Stop being so gay, you gay!

So, today I'm going to talk about something that annoys me. Brace yourself.

A lot of attitudes towards homosexuality basically consist of "I don't mind gays, but they should be less gay". While I'd rather people thought that than "HOMOSEXUALS SHOULD BURN IN HELL  BLARGARAGAHAN", it's still irritating.

The first complaint is that homosexuals talk about homosexuality too much. I hear it all the time- "she always talks about her girlfriend" "he told me he was gay the first week I knew him" "does he have to keep mentioning the fact he likes men?".
The second complaint is in regard to those homosexuals who act stereotypically gay/camp/flamboyant/etc. I found a prime example on the internet (where all such things can be found), where a guy argued that gays would help their cause more if they acted more "normal", and less typically gay, as typically-gay behaviour makes people uncomfortable.
The logic from both these complaints often ends up saying that gay people rely too much on their sexuality for their identity, and that they should be more willing to express other parts of their selves.

Well, I have news for everyone.
Everyone ever in the whole universe relies uses their sexuality as a part of their identity to at least some  degree. There are people who do so more, and there are people who do so less, but the degree of which you do so is not determined or even affected by whether you are straight or gay. It's just that when gay people refer to sexuality as an identity mechanism (or whatever the phrase is I should use), it's noticeably different to when most other people talk about relationships and sex and crushes and all of that. The reason for this is not because identity crises are more common among homosexuals, just because there are less gay people than straight people in the world.

In some attempt to make what I'm saying more understandable, cast your mind back over the last week, and consider what proportion of the conversations you had covered the topic of sexual and/or romantic relationships. Unless you have a particularly high-brow circle of acquaintances, I'm guess it was quite a big proportion. This, for whatever reason, is part of human nature.
In the face of this, the options presented to gay people are either a) clam up completely every time sex and romance is mentioned, or b) join in. If they do select option b), which pretty much any sane person would do, then they are going to talk about homosexuality and same-sex attraction, because that is what sexuality is to them.
Also, unless he is both a talented liar and stubbornly closeted, Homo Joe can't really help telling you he's gay, because sooner or later you are probably going to ask him "are you married?" "do you have a girlfriend?" "do you like anyone?" "would you ferociously mount that woman?". When getting to know people, we inevitably want to know about their relationship status, sex life, dating history, et al. Which is absolutely fine, you just shouldn't see it as an insecurity-fueled violation of human decency when Joe responds "actually, I'm gay," or even if he decided to get in quickly and establish which team he played for before you made him slightly awkward by asking him about vaginal interaction.

As far as the dressing/acting/sounding gay thing goes, it's a fairly similar story. Straight Sally wears lots of girly makeup and talks in a fluttery voice to inform the gentlemen that she would allow them entry should they knock accordingly; Leslie Lesbian goes for a more "butch" appearance and manner to indicate to any like-minded women around that she is up for some girl-on-girl shannanigans. Especially if you're a gay teen, it can be frustrating residing in what is usually the decidedly heterosexual world of secondary/high school. Therefore, you are going to want to make sure that if any gay potential-acquaintances come your way, they are as aware as they can be of the fact you are a fellow member of the Rainbow Brigade.

Also, if you feel uncomfortable around "our kind", then I do genuinely sympathise. It's another less-convenient part of human nature that we want to shun or avoid that which is obviously different from us. But if I was to humour your immediate wants and pretend to eye up the nearest age-appropriate woman, then I honestly wouldn't be doing you any favours. Chances are that at some point in life, you are going to be in a situation where you need to be civil-to-warm towards an openly gay individual for a sustained period of time. He/she might be a client, or a boss, or your child's friend, or even a relation. So politely asking homosexuals to "switch off the gay" while you are around is just going to make it more difficult to deal with that situation when it comes around. In short, it's best to get used to gay people before you need to do so quickly and panickedly.

So that's why it's fine and good for gay people to act gay. Or that was the intention, anyway.
Sayronara!

Crazy American Government Arrests Woman Crazily, and Suspiciously Similar Articles are Suspiciously Similar.

Yay! A link!

The story is that a woman in America is being charged with murder for having a miscarriage. The charge goes that the woman had a drug habit the unborn baby died because of that, therefore the woman is a murderer. The woman denies taking drugs during her pregnancy, and there is no evidence that the miscarriage had anything to do with drugs.
It is not an overstatement to say that this is a violation of freedom, justice, civil rights and nearly every single thing in the universe with intrinsic value. My only consolation is that the reaction in America had been described as an "outcry", so maybe we aren't all subservient sheep. Not totally, anyway.


Oh, and while we're here:
I was browsing what various news outlets had to say about gay marriage being passed in the US state of New York (which I didn't blog about because everything I could have said was predictable and obvious), and found that this article from the Independent and this article from France 24 were largely identical. Which is worrying. I'm not going totally conspiracy theorist and saying that there's a big organisation controlling all the international news outlets, because that's probably silly. But I am saying that new broadcasters are apparently lazy and more ignorant that we'd like them to be, and the stream of information is easily manipulated. So you be careful out there.

God bless!  

Tolerance

There's been a lot of talk about tolerance in recent times. The gay rights movement says that homosexuality should be tolerated, the conservative counter-movement says that gay rights do not tolerate traditional religious beliefs. In the same way, some say that Westerners should be tolerant of Islam and South Asian culture, where others believe that openly practiced Islam is an act of intolerance against Western culture. But what does tolerance actually entail; and what is it's value?

To start off, to tolerate something, you must first object to it. I wouldn't say I tolerate Islam, because I don't think it's a bad thing. So if you have no negative opinion about a culture or practice, then the question of tolerance is irrelevant.

But if someone did think that homosexuality was wrong, or that Islam was objectionable, how would they go about tolerating it?
The first thing is not to want it banned. That's pretty crucial, for obvious reasons, so I don't need to go into further detail there.
The second thing is that you must be tolerant or encountering it in your everyday life. It is not tolerance if one is to say "I'm fine with gays, but they should never talk about their gayness or display affection in public". Neither is it tolerant to say "Muslims are fine, but they shouldn't pray in public or wear headscarves etc.". Wanting to sweep something to the sidelines, out of sight, is not the same thing as tolerance. It's not much better than wanting to stop the activity you object to altogether. In the same way, it is not intolerant simply to act according to your own beliefs. If a Muslim should act more Westernised in order to be tolerant of you, then ti would follow that you should stop eating pork in order to tolerate Muslims. It doesn't work like that.

So the other side of the discussion is how is tolerance actually valuable?
Firstly, to tolerate is to say "my opinions are not all that there is, I am only human, and I accept I may be wrong or mistaken". This is one of the most valuable things we can do as people. To claim our views to be objective fact 100% of the time is to be arrogant, exclusive, and downright ignorant. We need to accept the principle of fallibility if we are to develop at all. And this is what tolerance does, as you are admitting that just because you believe something, it doesn't mean everyone should act according to that belief.
Secondly, and similarly, tolerance is the vital first step to discussion, debate, and exploration of human knowledge and belief. As I plan on blogging about soon: all human views are valuable in some way, and they need to be considered if we are to understand the world better. I'm not saying we have to compromise what we believe for every opposing opinion, but what we do need to do is explore why people believe things that we do not, and hopefully arrive at new truths and theories about how the world works.

The end. 

The Political Compass Reveals All About British Party Politics

This is the webpage I have been sharing with the internet all day.

The political compass is a personal test one can take to see how their views are defined in the political lingo, and how they compare with people they know and various political figures throughout history. It is based on two scales: the left-right scale (which indicates how much control a government should have over economics) and the libertarian-authoritarian scale (which indicates how much control a government should have socially). Your result places you into one of four quadrants: libertarian-right (lower economic control, lower social control) libertarian-left (higher economic control, lower social control) authoritarian right (lower economic control, higher social control) and authoritarian-left (higher economic control, higher social control).

The site managers have run the policies of each of the British political parties through the quiz, to see where they stand.  As you can see from the results, both Labour and the Conservatives are in the authoritarian-right quadrant, and the Lib Dems are in the libertarian-right quadrant. This means several things:

• The majority of people who take the test end up in the libertarian-left quadrant, or near the inner edges of the libertarian-right or authoritarian-left quadrant. This means that the platforms of the major parties are very much at odds with what the public want.
• Labour and the Conservatives have very similar ideologies in real life, despite how much they bicker. This confirms what many people are saying; that the major parties are becoming almost indistinguishable, and that we are essentially choosing between two shades of conservative when we vote.
• Labour in particular are in the complete opposite quadrant to where they were when the party was founded, and to where they traditionally present themselves. Which is the reason the Labour party annoys me so much. 
• All of the big three are firmly in the right, which means none of them will do what nearly everyone agrees in necessary and take on the banks to prevent another financial crisis like that of 2007 onwards. None of them are likely to reduce inequality, either, or put more investment in jobs and poorer communities. 
• However much the Tories criticise Labour for supporting the "nanny state", and however much Labour call the Conservative party socially regressive, both parties are authoritarian, and both are likely to place constraints on your personal life. 

The Green party are the only all-UK party in the libertarian-left quadrant of the continuum. Which means just one thing:

• Everyone should vote Green.

So in summary, if you take the test and find yourself to be an authoritarian-right guy or gal, then vote for anyone you like, and enjoy being able to laugh heartily at the rest of us.
Otherwise, vote Green. (Or possibly Lib Dem if you feel optimistic.)
      

100th Blog Post!

Hooray! I have officially posted a century of internet-based opinionated rambles and/or rants about the world! *opens champagne* *plays Cliff Richard*
I hope you've enjoyed the experience more the same as or more than I have. Not that this is the end of my blogging exploits or anything...


IN UNRELATED NEWS: The UN has passed their first-ever resolution to defend the rights of LGBTers. This is a huge step forward, largely because the international community tend to keep a lot more quiet than they should in regard to the abuse of the human rights of gays, bisexuals and transgender people in Africa and the Middle East. There is a lot of progress to be made all over the world, but this is a clear indication that we are moving in the right direction. Full story here.

Bye for now! 

Christianity and Me

I am a Christian.

Recently, it's become strangely difficult for me to utter that simple phrase. I've become increasingly aware, primarily though LGBT blogs, of the kind of thing "Christian" means to a lot of people. More and more, Christianity is associated with bigotry, oppression and right-wing lunacy. As such, I have shied away from labeling myself with the aforesaid term.
But this last week, thanks to the grace of the people working at the two churches I attend, my Christian best friends, and that of God Himself, I am reconciling myself with my Christian identity.

When someone says they are a Christian, all they are saying is that they follow Christ. And why would I have any qualms about declaring such a thing, when his teachings have done so much for me, and for those I love?

Christ's message is one of love. It is one of reconciliation. It is one that admits that all humans are sinners, and none can rightly enter the presence of God. It is, above all, the message the God loves all humans and is willing to make a way for us to be with him, despite the sin we are so saturated in.

It is not the religion of shame. It is the religion of freedom from shame. I know no place which provides such a wonderful opportunity for self-acceptance and self-forgiveness as the Church.

So when I tell you I'm a Christian, I am not saying I am better than you. I am not saying you should  change yourself to be more like me. I am saying that I follow one who loves the both of us equally and was/is willing to suffer to reach both me and you.

You don't have to believe me. In fact, I don't see it as very important whether you do or not. God is big enough to reach humans without needing the likes of me to file them into churches. But understand that my faith has taught me to love you for who you are, no less than I love myself. I don't do that perfectly, obviously. But when I fail to love you, it is because of human imperfection, not because of my religion.

Also understand that as I accept your right to be an atheist, or agnostic, or Muslim, or Sikh, or Wiccan, or anything else, I expect the same for me. I expect to be able to say what I believe without you turning into a giant squid of anger. Intellectual discussion and debate is fine; healthy, even. Blind condemnation is not.

I hope, hypothetical non-Christian person, that we understand each other better as a result of this ramble.

I won't say God bless.

But I will say, good luck. In everything you are doing post-bored-internet-surfing.  

Rapid Outpouring (on Islam in Britain)

So, I just finished reading "We are a Muslim, please" by Zaiba Malik, and I have to say, I think it's one of the most important books I've ever read.

The book describes the early to early-ish life of the now-renowned journalist, Malik, as both a Brit and a Muslim. How she had to deal with two apparently completely separate identities. How she had to straddle two communities which were just beginning to hate each other.

I've said quite a lot about Islamophobia in the West during the course of this blogging melarkey. But I haven't said enough. In fact, I don't think you can ever say enough to condemn the blind hatred which is bouncing back and forth between the white and Muslim extremists in Britain, Europe and the West.

I tend to focus on anti-Muslim sentiment, and that's the sentiment which comes from my side of the rift, so I feel the most responsible for it, in a way. But I do acknowledge that there is a lot of bile streaming from the other side, as well. I'm not going to go into the details, because you all know them. But what I am going to do is make it clear that no one demographic group is responsible for the horrific violence we have witnessed in recent years between religious and ethnic groups.

The enemy of the West is not Islam, and the enemy of Islam is not the West. The enemy of both Islam and the West, of all of humanity, is the stubborn hatred and refusal to understand in regard to anything different.
For as long as we respond to hatred with hatred, nothing will be solved. The problem will only escalate.
For as long as we respond to the invasion of Muslim nations by bombing Western cities, those invasions will become more inflamed and gather more support.
For as long as we respond to the burning of anti-Muslim books with petrol bombs of our own, the more common the book-burning Muslim will become.

We have to stop using aggression and violence to divide the different ethnic and religious sections of British society. We have to stop viewing everything different from us as a threat to what we are. In the words of the Koran- "to you be your religion, and to me, mine".

I am tired, as I'm sure so many of us are, of the argument that because the other side are hateful and intolerant, we get the right to be hateful and intolerant towards them. Sure. If you want to encourage them in the activities you despise to much, if you want to alienate people for generations to come, if you want to see more and more bombings of innocent people everywhere, you go right ahead. But if you actually want to change what's going on, you might want to try a different tack. Here's a lesson from the real world: fighting fire with fire only leads to, well, more fire. That's the simple truth.

The segregation between whites and blacks, Juedo-Christians/secularists and Muslims, Westerners and Asians does not exist simply because [X-party] are such very bad people. It exists because there are people from every side who refuse to co-operate, and are ruining it for all those who do. Please, don't join in.

That's about all I have for now. Except that I really, really recommend that book.

Turrah! 

Egotism: an Exploration

So a conclusion about people that I've sort of dredged up over the span of this blog is that everyone needs to be liked/appreciated, and a substantial amount of human behavior stems from this need.
There are times when this need is intensified by deep-rooted insecurity, or stupid hormonal pride, and the result is egotism.

Egotism, when used here, is an individual's all-consuming obsession with making him or herself believe that people like or respect them. It results in the individual's "status" being the most important thing to them, at the unhealthy expense of other, more wholesome parts of life.

The interesting part is the different ways in which egotism manifests itself. From what I've seen, you can either be a "dominant egotist" or a "submissive egotist".

Dominant egotists are the ones most people associate with the concept of ego, because they're the most easy to spot. Dominant egotists (domegos) feed their ego by trying to obtain adoration from a following of passive/submissive types; weedier friends, young/impressionable girlfriends, etc. These are people who fit naturally into leadership roles, and could be very good at leading people; but ego takes over, and the domego sees leadership as a way of drawing egofuel from their friends. They find security through being in a dominant position.

Submissive egotists (subegos) are found among sidekicks, hanger-ons, co-dependents. Subegos fuel their ego from the appreciation of people they see as stronger and more dominant. Generally, this is the kind of egotism fueled by insecurity, which means they need a leader, someone to look after them. Whereas domegos draw ego-fuel from a large group of people, subegos tend to focus their efforts on one person they see as "ideal", or possibly a few more.

It's important to remember that no kind of egotism is an innate/permanent/natural characteristic. It's a phase. Something created by certain environmental conditions which the egotist must work to overcome, and will overcome, nearly all of the time. I'm inclined to believe that pretty everyone goes through a time when they could be considered an egotist.

And, yeah, that's it.  

Desire part II: Materialism

We live in a world in which owning things for the sake of owning things is promoted as part of the ideal way of life. By the time we own one thing, there is a newer, shinier, more cool thing to own that we must have instead.

Flagrant displays of wealth such as "look at my new car!" "My iPhone is bigger than your iPhone!" have ingrained themselves thoroughly into our culture. Most of the time, we don't even want what we want for the sake of the thing itself. We want it because of the social implication of owning such a toy. We want it because it makes us look cool. In other words, we are attracted to the concept of owning, not the item itself.

And, yes, I have to think this is almost entirely down to social conditioning.

Every day, we are bombarded with advertising for every useless flashy product under the sun. And how do advertisers convince us to buy this stuff? By claiming it will cause us to have more social status. It appeals to the part of your mind which thinks "owning things = good".

But why is this bad? Because we are using up resources at a rate of knots in a world where resources are finite, As a species, we are destroying more forest, digging up more minerals and creating more pollution than ever before. And its all because we hold the belief that the more we consume, somehow, the better our lives will be.

Is there a solution? Yes. But it comes down to changing our whole attitude towards consumption.
Don't by a new phone or computer just because your model isn't the very newest any more. Wait until the one you have now stops working completely. When your contract runs out on your phone, opt to renew the contract with the same phone, rather than getting the new one. Don't buy loads of clothes on impulse, buy just as much as you need- and buy ones which will last, rather than ones which are going to fall apart in three days. This is how we make a difference to all the environmental problems we keep seeing in the news, and it will have a substantial impact on the humanitarian problems, as well. We need to start seeing consumption as an occasional necessity, rather than a mass recreational activity.

And yes, unfortunately, we need to get our preachy modes on. Blog, campaign, nag friends, try to get as many people as you can to stop consuming unnecessarily. A social change occurs when enough individuals change themselves.

That's all for now, kids!

Hold on, what?

I will post the second "desire" installment today, but I wanted to alert everyone to someone I found on BBC news.

The story is that somebody broke into a park in Manchester and beheaded eighteen birds, speared a frog, poisoned all the fish in a lake, and smashed a load of windows. It's pretty sickening the kind of disregard these people apparently had for non-human life. But that's not what I'm going to angstily blog about.

I'm angstily blogging because if you scroll down to the external links bit in the story, you will find that the headline from the Manchester Evening News reads "yobs behead birds (etc)". Similarly, the Metro declares the crime was committed by "thugs". As if the police have already found evidence that the crime was committed by late teenage/young adult males.

What makes journalists think they can accuse a particular demographic group of a crime without even any suspects whatsoever? Is this how society is now; that any act of vandalism or casual cruelty is instantly put down to teenage males?

You probably think I'm overreacting. And to be honest, you're probably right. It just frustrates me that we are this judgmental, and that media consumers are willing to let presumptiousness like this slide. Something to work on, I feel...