'A message from the gay community performed by the san francisco gay mens chorus'

[california boy]

8 hours ago, bluebell said:

I can appreciate your perspective, I just see it a different way.

I like the idea of the song but the tactic--we will work at every turn to undermine you as a parent to ensure that our perspective wins the day--doesn't speak very highly of the cause to me.  

I don't see it creepy in a pedophile sense at all.  I just see it as incredibly disrespectful of the parent/child bond.  

Quote

CV75 said

Given the “anti-parental” context throughout, I think the lyrics convey the intent to bypass the home and get the child audience into the crosshairs for social engineering to a greater extent than what one might expect from say, a PSA. This crosses a line far beyond the realm of civil rights advocacy and into interfering with family relationships, religious morality and the array of other life skills and values as practiced in the home.

One might ask, what would be problematic with the text of the Gaddianton epistle in 3 Nephi 3: 2 - 11 if it had been written in a more jovial tone.

I totally understand that this parody is pretty aggressive and addresses head on the kind of rhetoric that gay men have been accused of for decades by a mirror right back on that issue.  And I can see how some people view this as anti-parental and disrespects the parent/child bond.  So what would possess this gay men's chorus to go there?

In 2019 the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, in response to a wave of discriminatory anti-LGBTQ laws in Southern states and the divisive 2016 election, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus embarks on a tour of the American Deep South.  They made a documentary of that tour.  You can get more information on their website.  I watched that documentary when it first came out.  For some, returning to the South where they grew up was deeply troubling and even frightening.  They had to directly face their worst fears and hurt of being kicked out of their churches.  Most of their families threw them out on the street and some have never seen them again.  A few of the singers saw their parents for the first time in decades while on this tour.  Some parents still refused to meet with them.  It is an emotional and in many ways upsetting film.  Maybe more for me because it brought up deep wounds that my own Mormon father and siblings not having anything to do with me for 13 years after I came out.  While I have tried very hard to get past that kind of experience, I am the first to admit, I am not really over it.  I still get high anxiety when I see my father even at 99 years old and suffering from dementia.  I know he doesn't really know who I am, but it is still difficult to spend time with him.  I don't talk about this with other family members.  On the surface, they think it is all in the past.  It is not.   This is the background of the group performing that song. 

While you might have nothing but love and a strong connection with your parents, many of these men do not.  They may not  have the same respect for parent/child relationship that you might have. At that point in their lives where they needed their parents the most, they were thrown out in the street to fend for themselves.  Most of them in the choir that came from the south made their way to San Francisco and found a choir that could become the family that they no longer had.  Can you see that perhaps they aren't even thinking the same way you are about this?  When you listen to the lyrics with this point of view, the song sounds a lot different.  It is a defiant message to parents and how they treat their children.

Hope that sheds some light on this issue.

 

[The Nehor]

38 minutes ago, bluebell said:

You might be right, but Smac isn't posting the opinion of a "right-wing site", he's posting his own feelings about it.  Do we have reason to believe he's lying?  

I do. I don’t know if anyone else is led by the facts to that conclusion.

[The Nehor]

27 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Given the atrocities that have been committed in the name of "social consensus mixed with what is approved by the powerful" that is a truly terrifying thought.  

Society is a horrifying place. However that is how it has always worked. The idea that there is a new consensus is going to do something inexplicably evil ignores that the current consensus can and has done that too. That is how humanity seems to work. We solve some problems while creating new ones. We uncover age old problems again and either mess with them or let it lie.

Now I feel the urge to read Ecclesiastes.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Free education for all children is also Marxist thinking. Abolition of children from factory labor is also Marxist thinking.

Mussolini made the trains run on time, so he must have been a good leader.  
 

By the way, before someone fact checks me on this, I’m aware that Mussolini didn’t really make the trains run on time — he just made people think he did by taking credit for it. Yes, I’ve read snopes.com on this. 
 

The point is, even a tyrannical dictator can do some things right and make some people think — for a time — that he’s not such a bad guy. 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Scott Lloyd

[smac97]

7 minutes ago, california boy said:

I totally understand that this parody is pretty aggressive and addresses head on the kind of rhetoric that gay men have been accused of for decades by a mirror right back on that issue.  And I can see how some people view this as anti-parental and disrespects the parent/child bond.  So what would possess this gay men's chorus to go there?

In 2019 the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, in response to a wave of discriminatory anti-LGBTQ laws in Southern states and the divisive 2016 election, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus embarks on a tour of the American Deep South.  They made a documentary of that tour.  You can get more information on their website.  I watched that documentary when it first came out.  For some, returning to the South where they grew up was deeply troubling and even frightening.  They had to directly face their worst fears and hurt of being kicked out of their churches.  Most of their families threw them out on the street and some have never seen them again.  A few of the singers saw their parents for the first time in decades while on this tour.  Some parents still refused to meet with them.  It is an emotional and in many ways upsetting film.  Maybe more for me because it brought up deep wounds that my own Mormon father and siblings not having anything to do with me for 13 years after I came out.  While I have tried very hard to get past that kind of experience, I am the first to admit, I am not really over it.  I still get high anxiety when I see my father even at 99 years old and suffering from dementia.  I know he doesn't really know who I am, but it is still difficult to spend time with him.  I don't talk about this with other family members.  On the surface, they think it is all in the past.  It is not.   This is the background of the group performing that song. 

While you might have nothing but love and a strong connection with your parents, many of these men do not.  They may not  have the same respect for parent/child relationship that you might have. At that point in their lives where they needed their parents the most, they were thrown out in the street to fend for themselves.  Most of them in the choir that came from the south made their way to San Francisco and found a choir that could become the family that they no longer had.  Can you see that perhaps they aren't even thinking the same way you are about this?  When you listen to the lyrics with this point of view, the song sounds a lot different.  It is a defiant message to parents and how they treat their children.

Hope that sheds some light on this issue.

Some interesting information.  I will ruminate on it.

I'm having a hard time formulating a more counter-productive, alienating, divisive, and harmful-to-their-own-interests course of action than that song and video.  

There is no effort to persuade.  Just ridicule and taunts about subverting my role as parent and father of my children.

There is no effort to use evidence or reasoning.  Just insults and innuendo, even to the point of including double entendre, about coming after our children

There is no effort to communicate.  Just blithe and smiling accusations of bigotry and hate.  For not embracing/endorsing their worldview.

There is no respect.  There is, instead, a manifest expression of contempt - a "defiant message" - wherein strangers presume to tell me how to treat my children, and to threaten to supplant me if I don't toe their line.

As I said before: 

Quote

Holy cow.  Who was the intended audience for this song?  Who are they trying to persuade?  And persuade them to what idea(s)?  Don't they see that they are playing with fire?  Don't they see that the provocateur schtick may get a few belly laughs from folks who already agree with them, but will likely offend and alienate people who have been seeking to find empathy and mutual respect?  How on earth can these guys expect to receive respect by insulting people like me, accuse us of terrible things, and then tauntingly sing about "coming for {our} children"?  Don't they see that they are are provoking fear, suspicious and anger with stuff like this?  And that responding with sentiments like "You're just a bigot if you dislike the song" only alienates even further?

As I see it, they were looking to be divisive.  To alarm.  To offend.  To provoke others to anger.  To taunt and insult people about perhaps the most primal concern in their lives: the welfare of their children.

Well, it looks like they succeeded.  

I am grateful that the Church teaches love, patience, compassion, and charity.  I am grateful to be tethered to a strong and visible code of conduct.   “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32).  Having reviewed much of the commentary responsive to this video, I am bothered in a second sense.  Not only do I resent the video/song's deliberate provocation, I am also concerned at some of the responses of those who have been provoked.

-Smac

 

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Mussolini made the trains run on time, so he must have been a good leader. 

He actually didn’t.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/

He claimed he did but some train nerds ran the numbers and there was no real improvement. They ran a little worse. That is okay though. Il Duce was up front loudly telling everyone the trains were running on time and some people believed him. Those who rode the trains….didn’t really believe it as much. It is a standard fascist tactic. Lie about your achievements and keep lying about them until they become facts in people’s heads. Also a good gaslighting technique when abusing somebody. Probably not a coincidence.

[The Nehor]

19 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Some interesting information.  I will ruminate on it.

I'm having a hard time formulating a more counter-productive, alienating, divisive, and harmful-to-their-own-interests course of action than that song and video.  

There is no effort to persuade.  Just ridicule and taunts about subverting my role as parent and father of my children.

There is no effort to use evidence or reasoning.  Just insults and innuendo, even to the point of including double entendre, about coming after our children

There is no effort to communicate.  Just blithe and smiling accusations of bigotry and hate.  For not embracing/endorsing their worldview.

There is no respect.  There is, instead, a manifest expression of contempt - a "defiant message" - wherein strangers presume to tell me how to treat my children, and to threaten to supplant me if I don't toe their line.

As I said before: 

As I see it, they were looking to be divisive.  To alarm.  To offend.  To provoke others to anger.  To taunt and insult people about perhaps the most primal concern in their lives: the welfare of their children.

Well, it looks like they succeeded.  

I am grateful that the Church teaches love, patience, compassion, and charity.  I am grateful to be tethered to a strong and visible code of conduct.   “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32).  Having reviewed much of the commentary responsive to this video, I am bothered in a second sense.  Not only do I resent the video/song's deliberate provocation, I am also concerned at some of the responses of those who have been provoked.

-Smac

 

Well, I am glad we held that long discussion and shared various points of view so that you can reach the exact same conclusion you gave in the OP and now pass a final judgement on those you disagree with. Truly an enlightening experience. Thank you for sharing your journey from Point A to Point A with us. We should do this again some time.

Edited July 9, 2021 by The Nehor

[Scott Lloyd]

5 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

He actually didn’t.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/

He claimed he did but some train nerds ran the numbers and there was no real improvement. They ran a little worse. That is okay though. Il Duce was up front loudly telling everyone the trains were running on time and some people believed him. Those who rode the trains….didn’t really believe it as much. It is a standard fascist tactic. Lie about your achievements and keep lying about them until they become facts in people’s heads. Also a good gaslighting technique when abusing somebody. Probably not a coincidence.

You’re a tad late on this. 
 

Read the part I added and posted, probably while you were composing the above. 
 

Sorry to spoil your pedantry. 

[Scott Lloyd]

7 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Well, I am glad we held that long discussion and shared various points of view so that you can reach the exact same conclusion you gave in the OP. Truly an enlightening experience. Thank you for sharing your journey from Point A to Point A with us. We should do this again some time.

It’s not Smac’s fault you failed to make a persuasive case. 

[Calm]

16 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I'm having a hard time formulating a more counter-productive, alienating, divisive, and harmful-to-their-own-interests course of action than that song and video.  

You were never into creative writing, I bet…you have just committed my brain to going to places I’d rather not go, lol. I can think of so many ways to ramp that up. 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Calm

[Peacefully]

On 7/7/2021 at 4:59 PM, smac97 said:

Yeesh.  I'm trying to understand what these guys hope to accomplish with this stuff.

Serious question. What did you hope to accomplish by starting this thread? I assume you know it is satire which by definition is usually provocative and edgy. 

[The Nehor]

6 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

It’s not Smac’s fault you failed to make a persuasive case. 

Actually nobody did. The fact that his views didn’t change at all suggested no one contributed anything of value from any side. 10 pages of written text with no persuasive value. Wow, we must all be idiots.

11 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

You’re a tad late on this. 
 

Read the part I added and posted, probably while you were composing the above. 
 

Sorry to spoil your pedantry. 

Call me paranoid if you must but I have a vague suspicion that you are not actually sorry at all.

[Scott Lloyd]

8 minutes ago, Calm said:

You were never into creative writing, I bet…you have just committed my brain to going to places I’d rather not go, lol. I can think of so many ways to ramp that up. 

I’m not sure there are many worse ways. I think of all the book and screenplay plots I’ve seen where the perp oppresses or exercises control on the extortion victim by threatening his children. 

[Scott Lloyd]

1 minute ago, The Nehor said:

Actually nobody did. The fact that his views didn’t change at all suggested no one contributed anything of value from any side. 10 pages of written text with no persuasive value. Wow, we must all be idiots.

There is some value in defending a valid point of view, even if the minds of the participants aren’t changed. 

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

There is some value in defending a valid point of view, even if the minds of the participants aren’t changed. 

Thank you for the compliment. You are not so bad yourself.

[california boy]

44 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Some interesting information.  I will ruminate on it.

I'm having a hard time formulating a more counter-productive, alienating, divisive, and harmful-to-their-own-interests course of action than that song and video.  

There is no effort to persuade.  Just ridicule and taunts about subverting my role as parent and father of my children.

There is no effort to use evidence or reasoning.  Just insults and innuendo, even to the point of including double entendre, about coming after our children

There is no effort to communicate.  Just blithe and smiling accusations of bigotry and hate.  For not embracing/endorsing their worldview.

There is no respect.  There is, instead, a manifest expression of contempt - a "defiant message" - wherein strangers presume to tell me how to treat my children, and to threaten to supplant me if I don't toe their line.

As I said before: 

As I see it, they were looking to be divisive.  To alarm.  To offend.  To provoke others to anger.  To taunt and insult people about perhaps the most primal concern in their lives: the welfare of their children.

Well, it looks like they succeeded.  

I am grateful that the Church teaches love, patience, compassion, and charity.  I am grateful to be tethered to a strong and visible code of conduct.   “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32).  Having reviewed much of the commentary responsive to this video, I am bothered in a second sense.  Not only do I resent the video/song's deliberate provocation, I am also concerned at some of the responses of those who have been provoked.

-Smac

 

I think there are a lot of gay people who have long given up on changing minds of those that have forever decided that they are sinners, apostates and all the other names they have gotten called for decades. They have moved on with their lives, and are perfectly happy with the choices they have made and who they love.  Heck, I would be thrilled if we could have just one thread about LGBT issues without pedophile being brought into the thread.

Since you brought this up, what could a gay couple possible say to you that would convince you they are making the right decisions for their lives?  What could the gay community possibly do to stop you from posting threads like this which you start regularly and then spend page after page outraged by their choices?  

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

He actually didn’t.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/

He claimed he did but some train nerds ran the numbers and there was no real improvement. They ran a little worse. That is okay though. Il Duce was up front loudly telling everyone the trains were running on time and some people believed him. Those who rode the trains….didn’t really believe it as much. It is a standard fascist tactic. Lie about your achievements and keep lying about them until they become facts in people’s heads. Also a good gaslighting technique when abusing somebody. Probably not a coincidence.

Hmmm, sounds like someone I know. 

[The Nehor]

36 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Hmmm, sounds like someone I know. 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, california boy said:

I think there are a lot of gay people who have long given up on changing minds of those that have forever decided that they are sinners, apostates and all the other names they have gotten called for decades.

And again with accusations.  Imputations.  Mindreading.

No wonder we can't get along.  

And it's too bad some have given up on persuasion, and are instead resorting to divisiveness, taunts, provocations, and so on.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

They have moved on with their lives, and are perfectly happy with the choices they have made and who they love. 

And yet they are singing about subverting parents, about coming after our children.

Live and let live, my foot.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Since you brought this up, what could a gay couple possible say to you that would convince you they are making the right decisions for their lives?  

First, I didn't bring that up.

Second, I don't know why they would be invested in convincing me about the propriety of their decisions.

Third, we are way past the whole live and let live thing, aren't we?  Your question suggests that folks like you cannot abide diversity of viewpoints and opinions.  We're in a zero sum game.

Fourth, reasonable minds can disagree about all sorts of things, including important things.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

What could the gay community possibly do to stop you from posting threads like this which you start regularly and then spend page after page outraged by their choices?  

"Their choices" being . . . taunting others?  Accusing them of bigotry and hate?  Of teaching their children to hate?  Of threatening to subvert their role as parents?  Of "coming for {their} children?"

Live and let live, my foot.  It's your way or the highway.  Capitulate to your viewpoint or be branded a bigot.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[The Nehor]

5 minutes ago, smac97 said:

And again with accusations.  Imputations.  Mindreading.

No wonder we can't get along.  

And it's too bad some have given up on persuasion, and are instead resorting to divisiveness, taunts, provocations, and so on.

And yet they are singing about subverting parents, about coming after our children.

Live and let live, my foot.

First, I didn't bring that up.

Second, I don't know why they would be invested in convincing me about the propriety of their decisions.

Third, we are way past the whole live and let live thing, aren't we?  Your question suggests that folks like you cannot abide diversity of viewpoints and opinions.  We're in a zero sum game.

Fourth, reasonable minds can disagree about all sorts of things, including important things.

"Their choices" being . . . taunting others?  Accusing them of bigotry and hate?  Of teaching their children to hate?  Of threatening to subvert their role as parents?  Of "coming for {their} children?"

Live and let live, my foot.  It's your way or the highway.  Capitulate to your viewpoint or be branded a bigot.  

Thanks,

-Smac

That sure is a lot of words to type without answering the question at all.

[Rain]

3 hours ago, california boy said:

I totally understand that this parody is pretty aggressive and addresses head on the kind of rhetoric that gay men have been accused of for decades by a mirror right back on that issue.  And I can see how some people view this as anti-parental and disrespects the parent/child bond.  So what would possess this gay men's chorus to go there?

In 2019 the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, in response to a wave of discriminatory anti-LGBTQ laws in Southern states and the divisive 2016 election, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus embarks on a tour of the American Deep South.  They made a documentary of that tour.  You can get more information on their website.  I watched that documentary when it first came out.  For some, returning to the South where they grew up was deeply troubling and even frightening.  They had to directly face their worst fears and hurt of being kicked out of their churches.  Most of their families threw them out on the street and some have never seen them again.  A few of the singers saw their parents for the first time in decades while on this tour.  Some parents still refused to meet with them.  It is an emotional and in many ways upsetting film.  Maybe more for me because it brought up deep wounds that my own Mormon father and siblings not having anything to do with me for 13 years after I came out.  While I have tried very hard to get past that kind of experience, I am the first to admit, I am not really over it.  I still get high anxiety when I see my father even at 99 years old and suffering from dementia.  I know he doesn't really know who I am, but it is still difficult to spend time with him.  I don't talk about this with other family members.  On the surface, they think it is all in the past.  It is not.   This is the background of the group performing that song. 

While you might have nothing but love and a strong connection with your parents, many of these men do not.  They may not  have the same respect for parent/child relationship that you might have. At that point in their lives where they needed their parents the most, they were thrown out in the street to fend for themselves.  Most of them in the choir that came from the south made their way to San Francisco and found a choir that could become the family that they no longer had.  Can you see that perhaps they aren't even thinking the same way you are about this?  When you listen to the lyrics with this point of view, the song sounds a lot different.  It is a defiant message to parents and how they treat their children.

Hope that sheds some light on this issue.

 

I appreciate you giving more background.  While I had that general idea it opened up to me how deep the wounds are.

My question now is, "what do we do with this?" It seems everything that happens lately just increases the divide.  Each side has a huge lack of trust in the other side.  How do we build enough trust in 100s of millions of people so that we don't just completely rip apart?

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Peacefully said:

Serious question. What did you hope to accomplish by starting this thread?

Have a discussion.  Hear differing perspectives.  It's right there in the OP: 

Quote

I'd like some input.  This does not seem to be a one-off.  Not an isolated thing.  It looks like it is a calculated, planned thing.  The lyrics were written.  Music was orchestrated.  Performers, dozens and dozens of them, made the video.  It was all posted on YouTube.  And it was apparently posted by the San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus, the same group that performed with the Tabernacle Choir in 2018.

And here:

Quote

I think there are a lot of people like me.  People who are trying to suss out a path that involves continuing religious devotion alongside greater empathy, understanding and respect for our gay brothers and sisters.  But then stuff like this song comes along, which at once A) accuses anyone who doesn't think exactly like them of hatefulness and bigotry, and B) tauntingly states that they are "coming for {our} children."

Holy cow.  Who was the intended audience for this song?  Who are they trying to persuade?  And persuade them to what idea(s)?  Don't they see that they are playing with fire?  Don't they see that the provocateur schtick may get a few belly laughs from folks who already agree with them, but will likely offend and alienate people who have been seeking to find empathy and mutual respect?  How on earth can these guys expect to receive respect by insulting people like me, accuse us of terrible things, and then tauntingly sing about "coming for {our} children"?  Don't they see that they are are provoking fear, suspicious and anger with stuff like this?  And that responding with sentiments like "You're just a bigot if you dislike the song" only alienates even further?

Stuff like that.

1 hour ago, Peacefully said:

I assume you know it is satire which by definition is usually provocative and edgy. 

As I noted earlier:

Quote

 As a fellow on Twitter put it: "I get that this is a joke, but it’s like frat houses I’ve seen with signs for freshers arriving on campus 'Fathers, kiss your virgin daughters goodbye'. It’s a joke, but it’s in terrible taste and does not win them any fans or sympathy."  Yep.

And another: "I hate when these creeps entitle things 'A message from the gay community'. No. Most of us are sane, and want nothing to do with this woketard madness. FFS stay away from people's kids. It's not clever or funny. It pisses everyone off."  Yep.

And others:

• "Disgusting.  I’m gay and I’m appalled."
• "Do they want to turn their progress back 50 years? Because that's how you get people to hate gays."
• "Well if THIS wouldnt want to make you hate a group of people I dont know what would!..."
• "They just destroyed decades of support."
• "Anybody else notice the double entendre of the line, 'We’re coming for your children?'"

Thanks,

-Smac

[The Nehor]

Just now, Rain said:

I appreciate you giving more background.  While I had that general idea it opened up to me how deep the wounds are.

My question now is, "what do we do with this?" It seems everything that happens lately just increases the divide.  Each side has a huge lack of trust in the other side.  How do we build enough trust in 100s of millions of people so that we don't just completely rip apart?

We quite possibly don’t.

[Kenngo1969]

Why bother trying to convert anyone to one's point of view?  It's so much easier (not to mention more satisfying) to dismiss an interlocutor as a bigot, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. 

[The Nehor]

10 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Why bother trying to convert anyone to one's point of view?  It's so much easier (not to mention more satisfying) to dismiss an interlocutor as a bigot, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. 

Bigots do exist and they should be dismissed so it is not always a cop out. Conversion is also impossible if there is no shared reality.