As a matter of fact, Luke has stated quite clearly that he's opposed to same-sex marriage. My point, though, is not exactly that Luke is a bigot; my point is that is that opposition to full legal equality for homosexuals is a form of bigotry.
I completely agree with you.
MidnightBlue said:
Intolerance need not be utter intolerance to be bigotry, and intolerance so strong that it demands to be the law of the land definitely qualifies. Nobody is demanding that the law force people into same-sex marriages. Nobody is demanding that the law force religious groups to sanction same-sex marriages, or even allow to homosexuals to be members of their groups. However, the other side is demanding that we be excluded from equality under the law. That's bigotry, plain and simple.
I agree with you that the dictionary.com definition is inadequate and thus my semantical point about the use of the word 'bigot' was not valid. You are right, I was wrong.
The reason I looked up the definition of 'bigot' was simply to be sure that I understood the precise meaning of your question, so that I could answer it precisely. I hastily accepted a poor definition of the word which lead me to erroneous conclusions about its proper use.
MidnightBlue said:
This isn't about whether bigots are always and in every circumstance hateful psychopaths. Nobody said they were.
MidnightBlue said:
However, you don't have to be a violent psychopath to be a bigot. Otherwise kindly bigots are "simply ignorant" and "mistaken in their reasoning" precisely because they're bigots.
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I'm not ashamed to tell you that I'm 47 years old, and my patience is exhausted. How patient do you think you'd be, thirty years from now, if religious bigots had always prevented you for having full equality; if you and Ceridwen decided to marry but were still prevented from marrying when you were old enough to be grandparents?
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I am frankly, sick and tired of people telling me to patient. I'm sick and tired of well-meaning liberals who think it's acceptable if Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon are compelled by politicians pandering to religious bigots to live all their lives as legal strangers and to die as legal strangers. And I'm sick and tired of being told I must understand that religious bigots are really warm, loving, wonderful people, they who insist that Del and Phyllis must be compelled to live and die as legal strangers, that John and I must be compelled to live and die as legal strangers.
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It's easy to sit in a position of privilege and say that people who are denied equality should be patient and understanding. It's way too damned easy.
MidnightBlue,
Thank you for your eloquent, informative, and moving response. It reminds me in many ways of Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ (if you’ll accept the lofty comparison). I cannot pretend to understand what it would be like if I were not allowed to marry the person I love. I cannot pretend that my sense of injustice or urgency is as powerful as yours.
All I can say is that I have long sympathized with the righteous outrage of homosexuals, including some whom I have known personally, whose basic human rights and dignity have been denied. You have given me “frubals” in the past for some of the posts I’ve made in this forum defending gay marriage. (Here’s a post I wrote two years ago:
http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...olitician-removed-political-7.html#post276283 ).
I am very sorry that what I’ve said on this thread has exacerbated you. In fact, I feel downright ashamed of myself, that my words have had a similar effect on you as the ignorant anti-gay rhetoric that we see all over the internet and on this forum. Is it possible that I have said something as inane and venomous as that? If I have, I want nothing more than to understand where I went wrong, apologize for it, and quit wasting your time as you try to reason with those who are genuinely against same-sex marriage.
That said, I think the meaning of my posts has perhaps been misunderstood. Originally, I simply made a distinction between believing homosexuality to be a “sin” according to one’s personal faith, and believing homosexuality to be “immoral” on par with theft and sloth.*** I also said, in reference to people who are against gay marriage: “such a person does not necessarily hate homosexuals…some of them are simply ignorant of facts or mistaken in their reasoning.”
It seems that some of your objections do not apply to anything that I actually wrote. I do not understand why you bothered to ask me the three questions about discrimination/bigotry, and I invite you to have another look at my answers. I agree with your statement: “This isn't about whether bigots are always and in every circumstance hateful psychopaths. Nobody said they were.” Indeed, I didn’t suggest otherwise, and I’m confused as to why you bring it up. I did not suggest that “religious bigots are simply warm, loving, wonderful people”. I didn’t say that homosexuals or gay-rights supporters should be “patient and understanding”. These statements go quite beyond the modest observations I made in my previous posts.
You claimed: '
Otherwise kindly bigots are "simply ignorant" and "mistaken in their reasoning" precisely because they're bigots'. This is certainly true much of the time. The bigotry of some makes them willfully ignorant, or entices them to accept specious reasoning that supports their already-established bigoted sentiments. These people must be persuaded to be genuinely open-minded about the issue before they can make fair judgments about it.
But sometimes, a lack of compassion, or a demeaning view, or a belief in unequal treatment is due to ignorance of facts/ideas or mistakes in reasoning. For most of human history, slavery and the subjugation of women were embraced, yet surely all the intellectuals of the past who condoned these practices could not be called “bigots”. Surely if Thomas Jefferson and many others had access to the body of knowledge and reason that we have today, they would have rejected the ‘bigoted’ notion that blacks are less intelligent/moral than whites or that women are less fit to lead than men. Conversely, if you or I had been born as white males in colonial America, it is likely we would have succumbed to the seductive reasoning—supported by the “common knowledge” of the time—that lead many intellectuals to conclude that full legal equality does not extend to blacks and women due to their lack of mental and moral equipment (as is the thinking about the legal status of animals).
It is sometimes the case that a ‘bigoted’ view is the result of an open mind having not yet been exposed to the appropriate arguments or facts, or an open mind having not yet understood them. That is all I am saying.
***It is my hope that religious Americans will embrace this distinction, and come to accept legal/social equality for homosexuals in the same way that many of them have come to accept the equality of people of other faiths. I can see how one might argue that this strategy is doomed to fail, but whether it is a good “strategy” or not, it is a distinction that is real and ought to be recognized, i.m.o.