LGBT laws and drum corps?

[HornTeacher]

For the US military, they basically are far more tolerant now of " differentness " than the general US society at large. We all have in one respect or another some levels of " differentness " with others around us. Some people are religious, some agnostic, some urban, some rural, some white, some black, some mixed,.. , some gay, some straight, some Bi, some Mensa, some low I Q'ers... and on an on. When I was in the military I simply wanted 3 things of the person to the left and right of me.. A) Quickness B) Courage C) Competency . If these people in battle, were of " my kind " but did not have these 3 things, then they could get both themselves killed and me. So right from Basic Training, recruits that had " a problem " with not adapting to those recruits that were different from themselves, got weeded out rather quickly. Today, so long as the recruit can do his or her job, and not be a cause celebre or make waves about their " differentness ", the US military is very tolerant now of one's " differentness ". If you have the 3 things I just mentioned here, the military is fine with you.

Same in Drum Corps too. If you do your job, don't make waves, work well in a team setting, etc it matters not what your particular " differentness " might be. You'll be just fine, and will be accepted well. Transgenders.. Trust Funders, Trailer Parkers.... Anglicans,.. or Atheists etc.... no matter, you'll fit in ok in Drum Corps, as Drum Corps competition is all about what best makes us a strong and unified team in competition with others.

I'm willilng to step forward in total argreement and support with you on this, Brasso.

[cowtown]

this again?

DCI doesn’t want to get left behind on the issue

And Cowtown doesn’t want to get into this issue here

Based on this thread, Drum corps fans aren’t what we pretend they are

*sigh*

[BRASSO]

I'm willilng to step forward in total argreement and support with you on this, Brasso.

How can I not give you " a like " for this reply, HornTeacher ? ( haha!)

[BRASSO]

To my tastes, that essay while not completely off the mark is too superficial and somewhat biased. Your own post summarizing the piece is actually better than the work itself.

Yes, perhaps the Woman here who wrote this article perhaps did show her biases a bit on this in her assessment... so noted.

[skevinp]

this again?

DCI doesnt want to get left behind on the issue

And Cowtown doesnt want to get into this issue here

Based on this thread, Drum corps fans arent what we pretend they are

*sigh*

Again, I'm sorry about that time I forgot and called you "bulltown" again but I completely respect the choices you have made.

It's not a choice anyone could steer me into making but it really should be up to the individual.

[cowtown]

We cattle have been wrestling with human imposed gender labeling and segregation forever. We tried to ignore it but, perhaps if we put a stop to it earlier, well, we all know how it ends for us.

these are just some of the ways humans try to define us, their words, not our

An "intact" (i.e., not castrated) adult male is called a bull. A wild, young, unmarked bull is known as a "micky" in Australia.[15] An unbranded bovine of either sex is called a "maverick" in the USA and Canada.

An adult female that has had a calf (or two, depending on regional usage) is a cow.

A young female before she has had a calf of her own[16] and is under three years of age is called a heifer (/ˈhɛfər/ hef-ər).[17] A young female that has had only one calf is occasionally called a first-calf heifer.

Young cattle of both sexes are called calves until they are weaned, then weaners until they are a year old in some areas; in other areas, particularly with male beef cattle, they may be known as feeder calves or simply feeders. After that, they are referred to as yearlings or stirks[18] if between one and two years of age.[19]

A castrated male is called a steer in the United States; older steers are often called bullocks in other parts of the world,[20] but in North America this term refers to a young bull. Piker bullocks are micky bulls (uncastrated young male bulls) that were caught, castrated and then later lost.[15] In Australia, the term "Japanese ox" is used for grain-fed steers in the weight range of 500 to 650 kg that are destined for the Japanese meat trade.[21] In North America, draft cattle under four years old are called working steers. Improper or late castration on a bull results in it becoming a coarse steer known as a stag in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.[22] In some countries, an incompletely castrated male is known also as a rig.

A castrated male (occasionally a female or in some areas a bull) kept for draft purposes is called an ox (plural oxen); "ox" may also be used to refer to some carcass products from any adult cattle, such as ox-hide, ox-blood, oxtail, or ox-liver.[17]

A springer is a cow or heifer close to calving.[23]

In all cattle species, a female twin of a bull usually becomes an infertile partial intersex, and is called a freemartin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle

[BRASSO]

Along the same Cow lines... some sound advice : " never give the bum steer to a calf ".

[N.E. Brigand]

That's not what I was saying. I am assuming civility is more about politeness, as seems to be the emphasis in the dictionary. Judging by the Indiana thread, it is possible (and apparently all the rage) to be polite and mean at the same time. People become quite skilled at encapsulating their vicious insults and hateful attacks within lofty professions of compassion. And since people including the mods continually called it civil, I don't believe their definitions of civility and kindness could be very similar at all.

I am all for free speech in society in general (and I completely agree with what you said about being free to say things others strongly disagree with) but, absent matters that clearly and directly impact drum corps in credibly specific ways, the introduction of politics into dcp discourse is a path to ruining the site. If that sounds drastic, just look at how much this one thread has dominated and distracted.

And notice what a small part of this thread has had anything to do with direct impact on drum corps in credibly specific ways. People will claim everything is relevant to drum corps and use that as an excuse to argue over general political issues, which will eat up all the mental bandwidth here and make it harder to sift out the topical substance that is what uniquely defines the site and what we (at least used to) come to discuss.

If merely 'relevant it drum corps' is the standard, every political issue can be argued to have some relevance to drum corps, and certainly no less than this one. Abortion, gun control, immigration, national security, economic policy, etc., etc. And by accepting one topic, the mods will either have to accept them all or will unavoidably have to impose their own political opinions about what topics are worthy.

Well, I'm not sure this thread will actually go on much longer (perhaps the other extended to more than 60 pages because DCI itself is located in Indiana, site of the previous controversial law)--and certainly the more meta it becomes the less likely it will be permitted to continue--but what you or I may see as "hateful" speech in that Indiana thread was seen by others as "telling it like it is". So while the discussion is yet underway, I think it's good to remember that history is moving pretty fast right now.

I'm 43 years old. The last lynching in the U.S. (depending on how you treat the Byrd case in 1998) happened just four years before I was born. This non-"historical" DCI forum is meant for discussion of the activity after 1988. So let me look back to a personal moment from the beginning of "this era": during the late summer of 1989, I had a falling out with the other senior tuba player in our marching band after a discussion somehow turned to history and politics, and he opined that it might have been better had slavery never been ended, because black people were inferior to whites. This was in a suburban Cleveland high school! I literally got sick to my stomach. (Later he said he was only kidding, but I never felt comfortable about that.) Towards the end of that same school year, in a conversation in government class during some break when the teacher had stepped out of the room, I learned that more than half my classmates thought that blacks and whites shouldn't marry.

If we were still so backwards on racial matters just 25 years ago, it should not be surprising that issues of gender (gay marriage was practically inconceivable even to the most ardent liberals at that time) are not yet settled! I bet if I polled my classmates again today, almost all of those who had opposed miscegenation would now be embarrassed to remember the views they once held. It probably won't take another 25 years for similar developments in general views about LBGT people.

So while we wait for history to move on, I'll repeat something I said in the Indiana thread: we are all part of a trend whose end, I think, is foreknown. Nothing DCI or any corps can do, no statement they make or action they take concerning this (in my opinion) misguided law, will have any immediate impact on that history. What DCI and the corps can best do is continue to do is be welcoming and tolerant.

[BRASSO]

I bet if I polled my classmates again today, almost all of those who had opposed miscegenation would now be embarrassed to remember the views they once held. It probably won't take another 25 years for similar developments in general views about LBGT people.

.

Maybe. I suppose it also depends on who eventually wins the War of Jihad. I would imagine that perhaps Western Civilization values will ultimately prevail in this, but its certainly no guarantee. If the Jihadists prevail in 25 years, its pretty clear that the LBGT community will in the forefront of executions... as Gays ( and Christians ) are the most targeted by the International Jihadist Movement. Gays are routinely thrown off the tops of tall buildings in much of the non Western Civilization World. Human Rights workers in these countries that speak out on behalf of the Gays are tortured, then beheaded too. Woman ? They basically have no rights, and are are treated like mere cattle in many places in the world. So as we become a more Global World over the next few decades, to look at these issues from just an inside the USA prism, is to miss the much larger picture of the onward drive of forces throughout the World that do not come remotely close to " being tolerant " of different faiths, different values, different sexual orientations, differing politics, etc and do not share Western Civilization overall values and belief systems in the least. Once these forces get their hands on nuclear devices with long range delivery capabilities... and surely, in a few decades they will... it all becomes a game changer, imo, and makes what is currently happening in Indiana and North Carolina,( where, for context, nobody has died because of these policies ) a mere minor side show excursion. Something to think about anyway as we think about what is going on in Indiana, North Carolina, as much as we think about what has been going on in Brussels, Mosul, San Bernadino, Paris, Boston, Damascus, Killeen, London, NYC, etc.

Edited April 14, 2016 by BRASSO

[skevinp]

Well, I'm not sure this thread will actually go on much longer (perhaps the other extended to more than 60 pages because DCI itself is located in Indiana, site of the previous controversial law)--and certainly the more meta it becomes the less likely it will be permitted to continue--but what you or I may see as "hateful" speech in that Indiana thread was seen by others as "telling it like it is". So while the discussion is yet underway, I think it's good to remember that history is moving pretty fast right now.

I'm 43 years old. The last lynching in the U.S. (depending on how you treat the Byrd case in 1998) happened just four years before I was born. This non-"historical" DCI forum is meant for discussion of the activity after 1988. So let me look back to a personal moment from the beginning of "this era": during the late summer of 1989, I had a falling out with the other senior tuba player in our marching band after a discussion somehow turned to history and politics, and he opined that it might have been better had slavery never been ended, because black people were inferior to whites. This was in a suburban Cleveland high school! I literally got sick to my stomach. (Later he said he was only kidding, but I never felt comfortable about that.) Towards the end of that same school year, in a conversation in government class during some break when the teacher had stepped out of the room, I learned that more than half my classmates thought that blacks and whites shouldn't marry.

If we were still so backwards on racial matters just 25 years ago, it should not be surprising that issues of gender (gay marriage was practically inconceivable even to the most ardent liberals at that time) are not yet settled! I bet if I polled my classmates again today, almost all of those who had opposed miscegenation would now be embarrassed to remember the views they once held. It probably won't take another 25 years for similar developments in general views about LBGT people.

So while we wait for history to move on, I'll repeat something I said in the Indiana thread: we are all part of a trend whose end, I think, is foreknown. Nothing DCI or any corps can do, no statement they make or action they take concerning this (in my opinion) misguided law, will have any immediate impact on that history. What DCI and the corps can best do is continue to do is be welcoming and tolerant.

I should not have used the word hateful. I hate it when people accuse others of hate and hate myself for using a hate derivative when hate is not really what I meant. I hate it when that happens.

I went back and changed it to brutal accusations. I recognize they probably were not malicious in intent even though they were brutal in effect. I should not let some of the malice I've seen outside of dcp color my expectations within.