Casey Pelous

Last I heard, that one was still on, too!

But I know what you mean. The 1960's activists-and-proto-hippies marching and singing We Shall Overcome. The one that was mostly in black and white.

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Taco Rubio

Through high level discussions with my cat and dog, we've come to the conclusion that "gay" or "retarded" are completely unacceptable in modern conversation as derogatory terms.

We'll spend the evening working out what is acceptable to call the dog, and I must say the cat is very cruel about the language.

Maggiedoll Alter

Well now I'm wondering if I should take offense to this.
..I can be pretty darn silly..

Taco Rubio

We're going through the same argument! The dog is very big, but for lack of a better term, prances. The cat demands to watch him. We were just all in the back yard, I was holding the cat.

"That dog prances!" "Quiet you, you don't even know English" "Yes but that dog is prancing".

We'll have another meeting about this tomorrow. It all seems very silly.

Phoenix Psaltery

Let him know how you feel about this at Contact Rand Paul | United States Senator.

P2

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Aliselia Aeon

Yes. cats can be that way.

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Void

in context I'm not actually offend by Sen Paul's choice of words (the sentiment is a different story)...

simply because the usage is close enough to proper (even if he didn't intend for it to be).... you can take it to denote a generalized derogatory insult, but since the topic was support of equal rights for gay people, the statement can also be taken to mean that the president's views are even more "officially" entrenched in support, despite everyone else considering it a forgone conclusion.

it's a matter of where you are focusing your attention... his past sentiments are known collectively, but the intent of the phrase is questionable and arguable (aside from poor grammar).

you can look at "gayer" as denoting a generic insult, or you can look at it as "more (supportive of) gay issues".... and the double meaning was probably intentional given the persons history and audience, but you can't categorically say it was one or the other.

*all preceding "you"'s are royal.

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Taco Rubio

Just a quick update:

that guy's my Senator. I wrote him a letter that I'm ashamed of him.

Turns out his email address doesn't accept emails. Silly.

I'll try P2's link. Also, hey, good to see you p2! hope your'e ok, miss you!

Taco Rubio

This link worked fine and I felt good to say "Colonel to Colonel, knock this shit off, Aqua Buddha, you're fucking with my job search"

Taco Rubio

I respectfully disagree, Void. It seems to me he was trying to be clever, at the expense of others. He's got a bit of a history of that, sort of the "yuck yuck, let's all agree to laugh at those people".

Not funny anymore. To me at least.

Maggiedoll Alter

That's... optimistic.

They're on the wrong side of progress. But will history go forward.. or backwards? Things are sliding backwards. We've got politicians going on about how medieval people were better off.
I'm not particularly certain that all the progress of the last five hundred years or so won't just slide into darkness.

Tracer Graves

Given Rand Paul's history and the context of the rest of his remarks, I'm pretty sure it was meant in a derogatory sense.

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Maggiedoll Alter

As the president had not yet declared support for marriage equality "more supportive of gay rights" interpretation would be nonsensical. There is a great deal of effort and support in favor of gay marriage, and the president is (so the right claims, anyways) liberal.

How would it be possible that he "hadn't thought the president could possibly get more supportive of gay rights," when he hadn't previously declared support for one of the biggest current issues?
At BEST it was a deliberate double meaning. (In which case the derogatory sense would still be intended)

Han Held

I'm pretty damned sure it's going to do exactly that.

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Brenda Archer

I keep hoping something good will grow out of the ruins of the old. A lot depends on whether or not the collapse of the old is transitional and yields to the new, or catastrophic, taking the new with it. The old might kill off the new out of resentment, jealousy or fear. Societies can suicide.

Phoenix Psaltery

Doing pretty good, Colonel, thanks for asking.

P2

Adeon Writer

I hear it all the time by gay people, *especially* on SL.

I've pointed it out, and they said they were being ironic.

I don't use it myself, though. Used to, when I was young.

Aribeth Zelin

I don't know, I was pretty happy with Obama for his announcement, if we use the original meaning of the word 'gay', then it works, right?

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Kara Spengler

It is interesting how words change their intent over time and in context. I am in a LGBT group that includes the word 'queer' in the group name. We had a discussion between it being a reclaimed word or self-derogatory since different people saw it in different ways. We wanted to keep it so the entire rainbow was equal with no one group being more prominent than another (also to recognize cross-identifications, sub-identifications, and new variations as being no less valid). I pointed out younger people think it is no big deal to use it that way while to many older people it is a big deal in ANY context because they grew up with it being always used in a negative way (and often to them).

Related: We have a group email and I got a message from gmail that started "hi queer,". Rather than being insulted by it I thought it hillarious that the algorithm would do that and showed the email to a few other people who would have the same reaction.

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Tracer Graves

Yeah, the word "gay" or "queer" in and of themselves aren't necessarily slurs, but the context in which they are used contributes heavily to how they are regarded. In this particular context it was used in the "deficient" or "disorder" sense which has the connotation that gay people are not fully human.

Zaida Gearbox

I used to have a picture I took of a teenager wearing a t-shirt that said, "Homophobia is so gay" on it. This was at a march for housing equality.

Kara Spengler

I do have one song on my iPod that I think of as 'the gayest song on there'. I would *never* describe it that way to anyone else. It is a version of the Village People's YMCA (not sure if them or another group singing) that has been remixed to be more heavilly disco than anything that they ever did.

Ok, I am using a perfectly accurate description of the song and context matters heavilly. It sounds like a slur though.

Argent Stonecutter

Like it being OK to use the N word if you're black?

I'm not really happy with the implications of either, but being neither black nor gay...

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Aliselia Aeon

People that tell racist jokes think they are being clever too.

Maggiedoll Alter

Well I didn't want to be quite that pessimistic.