I'm starting to think about abandoning DU.

[Zhade]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4451628

Homophobia, bigotry and outright slurs, and no mods in sight.

Skinner was brave once, but now I'm wondering if it was just talk.

[Dennis Donovan]

1. It's 6:30 ET & 3:30 PT - everyone's asleep...

I agree with you on the utterly clueless poster on the thread you pointed to, but you should give the mods a break - they're volunteers and need to sleep,too.:hi:

Please don't go - despite that ignoramous poster, this is one of the most enlightened sites on the internet.:thumbsup:

[Zhade]

2. I am so upset I'm crying.

DU is not protecting us. This shit goes on every day.

[TommyO]

7. Thread is now locked

[LostinVA]

21. Maybe we should repost Skinner's 2004 OP as a thread in GD

It probably won't help, but it'll -- MAYBE -- force some of teh phobes back into their caves.

[Jamastiene]

30. ...

I wish I could make it better. I wish I had seen the thread before it was too late to stand up for you like you did for me. Please be ok. :hug: :cry: :hug:

[mitchtv]

47. Sorry I wasn't around

We love you

[bluedawg12]

33. The other thing is that we are usually around

by day to handle a live one with a code pink alert and can usually wall off a troll.

[yardwork]

36. I understand how you feel, I think. I was miserable last Friday. I cried at work.

Then, after taking 24 hours away from DU, I realized that all the trouble was being caused by a very small number of posters.

As queer folk, we know that a lot of people are biased against us. This is reflected in DU, even though DU is better than the general population of the U.S. Dozens of threads and posts have expressed support for our struggle over the past week. The jerks are relatively few.

My feeling is that DU is for entertainment, and when I don't feel happy about being here, I take a break from it, because it can get mean and nasty here. That's the nature of internet boards.

Hugs to you, Zhade.

:pals:

[grannie4peace]

14. i haven't been posting much recently (since the election)

but i don't want anyone to go away from du except freepers :):):) there is not one flower in God's creation that is exactly like any other flower. why should people be different. i want as much diversity as nature allows. this world is big enough for all of God's creations!!! where is the longing for justice that so permeated the du in the past? i feel so sad about people wanting to leave:):):):) prayer works wonders...for those of us so inclined..... :):):):) fairness & inclusion are important principles to not let go of!!!!:shrug: :loveya: :pals: :cry: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot:

[cboy4]

3. Ugghh, I just saw what happened to your thread.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to help sooner.

And you're not leaving. We need each other more than ever.

[BR_Parkway]

4. Because they point out a reason that they don't agree with you

it's automatically homophobic? Not just you, but it seems to be happening a lot lately on DU. I've seen str8 allies totally getting blasted, when I personally didn't think they deserved it, but others who were offended by some way they tried to phrase something.

Reading through that thread, I can see that you each had some merit to your points, but got pretty wrapped up in owning your positions.

That's not discourse or discussion - it certainly isn't opening up anyone else's mind or swaying them to your opinion.

The simple fact is that the oppression of blacks and gays have some similarities and some differences. Some of the reasons behind both are the same, some of the ways we fight back are the same and some of the victories we'll have are the same.

But there are differences as well. And if we don't acknowledge them, and figure out how to bring our message out, then we're making the battle harder for ourselves.

Just like there is no possible way for this gay white male to fully understand each and every thing that a black male (or white woman for that matter) will encounter in a day that is hurtful or discriminatory because I haven't lived their lives or histories, I understand that each of them will never fully understand my situation. That doesn't mean that we all can't be allies and work together - and at some point, I will come to a better understanding about why some comment was hurtful, just as one of them will understand what it's like not to be able to put your spouse's picture on your desk at work when everyone else is doing it. Many fine details in each other's lives that we may have never thought of.

We in the GLBT community are pissed, and we've got every right to be. But we don't need to over-react to every perceived slight and drive away those who would stand with us.

I see a need for more discussion and enlightenment of other's viewpoints, they may teach me how to reach others in this fight that I need. They may keep me from presenting my case with the wrong word or phrase that would instantly turn others away or keep my message from being heard.

Please, if you feel something's homophobic, then alert (there may not even be any moderator's awake at this moment, I don't know). But please don't post these "see, nothing ever goes my way" threads. The victim card isn't helpful - and you are one individual - you don't speak for the entire gay community and neither do I. Some things are rightfully homophobic, others may be a difference in what we each see.

[cboy4]

8. BR, one of the people in that thread has been heavily

deleted in another thread in this forum.

It's clear he is a homophobic disruptor, and his viewpoints are certainly not welcome by me.

Accusing gay people of their fight for civil rights, costing elections, is unconscionable.

And that kind of talk is most definitely not welcome in this forum.

I promise you that.

[BR_Parkway]

16. I should have read further down to petgoat, but I'm still going to stand by what

I said (or at least meant to say) - there's been a ton of lashing out at those who would be our allies lately, and that's not doing us any good. Several people tried to point out that making the direct comparison to the AA civil rights struggle is not going to go over well with many in the AA community. I happen to agree with them. To the best of my knowledge, none of my ancestors was ever held back because they were gay, none were fired from jobs, denied an apartment or burned out of their housing. None were drug through the streets or hung by mobs. Obviously, all of those things have and continue to happen to both AA and the GLBT community.

Sadly, this post should be locked as well - it undermines us to start these overly dramatic "I'm leaving because DU won't enforce the rules" threads especially when they are also a violation of those same rules.

[cboy4]

18. Yes, you should have. And if you look now, you'll

see that he was tombstoned.

I don't have a problem, per se, with debating people who don't agree on the correlation.

But that changes when I can go to Free Republic and read the same arguments .. especially when they're peppered with blatant homophobia.

[LostinVA]

23. If they are publicly against marriage equality, they should leave DU

They deserve to be called out. They should be TSed. AS PER SKINNER AND DU RULES.

[davidinalameda]

61. silly you

you expect DU rules to be followed?

that is one of the reasons that I won't donate to DU

the rules are so poorly enforced and selectively enforced it just makes them a joke

[bluedawg12]

I don't think it's a direct comparison

attibute to attribute, it is a comparison of a long and bitter human rights struggle.

There are plenty of people that were held back because they were gay, denied housing, beaten and murdered.

[mondo joe]

34. And yet no AA kids killed themselves because they knew if their parents found out they

were black they'd be kicked out of the house.

No Jewish kid was ever tortured by his own family to convert from Judaism.

The struggles are all unique because each group is unique. You can argue that any is the worst off if you want to, but I think they're each just different.

No one owns struggle, no one owns civil rights. And if that offends anyone, it's their problem, not mine.

[Jamastiene]

5. Alert & Ignore

1. Alert and give the mods a decent amount of time.
2. Ignore them after you alert them and tell them how wrong they are.
3. Don't let the haters get you upset.

I have noticed that sometimes it takes a few hours before mods delete the nasty stuff. I think it depends on the time of day and whether or not there is a moderator online at the time. DU has been SUPER SLOW (not loading speed, but amount of people logged in) for the last 4 days, also. I sat here the other night just checking the latest threads before I went to bed and there was no movement for a solid hour. Nobody was here. It was freaky. I've never seen that happen before, but it did. I was freaked out by it. Nobody on DU at any time of day is weird to me.

If nobody else is there to help you with three or four on you at once and you are getting ganged up on, please leave and wait until we are around. I hate getting ganged up on in any thread. They are ganging up on us bad lately too. I'm not going to name any names, but I think we know who a few are without having to name names. It's always the same damn shit stirrers who want to push us around. I'm getting tired of it too, but I won't fight a damn gang with nobody else around. It's impossible to debate that way. Leave if nobody else is around and you got 3 or 4 people on you at one time. It's too much for one person to take.

We each have our hot buttons. I know I have mine. If you have to ignore them for the sake of your own blood pressure, do it and they'll quit dogging you. We have badgers here on DU. They follow you from forum to forum. We know there are at least 4 or 5 who ONLY show up on GLBT issues threads to shout us down. Eventually the mods will catch on when they see the same people getting alerted consistently for the homophobic crap over and over again. It'll just take time. They are working with us better than they ever have right now.

Please please please don't leave. Let's just try to work it out and give it time. I've alerted, ignored, and left a thread before when I had 4 or 5 of them on me at one time. It's ridiculous. One person, alone, in the wee hours of the morning here cannot fight a horde of rabid homophobes who ONLY show up to shout us down. I never see some of these people in ANY OTHER THREADS EVER. They are slowly digging their own grave though if we follow the rules and let them dig their holes deeper. I hate to see rarely seen poster run a long time poster off.

[madaboutharry]

6. Please don't go.

First of all, people are sleeping and obviously the site isn't monitored 24 hours a day. The other thing is that the poster you are upset with is just one person and doesn't represent Democratic Underground or most of the people who post here. The other thing is that sometimes it just isn't worth getting into a debate with someone who is just ignorant, that kind of thinking is really impossible to change.

Please know that the majority of posters here on DU do see the Gay Rights movement in much the same way as the Civil Right movement and are completely supportive.

[dipsydoodle]

9. DU rules.

Do not post duplicate topics that have already been posted.

[Ian David]

10. Oh, come on... we're (mostly) all on the same side here.

Want to borrow my ignore list?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

11. Fuck 'em. Don't let them get you down.

[Ian David]

12. Looks like the mods are still digesting that thread. n/t

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. Looks like someone was canned.

[Jamastiene]

15. Thank you Mods.

:hi:

[terrya]

17. Please don't leave DU.

I understand you. Believe me.

But I like seeing you around here. You're one of the good ones. Please don't leave. :hug:

BTW: you PM'd me about wanting my input on a thread a while back. I apologize for not responding.

[stray cat]

19. Most of the threads are supportive for prop 8 unlike any who support non DU stances on issues

However, I can guarantee few websites where everyone will be supportive and nice about every issue important to one. No one would be on DU if they walked away after a hostile thread.

Also, I think alot of people have pulled back from DU since the election and have gone back to their lives so you propably aren't the only one who is thinking about it.

[LostinVA]

20. Petgoat has done nothing but post disgusting homophobic and sexist garbage

It makes me sick they keep staying.

I'm sick of it, too, man.

[QC]

22. He got his pizza. n/t

[LostinVA]

24. I meant to say: he was very obviously a troll, and should have received it a while ago

[Jamastiene]

25. I'm working on a new signature line to quote Skinner directly...

"We expect all of our members to support equal rights for all people, regardless of sexual orientation. That includes the right to marry."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1324374&mesg_id=1324374

I am also looking through my archives to round up all of the Coretta Scott King quotes regarding gay marriage that I have saved through the years. I wish we could pin those right here in GLBT.

I am so glad to see petgoat go though. That was one dirty minded person. Coming from me, that's REALLY BAD.

[LostinVA]

38. Mildred Loving also advocated gay marriage

[mondo joe]

26. Too bad this one hasn't.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3589737&mesg_id=3590079

Long history of anti gay smears.

[cboy4]

27. Teh gays

Oh brother. How did I miss that thread.

[QC]

28. Nah. He's just concerned. Some of his best friends are gay.

Honest!

[yardwork]

37. I just alerted on that. It's against DU rules to state that one is in favor of Prop 8.

[LostinVA]

39. I ahve them on Ignore -- who is it?

[yardwork]

40. Somebody I'd never heard of, and hope to never again.

[mondo joe]

41. But then you'd miss some of her "men should be castrated" posts. NT

[yardwork]

43. !

I'm glad I never noticed it before.

[bluedawg12]

53. And then this

WTF?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3589737&mesg_id=3591390

[CreekDog]

29. the one jerk in there was tombstoned, nearly everyone agreed with you

i wouldn't leave based on that one idiot.

gay rights are civil rights.

[Maven]

31. There's one person on that thread I'm particularly disappointed in

and I'm not talking about that sleazy troll who got banned.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[KitchenWitch]

35. I am sorry that my normal insomnia was not working last night

I would have loved to chew up and spit out some of the arguments on that thread.

:hug:

Don't go. If you need to ignore posters for you own sanity, that is totally understandable.

I hate that people are such morons.

[bluedawg12]

42. Zhade don't abdandon DU

but stay and come with us and put your energy and thoughts into the DU GLBT forum.

It's time for us to regroup, we need you, we need everyone.

[mtnester]

44. That was one of the nastiest most homophobic hijacks of a thread

I have ever seen

That partuclar poster is granite (petgoat), but there are a couple more on there that are under the radar, how I do not know.

Ugly it was. I alerted REALLY early in the morning, about the dick through a hole comment...utterly nasty

Thanks the lords another homophobe is gone from here.

[Zuiderelle]

45. Crazy how long some of them have been on DU too.

[mtnester]

46. You got that right

it seems this is the flameout bigot week as well.

[TechBear_Seattle]

48. Indeed: Purple Genitals should be banned, immediately

(Of course, Purple Genitals is not the person's actual handle; using it might be seen as "calling out" a DU member, and that is not allowed no matter how badly it is merited. But Purple Genitals should be close enough to clue you in.)

Zhade, you wouldn't be the first person to leave DU because of rampant bigotry and homophobia. Sadly, I doubt you will be the last. This is just the state of the party and the attitude of the rank-and-file.

[bluedawg12]

49. Do we have some sort of GLBTQ alert system

in place, a code pink if you will, through PM's so that when something like this happens those of us online can go and wall off the hate speech and alert en masse? Is something like that allowed? In place?

[TechBear_Seattle]

50. It's been tried, and was shut down as "calling out" DU members

Basically, we have no collective recourse, only individual response.

[bluedawg12]

52. Thanks for the heads up

on that.

[racaulk]

56. Purple Genitals is eating his granite cookie.

:)

[QC]

57. Well, can you tell us the name, since it's not calling out to talk about a former DUer.

I am just stumped by purple genitals.

[racaulk]

58. Purple Genitals = petgoat

P.G.

:spank:

[QC]

59. Oh yes, very happy to see that one pass on. n/t

[mondo joe]

60. Oh I'm way too literal. I was thinking Violet Clitoris or Lavender Dick.

[Jamastiene]

68. I was thinking

Purple Pussy. I guess it's a gay punk rocker thing in that case. :evilgrin:

[TechBear_Seattle]

65. Pushing daisies? Metabolic processes are history? Run down the curtain? Joined the choir invisible?

Is he an ex-DUer? Or is he just pining for the fjords?

[racaulk]

66. He's gone. Finished. Kaput. End of story.

And DU is much better off for it. :)

[Ioo]

51. You would be happy to know, that post put the first person ever on ignore...

For the first time in my DU I read the post you linked to and put someone on ignore...

[David__77]

54. Why? Only one person was totally antagonistic.

It's not the exact same thing. I don't see the comparison as too helpful. I'm gay and certainly support equal rights for sexual orientation, but do think it's a distinct thing, as is gender and nationality.

[racaulk]

55. I wouldn't blame you for one second if you did.

The reactive approach the mods seem to take in battling the homophobia here is extremely frustrating. I would like to see them once, just once, be proactive in this battle, and to back up their words with action.

Please know that if you leave, your voice will be missed. You are a very passionate poster, and I always enjoy seeing your posts. So many other GLBT DUers have left, DU is worse off for that, and I would hate to see you add your name to that list.

Please don't go.

:pals:

[Zhade]

62. So, after a good night's sleep, I'm not going anywhere.

I was wrong to question Skinner's courage - that idiot petgoat was banned (good fucking riddance!) - and on reflection I find I could have expressed my intent better.

My whole point in that thread was that we have been oppressed for the same reasons that African-Americans and other groups have been: fear of and bigotry against us for something we have no control over. I never meant to imply that we literally suffered the exact same outrages; I assumed most DUers were intelligent enough to understand my point, but I'm willing to concede when I've been less than clear.

The good news is that, if nothing else, the thread wound up flushing one more disgusting homophobe out of this site, and any abuse I took to get that done was worth it!

I'm very emotional about this issue, for obvious reasons - but also because my two best friends in the world, the only people who have truly accepted me for who I am despite my many flaws, can't get married like they were planning to after the election. It hurts to see their dreams set back.

Thanks to everyone for their support, and if you don't support us - get out of the way or get run over.

: )

EDIT: And now that I'm reading the replies, I'm crying again, but in a good way. Thank you all so much.

[bluedawg12]

63. (((Zhade))) Glad you are staying! This our our DU family now.

:bounce:

And you did flush out a big douche.

I agree that we have a civil rights position, it is about justice under law and equal access to rights and privileges under law.

I also agree that people could have replied with clarification rather than some of the unkind replies-but that was yesterday and today is a new day, onward and upward.

[Psyop Samurai]

69. This post really heartens me...

You've grown from the experience, and now we are stronger.

We do NOT NEED to be rescued!

Things are not always as they appear. Take careful measure; do not succumb to slights. Read twice, post once. Stand true, and misunderstanding will lift, and calumny will fall. I believe this with all my heart.

We are diverse, and our support broad. We have different talents and abilities, and are still growing. This post gives me more hope than anything.

:hug:

[Maat]

64. Please don't leave.

I very much appreciate your posts.

I alerted on PG several times, as did others. We just have to weed them out.

As a law school graduate, there is no question in my mind that this is a civil rights struggle. I don't give a darn if some don't like me using that term; they don't own it. It is derived from a legal concept, and they don't own it. Additionally, a group doesn't have to meet someone else's qualifications in order to considered victims of civil rights violations.

The struggles may not be identical, but they sure share many phenomena, as is pointed out eloquently above.

I'll say it again (and I don't care who disagrees). This is a constitutional crisis, and it is a vital civil rights struggle. If anyone disagrees, they know where they can go.

In Solidarity and Friendship,

[AntiFascist]

67. Please don't leave! We still need to battle the Democratic bigots...

In some ways the gay and lesbian struggle has been even worse than the black civil rights struggle:

While some racial minorities have been referred to as 'inferior' in the past, we have been labelled "genetic errors" by certain right-wing idiots. This implies an even lower degree of tolerance where a bigot might tolerate inferiors as slaves, but would eradicate the "errors" a la Hitler.

During the AIDs epidemic, the Reagan Administration made relatively little effort to put extraordinary resources into ending the epidemic. Some even were saying that it was "God's wrath against gays." It was not until it became obvious that the epidemic was striking groups other than gay men that the effort to control the epidemic really got under way.

Also, members of the black community by and large have the support of their families, their extended families and their places of worship, from a very early age. Many gays and lesbians, on the other hand, face hatred and bigotry within their own immediate families, as well as their communities, and some end up taking their own lives as a result.