[quote=@Jig] At least in the UK, modern gay prides aren't screamy protests. [color=red]The screamy bit was meant more towards screamy internet people. Some of them find their way into the real world.[/color] They're big ol' carnivals which explicitly go out of their way to ensure that LGBT+ people are welcome. Lots of people go to the biggest ones who aren't even LGBT+, because it's basically a big gay pissup - which, incidentally, is a nice change for LGBT+ from the usual mindset of 'must be vigilant when around my partner in public in case somebody literally beats us up'. Or it's an understanding space where people are uncertain about their gender or sexuality to go experiment with a new version of themselves. [color=red]Yes, I've been to gay prides, I've seen in person how fun but absolutely useless they are.[/color] You're right in that most people (at least in the UK) don't care one way or the other - and that's great. However, when people [i]do[/i] care, it sucks for LGBT+ people. [color=red]Yes. Just like it sucks to be pro-environment and to hear people say they don't care.[/color] It results in anything from low-level being made to feel shitty (whether intentional or not) to literally being killed, even in societies where people are broadly understanding. Still, I can't help but read a chip on your shoulder when you pull up gay prides three times. Unless they're vastly different in the US [color=red]I am Dutch.[/color], it does sound like you're in some way offended by LGBT+ people when they're doused in sparkles and boas and ... you know, gay stuff. [color=red]Not at all. Why would that offend me? If anything I think it's a nicer fashion statement than some of the modern fashionable clothes we see nowadays.[/color] It's just gays having a gay party. [color=red]What's the difference between a gay party and a party? IMHO they are the same.[/color] LGBT+ have historically had a pretty shitty time of it - let 'em party one day a year. [color=red]I feel like you didn't read anything I posted after my OP, did you?[/color] If you don't like that stuff, do what I do and just stay at home that day. [color=red]No, I'd rather go out and do stuff I want to do. I'm not going out and beating LGBT people up, in fact, in real life, I don't even say I disagree with the idea of gay pride. So I think that earns me a right to do whatever the hell I want, innit?[/color] God knows LGBT+ people spend enough time feeling like the world's ramming one particular version of existence down their throats: I think it's pretty polite of the majority of LGBT+ people who go to prides to condense all their public gay into [i]one[/i] day a year in [i]some[/i] cities. I'm pretty sure you've actually just defined a bigot. At least in my book, somebody who is intolerant and can't live by a 'live and let live' mentality is [i]precisely[/i] a bigot. [color=red]Sorry, can you read, isn't that exactly what I just said? I didn't say shit about not letting the LGBT people live their lives. In fact I've advocated nothing BUT that the entire thread. If someone can advocate being anti LGBT and at the same time remain respectful, then you really have no business calling them a bigot, because that's not a bigot, that is just someone with a differing opinion. Please don't put words in my mouth.[/color] The law in the UK does not forbid the opinion that homosexuality is wrong, or even the dissemination of that opinion, but nor does it protect the people with that opinion from [url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/08/18/man-who-claims-god-punishes-gays-with-floods-has-his-home-destroyed-in-flood-of-biblical-proportions/]being ridiculed[/url] or told, more roundly, to fuck right off. It does, however, explicitly forbid the dissemination of the opinion that LGBT+ people should be [i]harmed[/i]. [color=red]Great, we're on the same page then, since I actually wrote that LGBT people should not be harmed even if you are against them. Thanks for repeating what I already wrote.[/color] Talking free speech is all well and good, but in the UK at least, it's freedom [i]within the law[/i]. That is to say, one cannot advocate committing a crime. Discussing whether or not something (killing gays, for example) should or should not be legal is fine, but until you've won that argument one way or the other, the law's position is absolute. [color=red]Same as above. I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here.[/color] Most LGBT+ people would be delighted with a world where people can pursue life in their own way (including being homophobic), but it's not unreasonable for them to want and expect the same legal rights and social acceptance as cishet people [color=red]Hey holy shit!! We both live in countries where this is already the case! WOW! imagine that[/color] - the same privileges that the people that advocate against them have historically enjoyed. People who advocate against the rights or the lifestyle of a group that [i]does no harm to anybody whatsoever[/i] fall into one of two camps; the religiously insane; or the interminably selfish. The 'god will smite us all' group, I think most people would agree, basically comprises dumbasses. [color=red]Not at all. I do not agree. They just have differing world views. This is not a battle of right vs. wrong, it's a battle between multiple right's.[/color] The '[i]I[/i] don't like it so [i]nobody[/i] can have it' group, meanwhile, is suffering a serious lack of the ability to [i]share[/i]. They have the [i]right[/i] to be nuts/selfish, but, you know, it doesn't stop them being nuts/selfish, or being judged for being nuts/selfish in a way that is directly opposed to a group that doesn't want anything more than the equality it typically hasn't experienced. All of this cuts both ways, of course. I'm sure there are plenty of LGBT+ people (or supporters) who are militant and intolerant of people peacefully disagreeing, and they're bigots too. The only thing is, it's almost never the anti-gay bigots that get the shitty end of the stick. [color=red]loloolollolololololololololo[/color] Ain't no anti-gay bigot who's afraid to be with their partner in public. [color=red]Interracial couples, polygamous 'couples', couples where one or both sides have strict parents, couples with differing religions[/color] Ain't no anti-gay bigot whose right to marry/have consensual sex with the person they choose is something that has to be fought for. [color=red]polygamous people. Many anti-same sex marriage people actually advocated that if people of the same sex are allowed to be married, so should they with their 3 cousins and 4 girlfriends. And they're not wrong.[/color] Ain't no anti-gay bigot whose sexuality and how it relates to free speech and the law is called frequently into question. [color=red]There also isn't any sexuality that is as outspoken about their sexuality as the LGBT community. People that have sex with cars are not really heard. There's not many of them but they exist. I wonder how we'd feel if people like that wanted to get vocal about their rights to marry a car. Because marriage is a lot more than marriage, you know? It's about taxes, paperwork, benefits, etc. I agree homosexuals should be able to benefit. But where do you personally draw the line?[/color] [/quote]