Good As You

could it have occurred to them that when he said gays are a cult he was suffering from dementia? And they never said if he was in a monogamous relationship or if he was going from bed to bed.

What a pathetic pair of people. It makes me sick to see them using their son's death like this.

That is what I call aggressive ignorance. They are pissed off, and they are going to take their fight to the streets. They don't bother to educate themselves about the subject and they know absolutely nothing about what they are talking about, and they make up all of the rest of it. And, not only are they ignorant, but they are aggressively spreading that ignorance.

And the worst thing about aggressive ignorance is that (especially in this case) it exacerbates the problem. Many of those like Randy grew up believing that they were diseased or sick. They grew up loathing themselves, and by extension, those that they connected with. That autophobia can lead to promiscuity and unsave sex practices, and most likely is the direct result of societal stigmatization. And their aggressive ignorance just furthers the homophobia and stigmatization.

Aggressive Ignorance Kills - just as surely as if the idiots had placed a gun to their own son's head.

Well, I'll be damned. Until I heard him talk, I thought it was a pair of lesbians.

"I'm glad that the state helped pay for the medical costs, but I'm sorry the taxpayers had to pay for this." But not once does he say how sorry he is that his son died from this horrible disease.

He renounces homosexuals as a cult, says that he wants nothing to do with them and that they like to recruit "fresh meat." And they wonder why no gay friends were at his side during this crisis.

They have six friends who's children are gay, and their families are just broken up by it. But of those six kids, how many hold the same views that their son did?

If they had been more accepting, would their son have taken on risky sexual practices, or would he have been more comfortable being open about it, and maybe been more careful in his partners?

While I can only imagine the pain they are going through, and while I can understand their anger and to an extent, even their son's anger, perhaps if they took a long hard look at themselves, they would see that much of this could have been avoided if they hadn't preached what a terrible thing this was to their kid. Maybe if we stopped talking about how terrible it is to be gay, and start working on being more accepting of those born differently, we can prevent this from happening in the future.

I had a really hard time watching that video. I think the best way to describe the feeling I had during it was "horror". Horror at the idea that these people would use their son's death in such a ham-fisted political move. I think Jack said it best: the attitude of these people is more than likely responsible for what happened (and happens to others, too).

There's something about the mentioning of how much it cost taxpayers that bugs me, too. It's an awkward argument inside an already awkward argument.

Words are insufficient to describe how vile this is.

That a personal tragedy like this would be used as a thinly-veiled pathos appeal for a hate-motivated political agenda twists my stomach.

Actually, it twists it just as much as people like this twist Christianity to suit their political agenda.

Once again, I'm thankful for your blog being a voice of occasionally snarky reason. You show restraint where the only thing I can bring myself to do is bash my head against my keyboard in the hope that the chaos of random characters appearing on my screen might convey my frustration and rage.