Posted on 11/16/2001 1:16:30 PM PST by Khepera
Part of the goal was to shift the emphasis from what many perceived to be a homosexual problem, away from the homosexual activity itself and towards the attitude people have about homosexuality.
If you listen regularly you know that words mean a lot to me. There's quite an opportunity to influence people's thinking by the way words are used. If you can frame the issues of an argument at the front end, you can win the argument by the way you frame it. Sometimes when I get into debates or discussions on the air, especially television where there's a short amount of time, I always like to get in the first word. If I do, not only do I log my time first, but another tactical issue is that it gives me a chance to frame the question. If we're talking about capital punishment or premarital sex or the educational system and I have a particular view, I want to get in there first and frame the question in a particular way so as to make my point more effectively.
This is a tactic that is common and we see it in the broad sense in the media. We see this tactic used a lot in election years. We see people framing the issues and the argument, framing their images in the media using certain types of words. If somebody votes against a particular bill that includes some things for education, for example, even if it's a bad bill on its own merit, that person might be pegged as somebody who is against education which isn't really the point at all. You can phrase the issue by using certain words and address problems in a certain way that gives you an edge from the beginning. And that edge can be legitimate because you've put the issue in very clear terms. This is the way that I seek to address problems. That's not at all to say that I can't be guilty of twisting words to give myself an inappropriate advantage, but I'm vigilant of that because I don't want to win an argument simply by twisting words.
However, a lot of people use this tactic in an inappropriate way and I just stumbled upon a little treasure. I have a friend that works in a large hotel helping set up and take down for events held there. Recently there was a convention of "sad" groups, a consortium of different organizations that represented homosexual concerns and they had different workshops. I got a hold of one of the flip charts. You know those white flip charts you put on a stand and you write and lecture and flip the pages and write some more. In this particular case it was written on the spot, not handed out. These things are discarded afterwards. I got my hands on one of the flip charts from this homosexual convention. I'll tell you quite honestly that there are a lot of things on this flip chart that I can't share with you on the air because of the kind of material and explicit words used. I tore those off.
I found a sheet that has a couple of things on it that you might be interested to know about that relates to framing the question and making an argument based on words. I mentioned the word "sad" a few moments ago. I substitute that for the word "gay" because I think the word is misleading. With the use of the word "gay" the movement has gained a considerable rhetorical victory in the community starting in the late sixties. I think it is the single most important thing that has changed the view of the public towards them, although there are other rhetorical techniques that they use to make their message and their lifestyle acceptable to the rank and file. So I object to the use of the word "gay" and I substitute my own bald-faced, obvious, transparent attempt at rhetoric with the word "sad" because I think that's a more accurate description.
By the way, some have said that the word gay comes from g-a-i, a French word that means something else. The etiology of it has nothing to do with the feeling of gayness. But the point is that I think this word was chosen purposefully and most people don't know the etiology of it, they just feel the impact of it, the feeling of this word to describe something that most Americans in the past and a majority of Americans still believe--that homosexuality is an immoral or inappropriate lifestyle.
Here on this sheet I see they apparently had a discussion about the use of rhetoric and the use of words to make their point more effective and their lifestyle more acceptable. Of course, this isn't the full text, it's a couple of words but these couple of words speak volumes. These are highlighted phrases apparently from a longer talk that was given it seems about rhetoric.
Here is what it says on one line: "Popularization of the word homophobia provided a conceptual leap." Then underneath it is, "from: the homosexual problem" and underneath that, "to: an attitudinal bias." In other words, they're looking back on the effectiveness of the way these words were used and they introduced a word into the discussion. They did it in a pointed fashion.
The word is "homophobia." Now the word homophobia has come to describe any kind of opposition to homosexuality of any sort, but its interesting that part of their goal was to shift the emphasis from what many perceived to be a homosexual problem, away from the homosexual activity itself and towards the attitude people have about homosexuality. In other words, if we can label people who disapprove of homosexuality as "homophobic" it sounds terrible. Nobody wants to be phobic. If we can label it as "homophobic" then we shift the emphasis away from what they do, apparently the homosexual groups have reasoned, to what the other person is doing, judging, and in a pluralistic society nobody wants to judge. It was a very, very clever shift. And here it is in black and white, this was a shift that was engineered. This didn't happen by accident. They purposely did this to change the focus of the discussion from the morality of their activity and the social appropriateness of their lifestyle to the attitudinal bias of those who would judge them.
That's not the punch-line, friends. The punch-line is what is underneath it because they have a new shift. If this thing is at all portentous of what is to come they are entering a new word into the discussion. Underneath this statement that I just read to you, "polarization of the word homophobia provided a conceptual leap from the homosexual problem to an attitudinal bias" they draw a line across and then two lines written underneath. The first line says this: "racism = prejudice and power." And underneath it says, "heterosexism = prejudice and power." I never heard that word before. Have you heard that? "Heterosexism." But then again I didn't hear "homophobia" until just a couple of years ago either.
We've got a new word in the dialogue, my friends, and it is a word that is meant to persuade and direct your thinking and attitudes about this issue. Just as homophobia has been used to draw the attention away from the issue of the morality of the conduct of homosexuals to the attitudinal problem that people have who judge homosexuals, this new term "heterosexism" is apparently going to be incorporated into the discussion on the same level of racism to show prejudice, and the word "prejudice" on this sheet is underlined a couple of times. I mentioned a couple of months ago here that all type of moral distinction, moral value, moral judgment is a type of prejudice, by very nature it's a type of pre-judgment. But prejudice along with power is heterosexism. So now there is the equating of any kind of moral disgust or offense at homosexuality, not only as homophobia, but as prejudice that characterizes a new type of "ism" on par with racism and its called "heterosexism."
You heard it here first, friends. Their past use of terms has been very effective. Please understand that this is a contrived effort to influence the way people think by using loaded terms.
Having expressed the strategy on the first sheet they flipped the chart and wrote again. Here is the rationalization of how they think it will work out. "The use of the word heterosexism provides another leap." I think it's interesting that they use the word "leap" because it shows how aware they are of trying to change the dialogue by making a leap. They're hoping that people are going to see right past that leap and buy the whole thing kit-and-kaboodle. They have so far.
It says, "The use of the word heterosexism provides another leap from an attitudinal bias to an internal problem just like the word homophobia did." So now it is refining the point to oppression if you disagree with homosexuality. You are prejudiced, you are homophobic, you are heterosexist and you are oppressing people.
Underneath it says, "Heterosexism is oppression, one form of cultural victimization. Victimization is abuse. Abuse leads to shame." Do you follow that reasoning there? If a homosexual feels shame, the reason is because he is a victim and is being abused by other people. So now if you make a judgment against a homosexual and his lifestyle and you seek not to make this society's ideal, to discourage this on a social basis, which is all right to do because this is a pluralistic society after all, then you are not only homophobic, you are guilty of heterosexism, which is a type of prejudice, which is a type of oppression, which is a form of victimization, which is a form of abuse. There it is for you. It's all spelled out.
The basic issue is whether or not one is a homosexual, and the fact that passive anal intercourse and the promiscuity that defines homosexuality is the reason that homosexuals die much earlier than do heterosexuals.
If you want to indulge in buggery, it's your business. But don't expect anything other than tolerance for your private actions and don't expect anyone to believe your nonsense.
We need a few good words to use in this cultural battle. We need to get the HOMOSEXUALS on the defensive. How about heterophobia, or analism, or sexuallychallanged, or homogayitis, or homogayhatism. It seems fair to find a few words on the flip side of the coin that carry emotional baggage.
You have a natural revulsion to evil, to men smearing each other with excrement.
Guess you'd know!
However, rational people do not agree with your definition. A homosexual must be identified by their actions (or their assertions). Many people have self-destructive desires, which they control. People are what they choose to do and be, not what their desires would make them do and be if they were too weak to control them.
Heterophobic persona are a homosexuals only if they succomb to their irrational desires and choose to act on them. Those who have desires of anykind, which if acted on would be harmful, such as homosexual acts, but do not give in to them, are called people of character and decency.
A desire or feeling is never justification for choosing and acting stupidly. Everyone who has ever done wrong did so because they had a desire to do so. We all experience such desires, but most of us have learned to control such them. Controlling such desires is called being civilized, mature, or just normal.
One of the great dangers of the homosexual agenda is that it promotes the idea that passions and desires justify actions. It is on this basis the worst of human behaviors are allowed, and ultimately destroy the individual or society that has swallowed the idea.
Hank
I think they have the greatest SPIN MACHINE in the world and a protective press. They even out-spin the Democrats. NOW THAT IS SPINING LIKE A TOP.
How about a response in kind:
'Homo-sexists'
'Homo-centrists'
'Anti-heteros'
'Hetero-haters'
'Hetero-repressers'
And so on...
Certainly others here have ideas as good or better than those above?
What a person is, that is, what they choose to be is not determined by their desires, but their evaluation of them.
Certainly, homosexual behavior is self destructive, especially, psychologically. It is an admission that one cannot control a desire which is contrary to their physiological nature, and a denial of the obvious contradiction between the two. Surrendering to a contradiction is always self-destructive, and always results in behavior that is contrary to one's physical and psychological nature.
Hank
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