Dillards 56: Running a Marathon but not Working

[FundieCentral]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

Oh, come on.  I can point to many extreme fundamentalist and even evangelical churches that heckle and hate.

I meant the Church associations, sorry; so if you go on the website of the gay ministries of most of these organizations (not the individual churches!), their official stance is not "bully people on twitter to make them less gay". It is usually what I described above, but I clarified it in the original post (as to who does and does not encourage what). 

EDIT: I could still change the paragraph structure so I did that, but just to clarify: I did not mean to say that pray the gay away is kind, the last sentence did not belong to that paragraph I meant to say that churches get kinder (aka do less of all of the above) once there have been members who have gay children etc. so the ideological stance is confronted with reality. 

[KelseyAnn]

45 minutes ago, Lurky said:

I mean, I can't dispute your anecdata, but as a lesbian, I can 100% promise you I've met homophobic arseholes who are neither closeted nor the victims of child abuse.  

I've said this before on FJ, but this idea that all virulently homophobic people are secretly closeted is another way of saying "real heterosexuals are never homophobic", and that only someone who was homosexual would be that nasty.  Of course there are some people who are terrified people will realise they're LGBT, so lash out to divert attention, but there are also a hell of a lot of straight people who are just as bad, just because they're prejudiced.  When you look at the incidence of homosexuality in society, it's not just a minority of a minority who are driving homophobia - and if it were, they wouldn't have the influence they do.

It's both insulting to LGBT people that being in the closet makes you a hateful person, and seems like it's letting straight people off the hook.

And I hope I'm misunderstanding you, but your second point reads like you are conflating abusers and homosexuals, which, if that's what you're trying to say, is just plain wrong, and if it's intentional, would be super insulting.

Thank you!

[BernRul]

48 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

agree.  And to Free Jinger.  I am so glad you joined us.

Thank you! I am so grateful for how kindly people here have treated me. When you're going through a tough situation like mine,  every little bit of kindness helps tremendously. Comments like "zero sympathy" and "I don't care when they're deported" kill me, but I thought that maybe opening up would show the human side of this issue, and that people don't always know what others are going through. I think that if most people got the chance to see the humanity of the issue, they'd chose kindness over hatred. 

[FundieCentral]

@Lurky: I think that argument sometimes gets brought up along the logic of "in order to hate something, you have to have loved something first". I don't think that is necessarily true, but it makes some sense. 

My personal stance: There are lots of different motives for antipathy toward gay people. Some that come to mind: intellectual opposition, religious condemnation, disgust, punching-bag mentality (also known as assholish-ness), previous bad experience/trauma, ignorance/unfamiliarity or any combination of the above, and I'm sure there are more. I do think that some people for whom disgust or condemnation are the most dominant motives may secretly have a part of themselves that they really hate. I personally get maddest at the people who have character flaws that I also have, because I hate them in myself, so I hate them in others all the more. It's the mechanism of distancing yourself as far as possible from that thing that you don't want to be associated with (but actually probably would if you were entirely honest with yourself and the people around you). Obviously people who are gay are identical to everyone else in that they can have such psychological defenses, and (extrapolating here) if I were gay but didn't want to be/couldn't be/was ashamed of being it, would I try to push that as far away as possible? Maybe, yeah. Does that excuse anything? No. Does that mean everyone that's really hateful is secretly gay? Absolutely not. They can still be hateful for all the other reasons  But as a psychological defense mechanism it makes sense to me. 

[bananabread]

1 hour ago, Lurky said:

And I hope I'm misunderstanding you, but your second point reads like you are conflating abusers and homosexuals, which, if that's what you're trying to say, is just plain wrong, and if it's intentional, would be super insulting.

I would never conflate being LGBT with being an abuser, I think that's baseless and terrible.

I'm just sharing my own experience with the people I've known that act like Derick, who share this obsession with demonizing and attacking LGBT people. I do think that a lot of homophobia is misdirected hurt and rage. A few (male) people I know were abused by older males, and now associate men who are romantically interested in other men with their abuser. It's a ridiculous, hurtful, and inexcusable line of thought, but it does provide some rationale for their homophobia. When they see LGBT people, they instantly think "sick perverts who will abuse kids", because that's how they're processing their trauma. Seeing LGBT people having a family incenses them, because they can't see LGBT people as loving, normal humans, only as abusers. Their perspective is dead wrong, and should absolutely be condemned. BUT, as someone who has a REALLY hard time understanding how such nasty, irrational homophobia exists, this at least gives me some explanation.........as well as a possible solution (therapy, etc).

I'm sure some homophobes are just hateful jerks, but I think more than a few are lashing out in response to personal issues they may not even be fully conscious of. That's at least my personal experience.

[Rachel333]

4 hours ago, Destiny said:

Bestiality too? Yikes. Oh, FJ. <3

I didn't participate in that discussion, but if I remember correctly bestiality is something one of the fundies (Michael Pearl maybe?) asks about in his courtship questionnaire, so it was actually a relevant topic! 

[EmmieJ]

20 hours ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

The USA's immigration policies are among the MOST LENIENT in the fucking WORLD.

I'm married to a Brit. I can NOT move to the UK without jumping through more strenuous hoops than the significantly ridiculous hoops HE jumped through to move here LEGALLY. Add to that the financial hoops. And the cultural hoops. And the "Life in the UK" test.

I have ZERO (that would be NONE) sympathy for people who come here illegally.

Then I am both sorry for you and disgusted by your lack of humanity.

 

[WiseGirl]

10 hours ago, wendy-sparkles said:

Not sure if this is wishful thinking on Derick's part, or some kind of genuine intel. My instinct is of course, since it's Derick, he's talking crap, and honestly my hope is the Duggars never move to UP if it means Derick being back on the show.

 

So ..... if this does happen, (a move to Up as the original post shows) would Boob and green shirt be back on full time? Would each family get a spinoff?  Would viewers die of boredom? 

Sorry, throughout the drift this caught my eye....and the thought of Dwreck  being back on TV just irritates the hell out of me.....

[Beermeet]

Kind of random but, I was curious about the "Life in the UK" test.  I found a mock test. I only got 8 but learned some factoids.

https://lifeintheuktests.co.uk/life-in-the-uk-test/

1 hour ago, bananabread said:

I would never conflate being LGBT with being an abuser, I think that's baseless and terrible.

I'm just sharing my own experience with the people I've known that act like Derick, who share this obsession with demonizing and attacking LGBT people. I do think that a lot of homophobia is misdirected hurt and rage. A few (male) people I know were abused by older males, and now associate men who are romantically interested in other men with their abuser. It's a ridiculous, hurtful, and inexcusable line of thought, but it does provide some rationale for their homophobia. When they see LGBT people, they instantly think "sick perverts who will abuse kids", because that's how they're processing their trauma. Seeing LGBT people having a family incenses them, because they can't see LGBT people as loving, normal humans, only as abusers. Their perspective is dead wrong, and should absolutely be condemned. BUT, as someone who has a REALLY hard time understanding how such nasty, irrational homophobia exists, this at least gives me some explanation.........as well as a possible solution (therapy, etc).

I'm sure some homophobes are just hateful jerks, but I think more than a few are lashing out in response to personal issues they may not even be fully conscious of. That's at least my personal experience.

How can you rationalize the hatred of gay people that way?  If true, it would work in the straight community as well.  The majority of molesters are straight family members if I am remembering the stats correctly.  Women don't tend to look at all men as abusers due to their own abuse.  It just doesn't fit, this theory.  Some people are just assholes for no good reason.  Happens all the time.

[socalrules]

I wonder if Derick’s world has narrowed since he married Jill. When they first married, I seem to recall them going to a wedding of Derick’s college friend. I wonder if he has now cut-off all friends he had prior to marrying Jill. They never post of being with anyone other than those they know through church activities. Even though Derick was Pistol Pete, I wonder how many real friends he had in college. He isn’t that far out from college, you would think he would still be in touch with friends he met there. He seems so angry, maybe those previously in his circle don’t want anything to do with him. I just can’t imagine him being pleasant to be around. 

[Beermeet]

I just want to say ( most likely not as well as I'd like it to come across) that they way gay people are being discussed right now is not cool.  Like, let's figure out teh gayz and all the excuses why they get hated on in a " yeah, I can see that" way.  Dude, these are normal people and in any group of people there are sexual deviants and violent people.  IDK, it feels "them and us" and I don't like it.  We are more alike than not ( duh), only difference is who we bed and how we are treated as humans in love.  Ugh, I hope that made sense.

[FrumperedCat]

One of my favourite pieces of literature with regards to immigration is this: "No one leaves home unless/ home is the mouth of a shark." (A. Shire)

And that just about sums up my viewpoint. 

Except that every time i here about refugees from Syria and other war torn places I think of my siblings. So vulnerable they couldn't survive in these situations. One of them is 18 and couldn't speak till 10. And I think that for them I'd risk it all. Because of how vulnerable they'd be in a country such as Syria or Eritrea. They would stand no chance of survival.

 

[Sky with diamonds]

7 hours ago, Carm_88 said:

I don't think Derick has a mental illness, I think that he's an asshole. His beliefs are the only ones that matter, everyone else should follow life according to Derick. Does he have white saviour complex? Sure as bear's shit in the woods, he does. 

As for immigration, I'm Canadian and all my relatives were not so legal immigrants in the 1800s. They came and they stayed, no one questioned them. Newfoundland is interesting though, we have a very distinct sense of self and an up and down relationship with Canada. We became the 10th province in 1949, my grandfather was 29, the same age I am now. He had two young children and though he wanted to be Canadian, he felt lost. Canada offered so much good but Newfoundland was a country, we were both British and not British. Now similar to many immigrants and refugees, we became the joke. We were backward, stupid, and we talked funny. The chip on the shoulder mentality lasts through generations and it hurts. It hurts to be just as much a part of a country as everyone else but to be the joke. I can't imagine how that would feel if you were fleeing persecution, if you were of a different race, or if you spoke a completely different language. The us vs. them mentality doesn't work. People should be able to celebrate who they are and where they came from, whether it be England in the 1700s or Syria in 2016. 

Fundies and people of their ilk thrive on hate, let us be loving! 

I don't know you all that well, but from what I know from your posts, you prove the stereotypes about Newfoundland wrong. I remember in my first few months after moving to Alberta, I don't know how many times I was 'asked' if I ate cod heads and tounges. 

I watch Big Brother Canada, the reactions from some viewers online...Will should be able to hold his booze better, cause he is a Newfie is one that bugged me. 

 

Great post, @Carm_88, thank you from one Newfoundlannder to another. 

[patsymae]

Well, for the thread drift--love it. Not Native American and my ancestors came here legally because at the time they just pulled the boat up to the dock and you got off and kept walking. 
So what did I miss with Dwreck? Did he actually publicly post something humiliating about Michelle (scolding Jenny?) wouldn't that piss off the inlaws?
From everything I read I think they, Jill and Dwreck, are just unfortunately colossally stupid. Really, just dumber than dirt. 

[QuiverFullofBooks]

9 hours ago, Gobsmacked said:

When the programme first hit our shores we watched it agog. We were never quite sure if the family were for real or some elaborate TV con. Sadly they are real. 

There’s a little bit of a con in there too. From Inquisitr: http://www.inquisitr.com/1304954/duck-dynasty-fake-before-and-after-photos-of-phil-robertsons-family-makes-you-wonder/

[Pecansforeveryone]

19 minutes ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

There’s a little bit of a con in there too. From Inquisitr: http://www.inquisitr.com/1304954/duck-dynasty-fake-before-and-after-photos-of-phil-robertsons-family-makes-you-wonder/

Willie Robertson, bless his heart, is a big Trump supporter. Phil Robertson (who really does give me the chills) was reported to have severely beaten a bar owner and his wife many, many years ago. Phil's wife was alleged to have handed over their life savings to the bar owner to persuade him against pressing charges. I don't like any of those duck pluckers one bit. 

[Bad Wolf]

3 hours ago, Beermeet said:

Kind of random but, I was curious about the "Life in the UK" test.  I found a mock test. I only got 8 but learned some factoids.

https://lifeintheuktests.co.uk/life-in-the-uk-test/

 

I took the test, and only got 70%. And I still have a British passport. 

[pandora]

4 hours ago, bananabread said:

I would never conflate being LGBT with being an abuser, I think that's baseless and terrible.

I'm just sharing my own experience with the people I've known that act like Derick, who share this obsession with demonizing and attacking LGBT people. I do think that a lot of homophobia is misdirected hurt and rage. A few (male) people I know were abused by older males, and now associate men who are romantically interested in other men with their abuser. It's a ridiculous, hurtful, and inexcusable line of thought, but it does provide some rationale for their homophobia. When they see LGBT people, they instantly think "sick perverts who will abuse kids", because that's how they're processing their trauma. Seeing LGBT people having a family incenses them, because they can't see LGBT people as loving, normal humans, only as abusers. Their perspective is dead wrong, and should absolutely be condemned. BUT, as someone who has a REALLY hard time understanding how such nasty, irrational homophobia exists, this at least gives me some explanation.........as well as a possible solution (therapy, etc).

I'm sure some homophobes are just hateful jerks, but I think more than a few are lashing out in response to personal issues they may not even be fully conscious of. That's at least my personal experience.

I think most of us understand that racism, sexism, islamophobia, and anti-semitism are all types of systemic hate which are not caused by the actions of a member of the hated group. Hate is what says "they're all the same", so the underlying belief has to be there before any offense takes place. Homophobia is the same. That's why it's a phobia, it's irrational by definition. Just like love is love, hate is hate- homophobes don't get any exceptions or expectation of reason, just like racists don't.

I see you really trying to find a rationale for that hardness of heart, and I respect and understand your desire. So I'm gonna lay out most common path to the type of virulent homophobia Derick Dillard espouses. It has nothing to do with being gay or abused. Most people have trouble tolerating people whose way of life contradicts the things they hold dear, this is especially true for people who hold absolutist views. Our culture spends a lot of time teaching little boys to define themselves against girls: they learn that their masculinity is important because it's so much better than femininity. Don't cry, don't act, don't throw LIKE A GIRL. People who grow up in patriarchal church which teaches strict gender and sexuality roles get a double dose of this shit down their throats. Those who buy in, like Derick, emerge into adulthood with a lot of misogyny, which is highly correlated with homophobia. Because a man choosing the align himself with (hetero) women by being penetrated by another man is the ultimate betrayal of/ threat to Derick's shitty beliefs. Someone else's queerness is now, irrationally, a personal affront to Derick, and he opens Twitter. As an aside, there's still some threads of that fun misogyny/homophobia blend in our non-fundie culture, even in the gay community- more men openly identify as tops than as bottoms, there's some weirdness there that's hard to shake.

The Ted Haggards of the world are remembered because they're newsworthy not because they're common. It's not "baseless" to watch carefully for insinuations that LGBTQ people are sexually abusive, not that long ago it was common to believe that gay people were all pedophiles and sexual deviants. I wrote more than I thought I would here, not to finger wag at you ( I hope that's not how this comes across) but because this subject is important to me, and because I see in what you wrote a struggle to understand hate, and I feel for you there.

[acheronbeach]

1 hour ago, Bad Wolf said:

I took the test, and only got 70%. And I still have a British passport. 

LOL I got 80 and I'm still entitled to a passport because of my Belfast roots... if only I'd known when St. David's Day was... or "the Proms" were a classical music festival... 

@Carm_88 Newfies have historically been the butt of jokes but I think they're also known for being fun, musically-talented, and with a satirical wit.  (I know, I know, even positive stereotypes can be harmful, but I do think Newfies are generally viewed positively by the ROC, unlike a lot of other provinces' residents). Newfies nowadays are generally viewed along the lines of Rick Mercer or Bernice Morgan, I hope!  

[IntrinsicallyDisordered]

5 hours ago, FrumperedCat said:

One of my favourite pieces of literature with regards to immigration is this: "No one leaves home unless/ home is the mouth of a shark." (A. Shire)

And that just about sums up my viewpoint. 

 

 

Home by Warsan Shire 

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark.

you only run for the border
when you see the whole city
running as well.

your neighbours running faster
than you, the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind
the old tin factory is
holding a gun bigger than his body,
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.

no one would leave home unless home
chased you, fire under feet,
hot blood in your belly.

it's not something you ever thought about
doing, and so when you did -
you carried the anthem under your breath,
waiting until the airport toilet
to tear up the passport and swallow,
each mouthful of paper making it clear that
you would not be going back.

you have to understand,
no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land.

who would choose to spend days
and nights in the stomach of a truck
unless the miles travelled
meant something more than journey.

no one would choose to crawl under fences,
be beaten until your shadow leaves you,
raped, then drowned, forced to the bottom of
the boat because you are darker, be sold,
starved, shot at the border like a sick animal,
be pitied, lose your name, lose your family,
make a refugee camp a home for a year or two or ten,
stripped and searched, find prison everywhere
and if you survive and you are greeted on the other side
with go home blacks, refugees

dirty immigrants, asylum seekers
sucking our country dry of milk,
dark, with their hands out
smell strange, savage -
look what they've done to their own countries,
what will they do to ours?

the dirty looks in the street
softer than a limb torn off,
the indignity of everyday life
more tender than fourteen men who
look like your father, between
your legs, insults easier to swallow
than rubble, than your child's body
in pieces - for now, forget about pride
your survival is more important.

i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home tells you to
leave what you could not behind,
even if it was human.

no one leaves home until home
is a damp voice in your ear saying
leave, run now, i don't know what
i've become.

[Gobsmacked]

OT but yeah!! Amber Rudd has resigned. Now Theresa May needs to go. She is up to her terrible little neck in the wind rush scandal.

I feel so much better now I've told you all!!!

yeah!!!!!

[Lurky]

3 hours ago, pandora said:

I think most of us understand that racism, sexism, islamophobia, and anti-semitism are all types of systemic hate which are not caused by the actions of a member of the hated group. Hate is what says "they're all the same", so the underlying belief has to be there before any offense takes place. Homophobia is the same. That's why it's a phobia, it's irrational by definition. Just like love is love, hate is hate- homophobes don't get any exceptions or expectation of reason, just like racists don't.

Exactly this, thank you.

(ETA Imagine how ridiculous it would be to say "most anti-Semites are secretly Jewish" or "most Islamaphobes/racists/misogynists" etc.   I'm super-interested why it's only homophobia that's different.)

[AprilQuilt]

3 hours ago, Gobsmacked said:

OT but yeah!! Amber Rudd has resigned. Now Theresa May needs to go. She is up to her terrible little neck in the wind rush scandal.

I feel so much better now I've told you all!!!

yeah!!!!!

I really thought they'd delay Rudd's resignation for longer than this - they need her to carry the can for the avalanche of shyte that's going to continue to come out about immigration, which is clearly traceable to Theresa May's time as home secretary. Heads will roll, and now there's only hers left. She's in such a tenuous position I almost feel sorry for her. But  - ha! - I don't. At all.

I'm extremely worried about who'd replace May though. None of this looks good.

[Palimpsest]

7 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

I took the test, and only got 70%. And I still have a British passport. 

I took it and got 91.67%.   To my complete surprise because I haven't lived there for 39 years. I did have a few lucky guesses, but the 2 I got wrong means that I haven't been paying enough attention to the Olympics and the Oscars.

The US Civics test is much harder because it isn't multiple choice.  I just barely squeaked through on this one: https://civicsquestions.com/

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

6 hours ago, acheronbeach said:

LOL I got 80 and I'm still entitled to a passport because of my Belfast roots... if only I'd known when St. David's Day was... or "the Proms" were a classical music festival... 

I got 75% and I don't even know how. Btw why is St. David's Day important?