Quote: Fat Mike, I donâ??t mean to single someone out, but you mentioned mentioned your gay friends. First, if you had friends that werenâ??t sincere, nice, and generally good people, I wouldnâ??t see why they would be your friends to begin with. To look at this objectively, you have to step back away from the scenario because by mentioning what great people they are, you are allowing the presentation of your opinion to become clouded. How good of people they are is completely irrelevant to the topic. Whenever anyone resorts to the â??I have many black friendsâ?, or â??I have a lot of gay friendsâ?, in my opinion you lost the argument before you even started. Itâ??s almost like responding to an argument with educational qualifications and proceeding to not provide any more data to back your point. Not a personal attack, just something to consider.
As I stated before, I know several gay people that I don't like, not because they are gay, but because they annoy the hell out of me. But I can see how you would have missed that since there are 460 some replies to my post.
The point I was going for there was that a lot of people tend to not look at gay people on a personal level, and rule them out as people they would try to get to know on the basis that they're gay. Also, that has not been my only argument, but once again, there are 460 some replies to this post, and I haven't read them all either. I have looked at both sides of this issue. I grew up in a very conservative baptist house, and spent a year at bible college, and the way most Christians I encountered talked about and viewed gay people, really, really bothers me. Very few of the Christians I met, and I have met A LOT of Christians, even knew a gay person or tried to develop any sort of friendship with them. Instead, they would relentlessly make fun of them, call them "fag" or "homos", and showed absolutely no respect for them as people.
One of my close friends at bible college was an in-the-closet gay guy. He was a very nice guy, but a little flaming, so everyone there knew he was gay even though he never admitted it. All the students and RA's treated him like he was some sick pile of sh*t. The constantly harassed him, pulled pranks on him that bordered on sexual assualt, and would call him a dirty fag to his face. The result of their "Christian love"? He tried to kill himself towards the end of the school year. You think they'd at least try to live up to their "WWJD" bracelets and t-shirts, because I'm sure Jesus would have harassed him and drove him into deep depression. Based on that personal expierence, I hope you can see why I'm angry about this issue, and why I care so much about it.
I know not all Christians are like that, but way too many of them are, and they're the same ones who voted to pass this measure. They're all about individual freedoms, unless that freedom makes them feel icky when they think about...
Granted my personal expierences have fueled a lot of my passion for this topic, but I think I've done a good job at using facts and valid arguments other than the "a lot of my friends are gay" approach.
So dnewma04, in conclusion, read some of my other posts and don't tell me my arguments are invalid based on the fact that I have friends that are gay. If you have any questions about this issue and want more detailed facts and sources, let me know. I'd be more than happy to provide you with information.
1999 Black SVT
"If I were an admin I'd ban you without a second thought. " ~Trapps
Based on that personal expierence, I hope you can see why I'm angry about this issue, and why I care so much about it.
