November 29, 2007

Oh, the idiocy...the idiocy...

The majority of Star Trek fans are everything that the philosophy of IDIC could possibly want. But every so often, the exact sort of intolerance that is antithetical to the world of Trek rears its head. Witness the following letter to author Andy Mangels, and Andy's scathingly witty reply. Obviously, as the creator of the bi-sexed Burgoyne in "New Frontier," I've found the letter particularly interesting. Although the letter is reprinted with Andy's permission, I've taken the liberty of mercifully omitting the author's name.

Dear Mr. Mangels,
> Thank you for writing stories that reside in the Star Trek Universe. I have
> enjoyed quite a few of your offerings in the past and am a very loyal fan of
> the series ever since it originally aired.
> While trying to catch up on a huge backlog of Star Trek reading, I finally
> got around to reading your Enterprise novel, ‘The Good That Men Do’. I
> really enjoyed the novel, as it very nicely intertwined various broadcasts of the
> series and added a few twists. However, I am very disappointed in your
> creation of a gay couple, Trip Tucker’s brother Albert, into the story near the
> very end. It soiled an ‘up to that point’ excellent read and was totally
> unnecessary.
> This is the first time that I have ever felt the need to comment on anything
> written in the Star Trek genre. But please keep your activism out of the
> Star Trek Universe.
> Sincerely,
(NAME WITHELD BY PAD)
>
>
(ANDY'S RESPONSE)

Thanks for your support in the past, and glad you've enjoyed some of our
writing. I suspect that will now change.

I've forwarded your email to my HETEROSEXUAL co-writer, Michael A. Martin,
who created and wrote the scenes with the gay couple in question, without ANY
prompting from me. I'll let him respond to your bigotry.

Meanwhile, you can thank me - the faggot with the agenda - for writing the
scene with Trip praying early on, and the scene where he discusses church and
faith in God with Phuong. Not the first faith-based scenes I've written for
Trek, and won't be the last. I just don't believe that God condones hatred.

It's sad and pathetic that fans of a series based on the principal "Infinite
Diversity in Infinite Combinations" — and who regularly read and enjoy books
wherein characters of DIFFERENT SPECIES engage in romantic relationships — get
their bigotry hats on when faced with gay characters.

I don't doubt that people who express ideas exactly like yours were similarly
objecting to Uhura and Kirk kissing, but thankfully, such anti-black bigotry
has been beaten back mostly. I look forward to the day when people who hate
others for loving are as unwelcome as a fart in church.

Best,
Andy Mangels

Posted by Peter David at November 29, 2007 05:01 PM | TrackBack | Other blogs commenting
Comments
Posted by: Don at November 29, 2007 05:08 PM

I love Andy's reply. It's right on the mark.

Posted by: Luigi Novi at November 29, 2007 05:22 PM

Eh. I was expecting something far worse. I've certainly read far worse stuff. That yahoo rejected from the remake of Deliverance that wrote into The Incredible Hulk letters page to criticize the issue in which Jim Wilson was revealed to have AIDS, and to argue that Hulk should've killed the homosexual characters in that issue because he's always been a "macho" character, was far more memorable.

I really would've liked Mangels to have asked this guy point-blank, why he follows the adventures of a fiction franchise whose stated ideals are 180 degrees out of phase with his own feelings?

Was this a snail mail, or is it on Mangels' site, or something?

Posted by: Baerbel Haddrell at November 29, 2007 05:23 PM

Some people will never learn but I take some comfort in it that the situation of homosexuals in society in general definitely has changed for the better. That is at least the case in Germany and Britain. In the USA, I can imagine, the situation is different in what is called "The Bible belt" and other regions in which religion plays an important part.

The "gay agenda" discussion comes back again and again whenever gay characters appear in Star Trek books. I have seen these reactions before and, unfortunately, I am sure I will see them again.

By now I usually just write a short comment and leave it with that because I find this discussion so tiresome and pointless. Discussing with people with strong and IMO misguided religious beliefs is like banging your head against the wall.

Posted by: Lee Houston, Junior at November 29, 2007 05:28 PM

The only thing that every bothered me about that sequence was that I thought the only sibling Trip had was a sister who died in the cowardly alien attack on Earth during the TV series.
Otherwise, being a heterosexual male myself, if those who practice that life style do not bother me in the twenty-first century, why should they in the future?

Posted by: Blue Spider at November 29, 2007 05:34 PM

and yet it doesn't sound very warm, tolerant and understanding when one confronts a very honest difference in belief regarding sex, or a discomfort regarding a sexual topic, with an accusation of "bigotry". Generally I find such labellings as acts of bigotry in and of themselves.

Then again, my views on homosexuality I suspect are unusual for a Christian.

Posted by: Todd P. Emerson at November 29, 2007 05:37 PM

Remember that NextGen episode where Riker fell for the alien from a unisexual (?) species, played by the gal from "The A-Team"? The episode that might as well have had big flashing neon signs stating "SYMBOLISM!" in various scenes? I wonder if the author of the note above caught any of the not-so-subtle undertones in that storyline.

I also wonder if he understood why everyone else in the theater was chuckling over the "Have you tried NOT being a mutant?" line in X2.

TPE
(straight, but not narrow-minded)

Posted by: Nick Eden at November 29, 2007 05:41 PM

As a (nominal) Christian I find my views on homosexuality out of step with much of the modern church, but then they seem completely out of step with what Christ had to say on the subject.

Not a thing.

Posted by: David at November 29, 2007 06:03 PM

You know, I've been thinking of trying out the Enterprise relaunch, but wasn't certain if I should. After reading those letters I'm definately adding the books to my reading list.

Posted by: Matt at November 29, 2007 06:09 PM

"...they seem completely out of step with what Christ had to say on the subject.

Not a thing."

Not going to touch that one.

Posted by: Bill at November 29, 2007 06:34 PM

Did this guy have the same problem when Deep Space Nine featured Trek's first lesbian kiss?

Posted by: John at November 29, 2007 06:39 PM

Remember that NextGen episode where Riker fell for the alien from a unisexual (?) species, played by the gal from "The A-Team"?

Jonathan Frakes made it clear in at least one Q&A at a convention I was at that he had asked the directors to cast a male in the role. He wanted it to be a lot less symbolic. Alas, they didn't.

Posted by: John Seavey at November 29, 2007 06:44 PM

Actually, when Nick Eden says that the Catholic Church is out of step with what Christ said about homosexuality, he's being accurate. Most of the material on homosexuality in the Bible comes from Leviticus, and Christ was silent (at least as far as in the Gospels) as to his views on the canonicity of the Old Testament. The Church, as an establishment, made a decision to include the Old Testament as canonical text, in part to add historical legitimacy to a newly established religion.

Paul also came down against homosexuality (among other things), but then again, Paul had a hard time establishing his legitimacy within the Church establishment, because he had never met Christ physically, only seen him in visions. The decision to include his letters as part of the New Testament was a sign that he had managed to establish himself as a major decider in Catholic doctrine.

(All the above, BTW, comes from a fascinating book called, 'The Closing of the Western Mind', which goes into great detail on how the Catholic Church established itself, how the early Church settled important matters such as "what went into the Bible", and how ultimately, the Church-as-authority was born, as opposed to the Church-as-spiritual-guide. It's very interesting stuff.)

Posted by: Bill Mulligan at November 29, 2007 06:57 PM

and yet it doesn't sound very warm, tolerant and understanding when one confronts a very honest difference in belief regarding sex, or a discomfort regarding a sexual topic, with an accusation of "bigotry".

If the guy was objecting to a totally our of left field sex scene I could see your point but it seems to me that he was objecting to the very idea of gays existing in the Star Trek universe.

Posted by: Jay at November 29, 2007 07:05 PM

I like the reply from Mangels.

Posted by: Sean at November 29, 2007 07:49 PM

I sit here shaking my head. Now, since I've been around the "alternative" types for a really long time, I don't really even take note. Since I first saw either the Next Gen or DS9 episodes alluded to before, and the sadly inevitable outcry, I said, "It's the same thing as the Kirk/Uhura kiss. Couple of years, won't even be an issue." Guess I'll have to wait a couple more years.

Just wait until Mr. Witheld(is that of the Atlanta or Boston Withelds, I wonder?) sees Blood and Fire.

Posted by: Dwight Williams at November 29, 2007 08:18 PM

Possibly the Wichita Withhelds, as well.

No, on second thought, strike that. I don't see them as ever having allowed anything to do with Trek into their households. And sadly, there are Withhelds in Ottawa to this day as well.

Posted by: Andy at November 29, 2007 08:31 PM

While I generally agree with Mangels reply I do have two points of contention with it.

My first point, and here it would help if I had read the story, which I haven't, is that the original poster seemed (to me at least) to be saying that he objected to the addition of the gay relation as being unnecessary. My reading was that he wasn't saying that having a gay brother in it self was wrong, but that it was added in a way that was not part of advancing the story, but rather just to get an obligatory gay couple reference in to appeal to anyone who is looking for that support. I could easily be wrong here, but that was my reading of the initial comment.

Secondly, perhaps Mangels filtered the letter with an apparent (perhaps slight) hyper-sensitivity to gay culture. The initial response was relatively benign (while the "keep your activism out of my Star Trek" is certainly presumptuous I don't know that you can necessarily assume that it is bigotry). Mangels' response appears to me to be a bit of an over-reaction.

Mangels escalates the discussion with an ad hominem attack of labeling the original poster of bigotry. That is weak argumentatively as it appeals to emotion rather than logic...Spock would disapprove ;)

P.S. John - not sure how you can say that Christ was silent on the canonicity of the OT. That he frequently quoted it and explicitly said that he was not here to remove the law but rather to fulfill it seems to me to clearly indicate that he did support the OT. Not particularly germane to the initial post, but that first statement seems a little far fetched to me. The rest of your comments I can agree with.

Posted by: roger Tang at November 29, 2007 08:50 PM

he initial response was relatively benign (while the "keep your activism out of my Star Trek" is certainly presumptuous I don't know that you can necessarily assume that it is bigotry)

That's funny. I certainly would.

Posted by: Joe Nazzaro at November 29, 2007 08:55 PM

Andy, while it may not be a popular stand on this site, I tend to agree about Mangels' response. Despite the way Peter prefaced it, I found it scathing but not all that witty. That being said, if I had been sent that same letter, I probably would have been totally scathing and not at all witty, so it would be unfair to putself in somebody else's shoes when I haven't walked in them.

The problem of course is that when you respond to ignorance with wit, your point can often go right over the head of the person you're responding to, so maybe a bit of bite is necessary.

Regarding how the bible deals with homosexuality, I'm enough of a pragmatist to understand that new and old testaments were written by men who each had their own subjective point of view, each of whom was re-written and re-translated by countless other men over the past several hundred years, each with their own respective points of view. I'm reminded of the time many years ago when a group of Jehovah's witness arrived at my family's house and started quoting scripture. When my dad pointed out that they were in fact wrongly quoting the passage in question, the speaker tried to bluff his way through by saying it was just a difference in one edition of the bible over another. What he hadn't realized was that my dad was a deacon in the Catholic church, who then invited them in and confronted them with just about every edition you can imagine. After that, I think we were put on the Jehovah's Witness 'do not call' list, as I don't think we were ever visited again.

And Sean, you beat me to the punch with your comment about 'Blood and Fire.' If the Star Trek fan in question ever manages to download the New Frontier episode, directed by a gay director and featuring a gay couple (one of whom is Kirk's nephew no less) I think his head might explode.

Posted by: Joe Nazzaro at November 29, 2007 09:00 PM

I meant Star Trek: New Voyages of course. Boy, am I going to get hammered for getting that wrong!

Posted by: Christine at November 29, 2007 09:25 PM

Joe wrote: After that, I think we were put on the Jehovah's Witness 'do not call' list, as I don't think we were ever visited again.

Sounds like a friend of mine. She used to invite them in for a friendly debate any time they knocked.


Bill wrote:Did this guy have the same problem when Deep Space Nine featured Trek's first lesbian kiss?

That's an interesting question. I've talked with folks who are totally skeeved by male partners, but had absolutely no problem with lesbians. Odd, but true...


From the original letter:But please keep your activism out of the Star Trek Universe.

Interesting that he assumes that it is activism that prompted the inclusion of the relationship.

I haven't had an opportunity to read the book yet, so maybe one of you can tell me. Was the relationship a natural fit into the story or did it seem to be a throw in?

Posted by: Ed at November 29, 2007 09:53 PM

I haven't read the book/story, just the reprinted letter. But I find myself agreeing more with Andy's comments, than Mr. Mangels' reply.

I could easily believe that the original letter writer was 1. gay him/herself, but not particularly militant about it, 2. felt that the couples' inclusion WAS unnecessary and a detriment to the enjoyment of the story. Maybe the letter writer is an English professor, and lectures on story structure.

Whatever the motivation, the reply sure seemed over the top.


Posted by: John Conner at November 29, 2007 09:57 PM

As a straight guy who works in theatre please allow me to dispell a myth... There is no gay agenda, if you do not believe me get any two gay men together and try and plan anything... (swear to god it will take less time to eat dinner than it will take you to figure out where to eat)

John

Posted by: Conor E at November 29, 2007 09:57 PM

Keep activism out of Star Trek? I get the impression this guy's never actually seen an episode.

Posted by: Luigi Novi at November 29, 2007 09:58 PM

Andy: Mangels escalates the discussion with an ad hominem attack of labeling the original poster of bigotry.
Luigi Novi: That was not an ad hominem attack. It would only have been an ad hominem attack if Mangels relied on that assertion as somehow being the counterpoint that refuted the Mr. X's statements. He didn't. That Mr. X is a bigot is Mangels reaction to Mr. X's attitudes. It was not, in and of itself, a refutation of his statements. It is not an ad hominem argument to call a spade a spade, particularly if the label is accurate.

Todd P. Emerson: Remember that NextGen episode where Riker fell for the alien from a unisexual (?) species, played by the gal from "The A-Team"? The episode that might as well have had big flashing neon signs stating "SYMBOLISM!" in various scenes? I wonder if the author of the note above caught any of the not-so-subtle undertones in that storyline.
Luigi Novi: What makes me roll my eyes regarding reaction to that episode is the religious fundamentalists who thought the episode "should have been balanced with the other side."

Posted by: David Gian-Cursio at November 29, 2007 10:09 PM

I could easily believe that the original letter writer was 1. gay him/herself, but not particularly militant about it, 2. felt that the couples' inclusion WAS unnecessary and a detriment to the enjoyment of the story. Maybe the letter writer is an English professor, and lectures on story structure.

Well, then that begs a question. If Trip's brother was shown married to a woman, would the exact same criticism apply? If so, you have a point. If not, then it is pretty apparent that the reaction of the letter writer boils down to "Ew, look, queers in Trek! Gross!"

Posted by: Doug Atkinson at November 29, 2007 10:32 PM

That yahoo rejected from the remake of Deliverance that wrote into The Incredible Hulk letters page to criticize the issue in which Jim Wilson was revealed to have AIDS, and to argue that Hulk should've killed the homosexual characters in that issue because he's always been a "macho" character, was far more memorable.

Yeah, every time someone bemoans the lack of letter columns in modern comics, I think of that letter. They weren't all filled by the likes of T.M. Maple...

Posted by: Mike at November 29, 2007 10:34 PM

What's the difference between Andy Mangels's response and political correctness? Bill and others here have portrayed political correctness as something heinous, but for some reason the political correctness of Mangels calling an expressed displeasure at gay activism homophobic-bigotry is ok. How is the political correctness scare not meant to dismiss responses like the one made by Mangels?

Posted by: Rob at November 29, 2007 10:39 PM

I'd find the gay reference in Mangel and Martin's story just fine - except that every single Star trek Book I've read by them contains a gay character or couple. To me, it is very much activism.

Posted by: Laura at November 29, 2007 10:49 PM

I could easily believe that the original letter writer was 1. gay him/herself, but not particularly militant about it, 2. felt that the couples' inclusion WAS unnecessary and a detriment to the enjoyment of the story. Maybe the letter writer is an English professor, and lectures on story structure.

An English professor using "creation of a gay couple... into the story" ? I hope not... I really don't want to imagine that someone could get a Ph.D. in English and then write such a ridiculous sentence...

---

If Trip's brother was shown married to a woman, would the exact same criticism apply?

A very good question. However, the writer's choice of words indicates that it probably would not. The complaint is not about the unnecessary addition of a lover for Trip's brother, but about the "creation of a gay couple."

---

By the way... where does it say the letter-writer was male?

Posted by: Laura at November 29, 2007 10:53 PM

I'd find the gay reference in Mangel and Martin's story just fine - except that every single Star trek Book I've read by them contains a gay character or couple. To me, it is very much activism.

Sounds more like realism than activism to me. I've always thought "one in ten" was a terribly conservative estimate.

Posted by: Janice at November 29, 2007 11:05 PM

I'm a little surprised at the irony here.

The unnamed author never said WHY he took issue with the homosexual storyline, other than that he felt he was being subjected to unwanted activism. Yet Mr. Mangels' reply seems to assume that someone who was against a gay character in his story would automatically be in favor of the faith-based parts of the story.

That's it's own little bit o' prejudice, isn't it?

Posted by: JamesLynch at November 29, 2007 11:29 PM

One advantage of science fiction is that it can tackle controversial and/or taboo subjects in a tangential way by setting them on other worlds or with other species. ("It's sorta like our problems here, but it's someplace else in the future; so I guess it's okay.")

I've see TREK engage this -- on the shows, anyway; I haveb't read the books -- a number of times: the "lesbian kiss" in DS9 (though technically not, since Trill are asexual symbiants whose hosts are often of differing genders; boy, do I feel like a geek), T'Pal's AIDS-like illness the Vulcans didn't want to treat because they conmdemned how it was transmitted, a reference to a murder victim having both wives and husbands in DS9, the abovementioned NEXT GEN episode where Riker fell in love with an androgynous alien for whom engaging with a male was forbidden, etc.

Personally, I'd like to see a regular gay character on the shows. One of the biggest assets for a movement to gain respectability is to give them role models, people can look at both inside and outside the group and say "they're not evil or stereotypical -- just look at that!" And while having the occasional themed episode is nice (if sometimes heavy handed) or a gay character in passing, a series regular would be a big step. If memory serves, there were lots of African-American one-episode characters on the original STAR TREK, but Uhura is considered the groundbreaking one because she was a series regular, someone we got to know more about and see every week.

The challenge is how television writers could have a regular gay character without making their sexuality the focus of the character. But on a show with inter-species and human-robot love, I think a gay person would seem downright normal :-)

Posted by: Bryan Grantham at November 30, 2007 12:10 AM

I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but I have been waging an inner uphill battle for decades about homosexuality, because I was sexually abused by a homosexual doctor from the time that I was a 4-year-old until my early teens. It was only when puberty kicked in, and my awareness about my own raging heterosexuality came into play, that I was able to break away from that situation (by no longer going to that doctor). For many years since, red flags went up any time I encountered someone who said (or seemd as if)they were homosexual, because in my life experience, just from that one doctor, "homosexual" meant "abuser" - of trust, sexual identity, whatever. I would like to believe that if it wasn't for one sexual predator, my thinking would be different, but I can't swear to it. My only clue is that only MALE homosexuals scare me, not female. Like I said, it's an uphill battle, so please don't think that all people who are ambivalent towards homosexuality or even bisexuality (or even "try-sexuality) are all bigots... maybe some of us are still just scared little kids deep down.

Posted by: Laura at November 30, 2007 12:25 AM

The challenge is how television writers could have a regular gay character without making their sexuality the focus of the character.

*cough cough* See Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon as an example. Of course, for the American dub they completely ruined an interesting but largely unobtrusive relationship by calling them "cousins."

---

I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but I have been waging an inner uphill battle for decades about homosexuality, because I was sexually abused by a homosexual doctor from the time that I was a 4-year-old until my early teens.

That's terrible, and I'm very sorry you went through it. But you're not talking about a homosexual - you're talking about a pedophile and an abuser. I believe the relevant research indicates that the people who sexually abuse boys are not usually attracted to men at all.

The way you feel is similar to a woman who has been raped and is thereafter afraid of all men... talk therapy is probably the best way to deal with it.

Posted by: roger Tang at November 30, 2007 12:26 AM
The unnamed author never said WHY he took issue with the homosexual storyline, other than that he felt he was being subjected to unwanted activism. Yet Mr. Mangels' reply seems to assume that someone who was against a gay character in his story would automatically be in favor of the faith-based parts of the story.

That's it's own little bit o' prejudice, isn't it?

Given that anti-homosexual sentiment is frequently connected with religious motivations (and almost always so on the political level), no, I don't think so.

Posted by: Bryan Grantham at November 30, 2007 12:58 AM

From Laura: That's terrible, and I'm very sorry you went through it. But you're not talking about a homosexual - you're talking about a pedophile and an abuser. I believe the relevant research indicates that the people who sexually abuse boys are not usually attracted to men at all.

Reply from Bryan:

Thank you. You have given me something to think about. I do want to point out, though, that I really meant to bring across that my point of view had been warped by this doctor, not that it was reality. He had a homosexual partner, and it now seems that many people in that small town "knew about him", but chose to look the other way. There may be many other "boys" who went through the same experience. I'm not trying to excuse prejudice, but when my point of view has been tainted by personal experience, it may seem to uninformed people that I am just a bigot (which I hope I'm not). I hope I am making sense, and not just making things worse. I have homosexual relatives who are warm, humorous people, and I wouldn't hurt them for the world, but I cannot discuss this with them for fear of being misunderstood.

Posted by: Luigi Novi at November 30, 2007 01:32 AM

Janice: The unnamed author never said WHY he took issue with the homosexual storyline, other than that he felt he was being subjected to unwanted activism.
Luigi Novi: And what criteria was he/she applying when applying that label? How does he know that Mangels' intent was one of "activism", and not simply a sincere attempt to write stories and characters that would appeal both to him and his readers? Was Peter being an "activist" when he created Burgoyne? For that matter, what does this letter writer see as wrong with activism in the first place? If it was not presented in a naturalistic or subtle way, or in a venue not typified by such things, I'd understand, but again, this is Star Trek. It has always been "activist" in its use of allegorical morality tales. How is this any different, aside from the fact that homosexuals are the particular group that this one letter writer happens to have reservations about?

Again, if this person doesn't want diversity or allegory in the stories he/she reads, why is he/she reading Star Trek???

It's like watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and saying, "except for all that awful violence!"

Posted by: Luigi Novi at November 30, 2007 01:38 AM

Bryan Grantham: so please don't think that all people who are ambivalent towards homosexuality or even bisexuality (or even "try-sexuality) are all bigots... maybe some of us are still just scared little kids deep down.
Luigi Novi: And isn't that what all bigotry is derived from? Fear, ignorance, misconception, poor prior experiences, etc.? I would tend not to label you a bigot, because you have the decency and presence of mind to analyze the derivation of these feelings, and to make a conscious effort to move beyond them. That you admit the things you have demonstrates courage. The people that I think are accurately labeled "bigots" are those who do none of these things, but just form some opinion about a person or group based on a preconception, and become perfectly comfortable with that state of mind, making no effort to examine it, and having no compunction about using it as a reference point from which to criticize or attack that person or group, or its defenders.

Posted by: mike weber at November 30, 2007 02:01 AM

Posted by: John Conner

As a straight guy who works in theatre please allow me to dispell a myth... There is no gay agenda, if you do not believe me get any two gay men together and try and plan anything...

Couple of years ago, Atlanta-based-nationally=syndicated-right-wing-libertarian talk radio host Neal Boortz was reacting to the "Defense of Marriage" act by saying that he saw no problem with gay marriage, since it didn't change straight marriage in any way.

His right-hand man, Royal Marshall (sort of a black Ed McMahon, but funnier), said that he could explain, in three words, why he thought gay m,arriage shouldn't be allowed:

"Gay divorce court."

Posted by: Blue Spider at November 30, 2007 02:22 AM

"As a straight guy who works in theatre please allow me to dispell a myth... There is no gay agenda, if you do not believe me get any two gay men together and try and plan anything... (swear to god it will take less time to eat dinner than it will take you to figure out where to eat)"

That's a very clever joke and it goes entirely against the reality that I have witnessed as a student on a University campus.

I have been amused so much just watching one set of rightwing bigots square off a whole bunch of leftwing bigots. I'm not at all certain which side was the most hateful and derisive at heart (I refuse to assume matters of the heart when it comes to love and hate) but I could tell which side was the most threatening, rude and nasty.

Naturally the leftists assume I was with the right-wing bigots; which is logical given my politics, but utterly dumbassed considering I showed up to force the fulfillment of the promise of food... NOT so I can be seen at the event.

I don't always know political activism when I see it but I have seen an awful lot of it, and an awful lot of blatant political activism.... angry, hateful homosexuals. Angry, hateful "Allies" as the leftwing heterosexuals are called.

Since sometime in the nineties I swear the people using the term "bigot" the most are the ones flinging it ad hominem, and are usually the most bigoted ones.

Did I spell "ad hominem" correctly? I cannot look it up and the spell checker doesn't know.

It's funny for a lefty to condemn someone as a bigot for holding to their religious dogma... when that condemnation comes from holding to lefty dogma religiously.

Posted by: Thomas E. Reed at November 30, 2007 02:29 AM

(Funny how TypeKey sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.)

I'd really question the premise mentioned about racial prejudice being batted back, or driven back, or whatever. You probably won't hear it here, because there are remarkably few black people in science fiction fandom. (Look around the convention; does it look like there's eight percent of blacks in the crowds? That'd be one out of twelve, for easier counting.)

I would contend that prejudice doesn't diminsh as much as it shifts. You could ask Islamic/Middle Eastern-looking folk about that. And at least one Alabama Senator refers to "illegal immigrants" in the same tone as white racists talked about blacks.

(See this link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2374382 )

I don't think the human race, as a whole, will ever get rid of prejudice. It is the cockroach of the human soul.

Posted by: JosephW at November 30, 2007 02:51 AM

Posted by: Rob at November 29, 2007 10:39 PM
I'd find the gay reference in Mangel and Martin's story just fine - except that every single Star trek Book I've read by them contains a gay character or couple. To me, it is very much activism.

Well, it probably wouldn't look so "activist" if OTHER Trek writers took it upon themselves in creating other LGBT characters to populate the series.

Posted by: Janice at November 29, 2007 11:05 PM
I'm a little surprised at the irony here.

The unnamed author never said WHY he took issue with the homosexual storyline, other than that he felt he was being subjected to unwanted activism. Yet Mr. Mangels' reply seems to assume that someone who was against a gay character in his story would automatically be in favor of the faith-based parts of the story.

That's it's own little bit o' prejudice, isn't it?

Well, go back and read the letter again. The unnamed author didn't like "the gay" AT ALL. (To quote: "It soiled an ‘up to that point’ excellent read and was totally unnecessary." Exactly WHAT about that comment needs an "explanation"?) Further, WHY did the unnamed author choose to write to (the openly gay author) Andy Mangels about his displeasure over the inclusion of "the gay"? The unnamed author chose to vent his displeasure over "the gay" by writing to "the gay" (who, in his mind, obviously was responsible) since, clearly, no good heterosexual author could possibly choose to create and then include a gay character within a story. (If you noted sarcasm there, good eye.)
And, I'd point out that Andy was quite likely pointing out that the "faggot with the agenda" was responsible for showing a side of Trip that wasn't exactly explored on the TV show (I certainly don't recall Trip being depicted as a person who would find much, if any, comfort in religion--when he learned of his sister's death, he was far more concerned with getting revenge than expressing any concern over his sister's soul).

Posted by: Bill Mulligan at November 30, 2007 06:52 AM

Bryan Grantham-- Thanks for having the guts to discuss this. The fact that you understand where yore feelings come from and don't try to use your terrible experience to tar all members of a group with the actions of one means you are no bigot.

Tell me though, was anything ever done to stop this guy?

His right-hand man, Royal Marshall (sort of a black Ed McMahon, but funnier), said that he could explain, in three words, why he thought gay marriage shouldn't be allowed:

"Gay divorce court."

Oh come on! from a train wreck perspective that's a GREAT reason to allow it! It won't be pretty but reality usually isn't. (I don't know about Mr. Marshall but one of my best friends, who is also gay, said pretty much the exact same thing).

Posted by: Mike at November 30, 2007 08:35 AM

The unnamed author never said WHY he took issue with the homosexual storyline, other than that he felt he was being subjected to unwanted activism. Yet Mr. Mangels' reply seems to assume that someone who was against a gay character in his story would automatically be in favor of the faith-based parts of the story.

That's it's own little bit o' prejudice, isn't it?

Given that anti-homosexual sentiment is frequently connected with religious motivations (and almost always so on the political level), no, I don't think so.

Arbitrarily referring to a prejudiced model as true does not disqualify it from being prejudice. There is no dissemination of a prejudiced model under the pretense of innaccuracy, there is only the dissemination of a prejudiced model under the pretense of accuracy.

Well, go back and read the letter again. The unnamed author didn't like "the gay" AT ALL. (To quote: "It soiled an ‘up to that point’ excellent read and was totally unnecessary." Exactly WHAT about that comment needs an "explanation"?) Further, WHY did the unnamed author choose to write to (the openly gay author) Andy Mangels about his displeasure over the inclusion of "the gay"? The unnamed author chose to vent his displeasure over "the gay" by writing to "the gay" (who, in his mind, obviously was responsible) since, clearly, no good heterosexual author could possibly choose to create and then include a gay character within a story. (If you noted sarcasm there, good eye.)

And, I'd point out that Andy was quite likely pointing out that the "faggot with the agenda" was responsible for showing a side of Trip that wasn't exactly explored on the TV show (I certainly don't recall Trip being depicted as a person who would find much, if any, comfort in religion--when he learned of his sister's death, he was far more concerned with getting revenge than expressing any concern over his sister's soul).

While you haven't demonstrated why Name Withheld saying he doesn't like "the gay" means his bigotry is faith-based, you've twice quoted him chastising "the gay" without that string even appearing in his cited message.

Posted by: Clay Eichelberger at November 30, 2007 09:41 AM

Have to say, not having been a fan of Enterprise in general, I haven't read any of the books. After reading this thread, that will change - there's been a copy of "The Good That Men Do" sitting on the shelf at my local Borders for some time now, silently entreating me to buy it. I think I'll finally do so.

Posted by: Peter at November 30, 2007 09:57 AM

Odd how the reader is a big fan of Star Trek books, but has not commented on the homosexual relationships in Corps of Engineers, and wasn't there something in TNG books in that series that led up to the events in Nemesis?

Mangels response seems emotion based, but he's entitled to that right.

Posted by: kyle at November 30, 2007 12:14 PM

All this talk of toleration, yet I don’t see a one of you tolerating the letters author’s bigotry….
IDIC indeed, for shame…for shame

Posted by: kyle at November 30, 2007 12:14 PM

All this talk of toleration, yet I don’t see a one of you tolerating the letters author’s bigotry….
IDIC indeed, for shame…for shame

Posted by: Luigi Novi at November 30, 2007 01:13 PM

Peter: Odd how the reader is a big fan of Star Trek books, but has not commented on the homosexual relationships in Corps of Engineers, and wasn't there something in TNG books in that series that led up to the events in Nemesis?
Luigi Novi: How is this "odd"? He/she presumably didn't read those books. I sure didn't.

Posted by: Alan Coil at November 30, 2007 01:19 PM

I have little tolerance for intolerance.

Posted by: Rob at November 30, 2007 01:31 PM

I read the Corps books. While they include a gay character, and he makes frequent references to his partner back home, it's not wedged into the story the way Mangels & Martin do it.

Posted by: Robert Fuller at November 30, 2007 02:02 PM

Eh, I was expecting something I could really be outraged by, but that's just run of the mill homophobia, the kind I see every day. I've read much worse, including one on the letters page of Young Avengers, which incited me to write a rebuttal (which didn't get published).

Posted by: Peter J Poole at November 30, 2007 02:15 PM

Firstly I wonder if the writer of the comment actually meant "soiled" or just mis-typed "spoiled".

Secondly, if you support the right - for want of a better word - to be gay you kind of have to support the right to be a bigoted git. Hopefully evolution will catch up eventually.

Personally, there are only two circumstances in which I care AT ALL about a person's gender preferences; if I fancy her or if he fancies me.

Been there, done that, survived, both cases.

Moving on now.

Cheers.

Posted by: Bryan Grantham at November 30, 2007 02:22 PM

Thanks to all for the kind comments. I don't want to distract from the thread subject, so I will just reply to Bill M.

As far as I know, the only thing that will stop this guy is death. A lot of time has passed, and I will always hope that whatever damage he may have done will be turned to the good someday, and that when he passes from the mortal plain, he will be able to review and fit how his actions defined him in this life, and how next he would like to proceed. I don't want to sound all "New-Age"-y, but that is how I really feel. However, emotionally it is still something I struggle with. Thanks again, everyone.

Bryan

Posted by: Janice at November 30, 2007 02:31 PM

From roger Tang: "Given that anti-homosexual sentiment is frequently connected with religious motivations (and almost always so on the political level), no, I don't think so."

Of course the two often go hand-in-hand, but read the letter. There was no hint at all that the guy was religious. Yet Mr. Mangels and most of the posters on this thread are talking about religion. I'm not a big fan of gay-haters or bible-thumpers. But one does not necessarily follow the other and to assume that it does it most certainly prejudicial. Further, to see such a nice bunch of folks who so obviously value the IDIC principles allow themselves to, so easily, make prejudiced assumptions is fabulously ironic.

So, I guess my point is that people who live in glass houses shouldn't call the kettle black no matter what universe they're in.

Posted by: Craig J. Ries at November 30, 2007 02:39 PM

All this talk of toleration, yet I don’t see a one of you tolerating the letters author’s bigotry….

That would work on the poor presumption that bigotry is acceptable.

Which, of course, it shouldn't be.

Posted by: roger Tang at November 30, 2007 04:54 PM
Of course the two often go hand-in-hand, but read the letter. There was no hint at all that the guy was religious. Yet Mr. Mangels and most of the posters on this thread are talking about religion. I'm not a big fan of gay-haters or bible-thumpers. But one does not necessarily follow the other and to assume that it does it most certainly prejudicial.

No, I would still deny that.

At most, this is an assumption that will turn out not to be true, which is not the same as prejudice. Foolish, but hardly prejudice.

Mangels is not attacking religion, nor is he condemning religion as a whole or even a particular sect of religion. At most, he is criticizing a particular interpretation of religion, one which is not universally shared within the proponents. That hardly qualifies as prejudice.

This sort of distortion really weakens the language.

Posted by: roger Tang at November 30, 2007 04:59 PM

Moreover, consider that Mangels has most certainly been the target of anti-homosexual bigotry. He certainly has experience with it, and knows all too well what goes with it. Telling him that HE's the one being prejudiced seems to be a bit too close to blaming the victim. He could very well be mistaken in his assumptions...but prejudiced? Meh.

Posted by: Derek at November 30, 2007 05:05 PM

"Remember that NextGen episode where Riker fell for the alien from a unisexual (?) species, played by the gal from "The A-Team"? "

In the episode, "she" decided her sexual identity was female after falling for Riker. I always thought it would be amusing to see Riker's reaction if she had decided that she was male after being with Riker.

Posted by: ChicagoDon at November 30, 2007 05:11 PM

Hatred is ugly, not matter the form it takes; the shocking outburst of Michael Richards, the drunken ramblings of Mel Gibson or the response made by Andy Mangels.

My father, whenever he got cut off would yell "bitch" at the other driver. He never bothered to check if the other driver was a man or a woman. He was simply a woman hating, wife beating ahole, and everyone who upset him was instantly 'as low as' a woman. That is EXACTLY what Andy did in his response. He got pushed, then pushed back at the group that he wants the attacker to be a part of.

Now some of you might argue that Andy was justified in his reply because many, many people who are homophobes claim to be religious. Well, there was a 50/50 chance that the driver that cut off my dad was a woman. His occasionally being correct about the gender doesn't make his outburst 'right' all of a sudden. It doesn't make it fair either.

It is reasonable to believe that the author of the letter is homophobic (his use of 'soiled' convinced me of that), but Andy Mangels chose to display his own anti-religious bigotry. That's OK though. Religious people are worthy of disdain because they choose their identity. That choice in lifestyle makes them 'fair game’ to attack, on par with fat people, gun owners, or smokers (it must suck to be all four...). If contempt for religion was not so commonplace, then why did almost everyone who has called themselves religious on this page need to qualify it? Why did they need to say 'I'm religious, but I'm one of the good 'uns...'?

Maybe what anti-religious bigotry needs is a word like 'homophobe'; a word that reflects the hate back on its source. That way it can be identified, and eventually shamed out of existence. The word atheist doesn't work because it is a legitimate stance in the non-existence of a god, and is not by itself an attack on religion. Heretic and infidel are also inaccurate, archaic and corny. Theophobe? Religicist? Someone should work on that.

PAD, you said you found his response "interesting", but didn't spell out what you found interesting about it. Was that it? Was his counterassault on religious people the compelling part of this exchange? You attend religious services, so you are part of the group he is dumping into the homophobe camp. Is that why you mentioned Burgy at the beginning of your post? Did you feel a need to flash your 'street cred' in order to defend yourself?

Posted by: roger Tang at November 30, 2007 05:31 PM
It is reasonable to believe that the author of the letter is homophobic (his use of 'soiled' convinced me of that), but Andy Mangels chose to display his own anti-religious bigotry

You are assuming that Mangels himself is not religious. This is contradicted by his response.

NOW who's being prejudiced?

Posted by: Doug Atkinson at November 30, 2007 06:24 PM

So Mangels demonstrates his "anti-religious bigotry" by talking about his positive depiction of religious belief in the books, and invoking his view of God? Uh-huh.

Posted by: Thom Purdy at November 30, 2007 06:38 PM

Thomas E. Reed said "I don't think the human race, as a whole, will ever get rid of prejudice. It is the cockroach of the human soul."

Every living creature on the planet is prejudiced. It's a survival instinct. Of course we won't get rid of it. The key is to recognise and control it so that it doesn't control you.
As a white hetero male raised as a liberal Democrat, I like to pride myself on the idea that I don't hate anybody, or any group of people. But I know I have prejudices. If I see a group of young black males dressed in baggy "hip hop" style clothes walking towards me, I feel nervous. If the same group is dressed in suits, I don't worry at all. Since all but one homosexual male I have ever met(that I know of) have been really cool and decent guys, I've never developed any negative feelings towards them.(and since I don't have the best of luck with the ladies, I'm just as glad for less competition.)
"I realize that there are those people who do not love their fellow man, and I HATE people like that!" - Tom Lehrer

Posted by: Peter David at November 30, 2007 07:44 PM

PAD, you said you found his response "interesting", but didn't spell out what you found interesting about it. Was that it? Was his counterassault on religious people the compelling part of this exchange? You attend religious services, so you are part of the group he is dumping into the homophobe camp. Is that why you mentioned Burgy at the beginning of your post? Did you feel a need to flash your 'street cred' in order to defend yourself?

Uh...no. To even ask that question, you literally rewrote--at least in your own head--my initial post. I in fact did NOT mention Burgy at the beginning of the post. I mentioned hir toward the latter part of the post, specifically in conjunction with my saying I found the letter "interesting." For you to make the associations that you have, you had to take apart my post and put it back together in a random order so as to ascribe meaning other than what was blindingly obvious: Because I created a character who had sexual liaisons with both genders set in the Trek universe--a character that has been, I should mention, embraced by the gay community--I found a letter laced with homophobia to be interesting. Anything else you're ascribing to it indicates an almost aggressive attempt to misunderstand what I wrote. Frankly whenever I see such aggressive misunderstanding, typically there's some other agenda at work. Usually it becomes evident in subsequent posts, so I'll wait and see.

PAD

Posted by: Janice at November 30, 2007 08:33 PM

roger Tang: "At most, this is an assumption that will turn out not to be true, which is not the same as prejudice. Foolish, but hardly prejudice.

Mangels is not attacking religion, nor is he condemning religion as a whole or even a particular sect of religion. At most, he is criticizing a particular interpretation of religion, one which is not universally shared within the proponents. That hardly qualifies as prejudice.

This sort of distortion really weakens the language."

My friend, let's not overcomplicate this. I never implied that he was attacking religion. I said that I found it "ironic" that Mangel's response and the subsequent posts on this thread turned towards the topic of religion when the original letter made absolutely no mention of any religion of any variety.

It's ironic because the community of posters on this thread seem to be very pro-diversity. Yet it didn't seem to occur to anyone that the dope who wrote about not enjoying the gay stuff in the book might not care one lick about religion. He wrote a couple of idiotic sentences (idiotic because if he can't accept gays in a Trek universe, then he just doesn't get Trek,) and a pretty big group of folks who don't want to pre-judge folks based on minimal information did exactly that. I don't think any less of anyone for it. It's just kind of funny how easily we can slip into that sort of behavior. So let's have a little chuckle at ourselves, okay?

Just to be abundantly clear, I do not begrudge Mr. Mangel one word of his response. That was between him and the letter-writer.

Posted by: Jerry Chandler at November 30, 2007 09:50 PM

Late to the game…

Blue Spider: “and yet it doesn't sound very warm, tolerant and understanding when one confronts a very honest difference in belief regarding sex, or a discomfort regarding a sexual topic, with an accusation of "bigotry". Generally I find such labellings as acts of bigotry in and of themselves.”

Spider, I’m not sure you can honestly say that here or about the objections being raised to the letter writer. This wasn’t an objection to a plotline, a subplot or a major story device that was used in any way, shape or form to push an agenda” or some such nonsense. This was a couple of characters just showing up and someone taking the time to write and complain that “It soiled an ‘up to that point’ excellent read” for the simple reason that a gay couple was described in the book to have existed at all in the Trek universe.

Anyone who would write in and complain that a heterosexual couple being written into a story “soiled” a novel for them would be rightly called an idiot and a crank. Anyone writing in, and for the first time if the letter writer is to be believed, to complain that the mere existence of a gay couple in the tail end of a book “soiled” the entire reading experience is also rightly called an idiot, a crank or a bigot.

Sean: “Guess I'll have to wait a couple more years.”

That’s optimistic. Maybe a couple more decades is the unfortunate reality.

Andy: “Secondly, perhaps Mangels filtered the letter with an apparent (perhaps slight) hyper-sensitivity to gay culture. The initial response was relatively benign (while the "keep your activism out of my Star Trek" is certainly presumptuous I don't know that you can necessarily assume that it is bigotry).”

The letter writer’s comment…

” However, I am very disappointed in your creation of a gay couple, Trip Tucker’s brother Albert, into the story near the very end.”

… would seem to lean heavily towards a bigoted nature. We can’t know for sure, but how likely is it that this guy has ever written any letters to the Trek writers for creating straight couples in any part of their stories? Throw in the “activism” comment and you’re likely looking at someone who hates the idea of having gay couples even acknowledged to even exist in whatever fiction that he’s reading. Despite what you feel was a benign nature; I get a lot of this kind of thing around my work environment all the time. We get protesters and groups all the time who use the exact same language and phrasing. If those relatively “benign” individuals could get their way, there would be no acknowledgements or references to gays anywhere for any reason other then to condemn them for “their sins” and whatnot.

Christine: “That's an interesting question. I've talked with folks who are totally skeeved by male partners, but had absolutely no problem with lesbians. Odd, but true...”

Ditto. And, just hazarding a guess here, most of the people you know who hate gays but express no real problems with lesbians are male? Can’t figure out why I think that may be the case…

Kyle: “All this talk of toleration, yet I don’t see a one of you tolerating the letters author’s bigotry…. IDIC indeed, for shame…for shame”

And would you feel the same if the letter writer was complaining that the existence of an interracial couple or a non-Christian couple “soiled” the entire reading experience for them? Besides, there is a difference between intolerance itself and responding to intolerance. Not feeling comfortable about gays, not allowing gays in your home or flat believing that gays will all burn in hell is basically ok. Tour beliefs are your beliefs and you have every right to hold them. However, the minute you choose to express those views in a public venue and in a challenging/chastising/intolerant manner, you open yourself open to counter arguments. If you write a creator and complain that they “soiled” their creation by including something that you disapprove of, you then open yourself up to rebuttal.

It would be no different if someone with a pro-gay stance were to start loudly and repeatedly declaring that they were gay and that the rest of us had to live with it. I don’t care if you’re gay or not, but the minute you start trying to make a public spectacle or debate of it, then you open yourself up to rebuttal about either your stance or your actions and have no room to complain.

As for my opinion of this:

I’m not surprised. I’ve always found that Trek fans, sci-fi fans, fantasy fans and comic fans have always had the odd group of bigots and hypocrites amongst them. I used to work with a guy back in Florida who was a major Trek fan, loved Klingons, wrote the odd fan fiction where a character that was a thinly disguised version of himself was involved romantically with the half Klingon female brought into ST:TNG as Worf’s old flame and was adamantly anti-black. He got himself arrested along with a group of friends of his for trashing an interracial couple’s car and yard late one night. Back when Falwell died, I posted about how odd it was that people here, people who criticized the voices of the right for taking glee in or desiring the death of a political opponent, would express glee at his passing rather then taking the higher road that the fictional characters that they claim to admire or be inspired by.

Admittedly, it’s the minority of fans that express this type of hypocrisy, but it’s still a rather amusing thing to look at. I’ve always found the odd fan that seems to love the diversity of fictional worlds but espouses absolute intolerance for such diversity in the real world to be an interesting phenomenon. How you can find the idea of having a Wookie as a best friend, a lover who’s another species entirely or an entire galaxy of diverse religions cool, exciting, desirable and admirable, but then turn around and spew hatred at someone because the tint of their skin is different then your own is beyond me.

Posted by: Steve Chung at December 1, 2007 12:27 AM

Jerry wrote:

How you can find the idea of having a Wookie as a best friend, a lover who’s another species entirely or an entire galaxy of diverse religions cool, exciting, desirable and admirable, but then turn around and spew hatred at someone because the tint of their skin is different then your own is beyond me.

One is regarded as fantasy and the other is sadly a reality.

Posted by: Luigi Novi at December 1, 2007 01:08 AM

Peter David: Uh...no. To even ask that question, you literally rewrote--at least in your own head--my initial post. I in fact did NOT mention Burgy at the beginning of the post. I mentioned hir toward the latter part of the post, specifically in conjunction with my saying I found the letter "interesting." For you to make the associations that you have, you had to take apart my post and put it back together in a random order so as to ascribe meaning other than what was blindingly obvious: Because I created a character who had sexual liaisons with both genders set in the Trek universe--a character that has been, I should mention, embraced by the gay community--I found a letter laced with homophobia to be interesting. Anything else you're ascribing to it indicates an almost aggressive attempt to misunderstand what I wrote. Frankly whenever I see such aggressive misunderstanding, typically there's some other agenda at work. Usually it becomes evident in subsequent posts, so I'll wait and see.
Luigi Novi: Well, he may have misunderstood what you said, and perhaps didn't look closely enough at your post when composing his response, but I really don't see anything "aggressive" in it, much less rewriting it or taking it apart, etc. Yeah, such responses can indicate an agenda, but only after a pattern of behavior emerges over a period of time. You could've waited for such a pattern to emerge, rather than ripping him a new one for this one post, in which he seemed to me to have merely asked a question. :-)

Posted by: Brian Douglas at December 1, 2007 04:41 AM

To those who think tolerance should extend to the intolerant, I have this to say: comparing what two consenting adults do to attacking, verbally or physically, a non-nconsenting adult is simply ridiculous.

That said, I think Mr. Margols response was excessive.

I also want to add that I think not having a gay character says more than the inclusion of one does. Now if he were to right a book where every character was gay, then you might have an argument.

Bryan, I'm sorry to hear about your experiences. I fully understand where you are coming from, and I think you should talk to your gay family members about this. Giving what you went through, they will probably mucg more understanding than you think.

Posted by: Tim Lynch at December 1, 2007 08:35 AM

Coming in rather late to this...

Andy's response was definitely strongly worded, but I don't think it shows a particular anti-religious bias. He did make the assumption that the letter-writer adhered to a certain set of beliefs, but (as others have said) at worst that's a faulty assumption based on previous evidence. It's not, IMO, remotely the same as the man calling every bad driver "bitch" -- the latter is assuming all bad drivers are women (not supported by evidence generally, though maybe it was for him anecdotally) AND that all women are bitches, which is the real problem. Andy assumed this particular letter writer belonged to a particular branch of Christianity, but did not make the assumption that that was automatically negative.

Was Andy's response somewhat over-the-top? Yeah, I'd say so, but I'd also guess that he's gotten a lot of things like this before, so he's probably just sick of dealing with it. Remembering some of the stuff I saw on Usenet after my reviews of "The Outcast" (the TNG episode people have referenced already) and "The Chase" (which started a major evolution flamefest), I can readily see how he'd react badly.

It's funny for a lefty to condemn someone as a bigot for holding to their religious dogma... when that condemnation comes from holding to lefty dogma religiously.

Chris, my lad ... you stop calling us "lefties" as if it's the most witty put-down of all time and I'll have more respect for the other things you write. (Not to mention that any statements you make about bigotry would be more convincing if you'd even once written a post that wasn't dripping with contempt for anybody left of the John Birch Society.)

That said ... I don't condemn anyone as a bigot for simply holding true to their religious principles. If I did, my mother's memorial service last month would not have been held in a church, and her cousin (a minister) would not have been among those who spoke.

It's when people decide that anyone who doesn't share those exact same principles in every detail is a bad person worthy of condemnation that I call it a form of bigotry.

And please, O Enlightened One, share with us all what "lefty dogma" is. I'm left-handed myself, so I'm really curious -- apparently I didn't get the memos. Damn change-of-address forms...

TWL

Posted by: Bill Mulligan at December 1, 2007 09:07 AM

Tim, I'm so sorry about your mom. Your absence here lately made me afraid that you were being preoccupied with more serious matters.

My deepest condolences. Please take care.

Posted by: Tim Lynch at December 1, 2007 09:22 AM

Thanks, Bill. Things were great in April-June, but then around the start of July her cancer came back, and was in pretty serious take-no-prisoners mode. She went into hospice during the last week of September, and died two and a half weeks later. There was no pain to speak of, which was a great relief to us all.

She faced everything on her own terms: once we got the "there's nothing more we can do" speech, she said basically "then I want to be at this hospice for this reason, and here's everything and everyone I want to do and see once I get there." We have three letters from her for my daughter, for example, to be read on Katherine's 5th, 10th, and 18th birthdays respectively.

She was pretty amazing.

TWL

Posted by: hiikeeba at December 1, 2007 10:21 AM

Great response to a jerk.

Martin and Mangels write some darn fine Trek books. But I still remember a couple of preposterous scenes in their Section 31 novel of a few years ago.

Riker and Data are rushing to an important meeting with Picard that will advance the plot, and they bump into Hawk's partner in the corridor. They actually stop to chat. On their way to an important meeting they stop and chat! They discuss the couple's upcoming anniversary and how they met. This multi-page conversation is cut short by Picard calling to remind Riker and Data that there's a meeting going on and they're holding up the plot.

Then, later in the novel, I began to think Martin and Magels were homophobes. Hawk and his partner are talking, and Hawk can't mention any of the current happenings, since it's classified. Hawk's partner basically said, "If you loved me you would tell me classified information," and is portrayed as stereotypically insecure and whiney. I'm not gay and even I thought that was offensive. I know the scene was to give the character some emotional baggage because he never got to tell Hawk he was sorry before the Borg killed him, but it was so trite!

I haven't read anything like that in their other books, which I have always enjoyed. Now, when I read their latest book, I try to guess how soon the gay couple will show up. Again, they produce well written books. They're just not too subtle in their social commentary.

Posted by: edhopper at December 1, 2007 10:27 AM

I have to agree with the letter writer on this. I wish they would leave this preachy stuff out.
I saw this modern western a few years ago. It was a good, gritty story about the struggles of modern day cowboys, but they added this whole gay thing to the story and it really ruined it for me.

Posted by: Luigi Novi at December 1, 2007 10:40 AM

Tim Lynch: ...the latter is assuming all bad drivers are women (not supported by evidence generally, though maybe it was for him anecdotally)...
Luigi Novi: Statistically speaking, women are better drivers than men. According to a 2002 report from the Social Issues Resource Center, men speed, drive drunk, run stop signs, and crash twice as often as women do, even when the proportion of male drivers to female drivers is accounted for, as reported on Page 42 of John Stossel's book Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity.

.........

Tim, it's good to hear from you again, though it's unfortunate that it comes following such a sad time for your family. I'm deeply sorry for your loss.

Posted by: Bill Myers at December 1, 2007 11:55 AM

Tim, not yet having lost a parent, I can only imagine the pain you are in. You obviously loved her, and she loved you in return. Just remember: pain eventually heals, while love endures.

I realize words can ring hollow at a time like this. All I can offer are my sincerest condolences to you and your family in your time of mourning.

Posted by: Rick at December 1, 2007 12:20 PM

I am not as avid a fan of Star Trek as others on this post, but it seems to me that "Live and let live" is one of the basic tenets of Starfleet. If one is unhappy about the contents of a story, then, well, no one is forced to read anything, and one would be hard pressed to show that any harm was caused. One might claim to be emotionally scarred, but my advice to such a person would be to suck it up, and don't be so thin-skinned, or, if that's just too much, go read something else. Far worse things could happen to a person than simply being offended over a fictional account of a future event. Really, some people sound like third graders, regardless of how precise their grammar and spelling may be.

Posted by: Manny at December 1, 2007 03:03 PM

Ah yes. Bigotry. The sound of the unyieldingly stupid railing against unavoidable reality.

Posted by: Sean at December 1, 2007 05:37 PM

Tim, I've had that experience, so I remember what I was feeling. Just know that your family is in my thoughts, my friend.

Posted by: Jerry Chandler at December 1, 2007 05:54 PM

Tim, my sincerest condolences.

Posted by: Tim Lynch at December 1, 2007 07:18 PM

Thanks to all (Jerry, Sean, Luigi, and the Bills). We're all doing okay. We'd known subconsciously for a few months that this was likely, and we all had enough time to say and do all the things we really needed to. My brother and I are both sad that Mom won't get to see her grandchildren grow up (and she and Katherine were pretty close), but we're more or less at peace with everything. (Not that it doesn't SUCK, mind you -- but as these things go, it at least all happened well.)

I'll tell you, though -- if someone had told me five years ago that my dad would outlive my mom, I'd have laughed in their face. (Nothing against my dad -- a great guy -- but both in terms of their respective physical conditions over the years and their family histories, I'd have given very long odds.)

TWL

Posted by: Elf with a Gun at December 2, 2007 12:49 AM

***Posted by: Derek at November 30, 2007 05:05 PM

"Remember that NextGen episode where Riker fell for the alien from a unisexual (?) species, played by the gal from "The A-Team"? "

In the episode, "she" decided her sexual identity was female after falling for Riker. I always thought it would be amusing to see Riker's reaction if she had decided that she was male after being with Riker.***

Uhm, not quite. As I recall it, "she" knew for years before meeting Riker what "she" was. It was even mentioned that "she" had had several previous relationships with others who knew they were "male". So, no, Riker didn't use his potent powers of maleness to make an otherwise dyed-in-the-wool unisex character turn female just to please him. ;) Even though that's a powerful fantasy many men hold about themselves. . . ;) ;)

Chris

Posted by: Gene Hall at December 2, 2007 12:06 PM

Just when did this guy notice LGBT characters and storylines in the Trek Universe. Besides, the previous examples,
1.there's the relationship between Hawk ( the guy who gets killed by the Borg
while walikng outside the Enterprise saucer section) and, Trill officer Keru
2. Seven of Nine's bisexuality in the Mirror Universe Obsidian Alliances
3. Ezri Dax' lesbian relatioship, also in Glass Empires
4. Bert Faulwell's love letters to Anthony, his partner, as part of the narrative in SCE
5. The very EXISTENCE of the transgendered Trill- The fact that Dax was one a man does not at all deter Worf,
Bashir, Quark or even Leonard McCoy or any of the other fellows smitten with her
6. Mirror Universe Kira's bisexual flirtations
7. Mentions of Tom Paris' uncle and his partner
in The Lost Years
8. Picard remembrances of a gay Security officer
killed by the Borg in Q&A
9. Vina's gay relatives in Burning Drams
10. The affair between T'Prynn and the female Klingon agent in the Vanguard series
11. Selar's discussions of her gay brother, and her parents mild disappointment
12. Andorians mating in polyamorous groups of four, as mentioned in Data's Day, and later as an element of DS9 Science Officer Shar's storyline
and in the Andor story of Worlds of DS9

I'm sure there's lots more examples. The Trek Universe is based on diversity. If you're worried about some kind of liberal agenda coming across,
you just don't get it.

My other comment to the fellow who wrote the letter complaining would just be this-

"HERBERT! HERBERT! HERBERT! HERBERT! HERBERT!


Posted by: Alan Coil at December 2, 2007 03:31 PM

Luigi said:
"...as reported on Page 42 of John Stossel's book..."
=====
.
I'm sorry. I honestly thought you had more...ummm... something...ummm...more substantial to bring to the discussion than a book supposedly written by that...ummm...person. Why not just quote Ann Poultry-neck?
.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 2, 2007 04:40 PM

I'm amazed anyone would willingly admit to being so tone deaf as to miss the blatant inferences in the original letter. Maybe such innatentive readers would be better off sticking to Dick and Jane and leave the grown-ups to discuss everything else.
That is, unless the inability to detect tone is simply a pose to allow you to defend bigotry.

Posted by: Jerry Chandler at December 2, 2007 05:10 PM

Actually, the last stats that I saw showed that while male and female drivers have roughly equal numbers of car crashes per mile driven, men are somewhere between 60 or 70 percent more likely to be driving in a crash when someone is killed. If I can find the paperwork from my last class, I'll post the full sources and the actual %.

I also remember Johns Hopkins releasing a study in the early 2000s that showed that, while men were more likely to be killed in accidents caused from their driving, women had a slightly higher % of accidents. Alcohol is also a greater factor in young male drivers then young female drivers. In 2005, 24% of the young male drivers involved in fatal crashes had been drinking at the time of the crash, compared with 12% of the young female drivers.

One thing to keep in mind when arguing this or checking out stories on this is that the numbers tell a different story then the percentages. Up until recently, men outnumbered women as drivers by a margin that was enough to make it easy to twist a story without actually having to lie about the numbers. Even if both sexes’s had 10% of all drivers get in fender benders, the smaller group would have fewer fender benders in actual numbers. There’s also the bit I mentioned above. I’ve seen a lot of pro-female driver stories that point out that women are in far less fatal accidents in such a way as to give the impression that they’re discussing the numbers for all accidents combined.

All of this is going to become a moot point within the next ten years though. Both the numbers and the percentages are beginning to reach an equal level with each other in the number of drivers per sex and the stupid actions that contribute to the poor driving. Besides that, they’re barely teaching proper driving techniques anymore in most areas that I know of. Hell, I helped a Richmond unit at an accident a few months back where a teenage girl nailed another car at a turn. She had just gotten the temporary paperwork for her license at the DMV that day and was going out to celebrate. She was really ticked off with the Richmond officer because she was getting a ticket and the other driver was getting nothing. After something like six or seven attempts, we quit trying to explain to her that the vehicle turning left on a green at an intersection (her) has to yield the right-of-way to the vehicle going straight (the other guy) through the intersection. And let me point out what I just mentioned before that sentence. She had just, THAT VERY DAY, passed her DMV driving test.

Friends of mine in other states have said much the same. Can anyone blame me for driving with my eyes shut in fear of the other drivers these days?

Posted by: Mike at December 2, 2007 10:49 PM
...as reported on Page 42 of John Stossel's book...

I'm sorry. I honestly thought you had more...ummm... something...ummm...more substantial to bring to the discussion than a book supposedly written by that...ummm...person. Why not just quote Ann Poultry-neck?

Does Ann Poultry-neck even bother to cite statistics? My understanding is that she tries to be a gonzo-mirror-image to Hunter Thompson for republican values.

I'm amazed anyone would willingly admit to being so tone deaf as to miss the blatant inferences in the original letter.Maybe such innatentive readers would be better off sticking to Dick and Jane and leave the grown-ups to discuss everything else. That is, unless the inability to detect tone is simply a pose to allow you to defend bigotry.

Is the divergence in interpretation of the offending letter severe enough to call defense of bigotry on it?

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 03:06 AM

Is the divergence in interpretation of the offending letter severe enough to call defense of bigotry on it?
Anyone who claims to be unable to tell that saying the presence of gay characters "soiled" something is bigotry is either lying because they choose to defend bigotry or an idiot.

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 08:02 AM

Yes, but who has made such a claim? What place does your scapegoating have on what's been said in this thread?

Posted by: Patrick Calloway at December 3, 2007 08:57 AM

The letter writer said it. The letter you referenced in "Is the divergence in interpretation of the offending letter severe enough to call defense of bigotry on it?"

So, yes, it does have something to bear on what was said.

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 09:11 AM

Patrick, please review the relationship to the bolded text to what is being said.

Is the divergence in interpretation of the offending letter severe enough to call defense of bigotry on it?

Anyone who claims to be unable to tell that saying the presence of gay characters "soiled" something is bigotry is either lying because they choose to defend bigotry or an idiot.

Yes, but who has made such a claim? What place does your scapegoating have on what's been said in this thread?

[Patrick]

The letter writer said it. The letter you referenced in "Is the divergence in interpretation of the offending letter severe enough to call defense of bigotry on it?"

So, yes, it does have something to bear on what was said.

We are referring to the reaction to the letter, not the letter itself. Thank you, Patrick, for helping confirm there is no example that lives up to your and Grendel72's scapegoating.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 01:22 PM

You are referring to the reaction to the letter being an overreaction for calling bigotry what it is. The original letter was an expression of bigotry, and it is entirely correct to call such bigotry whenever it shows it's ugly face.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 02:16 PM

On the side issue of whining about the reference to religion, logic would suggest that when the only arguments against something are religious in nature, we can presume wil a high likelihood that anyone opposed to said thing has a religious bias.
Plenty of religious people are not homophobes, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the vast majority of homophobes don't base their bigotry on religion.

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 02:40 PM

Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder by the secular American Psychiatric Association until the 1970s. You are wrong.

You are referring to the reaction to the letter being an overreaction for calling bigotry what it is. The original letter was an expression of bigotry, and it is entirely correct to call such bigotry whenever it shows it's ugly face.

You don't seem to have contradicted my reply to Patrick. Thank you also for helping confirm there is no example that lives up to your scapegoating.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 03:08 PM

Well you have just demonstrated your bigotry by clinging to outdated science in the face of reason.
I guess there is no point in continuing.

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 03:39 PM

I clung to nothing.

You said there were Only™ religious justifications for anti-gay bigotry, and I found an non-religious justification for anti-gay bigotry. Thank you for not denying you were wrong.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 04:01 PM

A "non-religious" justification that was rejected under scrutiny. A "non-religious" justification that was wholely based on cultural assumptions brought about by religious control of society.
See, people examine prejudices and they reject them. The fact that they of course had those prejudices before they could be rejected does not justify the prejudices.

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 04:27 PM
A "non-religious" justification that was rejected under scrutiny.

That doesn't need to be false for anything I've said to be true.

A "non-religious" justification that was wholely based on cultural assumptions brought about by religious control of society.

How convenient is it for you that Freud and the other atheists who established psychiatry and classified homosexuality as a mental disorder weren't real atheists?

[With no sense of irony] See, people examine prejudices and they reject them. The fact that they of course had those prejudices before they could be rejected does not justify the prejudices.

You speak as if intent is all that's needed to divest ourselves of prejudice. As if any one person can have the whole of reality in his single field of vision. I don't mean to propagate prejudice against Our Oppressors™ therefor it doesn't happen -- as if freed slaves weren't portrayed as the predators in Birth of a Nation.

The root of prejudice is our inability to observe all of reality in our field of vision -- but you are so disconnected from reality you don't even seem to understand that observing all of reality in a single field of vision is impossible. For you, it's all about deniability.

Posted by: Andy at December 3, 2007 05:15 PM

Grendel72, I think that what Mike is pointing out is that some people may cling to that information, he didn't imply that he did. He was merely pointing out that your assumption that homophobia correlates to religous belief was not completley accurate as there is another correlation with older secularists.

I would also agree that calling out bigotry can be done without resort to bigotry, thus its use does not justify it counteruse. That said, I don't think that Mangles was being bigoted, but simply overreacting. To me the term bigot indicates an intentional hatred based on misinformation. I don't see Mangles doing that, nor do I see the original writer doing that. Both are stating opinion that differs and it isn't bigotry to state that you disagree with someones sexual choices, whether it is for religious or secular reasons, as long as such discussions are kept at a reasonable level of discussion and don't fall into emotional hatemongering (which with sexual choice discussions does seem to happen frequently unfortunately).

The term homophobia is bandied about as a way to squash any discussions about sexual choice rather than to allow for disagreement. We are a county of free speach at heart. And yes, I do agree that there are many people who "discuss" sexual choice with an attitude of bigotry and then it isn't free speach, but hate speach. That some do so should preclude everyone from doing so.

Couple of other thoughts...
when I read the first letter I apparently misread the "soiled" as "spoiled" as well. If the writer's intent was to use the word soiled which we basically have to assume given that he or she isn't participating in this discussion, then I stand corrected regarding the more prejudiced attitude of the original writer.

As a favor from anyone who has read the story. What are your thoughts as to the addition of the couple in the story? Was it included to advance the story or was it just incidental? Would it have mattered to the story if the couple were hetrosexual? Would it have mattered if they weren't there at all? Did it relate somehow to Tripp's relationship with T'Pol and the social stigma that that evoked at the time (in story)?

PAD regarding your initial posting. I'm not sure that I'd call either of the letters "intolerant," the initial letter writer did say, "please." :)

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 05:36 PM

Freedom to believe other people are lesser does not stop such beliefs from being bigoted and quite frankly incredibly stupid.
"Free speech" has nothing to do with anything. People are free to be bigots. The rest of us are free to call them such.
There doesn't need to be a point for having a character in a book be gay any more than there need to be a point for them to be straight. The fact that people have no problem accepting the presence of non-human characters but flip out when they encounter non-hetero characters is their problem, and no one elses.

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 05:53 PM
Freedom to believe other people are lesser does not stop such beliefs from being bigoted and quite frankly incredibly stupid.

Having said this, now maybe you understand why I was reasonable to call you on your bigoted assumption atheists could not logically be homophobic.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 06:37 PM

Except that was not what I said. That was not what anyone has said.
No one can be logically homophobic, because it is an illogical ideology. Those who examine their beliefs logically, whether religious or secular, invariably turn away from homophobia.

And again, it is telling that arguments against mindless hatred are nitpicked while you give the moron who wrote the letter that started this all a pass.

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 07:13 PM

On the side issue of whining about the reference to religion, logic would suggest that when the only arguments against something are religious in nature, we can presume... a high likelihood that anyone opposed to said thing has a religious bias....

Freedom to believe other people are lesser does not stop such beliefs from being bigoted and quite frankly incredibly stupid.

Having said this, now maybe you understand why I was reasonable to call you on your bigoted assumption atheists could not logically be homophobic.

Except that was not what I said. That was not what anyone has said.

You literally portrayed homophobia as dependent on religion. The notion that atheists cannot be homophobic is an unavoidable inference of this portrayal to anyone with any fidelity to logic. I've simply been going by the fidelity to logic you've been taking credit for.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 07:55 PM

Jesus Christ you are a pedantic ass, not to mention your single minded defense of bigotry.
What I fucking said, to those not so intent on defending the charming practice of writing letters to openly gay authors just to politely let them know you think they are subhuman scum, is:
Plenty of religious people are not homophobes, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the vast majority of homophobes don't base their bigotry on religion.
And, of course, the fact you are more upset by the supposed anti-religious bigotry demonstrated by the author pointing out his own positive portrayal of religious faith represents while ignoring the insulting letter that started all of this tells us nothing, does it?

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 08:29 PM

...logic would suggest that when the only arguments against something are religious in nature, we can presume... a high likelihood that anyone opposed to said thing has a religious bias.

You said there were Only™ religious justifications for anti-gay bigotry, and I found an non-religious justification for anti-gay bigotry....

You literally portrayed homophobia as dependent on religion. The notion that atheists cannot be homophobic is an unavoidable inference of this portrayal to anyone with any fidelity to logic. I've simply been going by the fidelity to logic you've been taking credit for.

Jesus Christ you are a pedantic ass, not to mention your single minded defense of bigotry. What I fucking said, to those not so intent on defending the charming practice of writing letters to openly gay authors just to politely let them know you think they are subhuman scum, is: Plenty of religious people are not homophobes, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the vast majority of homophobes don't base their bigotry on religion.

You literally contradicted yourself, and now you're trying to portray me as damaged goods for making a simple observation on display for anyone online. Like that isn't predatory at all.

Treating logic and political correctness as independent of each other doesn't make me a bigot. Bigotry is not defined by refusing to treat logic and political correctness as synonyms. Why don't you help your cause by abstaining from scapegoating people to pour your disgust on?

Posted by: Shortdawg at December 3, 2007 08:34 PM

Wow, if the letter writer found THAT offensive, I wonder what he'd make of George Takei on Stern today discussing how he occasionally sampled a "glory hole" in a men's bathroom before he hooked up with Brad, his current boyfriend. No doubt he'd never be able to watch an ep with Sulu in it again!

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 08:35 PM

Of course, now it's "politically correct" not to hate faggots. And nothing could be worse than being "politically correct", right?
Respond to the entire statement rather than picking out little soundbites that allow you to defend your fellow bigots. And don't insult religion by trying to present your defense of bigotry as a defense of religious belief. Plenty of people who are religious reject bigotry.

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 08:44 PM

On further review of your posts, they seem to be both completely compatible with what I've been saying all along. The urgency of your non-disagreement doesn't seem to be based on anything going on in this thread. What is your problem? Who are you? If you aren't going to invalidate anything I say, what is anything I say to you?

Of course, now it's "politically correct" not to hate faggots.

When is it ever politically correct to hate gays? My understanding is that hating gays and political correctness are mutually exclusive resolves. That's a literal virtue of challenging the political-correctness-scare. Dude, are you not well?

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 08:55 PM
Respond to the entire statement rather than picking out little soundbites that allow you to defend your fellow bigots.

My refusal to take orders from you doesn't change the meaning of what I'm replying to. How convenient is it for you your name-calling -- without referring to anything I say -- doesn't dilute your fidelity to logic in the least?

If I've left out anything you've said that changes the meaning of what I've been replying to, you are free to call me on it. If you can't call me on it, I don't see how that's my problem.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 09:07 PM

"Political correctness" is simply a code word bigots use to rail against being expected to treat others decently. PC is nothing but plain courtesy.
The letter writer was incredibly rude. Pointing out in response that the author had included positive portrayals of religion does make an assumption, a not-unfounded assumption. It is not in any sense an "attack" on anyone or anything other than the initial bigotry.

I do take offense when people castigate the author for being "rude" in response to an unprovoked attack on his very existence. I think the letter response was if anything too restrained, and we should all hope that readers with views so antithetical to everything Trek stands for would either grow as people through being exposed to new ideas or at the least leave the rest of us alone.
We don't need "fans" like that. I find it disgusting to have anything at all in common with someone who would hold such views, and wonder how anyone could reconcile being a fan of Trek with holding such anti-egalitarian views.

Posted by: Mike at December 3, 2007 10:39 PM
The letter writer was incredibly rude.

You keep saying this as if anyone is defending the letter-writer. You literally are not going to find any defense of him by me anywhere.

Pointing out in response that the author had included positive portrayals of religion does make an assumption, a not-unfounded assumption.

The assumption is unfounded if the compliments of positive portrayals of religion are absent in his letter -- which they literally are. Try reading the post this thread is based on. Is there some kind of Vulcan proverb that says it's ok to make shit up about people to make offensive people extra-offensive?

...logic would suggest that when the only arguments against something are religious in nature, we can presume... a high likelihood that anyone opposed to said thing has a religious bias....

Anyone who claims to be unable to tell that saying the presence of gay characters "soiled" something is bigotry is either lying because they choose to defend bigotry or an idiot....

It is not in any sense an "attack" on anyone or anything other than the initial bigotry.

Contradiction: It's What's For Dinner.™

I do take offense when people castigate the author for being "rude" in response to an unprovoked attack on his very existence.

Then why do you have to make shit up to prove bigotry? Isn't challenging those who take offense at Andy Mangels's reply wrong enough for you without making shit up about people?

I think the letter response was if anything too restrained...

If by "too restrained" you mean "needed to make shit up about the homophobic commenter and posters here who aren't even defending him" as you've done -- I don't agree.

I find it disgusting to have anything at all in common with someone who would hold such views...

You mean like access to a computer and the ability to grammatically attribute verbs to nouns? Should his healthy blood donations be refused by all institutions expect for those serving the most desperate and vulnerable recipients? Are separate water fountains in order?

...and wonder how anyone could reconcile being a fan of Trek with holding such anti-egalitarian views.

No one here is saying that he can. It's a wonder you feel the need to call any of the posters here bigots.

Posted by: gene hall at December 3, 2007 11:34 PM

It's not as though everyone in the secular world
is enlightened. Homophobia should not be attributed only to people of faith. Jesus Christ was not a homophobic bigot! Unfortunately, many of His followers have been manipulated over the years into believing any number of vile notions.
Religion-based homophobia is just another one of those.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 3, 2007 11:47 PM

You keep saying this as if anyone is defending the letter-writer.
I keep saying this because people are ignoring the fact that this asshole provoked the response. I keep pointing this out because people give the letter writer the benefit of the doubt while attacking Mangels' response. People keep asserting that "The unnamed author never said WHY he took issue with the homosexual storyline, other than that he felt he was being subjected to unwanted activism." While parsing any comment opposed to the idiots bigotry as being "an attack on religion". And somehow the fact that Mangels in fact wrote positive portrayals of religious faith is part of this attack on religion...

If your reaction to a person who was attacked with no provocation is to nitpick their response rather than the attack, that tells us something about you.

Posted by: Grendel72 at December 4, 2007 12:06 AM

Or to put it differently, since this type of reponse happens every single time some moron decides to harass people for being gay...
An appropriate response from religious types to homophobic idiocy:
I'm sorry, not all religious people are like that
An inappropriate response:
How dare you say something against religion, you bigot!

In other words, it's not about you.
Until you have to spend the night in the hospital with a friend because some morons got it into their heads to beat the crap out of Christians, don't whine about how terribly the gays are oppressing you.

Posted by: Mike at December 4, 2007 01:13 AM
I keep saying this because people are ignoring the fact that this asshole provoked the response. I keep pointing this out because people give the letter writer the benefit of the doubt while attacking Mangels' response.

How, and how?

People keep asserting that "The unnamed author never said WHY he took issue with the homosexual storyline, other than that he felt he was being subjected to unwanted activism."

And they shouldn't say this why? Because he did say why he was a homophobe?

...logic would suggest that when the only arguments against something are religious in nature, we can presume wil a high likelihood that anyone opposed to said thing has a religious bias.

Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder by the secular American Psychiatric Association until the 1970s. You are wrong.

Well you have just demonstrated your bigotry by clinging to outdated science in the face of reason.
I guess there is no point in continuing.

I clung to nothing.

You said there were Only™ religious justifications for anti-gay bigotry, and I found [a] non-religious justification for anti-gay bigotry. Thank you for not denying you were wrong.

A "non-religious" justification that was rejected under scrutiny.

That doesn't need to be false for anything I've said to be true.

A "non-religious" justification that was wholely based on cultural assumptions brought about by religious control of society.

How convenient is it for you that Freud and the other atheists who established psychiatry and classified homosexuality as a mental disorder weren't real atheists?

Freedom to believe other people are lesser does not stop such beliefs from being bigoted and quite frankly incredibly stupid.

Having said this, now maybe you understand why I was reasonable to call you on your bigoted assumption atheists could not logically be homophobic.

Except that was not what I said. That was not what anyone has said.

You literally portrayed homophobia as dependent on religion. The notion that atheists cannot be homophobic is an unavoidable inference of this portrayal to anyone with any fidelity to logic. I've simply been going by the fidelity to logic you've been taking credit for.

Jesus Christ you are a pedantic ass, not to mention your single minded defense of bigotry. What I fucking said, to those not so intent on defending the charming practice of writing letters to openly gay authors just to politely let them know you think they are subhuman scum, is: Plenty of religious people are not homophobes, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the vast majority of homophobes don't base their bigotry on religion.

Treating logic and political correctness as independent of each other doesn't make me a bigot. Bigotry is not defined by refusing to treat logic and political correctness as synonyms. Why don't you help your cause by abstaining from scapegoating people to pour your disgust on?

While parsing any comment opposed to the idiots bigotry as being "an attack on religion".

Isn't there an exploitation going on somewhere you could be intervening in while you're here selectively blaming religion for homophobia?

If your reaction to a person who was attacked with no provocation is to nitpick their response rather than the attack, that tells us something about you.

Yeah, it says Andy Mangals's sincere reply was good enough for me without you trying to take credit for his ridicule of the homophobe by making shit up about the posters here or even the letter-writer Mangels responded to.

An inappropriate response: How dare you say something against religion, you bigot!

You won't find a post by me that resembles your strawman. I've simply observed you are selectively applying a principle arbitrarily, and as long as you are here, since you reserve for yourself hypocrisy as a privilege, I can count on you doing so again. Why is it such a hardship to accept that the secular APA classified homophobia as a mental disorder until the 1970s? What's with all this making shit up about people? If you're going to make shit up about me, why shouldn't I call you on it?

I mean, dude, take a look how what Mangels say compares to what you say:

[Andy Mangels]

Meanwhile, you can thank me - the faggot with the agenda - for writing the
scene with Trip praying early on, and the scene where he discusses church and
faith in God with Phuong. Not the first faith-based scenes I've written for
Trek, and won't be the last. I just don't believe that God condones hatred.

[something no one wants associated with their real name]

...logic would suggest that when the only arguments against something are religious in nature, we can presume wil a high likelihood that anyone opposed to said thing has a religious bias.

The diversity you cite as a virtue in the Star Trek universe also includes diversity in religion. This includes seven seasons of Deep Space Nine with Sisko as an emissary to divine entities. I don't see how citing themes of tolerance to justify your intolerance of religion doesn't qualify you as a hypocrite.

In other words, it's not about you.

I'm not asking anyone to take my word for anything.

Until you have to spend the night in the hospital with a friend because some morons got it into their heads to beat the crap out of Christians, don't whine about how terribly the gays are oppressing you.

Is this how you honor your injured friend, by taking him hostage, and using his misfortune as a justification to vent disgust on me?

Posted by: Craig J. Ries at December 4, 2007 01:17 AM

More popcorn, anyone?

It seems as though Mike has ruined another thread, so we might as well get what enjoyment out of it that we can before we give it (or perhaps Mike) the Old Yeller treatment.

Posted by: Mike at December 4, 2007 01:27 AM

Thank you for your urgent non-disagreement, Craig. It lets me know, as my portraying your response as a non-disagreement implies, it's obvious I've haven't said anything for anyone to disagree with. Urgently.

Posted by: ChicagoDon at December 4, 2007 02:40 PM

I apologize for my post from last week. It was a knee-jerk response that came from my feelings on religion (and its state of decline) and had very little to do with the topic at hand. PAD, I regret taking you to task on this issue, especially when I messed up your original point as badly as I did. You shouldn't have had to defend yourself from an idiot and I am sorry. I will continue to read the site and limit my posts to the Cowboy Pete segments from now on.

Posted by: Michael at December 4, 2007 09:34 PM

Boy, imagine how this guy would have felt if he'd read one of the Titan books and found out that Keru, the late Lt. Hawk's lover, is chief of security! And serving as a father figure to a child whose biological father died in the line, no less!

Posted by: Michael at December 4, 2007 09:35 PM

Boy, imagine how this guy would have felt if he'd read one of the Titan books and found out that Keru, the late Lt. Hawk's lover, is chief of security! And serving as a father figure to a child whose biological father died in the line, no less!

Posted by: Sean at December 5, 2007 04:12 AM

Looking at both of ChicagoDon's posts makes me think. Especially the "state of decline" part. Now, it seems like most times in the news, religion gets it's worst side shown, by the zealots and the holier-than-thou types, and by the people who want creationism taught in science classes, to say nothing of all the sex scandals. At my old church, Sacred Heart, Father Bob came in and cleaned up the neighborhood. There was a motel across the street that was being used for various not-so-aboveboard purposes. He led the neighborhood in getting it shut down. Now, for me personally, he really reminded me at my wedding just how lucky I am to have my wife, instant waterworks. But that kind of story doesn't make good press, so it doesn't get a lot of play. The media, especially the news media, love a sensational story. They don't like a church-cleans-up-a-neighborhood story.

ChicagoDon, I'm not attacking you or your views on religion. I'm just saying they're not ALL like that.

Posted by: Mike at December 5, 2007 08:27 AM

Sean, you aren't attacking ChicagoDon's comments at all. You seem to be providing the basis for the hostility against religion he is observing.

Peter portrayed ChicagoDon as aggressive for saying Peter mentioned his character at the beginning of his post when he mentioned hir at the end of it. That isn't true if ChicagoDon simply commented casually, and ChicagoDon's error didn't make anything he said untrue -- Peter even answered his question. If their was any aggression going on between Peter and ChicagoDon, it wasn't from anything ChicagoDon said.

Posted by: Alan Coil at December 6, 2007 08:46 PM

Craig, you got any of that popcorn without salt?