Is gay more of a US identity?

[evilqueerpig]

I speak only for myself

[BootmanLA]

58 minutes ago, evilqueerpig said:

I speak only for myself

But your phrasing is addressed to "you" (others), not "I".

If you'd said "If I am not part of the solution, I am part of the problem", you'd be speaking for yourself.

[BootmanLA]

12 hours ago, brnbk said:

that statistical comparison between interracial marriage and gay marriage is very interesting. 35 years for accepting gay marriage but just 6 years for gay marriage, which is often seen as something more rooted in and a white cultural institution rather than black

It's true that there are racial disparities in views on same-sex marriage - the acceptance/approval level is higher among whites than blacks, although the gap is narrowing.

12 hours ago, brnbk said:

I see your point about press freedom and freedom of assembly, but I am not very convinced that other countries lack it or the US has that much more of it than other countries. I mean there are people who have historically lacked both of those, press freedom or freedom to be present and assemble, and black and native Americans come to my mind, even though I am sure there are more. 

I don't mean to suggest that we have a perfect balance of those things here in the U.S., nor that we have more than any other country, nor that we apply them equally to all people here in the U.S.  - and thank you for the reminder to acknowledge that. What I'm getting at, though, is that compared with more openly totalitarian states, the ability to write about and broadcast about gay people and gay issues without being shut down by the government does make a difference, even if we aren't the "freeest" of the free.

I think another factor, that I didn't address (because it didn't occur to me) is our system of government, where the executive and legislative functions are split. That produces big fights (especially if the president and the majority of one or both chambers of Congress are of different parties), which makes every contested issue seem like a big fucking deal. In parliamentary systems, where the prime minister has an automatic majority (either of his own party, or his party in a coalition), what leadership wants, it usually gets, at least until the coalition falls apart or he loses the confidence of his party. So things like same-sex marriage tend to be adopted rather swiftly once the leadership decides that's what's going to happen - and so it seems like less of a "big deal" than here.

11 hours ago, brnbk said:

What is now illegal in Louisiana....... could become true in the whole country... after all when did one think that someone in the United State would have to take measures to have access to  💪sexualized 🙌 media, which is a quintessential feature of US cultural landscape, such as that which a person in Saudi Arabia or China would have to take; or that abortion would become illegal in the States?

I don't know about you, but as I see it, civil libertarians and like-minded people have been warning about this for decades. Rational people have been worried about abortion rights since at least the Reagan administration, as Republican presidents kept appointing justices who voted against striking down abortion bans.

Remember that in many ways Casey v. Planned Parenthood (in 1992) was a more important abortion rights case than Roe v. Wade was in 1972. Casey upheld the core idea that abortion was a right - and yet despite that having been precedent for nearly 20 years at that point, four of the nine justices dissented, including Rehnquist, the chief justice, and both Scalia and Thomas, both of whom were relatively young at the time (56 and 44, respectively). At that point it was clear: get enough conservative justices on the court in place of some of the liberals, and they'd have no problems ignoring precedent and just ruling for the right wing. And from that point on, every justice appointed by a Republican had to conform to the anti-abortion mandate of the GOP, regardless of the law.

Many of us were screaming loudly about this in 2016, when we already had one empty Court seat (because Mitch McConnell refused to allow the president to fill it) and at least one more expected to open up in the next term (nobody really expected Ginsburg to live and serve another four years). But too many people were all "butter emails".

As for the sexualized media thing: we've been fighting anti-porn laws ever since federal restrictions on non-obscene materials were struck down as a violation of the First Amendment. Communications Decency Act (1996), anyone? Morality in Media? The Meese Commission? The PROTECT Act decision (2008)?  None of this is new. What's new is that people whose heads were apparently buried in the sand or up their butts finally noticed what was going on around them.

[PozBearWI]

@evilqueerpig I believe all of us in this recent thread are more in agreement than not.  Society is always in a state of flux.  Observable by myself in my comparatively long life; but also in studying history.  The advances we've made since Stonewall are pretty impressive; with AIDS at end helping us (and the whole of society with medical advances).  There are still plenty of people who would squelch all the advances LGB people have made since stonewall.  (yes I know I left out T, however while I am in agreement with the overall cause; I can't support much of the early youth push on this topic; nor do I buy in to redefining gender by how a person feels than how we were born).  And some politicians are seeking traction by getting that element of our society to support them.  Nikki isn't gaining much traction but we will see in the coming weeks if that changes.  

[Guest]

Do not forget that one of the first places where the civil rights movement for gays started was Berlin in the 20s. Magnus Hirschfeld with his Institute of sexology was a pioneer in this respect. Check that link :

[think before following links] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld

 

[brnbk]

 

On 3/19/2023 at 4:02 AM, ToxicSubBerlin said:

Do not forget that one of the first places where the civil rights movement for gays started was Berlin in the 20s.

 

Robert Beachy's 'Gay Berlin' is a great read on the topic. 

[think before following links] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/books/review/gay-berlin-by-robert-beachy.html

Which brings me to the next question: Why does the US media including gay media totally ignore the  'birth' and birthplace of the gay identity — Berlin, Germany, and constantly try to push the idea that 'Stonewall' was the birthplace of the gay movement. Doesn't this leave out a substantial portion of gay history and tries to hide it away? 

 

[BootmanLA]

On 3/23/2023 at 2:48 PM, brnbk said:

Robert Beachy's 'Gay Berlin' is a great read on the topic. 

[think before following links] [think before following links] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/books/review/gay-berlin-by-robert-beachy.html

Which brings me to the next question: Why does the US media including gay media totally ignore the  'birth' and birthplace of the gay identity — Berlin, Germany, and constantly try to push the idea that 'Stonewall' was the birthplace of the gay movement. Doesn't this leave out a substantial portion of gay history and tries to hide it away? 

Perhaps, to some extent.

But the US is generally a poor performer on world history topics in general, not just on gay issues. Huge numbers of people in the US think that WWII started with Pearl Harbor, for instance, ignoring that by December 1941 France had been in Nazi hands for a year and a half.

It's also relevant, though, that WWII largely killed that nascent gay identity in Berlin and drove what was left of it underground for decades. It's not like Berlin remained a liberal cultural beacon after the Nazis took power, and divided Berlin after the war was a pretty conservative place on both sides of the wall.

What Stonewall was, in effect, the birthplace of the gay rights movement that actually "stuck". There have been reverses along the way, but things have never retreated, especially in large cities, so fully as things did in Berlin.

(And for the record: quite a few other cities had a fairly out gay culture in the 1920's, including in the US. Berlin was certainly one of the biggest and brightest stars on that horizon, but it wasn't an island unto itself.)

[ErosWired]

On 2/14/2023 at 10:40 PM, brnbk said:

Homosexuals have existed in the world since man became man and developed a full blown ding dong that did not have to hide behind a penis bone.

Tangentially to the topic, one might note that walruses, which have one of the largest penis bones in the animal kingdom, display homosexual behavior, and have likely been boning each other much longer than we have.

[BlackDude]

How can you advocate for a group if you don’t first acknowledge its existence?

 

[austin_submale]

Seems like there are a ton of gays in Canada, the UK and Europe as well as Australia...  Pretty much everywhere. So I don't think it is mostly a US thing at all.

Some parts of the world though, it is still very repressed...  China and a lot of the rest of Asia, Russia, a lot of Mexico and South and Central America.  And Africa too I think.  Lots of AIDS stigma.

 

[TallAussieBtm]

Nope. "Gay" is *very* Australian! (For example) 😃 Although, there are always ongoing attempts to wear things down with the ever-expanding queer alphabet. But I strongly believe there's value in the history, continuity and 'fuck you' value of a word like "gay". "Lesbian" too! There's real value, including for visibility and political power, in the offence that straight-fetishists take to even just hearing or seeing those words. All over the world! 🌍🌎🌏

[Guest]

On 2/18/2023 at 9:51 AM, JimInWisc said:

That too is an over simplification.  For you that is the case, but not for everyone.  

Exactly. 

[hntnhole]

I heard years ago that our (in the US) "gay" is a translation of the French word "gai", meaning "cheerful".  Never researched it ... just mentioning.

[topblkmale]

1 hour ago, hntnhole said:

I heard years ago that our (in the US) "gay" is a translation of the French word "gai", meaning "cheerful".  Never researched it ... just mentioning.

 

Years ago there was a gay burlesque show in New York City called The Gaity.

[VersGuyAnon]

There's a lot of "queer" in the UK now, but I hate the word. I'm gay.