Green Lantern is Gay

[ReiverCorrupter]

snip

Gay talks about attraction, not love. You can marry someone you are not attracted to, and have sex with them, and "love" doesn't necessarily imply sexual love. I know gay men who love their female friends. Does this make them suddenly, magically not gay? No. They may not want to shag their friend's bones, and the love might be more platonic, but it's still love. I said nothing about attraction. That is different from love and different from sex. Because you are attracted to women, does that mean you cannot love your brother, or your father, or a friend? No, it just means you are not sexually attracted to them. That's all it means. You could still have sex with a guy or marry him. Marriage is not predicated on love or attraction-people prove that pretty much all the time, with green card marriages. And gay men have had children while married to a woman, so obviously, it's possible to have sex with a woman while only being attracted to other men.

Ah, alright then. I thought you were saying that gay men can have romantic love for a woman, which implies sexual attraction. Sure, gay people can definitely have platonic love for members of the other sex, no question.

You're statement was a bit misleading though, especially the last bit:

I will add that being gay only means you are sexually attracted to other men. Nothing says a gay man cannot love a woman, or even marry her or have kids with her. It just means... he's attracted to other men first and foremost.

So you can see where I got that impression.

 

[Syzygy23]

Wow, they are really getting edgy there making Alan Scott gay. Really, Alan Scott? What a cop out! I would argue he probably only barely makes it into the top 10 when it comes to the most well known Green Lanterns

Maybe it's just me, but Alan Scott is the guy I think of when I think 'green lantern'.

Counts as 'iconic', if you ask me.
As for him being, gay, I'm fine with it, although I would have liked if it was Aquaman. Since he's the king of Atlantis (or is he anymore?) it would have been more interesting. They could have portarayed cultural differences between the races and their attitudes to homosexuality, and there could have been some court-intrique involved.

The only REAL green lantern is Black Guy Green Lantern.

C'mon, he manages to be an intimidating black man WITHOUT being bald.

 

[LadyRhian]

snip

Gay talks about attraction, not love. You can marry someone you are not attracted to, and have sex with them, and "love" doesn't necessarily imply sexual love. I know gay men who love their female friends. Does this make them suddenly, magically not gay? No. They may not want to shag their friend's bones, and the love might be more platonic, but it's still love. I said nothing about attraction. That is different from love and different from sex. Because you are attracted to women, does that mean you cannot love your brother, or your father, or a friend? No, it just means you are not sexually attracted to them. That's all it means. You could still have sex with a guy or marry him. Marriage is not predicated on love or attraction-people prove that pretty much all the time, with green card marriages. And gay men have had children while married to a woman, so obviously, it's possible to have sex with a woman while only being attracted to other men.

Ah, alright then. I thought you were saying that gay men can have romantic love for a woman, which implies sexual attraction. Sure, gay people can definitely have platonic love for members of the other sex, no question.

You're statement was a bit misleading though, especially the last bit:

I will add that being gay only means you are sexually attracted to other men. Nothing says a gay man cannot love a woman, or even marry her or have kids with her. It just means... he's attracted to other men first and foremost.

So you can see where I got that impression.

Yes, I can, and glad to clear up that misconception! I had to rewrite the post you quoted because I felt I wasn't being clear, and to add the comment about "Louis", which was too funny to pass up.

 

[RaNDM G]

Damn. And I was SURE it would be Hawkman.

Why pick this guy though? He married twice and had two kids from his first marriage. Granted that's from a different continuity, but you'd think that would cross over.

 

[Creatural]

snip

That's not a very scientific view point and I wouldn't suggest using a small sample size as a way for you to prove what gay people think, even with that qualifier in there. You may not have intended it in this way but this has come off in such a way that you seem to be trying to use this as a way of supporting your view with evidence backing it up but also saying that it isn't either. It almost looks wishy washy. I'd recommend being clearer in what you type to actually show what you mean and not putting in your personal testing there unless it's actually been done as a proper study.

Lol. Yes, because clearly by saying that I "tested some of them on it" I meant that I had conducted an experiment with strict social-scientific methodology. [/sarcasm] (Also, lol at the phrase "strict social-scientific methodology".)

When I said that "I tested some of them on it" I meant that I engaged someone in a conversation in order to tease out the exact implications of their views. Hence I did not "test" the entire population of the escapist to see what percentage of them held these views, but instead I "tested" the views of particular individuals in order to draw out their presuppositions. If I had meant that I conducted a statistical analysis of the viewpoints of members of the escapist forums I would have said something completely different. But I do apologize as I can see how the term "test" can send people all aflutter with assumptions of scientific pretense on the part of the author. "Made them explicate their views" would have probably been a better phrase. I do hope that clears up any confusion you may have experienced, gentle reader.

Or perhaps you mean to reject all forms of commonsense inductive reasoning from personal experience as illegitimate or "wishy-washy"? If so, you should realize that this would likely cripple the day-to-day activities of your average human being, who relies heavily upon non-scientific inductive inferences from past experience. I was claiming that Bluecho should be prepared for some people to quote him and tell him that one cannot disapprove of homosexuality without being a bigot, not that this would definitely happen. And I'd say I have reasonable evidence to make this inference considering two people responded to some of my previous posts and argued that exact point. Notice that I did not say anything about the probability of it happening because I didn't have enough evidence to support any such probability. Just look at the last sentence of my post:

Let's see if the people in this thread return the favor...

So sure, if that's "wishy-washy" by your standards then I was making a wishy-washy claim. But I don't see anything wrong with "wishy-washy" in that sense, so perhaps someone who criticizes others for vague terminology shouldn't use phrases like "wishy-washy" in the process. ;P

Wishy washy was a teasing term meant to be used to lessen the seriousness of what I said so offense would not be taken to my comment. It's also a teasing based on how unclear previous statements were. I did have to take your term of test more literally than I would most people though as when I've come across people talking about homosexuality in particular when they say they've tested other specifically they do tend to mean that their small amount of "testing" is as legitimate as what an actual study may find. If this were another subject where people talked about testing and didn't mean it seriously so often as I've come across I wouldn't be addressing you about this at all.

That doesn't make wholly excusable as an assumption to make, but hopefully that explains where it came from and why I addressed it as I did in the first place.

snip

Snip.

Also, I'm sorry for my other reply to you since I think I may have fundamentally misunderstood some of the things you were saying and my reply is probably very confusing.

(Oh, and I don't think there was any confusion on my part. I didn't assume that you belonged to any of my hypothetical groups and I was arguing against them, not you. I tend to argue in hypotheticals, which often gives people the mistaken impression that I'm committing them to a straw man position when I'm actually just trying to elucidate all the possible positions one might take in an argument. I'm certainly not assuming that you would want the government to rule in favor of the diocese in the example I just gave.)

Not the reply I meant and I may be reading this wrong as it is late o'clock but I didn't mean to imply that there was any confusion on your part, I put it specifically on my part for a reason. And no, you're very clearly arguing in hypotheticals and not using strawman arguments. Strawman arguments tend not to explore things or go into as much detail about differing sides as you have.

What I misunderstood was the nature of something else you were talking about which is covered above.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

snip
...
So sure, if that's "wishy-washy" by your standards then I was making a wishy-washy claim. But I don't see anything wrong with "wishy-washy" in that sense, so perhaps someone who criticizes others for vague terminology shouldn't use phrases like "wishy-washy" in the process. ;P

Wishy washy was a teasing term meant to be used to lessen the seriousness of what I said so offense would not be taken to my comment. It's also a teasing based on how unclear previous statements were. I did have to take your term of test more literally than I would most people though as when I've come across people talking about homosexuality in particular when they say they've tested other specifically they do tend to mean that their small amount of "testing" is as legitimate as what an actual study may find. If this were another subject where people talked about testing and didn't mean it seriously so often as I've come across I wouldn't be addressing you about this at all.

That doesn't make wholly excusable as an assumption to make, but hopefully that explains where it came from and why I addressed it as I did in the first place.

Lol. Don't worry about it, I knew where you were coming from. I was just returning the favor. (Notice the emboldened thing at the end of my post.)

 

[Strazdas]

Im confused. Judging from their "Reboot" movie they made few years ago, he seemt not only heterosexual, but quite a sex addict, you know, one of those quagmire types but not really overboard yet. and not they announce he is gay. I got ntohing about it being gay, its just that its totally ignoring the movie (bad as it was).

 

[Cyrus Hanley]

I'm still confused by people who say that this change fucks up all the previously established canon.

If this a new continuity, then WTF is the problem? He might not even have a wife or son.

If he does, then explore that within the context of rebooted universe. Maybe instead of Green Lantern struggling to accept a son who's gay, we could have a son who struggles to accept a father who is gay.

Im confused. Judging from their "Reboot" movie they made few years ago, he seemt not only heterosexual, but quite a sex addict, you know, one of those quagmire types but not really overboard yet. and not they announce he is gay. I got ntohing about it being gay, its just that its totally ignoring the movie (bad as it was).

The Green Lantern in that film is Hal Jordan, the one we're talking about in this thread is Alan Scott (the original).

 

[Keava]

Almost got it. Was pretty sure it would be Green Lantren considering it's probably the easiest of all heroes to do with as there was just so many of them. But going with such obscure one? Meh.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Hm.. Hm... Thinking... Nope, don't really care. Though, it is somewhat interesting, how DC just decided to piss off a religious group (Comics: 1, Religion: 0) and introduce an existing character as homosexual. I don't know why they did it - to expand on that character, or simply for the giggles, or something along those lines.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

People still consider it shocking when someone is gay? Why is this news?

 

[OZITOMAI]

all i'm saying is atleast its not the flash, wally west not barry allen

 

[Terramax]

I can only think this is some sort of marketing ploy to get the gay crowd to buy the film.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Awww, that's so cute. DC still thinks homosexuality is a talking point. Yes, yes, we see the men kissing. How liberal of you. Can you get back to writing your comics now?

Can you hear us, DC, all the way back there in the 80's?

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

People still consider it shocking when someone is gay? Why is this news?

What they want you to think: because it's about time we, the gay community, got a superhero rolemodel and it's a big step towards homosexuality been accepted!

The truth: because DC are fuckwits and being edgy is easier than actually writing with purpose. Also, because people dumb enough to believe the former (what they want you to think) will praise DC and talk about it like a fucking revolution, thus increasing sales.

They couldn't have just wrote a character's sexuality into the story naturally. Nooo. They had to make a big deal out of it like anyone gives a fuck and go "guys, guys, look! We totally have a gay hero! Check it out!" Yeah, shouting and carrying on about it really shows how much you don't care about other people's sexuality, doesn't it. It's like one of those useless sods that always reminds everyone how "okay" with gay people they are and how many "gay friends" they have.

One step towards homosexuality being a non-issue? Try a thousands backwards and away from it being seen as mundane as heterosexuality

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

At least people realize that maybe their entirely heterosexual fictional world may be a little unrealistic.

Who said any of the heroes was hetero? Unless they've actually said they are straight, there's no reason to assume they aren't bi, gay or otherwise queer.

I am so sick of people caring about sexuality, I could puke. /rant

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

At least people realize that maybe their entirely heterosexual fictional world may be a little unrealistic.

Who said any of the heroes was hetero? Unless they've actually said they are straight, there's no reason to assume they aren't bi, gay or otherwise queer.

I am so sick of people caring about sexuality, I could puke. /rant

So if people don't ask, they won't tell

To be honest i have trouble seeing your point. Sexuality is still a massive dividing issue in the US and so its hard NOT to care about sexuality one way or another. Personally i think the wholesale attack on gay rights by some states is pretty disgusting and warps the legal rights of all non married couples.

It's all just so draining and idiotic. One side thinks what two or more adults feel or share together is any of their fucking business and the other side won't shut up about what they do in private. I'm just so over the whole thing. I don't give a flying shit who you love or who you wanna do the dirty with or how (so long as they are an adult and consent, blah, blah, blah) and no one else should either. That this little stunt is "necessary" is just salt on my aching wound of not giving a shit.

Why can't people just not care? What in sanity's name is stopping people from waking up tomorrow and going "oh hey, who gives a fuck what sexuality someone describes themselves as?" Are you gay? I don't care. Are you straight? I don't give a crap. Something else? Zero shits are given. In the most non-narcissistic way possible... why can't people just be like me in this regard?

Sorry for ranting in your direction. Nothing against you. You seem quite nice. I am just so, so, so, so over sexuality being an issue. Could you tell?

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Wow, they're really make a big deal outta this whole gay thing. It does kinda seem stupid to change a character that wasn't previously gay. Why didn't they just make a newer, flashier... gayer green lantern, instead of using an-

Whatever... don't care.

You assume he was hetero and then use the phrase "gayer" as an adjective. Hardly progressive.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

Called it, makes sense, if maybe a not as iconic a character as Dc lead people to believe. Though it is going to be funny when people keep asking me (the one comic book geek) if Hal Jordan's gay. It's going to be "I heard Peter Parker is black now" all over again.

Also those still saying Aquaman have no clue. Smoking hot wife for one thing. Wonder Woman would have made sense though, there's even been hints of it since in her title recently.

 

[Tiger Sora]

Minority of crazy rightwing Christians the world feels like its about to explode.

Rest of the world, can't waste time cause they're real issues to deal with.