scans_daily | "Gay Liberation" AKA hetero white guy lecturing gay people how to fight for their rights

benuben posting in

Made by political cartoonist Ted Rall.

"After the Stonewall riots, the gay liberation movement was militant, agitating for more freedom and radical ways to live. But AIDS led to increased conservatism – and now, after gay marriage was effectively legalized, one had to ask: whatever happened to the thrilling gay movement of the 1970s?"

Source: rall.com/2013/07/03/gay-liberation

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From:

lilacsigil

One of these things is not like the others...

He might remember how straight sexuality has become more conservative since the 1970s, too. In how many US states can you claim partner benefits without being married, gay or straight? And is there any mainstream poly movement since the 70s?

How about Ted thrills and liberates himself for a bit rather than relying on people he'd rather keep as outsiders to do it for him?

From:

silicondream

Gay people: Surprisingly similar to non-gay people, except that they're gay.

From:

stolisomancer

Oh, Ted Rall.

There are a lot of layers to that onion and the onion's way past its sell-by date. The Something Awful political cartoons thread has made a habit out of dismantling him for years.

From:

icon_uk

I'm not familiar with his work, but that just... (I feel like I'm quoting my mother here) it's not clever and it's not funny.. it's not even GOOD.

From:

wizardru

SURPRISE! You actually ARE familiar with his work. :)

From:

freezer

That's pretty much Ted Rall. He'll occasionally hit one out of the park, but usually he tries WAY too hard to be clever and ends up with a baffling non-joke.

From:

kamino_neko

Can't get the image to load here, or on Rall's site. (Are you linking directly to the image on his server? You shouldn't do that. Hosting it on your own site, or an image hosting site (I like postimage.org, myself) is the polite way to do it.)

Using a workaround, I got it, so, here we go.

And that's...uh...special.

From:

benuben

I'm sorry, fixed it now.

From:

theflames

I'll blame my youthful naiveté on this... but what is he getting at exactly?

From:

ablackraptor

I'm asking the same thing. Is he saying Gay People have it too easy? Is he saying gay people will turn straight if you give them all they want? Its not clear.

(reply from suspended user)

From:

ablackraptor

No problem, always enjoy a good rant. Thanks for the info.

From:

kamino_neko

Perfectly appropriate rant.

This whole attitude is no more mature, and nearly as harmful as the whole 'queers are icky-icky!' thing - now we have people supposedly on our side (or even in the same boat) trying to put us into boxes that we might not be comfortable in!

Everyone - be they gay, straight, or bi-/pan-/whatever-sexual, be they the flamingest queen who ever minced, so butch you grow chest hair just by being in their presence, or so straight-acting you could use them as a ruler, be they male, female, trans or cis - everyone should have the right to be who they are.

Edited Date: 2013-07-16 03:11 pm (UTC)

From:

btravage

Ask the "straight-acting" gay wether they feel the same way (especially if they self-identify as that)

From:

shadowpsykie

see i get that. There are times i wish i grew up during that time period so that i could take part in all the protests and civil disobedience....

though this is me coming from where i am today... a place i would not be if NOT for those first protestors.

the whole POINT of those protests and fights were to be treated like everyone else. and now that we have STARTED (because god knows there is still a long way to go) getting what we wanted, people are saying crap like this.

i mean doesn't he get that even those gay people who get a "Heteronormative" are still not heteronormative. they are not always accepted, apparently not even by certain allies, so the very act of attempting to have a heteronormative gay life is STILL an act of defiance....

From:

an_idol_mind

I'm either missing a punchline or this comic is missing a point.

From:

sharky_chan

I think the closest you'll get to an explanation is what propagandor replied to an earlier comment, but I'm still not really getting any sort of point out of the comic :|. But then, I suspect entitled hetero white guys are kinda beyond my ability to comprehend _o_.

From:

flidgetjerome

"whatever happened to the thrilling gay movement of the 1970s?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Shame

From:

shadowpsykie

wait.... WHAT?

what is he even saying... What?!?!

From:

kamino_neko

'If you want to have the same things straight people do, you might as well be straight, you betrayers of your gay forefathers, for shame!'

From:

shadowpsykie

that's what i thought he was saying....

From:

icon_uk

That's... not something I can even conceive of someone actually articulating, never mind expecting it to be comprehended from those panels.

Sometimes I feel SO naive.

From:

benuben

In the comments section, he responded to one of his critics:

"Look, I want those stupid laws off the books too. But any liberation struggle has to be strategic. For example, rather than fight for the “right” to join America’s imperialist armies and the “right” to murder untold innocents, gays ought to have urged straights to boycott enlistment offices – because the military was/is both evil and homophobic.

Gays still suffer. Hell, “femme” straights suffer. Society needs to change more. But there is no doubt that the LGBT movement has become very conservative post-ACT-UP. The move toward monogamism is an especially unfortunate development, since logic would have dictated that straights should be becoming more like gays were – sexually liberated."

From:

shadowpsykie

see icon....

From:

benuben

I love you people :-)

From:

shadowpsykie

heh we try

Edited Date: 2013-07-16 06:23 pm (UTC)

From:

droolfangrrl

Thanks.

From:

thezmage

I've read Jack Chick tracts less homophobic and disgusting than that comment.

From:

bruinsfan

That seems ridiculously condescending and disrespectful to the people who want to build a life and family with one specific significant other (e.g., most people, straight OR gay, in my experience). I mean, I'm a gay man who's happily single and not personally that interested in coupling up, and even I'm offended. (I'm the product of a bedrock-solid half century monogamous marriage, which I can't disrespect by viewing it as an undesirable thing or politically-correct sellout even if it's not right for me personally.)

From:

full_metal_ox

Am I the only one who considered this possible interpretation: the guy on the right is a (possibly straight) Moral Guardian who privately falls short of his own publicly proclaimed standards--i.e., marriage is between one man and one woman (until someone younger and hotter comes along, and then it's between one man and a different woman), and sex is between one man and whomever he thinks he can avoid getting caught with?

From:

kamino_neko

That doesn't fit the narrative - the gay guy is saying what he wants in every other panel, why would he suddenly be saying what the straight guy claims to want in the final panel, and what, then, would 'that was easy' even mean?

From:

full_metal_ox

...On second thought, yeah, you're right; that interpretation doesn't hold up. (Of course, it can be hellishly difficult to fit something to the narrative when the narrative is squirming around like a contrary toddler being wrangled into overalls.)

From:

halloweenjack

Executive version: "Look, we're going to dismantle the system one of these first days and replace it with something better (details pending), so never mind about those silly rights that I've been taking for granted for myself from day one."

From:

junipepper

blech

From:

starwolf_oakley

"Gay people have the right be as boring as anyone else!"

That *might* be it. Rall could be confusing "heterosexual monogamy" with "boring," at least compared to how "exciting" the gay movement of the 1970s was.

From:

fungo_squiggly

I love Ted Rall.

Whenever I find myself getting upset about right wing lunatic fringe folks being all rabid and annoying, I just tell myself, "Yeah, but we have crazy people on 'our' side, too. Like Ted Rall."

Puts things into perspective, it does.

From:

icon_uk

He's on OUR side?

From:

fungo_squiggly

I'm a liberal. Ted Rall is a lunatic-fringe liberal.

So, yes, technically he is on 'my side.'

Of course you may have noticed my use of scare quotes around 'our' and 'my.'

From:

cypherfdp

Oh yes. Oh yes. I had no idea how much I wanted Ted Rall to be posted here. Political Cartoons are a horrible entity unto themselves. Ted Rall is unique in that while the majority of horrible cartoonists are radical conservative crackpots, Rall is a self-proclaimed revolutionary, while somehow being the worst "liberal" of all time.

Ted Rall: revolutionary, leftist visionary, attempted murderer.

Courtesy of Jagger McDagger in the Something Awful Political Cartoons thread:

Edited Date: 2013-07-16 07:54 pm (UTC)

From:

full_metal_ox

Wait...does this portray something Rall actually did?

From:

skemono

Looks like it. That should be from My War With Brian, which appears to be autobiographical--all about how Koff bullied Rall, until the latter got bigger and beat him up instead.

From:

lencannon

Anti-assimilation is a valid and common LGBT philosophy. I don't really subscribe, per se, but it's not anything new. I don't think some straight dude shouldn't be preaching it though. He's just hates the military and twisted a comic about DADT to support that.

From:

cypherfdp

It's funny with Rall, when soldiers are in active service they're unspeakably evil baby-killing monsters, but veterans are poor innocents who are tormented by the wicked hand of Dark Lord Obummer.

From:

halloweenjack

I don't have a lot of use for Rall. He's chronically bitter and vindictive, and has an apparently ineradicable tendency toward problematic behavior. He also published an autobiographical book called Revenge of the Latchkey Kids (original title: Kill Your Parents Before They Kill You, which gives you an idea of the tone of the book), in which he fumes about his absent father and talks about the time that he hatched a plan to embezzle $100 million from the bank that he was working at, and fumed at his co-conspirators for backing out.

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"Gay Liberation" AKA hetero white guy lecturing gay people how to fight for their rights

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