@shawne: I was willing to discuss this subject with you until you blatantly started people disagreeing with you 'small-minded bigots'. Did I just once offend any gay/lesbian person in this topic? No. I respect such people. But it seems @NWN_babaYaga is right. Sorry for 'failing to understand you'. This discussion's over.
very narrow minded to think that everyone who is against gay romances for BG is a small-minded bigot. You´re not better then the one you try to insult @shawne. You can fight your private war against other oppinions until you die but you are not (god bless) in charge to force homosexuality upon the straight people.
Ah yes, that old chestnut. Please explain to me how I or anyone else is "forcing homosexuality on straight people". Did I miss the part in "Dragon Age" where you can't beat the game unless your male PC sleeps with Zevran? Are gay romances suddenly mandatory content for all players? No? Then I respectfully suggest that you're not being wronged here. As @Lord_Gay pointed out, you have the luxury of not experiencing content you don't want to experience. If there's a gay romance in BG:EE, find a way to cope with the idea that it's not there for you.
It slowly pisses me of how you dudes see yourself in the good spot and the rest of us in the bad, homophobe and and and spot. And i regret trying to understand you because it´s nothing more then a private thing and you cant accept anything else!
@Shandyr: I'm not responsible for other people's biases - the fact that it was so easy for NWN_babaYaga to "regret trying to understand" other people tells me it wasn't a sincere gesture in the first place. People are entitled to their prejudices, and it's not my job to educate them, but I am going to call them exactly what they are. If they're uncomfortable with the label, they may wish to consider why it's being applied to them.
Because let's be very clear here: this whole debate started because people were arguing against the inclusion of gay content in BG:EE. Content they decided was poorly-written/pandering/gross/inappropriate without seeing so much as a single line of dialogue. Those were kneejerk reactions without a shred of evidence, motivated entirely by personal biases and followed by outrageous statements about how the straight majority is being oppressed (because clearly, having one bisexual party member in a game with twenty-eight NPCs is one too many).
And yes, @NWN_babaYaga, it is bigotry - replace "homosexuality" with "black people" and you wouldn't dare repeat that statement today. Just because gays are still an "acceptable target" in today's society doesn't make it any less wrong.
@shawne: I was willing to discuss this subject with you until you blatantly started people disagreeing with you 'small-minded bigots'. Did I just once offend any gay/lesbian person in this topic? No. I respect such people. But it seems @NWN_babaYaga is right. Sorry for 'failing to understand you'. This discussion's over.
I wasn't referring to anyone specific, but if the shoe fits, that's your business.
@shawne: How the hell am I a 'small-minded bigot'? I didn't even lash out at anyone or anything. I was just giving my opinion, I wasn't talking down to people, like what you are doing right now. I just tried to partake into this discussion, but it seems that no matter on which boards, these discussions always have to end up in both parties getting angry at each other. I stated previously that I wouldn't mind having extray gay characters in DA:O. I just thought that the implementation of all characters being bisexual in DA 2 wasn't a good idea and I explained why in my earlier posts. Not gonna repeat it, so read it yourself. So how the hell am I now being pushed into the 'homophobe' corner again? Why? And no, the 'shoe doesn't fit'. I think @NWN_babaYaga DOES have apoint in saying that 'we', the con-party, if you prefer to call it, always end up being mispresented as awful people with the intellectual level of a sheep. I DO have respect for you guys, but please show me some respect in return too. If we all are gonna start shouting at each other (and I admit I'm starting to get pissed off as well), it's best to abandon this topic, as nothing good will come out of it anyway and tear the forum fanbase apart.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: Again, I wasn't referring to anyone specific in that post - you're the one who jumped in with the assumption that I was talking about you (ie: "Did I just once offend any gay/lesbian person in this topic?"). If you didn't make the claims I'm discussing, why would you think you were the subject of the criticism?
@Shandyr: The problem, as I see it, is that you're applying moral relativity to something that really isn't ambiguous. I've made this analogy before, and it bears repeating: in the 1950's and 1960's you had very well-spoken and polite people who were against desegregation, interracial marriage and black rights. They complained that agendas were being forced on them despite being "tolerant"; they were shocked at the suggestion that there should be more black characters in fiction; they invoked religion, politics, social mores, cultural heritage - all while saying they were open-minded but gosh darn it they just didn't feel comfortable about the whole thing.
And they were wrong. It doesn't matter how nice they were or how eloquently they expressed themselves, at the end of the day they were speaking out in support of oppressing a minority, and there is no justification for that in my eyes. If this were a thread about not wanting Dynaheir or Valygar in the game because they're black, there wouldn't be a single person here expressing support or tolerance. We'd call it racism, the moderators would warn or ban the offenders, and we'd all feel a little bit better.
Unfortunately, we as a society haven't quite made the cognitive jump that the same situation is being repeated here with a different minority - but that doesn't change the facts.
You're treating this discussion as if "pro-gay" and "anti-gay" are somehow interchangeable (ie: you put yourself on the same level as homophobes who throw derisive labels at you), but they're not: you either have it in you to see homosexuals as being equal to you (in which case they have as much right to representation as anyone else) or you don't (in which case it's perfectly justified to dislike the idea of someone else having a gay romance in a game - not even something that's being imposed on you, but content being experienced by another player). There's no middle ground here, because these aren't values you can compromise on.
Dude, stop compare racism with homophobic behavios, it's an fucking stupid comparison. Both have one thing in common: Prejudice, but this doesn't mean that both share the same reasons or importance.
Racism comes as an excuse to label an selective group of people as inferior, incompetent, or simply less human. homophobic behavior comes from people that feel unconfortable or label gays as something wrong.
The first is made to justify abuses, the second is made to reprove a behavior based in moral standard terms of society (that by the way is changing at everyday).
Opressed people from racial issues normally aren't opressed by being a minority, but by being weak in the general concept of the word, for example they're not in positions of power, they are needed to cheap labor (black slavery in many parts of the world) or they just have something that someone want (jews in germany, that controlled almost all the country money so some people made an excuse to take that from them).
Everything is a question of timeline, history doesn't exist to be morally evaluated by the standards of the actual days, that's stupid also, the examples i gave to you happened or continued in an actual time, where slavery has no justify, but do would anyone be arrogant enough to evaluate the behavior of a people 2 thousand years ago for example?
In the end your last post can be translated as:
"Or you fully support gay stuff or you're a hater", "That's because of... (fallacy), (syllogism) and (reactionary behavior)".
So if you want me to answer now you, and i only have the option above, what you think i'm going to choose? All this radicalism can be translate into a single word:
@Shandyr: On the contrary - you're overcomplicating the discussion by bringing in irrelevant hypotheticals. To wit, this isn't about how much gay/bi content should be in a game, because this game (ostensibly the subject of the discussion) has a grand total of one bisexual character. That is the barest of bare minimums, and people are still against it.
Now, you seem to think that there's a middle ground between acceptance and bigotry: tell me, then, where is it? By your own admission you'd prefer to have no romances at all because you can't find a way to satisfy both the minority being oppressed and the majority that's oppressing it - what do you have to offer as an alternative, other than sweeping the debate under a rug?
Dude, stop compare racism with homophobic behavios, it's an fucking stupid comparison. Both have one thing in common: Prejudice, but this doesn't mean that both share the same reasons or importance.
Racism comes as an excuse to label an selective group of people as inferior, incompetent, or simply less human. homophobic behavior comes from people that feel unconfortable or label gays as something wrong.
How is homophobia not an excuse to label a selective group (homosexuals) as inferior?
My point is, even if you completely ignore the issue of bi/homosexuality in videogames for a moment, there will still be flamewars and hatred about romances, because there are not enough romances to please everyone's favorite vision of a romance.
And to THAT problem I do not see a solution.
The solution is pretty clear, the Devs try and be as inclusive as they can while keeping true to their artistic vision of the final game. It's the Dev's decision ultimately.
Edit: Oh and as an afterthought: If we come to the conclusion that we simply cannot please everyone, and cannot include everbody's personal favorite type of romance - who are we to decide which player's favorite type of romance will be included and which one will not?
I'd say we should leave this decision to the developers.
Then it seems to me that the anti-gay people should respect the Developer's right to create the characters that they want to.
Everyone should respect the Developer's right to create the characters that they want to.
And using the term "anti-gay people" is not helpful at this point, in my opinion. Please consider that people may be feel insulted by this whom you actually do not even mean. Something like this just happened in this thread.
I will clarify then: by anti-gay people I mean people who are anti-gay. If you are not anti-gay then I am not talking about you
@Communard, the objective is the difference between both.
I don't defend neither groups cos both are hate radicals pretty much as some pro-gay groups are. but the first intent to make a racial group to be noticed as less human, less important, or just unworthy of equal rights while the last is born from intolerance with what differ from their moral standards.
Now to everyone, as @communard is just evaluating arguments without biased opinion from what i see:
Prejudice goes far beiond race or gay, i wouldn't date a fat girl, i think that fat is ugly, by the way i wouldn't date an ugly girl also (maybe a fast time with no compromise if not too ugly, who knows). Does i am a hater for this?
Now should we make a quote for those prejudiced minorities also? Should we divide now 25% for straight, 25% for gay, 25% for fat and 25% for ugly? You know, there are a lot of minorities all around us, i just gave some examples, if we try to please them all we finsh by displease everyone.
To end, lemme ask something:
No one here disagree that gay is a minority, no? So answer me why a minority should have 50% of the space? What about the other minorities? what about the fact that we have more straight persons to please than gay persons to please?
Should we paint half of the NPCs also to make them black? or maybe only 25% in black and the other 25% in yellow to respect asian people?
Pure statistic equalism will be always stupid. But of course, someone will say that it's easy for me cos i have the advantage here. Should i take that as an magical argument that will justify any kind of radicalism or ignorance?
@Communard, the objective is the difference between both.
I don't defend neither groups cos both are hate radicals pretty much as some pro-gay groups are. but the first intent to make a racial group to be noticed as less human, less important, or just unworthy of equal rights while the last is born from intolerance with what differ from their moral standards.
Prejudice goes far beiond race or gay, i wouldn't date a fat girl, i think that fat is ugly, by the way i wouldn't date an ugly girl also (maybe a fast time with no compromise if not too ugly, who knows). Does i am a hater for this?
Now should we make a quote for those prejudiced minorities also? Should we divide now 25% for straight, 25% for gay, 25% for fat and 25% for ugly? You know, there are a lot of minorities all around us, i just gave some examples, if we try to please them all we finsh by displease everyone.
To end, lemme ask something:
No one here disagree that gay is a minority, no? So answer me why a minority should have 50% of the space? What about the other minorities? what about the fact that we have more straight persons to please than gay persons to please?
Should we paint half of the NPCs also to make them black? or maybe only 25% in black and the other 25% in yellow to respect asian people?
Pure statistic equalism will be always stupid. But of course, someone will say that it's easy for me cos i have the advantage here. Should i take that as an magical argument that will justify any kind of radicalism or ignorance?
You are being absurd. "Fat" and "ugly" are not minorities, for one it is an entirely subjective judgement. You might think someone is ugly who I consider beautiful. it's not the same as a minority that is discriminated against like sexuality or race, which are objective categories. Obviously we should not introduce quotas and the like. There are black people and asian people in the Forgotten Realms (though not commonly in the Sword Coast) and this is handled well through Valygar and Yoshimo. You can also play one as a main character. There are also gay people in the Forgotten Realms, but none in Baldur's Gate, and you can't play one as a main character. All we want is one romance for us, not "50% of the content", but apparently that's too much for some people, even though those people have more than enough romances for themselves.
How can we as gay/bisexual people demand to be not excluded, when we at the same time exclude guys that try to understand us. Yet these guys are compared to people who deceived others (I'm refering to the post about the black people).
We give them labels like "anti-gay" or "narrow-minded" or "bigot" whereas at the same time we as bi/homosexuals should know how it feels like to be labelled.
I do not want to be part of this. If being gay/bisexual means demanding acceptance and tolerance by denying these very things to others (and I'm not talking about accepting, tolerating real gaybashers) then I do not wish to be in company any longer of gay/bisexual people who think this way.
Instead I will seek company of people, be they gay/hetero/bi, who demand acceptance and tolerance and can offer it at the same time. This does not mean that I am perfect at that. Maybe those people can help me improve on that.
(I will take a break from this thread for a while, it has become too exhaustive for me. You can mail me for important things)
@kamuizin It is not about that gay romances should be 50% of the romances. It is rather about that someone said that guys like you disagree even with one single bisexual romance (which is not even true).
Bye
@Shandyr Oh, please, what am I denying people? Really, I'm all ears. Am I trying to deny them representation? Am I denying them rights? All I am doing is arguing for inclusion, to the exclusion of nobody. If you think that we should just sit down and not argue against people who want to censor gay content then they will win. And people who don't want to censor gay content are not the intended target of my argument (really, people who have nothing to do with what I am arguing against should stop getting offended, since I'm, uh, not talking about them). In fact I happen to agree with Kitteh_On_a_Cloud that lazily done writing where they simply switch the pronouns for gender cheapens characters. I've even posted as much in the past. That's a quality issue and not an equal rights issue.
we are here to voice the need so developers can include this content in the first place, or are they simply expected to shoot in the dark?
and i find simply adorable all those attempts to subvert the arguments from "gay side" and accuse us of tyranny and forcing ourselves on others. and imagine that, as soon as we insist on our own integrity or identity, we are not worthy of understanding.
in this thread all the arguments are presented, poetic, humane, radical and philosophical. if people are still indifferent or do not care, fine, those people will not likely participate in such discussions. and those that do, in the end IT IS ABOUT BEING PRO OR CON. you cannot be somewhat for human rights or partially admitting somebody as equal human being. that's why all of us "radical" homos are not in the mood to compromise with our right to demand recognition and representation.
@Communard I'm not being absurd and of course the idea is an absurd (note that i put everything there in quetions rather than affirmatives), but i'm simply giving back the same mathematic that was used to justify many radicalism in this very thread, as you just stated, that's an absurd.
And how fat and ugly isn't a minority? Fat is a body status, it's even scientifically labeled as a bodily dysfunction and ugly is the lack of the standards of beauty elected by society itself normally. While people can diverge in terms of beauty evaluation, there's a base referece that is imposed by society from the very moment that we're born, evey people gay have their standard to say what is beautiful and what is not.
They are minorities, but that matter? No, i just used them to shock with the stupid of equalism and mathematic in subjective matters.
The arguments here are over, people choose instead to take sides and fight fire with fire, so now to compensate the haters, people here just become haters themself, they hate everyone that don't think like them. No argument can modify this, cos people here already know what to think, they only search in another posts justifies to overthrow their arguments.
@Trinit, you changed your position to radicalize, you say that soft arguments doesn't change the prejudice neither give to gay people more respect or integration in society, you not only share @shawne view as you make the first radical post (before him) if i'm not wrong.
So i ask: What the fuck are you doing here yet? This is a forum, where we solve things with words, if you think this approach is too soft make protest in the streets, join the radical groups and lauch your campaign over internet. But here, in this forum, there' no sense or place to someone that clearly want to discard words. You already said what you want and i already replied, you give up of debate so there's nothing more to you or people that think as you now to do here.
So you want a palpable solution to this problem? ok i will give you one, give me some minutes and a new pool will be made, i will link it here.
By the way, in Bahia, one of Brazil states, gay marriage is already legal and the notary notes are already instructed to register the procedure, just saying. A new administrative orientation from Bahia's court of justice made this change this year. Another example that time is a friendly of acceptance and integration in this issue. I have myself my reservations against gay marriage, but then, i don't like the marriage idea (after study law, it's just another stupid contract that can make you lose money VERY fast).
Pfft, it's always the same with these discussions. Dare to speak your mind and you're labeled a homophobe and made fun of in the blink of an eye. So we 'bigots' are narrow-minded? It's the same for pro-gay people like @shawne, actually. There's just no tolerance, just labeling and shouting. It's the same every time I try to participate in such a topic. I did so on the Bioware Social Network. Got called a homophobe and laughed at by gay people. And then people wonder why I've become weary of all this shouting for more gay content. It's just become too much deaf shrieking and pushing away of others, or as @Shandyr has said: there's no middle ground. Either you're pro and fully support LGBT content or you're a narrow-minded idiot who gets kicked out of the group. Well guys, if it's like this, continue your shouting, as I'm fed up with it. Tried to put my hand out there, but it got slapped away in the end. Have fun with your little flamewar. *leaves*
Comments
Because let's be very clear here: this whole debate started because people were arguing against the inclusion of gay content in BG:EE. Content they decided was poorly-written/pandering/gross/inappropriate without seeing so much as a single line of dialogue. Those were kneejerk reactions without a shred of evidence, motivated entirely by personal biases and followed by outrageous statements about how the straight majority is being oppressed (because clearly, having one bisexual party member in a game with twenty-eight NPCs is one too many).
And yes, @NWN_babaYaga, it is bigotry - replace "homosexuality" with "black people" and you wouldn't dare repeat that statement today. Just because gays are still an "acceptable target" in today's society doesn't make it any less wrong.
@Shandyr: The problem, as I see it, is that you're applying moral relativity to something that really isn't ambiguous. I've made this analogy before, and it bears repeating: in the 1950's and 1960's you had very well-spoken and polite people who were against desegregation, interracial marriage and black rights. They complained that agendas were being forced on them despite being "tolerant"; they were shocked at the suggestion that there should be more black characters in fiction; they invoked religion, politics, social mores, cultural heritage - all while saying they were open-minded but gosh darn it they just didn't feel comfortable about the whole thing.
And they were wrong. It doesn't matter how nice they were or how eloquently they expressed themselves, at the end of the day they were speaking out in support of oppressing a minority, and there is no justification for that in my eyes. If this were a thread about not wanting Dynaheir or Valygar in the game because they're black, there wouldn't be a single person here expressing support or tolerance. We'd call it racism, the moderators would warn or ban the offenders, and we'd all feel a little bit better.
Unfortunately, we as a society haven't quite made the cognitive jump that the same situation is being repeated here with a different minority - but that doesn't change the facts.
You're treating this discussion as if "pro-gay" and "anti-gay" are somehow interchangeable (ie: you put yourself on the same level as homophobes who throw derisive labels at you), but they're not: you either have it in you to see homosexuals as being equal to you (in which case they have as much right to representation as anyone else) or you don't (in which case it's perfectly justified to dislike the idea of someone else having a gay romance in a game - not even something that's being imposed on you, but content being experienced by another player). There's no middle ground here, because these aren't values you can compromise on.
Racism comes as an excuse to label an selective group of people as inferior, incompetent, or simply less human. homophobic behavior comes from people that feel unconfortable or label gays as something wrong.
The first is made to justify abuses, the second is made to reprove a behavior based in moral standard terms of society (that by the way is changing at everyday).
Opressed people from racial issues normally aren't opressed by being a minority, but by being weak in the general concept of the word, for example they're not in positions of power, they are needed to cheap labor (black slavery in many parts of the world) or they just have something that someone want (jews in germany, that controlled almost all the country money so some people made an excuse to take that from them).
Everything is a question of timeline, history doesn't exist to be morally evaluated by the standards of the actual days, that's stupid also, the examples i gave to you happened or continued in an actual time, where slavery has no justify, but do would anyone be arrogant enough to evaluate the behavior of a people 2 thousand years ago for example?
In the end your last post can be translated as:
"Or you fully support gay stuff or you're a hater", "That's because of... (fallacy), (syllogism) and (reactionary behavior)".
So if you want me to answer now you, and i only have the option above, what you think i'm going to choose? All this radicalism can be translate into a single word:
Tyranny.
Now, you seem to think that there's a middle ground between acceptance and bigotry: tell me, then, where is it? By your own admission you'd prefer to have no romances at all because you can't find a way to satisfy both the minority being oppressed and the majority that's oppressing it - what do you have to offer as an alternative, other than sweeping the debate under a rug?
I don't defend neither groups cos both are hate radicals pretty much as some pro-gay groups are. but the first intent to make a racial group to be noticed as less human, less important, or just unworthy of equal rights while the last is born from intolerance with what differ from their moral standards.
Now to everyone, as @communard is just evaluating arguments without biased opinion from what i see:
Prejudice goes far beiond race or gay, i wouldn't date a fat girl, i think that fat is ugly, by the way i wouldn't date an ugly girl also (maybe a fast time with no compromise if not too ugly, who knows). Does i am a hater for this?
Now should we make a quote for those prejudiced minorities also? Should we divide now 25% for straight, 25% for gay, 25% for fat and 25% for ugly? You know, there are a lot of minorities all around us, i just gave some examples, if we try to please them all we finsh by displease everyone.
To end, lemme ask something:
No one here disagree that gay is a minority, no? So answer me why a minority should have 50% of the space? What about the other minorities? what about the fact that we have more straight persons to please than gay persons to please?
Should we paint half of the NPCs also to make them black? or maybe only 25% in black and the other 25% in yellow to respect asian people?
Pure statistic equalism will be always stupid. But of course, someone will say that it's easy for me cos i have the advantage here. Should i take that as an magical argument that will justify any kind of radicalism or ignorance?
and i find simply adorable all those attempts to subvert the arguments from "gay side" and accuse us of tyranny and forcing ourselves on others. and imagine that, as soon as we insist on our own integrity or identity, we are not worthy of understanding.
in this thread all the arguments are presented, poetic, humane, radical and philosophical. if people are still indifferent or do not care, fine, those people will not likely participate in such discussions.
and those that do, in the end IT IS ABOUT BEING PRO OR CON.
you cannot be somewhat for human rights or partially admitting somebody as equal human being. that's why all of us "radical" homos are not in the mood to compromise with our right to demand recognition and representation.
And how fat and ugly isn't a minority? Fat is a body status, it's even scientifically labeled as a bodily dysfunction and ugly is the lack of the standards of beauty elected by society itself normally. While people can diverge in terms of beauty evaluation, there's a base referece that is imposed by society from the very moment that we're born, evey people gay have their standard to say what is beautiful and what is not.
They are minorities, but that matter? No, i just used them to shock with the stupid of equalism and mathematic in subjective matters.
The arguments here are over, people choose instead to take sides and fight fire with fire, so now to compensate the haters, people here just become haters themself, they hate everyone that don't think like them. No argument can modify this, cos people here already know what to think, they only search in another posts justifies to overthrow their arguments.
@Trinit, you changed your position to radicalize, you say that soft arguments doesn't change the prejudice neither give to gay people more respect or integration in society, you not only share @shawne view as you make the first radical post (before him) if i'm not wrong.
So i ask: What the fuck are you doing here yet? This is a forum, where we solve things with words, if you think this approach is too soft make protest in the streets, join the radical groups and lauch your campaign over internet. But here, in this forum, there' no sense or place to someone that clearly want to discard words. You already said what you want and i already replied, you give up of debate so there's nothing more to you or people that think as you now to do here.
So you want a palpable solution to this problem? ok i will give you one, give me some minutes and a new pool will be made, i will link it here.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/5783/democratic-pool-for-romance-content-gaystraight, it's done, now you have a palpable solution, go there, make your vote, convince people with good arguments to vote in gay content and with quantity you have a strong exchange coin to work with the devs. They can't ignore numbers after all.