Let's burn some books!

[dak]

A big "Fuck You" to everyone saying it's ok to "keep out the fag books."

There's a huge fucking difference between material that argues some sort of whacked out militant agenda and things that simply mention that there are gay people and imply that they might actually be just like everyone else. God fucking forbid!

If you read through that a great majority of the books labeled as having a "homosexual agenda" just make mention somewhere of gay parents, homosexuality, the issues surrounding coming out of the closet, etc. These are all realities that we deal with, but if you dare to try and show things like that and not do your part to sweep homosexuality under a rug you are part of the "gay agenda."

Fuck that. It's this same goddamn attitude that makes it possible for people to get away with harassing, beating, raping, or even murdering homosexuals in this country with often lenient penalities or none whatsoever.

And no, I'm not gay, but I do have friends of both genders who are gay or bisexual. More imporantly, I'm fucking perceptive enough to realize that when shit is allowed to happen to one minority group, it can very easily happen to any of us, as we're all part of multiple groups whether we realize it or not (individual religions, age groups, political factions, etc.).

The best way to protect your own rights is to protect everyone's.

Teaching those books to students in High School will just ostracize the kids who become "harassing, beating, raping, murdering" bigots even more.

Been a while since High School for you I assume? Think back a bit and remember what it was like. The tolerant students who don't give a shit either way about gays will just grind through the assignments, get their grade and forget about it before the 6 weeks is over.

The kids that have been brought up to dislike gays will be in the hallway bitching about having to do "a report on some stupid faggot book" learning only to hate what will be viewed as the "Gay agenda" even more.

If the kid is going to grow up hating gays most likely his parents have animosity towards gays as well. A book isn't going to change that unless the goal is infact to cause tension between parents and their children.

Now that High School is out of the question you could teach it in Elementry/Junior High before their minds have become resolute in their stace on gays. Of course this will just result in a bunch of horny, bored pre-pubescent kids who still think girls have "cooties" assfucking each other because they don't have a concept of the social and physical implications since their only insight on the topic is some book designed to make gay "ok".

In a world where the media tells us we cannot show children people smoking cigarettes on TV out of fear of them being brainwashed into wanting to live in "flavor country" I really don't see how telling kids "Hey! The other half of the population has holes you can screw too!" is any better.

-edit - Soriak : Typical "Anti-bigotry" curriculum in the United States that I experienced in a public school took place mostly in the 7th/8th/9th grade. They bombarded us with holocaust/slavery material, made the main characters heroes and told the students to put themselves into the "heroes" shoes. Maybe it's because that's how I was presented "anti-bigotry" material that I fear having pro-gay lifestyle being brought up in schools. If I was sure that people in the books were "gay heroes" rather than "heroes because they are gay" I'd have less of a problem with it, it's just for every other minority we "learned" about it was always the former. The "they are worth talking about JUST because they were gay/black/jews" mindset doesn't help anyone.

Don't talk about a couple metrofags living in California preaching in pride parades, living together happily ever after. Talk instead about gay chemists, biologists. physicists, mathematicians. Let the students know gays are not worthless deviant. Let them know gays contribute to society in a meaningful way. Make the student respect the group of people for more then just preaching their ways. The fact that they are gay should be an after thought, something as subtle as a mentioning of where they were born. A persons sexual orientation is a very small part of a person, present it as such...

[Soriak]

Dak: I'm not sure how much discussion about a book happens in US schools, but we did plenty of that here. Generally the idea WOULD be to present an opinion that may be different than what their parents tought them. Schools can't and shouldn't be there to repeat what parents tell their kids - they need to be independant from parental influence and actually TEACH things. That includes stories about the difficulties of all minorities. Be that a jew in nazi germany, a black slave in early US history or gays today.

If the existance of those groups is an offense to someone, they need to grow up and learn to deal with it.

[Samflam]

Why is your son being gay such a horrible thought? Maybe you're not 'ok' with it after all?

[DiscW]

Banning books is always bullshit.

And considering it's highschool, books on being gay should be encouraged, if not required. Not to make people read them, just available for those that want to.

[Eomer]

Originally Posted by dak

In world where the media tells us we cannot show children people smoking cigarettes on TV out of fear of them being brainwashed into wanting to live in "flavor country" I really don't see how telling kids "Hey! The other half of the population has holes you can screw too!" is any better.

I must say that I'm incredibly surprised and disapointed that you of all people said this. Not that you much care or anything.

[dak]

Why is your son being gay such a horrible thought? Maybe you're not 'ok' with it after all?

The world as a whole will never be ok wih it, that is why I am not ok with it.

Even blacks in this country are still treated as second class citizens in many places despite they are infinitely more accepted by the collective social mindset than homosexuals.

It's a horrible thought in the same sense of my son losing partial brain function, limbs, sight or any other handicap. Because like it or not, being gay in our society is a handicap and it isn't going to change in any of our lifetimes.

And Eomer, how is it any different? According to the media teenagers wanted to smoke cigarettes because companies said it would make them look "cool". Those teens of course want that above all else because in their hormone laden, twisted little minds looking cool equated to venting the nagging, ever present sexual frustration they are facing every day.

As a teenager every single person on this forum at some point had a homosexual desire simply out of pressure to relieve some sexual tension with someone you can actually get along with. No big deal of course, but i'm pretty sure if we had an authority figure telling us it was ok to do it a majority of us would have acted on those feelings. Since a teacher said it was alright you would have someone to blame freeing yourself of any harm.

Maybe I am missing some fundamental factor but I really don't see how pushing a product on teens that equates to looking cool and ultimately increases their chances of intercourse is any different than pushing literature on teens that ultimately says it's reasonable and normal to have intercourse with anyone including the same gender friends you spend the majority of you socializing time with at that age without the risk of pregnancy. Smoking and being gay are both hazards to the life, liberty and the persuit of happiness, sure one is a hazard for strictly health reason and the other is mostly social reasons but both are hazards regardless and both have no business being taught to children as something a person does if given a choice.

If they want to teach kids about gays in school they should be forced to say up front. "Hey, look kids. The worlds not fair, we are trying to make homosexual lifestyles more acceptable but if you take this route expect to be a second class citizen in the eyes of the majority of the country including apparently the government. Make sure you are really gay before you try being gay".

In an ideal world we wouldn't even be debating this because it would be none of our business and nobody would care how homosexuals chose to live their life. Turn on the news though, the world is far from ideal. Being gay or any other minority for that matter is and will always be a considered liability.

It's a simple matter of numbers. The ratio of new people exhibiting gay behavior encouraged by having homosexual tolerance taught in school will be always be less than those who remain straight and unwilling to accept homosexuals as equals.

[James]

You know, I take it back. The Forever War should be taught in schools. What a great fucking book.

[Eomer]

It seems to me you're kind of stuck in a circular argument dak. You don't want equality lesons being taught in relation to gays in school, because it might make your kid gay, and society doesn't accept gays. Ignoring for a second all the recent research that is pointing towards homosexuality being a biological phenomenon in the majority of cases and the impossibility of your son turning homo from being taught it's not cool to beat the shit out of queers at recess, even if such teaching did turn him pansy, at least society would be making some forward progress towards realizing that being gay is indeed "okay" through such education.

But you'd rather they just toss that shit out of the curriculum, your son stay in the closet, and society continue to denigrate people based on their sexuality. You'd make Martin Luther King proud.

[randomguy]

Originally Posted by Glaive

A big "Fuck You" to everyone saying it's ok to "keep out the fag books."

There's a huge fucking difference between material that argues some sort of whacked out militant agenda and things that simply mention that there are gay people and imply that they might actually be just like everyone else. God fucking forbid!

If you read through that a great majority of the books labeled as having a "homosexual agenda" just make mention somewhere of gay parents, homosexuality, the issues surrounding coming out of the closet, etc. These are all realities that we deal with, but if you dare to try and show things like that and not do your part to sweep homosexuality under a rug you are part of the "gay agenda."

Fuck that. It's this same goddamn attitude that makes it possible for people to get away with harassing, beating, raping, or even murdering homosexuals in this country with often lenient penalities or none whatsoever.

And no, I'm not gay, but I do have friends of both genders who are gay or bisexual. More imporantly, I'm fucking perceptive enough to realize that when shit is allowed to happen to one minority group, it can very easily happen to any of us, as we're all part of multiple groups whether we realize it or not (individual religions, age groups, political factions, etc.).

The best way to protect your own rights is to protect everyone's.

shut up fag. when we can get a black man president then we can all worry about the "gay agenda" and how it effects the youth. people acknowledge that homesexual intolerance is a problem. a shitty thing to say is "we cant save all of you". if you want higher on the acceptance ladder it should be earned.

banning a book like To Kill A Mockingbird is fucking stupid. that book earned its right to be taught to the masses. hopefully places could be smart and just raise the age limit on the book. so its at least in the system. maybe make it for highschoolers only.

complete banning is mental, though do i want my kid learning about world war 2 , homosexuals , slavery, war ? so they grow up a zombie ? or do i feed my kid nutrional books with good moral fiber ? so they grow up to be robots ? its a rough choice, but i prefer robots. they produce more than they consume.

-edited--

[Azeth]

James, why are you so anti-gay? I figure it can be one of a few reason:

1. You're gay
2. You're parents/siblings were gay
3. You're a redneck
4. You're too wrapped up in Nascar and hitting your girlfriend and her kids to think outside the box
5. You found some downtime between domestic abuse and chuggin' brews to think and found you were too stupid to realize that sex is sex, and what someone does in the privacy of their home is their business

What makes you so fuckin' great hotshot?

[RiskyChris]

Originally Posted by Azeth

James, why are you so anti-gay? I figure it can be one of a few reason:

1. You're gay
2. You're parents/siblings were gay
3. You're a redneck
4. You're too wrapped up in Nascar and hitting your girlfriend and her kids to think outside the box
5. You found some downtime between domestic abuse and chuggin' brews to think and found you were too stupid to realize that sex is sex, and what someone does in the privacy of their home is their business

What makes you so fuckin' great hotshot?

James comes from the future where gays killed the human species by failing to reproduce.

[randomguy]

Originally Posted by RiskyChris

James comes from the future where gays killed the human species by failing to reproduce.

qft

[Soriak]

Originally Posted by dak

-edit - Soriak : Typical "Anti-bigotry" curriculum in the United States that I experienced in a public school took place mostly in the 7th/8th/9th grade. They bombarded us with holocaust/slavery material, made the main characters heroes and told the students to put themselves into the "heroes" shoes. Maybe it's because that's how I was presented "anti-bigotry" material that I fear having pro-gay lifestyle being brought up in schools. If I was sure that people in the books were "gay heroes" rather than "heroes because they are gay" I'd have less of a problem with it, it's just for every other minority we "learned" about it was always the former. The "they are worth talking about JUST because they were gay/black/jews" mindset doesn't help anyone.

I have to admit I never had any sort of "minority hero" book in jr high/high school... we read mostly books describing every day life that were dark themed and with a protagonist who's actions were at times questionable. That I always thought made for good discussions. Also interesting how some books actually got you to sympathize with the "bad guys" (ie some nazi soldiers) because you got the feeling they were just regular people trying to get by in a bad world. Good stuff.

But we were a class of 6 (private school, though not a religious one), so there was plenty of time for this stuff.

I can see how a person belonging to a minority turning out to be the hero who saves the day every time can get incredibly annoying - that's definatly not how it should be tought in school.

On the other hand I also don't see why the book should be BANNED from the library. If it's not a class assignment, shouldn't it still be available to someone who wants to read it in his spare time? Maybe there's a kid who has a problem with a topic covered and tries to get help from it - someone dealing with his problems without taking medication, that sounds like it should be encouraged. Requiring parental approvement is just like requiring it for abortions - no kid is going to ask their parents for approval and they'll just find different ways of dealing with it, or even worse not dealing with it at all.

The US as a whole will never be ok wih it, that is why I am not ok with it.

Fixed that for you. It's much more acceptable in europe already and I think even the "progressive" parts of the US aren't causing problems for gays. Once you go to the conservative states, well... bigotry is only part of the problem. Lower education, less income, less urbanized living conditions, less tolerance, strong belief in religion and moral guidance - all kinda goes hand in hand. Ironically not just in the US...

[Szlia]

It's been a while since sexual preference and sexual activity have been separated from procreation though. If by magic everyone became homosexual tomorrow, this would not mean the end of mankind. That would certainly reduce the number of unwanted pregnency though!

[James]

Originally Posted by Azeth

James, why are you so anti-gay? I figure it can be one of a few reason:

1. You're gay
2. You're parents/siblings were gay
3. You're a redneck
4. You're too wrapped up in Nascar and hitting your girlfriend and her kids to think outside the box
5. You found some downtime between domestic abuse and chuggin' brews to think and found you were too stupid to realize that sex is sex, and what someone does in the privacy of their home is their business

What makes you so fuckin' great hotshot?

Whoever said anything about me being anti-gay? You'll notice that nowhere did I directly insult the homosexual community, or said that the books should be banned for pushing a faggot 'agenda'. I do think it's kind of funny, though, that while (inaccurately) insulting me for being prejudiced against gays, you one up me with a bigger prejudice against the south. By the way, this isn't about the privacy of their fucking home (or home fucking as it were, a hurr hurr hurr), this is about curriculum material of schools.

Besides, it's not exactly as if homosexuality is so taboo that kids are not exposed to the subject outside of school on a daily basis. If they're going to be 'bigots' (kind of hard to be anything other than a bigot or a homophobe, nowadays), they're going to be so long before the subject is brought up in schools, and some book about fairies isn't going to change that. Likewise, if they want to go ass spelunking, they're going to do it regardless if you raise them in the most redneck faggot hating town in the world.


P.S. Amazing, I know, but you actually misused YOU'RE twice. It's a contraction between you and are. I almost never get to say that, so it's kind of awesome.

P.P.S. And yes, in the future faggots kill humanity. Hurrah!