What's in YOUR closet?

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  1. My father was an ardent conservative, and a generous contributor to conservative causes. During the 80’s, my husband and I lived in a condo my parents had recently vacated, and mailers requesting his support continued to arrive at our address. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of the appeals for dollars centered on the necessity to preserve our society and way of life from the godless/nuclear armed/expansionist Russian communists. When that threat had clearly abated, another began to emerge in the mailers: homosexuals. Gays had recently begun not only to emerge in large numbers from their closets, but to organize and demand an end to discrimation. One “monster” replaced another, because movements need enemies, and gays had conveniently put themselves forward.
    I wish I’d saved all those mailers; they documented the rise of political homophobia.

  2. Time is short: 1) Too many demons in the closet? I suspect that’s why more and more of us are bowling alone 2) for every special cause, a special group and for every discernable grouping…..a special cause, and thus more divisions; and why? It’s all about PROFIT. Get a group, create a victim, write a book, start a cause, identify the persecutor, foment hate and controversy and over reaction and, voila! You’re rich! 3) To what extent is the “homophobic” charge a “whine” over the fact that gays aren’t greeted everywhere in celebratory fashion, but rather are simply ignored……….like the rest of us by the rest of us. It’s not enough to be “accepted” now it’s a question of wanting to be totally “included”, (whatever that means), by everyone everywhere at all times. “Whine, I want attention!” The typical response, “fine, you’re gay, I don’t care, leave me alone” just won’t quite do for them. They refuse to leave the rest of us alone; it’s the new “ever in your face” confrontational style of the special group advocacy. (Another reason we not only bowl alone, but in private!). 4) “Homophobia is, like all phobias, utterly irrational, but while one might reasonably have hoped that in this enlightened, educated age, people would have a bit of sense, our society is proving to be surprisingly susceptible.” Uh……..cringe, please don’t use the term “our” society; it’s not my society; I belong to and fraternize with a totally different type of “society” which has nothing in common with your “our” society. Frankly I’m increasingly convinced that as more and more “reflective” people step back and take a hard look at American Society and what it’s morphed into, they will find themselves repulsed by it and disavowing any connection with much less support for it.

  3. JulieD: I still have copies of those flyers suggesting that homosexuality was just the first step on the road to killing and probably eating babies and small children, especially girls. I collect such propaganda in a ‘scary things people say and do’ scrapbook alongside similar fear- and ignorance-mongering propaganda from anti-abortion forces (“they want to force you to abort your babies!”), white supremecists (“they want to force you to have mixed-race babies!”), etc.
    I collect this stuff as a continual student of media and history; a favorite college term paper covered Propaganda in the Third Reich. I’m many years out of school, of course, but it never ceases to amaze how the right written (and broadcast) words can so easily sway the ignorant masses — who stay ignorant because of propaganda suggesting that “liberals want to teach your children to read so they learn to question all the values you hold dear!”

  4. Homophobia is not new, nor is it a new rally subject of political activists. For decades, anything related to being gay was just against the law in many conservative states. There was no reason for public concern about it because it was against the law to be gay, so no reason for public debate about it. It was settled. Then as courts began to argue that in certain cases, the laws were an intrusion on certain rights, that is where room came in for a “threat” that could not have existed before.
    The Right uses homophobia to get people voting just as much as the Left uses “backward Right people are voting voting!” as a threat.

  5. Jack — I’ll certainly agree that both sides use the “fear” stick to beat people to the polls.
    Glide — “The typical response, “fine, you’re gay, I don’t care, leave me alone” just won’t quite do for them. They refuse to leave the rest of us alone; it’s the new “ever in your face” confrontational style of the special group advocacy.
    As Jack pointed out, there were, actually, laws. Even if there hadn’t been, though, I really can’t agree that demonization is the correct (or even acceptable) response. And the fear-mongering spans more than homophobic-incitement.
    I agree to a large degree with you, Glide, about the “our society”, though. I was being inclusive (obviously), but not only do I not care for many facets of it these days, there really isn’t much real “our” and “us” lately. It’s mostly “them”.

  6. I found a perfect way to keep my monsters from getting out of my closet: I just filled the closet with junk, and anytime they try to get out they trip over all that stuff.
    🙂
    ~EdT.

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