loquitur

Pigglet, just briefly:

1. Depends what you mean by representations of character. What I'm concerned with mainly when I deal with someone is whether s/he is reliable. If s/he says s/he'll do something, can I count on an honest effort? If s/he says something is true, can I rely on it? If the person advocates good personal hygiene in public, I don't care if s/he picks his/her nose when s/he is in private. That's his/her business, not mine. It doesn't take away the least little bit from the validity of advocating good personal hygiene - that position has to be evaluated on the merits, <i>irrespective</i> of whether the person who advocates it goes mining for boogers at home. If a congressman advocates charity but is personally a tightwad, that means zero about the validity of the position that giving to charity is good. See what I mean? If you think a congressman shouldn't be resisting gay rights, your argument is with his position, not with whether he has a secret gay lover. If he didn't have a gay lover but still resisted gay rights, you still would have to try to change his position. So his position is what you have an issue with, and that's what you need to try to change. His private conduct is not relevant to the validity of his position, because someone else who does not have his character flaws could equally well articulate the same position.


2. No, I don't approve of lying. But let's be clear about what lying is. Lying is saying something you know not to be true: a factual statement. What we're talking about isn't lying. What we're talking about is maintaining silence about a personal matter. Very different. I guess your premise is that someone who is a closeted gay necessarily must in reality think it's ok to be gay, and therefore is a lying hypocrite if he advocates a different position. Well, you can't assume that: you don't know what the other person is thinking and you don't know how he feels about his gay activities. If he is ashamed of them, then he's not a hypocrite, he's just weak - or so it would seem to him. Now you and I could agree he is just a conflicted soul who needs to come to terms with himself, but that would be our diagnosis, and not necessarily the way he sees it. You can't simply jump to the conclusion that your way of looking at things is the only correct one.

3. This point of yours is an argument on the merits of gay rights, rather than about outing. I don't take issue with equal treatment (as I think I said earlier, I believe I probably have more gay people in my home on a regular basis than most of the people here). But it's off point.

As for murder, rape - those aren't issues that are reasonably the subject of debate in society. Bad analogies. My point simply was that there are things that in current society are open to disagreement by people within, say, three SDs of the mean. I have my own views on them, and I would expect the social fabric to work the issues out over time, but I'm not about to start consigning everyone who disagrees wtih me on some issue or other to the outer limits of hell, or brand them as evil. They're not - they just have the bad judgment to disagree with me. And just as I don't want to be treated badly for disagreeing with them, I don't treat them badly for disagreeing with me.

Host, I don't understand your post other than that you're angry at people who see the world differently from the way you do. You say you want to know who these people are who have different opinions from you - well, suppose they were all totally blameless, upstanding, non-hypocritical types who <i>still</i> voted against what you perceive as the correct position -- does that change the result one bit? Of course not. You have not made yourself the slightest bit better off. If everyone who voted against you was some sort of saint, they STILL will have voted against you. So what does prying into other people's lives gain you? ZERO.

Outing doesn't make you the slightest bit better off; it just hurts someone else -- which means that your objective apparently is to inflict pain on those with different views, even though it helps you not one bit. Unless I'm missing something here, that's what you appear to be saying. And that's not very attractive. What you should be caring about is changing minds and persuading people, not inflicting pain on those who disagree.

Advancing equal treatment for gay people is not going to be achieved by hurting other people. Other than giving yourself a little bit of vindictive satisfaction, it doens't advance your goal one bit.

Let me add one more thing: I don't expect to be governed by saints. All I expect is good faith effort to keep promises, and an avoidance of corruption. Do that and I'll be a happy man. And if they want to pick their nose or buttfuck their pet goat in their spare time, go right ahead, just don't tell me about it.

As it is now, I would never stand for election to anything, or appointment to anything (even though I am pretty sure I could do a better job than many of the bozos now in govt) because I don't want to have my privacy invaded or be potentially subject to political grandstanding at my expense. And I know a lot of people who feel the same way -- talented people who have a lot to offer, but simply won't do it because the price in terms of the abuse and other shit you have to put up with is just too high.