There Is So Much Wrong With This

atheism, homophobia, homosexual, prop 8, religion, conservative, liberal, agenda,

. . . it's making my chest hurt. (Or I have pleurisy for the 4th time in 8 months. Whatever.)

First of all, Pearl ("Pearls of Wisdom", that's where she gets her name from. I can't decide whether to laugh or cry over that), HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT EVIL. You tell me, how does homosexuality affect you? Seriously.

I'm waiting. I'm calling your bluff. Prove to me that homosexuality is affecting you AT ALL, and I'll sit down and shut up. Oh, but one thing: you have to use reason, logic and science to do it. "Teh Butt Seks makes me uncomfortable" is not a reason. It's not even an excuse.

And "the bible told me so" isn't going to work, either. A collection of stories from bronze age nomadic tribesman, poorly translated a few hundred times is not relevant to this day and age. Or, if you think it is relevant, why only Teh Gayz? Do you also not eat shrimp? What about your period? When you have your period, does your husband carefully avoid sitting in chairs you have sat upon? That's in there, too. Do you stone adulterers to death? Of course not, that's ridiculous! Yeah, you totally just agreed with me.

By the way, the reason I insist on reviewing the studies you keep referencing is that I know you are not educated enough to look at (a) who paid for the study and (b) the methodology behind the study. (And that's just to start.)

An explanatory anecdote, and then we get to what really pissed me off.

Neurontin is a drug used to treat complex partial seizures. As a treatment for this type of seizure, Neurontin was a success. However, the pool of people to sell Neurontin to was limited, as complex partial seizures aren't terribly common in the population as a whole. Chronic pain, however is. 1 in 3 USians suffer from chronic pain to some degree or another. I can tell you, as a person who suffers from chronic pain, and has for the better part of a decade, that chronic pain will ruin your life. If I could remove a limb or gain 200 pounds or be visibly maimed in exchange for removing my pain, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would get down on my knees and start worshipping the sky-daddy for the opportunity.

I am not kidding.

So, the makers of Neurontin seized on the idea of marketing Neurontin for chronic pain as a way to make more money. How did they do it? Well, they had a lot of tactics, but one of them was to pay dishonest scientists to perform studies with the goal of proving that Neurontin effectively treats chronic pain. They did lots of studies, and the initial studies proved that Neurontin was no more effective than a placebo at treating chronic pain. So, they kept running more studies, changing the way they ran them, the subjects they used, the way they interpreted data, etc. until they came up with studies that proved that Neurontin effectively treats chronic pain.

Neurontin does nothing for chronic pain. Nothing at all.

My point? A study is only as good as the scientist who runs it. If the scientist goes into the study determined to prove something, paid to prove one thing and only one thing, eventually they will. Sometimes it's hard to tell what they've done, sometimes it's not. The moral of my story? Statistics don't lie, statisticians do.

So, back to what set me off.

The most important knowledge for me, coming out of this discussion of desensitization tactics it's not torture, it's enhanced interrogation!, is that the vocabulary we choose to use will either perpetuate the problem the problem remember, is gays. does she honestly believe that a certain percentage of the population will stop being gay if we stop referring to them in positive ways? or is she satisfied with the idea that returning to the days of "fag" will push them back in the closet. hey, it's okay to be gay as long as pearl doesn't have to look at you! or re-sensitize a nation good luck with that. we're not all bigoted idiots, pearl. I will no longer be using the phrase “gay ‘rights’ activists” to describe the gay liberation movement leaders i'm not sure "gay rights activists" is better than "gay liberation movement". i don't know how gays would feel about this, but i like "gay liberation".

go head, pearl, just say it. i know you want to. FAG! QUEER! BUTT PIRATE! FUDGE PACKER!

since the more accurate term is homosexual activists so "gay" is the word she is upset about? she wants to take back "gay"? good luck with that. next i suppose she'll want the mustache back. I will no longer refer to the unions sought and clamored for today as same-sex “marriage,” since marriage is and always has been used to describe one relationship and one relationship only – a union between one man and one woman. actually, in lots of cultures, marriage refers to polygamy and polyandry. how about saying "in this one country, the US of A, marriage has always referred to . . . oh, no, wait, Utah, before it was a state, allowed polygamy . . . sorry, pearl, doesn't wash. try again. I hope that all of us will make an effort to re-evaluate our language and make positive changes. "fag" is a positive change? you must be really fun at dinner parties. Just as abortion has been sold as an imperative allowance toward fostering choice… and abortion? why? we don't know. gays don't want abortions, they want marriage- oh, I'm sorry pearl, evil unholy icky alliances with THE DEVIL!

See, pearl, everyone can play this game. I refer to her and the Prop 8 crowd as "traditional marriage activists" because that's what they call themselves. (1) if i refer to them as something else, the conversation gets confusing. (2) it's called common decency. get a little, pearl, it's free. but, since we've gotten the ball rolling on calling people whatever the hell we want, i will now refer to pearl as "that gay bashing little ignorant, uneducated moron", and to pro Prop 8ers as "people who are so afraid of Teh Gay that they just can't stop thinking about it for reasons they would rather not examine". This will involve a great deal more typing on my part, but hey, let's have fun.

Oh, and Pearl, if you're looking for a new name for me, I suggest "that fucking atheist whore who won't leave me alone and who thinks I'm stupid, but I'm not! I'm really not!"