Tennessee bill may allow religious people to bully LGBT people Pages PREV 1 2 | |
da fuq? You asked how much oppression a bunch of high school students can inflict, I answered it. And your response was "well, not all bullying victims kill themselves," which is a bizarre way to completely avoid the point of me posting that link. It doesn't matter if they killed themselves or not. They're still being tormented by high school students, and this odious bill seeks to reinforce that. | |
If my religion says that I should torment and subjugate Christians, can I have an exception too? It's not bullying, I'm expressing my religion! | |
The only way word I can really use to describe you for saying that is 'monster' these people are completely powerless to fight back, on their own against a group of bigger stronger people, tormented, made to feel like dirt, that they have no worth. When faced with this kind of onslaught every day, you just want to it to end and when you feel like there's no other way out, suicide seems like good idea. Responsibility lays mainly with the bullies, and the rest with the teachers who failed to stop it and those who did nothing to help, the bullies should face man slaughter charges, if you've consiously made someones life that much of a living hell who've as good as pulled trigger. | |
So the ridiculously high rate of suicides among gay teenagers relative to straight teenagers is just a coincidence, then? Look, I'm sorry, but if you have ever been through this kind of crap, you wouldn't be so pathetically callous about it. When people without serious mental illnesses commit suicide, it's because death looked better to them than life. Constant torment and threats for years on end can do that to a person. -- Really, in theory, this bill is a great idea. The right to free speech and free exercise of religion is sacrosanct to western democracy, and needs to be protected. In some cases, hate speech laws are pushing WAY too far. In practice? Are you fucking kidding me?! The bill is a complete fucking nightmare. There's not a single person with their heads screwed on straight who could look at this and genuinely say, "I think this is honestly to protect the free speech rights of those poor, prosecuted christians". Let's get something straight here. The right of a christian to free speech has NEVER. EVER. EVER! Been threatened or called into question. We don't have christians being denied their rights to free speech. We DO have LGBT teens killing themselves over constant harassment. And people wonder why I'm so fucking angry, and why I can't honestly answer to this with more than vitrol. To quote Dan Savage:
Sums it up pretty clearly. And when it's SO FUCKING OBVIOUS that this is not a problem, you really have to wonder: what are these fucking assholes THINKING?! Do they hate gay people so much? Are they that deluded as to how powerful christianity is in the state? Do they simply completely fail to understand the issue? The actions of the compassionate christian activists in that rolling stone article quite literally make me physically sick. There is NO excuse for ignorance this mindnumbing, especially when people are dying because of it. | |
What bullshit. You're talking about people who are being terrorised all day long, every day, year in year out and nothing being done against it because it's okay if the hatred is religious in nature. That drives people to suicide. Even half that will have people thinking about it, and you can fill entire psychiatric practises with people who are still permanently traumatized by bullying less severe than that. I guess I also qualify for that, because my rigid never-back-down mentality was formed in that period and it's something I'll probably never unlearn. Kids like those homophobes who drive homosexual pupils to suicide have a severe behavioural disorder. Imagine being stuck all day in a class with 5-10 of those completely out of control idiots... I had bullying of that magnitude in only one year, and there was enough fighting to fill books with. Ever walked into a subterrean storage to find twelve kids waiting for you there in an ambush? I had. I won, but it was some seriously ugly shit. I only made it out of situations like that and the bullying as a whole eventually because my parents fully supported me. And turning stuff around from victim to feared person, and eventually just being able to go to school normally took more ugly stuff than I care to describe. | |
The answer to these questions is "Yes". | |
You know, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I try very, very hard, even when they haven't earned it, even when they've continuously done things where I have to suspend my disbelief... I give them the benefit of the doubt. I can't do it any more. Not with these people. Not on this issue. I simply cannot believe that they are not evil any more. | |
I'd say yes to all the above actually, heavily religious people see being gay as an abomination to their religion, I'm sure there are more than a few who get physically ill thinking about homosexuality. all throughout the bible Christians have been shown as 'martyrs' since at the time (apparently) believing in god and jesus got you killed. This could be why they feel victimized. They might also be threatened because the world we live in is constantly changing and it's hard to live in a world like this when you still believe in a 2000 year old book. And yes they completely fail to understand the issue, christians have taken the stance that homosexuality is a life-choice, caused by perversion (porn at an early age, tempted by a cunning gay man) and since it's a choice it can be 'cured'. Really? a choice? please introduce me to a teenager who would willingly subject themselves to all the ridicule and pain that comes with being a homosexual in these areas. OT: Schools aren't exactly a hotbed of tolerance as it is, a problem you face when you have 500+ kids all attending the same area. | |
People still think religion is relevant in this day and age? Considering the catholic church is one of the most criminal groups in history, you would think people would see the light and form their own opinions instead of religion telling them what to think. It is a tragedy that the religious people can try to get away with this considering they probably have no knowledge of what gay people actually do. It's actually Ironic that religious people think only about gay sex when talking about gays and love doesn't even come into it. | |
As someone who has contemplated suicide, I sincerely hope we never meet in person because I would desperately want to sock you in the fucking face. Imagine if you can people ritualistically tormenting and demeaning you. The abuse is so constant, so humiliating that it destroys your sense of self-worth. The pain doesn't go away. All the color and happiness in the world slowly seeps away as you live in constant fear. And still your antagonists continue. They use you as the punchline in a cruel joke. They chase away the people who try to help you. You are alone. Eventually, death becomes the only escape you can conceive of. That is what it is like to feel suicidal. And you would hand-wave away the actions of the tormentors because the death was a choice? You're a horrible person and you'll be in hell before me. Switching gears, let's remember that Tennessee has also made it illegal for schoolteachers to talk about homosexuality or openly speak in support of their gay students because that would offend the delicate sensibilities of the same religious douchebags this bill seeks to protect. So it pretty much guarantees that not only will gay-bashing be allowed, but the teachers won't be able to stand up for their students when they get told they're worthless sinners and abominations. It seems Tennessee heard that the Anoka-Hennepin school district is virtually becoming the teen suicide capital of the US and they decided to give them some competition. | |
Thank you, SneeringCanuck, for demonstrating through your post a picture-perfect example of the bully mentality, and in doing so everything that is wrong with this bill. The job of educators is to create a safe learning environment. If students respond to your learning environment by wanting to kill themselves, then you as an educator have failed on every conceivable level. A good educator eliminates distractions from the learning environment so as to maximize the students' learning potential- that's why we pay educators to educate instead of just handing students a textbook and expecting them to study on their own for a semester. Bullying to the point that a child wants to kill themself, even if that child is over-reacting, is a pretty big distraction. Therefore it has absolutely no place in education. But bullies don't see it like that. They're insecure, and they hit weak targets in order to feel powerful and important. Like vulnerable children who are pushed to the brink of suicide. Like the people you just mockingly dismissed. | |
I've been feeling this way a lot recently. There comes a point where, you're punched in the face and somebody else 'apologizes' for them saying, like "Oops, he didn't mean that, it's a fluke" so often that it's real hard to believe it is a fluke, or to believe that the second person apologizing isn't lying or has your best interests at heart. It'd be much easier if there was more vocal support from their camp for tolerance, but all I ever see is, at best, people standing by idly trying to apologize "Well, it's not REALLY supposed to do that". After the hundredth black eye though, it's hard to see random eye punches as an aberrant behavior, and much easier to see it as the religion or moral philosophy working 'as intended'. | |
Hmm... no doubt Santorum feels the same way when he sees the 100th news report on tv of a black person involved in a crime. No doubt the folks in Afghanistan feel the same way every time they see a white American shooting up innocent people. No doubt the Christians of the middle ages felt the same way every time they read a story about Jews poisoning a well. Collective guilt is a bitch. | |
Except in those cases, arguments can be made why the image constructed is not true. Homophobes have no such excuses to offer. It's clear they are hatefull and violent people, and the only reason they ever bother to make 'doublethink'-styled excuses like hating the acts but not the people, is because otherwise society would destroy their movement because of the danger it poses. | |
Blahlahb, Damien wasn't talking about homophobes. He was talking about religious people. | |
The title of this thread is a great example of how people twist words to manipulate opinions. Pollsters do it all the time. If did a poll that asked, "Do you think Christian students have the right to express their opinions on homosexuality", and then did a second poll that asked, "Do you think Christian students should have the right to bully gay students.", I would get completely different answers from the exact same group of people. Don't use bias and loaded language when trying to get an unbiased opinion. Saying that this bill gives kids the right to bully others is like saying the 2nd amendment gives you the right to murder people. If a murderer tries to claim that the 2nd amendment implies his actions are OK, nobody is going to buy it, and he is going to jail. If a bully tires to claim that this bill implies that his actions are OK, nobody is going to fall for that either, and he will still get punished. | |
The debate is that the bill potentially overrides that. Tennessee has already made it illegal for teachers to say "gay." I doubt this is a coincidence. But here's my question to you: if this bill is just in the name of free speech, should the "don't say gay" law be repealed in order to maintain consistency? | |
Please read my earlier post on the subject. Thanks. ^_^ Actually, I'll quote it here for your convenience. I'll bold the important part for you.
I'd agree with you, were it not for the disgusting precedent speaking against actions like this. | |
The whole point of this thread is the potential controversy of the bill, if there wasn't any chance of controversy why the hell would I bother posting this? Why the hell would anyone care about one US state passing what would otherwise be a bog standard anti-bullying bill. Also, read the title properly, i used the word "MAY" not "WILL". I used that title because it highlights why some people are kicking up a fuss about it and highlight the desired conversation points, Religious expression vs gay rights, and to a larger extent bullying.
Two words, Rick Santorum, someone like him would no doubt side with a Chrisian bully over a homosexual, even if the bully beat the kid to a pulp every day, im in no doubt there are other like him at all levels of the GOP who would also do this, he's second in the nomination for a reason. | |
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Right so, by this logic and your previous comments. Anyone has every right to follow you around, email you, message you, find you and call you a "whore", a "cunt", and a "bastard". They can say "I'm gonna kill you!" I can threaten you physically and mentally, oh you can try and hit ignore, but there will always be more, reminding you every day that you're a "fatass" or a "F*cking queer", and you can't fight back, they will follow you in groups and if you raise one hand against them, the rest can get you. You can try and go and get help from a police officer, but as long as they don't resort to violence first, he can't and WONT do a thing. You can try and gather people like you into a group to protect yourself, but there will always be more of them, and you will have reverends and other influential citizens to ensure that you will never be able to gather into a support group, in fact, the Government itself is trying to force you to merely "tolerate" it. It isn't any rare occurrence, it will happen every day, no matter where you go people will always be calling you "Filthy" and "A Disgusting Abomination" to your face... Hell maybe even your own family would.
Now, can you imagine having to deal with that for four years straight all by yourself, through highschool. I've actually been the Victim of bullying (by a teacher actually, that's more then authority figures doing nothing, it's them actively harming you. And that's the worst kind of bullying in my opinion) and when I eventually snapped I had to be suspended for a week and visit a therapist, there was no punishment given to the teacher, I was the only one punished, I tried to silently enter the classroom, only to be stopped by the same man and demand that I Apologize to him (for the record, I was caught writing in a journal about how much I hated the man and wished he lost his job, home, health, all that good stuff. I kept the journal to myself and never showed anyone, he never even knew about it until the faculty informed him after I was suspended.)
I tolerate a lot of things, but one thing I DON'T tolerate is people acting like suicide victims are a bunch of "wussies". I've experienced emotional torment, and I can honestly say that any sadness you've felt so far is nothing. Absolutely nothing compared to the kind that makes a person even consider ending it all.