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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
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To: Steve Dietrich who wrote (346758)1/23/2003 3:22:37 PM
From: Johannes Pilch  Read Replies (2) of 769670
 
Well, I can hardly see why I should use “queer” as an epithet when I can garner so much more power by using it to describe reality. Indeed, let us say I make the statement “Homosexuals are queers.” Have I made any lesser insult to them by saying “Homosexuals are queer?” It seems to me the greater power is found in the latter statement because it is most true.

And besides, what you call an “epithet” may be to JLA (and very likely is) just a way to hack at demonstrators by associating them with strangeness – sexual or otherwise. I reject the view that the epithet “queer” is any more objectively obscene than Search’s repeated use of the word “racist” and “bigot” to describe me. An epithet is really in the dang eye of the beholder. We only really get a general sense of the power of the term by the reaction is causes. That is really why we walk so gingerly around the term “nigger.” It hurts a lot of people. But the fact is, it is just a word, a word that “somebody” has jammed a lot of meaning into over a long period of time. I think we should walk gingerly around it in view of that history and in view of the fact that the word (with its associated meaning) was used to deny the valid humanity of other people. The same applies to the word “Jew” as an epithet. As civilized humans, that is a thing we ought not do. But the word “queer” does no such thing. It does not comment upon a truly human quality but rather a quality contrary to man.
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