I did not make a judgment about you or your entire chapter. You are the one that made the statement. I just merely quoted it.

And, you may treat a gay man who comes into your house with respect while he is there, but if you are excluding him from membership solely because of his sexual orientation, then you are not giving him the respect he deserves as a PNM of your fraternity.

Would you quit putting words in my mouth? Hahah, I mean sweet Christ, you are getting borderline ridiculous. Where did I say that homosexuals were immoral. Can you find where I plainly stated......."homosexuals are immoral". Pretty sure I have continually stated that I simply do not agree with homosexuality. It is my God given right to approve and disapprove of whatever I damn well please. Enough with your baseless tirade.

I don't talk about membership procedures on message boards. Or how about, I don't talk about membership procedures with anyone but my chapter. Me stating that I don't have a problem with chapters not offering bids to homosexuals based on morals is in no way stating that my chapter follows this procedure or that I feel that homosexuals are immoral.

Once again, membership in my chapter is none of your business. The fact that you may find that "sick and disgusting" means absolutely nothing to me. You can cry, and bitch, and whine, and moan all you want. I will be civil and treat homosexuals with respect. That is all you need to know.

You are attacking me based on your personal experiences with homosexuals......which is completely asinine. I find nothing "ignorant" about how I conduct myself on a day to day basis.

Have a good one.

That's all well and good. It's just that when any member can deny membership to any person by writing "no" on a little piece of paper and turning it in anonymously, such anti discrimination clauses really aren't worth the paper they're written on or the ink they're written with.

Going around trumpeting how our organizations are so tolerant of this or that group doesn't really mean much. Do you think that because Sigma Nu voted to integrate back in the late 60's that all chapters are now racially diverse?

The bottom line, I think is that we are all the masters of our own chapters. It is none of our business who Texas at SAE will initiate or not. Personally, I really don't care.

As for my chapter, I really, honestly don't know whether or not we'd discriminate based upon sexual orientation. I'm an alum, I don't get a vote. I don't think I would have really cared. In my day, we had several candidates who I'm quite certain were gay -- none ever made it through. None of them ever made it as far as a vote (oddly, they all left school or dropped out of their candidate classes on their own accord). I wonder how things would have turned out..

At any rate, within my own chapter, when it came to membership decisions, I always respected everyone's choice whatever the reason.

That said, when we're talking about membership selection in another chapter or another organization -- who really even cares??? Some of you seem really bothered by this. Why would you want to ask an organization to accept members when other members don't to be forced to do so?

That's just not how (most) fraternities and sororities work folks. We're selective -- sometimes for some pretty absurd reasons. I figure that sexual orientation will be a big deal for some and not for others. What another organization/chapter does is really none of my concern.

Homophobia sure has taken on a broad meaning hasn't it.

I don't sit around thinking of ways to discriminate against gays. I don't strive to be intolerant or to interfere with their lives. I don't force myself to gag when I see two guys make out.

I love how it is natural for two guys to be attracted to each other, but my vomit reflex is simply a result of a hostile and artificial attitude towards something I don't understand because of my Neanderthal nature.

Rewind like 3 pages to the whole hypocrisy thing. I've never debated the hypocrisy of such situations, and please stop including me and my fraternity in this. I'm not there anymore, nor did we ever take any stand on this issue. My point is and has been that hypocrisy does not preclude a group from legitimately considering morality when making membership decisions. We may let in somebody who drinks a lot, but not someone who abuses drugs. Is that hypocritical? Perhaps, yes. Lines are drawn in a multitude of places. Just because we see them as hypocritical doesn't mean a legitimate consideration of moral propriety wasn't included in the process.

macallan:

A question for you, and not directed in a hateful way [so don't take it wrong!]:

How do you rationalize SAEs that ARE gay? Your chapter may not have any, no one knows, but there ARE brothers who are gay. Do you consider them brothers? What do you think about that?

So you call describing me as ignorant and claiming that me an my chapter are close minded.....not making a judgment?

Once again, I don't discuss what goes in to selecting pledges for my fraternity. If you want to form your own opinions, be my guest.

Shinerbock,

But it's so fun to be judgmental of hypocrisy. There's no danger that you'll be called to be anything other than honest.

You can do anything you want as long as you don't declare that it's wrong, and you can still sit around and judge others. It requires no self-discipline, but you get to be self-righteous.

Who doesn't love that?

shiner, I think the bottom line is that when we all sit down and make those tough membership selection decisions that our prejudices are often what guide those decisions.

We can all trumpet our respective HQs' rules all we want. Membership selection is what it is.

I consider every man that is a member of SAE a "brother" in the sense that they are members of my fraternity and have accepted the responsibility of being a member of my fraternity.

I honestly don't concern myself with SAEs that I don't know. Sure, I'll treat them the same I would anyone else, but I wouldn't consider them in the same category as the men in my chapter whom I have grow close with and built long lasting friendships and relationships with. If I met Joe Blow from a chapter of SAE 3000 miles away, I probably wouldn't go around introducing him as my "fraternity brother". To me, my fraternity brothers are those that I pledged with and that I am with in the same chapter. Even when we go back home for holidays and such and I see friends that are SAEs at different schools.......I don't go around calling them my fraternity brothers.

If there are SAEs that are gay......I honestly don't really care. That is their choice. I consider them a brother in my fraternity just as I would any other brother that I don't know.

You know, perhaps the biggest beef I have with many true liberals I've run across is this inane idea that anyone who doesn't agree with them is either (1) stupid or (2) just has thought about it enough/learned enough. :rolleyes:

I think when one posts something like this (complete with emphasis added, no less):

one is most certainly making a judgment about the person the post is directed to. It's an accusation that he doesn't live up to the ideals of his own fraternity.

Interesting and not at all joking, but that is my impression of most conservative-minded folks that I know, which is why I generally won't argue with them.

Case in point:

True to a point.

My experience is that many (certainly not all) hard core conservatives will accuse anyone who doesn't agree with them of being stupid or ignorant. While many (again, not all) hard core liberals will make the same accusations, it is almost always, in my experience, the hard core liberals who will throw out the additional accusation that someone just hasn't learned enough or thought about it enough.

I'll never forget the very liberal friend who (in a discussion on the topic at hand in this thread, as it happened) said, "I just don't understand how any thinking person" could take a more conservative view of things. She was a bit taken back when I said, "And that's part of the problem. You're not taking the time to try to understand a position that differs from yours; instead, you're just writing it off as incomprehensible and unenlightened. Nobody's going to get anywhere that way. It's always so much easier simply to demonize someone who disagrees with you than to accept the possibility that someone as 'thoughtful' as you didn't come to the same conclusion you did."

I think the subject chamged at that point. :D

Conservative-minded people tend, on the other hand, to reduce liberal thinking to emotional (read irrational, illogical--this is a comment that I often hear conservative-minded folks make) knee-jerk, politically correct, guilt-laden responses to the issue at hand (look over on AKA Ave. or DST Blvd. for some examples of this).

I guess that happens on both sides, with zealous conservatives and liberals. It doesn't really serve anybody for people to be so closed to the ideas of others. In fact, part my definition of liberal means being open to an receptive to all ways of thinking, willing to listen to them, even if you ultimately don't agree with them.

Also, I am a teacher, so I hear all manner of interesting philosophies from my students.

I would agree with that, adding that to be truly liberal in the root sense of the word (which may or may not coincide with politically or socially liberal), one must always remain open to the possibility of being persuaded that one is wrong about any given thing.

Exactly, and it is from that root sense of the word that I begin when I talk about being both liberal-minded and conservative-minded (thus the qualifier); which, paradoxically, means that conservative-minded and politically and socially liberal people can be one in the same, while politically and socially conservative people might actually be quite liberal in their thinking.

So, in essense, I think we are both saying that we should just hug it out. :rolleyes: :)

I certainly don't want to derail this or make a mess but there has been something that bothers me about this discussion and I just want to play devils advocate for a moment. I will defend to the hilt an organization's right to choose their members... but I find it interesting that some people use the fact that their organization rituals are based on Christianity as a reason to discriminate in membership selection. What is Christian about discrimination? I thought God is the only judge?

Lol, love that Soror! I've been following this debate, but stayed out of it because I didn't see the point. But what you said about being liberal-minded and conservative-minded makes total sense.

I notice that on both "sides" and am pretty much tired of talking to anyone who gives their identity over to a label. The only label I will accept is that of human. If someone wants to discuss things with me as rational human beings great. But conserveative and liberal have become terms like lutherean and calvanist in the reformation. Believe/think/worship/behave in the same manner as I do otherwise you are stupid/immoral/ and if you are a centrist then you are weak willed and a fense sitter and can't make up your mind. All of it's a load of horse skyte if you ask me.

^^We have already hugged it out, and you can too. :)

@Sugar, Thank your Soror!

Oh, I think that the derailment from the OP happened a long time ago.

I think there's a real (and very scriptural) tension here. Discrimination and judgment can be very Christian. Yes, we are told to "judge not, lest ye be judged" -- this seems to have more to do with people saying "you are damned . . . " when damnation is not our call -- and not to harp on the mote in a brother or sister's eye while ignoring the log in our own.

But the NT is also full of warnings for believers not to have dealings with idolotors or immoral people (with descriptions, in some cases, of what kind of behavior can constitute immorality) and not to allow them fellowship in the church. Kind of hard to heed those warnings without some discriminating judgment.

Would, for example, you make the same claim that it is not Christian to judge or discriminate if the object of the judgment or discrimination was, say, a member of NMBLA, a porn trafficker or a white supremicist?

I am not in a GLO that claims a particularly Christian identity or heritage, so I'll leave it to others to say how this tension translates into such a GLO or other non-church organization. But I think the idea that "it's not Christian to discriminate," while it sounds warm and fuzzy, is really rather simplistic.

The Bible comes off as quite discriminatory actually. In the OT, there are plenty of warnings about associating with the "wrong" type of people...

I said that because I was called a Neanderthal, and then a Homophobe..........by you......because of the way I felt.

I have never tried to condemn anyone because they didn't think exactly like I do about homosexuals. You took what I said completely out of context. I was nothing short of berated by a majority of the people in this discussion, and not once did I try to tell any of them that they were stupid/ignorant/short sighted/close minded for thinking they way they do.

Thanks.

I never called you a neanderthal, and all I can say is if the homophobic shoe fits, wear it. I never singled anyone out specifically and said that "You are a homophobe."

I said I was called one and then a homophobe.......by you. Do I think the shoe fits? Absolutely not.

You didn't have to single anyone out. Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who you were referring to. You can backpeddle all you want, but it was pretty obvious who you were referring to. You quoted a response from JonoB that was nothing but meant specifically for me.

You misquoted me and took what I said about "thinking without supervision" completely out of the context in which it was said. Simple as that. Again, not once have I condemned anyone in this discussion for how they feel about homosexuals. I can't say the same for the responses towards me.

OK

So you were wrong. Great.

OK :cool:

All of this speaks to the very reason that he wouldn't tell you...

Very well put. Kudos, sir.