That "gay rights" meme

[emmagrant01]

I saw a few people reposting that "gay rights" meme on my flist yesterday and I have to say I didn't feel remotely compelled to repost it in my LJ. It seemed like a chain letter to me, you know the sort you get in email from an old college friend (whose only emails to you are those sorts of things) containing a rewritten version of some urban legend along with a plea to immediately forward it to every person you know? I usually respond to those by hitting reply-all and providing a link to the appropriate entry on Snopes.

This meme looked to be much the same sort of emo blackmail (ZOMG if u dont post this ur a homof0be!1!!), so I ignored it. And then upstart_crow made a very eloquent post stating just why this sort of meme makes her uncomfortable.

gmth also makes some suggestions for things you could do if you're really concerned about "gay rights".

And several people have pointed me to wemyss's hilarious take on the issue.

So yeah, what they said.

No offense intended to people who reposted it. This is about me hating chain letters. I don't begrudge people who like them. Unless they keep sending them to me...

Comments

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link, Emma :3

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Thanks for writing about the issue!

[remey.livejournal.com]

eck. i heard(saw) about it. and some of the reactions of some on my flist were like, " Oh, so if we don't repost this we aparently are homophobic and evil, etc" and i'm just glad i've not seen it cause i'd probably get kinda pissed, but not be able to do anything about it cause of my "some have way with words, some not have way, i are one of them" thing. >.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I saw a smattering of them on my flist yesterday, but I ignired them. Cause yeah. :-P

[remey.livejournal.com]

yesh. much of the Asdkf-ing around....

[fodirteg.livejournal.com]

And thanks for expressing the "chain-letter" aspect. That was my reaction, as well.

Besides, wouldn't that kind of be preaching to the choir, so to speak? Anyone who knows me well enough to care what I might post on LJ knows my gay rights views, anyway.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I hate chain letters. I didn't pay it enough attention to really worry about what people might think that I hadn't posted it, because I tend to skim my flist a lot these days anyway, and I miss a lot of that stuff. And... I don't actually spend a heck of a lot of time worrying about what people think of me, to be honest. ;-)

[smoonyc.livejournal.com]

I saw that on a few other people's LJs as well and I was taken aback that people would actually judge others for not re-posting a meme. Half the people on my list don't post or read their journals very often and even if they did, I would never expect them to do something like that.

I pretty much agree that it feels like a chain letter and I don't usually do many memes anyway so while I am all for gay rights, I wouldn't repost the meme.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I don't know if any people were judging anyone else for not posting it, but I have to say that if they were, that's a pretty stupid thing to do. If anyone thought less of me because I didn't repost a meme, I think I would just be amused, because clearly they wouldn't know me very well. ;-)

[tigerblak.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I should have taken the last line out. But I put it there to state my opinion on gay rights and if no one read it at all that was fine because I was only stating that I supported the idea.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Crow's post linked above makes some interesting points about the wording of that meme being so vague as to make the sentiment of it fairly meaningless. What do you think about that?

[tigerblak.livejournal.com]

Well why I think her post is great and definately says a lot more than my cut and paste job ever could for queer rights...I don't think that its fair to just tar and feather the people who did repost it to their journal with the same brush. What if, for example you are supportive of gay rights, but not in the know about, all of the other rights that she mentions, but you want to show your support in some small way. She mentions and you do too about other ways you can show your support for the cause, but what if you can't donate, or don't know where to start...or what if this was your way of making a promise to start.

There could be hundreds of different reasons that people reposted the meme. I know that for me it was about showing how much I agreed with the need for rights for all. And honestly, while it says gay rights, I'm more of the line of rights for anyone who has been stepped upon because they aren't heterosexual.

I'm sorry that I'm not as eloquent, but I didn't post it because I wanted others to copy it from me. I posted it because I supported the idea that no one has the right to discriminate against another because of who they choose to have sex with.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I was mostly just curious about what someone who had reposted the meme (with the best intentions at heart) would think about what she wrote there, so thanks for responding!

I found the quote about two men holding hands that was in the meme to be a nice statement, but I guess what turned me off was the chain lettery tone of the rest of it. It wasn't until I read Crow's thoughts that I started to think more deeply about the meaning behind the words of that meme. I thought her strongest point was that the term "gay rights" doesn't actually have a lot of meaning because it means so many different things to different people, on all sides of the issue. So when someone says they're supporting gay rights, there's a sense in which they haven't actually taken a strong stand at all, because they've left it to the listener to decide what that even means. To a right wing nut, it brings up all sorts of negative connotations that may actually make that person stop listening to you.

And that's really true, when you think about it. How you choose to frame an issue has a big impact on the message that gets heard. When I talk about issues related to gay rights, I usually say "equal rights" because I find the label "gay" too limiting. It doesn't necessarily include everyone I regard as needing access to equal rights, which I find problematic. It's also a term that's used by the Christian right in an ironic way, and when you say "gay rights" to one of those folks, it automatically dredges up all of the negative imagery they've associated with the term. I guess I've found it more useful to talk about people as human beings first and to describe their circumstances in a way that makes their circumstances seem horribly unfair -- and only when it's clear the person is sympathetic does a word like "gay" or "lesbian" or "transgendered" come up.

And then it's fun to watch them struggle with that. Heh.

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

WTF ARE YOU DOING?! If you don't post it in the next seven minutes then you won't have sex for the next seven years!!11omg

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

OH NOES!!1!

[corsiva.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the little note at the bottom.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- it was the tone of it that made me roll my eyes, not the sentiment.

[tigerblak.livejournal.com]

Totally understand. I reposted it, because I don't often post anything, but gay rights is something that I get on my soapbox about. I found this particular post interesting and since I don't post often, I went ahead with it.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

This was more about the implication in that meme that you're a bad person if you didn't repost it, you know? That's ludicrous.

[hermorrine.livejournal.com]

Word. SO much word. I just don't see the point of posting that when, um, DUH?

And yeah, I hate chain letters too, in every sort of incarnation. -.-

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Exactly -- it's preaching to the choir 'round these parts, you know?

And chain letters just get on my last nerve. :-P

[digitalwave]

Thanks for the links, sweetie. I made a post about the meme this morning. I couldn't resist, the wording of the meme really bothered me. I know that I was no where near as eloquent as the other links you gave us but I had to try.

*hugs*

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

Yes, I felt the same way about that meme.

[jamoche]

wemyss did a pretty good job deconstructing it too.

Once, back when I was a teenager, and the only sort of "feminists" I'd ever heard of were the angry loud man-hating "give us special treatment to make up for past prejudice" ones (before I'd learned that with any group, it's the loud atypical ones who get all the attention), I told my mom that I wasn't a feminist. She said "what? You're the best feminist I know; you walk into any situation expecting to be treated just like anyone else." 

Which, yeah. I'm for everyone having rights.

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much why I didn't post it either. PLus I feel like, if you really care about gay rights, you'll be actually DOING something to show your support. Something useful, I mean, like writing your congressman or supporting the HRC, etc.

I can't wait for slashcast. I have SO MUCH to say.

[teardropdangel.livejournal.com]

This is why I leave such posts up to those who are far more coherent than I. I couldn't figure out just what bugged me about the meme (other than the reactionary how exactly is this going to help gay rights? thought.) But these posts just about summed up my feelings.

Thanks for the links!

[shezan.livejournal.com]

... and wemyss made a HILARIOUS post about it.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

That was hilarious! I've added a link to it above, actually. Thanks!

[charlotteschaos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that meme pop up on my list and I was like, "Meh, if people don't know where I stand by now, I'm pretty sure that a little c/p action isn't going to clue them in."

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Seriously!

[frances-veritas.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. I had no idea that a post like that would make some people uncomfortable. I read the first part and completely agreed with it. That's why I posted it. Heh. Maybe I should have left out the second part. I didn't think of it as a chain letter at all and I didn't perceive the people who didn't post it as homophobic or anything like that. Huh. I hope I didn't offend anyone.