Silvanus said:
Therumancer said:
Actually that's exactly what your getting at. This entire debate revolves around how if something like a life sim features heterosexual content as being normal, it must also present homosexual content as being normal. Something which has springboarded into articles claiming Nintendo's attitude amounts to "erasure" and so on. The bottom line is homosexuals are a tiny minority, and represent an abnormal, fringe behavior. Being gay is not normal, it represents a tiny portion of society. Thus there is no fair basis for saying it should be presented as normal and represented when relationships come up. If someone chooses to do so, that's fine, but it's not an entitlement, "erasure", or some kind of social attack to not include a fringe behavior.
Therumancer said:
My personal opinions aside, the bottom line is the battle over gay rights ended long ago. Being gay has been decriminalized.
You moved the goalposts; presenting something as normal is not the same thing as presenting it in the same proportion as you present everything else.
The rest of the post is a string of rehashed arguments from before, and various provocative slurs. If you think decriminalisation was the end of the gay-rights issue, that's truly delusional. People are still murdered because they are gay; people still lose their homes and families because they are gay; people are still brutally attacked and bullied because they are gay. It's quite sickening to suggest gay people have already won, when they face incredible violence and adversity.
You didn't address my point about how the exact same arguments as those you use now were trotted out about mixed-race relationships.
Oh, for...
If gay people were treated equally, then everybody would be happy to just live their lives. I am not making a political statement when I go out with somebody of the same sex. It
becomes political when rights get denied.
Just like mixed-race relationships. The people who tried to deny them rights and treatment forced them to argue back, and try to attain equal treatment-- and then you have the audacity, and shortsightedness, and pure prejudice, to
blame the victims for doing so?!
I addressed your points perfectly in accordance to the subject, and rehashed a lot of things I already said because those answers still applied. Your basically thrashing around trying to make some kind of point, but don't even seem to know what the discussion is about. If you think the goalposts moved you weren't paying attention to begin with.
Again, it's very simple. Gays are a tiny, abnormal, fringe of society. That's not an attack, it's simply a statement of fact. Monogamous heterosexuals define the norm, vastly outnumbering homosexuals, and other fringe groups. At least in the first world the fringe has equality in the sense that it will not be hunted down and destroyed simply for not fitting in, and people with fringe beliefs are allowed to be represented. There is nothing wrong with someone choosing to put a gay character or relationship into a work of fiction, just as there is no problem with doing so with any other fringe group. Fringe groups are however not ENTITLED to appear in every creative work simply because they happen to exist, or to the promotion of propaganda presenting them as part of the norm when they are not. There is no entitlement to have homosexuality presented whenever heterosexuality is, no more than someone is obligated to show a mixed-race marriage every time a mono-racial marriage is presented, or have a polygamous relationship shown for every monogamous relationship. This answers your point in the context of this discussion.
Now you would have a point of Nintendo came up and say "You know, we wanted to put homosexual relationships in this game but we're not going this because we believe the first world countries will have us arrested for it" and there was some reinforcement for this fear. The countries that might want to attempt such a thing (which represent the global majority sentiment) don't have the power to make it a viable threat. That's not the case though. Nintendo is pretty much saying "We decided we didn't want to put this content in our game" and then doing damage control due to political backlash. That should be the end of it, there is no discrimination involved, it is not an entitlement for homosexuality to be depicted anywhere, and that is exactly what your arguments amount to in the context of this discussion, your saying it is wrong and attack-worthy to not depict a very small group of people, and that equality means forced representation by creators. You are simply wrong about that.
To be brutally honest, the whole issue of numbers and abnormality needs to be brought up more often, even if someone wants to mince words more than I do about it. Simply pointing out the fact that homosexuals are a tiny percentage of the population and that refusing demands of disproportionate representation and entitlement does not amount to discrimination. Creators have the right to put homosexuality into their work, or not do so, just like with any other group, but they are not required to represent anyone. It's also not attack language to point out the simple fact that if someone ever did try and seriously make some kind of "affirmative action in media" argument, by the numbers gays would still get the shaft because there are simply so many other groups out there that outnumber them that they would get lost in the pile. Gays simply have a very loud voice right now, despite their tiny numbers, specifically because of politics.
Also, it's well known I'm not exactly pro-gay, or politically correct, but as a true centrist on the issue I'll point out that pushing too far invites backlash. There is a point at which you just need to let inertia take it's course once you get something moving. When you start attacking video game companies (like we've seen multiple times, besides here) for simply not including you (not doing anything offensive, or making an attack statement, just not mentioning you) you become increasingly ridiculous and start turning people against you who might otherwise be on your side. In cases like this (which have happened across the social spectrum) the guys making noise tend to think it's because the other side is scared that they are losing and want to silence them. In reality it's simply people pointing out that when you get obnoxious enough people are going to oppose whatever you represent no matter how reasonable it started out as. Next thing you know your going to find yourself still fighting over trivial things 10-20 years later when things should have long since been over. There is a point at which you need to just flat out say you won, ignore the taunts, and go home. With time, you'll see yourselves leaking into the media more and more, even if not Omni-present, because that's just what people will do, not because someone started making a huge political stink every 15 seconds. Truthfully this kind of petty garbage usually happens when people want to keep minority groups organized to try and manipulate in voting blocks... but that goes well beyond this discussion.
As I said before, I'm pretty much done here. We'll have to agree to disagree. Your not going to agree with anything I say as being valid and seem to think I'm "attacking", and I personally think your pretty much involved in an entirely different conversation that's trying to drag this into levels that go well beyond whether or not gays are entitled to representation in a bloody video game when the creators decided not to include them for whatever reason. As far as I'm concerned, if you don't like it, don't buy it, just don't try and make some kind of major social issue out of it when it's not one.