Now I just had to respond.

@Anna: Point 3: Think about Jamaica and it's macho culture. Being openly gay might well be a death sentence there. There are several asylum seekers from Jamaica (that are gay) in the UK. Do you really think that one death is not that much?

Point 4: So you think it's a choice? Why would someone choose to be in a minority? Why are there people who are openly gay even though it means being discriminated against, and losing just about everyhting they have, sometimes including their own lives?

We have an anti-racism week here, but nothing for social groups (such as LGBT). One might say that they're included there somewhere, but still...

Mae - point 4, Anna probably didn't mean choosing to be gay by that, but rather coming out and letting others know - for that you can wait till you feel you're ready, and if you're uncomfortable letting others know about it you don't have to tell them at all (though of course when you eventually find a same sex partner it won't be that easy to hide any more), but when you're born in a certain race it's instantly visible and it's not something you can hide and pretend to others that it doesn't exist.

I've never heard of this day before o.o

I've never heard of this day either, and, Anna, I think what you are doing is great. However, I can also understand why some people might feel angry. Discrimination and prejudice are very complicated issues, and there are many levels on which the battle needs to be fought.

First, people must recognize that there is a group that is getting persecuted. Many people are very ignorant of LGBT issues, and do not think that there is any problem. KTC outlined those issues very well.

Only after that can people work to end prejudice (our own deeply held beliefs that affect our behaviors towards others) and discrimination (institutional policies that affect things like being able to get jobs, being able to get married, being able to visit loved ones in the hospital, on and on).

I applaud your efforts to work against discrimination for ALL groups. It is a laudable goal. But I don't think that it is unfair or an insult to other groups for LGBT to try to raise awareness of their particular situation, either. We cannot end discrimination against LGBT (or any group) until we understand and accept that there is discrimination against LGBT and we recognize exactly what it looks like.

Oh, and I will not be participating in the Day of Silence. I have a two-year-old and a five-year-old. Silence isn't in the picture. Maybe when they are older...

@anna: point one: no because LGBT are often not 'recognized'. Think about it:
What is the one of the only possible reasons (here in the US) you can't get married legally? (assuming you're of legal age and in good standing of course) You're gay
Adoption? More unfairly difficult than straight couples (from what I heard)
Can you keep the kid? Legally, you're going to be fighting a lot. There was one case where a child was pulled from a lesbian couple simply because they were lesbian. I don't know how many more legal cases are like this.
Or what about the so called "twinkie defense" with harvey milk?

Heck a lot of people even want to put in a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage HERE in the US, supposedly a 'freedom to pursuit happiness for all' country. (they forgot to add you needed to be straight)

And your 5th point is contradicted by the fact your in CA who is much more open than usual.

If your black, white, asian, feminist, female, male,etc. AND straight (or playing straight) you have your legal rights NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

2. You get killed for being gay. You get lynched for being gay. You can't even marry for being gay. You can't 'proclaim your love' without being ridiculed or being treated as a freak. You have to hide a part of yourself that you shouldn't NEED to hide period.In some languages, there isn't even a word for gay.

No, I think a day of silence for gays is appropriate.

After all, for blacks there's black history month
asians-asian pacific islander month
etc.

as for christians: ahem, easter, christmas, etc. all very 'christian' days.

3. Being force into silence is a crime in itself isn't it? How many people in the world are forced into silence because their country and/or countrymen are so homophobic? We would never know because those people are silent.

5. I don't get this last point. You can't choose to be gay. It shouldn't matter whether your gay,straight,bi,trans,white,black,asian,etc. You shouldn't need to be ready to defend yourself against homophobic pricks.
Even at birth, your so called 'gay problems' begin in your very home.

I'm going to go with very general gay stereotypes.

A boy plays with dolls and likes 'girly' things. What does his parents do? force him to be 'masculine' and 'be a man'. (we live in a patriarchal society after all)

Now what if this boy realized he's gay? If his parents are homophobic, you can bet he's going to hide and suffer from that.

*steps off the soap box*

There's an Asian Pacific Islander Month? o_O; Here, we only have Black History Month and the Gay Pride Parade. And, of course, the regular Christian holidays, although there is a growing awareness of other holidays, as well (still, they are not considered "official" so they are still not at the same status as Christian holidays)

While I agree that the LGBT community is discriminated against, I still also agree that there are many other groups out there that are also discriminated against with no day to call their own.

@KTC I totally understand what your saying. I do agree that things are harder for gay/bi people, then people want to admit. It’s sad they the have a hard time even having families. I agree that gays should be recognized and maybe even have they’re own day, or days, all I was saying is that, if we are going to recognize one group that have been discriminating against it would only be fair to recognize the others.

Your soap box comment made me giggle

On a side note, I don’t understand why in America we have black history month, gay rallies and parades and days, etc etc but we have no day, that I’m aware of for the native American Indians. In fact I know a lot of Native American Indians were arrested for protesting the Columbus day parade, and I can understand why they are so against celebrating that day. They’re culture was pretty much destroyed and we have nothing really honoring them.

.

@Anna I can see your point too, and I can see how you would say that people are becoming more open-minded, but I think it also depends on what area you’re from. I know that people here and Colorado and also in Wyoming aren’t that accepting. I’m not saying all people from the state, but I think people here, at least the people I know, are more old minded. And by that I mean old “values”, a man and woman get married, work hard and have babies. I think that if the country was more open minded it wouldn’t be so hard or illegal for gays to marry, adopt or have children, file joint taxes, have joint insurance. Honestly our county is really against gays if you look at everything they are not allowed to do. I’m surprised they’re allowed to vote. I’ve seen gay couples in the mall or stores and if you look around theirs disgusted faces everywhere and sometimes people even cover their kids eyes for a gay couple holding hands. I find it really sad. I’m all for gay rights. I think they should be allowed to live like everyone else.

Edit: I've never heard of Asian Pacific Islander Month either

@aeternus:

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/asianhistory1.html

as for the day: well they should go and create their own right?
I mean, before that kid got 'silence' was there any such thing as day of silence? no.

Another way I could see it is if they don't have the drive to push for their own 'day', why should LGBT let them 'piggyback' on their day?

You want a day? work for it buddy cuz it's 'unfair' to piggyback off another for your own cause imo. Like making one person do all the work in a group project and than everyone takes the credit.

@lady: maybe because the native americans are a touchy subject? US likes it's cool 'good' image. Native americans is a HUGE blot in that image since did so many despicable things to indians.

edit: also, i'm fine with other days for discrimination cuz seriously, there should be more for a general awareness.

ok so lemme guess...this is like one of those small holidays, like only celebrated by a handful of people, or what? i've heard of this before, but never actually knew what to do on it...

@KTC:
Side note- Have fun deciphering this. I was too lazy to put them in order.

Christmas and Easter are Christian holidays, but they are days in which Christians -amongst themselves- celebrate their own beliefs. They are not holidays where everyone, Christian or not, stands up for all the Christians who have been persecuted. While we do have Black History Month, it's more of a month of honoring famous African Americans and less of a month for standing up for the African Americans who have been and are still discriminated against.

As I stated already, I /am/ misinformed, because I live in California. I get that, which is why I said to scratch point 5. :]

Luz_Melian was right about what I meant by that point, so thanks. =] It's still a really bad point, though. Forgive me, it was late at night and I was just throwing in a bunch of points off the top of my head without really thinking twice.

I know that people /do/ get killed for being gay, but not nearly as much as for religion, race, etc.

Hmm, I'll admit that LGBT have to deal with a lot more than I give them credit for, but I'm sticking with my initial statement that they're not the only ones and that other voices need to be heard as well. But it's not like we can have a race for every day, which is why we need Anti-Discrimination Day.

I can already see that I'm turning this into a circular argument that could go on forever, so I'm now going to apologize for getting myself into an argument about a highly controversial issue that can be argued a million different ways without bothering to organize my arguments, let alone research my points. =P My turn to step off the soap box.

Oh, and by the way, my Day of Silence or Anti-Discrimination Day or whichever you choose to support was awesome and awful at the same time. I'm just gonna leave it at that for now. >___>



Also, what do you mean by having to work for the day? I don't think they organized themselves. It was declared national by the American government after the Lawrence King tragedy, wasn't it? Idk. Like I said, I didn't do my research, and that's my mistake.

@anna: ahh but their still christian days How many offical non christian days are there?

as for killing: seriously, this can't be a major point because we simply wouldn't know. I mean, when's the last time somebody went around recording how many gay people were killed? Not until very recently did some people do that.
And I bring in my silence argument again

and i don't see why we can't have a race everyday. I would love a chinese/asian day other than chinese new year since we get discriminated against also. It's just us asians are prone more to silence because that's how we were raised: keep your head down, excel in school with at least a 5.0, and be a doctor/lawyer/engineer.

aww your ending the debate already? no fun. X(
lol

as for the day itself:

The Day of Silence is organized as a grassroots project by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in collaboration with the United States Student Association (USSA). Students are encouraged to obtain permission from their school before organizing the event, though it is not required.

GLSEN estimated that over 450,000 students at more than 4,000 schools participated in the 2006 Day of Silence.[1]
Created by then-student Maria Pulzetti, the first event was organized by students at the University of Virginia in 1996.

The following year Pulzetti and then 19-year-old Jessie Gilliam developed the project to be used in schools nationally. It was renamed the National Day of Silence and nearly 100 colleges and universities participated. Beginning in 1998 the day was promoted by the Day of Silence Project with double the participation of the last year.

In 2000, Gilliam, Palenchar, then GLSEN National Student Organizer Chris Tuttle, developed the proposal for the day to become an official project of GLSEN. GLSEN developed its first-ever "student leadership team" as part of the Day of Silence.

In recent years, the Day of Silence has been reported as "the largest one-day student-led grassroots action on LGBT rights in American history" [1].

In 2008, the Day of Silence was held in memory of Lawrence King, an eighth grader from E.O. Green Middle School who was shot by fellow classmate Brandon McInerney.[citation needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Silence

so if wiki is to be true: HECK YES LGBT worked for it. lol

Hey... good point, why not have a different race every day? xD Today Palystinians, tomorrow Romanians. Woot =D

Then again, if almost every day honored a different race, people would stop taking the days seriously. If they didn't just ignore the days, they would probably only take a minute or so to think about the people who are discriminated against then get on with their lives for the rest of the day.

And I'm basically ending the debate because I'm a lazy arse (can I say that? 0_0), and I'll probably end up arguing using stretched logic and circular reasoning rather than strong evidence, which makes for a really dumb argument, and I don't want to make my cause (or myself ) look dumb. If there's someone willing to do the research and put up a real fight against KTC, who I'm clearly no match for, I wouldn't mind at all. (:

& Oh wow, I was totally off with my assumption. You're right. LGBT has every right to their day. Case closed. :]

I don't really want to fight against KTC, she seems to research fast and could take me haha. But I do agree Anna that if everyone discriminating against had their own day people would stop taking things seriously. It would just be another day.

Which goes back to my earlier point of lack of education. I think schools and parents need to educate better on such issues. We hardly learn about native American Indians and everything they’ve been through because like KTC said “US likes it's cool 'good' image. Native Americans is a HUGE blot in that image since did so many despicable things to Indians.” I think the education systems is lacking serverely with this type of stuff. I use to laugh at my history books because of the “America is great” twist that are put on things.

We hardly learn about being gay in school, it’s almost like people think that if they teach about being gay, it will magically make the students become gay. We don’t like about the Japanese internment camps, we hardly learn about the holocaust, and black history and the feminist movement. And we don’t really learn about other cultures or religions holidays, unless we know someone that belongs to that other culture or religion. You don’t learn about day of the dead or cinco de mayo unless your taking a Spanish class. Most schools focus on Christian holidays even thought there’s suppose to be no religion in public schools. I know our high school had a huge Christmas tree but nothing celebrating the other holidays that are the same time of year.

aiyah, i not that intimidating. Just bring in your points, and I bring in mine and we go from there XD

@lady: imo, better that their be at least an ounce of thought about discrimination rather than how it is now, where the average is probably 0 thought.

I agree on your points about the US education system: it is very bad. I mean my US textbook practically worshiped US while attempting to pretend to be 'objective' about history.

oh and about that gay thing:
warning: swearing
Some Swearing words

hehe

That picture is so true. It does really seem to be like that. We need to have tolerance classes or something. I don't know.

But yeah I agree on the US worship books they call history books. It just always seems like the US is/was never wrong and we were always needed to fix problems, when really I think we were just butting or noses in or making situations worse. They're not objective at all. I always thought it would be intersting to take a history class in some other country and see their take on the US.

@ AnnaMazinggx3
I am glad you spoke out against this. In american history, our rights were created to protect us from the government...from corruption and crime...however, Gays are using legislature to push their ideas on the majority of normal americans....(note: I am bias on this topic, its what I am, so before anyone gets angry...just remember that we are all entitled to our own opinion)...ideas that can change the society we live in. Currently, most people accept gays for what they are and don't see the issues on the subject on the subject of "Gay Marriage".

1) In the history of mankind, "marriage" has been defined as the union of a man and a woman... this has prevailed in all major religions and philosophies for centuries

2) Gays are allowed to have their civil unions, so why is marriage really nessesary? If gays are allowed to marry, they will be able to enjoy certain tax privledges and other options only for married couples. So what is the point?

3) I believe the push for gay marriage legalization has been brought about by heavy lobbying by gay societies and liberal politicians who can be bought out by these people.

...In the end, there are many more issues involving gays and the way they are changing america. I say, let them make their little statements...in the end, its up to them to do whatever they want to do....so their is no use arguing about it. But I do believe that your reasoning is right.

eh, i don't get exactly what your saying. Are you for? against? somewhere in the middle?

as for that normal statement: i don't get it as there's nothing inherently wrong with being gay/bi/etc. It just is, much like I'm a left hander. If that's abnormal than I claim my so called 'abnormality' with pride lol.

1. eh, who likes to be stale? word meanings change. Before generally marriage=contract. family marry you two off so combine family and keep the noble blood in. That definition still applies to arranged marriages. As for the whole 'sacred manxwoman' thing: eh, overrated lol.

2. hmm how many states actually allow that? From what I read only 5 states out of 50 allow civil unions. Only one state grants marriages. (why the heck is CA so behind? should be at forefront with it's highly liberal background *grumbles* though I heard our govenator said he would veto a 'anti gay marriage law" which is a plus. even though he also vetoed a 'gay marriage law' before that. I'm confused. e_e???)

3. don't get this point. There's also been a push to ban gay marriages though constitutional ammendment. Great, now the Constitution is telling you who you can/cannot marry.

Nosy lil US Officials peeking into the bedroom eh? I KNEW there was a more devious reason behind Patriot act and all that! haha
Lavender Scare FTW!

yeah, i'm joking around if you couldn't get that over the internet. (don't mind me and my semi anal comments)

"Gays are allowed to have their civil unions, so why is marriage really necessary? If gays are allowed to marry, they will be able to enjoy certain tax privileges and other options only for married couples. So what is the point?"

I think that's a harsh statement for someone on the outside to say. I know if someone would have told me ‘no you can't marry your husband’, I would have found it completely unfair, because I love him and what that level of commitment. I'm sure this is what they want too. Marriage isn't just about tax privileges and a piece of paper; it's a proclamation of love and commitment…a legal, spiritual and emotional bond.

It's argued very common that, throughout history, marriage has been between a man and woman. Yet, also, for centuries, caucasians thought that people with white skin were better than those with dark skin. Ideas and definitions can change, as KTC has already said.

However, on the issue of same-sex marriage, I'm very on the fence about it. I think same-sex marriage should be allowed as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. For example, I know that the Catholic Church (and many other religions) is against same-sex marriage and it is a part of their beliefs; therefore, I don't think priests should be forced to conduct same-sex marriage if it is against their beliefs.

But if, say, a same-sex couple wish to have a ceremony somewhere and whoever conducts the ceremony wishes to, I think it's perfectly fine.

Quote:
Sorry, I dislike the word "normal", especially in this context. What is normal? Are gay people not normal? They are people, just like you and me, and they should not be defined solely by their sexual orientation.

I agree Aeternus, very well put, again.