So, yeah, the gay thing. Philippine Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago makes a big deal about former Senator and Philippine National Police Chief Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson’s sexual orientation seemingly to save her ass which had been included in a list of alleged crooks. On the other side of the planet, there is on-going chatter about upcoming NFL star Michael Sam’s caught-on-video gay kiss after getting drafted by the St Louis Rams.
Suffering from an overgrown sense of entitlement?
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Of course, the real issue underlying homosexuality (or gender and sexuality in general) is the objective worth of an individual to humanity — the merit he or she brings to the table regardless. Was Ping Lacson a good senator and police chief? Will Sam perform or choke in the NFL? My colleague Gogs summarises the real deal surrounding these matters brilliantly…
Like any work place, your potential employers want to know what you will bring to the table. Sam plays on the defensive line same as Jadeveon Clowney who was picked first overall by the Houston Texans. With all his talent, he was still dissected for potential red flags like not going all out all the time. That is what football people do before they commit their selection and millions of dollars to 22 year olds. You can compare the NFL draft sometimes to the stock market where there are the blue chips, the speculative stocks and the emerging markets. The problem with this analogy is unlike the NFL in 2014 there is no such thing as a stock coming out as gay before the opening bell.
All that said, I can’t pretend to be a big fan of male homosexuality for the simple reason that I’d rather not harbour an overly graphic picture in my mind of what male homosexuals do with their partners between the sheets. But I respect homosexuals as people and being such — i.e., people — I believe they are entitled to all the rights that people in a modern society enjoy. Some of them also make very good friends. That does not mean, however, that the reality of our biological or physiological nature should be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. To do so misses the whole point of what it means to respect — and embrace — one another’s unique characters and preferences. Respecting individuals is not the same as pretending that differences between genders and character variations across the range of sexual orientation and preferences do not exist.
Personally, the idea of engaging in a sexual act with another male is deeply revolting to me in much the same way as I am repulsed by the idea of having sex with my mother or sister. That’s my psyche and physiology talking — the complex interplay of the way my brain is wired, my internal body chemistry, and the attitudes I was raised with makes me heterosexual in orientation and non-incestuous by nature. Thus, I cannot help how I feel about male homosexual acts in much the same way that homosexuals cannot help how they feel about heterosexual acts.
According to the latest science, this “orientation” traces its roots to our genetic makeup and is presumably heritable to some extent. The dominance of heterosexual orientation is likely an outcome of evolution that ensures that we propagate the species by mating with the opposite gender of our species and that we ensure robust genetic diversity by not mating with close relatives.
As such, as a parent, I can relate with this heart-felt lament…
Among progressives like myself, a lot of infighting occurred this week over the issue of Michael Sam gay kissing his nameless boyfriend – a white man who looks like a terrified silent film star – on cable television. Despite the obvious issue of yet another white man being represented in the media (gross and bad) there’s the problem of whether or not being gay has gone too far.
As the original racist Donald (Trump) pointed out, Michael Sam seems to be applauded for his homosexuality whereas [NFL Quarterback] Tim Tebow was derided and mocked for his Christianity. There’s a clear double standard here, and that double standard is worrying and problematic. Why is it okay for two men to love each other, but it’s not okay for a man to love an invisible man who will return one day to kill all of the men who love the wrong men? Would it have been better if Tebow held up a picture of Jesus and kissed it passionately, rubbed its crotch, and whispered sweet nothings into its ear? Should Tebow have hired a male stripper to play Jesus and sucked him off while reading the bible? Are there pictures of that kind of stuff online? Where can I download them?
I wonder then, if this whole gay “activism” thing has gone too far. See, everyone has the right to smack their lips while eating their lunch on their workstations. But that does not mean I have to like it. Gunning for gay rights is nice. But does homosexuality have to be pushed into our living rooms for our kids to see? Raising kids is hard enough without confusing images like these. I heard that many Sesame Street sketches made in the 1970s were deemed no longer fit for public television, like videos of kids crawling into pipes while playing in a junkyard or Cookie Monster explaining poetry while smoking a pipe. We wouldn’t like giving our young impressionable kids the wrong ideas too early in life now, do we?
But a gay NFL player kissing his boyfriend on TV? Perfectly ok according to our society’s most “progressive” minds!
Like most red-blooded heterosexual fathers, I wouldn’t want my son to turn out gay. But if he does, I will respect that outcome and love him just as unconditionally as I do now. Many fathers have reduced their love for their kids for a lot less serious stuff — like becoming a musician rather than a lawyer, or failing to win a seat in Congress to ensure the on-going security of the family jewels.
Parents have only so much time to mold their kids’ minds. And these timeframes are tight. By six or seven, I read, the window to instill basic disciplines (an ability to mitigate a desire for instant gratification, for example) closes. By age 14, hormones trump kids’ primal fear of parental wrath. By 18 they are capable of leaving home (at least in societies where parents do not regard their kids as property). To leave ourselves at the mercy of “activists” who come out of a few days reading Richard Dawkins thinking they know better is just plain foolish.
It’s time we just focus on the important stuff and get a grip.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
“The Kiss” was already news when I decided to write about the most famous 7th round draft pick in the history of sport. I left it out because it might detract from my point that the rest should be about football. One thing I forgot to put was that Sam played for Missouri and St. Louis is in Missouri which might hint at hometown bias. What came out later was that the Sam pick caught a few Rams insiders by surprise. Coach Jeff Fisher is part of the competition committee of the NFL. Were there other forces in play?
“Cookie Monster explaining poetry while smoking a pipe.”- If I recall it was a spoof on the PBS show Masterpiece Theater by Alistair Cooke.Cooke had a pipe if I recall. Though none of the Youtube clips show it. Of course C.M.’s name in the sketch was Alistair Cookie. The genius of Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Joe Raposo and the gang. Muppet Show was not an early morning kids show so I guess people more forgiving of Rowlf brandishing a pipe as Sherlock Holmes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU27gd34R-I
It was a football decision, the Rams had 4 picks in the 7th round and for a SEC 2013 co-defensive player of the year!? fuckin steal! The Rams’ D-Line is stacked and if they want to hang with their NFC West homies they need the help.
I have to agree that all this has gone a bit too far. Could Michael Sam not have just hugged his boyfriend? Would that not have been enough display of affection?
I am not homophobic at all. I have gay friends. I have no problem with that.
I however have a problem with political correctness which seems to be completely out of control. I don’t like the gay issue constantly being shoved down my throat. (pun intended!0
One man’s heaven is another man’s hell. Over time the media and society will target another group or sub-group of people and will come to the “aid” of another. For all these talk of progress few things ever really change, they just hit a switch.
For me it’s best to just take whatever modern media and society is pushing down our throats with a grain (or somethings a kilo) of salt.
Personally I don’t have any problem with two men kissing on national TV. The level of outrage that I observe now seems to be the same as in the 1960’s, when William Shatner kissed a black woman on “Star Trek,” which by the way a lot of conservatives still see as disgusting today.
What irks me, however, is the way that politicians in the Philippines today use homosexuality (or at least the perception of it) as an “evil scapegoat” to forward their own agenda. How exactly does a person’s sexuality become something to be attacked against in the whole pork barrel thing? It really is a low blow.
When Religion,sexuality, and politics are discussed in public it is a recipe for disaster.Growing up it was common knowledge that they should not be discussed/displayed in public. Keep it to yourself. There is a curtain where people go behind it to vote, so know one knows their selection. Likewise with Religion and sexuality, do it behind closed doors and keep it to yourself.
People should not care about people’s religion,sexual orientation or political beliefs…AND should not be subjected to them as well.
I DON’T CARE WHO YOU KISS, just get a room for crissakes!
I purpose that Sam would not even have been drafted if he was not gay. His combine performance was terrible. He is slow and small for a defensive lineman and not very good against the rush. Too slow to be a linebacker or defensive end also too short for DE, Clowny is 6’5″ and runs the 40 in the 4.5’s. I say he came out so he could be drafted because of his lack of skills. He is a very good college player but that does not make him a pro player. As for the kiss it is not appropriate who is kissing who, if you look at it 99.999% kiss their mom or aunt but I have rarely seen anyone lip lock their girl friend on draft day and further nobody would even care about the 249th overall pick.
Aha! BenignO, what you’ve written about your sexual preference will be seen as anti-gay.
Gayness, according to some, is genetically determined and is natural. Therefore, everyone should be gender neutral…
haha!
Yeah let’s all just ignore the obvious differences between men and women and heterosexuals and homosexuals, shall we? 😀
I respect any person, regardless of his/her sexual orientation…I cannot understand homosexuality…so, I cannot comment anything about it…
I respect homosexuals as people and being such — i.e., people — I believe they are entitled to all the rights that people in a modern society enjoy. Some of them also make very good friends. That does not mean, however, that the reality of our biological or physiological nature should be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. To do so misses the whole point of what it means to respect — and embrace — one another’s unique characters and preferences. Respecting individuals is not the same as pretending that differences between genders and character variations across the range of sexual orientation and preferences do not exist.
Oh just say it! We should ‘respect’ homosexuals but we have to constantly remind them that how they express their affection and love to each other is a prime example of deviancy and that we must hammer it into their skulls that they will never be accepted. In short, we will respect you but we will never accept you.
“Personally, the idea of engaging in a sexual act with another male is deeply revolting to me in much the same way as I am repulsed by the idea of having sex with my mother or sister.”<—Oh geez, the old classic incest=homosexuality pseudoargument.
"I wonder then, if this whole gay “activism” thing has gone too far. See, everyone has the right to smack their lips while eating their lunch on their workstations. But that does not mean I have to like it."
But homosexuality is not similar to smacking their lips while eating. Homosexuality is the complex interplay of the way a homosexual's brain is wired, his or her internal body chemistry, and possibly the attitudes he or she was raised with which probably makes him or her heterosexual in orientation and non-incestuous by nature. I'm sure the previous words are familiar to you.
"But does homosexuality have to be pushed into our living rooms for our kids to see? Raising kids is hard enough without confusing images like these."
Let me give you the words of the great Louis CK: I dunno, it's your shitty kid. You fucken' tell 'em. Why is that anyone else's problem? Two guys are in love but they can't get married because you don't want to talk to your ugly kid for five fucken minutes?
"Like most red-blooded heterosexual fathers, I wouldn’t want my son to turn out gay. But if he does, I will respect that outcome and love him just as unconditionally as I do now"
hyp·o·crite
noun \ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\
2
: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
You truly are the embodiment of the very thing you have been protesting against.
which probably makes him or her homosexual in orientation and non-incestuous by nature.
Nah. I just say it the way it is. Our brain is not the highly-integrated data processing instrument we believe it is. There is a discrete section that is a legacy of our reptilian ancestors and, enveloping that, another also discrete more recently-evolved component that makes us human (supposedly) by tempering the primal impulses of the earlier. Unlike most emo new-age BS artists, I recognise that reality about our minds and call out what each component tells me.
In short, nobody can presume to dictate how another ought to feel about something. We may do what society dictates and be nice to people whose beliefs and practices we don’t like on the outside. But no amount of politically-correct BS will change the way we feel about these on the inside. Call that being a hypocrite, but that’s simply the way things are. It’s called being human whiel living in an environment we presumptuously call “civilisation”.
‘There is a discrete section that is a legacy of our reptilian ancestors…’source..citations please.
‘Unlike most emo new-age BS artists, I recognise that reality about our minds and call out what each component tells me.’ Your reality is YOUR reality, not everyone else’s. But the reality is the human rights and dignity of a minority group (yes, homosexuals ARE a minority) are being trampled upon by the privileged majority simply because they do not fit the social construct that is being and has been forced on them.
In short, nobody can presume to dictate how another ought to feel about something.
Yes you are right. Therefore, if those feelings are let known, there will be responses.
But no amount of politically-correct BS will change the way we feel about these on the inside.
Fine, disagree with homosexuality until your ilk become obsolete but your feelings should NOT affect their civil liberties and trample on their dignity.
You’re making it sound like gay people are such an oppressed group. So how exactly are their rights being “trampled upon by the privileged majority”?
Indeed, my feelings won’t affect their civil liberties nor trample upon their dignity — not unless I’ve got telekinetic powers like that bald dude who leads the X-Men who can make things explode by simply getting mad.
What gay rights? Should gay people have some more rights than me a “regular” guy is entitled to?
So gay people want to be equals with “regular” people, well aren’t they already? The reason they are being treated differently is because they want to be treated differently, some sort of “special”.
If you are a dude who wants to kiss another dude, I don’t care, but just don’t go on making it seem alright for the younger generations to go “against the flow”. Hell, I do not need you in the media influencing my kids that it’s perfectly fine to be doing that.
What gay rights? Should gay people have some more rights than me a “regular” guy is entitled to? Last I heard, us ‘regular’ guys can marry whoever the fuck we want as long as we love that person, not a blood relative and is of age. The only difference is the vagina factor.
So gay people want to be equals with “regular” people, well aren’t they already? The reason they are being treated differently is because they want to be treated differently, some sort of “special”.
No they aren’t ‘equals’ with us “regular” people. Gays and lesbians are taxpayers and part of that money goes to the registry and documentation of civil marriages that they cannot partake in. Most importantly, the only thing that gays and lesbians want is to be treated the same way as heterosexual people.
If you are a dude who wants to kiss another dude, I don’t care, but just don’t go on making it seem alright for the younger generations to go “against the flow”.<—This is a contradiction, you know that, right?
Hell, I do not need you in the media influencing my kids that it’s perfectly fine to be doing that.
Okay let me introduce you to Louis CK: He said "it's your shitty kid. You fucken' tell 'em. Why is that anyone else's problem? Two guys are in love but you don't want to talk to your ugly kid for five fucken minutes? In short,it's your damn job to raise your kid right. Why should the media have a firmer grip on what your kid?
The marriage idea was conceived by religion. You know the position of most religions regarding homosexuality and marriage. And you want to partake of it? That is just daft.
“Gays and lesbians are t…..the same way as heterosexual people. ” They are treated the same way. But by insisting that they be allowed marriige, despite the fact that it is still not legal in the Philippines, is asking to be given preferential treatment. Hence, “special”.
It seems you know jack shit raising kids of your own. Environment plays a big role in how kids will turn out.
Simple really, it is like wanting to drive an RHD vehicle in the Philippines. It is illegal as everybody knows, and you want your own roads put up or the laws amended for you. And you call it “rights” and act as if the majority somehow trampled on your rights, well, boo hoo.
I will just come out (no pun) and say it. When you have less than 2% of the population promoting and engaging in any act that is counter to the “norm” it is a deviant behavior and as such will always be subject to ridicule and discrimination. Humans by nature discriminate all the time in every aspect of life. Being gay is a deviant behavior and is no different than any other sexually deviant behavior. Do we treat prostitutes, S&M, sex addicts and porn stars different because of their sexual deviancy? Hell more people like peanut butter on their pizza than are gay and I hate peanut butter on my pizza does that make me intolerant? The big picture is be gay and happy and stop the look at me look in your face crap about gays. They are gay and will alway be such to discrimination be we as humans do it by nature.
I’ve generally loved your posts benign0, but your attitude here disappoints me.
Why is a gay kiss a “confusing image?” Why would it give “our young impressionable kids the wrong ideas?”
“Like most red-blooded heterosexual fathers, I wouldn’t want my son to turn out gay.” I can’t get my head around that.
Yeah, you can’t get all that. And I respect that.
Since the catch phrase of the day is “Confusing image” I have a little anecdote. Our High School English teacher told a story of bringing his young son to a movie called Deathtrap (1982) starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeves. The two stars play Broadway playrights. In the middle of the movie the young son turns to his dad our English teacher and asks “Dad, why is Superman kissing that guy?”
I am not sure if the teacher ever finished the story.
A shame you can’t remember what the dad said in response.
I have no idea what the state of Philippines TV is as I don’t speak Tagalog, but a show that handles the issue really well for a family audience is Doctor Who. It presents gay and lesbian relationships (between humans and/or aliens) without the sexuality being commented on. All the strange stuff going on around it might even help to normalise this otherwise ‘confusing images’ for the young audience.
Because it’s a family show, parents don’t have to worry about their kids being exposed to butt sex or anything. They save that for the spin-offs.
Brave post man. I’d expect you’d be getting more flak for this. I think some people might share your thoughts but are scared to be labeled anti-gay if they voice their thoughts about the subject.
I personally wouldn’t mind gay people getting the right to marry and such.
Why should the heterosexuals be the only ones to deal with all the problems that come when a marriage breaks down?
As for the post about “Like most red-blooded heterosexual fathers, I wouldn’t want my son to turn out gay. But if he does, I will respect that outcome and love him just as unconditionally as I do now…” you’ll never know until if and when you cross that bridge.