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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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Haven't seen a thread yet on the gay bar shooting last weekend so I figured I would start it.

Sticking to facts in this post, opinion will go in reply.

  • The shooter killed 5 and injured 25

  • The shooter is a 22 year old, Anderson Lee Aldrich

  • The shooter previously was charged after he threatened his mother with homemade explosives and kidnapped her, but the charges were dropped

  • The shooter is the grandson of a prominent local Republican

  • The shooter was stopped by a drag queen combat veteran, who used his high heels to stomp him

Are adult men using a gay party drug with a 12 year old boy grooming him? You've written a long post very carefully not saying anything specific and insinuating that any opposition to these specific things is just enforcing victorian morality.

Why is this? If there is nothing wrong with the specific behavior of these activists, why avoid mentioning it?

OP explicitly referenced "introducing sexually related content or concepts to minors, especially when those relate to non-conventional concepts" which is clearly a reference to the ongoing controversies in education about precisely that The issue has nothing to do with giving kids party drugs.

that there are some bad apples taking their stuff to wrong directions is not their fault

I don’t see them making this argument, I see them calling people who notice transphobic and shrieking about how parents don’t have the right to know what goes on with their children.

If they disavowed these people, it’d be one thing. They don’t, they shriek about how doing anything but pretend it isn’t happening is bigoted.

I think the problem is when the pink haired lady gets a job as high school counsellor and assures students that if they want, the school will adopt their new pronouns and new name and keep it all secret from their parents, and when communicating with their parents will use their deadname, but don't worry, we know who you really are.

The argument is that this is necessary to protect vulnerable young people from abusive parents who would harm them if they found out their kid was trans. The trouble is, that "this is a special secret just between us and your parents will never know" is also the kind of behaviour that, yes, groomers engage in. 'I am the sympathetic adult who really understands you, and this topic of sexuality is a secret between us, and sure your parents would be very angry with you if they found out, so it will be a secret between you and me'.

It's definitely a valid concern. But opponents of such programs/behavior also refuse to offer any other solutions for the child who expresses concerns of abuse from their parents. This has to go both ways. Any reasonable adult would want to protect a child from abuse and would take reasonable steps to do so. "Pink haired ladies" came up with one solution and it's not perfect. But I have yet to hear any reasonable alternative solution for other side of this coin either.

the pink haired lady, giving seminars on how you should be decent to that kid too even if he's weird and stands out

I mean, that's not what people are objecting to at all and I think you know it, so this is incredibly disingenuous.

The LGBT activist community can easily wiggle out of the responsibility just following the template put forward by many here: that some bad apples taking their stuff to wrong directions is not their fault.

They could, and some do, have you heard about "Gays Against Groomers"? But most progressives seem to prefer to attack people pointing out the bad apples, which in my opinion implicates them to an extent.

Oh, sure. I'm not saying every LGBT person should start an equivalent of Gays Against Groomers, I'm just saying they shouldn't try to get GAG banned like they did.

I don't think Gays Against Groomers should be banned, but I suspect they're roughly equivalent to the Log Cabin Republicans or many other "we're tribe X, but we hold unconventional views for members of tribe X" groups. Usually, you can model them as being run by leaders who are secretly tribe Y, and who wish to undermine the efforts of tribe X.

Gays Against Groomers should get a fair hearing in society if they're arguing in good faith, and individuals should punish them with inattention and apathy if they're not arguing in good faith.

but I suspect they're roughly equivalent to the Log Cabin Republicans or many other "we're tribe X, but we hold unconventional views for members of tribe X" groups

Hold on, how is that supposed to work?

The Log Cabin Republicans were not representative of the gay community, because they were on board with the Republican Party platform. It's completely reasonable for gay people to say "we have nothing in common with those guys, except for our sexuality".

Gays Against Groomers, are a single-issue group devoted to pointing out the bad apples. You can't say "we have nothing in common with them except for our sexuality" while still distancing yourself from the bad apples.

I don't think Gays Against Groomers should be banned

Well, the problem is that they were. So not only there seem to be bad apples in the education system, the moderation of Big Tech platforms seems to be heavily influenced by some sort of pro-bad-apple club, making it even more important to point them out, in my opinion.

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