Girl expelled from private school for 'rainbow' (???) cake

[rubato]

13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I have no idea what Rube is getting at. I'm not sure that he does, either.

Be that as it may, this brought me to a sudden stop - from The Guardian - discussing a senior Catholic Church official resigning after he was discovered to be using Grindr:

The top administrator of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops resigned after cellphone data revealed that he was a frequent user of Grindr, the queer dating app, and regularly visited gay bars. (My underlining.)

I understand the desire of the gay community to reclaim the Q-word, just as Black rappers sometimes use the N-word among themselves in a way that I (an average white guy) would be rightly excoriated for if I were to do so. And of course it's the Q in LGBTQ et alii. But is it yet OK for others to use it in this way? It's so difficult to keep up. I don't believe that I have ever used the N word in its pejorative sense although I may well have uttered it in this sort of discussion about its use. But I can admit to having used the Q word on occasion 55+ years ago (boys' boarding school - commonplace) but never since, once I met and knew gay guys at University who were proud and did not try to hide their sexuality.

[Jarlaxle]

I have no idea what Rube is getting at. I'm not sure that he does, either.

He usually does not.

[Gob]

I understand the desire of the gay community to reclaim the Q-word, just as Black rappers sometimes use the N-word among themselves in a way that I (an average white guy) would be rightly excoriated for if I were to do so. And of course it's the Q in LGBTQ et alii. But is it yet OK for others to use it in this way? It's so difficult to keep up.

If they use it, it's worse than genocide, if we use it it's done with love and affection.

[Scooter]

If they use it, it's because they have no clue how not to make it derogatory and insulting.

FTFY

[Gob]

There you go, exactly what I said...

[Scooter]

No, but I can see you're proving my point by not getting the difference.

[Joe Guy]

I think the idea is that if you're a queer, acting queer isn't queer if you're around other queers so it's best if only queers to use the word 'queer'.

[Scooter]

How about a rule of general applicability that it's best not to use a word if you're not sure how or when it is appropriate to do so. Like when conservatives use the word "socialist" to describe any government initiative they don't like, or when the village idiot uses "communist" to describe anyone who sees him for the moron that his mother made him to be.

So if you don't understand when or how or if it's appropriate for you to use a word, how about not using it unless and until you are sure?

[MGMcAnick]

I guess it depends on where the schools are located; catholic schools were traditionally more academically rigorous than the inner city public schools, especially at the elementary level, but had little benefit compared to reasonably well funded suburban schools.

Here's a weird one for you.
I know at least half a dozen ladies, born in the late '40s and early '50s who went through eight years of elementary education in one or two room schools. All excelled in high school, not that every small school kid did. Of the six I can think of right now, three were HS valedictorians and three were salutatorians. I'm married to one of them. Another was my high school friend who had the moving party (reported earlier) and introduced us. No nuns were involved. In fact none of the kids who graduated at or near the top of my class, and those I knew of who graduated immediately before or after me, went to the local Catholic school. I wouldn't call us suburban, but rural.
Unfortunately those tiny schools are a thing of the past. Had the one room school near the house I grew up in stayed open one more year, I'd have been at least exposed to one. Missed it by that much...

[Gob]

No, but I can see you're proving my point by not getting the difference.

No it's exactly what I said; you claim some special insight into what others mean when they say a phrase. You try to sequester words. You create more division.

[Scooter]

No, sorry, not sorry, you don't get to pretend to grasp the significance of certain words until they have been spat at you while you are being beaten with chains and baseball bats and kicked in the head, or when you have had to live in fear of that happening to you. If you don't understand that, then tough shit, there is a divide that will never be crossed. And you can live with the delusion that it is others, and not you, that is creating that division.

[Gob]

Nope, wrong. Ordinary everyday words which are in common usage, and have been for decades, are not yours to decide who and how and when and where they can be used.

Neither do you you have the right to decide who can and cannot use them.

[Scooter]

You're free to use whatever words you want. Just don't expect anyone in earshot to take the time to parse your intent and decide that your intended meaning is different from the thugs who used them while beating him with baseball bats and chains, lest you end up minus a few teeth.

" Ordinary everyday words which are in common usage, and have been for decades"??? This discussion began over the use of the word "queer". Care to point to the mythical period in time when that word was used by straights to refer to LGBT people and wasn't intended as derogatory?

[Gob]

You're free to use whatever words you want. Just don't expect anyone in earshot to take the time to parse your intent and decide that your intended meaning is different from the thugs who used them while beating him with baseball bats and chains, lest you end up minus a few teeth.

I don't know what fantasy of yours this refers to, the rest of us were discussing the use of words in general society.

" Ordinary everyday words which are in common usage, and have been for decades"??? This discussion began over the use of the word "queer". Care to point to the mythical period in time when that word was used by straights to refer to LGBT people and wasn't intended as derogatory?

The word queer, when used to refer to gay people, has been in the past, derogatory, but was "reclaimed" by that community, ( see "Queer as folk" for example.) You can now even study "queer studies" and "queer theory", at university level (how derogatory!!) But, by reclaiming it, a bunch of self elects do not get outright ownership of it, nor do they get to decide whose use of it is appropriate, especially when they decide by "knowing what others mean when they use it." (Mind reading.)

Lets not forget, there are also other uses of the term.

[Bicycle Bill]

I seem to remember that, at one time, the slang term for counterfeit money was 'queer'.  Wonder if that's still the case?

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

Scooter--how do you decide when the use of a word is "appropriate"? I don't know about "queer" and the LGBTQ community, but I have seen times when communities are divided on the use of a specific term; e.g. I have many Asian (generally Chinese and Korean) friends who not only do not find the term "Oriental" offensive, but prefer its use to the term "Asian", while I have read that many in the Asain community object to the use of the term. How does one understand if a term is offensive or not? I have said many times that etiquette requires the avoidance of offensive terms, but that presupposes you know the term is offensive, so how do you tell?

[Gob]

"LGBTQ community," seeing as the "Q" there stands for "queer", shouldn't us hetros refer to the "LGBT community"?

[Big RR]

Scooter--does the Q officially refer to "Queer"; when the acronym (for want of a better word) forst came out I had learned it stood for "Questioning".

[ex-khobar Andy]

How about a rule of general applicability that it's best not to use a word if you're not sure how or when it is appropriate to do so. Like when conservatives use the word "socialist" to describe any government initiative they don't like, or when the village idiot uses "communist" to describe anyone who sees him for the moron that his mother made him to be.

So if you don't understand when or how or if it's appropriate for you to use a word, how about not using it unless and until you are sure?

That's why I asked the question.