to be fed up with homophobia on MN

[smittenkitten]

today there was the thread about being 'uncomfortable' with a secondary school telling kids it's OK to be gay. a short while ago there was a post about someone being freaked out by two women kissing on a bus.

calling it being 'uncomfortable' is still homophobia. we wouldn't tolerate racism on here - imagine "i'm concerned that my DC's school wants to say it's OK to be black". the OP would be rightly slammed, but instead the queers on MN have to put up with people defending bigotry saying that people are entitled to have a POV etc.

Freedom of speech does not include the right to victimise and marginalise others for their race, religion, sexuality, age or other irrelevant attributes. I don't think its unreasonable to want MN to be a safe space where we don't have to deal with homophobia.

I think you are being unreasonable

There is homophobia in society and MN is just a reflection of that - although TBH homophobic posts on MN are very rare

The good thing about MN is that you get 1 post which is homophobia and 300 posts explaining why that person needs educating

I think it's a good thing

I think most people have been pretty openly shocked by the post about the secondary school lesson.

Actually freedom of speech means we can discuss these issues. What a dreadful place mumsnet would be if we weren't allowed to deal with homophobia and discuss racism etc.

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can't stand the word 'queers' personally......

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I'm all for freedom of speech. I disagree with the opinion of mner who was a bit uncomfortable with the school's talk, but if she's not allowed to express those views how can she ever change them, if she so chooses?

banning people from discussion isn't a good thing,imo.

havent' seen the kissing on a bus thread.

Wisteria, I think words like 'queer' and 'camp' have been reclaimed by the gay community (in the way that 'black' has been reclaimed), so I'm not sure there's any need to be offended by it - ?

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why call them "queers" smittenkitten?

am confused by this as it seemed from your OP you dislike homophobia - then you use this word

possibly so nork - but I can't stand it! 'tis a personal thing and the gay members of my family also detest it so not all the gay community have reclaimed it clearly

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I agree with morningpaper.

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oh fgs. i've danced the night away at Heaven and i'd still be a bit taken aback by blokes kissing on a bus (so, to be clear, despite the fact that i've seen them fucking in nightclubs). it doesn't mean anything other than it's an unusual sight.
i think the OP of the school post has taken a savage beating at the hands of a baying 'look i'm not a homophobe' mob and you all shouldn't be happy about that especially when the OP really didn't say anything that you wouldn't expect to be able to prick with a few well-chosen questions.
mn isn't like RL AT ALL, in RL people rarely get duffed up because of a comment like those, they're more likely to be agreed with. but let's never waste an opportunity to be pious, eh?

YABU, I agree with all of the posts on here, I was on the thread regarding schools and the vast majority disagreed with the op. here. I am neither racist or homophobic and think there are a lot of ignorant people in the world, however if these subjects are not debated a great number of people would remain ignorant. I have seen threads where the op has had her opinion changed completley after being educated.

That was from february!!

I wouldn't call two threads in two months worthy of getting 'fed up' about tbh. A very tiny minority of the monthly threads that occus here on MN.

that's interesting to know Wist - maybe it's the difference between queer as adjective (eg queer theory) and queer as noun - the first seems more balanced than the second for sure.

The original poster in that thread said - 'I don't want to come across as a Prude but I really don't want my DC's to witness this kind of behaviour whether the couple were heterosexual or gay.'

What's wrong with that? I don't want to see people full on snogging on a bus either, particularly with small children in tow. The use of the term 'this kind of behaviour' is a bit strange, but other than that, I think her post is reasonable. She isn't singling out gay people as far as I can see from that post.

ok = normal in my books km.

Oops, thread moved on since I wrote that!

eewk I don't want to see anybody snogging in public, I couldn't give a monkeys what sex they are.

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