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Innania
Joined: 11 Aug 2008
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Location: Winter Haven, FL
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Stryffe
Joined: 23 May 2008
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Location: Iraq
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 Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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Coming out of what?
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Innania
Joined: 11 Aug 2008
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Stryffe
Joined: 23 May 2008
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| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 11:15 pm Post subject: |
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Why?
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Innania
Joined: 11 Aug 2008
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Stryffe
Joined: 23 May 2008
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| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 11:41 pm Post subject: |
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I've seen some closets bigger than my house.
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Water
Joined: 09 Sep 2008
Posts: 399
Location: In frickin' Hell
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 3:51 am Post subject: |
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Will they have "go the fuck back in the closet" day? I dont care what two (or more) consenting adults do in that closet.
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Meditation brings wisdom. Lack of Meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what brings you forward and that which holds you back.
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IoneMonk
no YOU shut up!
Joined: 17 Mar 2007
Posts: 2313
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 4:51 am Post subject: |
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| Will they have "go the fuck back in the closet" day? I dont care what two (or more) consenting adults do in that closet. |
Until as recently as six years ago, when Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) was handed down, your government appeared to care and could criminally prosecute those consenting adults in that closet.
Today, people that you and I know, that everyone knows, constantly face losing jobs, military careers, custody of their children, housing and countless other rights and benefits most of us take for granted, because they have the courage to live open, authentic lives as who they are.
18 years ago this October 31st I lost my best law school friend, my moot court partner, the Editor and Chief of our Law Review and a brilliant legal mind committed to social justice. We knew him for almost a year, partied together, swapped stories and bitched about law school, when one afternoon he "came out" to my wife and me in a dark little bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was 1985.
R.I.P. Kevin, my friend. We will never forget you.
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Velnarin
Joined: 03 Mar 2009
Posts: 509
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:15 am Post subject: |
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| Bein' gay was against the law? Ouch. |
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Stryffe
Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 808
Location: Iraq
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:37 am Post subject: |
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Ione, I'm sorry for you lose man and anyone else that has lost anyone. It's always hard.
Ok here we go with my straight white male of a poor family that is now middle class rant on the subject... sorta.
Short of wedding anniversaries, mother and father's days and all those crap holidays that can be shared by anyone straight or gay, white or black, the idea of a day, week month even an hour of my time set aside for the use of one type of people bugs the hell out of me.
We do not need a national coming out day. Am I'm descended from Africans month or a we were Europeans once week. We will never have equality if we keep looking for and promoting our differences.
Who you love is your business and I feel if two men or women want to be married under the law they should be allowed to. Protest, use the law to your advantage, keep fighting for equal rights, but stop asking to be treated differently.
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Velnarin
Joined: 03 Mar 2009
Posts: 509
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 12:54 pm Post subject: |
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| I agree to an extent with that. I don't know that it makes any difference though. Whether they have it or not, it's not likely to phase out gay-haters at a different rate. If it makes them happy, that's cool. We can all use another excuse to celebrate these days. |
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Innania
Joined: 11 Aug 2008
Posts: 793
Location: Winter Haven, FL
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Stryffe wrote: |
Who you love is your business and I feel if two men or women want to be married under the law they should be allowed to. Protest, use the law to your advantage, keep fighting for equal rights, but stop asking to be treated differently. |
I don't care about different treatment, I just would be happy with the same treatment.
The state of Florida (with the exception of a few metro areas) allows businesses to fire you if they suspect you are gay. You dont have to say you are gay, and they don't have to have proof. You get to be jobless, and you dont even get to collect unemployment.
Lucky for me I work in Orange County, one of the few areas with laws forbidding that.
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Illusionist Innania the Ultimate Illusionist of Norrath level 85 Enchanter
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Xorne
Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 643
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Stryffe wrote: |
| We will never have equality if we keep looking for and promoting our differences. |
You nailed it on the head. People get along fine until you keep pointing out their differences. That creates a social pressure point and we know how people are easily influenced by social pressure. We have to focus on things that bound everyone together if we want a healthy society. |
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Water
Joined: 09 Sep 2008
Posts: 399
Location: In frickin' Hell
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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| IoneMonk wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Will they have "go the fuck back in the closet" day? I dont care what two (or more) consenting adults do in that closet. |
Until as recently as six years ago, when Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) was handed down, your government appeared to care and could criminally prosecute those consenting adults in that closet.
Today, people that you and I know, that everyone knows, constantly face losing jobs, military careers, custody of their children, housing and countless other rights and benefits most of us take for granted, because they have the courage to live open, authentic lives as who they are.
18 years ago this October 31st I lost my best law school friend, my moot court partner, the Editor and Chief of our Law Review and a brilliant legal mind committed to social justice. We knew him for almost a year, partied together, swapped stories and bitched about law school, when one afternoon he "came out" to my wife and me in a dark little bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was 1985.
R.I.P. Kevin, my friend. We will never forget you. |
I come from the state in which you can not have sex with the lights on... even in the daytime ... by law. (TY Sen. Helms, if my wife looked like his I would have fought to get that law passed as well). So stupid laws arent anything new to me. BTW sodomy is illegal here too but I cant remember the last time I heard of it being enforced in a non-rape/sex offense case.
_________________
Meditation brings wisdom. Lack of Meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what brings you forward and that which holds you back.
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IoneMonk
no YOU shut up!
Joined: 17 Mar 2007
Posts: 2313
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Innania
Joined: 11 Aug 2008
Posts: 793
Location: Winter Haven, FL
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Stryffe
Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 808
Location: Iraq
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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Absolutely awesome.
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Jazzmasta
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 556
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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Wow. Talk about a powerful speech. And you damn well can't argue with him.
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Hzath
Joined: 31 Mar 2007
Posts: 686
Location: Purdue
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Wow indeed. |
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furlibusea
Joined: 21 Mar 2009
Posts: 37
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 11:09 pm Post subject: |
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Before becoming a teacher I spent most of 15 years working in professional theatre. We used to have a game whenever you met another theatre person. We would ask about all the other theatres they had worked at and find mutual friends. If they had been working for any length of time we could always find someone in common, because it turns out the world of theatre is pretty small. It has probably been a game played for millennia. Theatre has always been transient.
Some time in the late 80s or early 90s we stopped playing the game. It just plain hurt too much, because the game started to be who was dead.
Two of the men I remember that stand out particularly for the purposes of this discussion:
Kevin was thrown out by his evangelical parents when he was 16 because he was gay. I don't know how he managed to finish high school and get a diploma in costuming but he did. I know that some of the time he was doing it he was homeless, and I suspect some of the ways he payed for food and rent during those years were not exactly legal. But he made it. By his early thirties he had a job as a cutter for a theatre. He had had a partner for 10 years who had a respectable job and they bought a house. They were pretty solidly middle class with no help from much of anyone.
When they were diagnosed with AIDs I think it went pretty fast for Kevin. It kind of did in those days, and had had some hard living in some of those years. When he died the family that had disposed of him got the house and all of the savings because they managed to convince a judge that the partner had had undue influence. I believe both their names were on the mortgage, and it is entirely possible there was a will. The partner was sick and didn't have funds to fight it. He died broke and on welfare about three months later.
It has nothing to do with special benefits. Someone can get married in Vegas while drunk to someone they met 5 minutes earlier and they have more protections under the law than my friends who have been together for decades, and who have done everything they can legaly do to protect their partnership. |
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