I was not responding directly to the preceeding postings. Rather, I was drawing attention to something that has crept into our Gay Culture that mirrors what is probably most repugnant in mainstream American society.

As Gay and Bisexual males, we've had to endure many indignities thrust upon us by mainstream society and it's culture of social exclusion. This culture of social exclusion predates the birth of this nation whose early settlers sought religious freedom from the tyranny of oppressive governments and the mainstream societies that cultivated social exclusion on the principle of noncomformity. While America's landscape has changed over the centuries, it's culture of social exclusion has acquired permanence and stains the social fabric of our nation.

The social fabric of America is a patchwork quilt of many cultures that together, as a whole, is a magnificant work of art that is both envied and despised for it's simple design and unmatched strength. What continues to stain and weaken our social fabric is a culture of social exclusion that has crept into our Gay Culture, undermining the bedrock principle of inclusiveness which embraces our diversity and strengthens our resolve for justice and equity.

It is not enough to sound the clarion's trumpet when some members of our gay culture have been seduced by the attractiveness of "idealized" norms borne out of the fiction of comformity. If gay culture is to survive, it must thrive and grow on the bedrock principle of inclusiveness which embraces our diversity and strengthens our resolve for justice and equity.

I fail to see how our gay culture can survive if social exclusion for the most selfish reasons demands comformity to "idealized" norms borne out of fiction. It isn't so much that "idealized" norms are a bad thing in and of themselves. What does matter, I would hope, is that gay culture serves our best interests and our "idealized" norms are borne out of principles that embrace our diversity and stengthen our resolve for justice and equity.

Justice and equity cannot be achieved if our culture is a mirror reflection of that which is most repugnant to our sensibility. Mainstream American society is culturally diverse but still socially excludes us from participating in that society because we have rejected comformity on the high principle of inclusiveness that embraces our diversity and strengthens our resolve for justice and equity.

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Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. And, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

-- Abraham Lincoln

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