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1. sedatk+(OP)[view] [source] 2025-01-13 19:49:01
Thinking about progress, I read that AfD’s chancellor candidate was a lesbian. That would be unimaginable two decades ago let alone the 60’s. Even the right is progressing and they don’t know it.
replies(7): >>mrkeen+59 >>baumsc+rv >>johann+Dv >>rat87+az >>thranc+NC >>mattma+P42 >>jacoop+po3
2. mrkeen+59[view] [source] 2025-01-13 20:23:24
>>sedatk+(OP)
I had a similar double-take moment reading about Breitbart editor "Milo Yiannopoulos" a few years ago.

Different racist cultures develop different ideas on what makes someone white. "Yiannopoulos" might be called a 'wog':

  The slur became widely diffused in Australia with an increase in immigration from Southern Europe and the Levant after the Second World War, and the term expanded to include all immigrants from the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. These new arrivals were perceived by the majority population as contrasting with the larger predominant Anglo-Celtic Australian people. [1]
I couldn't remember his name in order to write this up, so I went googling and stumbled across Afro-Cuban Proud Boys leader "Enrique Tarrio".

All boats rise with the tide I guess.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog

replies(1): >>Colone+gV
3. baumsc+rv[view] [source] 2025-01-13 21:57:19
>>sedatk+(OP)
> unimaginable two decades ago let alone the 60’s

Ernst Röhm, leader of the Nazi's SA forces, was gay. People did not join the Nazi movement because of the impeccable life style of their leaders, but their political program. Same with AfD or Trumpists.

replies(2): >>sedatk+PB >>tralln+BI
4. johann+Dv[view] [source] 2025-01-13 21:58:42
>>sedatk+(OP)
> I read that AfD’s chancellor candidate

Not only lesbian. Living with a Sri Lankan woman and raising two boys. And living not in Germany, but Switzerland.

Seems to bend herself quite a lot to gain power ...

5. rat87+az[view] [source] 2025-01-13 22:17:49
>>sedatk+(OP)
I don't think its accurate to describe the AfD as right wing. Far right or possibly fascist
replies(1): >>sedatk+BA
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6. sedatk+BA[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-13 22:24:59
>>rat87+az
That only makes the progressive outlook more remarkable.
replies(1): >>rat87+tG
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7. sedatk+PB[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-13 22:30:24
>>baumsc+rv
Sure, the history is full of gays who were closeted or whose homosexuality were open secrets. But those have always been kept plausibly deniable towards the public, not open like this at all.
replies(1): >>foldr+UG
8. thranc+NC[view] [source] 2025-01-13 22:36:06
>>sedatk+(OP)
Peter Thiel is gay and still advocates against gay marriage (He's married to a man himself).

Those people know the restrictions they push for won't apply to them, they are too powerful, quite literally above the law.

replies(1): >>pjscot+BU
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9. rat87+tG[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-13 22:56:25
>>sedatk+BA
Im not sure why you think this is a "progressive" take that's the mainstream view of the center right Christian Democratic party of Germany.
replies(1): >>sedatk+DN
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10. foldr+UG[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-13 22:59:34
>>sedatk+PB
Röhm was actually known to the public to be gay for some of the time that he was in power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B6hm_scandal He wasn't quite 'openly gay' in the modern sense, but he didn't really put up much of a pretense.
replies(2): >>dlivin+9N >>kelnos+KG1
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11. tralln+BI[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-13 23:08:28
>>baumsc+rv
Vito, an important member of the New Jersey crime family DiMeo (Italian Mafia) during the early 2000s was gay as well
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12. dlivin+9N[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-13 23:36:17
>>foldr+UG
The article you reference points out that, not only did Röhm lose all support in the Nazi party once he was "outed", but that Hitler had him executed due to, in part, his homosexuality. And: "After the purge, the Nazi government systematically persecuted homosexual men."
replies(2): >>foldr+bO >>hnacco+ug2
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13. sedatk+DN[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-13 23:40:37
>>rat87+tG
Because I’m not making a contemporary comparison but a chronological one. Yes, women and LGBT leaders among fascists can be boringly mainstream today. It wasn’t until recently. That’s a dimension of progress.
replies(1): >>rat87+E31
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14. foldr+bO[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-13 23:44:32
>>dlivin+9N
That's not an accurate summary of what the article says. There's no doubt that Röhm rose through the ranks of the SA when it was already widely known that he was gay. Even Hitler himself knew:

>Röhm's appointment was opposed from the beginning by some in the SA who saw it as cementing the subordination of the SA to the Nazi Party's political wing. His homosexuality was seized upon by those who disagreed with the organizational reforms but could not openly criticize Hitler without breaking with Nazism, because of the Führer principle. Hitler said that the personal life of a Nazi was only a concern for the party if it contradicted the fundamental principles of Nazism. The leader of the Berlin SA, Walther Stennes, rebelled against the SA leadership and declared that he and his followers would "never serve under a notorious homosexual like Röhm and his Pupenjungen (male prostitutes)". On 3 February, Hitler dismissed Stennes's objection, stating, "The SA is not a girls' boarding school."

In case it is not obvious from my original comment, I am not trying to paint Nazi party as a beacon of DEI. The Nazi state went on to murder thousands of homosexuals. But in response to the OP, Röhm was certainly not closeted and it is doubtful that his homosexuality could even be described as an 'open secret'.

replies(1): >>sedatk+a21
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15. pjscot+BU[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 00:17:40
>>thranc+NC
Do you have a source for the claim about Peter Thiel? I looked for one, and all I could find were several cases of Thiel donating to explicitly pro-gay-marriage political organizations.
replies(2): >>Bryant+EZ1 >>thranc+992
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16. Colone+gV[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 00:21:46
>>mrkeen+59
Yiannopoulos is an... interesting case in general. Apparently[1] he declared himself to be "ex-gay", 'demoted' his husband to housemate, and is treating his homosexuality 'like an addiction'. His future plans include 'rehabilitating conversion therapy'.

Seeing all of that, I'm really not sure his boat has been rising with the tide, so to speak. I personally don't believe anyone thinks conversion therapy is good for themselves unless they are deeply troubled.

[1] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/activist-milo-yiannopoulos...

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17. sedatk+a21[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 01:00:07
>>foldr+bO
It could be openly known among Nazi ranks and that's still significantly different than being publicly known. Was there any mainstream newspaper that outed his sexual preference?
replies(1): >>throwa+4O1
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18. rat87+E31[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 01:09:28
>>sedatk+DN
Oh sorry I might have misinterpreted your previous comment.

I don't think its totally unknown in the past although I suppose you might say it was often done with implausible deniability. As people pointed out there's a difference between being out and being openly out.

One funny example was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Zhirinovsky (Putin's fascist clown who played the extremist to make Putin seem more reasonable, although it was probably close to his real views). Surprisingly the antisemitic Russian ultra nationalist had a Jewish father(who divorced his mother and moved to Israel when he was an infant) which he used to sort of deny it in a ridiculous manner saying his mother was Russian and his father was a lawyer

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19. kelnos+KG1[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 06:57:28
>>foldr+UG
The fact that the title of that article includes the word "scandal" would imply that his peers weren't actually ok with his homosexuality, no?
replies(1): >>foldr+4R1
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20. throwa+4O1[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 08:24:23
>>sedatk+a21
It is at the top of the cited article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B6hm_scandal

"Beginning in April 1931, the SPD newspaper Münchener Post published a series of front-page stories about alleged homosexuality in the SA, which turned out to be based on forgeries. SPD leaders set out to obtain authentic evidence of Röhm's sexuality and, if possible, convict him under Paragraph 175. Röhm was tried five times, but never convicted. During the German presidential election in March 1932, the SPD released a pamphlet edited by ex-Nazi Helmuth Klotz [de] with Röhm's letters to Heimsoth. This second round of disclosures sparked a plot by some Nazis to murder Röhm, which fell through and resulted in additional negative press for the party."

It cannot be more public than that. The Social Democrats used the anti-gay paragraph.

Another known gay Nazi was Rudolf Hess:

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/10/opinion/l-hess-homosexual...

And Klaus Mann wrote a novel about German actor and director Gustaf Gründgens, famous for his Mephisto role in Goethe's Faust:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephisto_(novel)

"The author Hermann Kesten suggested that he write a novel of a homosexual careerist in the Third Reich, with the director of the state theatre Gustaf Gründgens as a subject matter. Gründgens's homosexuality was widely known."

The whole selective persecution of gays began after Röhm's paramilitary SA surged to 4,000,000 members in 1934, and a couple of people including Himmler intrigued against him.

People like Hess and Gründgens were never touched or exposed even though most people knew.

replies(1): >>sedatk+jA3
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21. foldr+4R1[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 08:58:59
>>kelnos+KG1
Sure, but he wasn’t closeted and his homosexuality wasn’t a plausibly deniable secret.
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22. Bryant+EZ1[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 10:24:07
>>pjscot+BU
I don't think it's fair to say that he advocates against gay marriage; it would be accurate to say he's willing to donate to politicians who advocate against gay marriage, however. Blake Masters and J. D. Vance being the obvious cases. Kris Kobach and Ted Cruz also come to mind.
23. mattma+P42[view] [source] 2025-01-14 11:26:19
>>sedatk+(OP)
They actually do know it, and they’re mad that so many think they don’t. It’s why they think wokeness is a problem, it is (to them) mainly performative and insulting because progress has happened and continues to.

They just don’t think their daughter swimming against “boys” and then using the same locker room is progress.

replies(1): >>kazga+5o2
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24. thranc+992[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 12:10:47
>>pjscot+BU
Well, that's embarrassing. I read the Wikipedia article wrong, he donated $10,000 to an organization that fought against a law that would ban same-sex marriage. The double negation got me...

Nevertheless, Thiel donated a lot to Trump's campaign, one of its goals being a federal ban on gay marriage and other restrictions of the freedom of LGBT people.

replies(1): >>newbie+fb7
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25. hnacco+ug2[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 13:13:48
>>dlivin+9N
I'm reasonably certain the causality is the other way around: Once he was about to loose power his gayness was used to attack him. If he hadn't been gay he would have been attacked for some other reason. It's the change in behaviour that's relevant not the absolute facts.

It's reasonably simple: Be sufficiently powerful and your sins will be overlooked (for a recent example: See Donald Trump's "sentence" in New York). And in non-rule-of-law societies your sins-while-powerful will be used against you (this is why democracies historically always had immunity arrangements)

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26. kazga+5o2[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 13:54:27
>>mattma+P42
> They just don’t think their daughter swimming against “boys” and then using the same locker room is progress.

Do you genuinely think you're presenting the "woke" side of the argument in good faith here?

replies(1): >>mattma+yz2
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27. mattma+yz2[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 14:55:43
>>kazga+5o2
I'm not trying to. I'm presenting their interpretation of it.
28. jacoop+po3[view] [source] 2025-01-14 17:59:44
>>sedatk+(OP)
Doesn't mean they aren't fascists, gay fascists are by definition, fascists.

They literally started sending fake "remigration" tickets to anybody with a foreign sounding family name, exactly what the nazis did to jews in the 1930s.

https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/parteien/id_...

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29. sedatk+jA3[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 18:43:08
>>throwa+4O1
Yes, but the timeline of events as a whole confirms my argument that his homosexuality was a significant problem among Nazi party and its supporters. Röhm lost Nazi Party support after he was outed and was eventually murdered by Hitler. Not an analog to AfD putting forward a gay swiss woman with a Sri Lankan partner as their candidate for chancellor. There's a huge difference between two eras.
replies(1): >>foldr+B24
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30. foldr+B24[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-14 20:44:05
>>sedatk+jA3
>Röhm lost Nazi Party support after he was outed and was eventually murdered by Hitler.

He wasn't killed by Hitler because he was gay, as the article and parent comment explain. The first public disclosures of his homosexuality came in 1931. Before that, everyone who mattered in the Nazi party had already known for years. He was killed in 1934 for political reasons.

Homosexuality is also a significant problem among the AfD and its supporters. Röhm's example illustrates that it is not paradoxical for a known homosexual to rise to a position of power within a homophobic party. If even the Nazi party of the 1930s could tolerate known homosexuals within its ranks, that ought to tell us how seriously we should take the argument that the AfD can't be racist or homophobic because of Alice Weidel!

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31. newbie+fb7[view] [source] [discussion] 2025-01-15 19:18:01
>>thranc+992
Where is the evidence that Trump wants to federally ban gay marriage? You should learn more about Peter Theil. He is a libertarian.
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