What is your take on the San Francisco Gay/mainstream gay divide?

[Brian_Expat]

Can it be bridged? Or will the two communities always be separate? ;)

[Brian_Expat]

1. To explain more in depth. . .

. . . there's definitely a cultural situation here, which I've seen several places.

Invariably, when I'm discussing gay issues, I'll suss out a position on marriage or ENDA or something else, and encounter a unique San Francisco position versus the rest of the country position on the issue. The loudest anti-religious voices (who often advocate censorship of gay religious voices in the media and gay events) normally hail from the Bay Area, as does the "sexual liberationist" approach that decries gay marriage as "assimilation."

Is there any way to bridge the divide, or is San Francisco going to remain a place with a separate agenda of its own?

[Liberal Veteran]

21. Brian, I'd love to hear you explain this....

How does the National Religious Leadership
Roundtable of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force reconcile with your belief that gay people of faith are excluded from the community?

As per this particular post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x6483

[Liberal Veteran]

2. I don't understand why you are hung up on the urban gay community.

Since you didn't respond to my post in your last thread on this matter, here's a reprint:

First a bit about me:

1) I am not an athiest, I am agnostic. If you don't know the difference, you need to look it up.

2) I have been in a monogamous relationship for almost 15 years.

3) I don't do the bar scene or the gay pride parade thing. In fact, I haven't set foot in a gay bar in well over a decade.

4) I am a homebody who feels more at ease with myself, my partner, and a few friends doing things like going to movies, gardening, or spending a day on the lake or taking care of my yard, working on my home, or just relaxing with a good book and my cats.

5) I want nothing more than grow old with my lifepartner (hopefully married legally) and retire to a trailer far from any large city in desert southwest (New Mexico to be exact) where I can live out my life doing things I enjoy including taking full advantage of my telescopes to examine every object I can in the night sky.

You made some really bad assumptions about me and I am determined to disabuse you of them. You also have a chip on your shoulder about the gay community in general.

I see a gay community where there is room for all. I have never been excluded, nor excluded ANYONE in the gay community when it comes to fighting for equality.

You are painting the entire community with a broad brush that I haven't experienced. Two gay couples that I consider close friends and generally associate with are a couple that has been together over 20 years and another couple who are both in their late 60's and have been together for over 40 years. I have never heard any of them say they felt "excluded" from the gay community.

If you getting that impression, then perhaps you need to re-examine the circles you are associating with.

Gay people represent the entire spectrum of humanity. Race, age, cultural background, social status, looks, health, and even politics and religion.

And truth to tell, some gay (as with straights) are stuck up and shallow and there are some that are the salt of the earth. In the final analysis, we are just people like everyone else with all the warts and blemishes you will find in heterosexual society.

If you are hanging with people who you see as shallow or exclusionary, then that's YOUR FAULT. You have control over your life and who you allow to be a part of your day to day life.

What you see as the "gay community", I see as something different. Most gay people don't live in urban "gay ghettos". Those that do are making a choice of the kind of life and community they want to live in.

From the way I see it, it seems that you are deliberately placing yourself in situations that aren't to your liking and then blaming everyone else for not conforming to what you want.

Or look at straight people. It's no different. You aren't likely to feel comfortable if you are Southern Baptist Fundie and you go out to the local strip clubs and swingers clubs. Nor would you expect to. You shouldn't go to church and expect everyone there to have a big S&M orgy either. You shouldn't expect to find squaredancing at the local goth bar. And you shouldn't expect a prayer service at a rave.

Be who you want to be. It's your life and you have to live it. That's what I do, and I expect the same from you.

The ONLY THING I ask from you is that you stand by side with me in fighting for equality under the law and I'll do the same for you.

Everything else you mention is minutia and matter of your own personal choices. I am mature enough to know myself and know what kind of life I want to have and I work for that and place myself in situations that make it happen. I don't feel any compelling need to tell other gay people how to live, who they should associate with, and what kind of belief system they must have.

Live your life on YOUR terms and allow others to do the same. Ultimately the broader gay community is NOT responsible for validating how you choose to live your life.

And yes, you do see your own value set and lifestyle as superior to those in the urban community that you are railing against. It shows in your posts. And for you, it is. However, It's not your place to decide for others how to live their lives. Do what YOU enjoy. Hang out with people who share your interests and values. I don't hang out with people who party all the time or do drugs or don't respect the boundaries of my relationship or aren't kind to other people. I am more than capable of showing someone the door of my home if they cross the line and I'll still walk side by side with them to fight for equal rights.

I don't feel compelled to change others to suit me and that, my friend is where we differ. You sound like you blame the gay community for being human. Humans have cliques, social circles, and all the various different desires you see everyday.

And a word of advice here: Jesus Christ said a lot of wise things. Among those things was "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town."

He didn't tell his disciples to persist and try to force people into their way of thinking or force them to welcome them.

End of quote from the previous.

Other comments:

Maybe you didn't notice it, but when Gavin Newsom started issuing marriage licenses in SF thousands of gay people got married. Sure there is a subsect of society that doesn't want to emulate the rest of society, but the same kinds of countercultures exist with heterosexuals too.

[Brian_Expat]

3. Several interesting points. . .

1) I've lived in several urban gay communities (including San Francisco, where it was once commented that "nobody hates a gay so much as other gays" -- an interesting inference to the cliques that formed frequently in the urban culture). Urban culture, not just gay culture, in the United States is fixated on physical appearance and money, and lots of us have found that isolating.

2) "I am not an athiest, I am agnostic. If you don't know the difference, you need to look it up." But atheism and agnosticism are accepted in the gay community. Nobody will lecture you for it in public. I've been involved in gay politics for years and years, and there's no acceptance whatsoever for religious people or people with spiritual beliefs in the urban movement.

There are others on this board who have agreed with me. Religious people here have private messaged me with the hurt and pain they feel from the constant hateful denunciations of them as "superstitious" and they say they're tired of it. But there's no compassion or consideration of their position whatsoever.

You are painting the entire community with a broad brush that I haven't experienced. Two gay couples that I consider close friends and generally associate with are a couple that has been together over 20 years and another couple who are both in their late 60's and have been together for over 40 years. I have never heard any of them say they felt "excluded" from the gay community.

So my feelings, and the feelings of others, mean nothing.

I've tried to be direct and honest about how lots of us feel. We've had leadership bash us for being religious. We've had other leadership sell us down the river for political advantage.

Prominent gay leaders in certain opinion circles blast us for being "assimilationist" while others rip us for "pushing too hard too fast."

I've pointed out the existence of this demographic but as usual get told that I and other people like me "don't exist."

We've got "chips" on our shoulders.

Nobody wants to know our stories. Nobody wants to talk to us about our experiences.

Nobody cares, except to make some cheap swipes about our age, our "superstitiousness," etc.

We don't exist in the gay media -- we're never talked about.

We don't exist in the political movement to the degree possible -- when we do get coverage through actions like Soulforce, we're blasted as "coddling the right wing."

We don't exist in the lobby groups except through people like Cheryl Jacques (who has since been booted out).

A lot of us are minorities and aren't tolerated within a white male urban community. We don't exist to the white community either.

It's precisely what I'm talking about -- this notion to exclude.

You haven't honestly considered my perspective at all, just dismissed it, insisted that I don't belong with my point of view, and then simultaneously stated that nobody's being excluded.

Jesus Christ said a lot of wise things. Among those things was "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town."

I rest my case. Rather than broaden the gay community to include others who think or believe differently, you're advocating that we just "drop out" and "shake the dust off" and stop being involved.

That's as empowering as the Log Cabin Republicans. In other words, not very.

[Liberal Veteran]

6. You seem awfully surprised that a lot of gay people have strong feeling..

..about religion.

And I think honestly, it shows a certain lack of empathy that you cannot understand why.

Look at 90% of the problems we face as gay people comes from. Religion and so-called Judeo-Christian values. You argue as though that doesn't exist.

What's even more disturbing is that you don't even seem to question why there are a lot of GLBT who are agnostic/atheist.

Conservative and/or anti-gay churches (catholics, Southern Baptists, fundamentalist/evangelical independents, Mormons, etc) represent the overwhelming majority of churches in the United States. It is fair to say that most GLBT people grew up in household that was affiliated with one of those churces. By percentage, very few gay people were raised in an accepting religious enviroment. More often than not, the other is more likely. That's a fact.

The majority of people are raised in a religious enviroment that programs them to believe that gays are bad, evil, sinful people who are going to burn in hell for all eternity. Very few are raised in a supportive religious enviroment when it comes to homosexuality. All told, I'd be surprised if it came out to 10 percent. Liberal churches aren't exactly the mainstream in the United States.

What does that mean for GLBT person in America? It means that basically they have been emotionally abused and shunned by the faiths they grew up in.

More simply: Most gay people are taught how to hate themselves by the churches they grew up in. Some of the abuse goes even deeper as those who turn their "christian" parents with the struggle are sent to be reprogrammed making the struggle that much worse.

Fast forward to the homosexual struggling to come to terms with a belief system that tells them are evil and yet at the same time they know they aren't evil. So they have a shitload of emotional baggage placed on them by the church before they even crossed the starting line.

Then as they are coming to terms with who they are and re-examining how they were LIED TO by the church, they have to put up with listening to right-wing republicans rail against them and watching anti-gay initiatives that turn them into second-class citizens and strip away their human rights being passed by 70% majorities (mostly by people who are claiming that they believe GOD SAYS homosexuality is wrong and that's why they voted that way).

And then we have you, acting shocked and appalled that you see a lot of negativity toward religion in the gay community????????

Good lord! How could there NOT be a lot of a negativity in the community under those circumstances?

And instead of showing empathy and compassion and trying to understand the roots of why that might be, you're playing the role of the victimized gay christian.

And you act like there is no support at all within the gay community for gay christians when that is obviously not the case. Are you likely to find it more prevalent in the urban gay-ghetto/bar/party scene? Not likely. But there are gay churches and Christian gay organizations that are subsects of nearly every denomination in EVERY single large city in the United States.

And about values.

You also act like the majority of GLBT people and organizations are fighting against your values, which couldn't me more untrue if it tried.

Nearly every mainstream gay political organization is working for equality of GLBT citizens up to and including the right-to-marry. Equality under the law and equal recognition of gay relationships is the primary goal of almost every single gay political organization there is. Yet, all you see is anti-assimilation movement? How is fighting for the equality to live your life as you see fit whether you want to marry or be monogamous but unmarried or be a confirmed single person for life seen as "anti-assimilationist". Where do you get that notion?


Not too put too fine a point on it, but it's pretty hard to understand where you are coming from in light of the facts which don't support your assertions.

[arwalden]

8. Well, You're Not Being Singled Out To Be Ignored....

... my previous responses to one of Brian's messages and my direct follow-up questions were ignored by him too.

THIS thread for example: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=5493&mesg_id=5758&page=


>> And truth to tell, some gay (as with straights) are stuck up and shallow and there are some that are the salt of the earth. In the final analysis, we are just people like everyone else with all the warts and blemishes you will find in heterosexual society. <<

I find it astounding that anyone NEEDS to point this out at all.

>> but the same kinds of countercultures exist with heterosexuals too. <<

I couldn't have said it better myself.

-- Allen

[Dookus]

4. Interesting....

I guess I don't really see it. But I only lived in SF for three years, back in the mid-80s.

[Liberal Veteran]

7. Perhaps it's something new that the rest of us are overlooking.

:shrug:

[mitchtv]

5. San Francisco? try Berkeley

really left of center. BTW I consider myself Pantheist not any of the others. My opposition to organized religions comes from Catholic school. I live in SoCal.

[readmoreoften]

9. Um, it's not just san francisco

It's also NY, Austin, and other urban areas. Why is it a zero sum game? Why can't we fight for ENDA and the rights of poly/trans people.

If you want to be in the majority w/ Rainbow Jesus go down to Dallas, it's the city where the homos love their halos.

[dsc]

10. I was at a birthday party a couple of saturday's ago

and virtually all the guests were gay. The party broke up around 11pm due to the fact that virtually all of us were going to church the next day. Is this all gay people, surely not. But, it certainly is many of the gay people I hang around with. The fact is, as has been pointed out to you, if you live in a city with a large enough gay population, then you have quite a bit of choice about which gays you hang with. If you don't, then you are likely to be hanging with people more like me and the people at that party than with partiers.

It shouldn't be surprising that much of the leadership of the LGBT movement is secular (even as I would bet at least some go to church more often than you know). The fact is most gays, even religious ones, want no part of religion influencing public life on matters involving our rights. Thus our leaders aren't going to go around saying Jesus this and Moses that. That said, there are tons of gay churches that get involved with pride activities (at least in Cleveland Ohio, Chicago IL and Central North Carolina). When I lived in Boystown in Chicago, I had my choice of two MCC congregations, and several gay friendly mainstream churches. I also had many choices of other, not exactly religious, activities. I partook of both. But, I have to say, I haven't been lectured at all about being religious, when I was or irreligious when I was that.

Even in the heart of the gay ghetto, there is a gay spiritual life to be had and enjoyed.

[Brian_Expat]

13. I don't mind secular leadership

I do mind efforts to exclude gays who are spiritual.

The sort of contempt directed at me by previous posters, such as "if you want gay Jesus move to Dallas" was the perfect example of what I'm talking about. How does he know I'm Christian? It's an assumption that since I'm religious or spiritual, I must be a fundy (I'm actually a Quaker).

[dsc]

16. aren't Quakers Christian?

It seems you still would be worshipping Jesus then. The South is more religious and might be a better fit, though it also is more repressed.

[Brian_Expat]

18. Quakers can be Christian though it's not a prerequisite

And the South is NOT a good fit for Quakers. The South doesn't share our moral beliefs, nor our penchant for tolerance.

The real question is, why should I as a gay man have to move to just one part of the country in order not to be bashed by members of my own "community?"

Telling a gay man who has some spiritual beliefs to "move to Dallas if you don't like it" is like some right wing homophobe spitting "faggot, move to San Francisco if you don't like it here."

[xchrom]

11. you feel persecutated because you want to feel persecutated.

i've dated catholic priests, episcopal priest, aetheists, pantheists, polyamourists, bisexuals, women and probably people from other plants.

what you refuse to get -- and it's your own fault -- is that there are people out there who will like you.

you are only focused on those who you perceive as rejecting you and your experiences.
stop to consider -- it ain't them -- maybe it's you.

and judging by the responces you get here -- and your constant replies using ''we'' when talking about yourself -- i suspect what you want to do is talk about your pain -- too much.
thereby driving people away.

you don't have a lock on what's happening in san fran -- or anywhere else.

san fran has a huge church going gay community.
that's how i know you don't know.

san fran has huge population of folk who don't hang in bars -- that's how i know you don't know.

san fran has a huge population that doesn't go to the ''baths''.
that's how i know you don't know.

san fran has a huge population of folk who aren't ''lookists''.
that's how i know you don't know.

you simply want to argue about your personal pain and project it as a standard of behavior.

it will simply never, ever be true.

[xchrom]

12. sigh -- persecuted

[Brian_Expat]

14. I don't feel "persecuted"

I just feel as though in the "mainstream" urban gay community, there isn't a lot of room for folks like me.

Of course, I'm not taking "no" for an answer, just noting that for a political movement that demands acceptance of others, there's a lot of exclusion going on within it as well. I tend to charge in and make my own space, and when I see others being excluded, I make a big noise about it as well.

The latest version of that which I can think of was the gay media uproar over ENDA being modified to include gender identity. Gay papers from the east to west coasts described it as "trans-jacking ENDA." Imagine if the NAACP had accused gay groups of "gay-jacking the Civil Rights Act." There's really no difference.

For whatever reason, the gay scenes in Europe and Canada are much more inclusive than the ones in the USA, I've found.

[xchrom]

15. sure you do.

none of what you talk about exists except in your head.
and you feel so bad about it -- you project it onto us here at du.

there are people all over -- sf,la,ny,chicago, where ever for you to hang with and find all the common ground you could hope for.

stop hanging out here and go find them.

but take a positve attitude -- cause the one your battin with here will strike out there as well.

[Brian_Expat]

17. Actually you're the one with the persecution syndrome. . .

. . . based on your respense in my HIV thread where you said that calling on gay people to end high-risk sex with strangers to reduce the effect of the new superstrain is "internalised gay bashing."

Thanks for the amateur psychological diagnosis, however, it's lovely. And I'm quite happy in the London gay community, but that's not an option for the millions of other gay and lesbian Americans who are excluded from mainstream gay life by people like yourself.

[xchrom]

19. that's funny

cause that's not what i said.
what i talk about is the attitude around it.
the ''i told you so'' bull shit.

get out there and do something -- other wise you're just critisizing gay people.

''gay people do this'', ''gay people do that'', gay people do the other thing'' -- and none of it positive.

gay folk are like any other folk across the plant earth -- and we have fatal flaws.

go pick on pygmies for a while -- and give gay folk a rest.

[Brian_Expat]

20. "Criticising gay people"

I guess I'm not gay then and neither are other people like me who don't agree with you?

We're ummm. . . what, exactly?

I guess to be gay you've got to be (using your definition) barebackers and atheists? Because those are the only two points of contention I've seen you bring up so far in claiming that I "criticise all gay people."

I guess if you're gay but Quaker, you're not gay?