What brings this up is a comment recently left on my Figment profile:
Thanks for the offer to swap! I liked your story 'Beloved' but as you've said several things I disagree with on your wall ('I don't heart swaps' and that homophobic bit about not being able to read about LGBT) I decided not to heart it.I haven't responded to this person, since these sort of people throw me in utter disbelief.
I don't agree with LGTB stuff, but that doesn't mean I don't have plenty of friends who do, or who participate in that. I have several bi friends, several gender-fluid friends, and a few lesbian friends--I don't think I know anyone who is gay or transgender, but I feel my point remains the same.
While I believe that LGTB is wrong, I don't discriminate against these people. I also believe that people can do whatever the heck they want, and that means they can go out and do stuff I don't believe in.
What gets me more about some of the people in the LGTB community (I do stress "some"; I don't know tons of them), or those who strongly support it, is that they're rude. I don't go, "I don't want to be around you because you're lesbian/bi," but I've had a few people tell me off because they don't want to be "judged" for having a same-sex boyfriend or girlfriend when all I've asked them to do is not talk so much about it around me, since I don't want to hear about that stuff (and I don't want to hear that sort of relationship gushy stuff about straight people). I don't tell LGTB people, "You're the devil's child!" It's not like I haven't sinned at all in my life.
This poster on my wall liked my story, but because she disagreed with who I am, she decided against giving me a heart (which I guess she deems highly important to me if she's going to use it to try and convince me that I should feel guilty for being "homophobic.") It's like, "Alright, I'm the 'homophobic' and 'bigoted' one, yet I'm not the one being rude here. That makes sense."
What this says to me is that it's alright to discriminate against someone because of their beliefs. Yet, if I went out and did something like that--"I won't give you a heart on this story you wrote that's great because you believe LGTB is okay even though your story had nothing to do with that stuff"--I would be burned at the stake.
America likes to pride itself on equality, but, while we truly are far better about it today, we appear to have a long way to go. I can't state my beliefs--exercise my right to say whatever I wanna say--without being discriminated against for it, which is exactly what LGTB people and activists claim to have a problem with: They can't be who they want to be without being discriminated against for it. While this has merit--LGTB have been treated very badly and sometimes quite unfairly--why they do this to other people is beyond me. It certainly doesn't win their side any brownie points.
What I'm trying to say here is treat people how you wanna be treated. If you are rude to people, expect rudeness in return; if you don't expect it, you're a hypocrite. Being nice to people doesn't always make people be nice to you in return, but at least you're being a good person.
P.S. I don't know why she doesn't agree with me not doing heart-swaps. Heart-swaps are cheating. Refer to earlier post.
P.S.S. The contest is FINALLY over. I don't think I mentioned this here, but Figment extended the deadline from the 26th of November to yesterday (the 5th of December) TWO DAYS before the contest ended, without warning. It was ridiculously irritating.
P.S.S.S. Edit: I lied. They extended the contest again. Jack wagons.
Came to check out your blog, and glad to see you're updating regularly again! :D Hopefully that contest went well for you.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I'm super pro-LGBTQ, but it was actually interesting here to read your perspective on it here. Some of the things you say here are interesting, and I hadn't thought of some of them before.
Just out of curiosity--how would you feel if someone (a friend) said that they didn't want you to talk about your religion around them because they disagreed with it? Would you be okay with staying friends with them?
Personally, if someone disagreed with something that was inherently part of who I am/what I identified with (my religion, my race, my... eye color), I probably wouldn't want to be friends with them. But, that's just me-- haha.
Anyway, good to have a dialogue about this sort of stuff-- and good for you for keeping your cool here. :)
Also, I guarantee you know a gay person-- they're just probably not out of the closet.
Hope your contest turned out well, though!! :D
Actually, I would still like to be friends with them even if they didn't want me to talk about my religion around them. I can respect someone not wanting to talk about religion (goodness knows there have been some groups I was in where it would have been better to make an agreement beforehand not to). Being friends (or even just friendly) was never a sin.
DeleteTo me, it's a sign of respect when someone says, "Okay. Because it makes you uncomfortable, I won't do that around you." Often, the sort of people that say, "Even though it bothers you, I'm going to do it anyways because this is 'Murrica and I can do whatever I want!" are the sort that no one really wants to be friends with anyways. It doesn't make for a friendly or healthy environment when no one is willing to compromise in order to make as many people feel safe as possible.
And there have been some people who wouldn't and I simply left. I don't want to be like that to someone else and I don't want someone else to be like that to me. So, yes, I would appreciate staying friends with somebody even if they didn't want me to talk about my religious beliefs around them.
I do find that if I bring up that I don't encourage it that a lot of people seem to make it their . . . mission, I guess, to try and get me to do so--maybe not coming straight out and saying 'you should change my viewpoint because you're wrong,' but more subtle, backstabbing techniques (see comment in blog) that infer the same thing in an even ruder way. It's like a holier-than-thou attitude sometimes, except with something other than religion.
Things like this can make it stressful to tell anybody anything about oneself. I can see it from the LGBTQ side, too, since a majority of religious people don't endorse it and some might rail on someone for endorsing it.
People shouldn't be attacked for what they believe. It should be as okay for someone to not want to read something supporting LGBTQ as it is for someone to not want to read the bible or go to church.
I do think it's good to have conversations about this sort of thing, though. A lot of people tiptoe around it because they're afraid of offending someone, and I'll be the first to admit that I've done the same; there are some times when I just leave in order to not offend anybody with my beliefs, or just because I feel too much pressure to go with the crowd. There are some conversations not worth engaging because they risk hurting friendships, others, or even yourself.
Okay, now that I've written an essay, I'll stop babbling XD *flees to class*
P.S. Ah, the contest. That more ended up in table-flipping for ten or so people. So done with Figment.
P.S.S. Well, I think I do /know/ some gay people, but I don't know-know them (like, never actually met them, only seen them around or heard about them).