>>Sad to say, the gay civil rights movement has always been seen as being on the political left, as one more whining special interest group claiming entitlement to all sorts of special treatment from the government. Or we have been seen as having a simply grand old time cavorting at Gay Pride parades and throwing condoms at Catholic services. Whether as crybabies or as Dionysian celebrants, we always appear as outsiders or misfits. I cringe at both images.>>

What´s the point here? The identical criticism was made of black people during the civil rights movement and of women during their struggle shortly thereafter. Both extremes have their place. We have legitimate grievances and, as sexual rebels because of the nature of our desire (whether inherent or culturally perspectivized), we are comparatively Dionysian.

HOw is it that people forget that "women´s libbers" were called whores or whiners, that black people were called immoral or reparations-seeking welfare scum? This just comes with challenging the dominant culture. You don´t avoid it by trying to clean up your image.

>>Most gay men and women do not go around demanding government favors or living a hedonistic "gay lifestyle" which is code for irresponsibility. But just enough of us act out these images, or tolerate them, that they become real in the public mind. I think Middle America feels uncomfortable about this, at the very least. Our right-wing homophobes love it, because it gives them someone to hate and someone to use as a foil for attracting mainstream support to their own causes. In this respect, by accepting, and in some cases cultivating, these negative images of the gay lifestyle, we lose friends and help our enemies. >>

This is an After the Ball-Place at the Table argument. It assumes that image will effectively leverage us politically. It strikes me as almost amazingly naive that gay people still subscribe to this argument at this time in history. I suspect that in 30 years people will look back at the claim that gay people are immoral sexual lunatics with the same emabarassment we look at the way Gloria Steinem was called a ¨"man-hating lesbian whore."

I have to say, Mercury (assuming YOU aren´t also Sun), that I find your taking Jake to task for ad hominem argumentation a bit odd in view of your fundamentally image-preoccupied polemic.

Oh....We know quite well that Sun, the pinko-baiter, has no cohesive content, only a predictable structural role as provocateur. (The man even claimed to be black one day.) The only way to deal with that kind of oscillation is to respond as you do to a polemical cartoon, the Toon´s Guide to Ayn Rand, if you will.

[This message has been edited by bongo (edited April 07, 2001).]