Was I too tough on kid with aspergers

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You had every right to be angry at him and to express that anger, but you shouldn't have called him a ret*d. It's a horrible, hurtful word and to direct it at him because of his disability put you at the same hateful level as him for his comments about gay people. If you have a way of contacting him it might be a good idea to apologize, I would just emphasize that your apology is for your choice of words not your anger. If he really is a decent person he'll apologize as well, if he doesn't then at least you'll have peace of mind and will have been the bigger person.

To try and fit in I have tried to repress it all having Aspergers and being gay.

The fact that I find it almost impossible to form any kind of a relationship may have made the choice for me.

If an attractive gay man who liked me and wanted to be with me kept after me I would come out.

The fact is this has never happened.

Tbh I think you may have slightly over reacted. But I think he was definitely in the wrong. Sounds like he was provoking you and he got the reaction he wanted. I don't care if you have AS or not it is no excuse for you to just be plain horrible to people and to have horrible views such as that.
You should talk to him about it and express what you feel. If he's still belligerent and is horrible to you then he's not worth it. Just because he has AS does not excuse that he may be a horrible person.

Well, keep in mind, what I'm saying is coming from someone who does believe being gay is morally wrong, mostly on religious grounds.

I don't see what you did as really too wrong, no. Some things like that are the only way we learn social rules. It's the hard knock way to learn them, but yes. I mean, in the future, if something like that does occur, it'd be better to be calm and just say "Well all right then, you have Aspergers, right? Then Hitler would have put you in the oven, too, so I don't quite see your point." Rather than getting super pissed at him like that. One thing I'd say for dealing with people with Aspergers, we deal better with facts than emotions, and if you try to mix them it doesn't turn out well, so it's better just to "argue" your point if that makes sense.

His argument is dumb, though "Hitler would have done it" ret*d argument. I guess it's a bit harsh calling him a ret*d, but in life, harshness is usually met with harshness. Again, best thing for you to do is not "give in" to an "enemy" like that, because getting all pissed usually gives them more power in some manner, but yeah, don't worry about it too much.

I understand it--I can't excuse it, but I can understand it. You should apologize to him, if he'll still talk to you. What he did was wrong; what you did was wrong, too. At least straighten that out with him. Whether you want to talk to him in the future is your choice; frankly, I wouldn't be particularly surprised if you chose not to interact with him again.

Agree with this fully. Perhaps he is mature enough to learn from this situation. Many people with disabilities can see parallels between their situation and that of GLBT people; both groups deal with much of the same sort of prejudice in their own ways. If he sits back and thinks about it, maybe he'll realize that he's got more in common with gay people than it might seem at first.

I was raised in a home where I was taught that gay/lesbian people were sinners, where my mom treated my aunt, her sister, with cold politeness because my aunt is a lesbian. At high school age I had not yet worked through the prejudice I had been taught, and had I not also been taught to be a polite good-little-girl at all costs I might have really hurt some people. It may take this guy a long time to work through it himself. You may well be unable to do anything to change his mind. But when I was a teen, and my aunt showed herself to be a considerate, sensitive, generally nice person despite how she was treated, I took note; and years later I looked at the science and the sociology of it and realized that the gays-are-inferior idea had no basis in reality.

Neah you weren't tough. He was just a homophobic and homophobics are bad people ad deserve no respect. but thanks to his aspieness, he showed his true colors so you gave him what was coming.

But I would have laid off the word ret*d. In fact he owes you one first for insulting you and all the other gays since he did it first.

As a Christian male, having an attraction to men doesn't compute to me and doesn't affect me, unless a couple is PDA-ing in front of me - even then I get that 'go away quit rubbing my loneliness in my face' the same way I do when hetero couples do it in front of me.

Asking that society be tolerant of who you are when you have an abnormal gait, haircut, wardrobe, thought, posture, whatever - while you look down on others who are not you is highly double-minded. I fall prey to that myself after a bad experience and then I have to stop and look

But if being gay is a choice; openly or otherwise, prove it...

I've been erroneously called both terms of the topic, I know I am not those and for someone who is not me to say I am those does not make me such

OP could stand to benefit with sitting down with the other kid and start building an alliance based on similarities. He most likely learned his thoughts from a legalistic household that demonizes what they do not understand

I don't think you overreacted. What he said was incredibly hateful and I think your point that he could face similar discrimination/hate was accurate and to the point. Maybe you shouldn't have pushed his lunch at him, but it's understandable. Hopefully he learned that such comments aren't acceptable.

BTW, I don't think being gay is a choice. You are how you were born, embrace it.

You're confusing things. If being gay were a choice, you wouldn't be attracted to men. The choice is whether or not you're too ashamed of who you are to be open about it.

As to the OP, his asperger's isn't an excuse to bash anyone, or to say such remarks. If he apologizes, that shows maybe PART of it was fact, but the rest sounds like blatant and intentional insults, which leads me to believe none of it was said as fact. I know sometimes I say factual things that end up hurting others, but I don't follow up with calling them disgusting or some other hurtful remarks that are obviously just my opinion. It's taken A LOT of hard work and I still slip up a lot, but asperger's isn't an excuse. It's a reason SOMETIMES, yes, but he still needs to be accountable for his behaviour, and if he's not, he's just using AS as a cover to be a jerk. The fact that you feel remorse over it shows something about your character as well. The important thing is even if we did over react to some things (we all do at points, every single human) you're trying to figure out more information because you genuinely feel bad. If you want to apologize to him for your remarks (although they're true when it comes to hitler,) you can, but if you don't want to, you don't have to. Just don't expect him to apologize back because you did.

I would just go apologize to him and hopefully he would do the same

The tricky thing about the whole issue is that you can never know for sure if the Aspie intended to offend you or not. It's one of the uncomfortable things that happen in our condition.

Let me share an example from my own life - once I almost lost a friend (someone I really liked and trusted) because of something I said. It was not meant to be insulting or degrading in any way - I was trying ot give him advice and help him. But he did feel offended, perhaps even hurt by my words.

I don't know exactly what went wrong, but this incident taught me to be more careful. There were a few similar cases in the years afterwards, but they were significantly less severe.

Someone doesn't seem to understand anyone can choose NOT to act on feelings. The feelings being there in the first place are the things you can not chose.

One doesn't choose to have sexual feelings for the same sex; however, one can choose to never act on those feelings. Does no acting on feelings that are clearly there mean you made a choice as to what sexuality you would be? Or did you simply make a choice as to what sexuality you will portray without changing your actual sexuality.

Anyway.

I don't think you did anything wrong. I have Asperger's and I'm gay and I would probably say the same thing except I probably would have said. "you'd be in the same gas chamber, aspie."

Having Asperger's is no excuse for being a jerk. Logically one should know this is wrong no matter what. You'd have to be quite slow and out of all touch to not realize saying anti-gay remarks in front of a gay person is wrong.

This is kinda funny. It reminds me of the southpark episode where Randy Marsh says the 'N word' (love the pc jargon) on wheel of fortune and goes on a quest to apologize to Jesse Jackson. I don't know what you're hoping to find here. I guess the proper thing to say is, "I hope you find closure". But why do you need closure if someone is being a bigot? It's kind of insulting that you would connect this kind of behavior with AS because I think you'd find that the vast majority of us are very accepting of people's differences, but whatever. I guess if you still need absolution you could try what Randy Marsh did and kiss Temple Grandin's ass. Move on with your life.



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJhPLGMhRuQ[/youtube]

I dunno.. I don't think it's unintentionally offending someone when you call them disgusting and they should be executed. I don't know how ANYONE couldn't know these things were going to upset people. Asperger's or not. Had it only been the statement about Hitler, I'd wonder if he was trying to make small talk and brought up a fact he knew, but the other things has me believing the malice was completely intentional.

Whether it was intentional or not, he still needs to know about it. If it's intentional, you're calling him out on being an ass; if it's unintentional, you're telling him what he did wrong so he can avoid it next time. If that were me and it were unintentional, I'd prefer to be told. How am I supposed to fix it when I have no clue I'm doing it wrong? In the case of unintentionally insulting somebody for being gay, I think I might well start crying out of shame--but don't take that as a reason not to tell me; however much it hurts to know, it would hurt more to learn about it only after I'd managed the same mistake five more times and hurt five more people.

two wrongs don't make it right, luv. But live and learn.