginmar's journal? You'd like her, I think. She's very good)

Comments

[voxhearted]

The one major problem I have with this is the opener, "open letter to straights", as if all straight people are of this opinion.

[nerdanel]

Speaking generally, if any of us vents about "straight people", we KNOW that not every last straight person feels a given way. But when we're out to our parents and they won't let us speak about our sexuality because "if we ignore it for long enough, maybe we'll change back to normal," and when not a day goes by without hearing some sort of general homophobic putdown from "friends", and people are spending millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of their time every day across the world to ensure that we don't have basic civil rights (which turns out to include marriage), and when there are still parts of the world where people are executed for the "crime" of being intimate as we do it, and when even some of our "friends" believe we are condemned to hell for acting on how we feel with consenting adults...sorry. Sometimes we need to vent at the straight world. That doesn't mean that Every Last Straight Person is prejudiced. But it just means that the prejudice is coming from the straight world from so many different directions at once

[voxhearted]

No need to apologise. I can appreciate the need to vent on this issue, of course. However, as a (mostly) straight person who has a personal connection to this issue and who has always been a strong and vocal opponent of any kind of oppression, I find the opening of the rant offensive.

[nerdanel]

I can understand that. I think it's easy for us to start ranting at the entire world sometimes, and your thoughts are a good reminder that there are straight people on our side (fortunately for us). Personally, I always try to qualify my rants (e.g. "straight people who believe X" or "Christians who believe Y" or so on), but I understand, emotionally speaking, why some GLBT folks just need to head right into the ranting.

[voxhearted]

This is a reminder to myself, as well, to qualify and to definitely not generalise. There have been a couple of occasions over the past few years when the words "stupid Americans" has spilled out of my mouth - and after I say it I cringe. My intention is never to insult all Americans, but I know that many people would interpret it as an insult, and rightly so. Like you said, when emotions run deep and consequent ranting commences, formalities tend to get tossed out the window.