Good As You

I think they're probably referring to the comments moreso than the content of LGBT articles...

Which would be just as unacceptable, Yuki.

The bottom line: Our side jumps at the chance to refute our critics, and our opposition either wholly ignores or severely cherry picks the words to which they respond. It lowers the discourse.

Damn it, Jeremy, sometimes I'm just so proud of you and Good As You. Such a hero, you are. Keep it up, noble sir.

I believe Yuki is correct.

However Good As You is also correct. Blogs like G-A-Y could just as easily paint our opposition in the same light if they choose to base their opinions on comments from the very few anti-equality sites that even allow comments.

Just like the distasteful comments that are posted to Maggie's own blog on Townhall.com

http://townhall.com/columnists/MaggieGallagher/2009/04/07/gay_marriage_and_the_future_of_religious_liberty

And, Yuki, if the anti-gay sites allow comments (which mostly they don't), their comments are at least equally as vicious (and many times more so) than any comments coming from the pro-gay side. We might laugh at the hatemongers, but many of the them actively plot aloud their ideal path toward our untimely demise.

The Magger does get her fair share of ridicule for being the outlandishly cartoonish, easily mocked, always-looks-like-a-drag-queen-having-a-bad-day character that she is. But, mostly she is a rabidly aggressive liar, who feels no compunction arising from her chosen career of pushing hatred by every deceitful means necessary.

Jeremy, I agree that your posts are extremely civil, fair-minded and on-point. The same cannot be said for some of the people who respond to your posts--and to be fair to the above statement, "websites" includes comment sections. Some of the things that readers on this site have written, particularly about Maggie Gallagher, have been in extremely poor taste--downright cruel--and very hurtful for someone like me, who happens to be overweight. Because of what some of your readers regularly say about her looks, and the cruel, bigoted comments some of them have made about the overweight, I don't follow this blog as closely as I originally did when I found it. I enjoy your own commentary, but I've been brought close to tears by some of the responses.

I'm not trying to justify the comments you quoted. It strikes me as ridiculous for someone from a movement as well-funded as the anti-equality side to complain about how much money pro-gay activists supposedly have; and to say that a movement fighting AGAINST institutionalized discrimination has the "power centers of our culture" behind it is laughable. My point is simply this: Comments made on a site like this, even if not made by you, still reflect on this site and on the movement as a whole. I know you make a point of not censoring people's words, and I'm not saying you should start now. I just wish that all of your readers, who I know are venting more than anything else, understood that this is a public site, which anybody can read, and that it's not just those on the pro-equality side who will take note of what's being said.

I've called her a smug cunt on my blog. I don't consider that so offensive btw because it's an accurate assessment of Gallagher.

I don't so much hate her as belief she's an ignorant fool.

Rachel: I'm sorry you've experienced that. I honestly haven't seen that to the degree you say (I mainly only follow comments threads on the day of the post), but I'm sorry that you have.

That being said; I think this whole comment vs. posts chatter is a little silly. Mr. Ruse didn't qualify his suggestions -- he just said that gays are mocking Maggie. The first place to which one logically turns are the posts -- the only content for which the site owner/editor has to vouch (barring extreme circumstances when a post goes beyond free speech). And again, the bottom line is that this site and MANY others have written countless fair-minded posts on Maggie's work, but she and her friends simply write us all off under the "extremists" banner (This was especially pointed during the Perez Hilton/Prejean thing, when Maggie wouldn't acknowledge what anyone other than Perez was saying).

To be fair, she *does* look just like the Barefoot Contessa.

I agree that you're not responsible for what anyone says but yourself. And yes, it is unfair to cherry-pick the examples that best suit your own ends, while refusing to acknowledge the much more fair-minded commentary out there. Ruse's comments are little more than a red herring, complaining about how his ally has been mocked in an attempt to deflect attention from honest criticism of her work.

But mocking her also deflects from that honest criticism. Think of it this way: Let's say I'm posting on a site totally unrelated to any gay-rights issues. I'm commenting on someone I fervently disagree with and who just so happens to be gay, and I pepper my expressed disgust of that person with anti-gay remarks. And let's say that someone, who is also gay and who supports my position on the issue at hand, reads what I have written. How might that make that person feel? And what good am I doing my own cause if I give my opponents fodder to present us in such a negative light? Yes, they would be disingenuous in doing so, but I would still be responsible for my own words.

The fact is, these people are going to engage in such cherry-picking, so why give them what they want? It's not good enough simply to say, "Well, they're worse," as a couple of the responses here have done. Leave the name-calling and ad hominim attacks entirely to their side.

GOOD ONE JH... Right to fb. Comments and all. I want to be able to quote this ad in finitem.

maybe we SHOULD mock her on a personal level and attack her looks.

Mags has been complaining constantly about being labeled a "bigot." The solution is simple, of course. She needs to stop being a bigot. Sometimes the truth hurts.

The interesting thing about that Tom, is that if you look at the full piece, the writer fully admits that Mags' "bigot" schpiel is all strategy. She's seized unto it purely because she thinks it will sell.

@Steve, ROFL. She does! Only the Barefoot Contessa is prettier. And less hateful.

@everyone else, I didn't mean to make it sound like I was defending her at all. I meant that, the quote seems to try and make it sound as if all blogs and news sites focused on gay issues are insulting her, rather than just the comments. It's a lie by omission. I definitely agree that while we can be kind of catty with our comments, comments on blogs like hers are so much worse.

Darn! I can't find my blog in those Google returns. I've done some of my best ugly-broad jokes on that stinking butter demon, and it's all for nothing.