measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Personal integrity Before I start my rambling today, I have to state that Honey Dew Donuts coffee is just not up to snuff. I asked for extra cream and extra sugar, and it's still bitter as hell. *sigh* I can't win. I thought it would be fantastic having the new convenience stop off of Rte. 128/I-95 on the way down to work... but it's just not happening for me. I guess I can stop there for the occasional McDonalds breakfast. [erich] was frightened when he took me there the other week-- on their first Saturday open, because the hashbrowns actually tasted like potatoes, and not the grease from the fryer. I'm sure that's changed by now. But anyway... Personal Integrity. It's been rolling around in my head the last couple days, mainly because of a journal interview I posted the other day from Nickolaus Piccione. The answers he gave to the questions bothered me personally. But in light of being fair and unbiased, I posted the interview, and sent him an email stating that if I got complaints about it, I would have to take it down. To me, the interview read as a rather homosexual-hate site promotion. Perhaps I'm off-base on it, and it's very possible that in light of other Diary-X writer b.s. I dealt with lately, I'm a bit on edge about things. But it's still gnawing me a bit. Yet, I'll leave it up, since it seems that no one else has enough of a problem with it to contact me. No problem then. The thing that has been gnawing at me is because I have such high personal ethics for myself, and I forget that others don't share them sometimes. Sure, I can be a hypocrite about this at times-- but I absolutely despise when someone tells another person that their lifestyle is wrong. In my opinion, it's no one's business-- we are all free to live life the way we choose. And even when someone's lifestyle does weird me out a bit (and yes, there are a few that do), my response usually is a "listen... I don't agree with what you're doing, but it's your life. Just accept that I'm wigged." I went through this with Ogre, who is heavily into the BSDM scene. He tried to get me into it a few years ago, but it's just not my thing, for a variety of reasons. Sure, as an outsider looking in, it fascinates me. It disturbs me a bit. And I know that it's not for me. But that doesn't mean that the lifestyle is anymore wrong than my going up to New Hampshire every weekend and sitting around playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends until all hours of the night. We all have different interests and different needs, and we don't *have* to follow the same lifestyle or beliefs. If we did, things around this ball of rock in space would be pretty dull. But back to the interview. I try to keep the site unbiased. And there have been a few interviews that I read that come off a bit "yikes... um... OKAY..." to me. Like everyone else that reads the interviews, I read them too, and find journals I enjoy reading. And some interviews strike me the wrong way. But I don't say anything, because it's nothing worth raising more than an eyebrow about. The one by Nickolaus did for me. Was I wrong to say so? He claims that it's just because he's controversial, and people are scared shitless of such beliefs. Well, perhaps. I wasn't scared shitless. I questioned whether I wanted to associate with someone whose view on a group of people in our society was filled with what I saw as hate. I questioned whether it would bring my integrity as an interviewer down, or the integrity of the site, where I specifically stated that no hate sites were allowed. My personal view on homosexuality is that it is genetic. Sure, there are people who dabble in it because it's been a "forbidden" lifestyle and therefore must be cool. But like being Pagan, once you get through the layers of being a rebel and marching to the beat of your own drum, there are some serious sacrifices in personal freedoms for such a lifestyle. The dabblers eventually find this out, get bored, and go dabble in something else. The people who remain are those who can't escape through the excuse that they were just exploring a side of them-- it's who they are. And to do otherwise would be denying that fact about themselves. Perhaps it's a generational thing-- I'm cut off as someone who grew up knowing that any man who said he was gay probably was-- because no man in their right mind would lie about such a thing, since the reprecussions were so bad for the admittance. I have a close friend here at work who is a gay man in his early forties. He's in a committed long-term relationship with a wonderful man. They've been together for about six or seven years, I think. They have a life together. It's not always easy, but they've found happiness. Who has the right to tell someone they have no right to find happiness? As Nickolaus pointed out in one of his entries about a boy who was raped and killed by two homosexual men, sure... there are bad seeds. But they exist in every facet of society. Was it more pertinent that they were homosexuals, or that they were rapists? I would hope the latter. Needless to say, unless I get complaints, I will keep the interview up on my site out of fairness and the attempt to be unbiased as far as Interviewed goes. But I can't deny that as an individual, the comments don't piss me off. Like everyone else, I am human, after all. --Mel. 10:27 a.m. - 29 May 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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