This guy Savage must be some kind of jerk for wishing some caller death from AIDS on his TV talk show. A lot of folks think homosexuality is perverse, but that's no reason to get hostile about it, (especially inasmuch as most of the homosexuals think the rest of us are perverse).

About homosexuals and the GOP, and former US senator Alan Simpson making whoopee with the Log Cabin Republicans. Right on! I'm secretary of our county Republican party organization, and I know for a fact there's a lot of conservative homosexuals. I really don't give a damn what they do with their equipment, just so they vote the right way and part with some of their cash on our behalf.

Even so, I never refer to them as "gay". Just homosexual. I can't stand euphemisms. Ever since I learned to spell the word.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

I'm the opposite. I think homosexual sounds ridiculously clinical, not to mention reminding me of the playground perjorative "homo".

I'm glad Savage was fired, but just what did MSNBC expect that they were getting when they purchased his services?

Are they actually surprised?

Breaking news...Savage is apologizing to his "many listeners in the gay community"

No, this is not a joke, although he is.

Of course he has listeners "in the gay community" -- how else would they know what he says that they need to get riled up about. I think part of the reason we don't hear much about Dr. Laura anymore is that people who get riled up about her have (gasp!) stopped listening!

I think Savage actually depends on gay listeners for a lot of his ratings. Partly just as listeners, but mostly as callers so he can go off like he did on TV. It's an unhealthy symbiosis.

Well, MJ, homosexuality IS ridiculously clinical.

Let's get things straight around here. I don't want these folks insulted, and I aim to treat them as I would anyone else. As long as they don't get in my face continuously with the secrets of their private lives that I don't really give a damn about knowing. And as long as they vote Republican and help feed our party coffers. What in hell else would I want from them, anyway?

But there is no way I am going to pretend that I think homosexuality is a normal use of their personal equipment and plumbing system. If it were otherwise, than all us heterosexuals would be the deviants, and that would be contrary to the rules of nature.

In any case, if you practice homosexuality, than homosexual is what you are. If you want to really be gay in the classic sense, go get yourself a woman (if you are a man), or vice-versa if you're female. Just don't ask us to reinvent the English language just so you can hide a weird sexual habit in some walking closet by faking up some word to describe how you get your jollies.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Arnold, you are fighting the last war.

"Gay" means "homosexual" now -- the old meaning of the word "gay" is as antiquated as referring to a car as a "horseless carriage" -- the same goes for the word "homosexual" -- which outside of a clinical setting makes the speaker sound like he or she just stepped out of a time machine.

Arnold, you are fighting the last war.

"Gay" means "homosexual" now -- the old meaning of the word "gay" is as antiquated as referring to a car as a "horseless carriage" -- the same goes for the word "homosexual" -- which outside of a clinical setting makes the speaker sound like he or she just stepped out of a time machine.

Frankly, Arnold, I didn't imply any of those things. I think it sounds clinical. I don't use the word "penis" for the same reason. It's a personal preference.

Methinks you're a bit testy.

Mike,

I DID just step out of a time machine. My grandfather was born in 1867 and died in 1942. My father was born in 1892 and died in 1979. I was born in 1934, and I'm still on my feet.

My father was the man who had the most influence on me until he was replaced by our top sergeant in the US Army when I served in 1953-1955.

When I was a kid in elementary school from 1939-1948, nobody talked about homosexuals or homosexuality at all. When I was in high school the next four years, same thing, more or less. They were all carefully hidden in whatever closets, including the invisible mental ones, that they kept themselves in.

So I don't remember hearing the word "gay" used in reference to homosexuality until some time in the early 1970s. In about 1980, what is now Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was then Gay Related Immunity Deficiency Syndrome (GRIDS).

But by the same process of political correctitude that Dean's World and a lot of others routinely and justifiably mock in the internet age, the homosexual world empire got the public health authorities to drop GRIDS and rename it AIDS. The obvious purpose was to mask the fact that the homosexual communities of the west responsible for spreading the disease were largely -- if not all but exclusively -- homosexuals.

(The only person I personally knew who got the disease and died from it was one of my cousins, a Disney TV producer who was a practicing homosexual. His time came back in the mid-1980s. I hope before he died that he got some satisfaction from the fact that the US Public Health Service changed the name of what killed him from GRIDS to AIDS. Just like you people mask reality today by changing "homosexual" to "gay".

I call it the way I see it, warts and all, just the way Max Harris taught me, back 60-65 years ago. We had a real America then, not the ersatz one the lot of you have rigged up in its place.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

MJ,

I know I'm testy. It's an attribute that is simultaneously part of my persona and a privilege of old age.

What do you call your penis in order not to think of it clinically? "Joe"? "Pete"? "Little Brother"?

For the benefit of those of you who never read anything that was written less than 10-15 years ago, "ersatz" (from my last comment in this thread) is a German word that translates to "substitute". Back in World War II, when it came into common American and English usage, it took on a secondary meaning: "phony".

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

I think of it socially, not clinically. When relevant, I consider it myself.

Michael Savage gone. Good Riddance!

Gay Related Immunity Deficiency Syndrome (GRIDS).

Political correctness had nothing to do with the name change of the disease. Simply put "GRID" is a poor scientific name, since being gay isn't a requiement for having the disease. Calling AIDS "GRID" makes as much sense as calling Sickle Cell Anemia "Black Blood Syndrome" because most people who have it are black.

Anyway, as someone who has been around for almost 70 years, you must understand that things change, no?

Just to show that Arnold isn't alone, I don't think people should talk in public about their sexual "preference". And if it's a sexual "preference" or "orientation" rather than a compulsion or a hard-wired genetic command, why does it come with rights? Has anyone really ever proven that there is any such thing as AIDS as distinct from the "homosexual lifestyle"? Really? And what's "gay" about that lifestyle anyway? How did such an innocent happy word get corrupted?

OK, took a little bit of digging but excerpted from
http://www.plateaupress.com.au/wfw/gay-gone.htm
>

(allegedly) immoral copulation sounds like homosexuality to me.

Arnold posted in a couple of messages
{{
Let's get things straight around here. I don't want these folks insulted, and I aim to treat them as I would anyone else. As long as they don't get in my face continuously with the secrets of their private lives that I don't really give a damn about knowing.

When I was a kid in elementary school from 1939-1948, nobody talked about homosexuals or homosexuality at all...They were all carefully hidden in whatever closets, including the invisible mental ones
}}

Private lives, like saying "this is my wife" or "husband", oh, that's limited to straights, so gays are stuck with "partner" or "lover" and lover implies private sexual practices, ooooh scary.

"Invisible mental ones" before the early 1970's could also be real mental hospitals with ECT and aversion therapys since at the time it was an official mental disease.

Marsha

Hmm, the post lost the excerpts, I'll try it again
from
http://www.plateaupress.com.au/wfw/gay-gone.htm
/
The Oxford dictionary gives as one of the 17th century meanings of gay: "Addicted to social pleasures and dissipations; often euphemistic: Of immoral life."

By the 19th century the English language had acquired gay nouns: a dupe; adjectives: impudent, of women leading an immoral or harlots's life; and verbs: to copulate.

The homosexual meaning actually goes back to the late 19th century. English journalist Philip Howard, in New Words For Old, mentions London's Cleveland St scandal of 1889 during which a male prostitute, testifying in court, described himself as gay.
/

(allegedly) immoral copulation sounds like homosexuality to me.

mj said:
"I'm the opposite. I think homosexual sounds ridiculously clinical, not to mention reminding me of the playground perjorative 'homo'."

You're right that "homo" is a perjorative, but I take issue with the word "gay" being used to describe homosexuality. My mom was born in the 1950's. Her sister was named Joy, and my mom's name is...you guessed it, Gay. Once the homosexual community decided to co-opt that word, it caused a lot of hassles for my mom. She could no longer introduce herself as, "Hello, I'm Gay," but had to start introducing herself by saying, "Hello, my name is Gay." She got quite annoyed.

As far as Michael Savage goes, I'm glad he's gone. He's an idiot. I listened to him once for about 10 minutes, dismissed him as a lunatic, and changed the station.

In an interview several years ago, Billy Graham stated that he did not believe that homosexuality is a sin that deserves the amount of attention that is focused on it. He said that there are sins that are on the same par, like adultery and premarital sex.

Yet, I don't see anybody trying to do much about the 60% of married people who commit adultery, or the 95% of unmarried people over the age of 25 who have premarital sex.

Those of you who think that gays are soley responsible for bringing about the moral downfall of this country better take a good, long look in the mirror. I see far more straight people acting like -- well, Sodomites.

The irony of it all is that the caller was a troll, who claims he likes Mikey "Savage" Weiner's show and didn't want to get him fired. All he wanted was what every troll wants, to get a rise out of whoever's chain he's yanking. Well, he got that. Mikey would still have a job now if had adhered to one of the most basic rules of blogging: "don't feed the trolls." Then again, if he had an irresistable urge to feed that troll, he still could have kept his job by treating the troll to a good dose of equally vitriolic, non-homophobic abuse.

Yeah, I know, Weiner's ratings were also a bit flat. That may have made the decision to terminate him a little easier, under the circumstances, but I don't think they would have canceled his show on that basis if he had otherwise behaved himself. To lose an MSNBC show over ratings, the ratings don't just have to suck, they have to Donahue-suck. Even if they Donahue-suck (Weiner's didn't), the show will still languish on MSNBC longer than Weiner's did.

Liberals suck. Conservatives rule!

SAVAGE SAVAGE SAVAGE SAVAGE SAVAGE