4 ms·

I said quite explicitly that the UK also has problems with racism. In any case, a UK/US comparison is not really the main focus of my comment. I'm not saying th

by foldr 6y ago

I said quite explicitly that the UK also has problems with racism. In any case, a UK/US comparison is not really the main focus of my comment. I'm not saying that the UK is "less racist" than the US. (Amusingly, Brits and Americans are often each equally convinced that the other country is the more racist.) However, I do think that there is de facto racial segregation in the US on a larger scale than there is in the UK. Certainly, this difference was visible to me, and I think it is a notable feature of American society and race politics. Football is an odd one. For some reason professional sports in general, both in the UK and the US, can be very socially regressive. For example, there are hardly any out gay footballers either, but you'd be wrong to infer from this that the UK is a massively homophobic country in comparison to others. (We legalized gay marriage before the US did, and through legislation rather than a court decision.) Anyway, these are all complex issues, and "sure buddy" plus a link to a Wikipedia article doesn't really add much to the discussion, does it? Anyone can find innumerable examples of racism in both the US and the UK just by googling.

brudgers 6y ago
The US legalized same sex marriage in 2003 via a ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and it came into effect in 2004. That's ten years prior to the UK. The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution made those marriages binding everywhere in the US. Comparing a European country to the US is, in the vast majority of cases, blub provincialism. On the US scale, Qaddafi's atrocities were in every Londoner's back yard. England is the size of Alabama and the western leg of the first US trans-continental railroad was longer than all the high speed rail in France. It's that convenient smugness that glosses over the historical fact that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was a European endeavor. Europeans in Europe were turning profit by selling slaves to Europeans in the Americas. And of course, same sex-marriage is still against the adopted policy of the UK's official churches which in 2016 kicked the Episcopalians out for performing same-sex marriages. The same year the Orlando Pride started playing. The next year, they moved along with the Lions to the stadium with the 49 rainbow seats.
- foldr 6y ago
  >The US legalized same sex marriage in 2003 This an extremely disengenous thing to say. As you well know, in most of the US, it was not possible for gay couples to get married in 2003. Nor, if they did, were their rights as married couples guaranteed or enforceable across the whole nation. You should also note that the UK introduced civil partnerships in 2004. So for most of the period from 2003-2015, a typical British gay couple had better legal protections available than their American counterparts. But all this is off topic, really. >And of course, same sex-marriage is still against the adopted policy of the UK's official churches It's also against the policy of many US churches, and they are similarly not required by law to perform same sex marriages. Beyond that, you are reading much into my comment that clearly isn't there, and going off on a number of tangents. There's no "smugness", or suggestion that the UK is better than the US. I am merely talking about one specific feature of US society (extensive de facto racial segregation). Please take the time to actually read what I'm saying rather than responding to some imaginary caricature of a smug Brit. In any case I'm at a loss to see what your overall point is. Suppose that the UK is worse than the US in every way. Does that somehow mean that segregation in the US is ok? Of course not. >49 rainbow seats Those are a memorial to the victims of the Pulse shooting. It's quite sick and weird to use that memorial as evidence of progress in LGBT rights.
  - brudgers 6y ago
    The Church of England is a state supported institution headed by the monarch. It's positions are those of the head-of-state. The US does not have an official state church and it's head of state is not by right the head of any church. Or to put it another way, the Queen could change CoE policy by the same means Henry VIII created it. The smugness is talking about the US like it is the UK. Nearly 300 million Europeans live in countries with constitutional bans on same sex marriage. Pulse happened less than two miles from the house where my parents live. Where I grew up. In 1991 I had arthroscopic surgery in a building on the same block but fronting Kaley. In the 80's I worked in a sandwich shop on the next block north on Orange Ave, had a friend with an apartment on Esther two houses down on the other side of Orange Ave. I took a date to eat in the building Pulse was in during High School...it was an Italian restaurant for many many years. I went to the site two months after the shooting while visiting my parents. One of my high-school soccer teammates at the high school a mile down the road from Pulse was a youth coach on the girls side of the Orlando Lions academy. I was at the Lions first home game in 2015. I've been around Orlando's soccer culture since 1977. The WSL team is called "The Pride." It's a double-entendre. For the Lions and for Gay Pride. The rainbow seats aren't military propaganda ala poppy pinning. Yes, they honor the victims of Pulse. They honor them by recognizing that the shooting was an act of hate. An act of homophobia. They honor the victims by asserting that the hate at Pulse affected all Orlandoeans because it was hate. I know people who went to Pulse while it was Pulse. My siblings have friends who were directly touched by the shooting. What I said about Pulse makes me sick, but not in the way you impute. San Francisco has had domestic partnerships since 1990. California since 1999. Vermont since 2000. Stonewall is a National Monument created by Obama. England is about the same size as Alabama. And perhaps more provincial. The Orlando Pride is full of "out footballers". And though Robbie Rogers had to leave English football for coming out, he had full public support by the MLS and was able to resume his career here.

by foldr 6y ago

brudgers 6y ago

The US legalized same sex marriage in 2003 via a ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and it came into effect in 2004. That's ten years prior to the UK. The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution made those marriages binding everywhere in the US. Comparing a European country to the US is, in the vast majority of cases, blub provincialism. On the US scale, Qaddafi's atrocities were in every Londoner's back yard. England is the size of Alabama and the western leg of the first US trans-continental railroad was longer than all the high speed rail in France. It's that convenient smugness that glosses over the historical fact that the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was a European endeavor. Europeans in Europe were turning profit by selling slaves to Europeans in the Americas. And of course, same sex-marriage is still against the adopted policy of the UK's official churches which in 2016 kicked the Episcopalians out for performing same-sex marriages. The same year the Orlando Pride started playing. The next year, they moved along with the Lions to the stadium with the 49 rainbow seats.

foldr 6y ago
>The US legalized same sex marriage in 2003 This an extremely disengenous thing to say. As you well know, in most of the US, it was not possible for gay couples to get married in 2003. Nor, if they did, were their rights as married couples guaranteed or enforceable across the whole nation. You should also note that the UK introduced civil partnerships in 2004. So for most of the period from 2003-2015, a typical British gay couple had better legal protections available than their American counterparts. But all this is off topic, really. >And of course, same sex-marriage is still against the adopted policy of the UK's official churches It's also against the policy of many US churches, and they are similarly not required by law to perform same sex marriages. Beyond that, you are reading much into my comment that clearly isn't there, and going off on a number of tangents. There's no "smugness", or suggestion that the UK is better than the US. I am merely talking about one specific feature of US society (extensive de facto racial segregation). Please take the time to actually read what I'm saying rather than responding to some imaginary caricature of a smug Brit. In any case I'm at a loss to see what your overall point is. Suppose that the UK is worse than the US in every way. Does that somehow mean that segregation in the US is ok? Of course not. >49 rainbow seats Those are a memorial to the victims of the Pulse shooting. It's quite sick and weird to use that memorial as evidence of progress in LGBT rights.
- brudgers 6y ago
  The Church of England is a state supported institution headed by the monarch. It's positions are those of the head-of-state. The US does not have an official state church and it's head of state is not by right the head of any church. Or to put it another way, the Queen could change CoE policy by the same means Henry VIII created it. The smugness is talking about the US like it is the UK. Nearly 300 million Europeans live in countries with constitutional bans on same sex marriage. Pulse happened less than two miles from the house where my parents live. Where I grew up. In 1991 I had arthroscopic surgery in a building on the same block but fronting Kaley. In the 80's I worked in a sandwich shop on the next block north on Orange Ave, had a friend with an apartment on Esther two houses down on the other side of Orange Ave. I took a date to eat in the building Pulse was in during High School...it was an Italian restaurant for many many years. I went to the site two months after the shooting while visiting my parents. One of my high-school soccer teammates at the high school a mile down the road from Pulse was a youth coach on the girls side of the Orlando Lions academy. I was at the Lions first home game in 2015. I've been around Orlando's soccer culture since 1977. The WSL team is called "The Pride." It's a double-entendre. For the Lions and for Gay Pride. The rainbow seats aren't military propaganda ala poppy pinning. Yes, they honor the victims of Pulse. They honor them by recognizing that the shooting was an act of hate. An act of homophobia. They honor the victims by asserting that the hate at Pulse affected all Orlandoeans because it was hate. I know people who went to Pulse while it was Pulse. My siblings have friends who were directly touched by the shooting. What I said about Pulse makes me sick, but not in the way you impute. San Francisco has had domestic partnerships since 1990. California since 1999. Vermont since 2000. Stonewall is a National Monument created by Obama. England is about the same size as Alabama. And perhaps more provincial. The Orlando Pride is full of "out footballers". And though Robbie Rogers had to leave English football for coming out, he had full public support by the MLS and was able to resume his career here.