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Originally Posted by Mademoiselle Rouge  This has nothing to do with equal protection, people start talking about a few high profile cases as their basis for protection. Most of which occured before a huge positive shift towards orientation.
I believe there has been a lot of advances made, and if a black person used stories from the 60's to describe the mindset of whites towards blacks today, it wouldn't be a fair example.
I believe the people who killed gay people, as mentioned in examples above, should be made an example of in our justice system. They in no way represent the normal people in America. This post is bitching about discremination and I refuse to be lumped in with it. There are a lot of people who might not approve of gay people but would never beat them to death or shoot them. |
This has precisely everything to do with equal protection. What part of my post did you not understand (or not agree with)? You are the one who got off on the tangent, dear. You are the one who brought up "high profile cases," when the OP mentioned things as mundane as paying taxes and being allowed to have dependent insurance.
As for "being lumped in with it," no one accused you of being a ring leader. Just because you don't participate, that doesn't mean that discrimination is institutionalized.
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Originally Posted by Mademoiselle Rouge We all have people in our families, especially here in the South, that harbor some racist or homophobic thoughts. Hell my Great Grandma still refers to her black adopted grandson as "that colored boy" its just wrong. We have said something to her about it but honestly, i dont think she's going to change. It doesn't make it right but i seriously don't think she'd condone hanging him from a tree. We are jumping to conclusions here.
And i'm not the one who mentioned up that you should be happy because you arent being executed. I mentioned that high profile murder cases are not reflective of mainstream society anymore than prostitutes who were murdered by men who hated them. |
Again, the topic is not about murder. It is about discrimination based on orientation. And we aren't necessarily just talking about the ideas of individuals, we are talking about government and corporate discrimination.
Equal protection means that if you and I do exactly the same job, equally well, we should be compensated equally. We are not. If we pay the same taxes, we should be entitled to the same benefits. We are not. I'm not sure which part of that you don't understand.
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Originally Posted by erratic Yes, that's precisely what I said.
Of course not! This is how flame wars start. My point was that it gets a lot worse than some of the things mentioned in the OP - not that any of those were invalid. My point was that we in the west have it pretty easy compared to a lot of people and we need to remember that. If we don't remember that we won't be watching to help others, we won't celebrate what generations have fought for, and we lose our perspective. |
I understood your point. I'm not sure why you made it. It does not matter that "we in the west have it pretty easy compared to anyone else." You point is about as relevant as the cliche mother telling her child to "clean your plate, there are starving children in China." If the child eats two more bites, it is not going to keep any other child from starving.
If someone in another country has zero rights, what does that have to do with the fact that I have fewer rights than my fellow citizens in my own country?
As for remembering that it's worse elsewhere than here, well, from my point of view, if I fight for my own rights, that's advancing the rights of others, not ignoring them.