Saudi Arabia has objected to several new gTLD, including .gay, on the basis that they may offend or promote practices that are counter to their religion. The poofs, on the other hand, counter that .gay is needed to offer support shirtlifters and their ilk.

Normally I'd disagree with anything based on religious arguments simply on principle. But I think the queers have missed the point: websites offer support, and you don't need a gTLD for that.

Surely the important issue is that a religious/political lobby is attempting to impose its beliefs - I would say bigotries - upon Icann, and hence upon the rest of the world.

 

Apply the Niemöller test on it; substitute a domain suffix that you believe would be valuable for you or the greater good and see if you still agree that a lobby should have the right to try to prevent its adoption. It's not about anybody's opinion of homosexuality - Muslim, Arabian or yours or mine - it's about intolerance.

It's also about division though. The pillow-biters want .gay, but would they support .straight? Would you support .white, or .black, or any other form of protectionism/isolationism?

I'm sure they would support .straight. But when you bring up .white .black I don't think social or ethnic groups should be included in TLDs.

So sexual division is acceptable, but racial is not?

BTW, regarding "a domain suffix that you believe would be valuable for you or the greater good", the only one that I even vaguely saw the point of was .xxx, simply because it would make it easier to prevent kids from daining access. BUt unless it can be guaranteed that all pr0n sites would be required to use that TLD it becomes a moot point.

Did you read the whole one line post I wrote up there?


The "gays" would support a .straight TLD. I didn't say I would, hence...



I would put sexuality under "social" groups and ethnicity (unsurprisingly) under "ethnic" groups. I don't think any have a place as TLDs.

It's not about division, surely, but about definition and ease of access. Nobody is suggesting that any proposed suffix should be accessible only to a particular demographic or body of people, just that it should exist for ease of locating and flagging up likely content.

I'm pretty sure the gay lobby would have no issues with .straight, and I'd be disappointed if they did. Neither would I any personally have any objection to people proposing suffixes that helped them to define themselves in terms of their colour, ethnicity or religious affiliation. I would object to online content that took a supremacist or intolerant line about others, but then I would do that irrespective of the domain suffix. I would have concerns about proposed domain suffixes that had clear pejorative intent, though; .nigger, . faggot and so on. And even those are not simple of course, with terms like 'nigger' & 'queer' being reclaimed by some of those originally targeted for hatred.

As something of an aside, surely you undermine your argument by your use of pejoratives, no matter how post-modern in intent? Demeaning language is all about divisiveness and the defining of 'the evil other'.

Yes, I did read all or what you wrote, but it wasn't clear that you were referring to gay in social/ethnic. I see your point.

I object to the use (and consequent apparent claiming) of .gay, since that word has at least two other meanings. Same goes for faggot.

 

If they must ring-fence themselves, they should propose .homosexual or .woofter. I would still object.

 

 

You and the Muslim (funda)mentalists both.

Perhaps we could have the .mentalist gTLD.

idly wonders about a .lez TLD, looses interest fairly quickly...

Come to think of it, a .zzz gTLD would be useful for blogs dedicated to conspiracy theories and 'the end of the world is nigh' doom-and-gloom futurology.

It's under my jurisdiction. Ten brick and it's yours. Buy .homophobe at the same time and you'll get a 30% reduction.

Actually, some of my best friends are fudge-packers!

.closet

We don't need a .gay to offer "crucial support" and I sincerely doubt that LGF would get any say over who uses the domains.

 

Be useful for pr0n and finding out who wants to fuck in your local area, which is all fudge packers seem to do these days.

I don't like the ghettoisation/separatism but if people want .gay then I don't see why it should bother anyone else. It's not like the other TLDs are actually necessary or, often, useful. .org doesn't necessarily mean it's non-profit, national TLDs don't guarantee it's in that country or its language, .coms aren't always commercial and .tv is ... I don't even know. If a site is usefully described by .gay and values identiying as such then... why not? Why's it bother you?