Do Gays Not Exist in Bioware's Star Wars?

[Rajin Cajun]

See this is why I'm a "homophobe". I just can't stand the fucking whining.
Homosexuality is not the norm, so there are no gays in Star Wars, because the writers don't bother to include every deviation there is in their games (like transsexuality which is the T in GLBT after all). Deal with it.

You sir are a God. I salute you.

 

[Therumancer]

"No skin off my back so why should I give a shit? I mean, who cares if they gays cant get married. I mean, my rights aren't being infringed, so who am I to care?"

Pretty much, yes. As far as I'm concerned, the human race consists of three people: me, family and everyone else. Beyond that, I consider anything or one that doesn't apply to or interest me personally pretty much irrelevant, and you're raising your irrelevance quotient more or less by the second.


More is the pity this board doesn't have an 'ignore' feature if only to aid in my complete apathy of you.

I have mixed opinions about Ignore features, just because you really loathe someone on a few topics doesn't mean you won't wind up getting along on far more. Many times I've wound up becoming great friends/debate partners with people I first wound up loathing (not involving me here, but I come on strong at times, and some of the things I say do tend to irritate people since I'm hardly politically correct).


At any rate, I think everyone should care about the gay marriage issue because it DOES effect them. It's also a misrepresented and misunderstood arguement. It took me a while to really form an opinion on it.

I'm not great at articulating this, but it all comes down to tax money. The issue isn't so much a prohibation against them getting married, but the legal recognition of such. Generally speaking, there is no law preventing some priest or other authority recognized by those involved from presiding over a ceremony to bond two people of the same gender. None at all. In general marriage itself is pretty much declaring too people bonded to each other and "off limits" to everyone else. If the gay community accepts this and respects the bond then the marriage works on the fundemental level. Nobody is stopping this despite how it's portrayed.

The actual issue is the abillity to file as married for the purposes of things like taxes. Married couples gain benefits for a lot of things simply by being married. While not specifically stated these tax breaks and such are given based on the assumption that a married couple will be having children, and raising a family. While this does not ALWAYS happen, that is typically how things go. Two homosexuals, are not going to bear children no matter how much they love each other (barring some possible genetic engineering down the pipleline). There are issues about possible adoption, or whatever, but again the odds of that happening aren't quite up there with the "getting married, having a family" thing. There are also apparently various ways for those adopting children to get support ouside of the tax structure. Various foundations and such exist specifically to help with adoptions.

Others have broken it down far better than I can, as I am not an expert on tax law. But the idea being that a married gay couple will generally wind up paying less on things like property taxes for their main residence, compared to a single person or two people just living together at the same address. Any way it goes this means that when the goverment acknowleges those marriages a whole lot of people suddenly pay less taxes on things they paid more money for, and the goverment being what it is, is going to raise taxes in other places (who knows where) in order to allow for it. So ultimatly this comes down to a cost out of YOUR pocket since your going to be paying for it.

It ultimatly comes down as to whether you think the married tax breaks are fair when applied to homosexuals who are far, far, less likely to ever raise families as was intended by those laws. Though admittedly a lot of people do argue that they do not believe that this was the intent behind those laws.

There are other arguements that are used to sell this, like gay couples saying "oh why can't I be admitted into a hospital to see my dying life-partner without a marriage certificate". Of course there are other ways to pursue such things, and you already see a lot of hospitals changing their policies, and increased pressure (as the gay rights movement picks up steam) on the hold outs. So basically if gay rights succeeds this kind of thing goes along with it, and thus becomes somewhat seperate from the marriage issue.

It all basically comes down to "free money for being gay". That tax money that you save presumably to raise your family (and in the overwhelming number of cases that is how things will turn out, even if not all heterosexual couples have children), becomes money that the majority of homosexuals are just going to have availible to spend.

People are going to say "But Therumancer, your an anti-gay bigot, I expect this of you. It's mindless because of your overall rants".

Well let me put it to you this way, whether you think I'm a hypocrit or not, I have said I have no problem with Lesbians, but I do not believe in legally recognizing their marriages for these purposes. Even if I accepted gay men I wouldn't approve it for them.

From my perspective it all comes down to what those legal benefits for married couples are for. Whether I like the gay rights movement or not, the SOCIAL benefits will rise or fall as the overall movement does. But those legal benefits and little cuts one can get by claiming a spouse were put there for having and raising kids as I see things. Thus I feel those who are highly unlikely to ever do that should not gain those benefits. In the end that is all the legal recognition of marriage does for practical purposes.

On top of this the rest of the system isn't really ready for it. Let's say a gay couple breaks up. One dude sues another dude for spousal support (even if no kids are involved). Laugh if you want but I feel that entire area of law was developed around gender roles. Things like spousal support laws are a big enough mess that is hard enough to try and balance and untangle from the existing man/woman stereotype (it's gradually getting there though) without dumping homosexuals into the system.

What might make for an interesting episode of Jerry Springer is not nessicarly what I want to see the legal system I pay tax money for wading through... and of course stuff like that costs more money to deal with the increased case load. Not recognizing gay marriage also takes the legal burden off the system.

 

[runtheplacered]

See this is why I'm a "homophobe". I just can't stand the fucking whining.
Homosexuality is not the norm, so there are no gays in Star Wars, because the writers don't bother to include every deviation there is in their games (like transsexuality which is the T in GLBT after all). Deal with it.

You're a homophobe because people whine?

.... what?

You're whining right now about people whining. Do you hate yourself?

 

[runtheplacered]

"No skin off my back so why should I give a shit? I mean, who cares if they gays cant get married. I mean, my rights aren't being infringed, so who am I to care?"

Pretty much, yes. As far as I'm concerned, the human race consists of three people: me, family and everyone else. Beyond that, I consider anything or one that doesn't apply to or interest me personally pretty much irrelevant, and you're raising your irrelevance quotient more or less by the second.


More is the pity this board doesn't have an 'ignore' feature if only to aid in my complete apathy of you.

The fact that you're posting your opinion in a public forum full of "irrelevant" people already tells me you're full of shit.

 

[Taerdin]

"No skin off my back so why should I give a shit? I mean, who cares if they gays cant get married. I mean, my rights aren't being infringed, so who am I to care?"

Pretty much, yes. As far as I'm concerned, the human race consists of three people: me, family and everyone else. Beyond that, I consider anything or one that doesn't apply to or interest me personally pretty much irrelevant, and you're raising your irrelevance quotient more or less by the second.


More is the pity this board doesn't have an 'ignore' feature if only to aid in my complete apathy of you.

Its not your fault you care so less about others, I mean we're all just stupid monkeys [http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html] after all.

I myself always try to see things through the eyes of others, and occasionally make concessions to help people but I guess I'm just weird in that way

 

[colin_b]

I was watching a production video, or something like that, and the 'fourth piece' of The Old Republic, as an MMO, will be story.

You can bet your ass there will be a romance sort of thing.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Wow, no homosexuals are allowed in Star Wars? That's not offensive at all (/sarcasm). Atleast Hitler had the decency to acknowledge that the Jews existed before killing them all.

Only 27 posts till Reductio ad Hitlerum. Fallacious argument!

Doesn't that automatically mean he/she has lost the argument? Hitler is not a trump card, people. He's a last resort for desperate forum goers.

 

[Knight Templar]

Either way, Bioware handled the entire thing rather poorly, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the issue rear its head again down the line. This isn't the sort of matter that just dies down quietly, after all.

So "Bioware" is synonymous with the one guy who was tasked with handling this problem on the community forum?!

I've been administrating a forum for years and one of the biggest challenges is the fact that bad trends in existing threads usually don't get reported. People just take it into their own hands to "correct" the problem by firing off ever-more-aggressive insults. By the time this comes to the moderator's attention, it's usually so bad that everyone involved deserves to be beaten over the head with the banhammer.

It sounds like Dahlberg panicked, which is understandable given the circumstances.

I'm going to agree with you on this, Bioware has been fairly good with he issue of homosexuality and such.

They have re-opened discussion on the subject so they are not just sticking their heads in the sand.

 

[Altorin]

Im not homophobic but I do not believe any type of homosexual content belongs in video games

Its an MMO and if i recall they said in the star wars universe, so its not like they have decided this, its just the way it is

Oh you

be nice

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Doesn't that automatically mean he/she has lost the argument? Hitler is not a trump card, people. He's a last resort for desperate forum goers.

Godwin's Law is actually "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.". There's no actual win/lose conditions involved.

 

[Irandrura]

As far as the Pheremone thing goes, it all gets down to one of the central debates about homosexuality. Is it a lifestyle choice, or are gays born that way?

Don't you think it's possible that there are elements of both? As with any other matter - any at all - people are born with certain inherent inclinations, and the ability to, through choice and training, affect those inclinations somewhat.

Of course, as far as actual gay rights go, I think the proper response to that debate is 'I don't care what the origin is; the fact is that certain people are homosexual, and whether they could change or that not hypothetically doesn't matter, because they don't want to; the real question is what are these people going to do?'.

As for your big argument about tax... the thing is, if it was intended as a parental bonus, surely we would legislate tax breaks and legal benefits in when people have children, as opposed to when people get married. We don't do that, though.

Of course, that's all speculating about the purpose of the law, and if we want to get down to it, the purpose of the law is that it's a cultural tradition. What you don't want to do is simply ascribe it whatever purpose is politically convenient for you at the time.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Doesn't that automatically mean he/she has lost the argument? Hitler is not a trump card, people. He's a last resort for desperate forum goers.

Godwin's Law is actually "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.". There's no actual win/lose conditions involved.

Ah, well in that case I'd like to add to the law. Whomever invokes the 'Hitler argument' has forfeited any further consideration of rational argument or discussion on their part. Once you go racist/facist bastard, you can't win the fight.

 

[000Ronald]

Doesn't that automatically mean he/she has lost the argument? Hitler is not a trump card, people. He's a last resort for desperate forum goers.

Godwin's Law is actually "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.". There's no actual win/lose conditions involved.

I keep saying that, but no one listens...

Many apologies

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Ah, well in that case I'd like to add to the law. Whomever invokes the 'Hitler argument' has forfeited any further consideration of rational argument or discussion on their part. Once you go racist/facist bastard, you can't win the fight.

That may cause problems...

Spoiler: xkcd

 

[000Ronald]

Godwin's Law is actually "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.". There's no actual win/lose conditions involved.

Ah, well in that case I'd like to add to the law. Whomever invokes the 'Hitler argument' has forfeited any further consideration of rational argument or discussion on their part. Once you go racist/facist bastard, you can't win the fight.

What if a person is openly advocating genocide? Does that change the rules up a bit?

Apologies n' stuff.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Godwin's Law is actually "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.". There's no actual win/lose conditions involved.

Ah, well in that case I'd like to add to the law. Whomever invokes the 'Hitler argument' has forfeited any further consideration of rational argument or discussion on their part. Once you go racist/facist bastard, you can't win the fight.

What if a person is openly advocating genocide? Does that change the rules up a bit?

Apologies n' stuff.

Well, then they're dicks and perhaps do deserve comparisons to Hitler, but I feel that Hitler is too easy. Go for someone like Vlad the Impaler, Stalin, or some other genocidal maniac (genocide isn't even really that important, just the maniacal killing of lots of dudes). Creativity always scores more points.

 

[Lord Krunk]

"No skin off my back so why should I give a shit? I mean, who cares if they gays cant get married. I mean, my rights aren't being infringed, so who am I to care?"

Pretty much, yes. As far as I'm concerned, the human race consists of three people: me, family and everyone else. Beyond that, I consider anything or one that doesn't apply to or interest me personally pretty much irrelevant, and you're raising your irrelevance quotient more or less by the second.


More is the pity this board doesn't have an 'ignore' feature if only to aid in my complete apathy of you.

My god, the hypocrisy in this statement is physically hurting me. If you don't care about this topic or anyone that isn't agreeing with you, why are you posting?

On-topic: Eh, everyone makes mistakes. And I predict that in the future, the terms gay or lesbian won't exist (well, except for some religious mooks that live underground) because everyone's grown beyond caring who sleeps with what gender.

And the future generations will look back on us to say 'what a bunch of moronic bigots' (much like our generation spits on the generation dumb enough to invent the atomic bomb). I'm sorry, but that's not how I want to be remembered throughout history.

Homosexual relationships in games are fine by me, and I believe them to be a huge stepping stone towards the gaming industry as something much more than entertainment. I'm not gay myself, but I'm not going to deprive anyone of their fun just because I don't want to look at any more penis than I need to.

And to the bigots: Humanity is gradually becoming a more tolerant and accepting society. Darwin's theory applies - adapt or die.

 

[Voodoo Child]

I'm not sure I actually give a fuck, TBH.

I honestly just think this thread should be locked. I bet less than a tenth of the people posting in this thread actually play the fucking game.

Everyone else (on both sides) is just using this as another excuse to plug their beliefs, which is what usually happens with controversy on the internet (especially GLBT-related ones).

(Gay btw.)

Honestly, I think this whole thing arose from the moderators choosing very poor words to say that the terms don't exist in the Star Wars universe. It's just a misunderstanding, not homophobia.

 

[Labyrinth]

Im not homophobic but I do not believe any type of homosexual content belongs in video games

Its an MMO and if i recall they said in the star wars universe, so its not like they have decided this, its just the way it is

If you have games aiming for empathy with a heterosexual audience then why should you not have games which include those with different tastes?

Star Wars is a part of my most precious childhood memories; sorry, but I don't want any gayness in it.
I hope Bioware won't turn the next game set in the Old Republic into a Gay Pride parade because of this incident.

Something can enable users to play as homosexuals without being a "Gay Pride parade". Fable doesn't exactly smear rainbow paint across bystanders and run joyously through the street.

Statement: It is a long story. But I will keep it short.

Recitation: Once upon a time, organic meatbags bred out of control and filled the galaxy. There are different meatbags across different planets, all bumping into each other. They talk a great deal and threaten each other for various reasons, mostly involving mating, survival, and resources. It is really quite tiresome.

I like your style.

As has been pointed out, this is an issue of the moderator staff rather than of Bioware itself. The moderator in question probably wished to avoid flamewars and general poo-flinging such as happens with unfortunate regularity where-ever you get the issue of those with different tastes being represented in media. Alas, that such things occur even here. It was a dick move on the mod's behalf but was more a mistake than anything.