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"Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter." -- Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Common Sense

I started this as a followup comment to another comment that hunterkirk posted, reacting to my "bigotry is not a code word" entry and the comments that others had written to that. It got too long to fit in a comment, and rather than split it into two or three comments, I decided to post it as its own entry.

Sirrah, I must call "bullshit!" on what you have written here. Be you troll (as others have suggested), or 'phobe, or merely "have drunk the Kool Aid" and allowed your identification with certain conservative positions to lull you into swallowing the illogic of the rest of their propoganda unexamined, I am not certain. Following the dictum, "Do not assume malice where ignorance will suffice," I shall for the nonce assume the latter and urge you, as their puppet, to cut your strings and loose yourself from the bigots who hold you (and many other conservatives) in their thrall.

"I think you are all missing the MAIN issue here."

The main issue of my entry was their calling "bigotry" a "code word". As long as we're clear on that, fine, we can continue on to the larger issue behind this kerfuffle...

"It isn't if it is christain or not be homosexual."

And already you have misread, deliberately or otherwise! Whether it is Christian (please, if you use normal capitalization the rest of the time, give me the respect of capitalizing the name of my faith, as I capitalize the names of other faiths) to be homosexual wasn't discussed. Others have pointed out that it is un-Christian (or at least un-Christ-like) to preach hatred, or to assume smug "moral superiority" while working to make life harder for others instead of easier. So your statement here is either a clumsy misreading or a deliberate distraction. Which is it?

(But if you do want a separate discussion of whether one can be both homosexual and Christian, I've got a bundle of URLs for you.)

It is about the USA Government promoteing a political interest [...]"

WAFF is an arm of our government now?? The Disney Channel is? Nickelodeon? Or does the entire weight of your complaint rest on the fact that PBS will air the video?

Oh wait, you're probably upset that it will be distributed to public schools as well as private ones. But those are run by local governments, and presumably local attitudes and politics will determine whether the video actually gets shown in those schools. I know which way I want that decision to tilt, but you still lose the "Federal government" argument.

"[...] of a group that ISN'T legally recognized in many states."

Hmm. A group that isn't legally recognized. That sounds like a noise-phrase, meant to fill the air with an ominous tone without actually saying anything. By "group" do you mean "organization", or "class"? If you mean "class", then what do you mean by "legally recognized"? Recognized as a "suspect class" in antidiscrimination law? Recognized as a category in the gathering of statistics? A class made of of people recognized as individuals?

A video that promotes tolerance advances the political interest of "a group" ... which group? The class of "children who get picked on or bullied for being different"? Not a legally-recognized class, true, but I don't think "legally recognized" is the correct test to apply there.

Or is "a group that isn't legally recognized" itself a code-phrase for "them uppitty faggots"?

"[..] to target the children of the polutation as a whole, with out consent of the parents and with out warring, with the intent to undermine the political foe of homosexuality by targeting their children in the public school system."

"Without warning" ... IIRC, the video will be distributed in March. It's currently January. Consider yourself warned.

"Target the children" ... as we do with a hundred other messages regarding civilized behaviour (which is really what this is about), respect for law and government, belief in the American mythology, mores regarding sexual activity, recreational drugs, prioritizing education, and even nutrition. All I can say is that if you stand by this argument, I hope I don't later find you espousing teaching creationism in the schools, abstinance programs in the schools, etc.

"Political foe of homosexuality" ... No, it targets the memetic foe of tolerance. To the extent that the anti-homosexual crowd is motivated by bigotry, it undermines them as a side effect.

You ain't pro-bigotry, are ya'?

(Oddly enough, this is one place where I could utter, "But think of the children!" without irony, were it not for that phrase being so often ironic the rest of the time. Can we agree that discouraging kids from beating each other up is a good thing?)

"Now before you all get on your high horses... let me ask you this. How would you feel about a school system putting on a program for child that says "homosexuality it wrong and unnatural" with out warning you or ask for you promision? You wouldn't like it would you? Well this is what they are doing."

Well, I'd be upset ... but that is not a valid analogy! They're not saying, "conservatism is wrong," nor, "Christianity is wrong," nor "heterosexuality is wrong." They're not even saying, "conformance to conventional gender roles is wrong." They're saying, "Treating people badly just because they're different is wrong." And if you seriously think that's a bad message, then you are a dangerous, dangerous person.

So far you are five-for-five in having your arguments turn out to be straw men. Was than intentional, or had you actually been convinced when you read those arguments somewhere else? Bring me real arguments with meat on their bones instead of empty rhetoric and distractions. Convince me that you really are neither troll nore dupe. Or better yet, recant and acknowledge that one need not hold up the anti-gay end of the platform with spurious arguments in order to be a good conservative.

"I have made comments before that the school system shouldn't be a place for state morality to be forced upon our children."

Interestingly enough, the one place where you have a point is one which has been debated since before the public school system was even instituted. I'm not going to claim that a single quotation settles the matter, but I do find it interesting that when Noah Webster put forth arguments in favour of establishing public schools in the first place, he wrote, "Here the rough manners of the wilderness should be softened, and the principles of virtue and good behaviour inculcated. The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head." (I used this as a QotD back in September.)

I say that whether this is appropriate or not is not obvious, and agree that we do have the seed of a debate there. I also wish to point out that historically, the public schools have been a place where "state morality" is thrust at children for as long as we have had public schools. (Whether the message sticks or not is another question.) So while this point does touch on the tolerance-versus-bigotry debate, it's not novel or special to the issue of this video and the reaction to it. (And somehow, I doubt the AFA would be any less worked up about the existence of the video if it were only being shown on television, so I suspect that the public-schools bit is really tangential anyhow.)

"Homosexuals do not have the right to target children for force acceptance classes."

"Acceptance" ... "tolerance" ... "not being nasty to each other". Does the video actually say, "you have to accept being gay as a Positive Thing," or merely, "gay people, and lots of other kinds of people, exist -- don't be mean to them just because they're who they are"?

And if homosexuals do not have the right to try to get that message out, do supportive hets have the right? What makes you think that it's just homosexuals who want this message spread?

"That is the REAL point of this case."

No (*sigh*) that is a set of distractions from the real point of this matter. The real point is that one bunch of people said, "Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't beat people up for being different?" and another bunch of people said, "Quick, we need excuses for saying that's a bad message so we can justify continuing to be mean to people who are different from us!".

The real point is that there are people who react to any "play nice with each other" message with cries of, "They're 'promoting' homosexuality!" to rile up anyone who can be coaxed to panic by such words.

You do not have to be a bigot (or support bigots) to be a conservative. Please do not be a bigot or promote the agenda of bigots. Just as you ought to properly chew your food before swallowing, please chew your reading material and talk-radio before swallowing its ideas, even if much of what they say agrees with you. It's easy to hide a drug -- or a poison -- inside a tasty morsel, and if you swallow it whole you'll never detect the pill until it's too late.

Indignation can be a drug. Hatred can surely be a poison. Chew.

Perrine just jumped on my lap and calmly announced, "Mr. Dodgson is at the door." While I was staring at her -- she is usually not very vocal unless she's chittering at birds -- the doorbell rang. The gentleman standing there, dressed in a suit that looked like it must be like a hundred years out of fashion, handed me a cupcake with purple frosting, said, "Baltimore's sky is far too blue. I must go," and turned and ran away down the block.

Unfortunately he was looking at the sky, not the ground. I shouted, "Mr. Dodgson! Watch out for that...!" but I was not quick enough, and he fell into a large crack in the sidewalk, disappearing from sight.

I thought I heard him cursing and saying something about rats that were supposed to be rabbits, but it was hard to tell at that distance. A girl in a blue dress is standing over the crack now, and seems to be talking to him, and I know I heard her say something apologetic about Baltimore's not having many rabbits.

I wonder whether I should call 911. I wonder whether I should dare to eat this cupcake.