>(Sorry, it is gay pride month)
>
>The reality seems to be that a "christian identity" has evolved
>whereby people recognize each other, associate with each other,
>and influence each other.
I don't think it's a mistake. About 5 years ago, I think Yoshie posted about groups in Florida who were planning to put some sort of symbol on their storefronts to indicate they were anti-abortion. (I hope I'm remembering this right....) At any rate, I think this prompted Yoshie to ask about how we might do the same for the pro-undead-baby-killer side. [1]
Today, all you have to do is visit small businesses and read the local freebie weeklies to see how they are using the Fish on their storefronts, business cards, and advertising. (Which wouldn't be all unlike the way the gay community sometimes works -- or heck, lefties may try to give each other business, right? I bought some great furniture at the thrift shop. The woman who I hired, she had her own moving company, handed me a card with the rainbow on it. I was psyched because she lived in what everyone called 'redneck country'. [1])
Anyway, this economic factor isn't surprising, considering Max Weber's work on the behavior of protestant businessmen, where their protestantism was a way to display that they were good to do business with.)
I remember serving coffee to the freaking cheapskate (see Ehrenreich!) Christian Businessmen's Club (or some name like that). They met every week to talk about faith and business. They used to talk about how important it was to deal with other christians, etc. etc.
Maybe it's been around a long time, but whenever I do marketing or benchmarking research, I come across special categories "Christian Financial Advising,""Christian Graphics Artists," "Christian Editing Services" "Christian Real Estate Brokers" etc. etc. Go do a google search on it. Is this new? Or has it always been a factor? Anyone know?
Back in the 80s, when I first cut my teeth as a defender of 'just christians', there was a group called New Life Fellowship. They were all upstanding, professionals, managers, etc. who turned to this "just christian" organization. One of them was a very charistmatic math teacher everyone loved. He was wild and crazy in class and I think a lot of people were surprised that he was so into a "just christian" church. I understood this movement as part of what Steven Tipton wrote about in _Getting Saved from the 60s_.
Well this group pissed people off. They started buying up houses in the same neighborhood. They started buying up property around town, and finally went head to head over a parking lot they'd bought, which they were turning into a school and adoption agency.
Community leaders called in the cultologists who claimed they were a cult. This was utter b.s., but there was a huge frenzy in town because these people were just _too_ into the identity politics Brian's talking about. They were also stepping on the toes of the movers and shakers in town.
Anyway, not sure what the point is here, but there can be both good and bad to this. If in fact people are using the fish symbol as a way to achieve business success, perhaps quite sincerely meaning it all at first, then if it's successful it's going to attract people who slap it on their stuff just to get business -- a kind of watered down version of what Weber also talked about.
As for Malta (Thomas Seay): heh. i replied to Thomas Seay off list, but when i poked around, I saw this: http://www.maltagayrights.org/about.html;jsessionid=D9CF1017462A87664628F5CB9BBD1F20
http://www.gaymalta.com/home.html http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2005/05/01/interview.html (good interview with leader of MGRM)
http://www.globalgayz.com/malta-news.html (another innarestin' article, among which is a story about a billboard that says, "The European Union believes in abortion, euthanasia, and same sex marriage.)
My reply offlist had been that I had no idea about what Malta had to do with anything, it was just the common wisdom presented by one of the people participating in the discussion. plus, I told thomas: there's _always_ a gay community (though budge will probably bust in here to laugh at me for saying "community". :)
At 12:04 PM 6/15/2005, John Adams wrote:
>I love messing with subject lines.
:) I hate it when people do it, coz I like to thread it all together.
*sigh* But I put up with it if they're _fun_ changes to the sub. line (mine
wasn't fun tho!)
>That's an interesting opinion that I've never heard. By interesting I mean
>"how the hell did they come up with that?" My only guess is that it's an
>average view from the list--similar to the statistician taking target
>practice. If they're confusing _The Number of the Beast_ with _The Moon Is
>A Harsh Mistress_ (more significant to the development of right-wing
>ideology in literature in the US than Ayn Rand's novels? Well, duh, of
>course), then the opinion makes more sense and is not uncommon.
Yeah. I don't really care if the views are accurate. I was more interested in the views themselves -- and what they say about the perception of Heinlein's work that may get circulated as common wisdom. And just to also note that, on the tech/geek/hacker list, can't get much by without revealing heterosexism
> >Plus, a few of the
>respondents said that he got really bad after he moved to Malta and
>revealed a tolerant attitude toward gays.
>
>There's a joke there I'm missing. There must be, or some confusion on the
>part of the part of those respondents.
>Betting on the confusion,
>
> John A
>
>P.S. You might ask the wife what she thinks. We're a mixed marriage, you
>know--good-hearted non-dogmatic libertarian and surly cynical social
>democrat--and her opinion may be better informed than mine.
Is she a Heinlein fan? I'm not, r is (and we're way more mixed than y'all!). When we were long-distance, we spent Friday 'date night' plugged into netmeeting, reading books to one another. We mostly stuck to non-fiction -- like The Worldly Philosophers, STiffed, etc.. He sent me Heinlein's _Time Enough for Love_ as a gift, but we never got 'round to reading it.
As for the interp -- joke, I dunno. It's just interesting to see how people respond to something like that -- what becomes common wisdom.
k
kelley [1]
Funny story: She was a big strapping woman with very large mother earth breasts that were def. real. She had a good deal of hair growth, though not quite a beard. She was sporting a nice curly long 'doo, purple shorts, and a frilly purple polka dot no-sleeved shirt on, like my great grandma would have worn.
I'm standing in the thrift shop and the clerk says, I'll go get the moving guy. Out comes what is clearly a woman with a some facial hair. But all the people in the thrift shop are calling her a man. So, I figure, well maybe that's just the case: sex change, whatever. And she's not objecting to them.
I can't remember what I said as we were standing outside my house and I was asking about what else she and her partner did for a living. "Oh I'm not a man..." she says. "But they were calling you a man, so I thought...."
"Oh, I just tolerate them. Doesn't matter what I tell them or how I dress, I'm a man to them."
So we kept talking about this and that and I suppose it was clear where my politics were, so I go to shake her hand and she grabs me real hard, yanks me to her and I get the biggest bear hug and big wet smooch!
But the really weird thing; The same thing happend at MacDill a few weeks ago, with the jobs counselor. I got up to leave, when to shake her hand. She completely ignored R. Instead of taking my hand, she grabbed me and gave me the warmest darn hug. My gaydar is so-so, but I don't think she was lez.
R thought it was weird too since we were there for him, not me, but the entire time she just keep talking to me about him. I think it was just because I looked her in the eyes when I talked to her. Is there something going on out in the world that i'm just too isolated from -- where it's unusual for someone to look at you intently and listen?
That's the only explanation I had for why she was so warm to me. I mean, hello? We're talking a military base?!
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin