I don't agree with the way you are characterizing this [edit: I agree with ganstaman], but to save time can we just skip to where you state what the consequence of this situation is? I mean, surely you understand that the main legal and social discrimination faced by the gay community revolves around the 'what we do' aspect rather than 'how we feel inside' aspect?

The entire debate between us in this thread has been about whether your characterization that the gay community is defined by action, not attraction is a fair representation. You just said it was defined by the attraction - which is MY point - which seems to be about as much of a capitulation as I would ever expect from you.

Wat. Absolutely not. Actually the way you phrased it doesn't even make sense. MAYBE you could misconstrue what I said as (gay community : gay sex :: asian community : chopsticks) but I assume what you said was just a mind fart because it doesn't even make categorical sense since what you just typed out is the categories of (attractions: behaviours :: behaviours: groups of people). However, even if you had managed to type out the categories in something that actually makes sense, it would again be not even remotely close to anything I was saying.

The point of the chopstick example was that you were defending your claim that the gay community was DEFINED by the action by noting that it would be different were it not for the action. The chopstick example was to demonstrate that just because a behaviour occurs does not mean it is defined by it. OBVIOUSLY - and I explicitly stated it - gay sex is much more important to the gay community than chopsticks are to the asian community. So I am in absolutely no possible sense of the word trying to imply in any way that there is some form of equivalence here as you entirely incorrectly just asserted.

Perhaps the reason you so grossly misunderstood this and have so erroneously misrepresented it is because you are, as you admitted, just skimming my posts.

I am going to ignore the discussion of history, mainly because I am not particularly well versed in it.

The bolded "do" is still emphasizing the wrong factor. Yes you are right they want legitimacy for both who they are and what they do. But who they are is not determined by what they do, what they do is determined by who they are. As in, people are, first and foremost, gay or straight in the sense that their sexual orientation is gay or straight. Given that, they act on that in a variety of ways, but the central issue is the orientation not the behaviour.

Btw, the underlined quote is not actually true for many people. For many gays, being gay is not a huge part of their identity just in the same way that being straight is not a huge part of the identities of many straight people. The central aspects of who they are are a range of other things. Of course, some people - gay and straight - do find their sexual orientation to be core to the identity, but this is not true in general and there isn't any big asymmetry here between gay people and straight people. It is quite similar to how it is with race. To some people being a certain race just isn't a very important aspect of their identity and their central aspects are other things. For others, it is critically important to them.

"How we feel" existed before the 1960s. It was there for quite a while before that time. But a gay community did not arise. Therefore, "How we feel" was not sufficient on its own.

Maybe a way of thinking about it is that "sexual exploration" isn't a matter of thinking about different types of sex.

Sometimes, the only consequence is understanding. Again, the article itself was not written as a call to action. The question is simply whether you agree or disagree with the author.

So? That doesn't make you right or me wrong. I'm not seeing in this an explanation of why sexual behavior and not sexual attraction is now the defining characteristic of the gay community.

The therefore is not at all justified. The main reason I would suspect that a vibrant gay community did not form a hundred years ago is because social norms were defined by an anarchonistic religion that viewed sexual behaviour as an abomination and a society that heavily discriminated against them in employment and other aspects of social life. This doesn't imply that "how we feel" is somehow an insufficient definition of the gay community today.

You are projecting into the future. You're not there yet. This is similar to your projection of the marriage civil rights issue. You (probably) view yourself as being on the leading edge of change. That's fine. The problem is that where you are and where the bulk is found are not the same place. This is similar to your understanding/position regarding the gay marriage issue. Because you're on the leading edge, you want to see things as having made far more progress than has actually been made (or being much further along in positioning to make said progress, depending on how exactly you want to word it). This is why your arguments were centered so much around "momentum" and not in terms of actually counting up a large number of successes.

What you're claiming is already here is what is emerging in the next generation. Here's an article from 2005:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-06-...arade-fatigue/

I believe that this is representative of a slightly leading edge person with regards to the movement of the gay community. As a gay man, he can publicly admit that he's not interested in the parades anymore. And there's no sense in which this is somehow a betrayal of the gay community.

I think this roughly coincides with a general toning down of the over-the-top sexuality and a willingness to allow some push-back against it without it being understood as being somehow taking a stand against the gay community.*

* Edit: Not to say that the overt sexuality is gone.

(This comes to mind: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/san...in-gay-pride-p

I don't think they win that lawsuit in the 1990s. But by 2009? Yeah. Pride parades are no longer about "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!")

But back to the "fatigue" article, that was less than a decade ago! There is a shift in the community. But it's not like that sexuality is all of a sudden a thing of the past. What you are thinking about when you think about the gay community is (in a sense) the "third generation" of the gay community in America (thinking in terms of cultural assimilation -- the second generation generally still speaks the language of home, and the third generation does not).

You say this, but you continue to engage it. How should one interpret your arguments in light of your self-assessment?

Edit: What I see in how you argue and how you articulate your position is someone who is arguing from a lens that only sees the last 10-15 years, and then has some sort of off-handed acknowledgment that there was some sort of history before that. Recent history is not measured in years. It's measured in decades. And there is a sense in which recent history is better measured in generations. Take the time to gain a broader view of social movements, and you'll be better at understanding and constructing arguments that run deeper than simply having strong rhetoric.

Okay...I read the article...but I am confused about exactly how you think it relates to anything. Yes, I agree with the author that the pace of social acceptance of gays is very rapid (which motivates my belief that this trend will undoubtably continue). But none of this seems related to the issue which is whether the key identifier of the gay community is an action or an attraction. Nothing in the article suggests it is the former, and I don't see what from this historical view bolsters your claim in any way either.

btw, it is quite a small minority that actually attends pride parades and in particular none of my close gay friends do. It is seen more as a party these days for many than as a political/social statement. But yes you are certainly right that he ought not be (and I doubt would be) considered to be betraying the community in any way.

You have not shown how history is relevant in this case. Heck if you want to say that 100 years ago the prevailing attitudes towards gays were such and such then sure great I will probably take you at your word. But I have pretty considerable first hand experience with gay issues as they are seen by gay people today and how the gay community views things today. So when I say that the gay community (of today) views the defining aspect by the attraction and NOT the action, it is based on these experiences. But I don't have anywhere close to the same level of experience for gay people identified 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. I am not entirely ignorant but I wouldn't want to use an appeal to my own knowledge on it. It isn't any disdain for history and if you think it is relevent for some argument explain why but it is just honest to note the asymmetry in knowledge.

Not really. In Canada, most of the major gay rights issues were all solved a decade ago and people leading the charger where 2-3 decades ago. There are a few sticking points regarding religious public schools, but for the most part there isn't actually a gay rights issue in Canada any longer. We have anti-gay discrimination as an analogous right in the charter and as an enumerated right in the human rights council and provincial level jurisdictions, all of this meaning things like employment discrimination or marriage discrimination is all not possible. Social attitudes remain strongly in favour of these gay rights. The battle is just kind of over, so no I would say I grew up a generation too late to really be leading the edge of change.

Canada != United States

Maybe that's at the root of your misreading of it. Since you're such a well-versed blogger of American politics, I would think you would understand that. But maybe not.

This is not true of the US, as you well know. Do you not yet realize how this affects the argumentation you need to put forth?

Again, your Canadian experiences are showing. THESE DAYS, you're right. In the 1990s in the US, not so much so. The overt sexuality of the pride parades back then were a central part of the political/social statement being made.

You cannot pretend that events of 15-20 years ago are not still relevant. It doesn't just disappear because you want it to disappear. The shift in the community takes *TIME*. You can't just wish it away for the US because you live in Canada.

Yesterday was not that long ago. You can't pretend like it didn't happen and that it's not still relevant.

By the way, how old are you? I doubt I'm *that* much older than you, but you are giving off a young-naive type of vibe in this paragraph.

The problem here, Aaron, is that you want to have your cake and eat by refusing to declare any consequences or implications of the premises in the article while simultaneously stressing the importance of what you perceive to be a shift in the stance of the gay community in recent history. If you want to argue that we should be interested in the historical shift you propose, then you need to man-up and state what the consequences/implications of that shift might be.