TeenNick Rage
can you not understand that some people who were raised a certain way could maybe be confused or having trouble adjusting?
Why should I try to understand that? I have spent my entire life being "understanding" of straight people. I have lived in their culture, I have dealt with their stereotypes, their assumptions, their "harmless" jabs, their judgment, their "concern," their outright refusal to see me as their equal, their association of my sexuality with negativity, their ignorant questions, their discrimination, their harassment, and the fear that can only be instilled by the centuries of violence that the LGBTQ community has faced at the hands of the straight community. All of my freaking life, I have been understanding and I have dealt with that. If I were not understanding, I would be doing things a lot more extreme than calling people homophobes on message boards and (god forbid!) making straight people (straight people with no sense of irony, at least) feel for one second a fraction what I have to feel all the time.
You're not even considering the fact that the overwhelming majority of the LGTBQ community was, at one time or another "confused." You are completely ignoring how much trouble we have adjusting so that you can rain compassion down on the people who need it the least.
Do you not see the harm that it does to a person's psyche to be constantly making excuses for their abusers, and then to be told that if they don't, they're the bad guy? Not only do I have to sit back and listen to my professors, my friends, and my family treat my sexuality like it's a joke, like it's something unpleasant, and generally like it's something worth infinitely less than their own sexualities, I have to then sit back and tell myself that this is okay. I have to constantly be making excuses for and forgiving straight people just to be able to exist in this world. And after enough time, you run out of "they don't really mean it"s. Eventually, you start to realize that they do really mean it, or else they wouldn't be saying it over and over again, and once you've realized that "good" people are capable of repeatedly hurting you, you have two choices: You can tell them that they're hurting you, and you can do what you can to make them stop hurting you, which usually does involve strong words and harsh tones because that's pretty much the only thing privileged people take seriously (and the mere fact that you've entered into this argument with me and drug it out for this long proves that even privileged people on our side often don't take things seriously enough), or you can convince yourself that good people are hurting you because you deserve to be hurt. The latter road usually doesn't end well.
Why is always my job to be understanding? How many times does straight privilege have to snatch the olive branch out of my hands and beat me with it before I'm allowed to stop offering it? At what point am I allowed to ask you to be understanding? Why are minorities constantly called to "be the bigger person" as if we aren't already the bigger person on the virtue of not being the ones hunting down, discriminating against, and constantly devaluing The Other? I've asked you this again and again in this thread and you just keep ignoring it. Let me say this one last time: Exactly how savagely do you think I have to be beaten before it becomes okay for me to cry out in pain and, god forbid, get angry at the people who are beating me?
As for the rest of your post, you are still absolutely refusing to get that NO ONE CARES WHAT STRAIGHT PEOPLE FIND HOMOPHOBIC. IT IS NOT YOUR LIFE. IT IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM. YOU DO NOT GET A VOTE. Did that get through to you? And for the record, I have never heard one single argument against gay marriage that isn't rooted in the idea that gay couples are somehow "less than." Never once, and I would like for you to find me an argument I haven't heard. The fact that you don’t see these undertones doesn't mean they're not there. It just means that you have straight privilege and have the luxury of not seeing them. And let me tell you, you can never tell someone gently enough that they're being heterosexist. Being "nice" in these situations means being quiet and taking it, and I'm not going to do that.