[Stacy From Cali]

Originally Posted by Go Ne

I'm sure he knows it exists, most of us do. But, those that disagree with your opinion aren't Bigots, or atleast not all of them are. True Bigotry is something much darker and eviler, I've seen it before when SurfOmaha made his first Gay thread and a certain member came on and called gays mutants and freaks, That is bigotry. Also Stacy, you have seen Bigotry at least once to, when you first arrived here. The post you made about that truly made my blood boil with sheer rage, things like that are bigotry, not if people peacefuly and civily disagree with you. And of course theres also Westboro Church, which I think is the eviliest and most disgusting church ever. I think they're an embarassment to all of Christianity.

While I do not believe that all who disagree with me are bigots (that would qualify most people actually since most of my opinions are pretty left-wing fringe) I do think that bigotry is more commonplace than you do. Unfortunately. I really, really wish that it were not the case, but bigotry is very common in my experience.

Groups like the Westboro Church transcend bigotry IMO straight to evil. Agree.

[Filet Mignon]

Originally Posted by Stacy From Cali

No, that is not what I am saying at all...nor am I upset and angry. What I am saying is it is difficult for folks to truly see problems in a system that works perfectly well for them. It is really hard for white people to acknowledge racism (or that they themselves might be racist) because they are less likely to have been victims of it, for example. Ditto men to take sexism seriously...and unfortunately ditto straight people to see the persistence of anti-gay prejudice.

But the problems are there regardless.

That's all I'm saying.

And all I'm saying is that if there was so much horrible oppression of homosexuals, in Omaha, I would think that more would turn out to protest it. But apparently that's not the case.

[Stacy From Cali]

Originally Posted by Filet Mignon

And all I'm saying is that if there was so much horrible oppression of homosexuals, in Omaha, I would think that more would turn out to protest it. But apparently that's not the case.

Oy Vey!

[Go Ne]

Originally Posted by Stacy From Cali

While I do not believe that all who disagree with me are bigots (that would qualify most people actually since most of my opinions are pretty left-wing fringe) I do think that bigotry is more commonplace than you do. Unfortunately. I really, really wish that it were not the case, but bigotry is very common in my experience.

Groups like the Westboro Church transcend bigotry IMO straight to evil. Agree.

I suppose that the reason I don't think its as common as you do is because I've never seen it much, but I am relatively young so I'm probably wrong. And the whole disagreement statement was more geared for SurfOmaha, who seemed to be throwing the word bigot out left and right, but I suppose the quote threw you off.

[Filet Mignon]

Originally Posted by Stacy From Cali

Oy Vey!

Woe is you? Why - because somebody dares to disagree with you? It would appear that you have a real problem with that.


Were YOU at this gay-rights protest? If not, why not? You're saying there is such a huge problem of bigotry and discrimination against gays, but you're not doing anything to stand up to it. That seems pretty hypocritical. Either that, or you honestly don't think it's such a big deal.

And the same thing applies to the homosexuals in Omaha. If the 10% rule is true, there should be between 50,000 - 75,000 homosexuals in the metro area. Yet less than one one-thousandths of them came to this pro-homosexual rights protest/rally. Why?

[Stacy From Cali]

Originally Posted by Filet Mignon

Woe is you? Why - because somebody dares to disagree with you? It would appear that you have a real problem with that.


Were YOU at this gay-rights protest? If not, why not? You're saying there is such a huge problem of bigotry and discrimination against gays, but you're not doing anything to stand up to it. That seems pretty hypocritical. Either that, or you honestly don't think it's such a big deal.

And the same thing applies to the homosexuals in Omaha. If the 10% rule is true, there should be between 50,000 - 75,000 homosexuals in the metro area. Yet less than one one-thousandths of them came to this pro-homosexual rights protest/rally. Why?

Your reasoning is very binary. I tend to be much more a shades of gray person myself.

I do not subscribe to your binary notion that I must do what you think is best in order to believe what I believe. That being said I did not even know about the protest. LOL! Maybe that was the problem overall...lack of strong advertising!

My frustration with discussing this issue with you is that you are not acknowledging any of my points. By your logic Omaha has no major social issues because people are not taking to the streets in protest. This is naive. It seems much more likely to me that Omaha simply has no recent strong history of activism. Many people here seem uncomfortable with protest.

[DTO Luv]

Originally Posted by Stacy From Cali

By your logic Omaha has no major social issues because people are not taking to the streets in protest.

Thank you.

I wouldn't go so far to say that Omaha doesn't have a history of activism (see Omaha during the 60's with race) but with the overabundance of conservatism here it's not surprising that some gays here may not want to be visible and don't think they can be here.

[Filet Mignon]

Originally Posted by Stacy From Cali

Your reasoning is very binary. I tend to be much more a shades of gray person myself.

I do not subscribe to your binary notion that I must do what you think is best in order to believe what I believe. That being said I did not even know about the protest. LOL! Maybe that was the problem overall...lack of strong advertising!

My frustration with discussing this issue with you is that you are not acknowledging any of my points. By your logic Omaha has no major social issues because people are not taking to the streets in protest. This is naive. It seems much more likely to me that Omaha simply has no recent strong history of activism. Many people here seem uncomfortable with protest.

I think your major problem is that I don't agree with you, and you can't handle that.

We all tend to see what we're looking for. If you're looking for racism, you'll always find racism. If you're looking for bigotry, you'll always find bigotry. If you're looking for sexism, you'll always find sexism.

On the other hand, there are a lot of us who not only are not running around looking for problems, but are actually just treating people respectfully and decently - regardless of who there are.

[DTO Luv]

In other news 150 people gather at a vigil for the murdered Kwik Shop worker in south Omaha. I guess only 150 people in Omaha care about crime, murder, roberry, and gun violence. 900,000 people should have showed up so I guess robbery/murders aren't a big deal in Omaha. The numbers just aren't there.

[smithy77]

The simple fact is that, as far as I know, there's not one jurisdiction in the entire state of Nebraska that extends any legal protection for gay people. That alone speaks volumes. I'm not just talking about gay marriage issues, but basic civil rights protections that we all take for granted (employment, housing, inheritance rights for domestic partners, etc.). You don't realize how backward that looks to someone who lives in a city where these laws have been on the books since 1974. Before some of you start to complain about how unnecessary these laws are, I'd like to point out that discrimination does exist. People have recently been legally fired for being gay, kids are being thrown out of their homes after coming out to their parents (and many end up on the streets hustling), landlords can legally evict gay people (or refuse to rent to them), people are routinely beaten for being gay (a woman in the suburbs of San Francisco was just beaten senseless last week by a group of men for having a rainbow sticker on her car), and couples who've been together for decades have no inheritance rights or hospital visitation rights.

I know it sounds trite to say this but you really can't understand what it's like to be gay unless you are. I'm talking about everything from the 'big issues' to the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) slights and hostilities we experience all the time, mostly from straight men. Just because you've never seen incidence of discrimination doesn't mean it's non-existent. If you need to educate yourselves on gay issues, there's plenty of literature out there. If you choose not to, I guess you're entitled to your own thoughts and opinions, but they lack the force of true knowledge and understanding, and hence are not very convincing.

I truly believe Omaha and Nebraska will eventually get there. It may be dragged, kicking and screaming, in to the 21st century, but it'll happen.