the same "crimes" that your government uses to justify its crimes.
When did the US government ever use the queer persecution in Cuba (or anywhere else) to justify its actions?
> whether you like it or not your voice -- helps to justify the crimes that
> we
commit in order to oppose the crimes that you don't commit.
How? I have asked several times for examples and the best you come up with is some bleary, half-baked hypothetical from dim history.
> Your first responsibility is to stop the crimes that you commit, or your
government commits, then maybe you can begin to think about the crimes
committed by your neighbor, or some government overseas.
They are both my responsibilities. As a queer, establishing solidarity with others queers around the world is important.
> But apparently you are unable to comprehend that our crimes are our
responsibility mainly because the way to stop them would be to actually
do something effective to stop them.
I do understand it. I just see my responsibility as wider than your narrow definition.
> You know nothing about my sexual orientation, my sexual past, my desires,
or who I have had oral or anal sex with.
You have spoken of your girlfriend, thereby claiming a non-queer identity. Did you lie? Are you now claiming a queer identity? Jump in. The water's fine. But please don't be be one of those non-queers trying to be hip by playing coy and not being honest about your sexuality. There is nothing wrong with being a non-queer. Some of my best friends are.
> It is completely irrelevant to the conversation.
No, it is not irrelevant to the converstion at all (though you would love it to be).
> I set my hypothetical in ancient Rome because I thought the distance would
abstract the situation from current ideological confusions.
No, it just made it abstract and disengaged from reality. Fine for the classroom, but useless in real life.
> You are speaking up against a government you can only have control over,
> if
your government increases its violence against Cuba.
I am also speaking as a queer man. Also, I am not trying to have control over a government -- I am raising my voice in opposition to queer persecution and hopefully prodding the persecutors into a moment of reflection. Maybe if enough people spoke regularly against queer persecution, governments would pause before embarking on such a campaign. Silence=Death.
> By doing so you are not helping the people "over there," who ever they
> are,
you are only supplying ideological cover and pharasitical moral soothing for
our crimes.
No, I am speaking against queer persecution just as people spoke against apartheid -- opposing a moral wrong. Whether committed by a right wing government or a left wing one, queer persecution needs to be opposed.
> I am sorry Brian that you don't understand this.
I understand what you are saying. I just think it is more abstract twaddle. I do not believe that any action taken by the United States government against Cuba has been based on Cuba's persecution of queers.
But I do think there is a simple solution: governments should not persecute queers. Then they will be immune from criticism.
Brian