Maybe I'm Just Ignorant About the New "Anti-Gay" Video

by turtleturtle 146 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  slimboyfat

  Strawman once again SBF.
  Nobody is defending the video as being objectively right

  Huh? Where did I say that?
• 

  Simon

  But I think I see what some are trying to say. When a baker doesn't make a cake for a gay couple it is discriminatory. The cake is tangible and has been made for many straight couples. Therefore it should be available to anyone who wants a cake.

  Exactly.

  Paradise is a made up place, that you get to with (ever changing) made up rules. And no one can ever prove that a straight person made it to paradise and a gay person did not.

  Bingo. To make it be actual discrimination would require that we prove the WTS was right and paradise is real ... but then if they are right then god exists then he does get to make the rules and decide what he wants to do with gay people. i.e. there is no real scenario where it's discrimination.

  So it's not okay to discriminate in real world situations, but we can all have whatever made up rules, affecting made up places we want.

  Do I have the argument right? Just trying to understand,not trying to start a shit-storm.

  Yes, that is exactly what I've been saying. Anyone claiming the video is itself discriminatory simply doesn't understand the meaning of the word and neither is it promoting discrimination. People have the chance to explain how they thought it was, they were unable to offer their explanation.

  Furthermore I don't think it's without any cost to overextend criticism. It hurts credibility of future criticism of the WTS and doesn't convince independents who look at it and think "yeah, maybe those apostates are just bitter".

  And yes, there are people who do suffer REAL discrimination and I'm sorry, if I had and I found some people claiming that video was the same thing I'd be pretty angry because it's simply not.
• 

  JWdaughter

  I don't know about any of what the Labels would be for that video, but I do know that the WT has just drawn attention to itself by this and is now on the radar of human rights groups. So, no issue with that.
• 

  slimboyfat

  There is a difference (to them) as someone can abstain from sex, you can't abstain from your race.

  There are two things wrong with this statement that a JW might make.

  1. Gay people aren't simply being asked to abstain from sex the way unmarried heterosexual JWs are. They are told to renounce any possibility of a satisfying intimate relationship on pain of being branded a sinner fit for destruction. This is in no way equal to an unmarried JW who may hope and aspire to an intimate relationship even if it never happens.

  2. People modify their race all the time. Unless they conceive of "race" as some fixed genetic category rather than a socially costructed marker of identity. In which case I think we are in different centuries.
• 

  cofty

  Gay people aren't simply being asked to abstain from sex the way unmarried heterosexual JWs are. They are told to renounce any possibility of a satisfying intimate relationship

  Around half of males in the LGBT community identify as bisexual.

  For them having sex with another man is a choice.

  In your opinion is it equally wrong for the WT to refuse them the right to make that choice?
• 

  bennyk

  The Watch Tower Society has violated no one's civil rights with this video.

  No one is obligated to become a Jehovah's Witness.
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  slimboyfat

  I agree with you there is choice and upbringing involved in sexuality (I am not an essentialist). That's not a get out of jail free card for bigotry. There's an element of choice with regard to race too. You can emphasise, modify or erase this or that aspect of racial identity too. It doesn't make racism alright.

  Even if we allow for bigotry against bisexual people (on the basis of tenuous and selective conceptions of "choice") what about those who identify as homosexual and not bisexual?
• 

  Simon

  This is in no way equal to an unmarried JW who may hope and aspire to an intimate relationship even if it never happens

  So *not* having gay sex is different to *not* having straight sex?

  People modify their race all the time

  I think that's an exaggeration and, frankly, idiotic. I can only think of MJ and that Rachel Dolezol woman who was white and claimed to be black last year.

  The point was made to your comment comparing gay people being celibate with black people changing color.
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Can someone tell me, specifically, was homophobic about the new "Anti-gay" WT video. Particularly, what showed an "irrational fear", "aversion", or "discrimination"?

  The entire JW belief system and all WT teachings are based on "irrational fear" of so many things, from plastic toy wizards to a cataclismic armageddon that is always just around the corner. They have an "aversion" to everything from cartoons about warrior wizards to asking questions that are just a little too apostate. And "discrimination"? They don't just discriminate against all "worldly" people, they discriminate against their fellow JWs for some of the most trivial of reasons!

  When someone has a fear of everything, should we be surprised for them to tell the world that they're afraid of spiders?
  

  With their "One Dude, One Non-dude" video, I think they're pretty tame on their condemnation of homosexuality compared to most of the previous things we've read and heard from WT on the subject. At least the video mom didn't scream "OH GROSS! Now I've got to scrub you in bleach so you don't catch HOMO! And we're homeschooling you from now on! Armageddon can't come soon enough to rain rocks on the heads of all the worldly people, especially those gays parading around in the tightest of pants!" No, WT would probably save that message for the cartoon when Caleb comes home and tells his mom that some apostates tried to offer him candy and talk to him.

  Don't get me wrong, I think the video is horrible and dripping with cult poison, But it has about the same level of hatred and discrimination toward gays that WT shows toward all worldly people, and some JWs that are doing enough or wear pants that are too tight.
  

  What I'm not sure about though is the situation with the dude and the duffle bag as an illustration of being gay. Was the dude gay and he had his dwarf boyfriend in the carry-on bag? Or was he straight, but had certain sex toys in the bag that aren't allowed around pandas? In which case, it isn't so much that the video is anti-gay, it's just really, really weird.
  
• 

  krejames

  To everyone saying that the bible backs up the message in the video, I respectfully disagree. The bible says nothing about homosexuality

  That's simply not true. It says plenty and in pretty direct terms:"

  erm, actually no it doesn't. the sex act is a part of homosexuality but it is not homosexuality.The bible only speaks about the sex act (and arguable only anal sex). It does not speak about homosexuality. I'm sure you would agree that heterosexuality is so much more than simply a man and woman having penetrative sex.