The extent to which some gay people will go just to vilify someone else, even another gay man, like me, will never cease to amaze me.
I pride myself on being very open, honest, and middle-of-the-road in my beliefs. Look at my Coming Out page, or It’s All About Me, and you can see what I mean. I don’t think labelling people as “liberal” or “conservative” in order to conduct a conversation is helpful at all–in fact, it prevents serious consideration of ideas you or I may never have honestly considered before simply because we don’t like the source of the ideas. Like Republicans who think Bill Clinton could never have a good idea, or Liberals who think Pat Buchanan could never have a good idea. The reality is that they have both had both good and bad ideas, and each idea needs to be judged on its merit, not the merit of the one proposing it. So discussion, even vehement disagreement, is healthy, and, IMHO, a necessary part of honest learning and human progress.
Regular readers of my blog know that I often “get into it” with some commenters in particular over certain issues, and I may even get frustrated, but I make no bones about it: I may disagree with something you have to say, but I’ll defend your right to say it–unless it’s way over the line. And what I consider “way over the line” is apparently just fine at Datalounge.
In a thread over at the Datalounge entitled “Log Cabinette Website Hosts Vicious Anti-Gay Attack”, the hostility is unhinged, to say the least. This was the most recent message posted by one of the braintrusts on that site:
Run along Jamie, no one wants to play with you and no one is interested in you or your friends. You can go back to worshiping Matt Sanchez and making excuses for the GOP on your own sites.
Because that’s SO what I’m all about. Don’t get me wrong, I can take being called a GOP’er (even though it’s vastly off-base); to me that’s the same as being called a liberal. I’m neither, yet called both all of the time. Having to deal with immature commenters is part and parcel of the internet “raison d’être” and one must simply learn to live with it.
What I would never, ever condone, however, and would hope most readers here wouldn’t as well, is telling someone that they deserved to be bashed. Or that they “wished they had a bat right now.”
That’s the type of commentary that’s evidently welcome on this supposedly “pro-gay” site.
Also from the thread: one Charles Wilson, who’s obsessed with Matt (Dirty) Sanchez. Despite the fact that I defended him from the accusations hurled at him by both NDT, whom I consider a friend (must be a cardinal sin or something) and Gregg Carpenter, Wilson just posted this outright fabrication:
The Cabinettes of the “Malcontent” site got their “AIDS dementia” stuff at a different site, which is linked below. And they got it from “The Bwog,” which is run by people at Columbia University. The first person to spread the “AIDS dementia” stuff about me was none other than Matt Sanchez. . .
So, this is how the wingnuts work: tell a lie on one website, and then start replicating it around the web. “The Malcontent” is just one more group of wingnuts happy to do it. Wouldn’t you think the fact that they’re gay themselves would make them draw a line?
Actually, I draw the line at dishonesty and lack of integrity. Never once have I supported Matt Sanchez or the GOP. This all started over at the Malcontent during a thread discussion over Larry Craig, Mike Rogers, etc. After clicking through many, many links, I took this position:
I have to say, NDT, I just read both Charles’ site and the article you linked to. While I do find Charles’ obsession a bit over the top, Gary Carpenter seems a definitive ASS who likes to throw around AIDS as an insult and weapon with no regard to veracity or conscience, but just because it makes him feel good and elicits a “hurt” response. And his “evidence” against Charles is more like browbeating than any type of real evidence.
I’ve made a point of telling those who DO belong to LCR that they should not support any party that has discrimination integrated into their platform. And then there are my other posts, like this, and this, or even this, that should be demonstrative evidence of my non-party affiliation, but the Datalounge cretins won’t even be bothered to check out a nuanced point of view. The truth is evidently not important to them. In their minds, if you’re not an ultra-liberal, then you must be a “Cabinette.”
Please do yourself a favor and make a note of it. Those people are either evil or stupid.
A high voltage discharge device coated in adhesive resin. The Sticky Shocker will adhere to an enemy and give him an incapacitating shock. Hint: Fired into pools of water, the Sticky Shocker can neutralize multiple opponents.
Pam’s House Blend
Stephen King
Becoming Human
