Trans student not crowned homecoming king

gaijinguy wrote:

honestly, what administrator is going to think there's a real chance of a bio-girl running for prom king?

No so much an FTM running as an FTM winning. I can think of quite a few student bodies where that would straight-up never happen.

See, I see stuff like this and it makes me grateful for my graduating high school, where this couple ran for Homecoming King and Queen and won, because they were popular and well-liked, not for novelty. King Theresa and Queen Samantha. The school (After an initial RAGE by our very prejudiced principal) offered to just say they were the Homecoming Couple and call them both queens, but Theresa apparently wanted to be able to call herself King. The school, being fair and sane, shrugged and said "Okay, whatever." King Theresa she was.

Because it was just Homecoming. Not the be-all end-all of life, and no sane parent or administrator or what-have-you should care who the students elect. Why is it so damn important to these people?

Matthew should have been given his crown and sash. He won.

I think the parents and administrators want it 'done right', so students can look back in the future and feel proud, and so they can look on now and feel proud. The problem is that 'doing it right' is enormously subjective even though plenty of people think it isn't. What was seen as right when these people were graduating has changed, and whatever their reasoning they just can't process it.

It reminds me of the drama that often surrounds weddings. To be a good day everything must be in place and expected, and somewhere along the line it becomes more important to have everything in place than to be a good day in itself.

grmblfjx wrote:

Yeah, I don't get it either. I can be all for free speech and still sometimes feel like OH FUCKING FREE SPEECH I SHOULD BE ABLE TO REMOVE YOUR VOICEBOX FOR THIS BULLSHIT-.

This. I'm hardcore anti-censorship, but... yes, I know exactly how you feel.

I think the maddening thing is not that people have different opinions and voice them, but that they do so in such a hateful, unconscionable way. But then, freedom of speech means that they can voice their viewpoints, and then that others have the freedom to roar right back at them. Stifling the speech in the beginning tends to cause more problems than it solves, I think.

Also, unrelated to the main issue at hand, but this bit of doggerel from fundamentalist Christians (even otherwise loving and reasonable evangelicals) has always, ALWAYS bothered me:

Quote :

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is aginst the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd
If scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

...

The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.
For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all...

While, yes, I'm aware that some atheists have allegedly taken offense at crosses on memorials, etc., which seems to me to be a bit ridiculous, I find it equally ridiculous -- or perhaps more so -- the amount of whining that Christians can do over "WE CAN'T PRAAAAY IN SKOOOOOLS D:"

First off, yes, you CAN pray, you can pray anywhere or anytime you like -- prayer isn't simply a matter of mumbling the Lord's Prayer along with the Pledge of Allegiance, it's just talking to God, either out loud or in your mind.

And second, seriously, have these people NEVER read the parts in the New Testament where Jesus Himself condemns praying loudly and ostentatiously in public so that you can get yourself seen by everyone and have everyone think how pious you are? Instead, He specifically directs people to pray privately.

NEVER have I heard this even mentioned from all the "THEY BANNED PRAYER IN SKOOOLS!" people. NEVER.

And besides, if you did have a brief "moment of silence" before morning classes (which I don't think is a bad thing, since it would allow people to pray or just gather their thoughts before buckling down to study/listen) in school, you wouldn't have just Christians praying, you'd have Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, Hindus, others... it's like so many Christians think they're in some sort of bubble where "PRAYER IN SCHOOLS!111!" only applies to them. No, no it doesn't, and I wish that they'd grow up and get over it.

Also, what the fuck does

Quote :

our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offesee, it's a freedome scene...

even mean? Reminds me of this ludicrous rant about blue hair being a sign that you hate God.

Seriously, I really don't think that these sort of people even realize that they push people AWAY from Christianity and the message of Christ EVERY TIME THEY DO STUFF LIKE THIS.

Couldn't have said it better, Mal.

What annoys me most about that poem is how badly it butchers the meter just to keep the rhyme. Is that a bad sign?

I'm just charmed he ran and won in the first place. Someone may shit upon that after the fact, but that's a straight up win for the team.

Verandering wrote:

I'm just charmed he ran and won in the first place. Someone may shit upon that after the fact, but that's a straight up win for the team.

I completely agree.

I have a half remembered quote about how ideas die out only when those who hold them are dead--it was probably some Commie or something. Anyway, this gives me great hope for the future to see that these kids don't give a shit what the guy they want for homecoming king has in his pants.

Malganis wrote:

And besides, if you did have a brief "moment of silence" before morning classes (which I don't think is a bad thing, since it would allow people to pray or just gather their thoughts before buckling down to study/listen) in school, you wouldn't have just Christians praying, you'd have Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, Hindus, others... it's like so many Christians think they're in some sort of bubble where "PRAYER IN SCHOOLS!111!" only applies to them. No, no it doesn't, and I wish that they'd grow up and get over it.

I actually go to a Quaker school where we do exactly this.

The admins would shit a brick over this.

Lady Anne wrote:

The admins would shit a brick over this.

I love it! Especially how the people in the tribe just calmly accept that their new King is a woman. And the fact she gets to rule long-distance.

Something tells me when she finally retired and moves back to Otuam, she'll make a most excellent King.

Malganis wrote:

freedom of speech means that they can voice their viewpoints, and then that others have the freedom to roar right back at them.

Often it's the ones who defend every hateful thing that comes out of their mouths with "FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!!" who then scream and roar the loudest when someone gives them a nice earful. How many times have we heard "BAWWWWW TEH LIBRUL MEEEEEDJA" out of some disgusting wingnut whackjob?

Quote :

And second, seriously, have these people NEVER read the parts in the New Testament where Jesus Himself condemns praying loudly and ostentatiously in public so that you can get yourself seen by everyone and have everyone think how pious you are? Instead, He specifically directs people to pray privately.

NEVER have I heard this even mentioned from all the "THEY BANNED PRAYER IN SKOOOLS!" people. NEVER.

And you won't either, Mal, because it isn't about prayer. It's about the fear that seems to be deeply entrenched in parts of American society that some kind of horde is going to come from somewhere and take everything.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Malganis wrote:

And second, seriously, have these people NEVER read the parts in the New Testament where Jesus Himself condemns praying loudly and ostentatiously in public so that you can get yourself seen by everyone and have everyone think how pious you are? Instead, He specifically directs people to pray privately.

NEVER have I heard this even mentioned from all the "THEY BANNED PRAYER IN SKOOOLS!" people. NEVER.

And you won't either, Mal, because it isn't about prayer. It's about the fear that seems to be deeply entrenched in parts of American society that some kind of horde is going to come from somewhere and take everything.

That and they're not going to admit they've got the details way, way wrong. Jesus becomes incidental to the screaming fits and persecution mentality. This is why I don't talk about what I research at extended-family dinners--facts aren't welcome. It's everyone against "true" Christians, and no amount of facts or statistics or logic will change that. These extended family members are also the ones that send along that dreadful poem quoted earlier, a poem that's been going around for a decade at least (usually paired with any number of staggeringly incorrect chain-emails).

It's also that we're really messed up about religion in the US. We're trying to be secular like Europe, but we can't shake a religious heritage that dogs us at every turn, a heritage we can't even agree on. Were we founded as a religious nation? Founded as religion-neutral by guys who were religious? By guys who were non- or anti-religious? What the hell do we do about our persistent civil religion, which is in itself a big tangled mass of questions and issues? There are a thousand different takes on this, and mature dialogue becomes a rarity (but hopefully not so much of a rarity that I can't be employed somewhere, researching this very topic).

I love the fact that this kid ran and won by the numbers. Cheers for the kids at that school being progressive and open enough to vote for Oak.

lemmingwriter wrote:

becomes incidental to the screaming fits and persecution mentality.

You do realize that you just summarized basically the entire American political dialog, right?

gaijinguy wrote:

lemmingwriter wrote:

becomes incidental to the screaming fits and persecution mentality.

You do realize that you just summarized basically the entire American political dialog, right?

Yeah, but the extent to which religion features in the American political dialog is stunning, at least to Europeans, so that seems about right.

grmblfjx wrote:

gaijinguy wrote:

lemmingwriter wrote:

becomes incidental to the screaming fits and persecution mentality.

You do realize that you just summarized basically the entire American political dialog, right?

Yeah, but the extent to which religion features in the American political dialog is stunning, at least to Europeans, so that seems about right.

Given how many European countries have established churches, making the issue at least nominally moot, that seems about right.

gaijinguy wrote:

grmblfjx wrote:

gaijinguy wrote:

lemmingwriter wrote:

becomes incidental to the screaming fits and persecution mentality.

You do realize that you just summarized basically the entire American political dialog, right?

Yeah, but the extent to which religion features in the American political dialog is stunning, at least to Europeans, so that seems about right.

Given how many European countries have established churches, making the issue at least nominally moot, that seems about right.

They have established churches, but there's also significant movement toward a definitively secular state and a decline in religious participation or self-identification.

An op-ed article with a nice chart on religion & GDP--this isn't my favorite version of this chart, but it's handy, and it's useful just to show, visually, how different the US is from European countries in participation. I don't know about proving/analyzing anything else with it (there's discussion back and forth), but it's nice for seeing at a glance exactly how much of an outlier the US is.

lemmingwriter wrote:

They have established churches, but there's also significant movement toward a definitively secular state and a decline in religious participation or self-identification.

An op-ed article with a nice chart on religion & GDP--this isn't my favorite version of this chart, but it's handy, and it's useful just to show, visually, how different the US is from European countries in participation. I don't know about proving/analyzing anything else with it (there's discussion back and forth), but it's nice for seeing at a glance exactly how much of an outlier the US is.

Interesting chart, but I'm wondering what it proves exactly. The US is well off the main sequence, but what that proves is that religion is a relatively important part of people's lives and as a result will have an increased role in the national consciousness.

Most of what I'm getting from this thread is "ohmigawd, Europe is like SOOOO sophisticated, the US is like totally full of hicks, why can't they just go away so we can be like the cool people. Religion is, like, not hawt."

Yeah, sorry, couldn't resist.

gaijinguy wrote:

lemmingwriter wrote:

They have established churches, but there's also significant movement toward a definitively secular state and a decline in religious participation or self-identification.

An op-ed article with a nice chart on religion & GDP--this isn't my favorite version of this chart, but it's handy, and it's useful just to show, visually, how different the US is from European countries in participation. I don't know about proving/analyzing anything else with it (there's discussion back and forth), but it's nice for seeing at a glance exactly how much of an outlier the US is.

Interesting chart, but I'm wondering what it proves exactly. The US is well off the main sequence, but what that proves is that religion is a relatively important part of people's lives and as a result will have an increased role in the national consciousness.

Most of what I'm getting from this thread is "ohmigawd, Europe is like SOOOO sophisticated, the US is like totally full of hicks, why can't they just go away so we can be like the cool people. Religion is, like, not hawt."

Yeah, sorry, couldn't resist.

All it is is a demonstration of the outlier status--we in the US have held onto religion far more intensely than other nations of similar GDP. It's just a visual to highlight that, in any discussion on US culture, politics, or pretty much anything else, religion is an obligatory part of the conversation (even if it's not actively being discussed, it's still there). There's a reason that charts like that are used in lower-div religion courses to knock the "hey, we're progressive and secular!" idea out of the students' heads.

I don't think Europe is more sophisticated because of an increased secularism, and I don't think religion and religious participation are an all-around negative in the US that should be ignored or abandoned. Far from it--I'm pretty much building my career on the way US religion works (or doesn't, in some cases). Religion may not be "hawt," but it is fascinating, and like it or not, we have to engage with it in many discussions on topics like these.

Just for the record, I've met people who moved to the States from Europe who were so happy to be in a country that "had their morals in order" and told me horror stories about the streets of Amsterdam.

Takes all kinds I guess.