Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Good Quetion

The list.

1. What do you think caused your heterosexuality?

2. When did you decide you were heterosexual?

3. Could it be that your heterosexuality is just a phase?

4. To whom have you disclosed your heterosexuality? How did they react?

5. If you have never slept with someone of your same gender, how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?

6. Is it possible that you just haven't found the right same-gender partner yet?

7. Why do you flaunt your lifestyle with wedding rings, photos at work and talk of your heterosexual escapades?

8. Your heterosexuality doesn't offend me as long as you don't try to come on to me, but why do so many heterosexuals try to seduce others to their orientation?

9. Considering the battering, abuse and divorce rate associated with heterosexual coupling, why would you want to enter into that type of relationship?

10. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?
_______________________________________________________

Updated 05/20/06

Monitoring some of the neocon "outrage" over this incident has shown up their own hypocrisy. The more offended they pretend to be, the more they demonstrate how pointless these same questions really are. When demanded of homosexuals. A slight nuance I'm sure never crossed their pea brains. Let's sit back and watch some of the fireworks.

First up from Rightwinged, a post titled "More Gay Indoctrination In Schools, Awaiting Discipline For Teachers" the author almost shows signs of understanding the purpose of the exercise. In response to this quote from a newspaper article...

Freshman Jaime Reuter said the survey caused such a stir that, even though her class didn't take the survey, her social studies teacher made it part of a class discussion a couple of days later.

Reuter said she would have been offended if asked to take the survey. "I shouldn't have to answer that because it's private information," she said.

... the Rightwingeder writes, "Right on, who's business is it, and what purpose does this serve?" But then immediately following this insight (and totally ignoring it), opines, "The people didn't want to collect information. They are there to push their agendas. Liberals know when to strike impressionable youths, which is why the liberal virus is so prevalent in schools. This should make everyone sick."

Oh Mr./Mrs./Ms. Rightwinged. You were so close.

As a parting shot, the author makes a vague promise/threat "to tear apart each of these questions..." Well, I'm sure there a lot of gays who would appreciate your hard work on their behalf. So, by all means, have at it!

Next from McBride's Media Matters comes a pearl in response to question #5, "If you have never slept with someone of your same gender, how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?" McBride of Frankenstein writes, "This goes farther than just a survey question. It seems to almost advocate for the students to try out homosexuality because - who knows? - they just might not know what they're missing."

What do you know! Imagine how a gay person feels when that question is asked of him/her. McBride?

"Totally outrageous."

You got it and you don't even know you got it.

Matt Margolis of GOP Bloggers apparently feels put upon and unfairly singled out for his heterosexuality and that a survey "that implies that there is something wrong with heterosexuality clearly has an agenda that rightfully so has gotten parents upset. It takes an attitude that heterosexuality is abormal, and yet, teachers seemed to condone it." I presume that last "it" refers to the attitude that heterosexuality is abnormal, not heterosexuality itself.

If so, mission accomplished.

(Except that Matt obviously can't see the irony in his own outrage of course.)

Here's another one that appears to get it. adamelijah of Where I Stand starts out with solid reasoning (even though he's trying to be ironic) with, "Now, this [survey] is the type of thing that liberals will be okay with. After all, the schools are teaching tolerance and that type of virtue is so important, we can spend taxpayer dollars to teach it," but then lapses into typical neocon stoopid with the conclusion, "despite whatever concerns parents have about their kids be propogandized in government funded schools."

Ah yes. Teaching kids to be decent to one another is propaganda. *sigh*

And finally, with Liberty Bell Blues we get a twofer. Dumbbell starts off with the McBride interpretation "that the designers of the survey want to encourage experimentation with homosexuality," and then turns the "choice" argument neatly on it's head (not realizing it of course) with, "But wait -- I thought that people didn't choose it! The prevailing conventional wisdom is that being gay is not a matter of choice."

Thank you dumbbell. Thank you for pointing out the emptiness of the "choice" argument through your mock surprise to this fake question. It shall be a much valued contribution to the gay rights movement. Thank you.

3 comments:

KEvron said...

all of the above.

KEvron

Carl said...

Y'know, I'd probably be bi if it wasn't so damned hard for me to keep male friends already...

Fantod said...

Well! Thanks for sharing, vesti! Your answers are well reasoned and thoughtful (except for the snarky ones :P ).

Now, I'm sure you know that the questions aren't meant to neccessarily be answered, but are more a thought exercise -- the orientational inverse of questions demanded of gays all the time. The difference here, of course, being that you voluntarily answered the questions. If they seemed silly or rude to you -- as at least a couple of them did -- that's because that is the whole point of the survey: to show how silly and rude they really are, regardless of the sexual orientation emphasized in the questions.

I did a little searching through the blogger archives and found some very funny neocon idiots who definitely don't get it. (see update)