Musical Homophobia - or The Homophobia Histories

[salymap]

I can see a time coming when the detective novels of Allingham, Christie and Sayers are put on the top shelves of bookshops and banned from libraries.

They are liberally full of anti-Jewish comments, people in Christie particularly are often 'gay', 'queer' or other epithets which raise a doubt.. However I'm sorry that 'gay' has now other meanings. It just meant happy, carefree - not many words take its place.

What's the matter with the originals, homo and hetero. Equally direct, no offense intended to either.

I could wear my old scarf again- ithas 'Happy and gay' printed on it :laugh:

[amateur51]

I can see a time coming when the detective novels of Allingham, Christie and Sayers are put on the top shelves of bookshops and banned from libraries.

They are liberally full of anti-Jewish comments, people in Christie particularly are often 'gay', 'queer' or other epithets which raise a doubt.. However I'm sorry that 'gay' has now other meanings. It just meant happy, carefree - not many words take its place.

What's the matter with the originals, homo and hetero. Equally direct, no offense intended to either.

I could wear my old scarf again- ithas 'Happy and gay' printed on it :laugh:

You've forgotten Christie's Ten Little Niggers, salymap :erm:

[scottycelt]

I'm glad to note that you thoroughly checked this man's political credentials before posting that quote, then. Consistency has to mean everything to a man of principle such as your good self.

Indeed it has!

The link was posted merely to demonstrate that some gays are opposed to 'Gay Pride'. Nothing more or less. Is it only left-wing gays who are entitled to express an opinion and call their opponents nasty names? Surely not!

I am neither of the Left nor Right so I'm not cocooned in my own exclusive little political corner ... I have a non-partisan and open mind about such things, S_A! :cool:

[Richard Barrett]

What's the matter with the originals

The matter is that they've been outrun by usage, whether one likes it or not, and, short of introducing a language control police like the Académie Française, that's going to go on happening - some would say that the consequent flexibility and adaptability of the English language is one of its most attractive features.

[french frank]

Are the views expressed any more or less 'political' than most posted here?

'Most posts here'?? And on the subject of 'straight pride' (and how 'silly' that is, isn't it?), you might like to look it up. There are 'straight pride' events and they are anti-gay (T-shirts with the infamous Leviticus quotation) in a way that gay pride is pro-gay, not anti straight. Not 'silly' in this case but actually evil. So presenting the two as parallels/balance in terms of gay and straight is your straw man.

[Taking Richard Barrett's etymology further, 'silly' is cognate with German 'selig', in the sense of 'blessed, blissful'.

Pride: ' self-respect; self-esteem, esp. of a legitimate or healthy kind or degree' (OED). That is the sense in which I would understand it. Is that silly?]

[Stillhomewardbound]

As it happens, I often use the word gay in its original sense. Recently, I remarked to my sis-in-law that she was dressed 'very gaily', as she was. I also described a person to a friend of mine thus, 'yes, he's a very gay character'.

Neither time did I use the word in its political sense, nor was it taken as such. So, the term still lives as it was traditionally intended.

[Mary Chambers]

What will audiences of the future - or indeed some today - make of the description of the children's guardian in the Prologue to Britten's Turn of the Screw as 'bold, offhand and gay', I wonder?

[Ruhevoll]

Hello all

I am new here. A fascinating thread. I just wondered what those who, for religious reasons, struggle with the idea of homosexuality in humans, feel when they learn that such behaviour is not exclusively human: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homose...ior_in_animals ?

Where does this then leave religious prohibition of homosexuality, if it is a naturally occurring phenomenon (a genetic one which, Dawkins would argue, must serve a purpose)?

Yours,

Ruhevoll

[scottycelt]

Gay rights are not an "internal affair of Russia".

Ah, I see ...

So who and what should impose an alien 'gay rights' culture on the Russian people against their will, then ... a special NATO expeditionary force led by Stephen Fry?

If so, they'll find themselves up against a very tough lady ... yes, a lady ... you'd have thought a lady would have known better being so heavily discriminated against, wouldn't you?

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/09/russian-politician-behind-anti-gay-law-champions-president-putins-conservative-cause/

[Nick Armstrong]

As it happens, I often use the word gay in its original sense. Recently, I remarked to my sis-in-law that she was dressed 'very gaily', as she was. I also described a person to a friend of mine thus, 'yes, he's a very gay character'.

Neither time did I use the word in its political sense, nor was it taken as such. So, the term still lives as it was traditionally intended.

Sadly, though, I suspect nonetheless that we shall not see a return of this famous old service, linking the North-West with the Midlands, London and South-West, which cropped up in The Tourist Office lately...

http://i.imgur.com/VH8z4Dw.jpg

http://www.gayhostess.co.uk/index.html

[amateur51]

What will audiences of the future - or indeed some today - make of the description of the children's guardian in the Prologue to Britten's Turn of the Screw as 'bold, offhand and gay', I wonder?

We smile knowingly, as we do about Oscar's cucumbers and bunberrying :smiley:

[amateur51]

Ah, I see ...

So who and what should impose an alien 'gay rights' culture on the Russian people against their will, then ... a special NATO expeditionary force led by Stephen Fry?

If so, they'll find themselves up against a very tough lady ... yes, a lady ... you'd have thought a lady would have known better being so heavily discriminated against, wouldn't you?

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08...rvative-cause/

Does anyone else recall with joy those acts by, was it Sandy Powell, when he did a recitation wearing different hats for each character, leading inevitably to a certain amount of panic and confusion?

What hat do you think scotty will be wearing next, children?

[JimD]

What will audiences of the future - or indeed some today - make of the description of the children's guardian in the Prologue to Britten's Turn of the Screw as 'bold, offhand and gay', I wonder?

I confess to regrets about the impact on the beautiful closing lines of Yeats' From Oedipus at Colonus:

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;
The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

[salymap]

Does anyone else recall with joy those acts by, was it Sandy Powell, when he did a recitation wearing different hats for each character, leading inevitably to a certain amount of panic and confusion?

What hat do you think scotty will be wearing next, children?

I thought Sandy Powell was back in the radio only days ams. Was he the man who said "Can you hearme,mother?"

[jayne lee wilson]

Hello all

I am new here. A fascinating thread. I just wondered what those who, for religious reasons, struggle with the idea of homosexuality in humans, feel when they learn that such behaviour is not exclusively human: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homose...ior_in_animals ?

Where does this then leave religious prohibition of homosexuality, if it is a naturally occurring phenomenon (a genetic one which, Dawkins would argue, must serve a purpose)?

Yours,

Ruhevoll

Hello Ruhevoll, love and hugs xxx!

Yes this is a huge point that doesn't get mentioned NEARLY often enough - I alluded to it briefly but didn't have time to elaborate.

When I was about 15, a bunch of us were watching two male skylarks singing, higher and higher against the blue and white of a spring sky. Down they floated, arriving fairly close to each other on the field. One approached the other and mounted him sexually. Most of the kids just fell about, giggling uncontrollably! I remember feeling amazed and delighted - and realising that the others there could not even begin to accept the significance of what they'd seen...