New site policy
CommentsI am proud that in the first two months of GaysDefendMarriage.com I have given a pretty thorough answer to nearly every pro-gay-marriage question and comment posted at the site. Given the modest traffic, it wasn’t hard to do.
The traffic isn’t so modest anymore. Yesterday we got more than 40 comments.
Lots of exciting things are happening for me. I am working on some pieces about marriage that will bring far more national attention to my ideas and to this blog than ever before. I have to devote serious amounts of attention to those projects and future projects (which make me money), which means I cannot foresee responding to 40 or more comments a day.
So from now on, I’d like to try the following new policy:
1) I promise to read every word of every comment left at GaysDefendMarriage.com.
2) I will respond to the questions and comments I find most interesting and provocative.
3) You will not accuse me of “ignoring” or “refusing to answer” this or that, given that I simply do not have time to respond specifically to 40 E-mails a day.
I wish I could do everything, but I just can’t. I’m thrilled with the growing popularity of this blog. Many, many of my published pieces grew out of exchanges and challenges that happened right here. For now, I’ll just ask that some of you try to challenge each other when I’m unable to answer every question. If you go to popular blogs you’ll see they often comment very little if every. I’m trying to comment as much as I reasonably can.
Thanks!
You can have a new policy, but you’re still a liar who twists the truth whenever he has the chance. Box Turtle Bulletin has made that very obvious to the world. You’re a sad, sad man.
And you’ve got nothing better to do than insult journalists, Musicguy? I wonder who the sad man is.
In any case, I’m glad to hear you’ll be spending more time making a name for yourself, David. The debate needs more people like you. Good luck!
- Andrea
Musicguy-
Welcome to the blog. Timothy Kincaid is the liar who uses unnamed sources (his original report named only three specific people who complained about, of whom I have never even had a short conversation with two) and innuendo because he wants to make me less credible. It appears to be working in the gay press, but I would switch in a minute to the outlets I currently have access to, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times. The irony is, the less time I have to spend on my gay-press column (and I will have to make a decision on that soon), the more time I have to spend selling my columns to prominent publications like the above (and there are bigger ones coming I cannot confirm yet). Nobody including me ever thought Fabulously Observant was going to convince many or even a few LGBT people to oppose same-sex marriage. So fine - I’ll spend more time influencing fair-minded straight people in the pages of publications like the Philadelphia Daily News and the Los Angeles Daily News. And the people campaigning to stop my gay-press column thought they were helping the gay marriage campaign? Precisely the opposite!
Okay I am confused.
I looked at the Fabulously Observant column. There are 2 - one deals with glb (but not T) persons in the military, and the other dealt with common ground issues between the glbt community and the religious conservatives. Unless, I missed something there hasn’t been something published specifically about gay marriage - so I don’t see how this column convinced LGBT persons to oppose same-sex marriage.
Patrick-
I’m sorry for being unclear. I think it would be a waste of my time to put a lot of energy into the marriage subject in the gay press. My third installment, which has not run yet, has a few lines about marriage but it’s mostly about AIDS. I’m going to make more progress in the gay press writing about AIDS and prison rape and lesbian alcoholism - three issues I do not think the gay press covers nearly enough - than by disagreeing with the majority of their readership on marriage.
My point above is to say if you support same-sex marriage, getting gay papers to drop my column is counterproductive. It will mean I will stop writing Fabulously Observant altogether, and thus the several hours a month I would have spent on my gay-press column will instead be spent on other activities, particularly mainstream opinion pieces. I have had man-woman marriage op-eds in nine of the 25 largest metropolitan dailies, include a huge paper in this debate some time this week (they say). If the people getting my gay-press paper dropped want me to spend more time trying to get the USA Today and the Chicago Tribune to run more columns about why same-sex marriage isn’t marriage, they’ve hit upon a really smart strategy.
Actually, Andrea, I don’t have anything better to do this week. Thanks for asking. Calling David a journalist cheapens the word for every hard working man and woman who actually writes with integrity, unwilling to lie about themselves or their work.
Musicguy, thank you. You’re the first gay person on this site who really gets what I’m trying to say, and I’m going to start using your turn of phrase to try to explain to other proponents of same-sex marriage what my point is.
Using a term of honor to things that deserve less honor “cheapens the word” as you say, which is harmful to everyone. No offense chiropractors, but when you call yourself a “doctor” you cheapen the word for all the real doctors that spent several years preparing and deserve the honor that word carries. Similarly, calling two men’s relationship a “marriage” cheapens the word when it’s extended to a man and a women who have committed to sexual exlusivity and understand that marriage is sacred (or for non-religious coups, elevated) and not something to take lightly (I’ll be blogging on what I mean soon, I have to get one permission, my post is already written).
Thanks for helping me say better what I wanted to say all along. Stick around, even if you disagree with me. You’re very useful.
yeah, I totally get you. Marriage still hasn’t recovered from that other cheapening when blacks became able to marry WHITES!!!! Horror of horrors, it’s happening all over again.
Let’s bring back slavery while you’re at it. I’m sure people thought humanity was cheapened when African Americans were actually considered to be a whole man.
Musicguy-
You’re helping me put my finger on something frustrating about the “marriage equality” movement that I’m sure I’ll blog about someday. So once again, thank you.
If I was proposing a major change to one of the most important traditions in America - say, which side of the road we drive on or whether all drugs should be legalized - I would understand that the burden would be on me to convince the rest of society that my idea is good. I would carefully try to build a coalition and over a number of years try to at least get a first vote in Congress and hopefully eventually turn enough people around to build a movement and get presidential candidates to take our position and eventually triumph.
Many, many LGBT activists have operated the opposite way. If you read Musicguy and many other posts, it’s as if the default position (Gemara term, sorry) is that same-sex marriage is legal and moral and accepted - and it’s the traditionalists who have to defend their position. Well, I’m sorry, that’s not how social change has ever worked. Yet your side of the debate has basically asserted that same-sex marriage is a civil right (despite the fact that all the experts like the Supreme Court and Barack Obama disagree) and then get offended that huge swaths of society would have the temerity to want to keep things the old way.
Well, get over yourself. I acknowledge that at some point legal marriage as an institution may change in certain places. But you’re the one who has to prove it’s a good idea - it’s not my job to prove it’s bad (though I’m pretty good at it and am willing to if you want me to). The plan of the “marriage equality” movement appears to be to win by any means necessary (including outright cheating in Massachusetts twice, California, and New York) and then to quickly change the laws so that not only does their movement get to define marriage, anybody else’s definition must change too or they risk the power of the state coming down on their assets, their occupation, and their freedom.
If anyone should be angry, it’s people like me. So if you want to SHOUT!!!! like you do above, I have as much righteous indignation at what your side is doing to people like me as you have about what my side is doing to people like you. We can have a brawl if you want. I’d rather stay calm and carefully examine the issues involved. My best guess is such a process would result in each side compromising at least a little.
Whew.
Seriously (I’m not mocking you this time) thank you. My rant above is likely to turn into an opinion piece in a major metropolitan daily in the next few weeks (my San Francisco Chronicle piece should hit the ‘net in the next several hours). And I owe it all to you.
Stick around, you do me a lot of good.