Are you seriously suggesting that it was better to say nothing and
allow puritan America to go on believing that what you do is
heinous, perverted and sinful? Not to mention making it illegal?

Pain is part of the price for speaking the truth in public. That's
one generational difference: we assume that we will be punished for
speaking out, we are not surprised by it if it happens.

You're not forced to be out about anything. And no one here is making
a career move by pointing out the mistakes which preceeded us. And we
aren't getting famous. Nobody wants to hear it. That's why we're on
UseNet and boomers are writing in Newsweek.

What we're doing is just speaking our minds. We don't expect a medal
for it. And we don't expect anything to change for the better on
account of what we say. We have gotten mighty accustomed to the
futility of protest. We expect derisive flames just like those given
to anyone who says uncomfortable things in public.

At least you had some political success to show for it. We are being
"defined" and marketed to without legal consideration by the
budgetary authorities of contemporary society. Perhaps "No
commercialization without remuneration" is a more appropriate
rallying call for GenXers.

You may have noticed a conspicuous lack of logos in this
group. That omission is not accidental. We can barely agree on
the name, let alone something as major as T-shirt designs.

That's why everyone here is so suspicious of any kind of organized
movement. This is NOT a national movement. We're just a lot of folks
who were screwed in the same way. (No pun intended) To put it simply,
and with no intention of being a generational spokesweasel, just pay
back the debts and we'll do the rest. That's just about the only
political issue that we seem to agree about here. We don't
expect it to happen, but we don't want to pay for anyone else's party
either.

Apart from that, we are about as unified as beach sand. We don't want
to be led. We want to be ourselves and to make fun of other people's
mistaken notions that we fit into some kind of marketing stereotype.
When we parody GenXers it's a JOKE. Splitting into factions is not
considered a problem here.

Probably the only unified response that you'll get from this
group is a resounding "zzz" as soon as anyone says: "lets mobilize
and be visible."

I disagree. From a purely legal perspective, many laws against
homosexuality have been stricken or have fallen into disuse since the
40s. Yes, there are still really stupid examples to be found to be
sure. But, on balance, there is more and not less tolerance for gays
IMHO.

But even if you WERE right. That's simply a good argument against
foisting some kind of high profile political movement. It may be that
the ONLY reward for agitation is retribution. If so, you won't see
that around here. We don't march, we type.

Well, we were attacked at the ballot box long before we singled
ourselves out. And come to think of it, so were gays--a problem with
your theory.

But in our case, the attack started in the sixties when they started
hacking early education funding. As a generation, we responded in our
own native subtle way by whining to our parents for more highly
sugared cereals. Perhaps our intuitive sarcasm eluded you at the
time.

And while I'm on the soapbox, I should point out that GenXers are
much more tolerant of gays and other out groups than our elders.
You've already heard from the conservative 'wing' of this newsgroup
and no one there has any problem with homosexuality. The only
problems they had were with the idea of turning it into a political
agenda. Contrast that with Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich or the
Colorado state government.

Most of us hetero Xers have gay friends and don't really think much
about it in political terms. But we don't assume that we know what
it's like either.

As far as being attacked in person, regrettably in this country,
violence is the price of being different. And I doubt that there
are proportionally more attacks against gays now than in the 40s, but
rather more reports of the same old level of violence.

Plus there seems to be more violence of every sort now. If anything,
as a proportion of ALL assaults, hate crimes against gays are
probably lower. In any case, I doubt that it's because gays are
politically active. But rather because they are there. Knuckle
draggers don't need a manifesto to split heads.

The point is that it is now socially UNacceptible to discriminate
against gays, though the reality lags considerably. But look at the
economic picture. Gay men are proportionally better off than heteros,
education and income-wise. You can't say that about GenXers.

Yes. But being a member of another out group is not an automatic
membership in every out group. To put it another way, what reaction do
you suppose I would get if I posted a gay wannabe message to
alt.sex.motts?  I would be righteously ridiculed.

All anyone here is saying is remember that you're a tourist. But for
one, I'm glad that you're here. Welcome to the future. If you're
scared, then you've got the right idea.

--Carl
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"A passionate timultuous age will overthrow everything, pull
everything down; but a revolutionary age that is at the same time
reflective and passionless leaves everything standing but cunningly
empties it of significance."  
                               --Kierkegaard