Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
A Three-Letter Word from LGBTQ
The title of this OP was a clue in my morning crossword puzzle. It made me angry. I can’t even escape the leftist propaganda with my morning coffee, Crunch cereal with almond milk, raisins, and bananas. I have to be reminded that this term (which now has many more letters nowadays) has become part of our everyday lexicon.
My reaction is not just about the term LGBTQ; it’s about everyone trying to normalize those lifestyles which once were considered out of the norm. Don’t get me wrong: I love the diversity of my crossword puzzle — What’s a port in Yemen? Name a Wall Street index? What’s a desert plant used to make tequila? Who was the screenwriter, James, who wrote “The African Queen”? (Tuesday’s puzzles are pretty easy.)
I get enough politically correct nonsense from everywhere else. Please leave my crossword puzzle alone.
Published in Culture
Please enlighten us, Annegeles, if they defined it. I don’t want to be out of the loop. Or should I say, loopiness!
The inmates are in charge of the asylum.
Heck, Susan, I don’t spend any time on them and I don’t expect them to spend any time on me. But the social conservatives on Ricochet sure do seem to spend a big chunk of their lives thinking about it. It obviously fascinates them.
A “lifestyle” is something you choose. They didn’t choose it, any more than you or I chose ours.
We have to keep talking about it, because the moment they go silent is the minute we start to realize that this is outside the norm, and may even cease endorsing their choices.
Looking at it from their perspective, they are trying to normalize something in the culture they believe to be good and true. There was a time when some might have said the same thing about interracial couples. Personally, I want my kids to see interracial couples on TV, or at the store, or at church. I want them to accept that as normal.
I suspect we all tend to be in favor of influencing the culture in ways we agree with, but against others influencing the culture in ways we disagree with. So when I see this type of normalization occurring, it just makes me sad more than angry or frustrated.
Just to be clear, Gary, I was using the crossword example of how often gay issues show up: television, movies, newspaper stories, magazines. There are those who seem to want to make these folks the center of attention, often. I understand it is more than a lifestyle, but they or their representatives are making their sexuality an issue. For many, it is in fact a lifestyle, when they wear their sexuality on their sleeves; for others, it is just like you and me, our gender. What word do you think would be more appropriate than lifestyle?
Could you clarify this comment, C.U. Not understanding . . .
Very good point, jaWes. I guess normalizing can take time. If they were more patient, we wouldn’t be thinking about it at all, as something that had to be spotlighted. It reminds me a bit of the fact that few people know: many black American families were middle-class, self-reliant, two-parent and employed–before the Civil Rights Act. One has to wonder, however long it may have taken, if accepting black Americans would have occurred naturally. You can’t force acceptance down people’s throats.
It’s similar to a statement I heard the other day about “Settled Science.” The speaker said that the science was not settled by virtue of the fact that there’s so much controversy about it. Settled science doesn’t engender heated discussion, we just know it to be so.
Similar, the alphabet-sex crowd has insisted that this is all settled and normal, but evidence speaks otherwise – The very fact that they have to constantly remind everyone that this is the norm speaks to the idea that it is not.
A reasonable question, Susan. “Gender” probably, whether they wear it on their sleeves or not. There’s a beach near here where young heterosexual women wear their sexuality without any sleeves at all. (Vive la differance!)
“Lifestyle” sounds more like, “Every Sunday afternoon we have chicken and biscuits”.
I keep reading that activists and propaganda outlets are relentlessly pounding the drums claiming that homosexuality is vastly, overwhelmingly more popular than it really is. The mainstream/left media (LA Times, NYT, WaPo, etc.) say it’s about 3% for men, 1.5 % for women. That’s what your opponents keep quoting.
Does anyone here find those numbers way out of line?
Great response. Thanks for making me smile, too!
I have to stay on Susan’s good side, because someday she and I will publish “Ricochet’s Guide to Everyday Judaism, by Quinn and McVey”. I bet we’d sell a few copies!
(BTW, My wife’s cousin wrote “Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean”. I’ve always wanted to buy the adaptation rights. I don’t know if we could sell Disney on it, though.
“Awwk! Awwk! Polly wants a matzoh”
“Yo ho ho, and a bottle of Manischewitz! Man oh Manischewitz, what a wine!”)
I LOVE it! Just say the word. Except somebody has to, uh, be charge, you know. Partnerships can be really difficult. ;-)
Love the book idea! Of course, for maximum impact, you may want to “Judify” your names a bit. “Quinn & McVey” sounds like a Scottish law firm ;)
@jawesoftx, I keep thinking about your point that much of the propaganda is about the efforts to normalize gays and the rest of the alphabet. At least for gays, I wonder if any of you think that gays would have been accepted more easily (by accepted, I mean a kinder response) if we weren’t bombarded with information. We are, after all, created in G-d’s image.
I’ve been married for decades. Take it from me: the Jewish woman is always in charge.
(An old family joke:) A kid comes home from school, all excited. “Mom, guess what? I’m in the school play!”
“What role did they give you?”
“The Jewish husband”
(Mom, sternly:) “Now you go back there and make them give you a speaking part!”
That, and the initial studies into the prevalence of homosexually had some pretty serious methodological flaws that resulted in over-estimations.
The most quoted figure was that 10% of men were gay, but the study that produced it sampled prisons inmates from 3 prisons in the south. But, 10% is easy to quote as “1 in 10” and that made it easy to use for all kinds of activism purposes.
The data also tell us that women’s sexuality is much more “fluid,” which seems to indicate that women tend to choose a sexual orientation rather than being born into it. Thanks, Joe.
That was the 1948 Kinsey study, which has also been partly discredited on the straight side of things for being exaggerated as well. It hasn’t been quoted as 10% on the left or the mainstream press in about forty years.
What do the numbers say about which party is the physical abuser in domestic violence?
I think that was what Joe was referring to in his first paragraph about flaws, but I’m not sure.
This article says it’s about the same as with straight couples, but I don’t know how solid the data is.
I realize that this is a dodge, but my preference would be to have something in black and white in front of me, so I can check out the data and manner in which it was collected. I seem to recall a number of around 10% being bandied about in the Times at some point. I think one’s personal view on this is likely to be influenced by where one lives.
Probably. But that “some point” was likely in the now-pretty-distant past. (Though, for what it’s worth, I’ve never met any gay men who exaggerated their numbers, but I have met a few lesbians who can’t live with “1.5%”).
I swear this is true. I’m working on the WSJ crossword, and guess what one clue asked:
“An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” figure. (four letters) Guess who? They could have used all kinds of clues (and have in the past) for him.
Propaganda.
Alphabet soup used to be a treat at lunch, now it’s a tongue-twister.
I’m sort of glad my wife is, and I’ll bet my kids really are.
I think there’s even an acronym for it, something about being lesbian until graduation.