DOMA, ENDA, DADT: Anyone Else Sick of Acronyms, seriously WTF!!!?

[JCMach1]

That is all

[JackBeck]

1. DOMA = Defense of Marriage Act (enacted during a Democratic administration).

DADT = Don't Ask, Don't Tell Don't Pursue (enacted under a Democratic administration, overturned during a Democratic majority).

ENDA = Employment Non-Disrimination Act.

All of these are pretty important to the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community.

Sorry we have made your cognitive capacity so difficult during our fight for equality. But when there are also acronyms for START and the DREAM act, yet you don't mention them, it kind of makes you look like someone who is ignorant of LGBT equality.

[JCMach1]

2. Yeah if you mention START and DREAM I will probably start twitching at this point

[JCMach1]

3. But also (in all seriousness) does the language we use to describe the problem

have an effect, or intentionality behind it (conscious, or otherwise)...

For example, what is the difference between


"I am fighting for Civil Rights"

as opposed to

"I am against DADT"

Does it cheapen the subject matter?

Does it make the issue seem more/less serious?


Either way, I still have acronym overload!

[Dr Morbius]

4. I see a difference.

One could oppose DADT on several grounds, like for example being against any restrictions which prevent our finest soldiers from serving, without considering it a civil rights issue. Or one can fight for civil rights in general, in which case DADT is just one more obscenity which had to be corrected with more problems to fix.

Acronyms are popular, I suspect, because they save time. Time is priceless, of course, and Americans are historically an impatient people. Do they cheapen the debate? Absolutely. What we have these days is hardly debate, though. And any change in language matters. In a nation based on free speech, OF COURSE words matter. For example, while you perhaps fight for "civil rights," I fight for "freedom and justice". It puts us on the same side; DADT is manifestly unjust and I would argue an affront against freedom. Which language is used determines which parts of the population might be convinced of the rightness.

I have a problem with the phrase "civil" rights, myself. I don't see a need for the qualifier!

[JCMach1]

5. Touche on 'debate' you are quite right...

[rug]

6. LOL