I have not been playing Devil’s Advocate in this thread at all:
**I really believe that what motivates Evangelicals is a love of Christianity as they believe Christianity to be and not a hatred of homosexuals. **
Suuuure. And the Klan is only motivated by a love of white people.
Uh-huh.
Just out of curiosity, how do you define “evangelical” ? If we quote statements from self-identified evangelicals that contain or strongly hint at genuine hatred for homosexuals (i.e. that they’ll burn in hell and whatnot), will your belief change?
Evangelicals believe unrepentant sinners as a whole will burn in Hell. If you can provide sufficient proof that it is uniquely homosexuals who they think will burn in Hell, then yes, I’ll concede.
The Klan centrally hates black people. Do you have proof that hatred of homosexuals is central to Evangelicalism in the way hatred of black people is to the Klan?
No, not that it matters. But isn’t that what YOU are essentially claiming ? That it’s so central to their beliefs that SSM is a disaster for them ?
No, I am saying that it’s just this month’s battle so they are focusing on it. They weren’t focusing on it 50 years ago when the big evils were Marijuana, Acid and Free-Love. They weren’t focusing on it 20 years ago when it was Dungeons and Dragons and Heavy Metal. They weren’t focusing on it 10 years ago when it was Raves and Hip Hop.
In other words, you just admitted that SSM won’t cause harm to them any more than those did. It’s not about them suffering harm like you keep claiming; it’s about them indulging their malice and power lust.
You need a jump to conclusions mat.
I can agree with this. They’ve been taught a certain thing and they believe its true.
I’m convinced peer pressure has a lot to do with people accepting group beliefs. If you need to belong and feel more secure being a part of a group then you’re more likley to accept what they teach without serious questioning.
Nevertheless, that whole bit about their belief being literally harmed is baloney.
And you need a boat to cross de Nile.
Why does it have to be “uniquely” homosexuals?
Would use of pejorative terminology like “fag” in their rhetoric be significant?
I have no doubt I can find lots of websites that use lots of pejoratives, I’d just like to have some idea in advance if these will be dismissed as the works of not “true” evangelicals.
Phrase it slightly differently, and I might agree with you. If you say that some Evangelicals are motivated by a love of Christianity as they understand it, and some are motivated by a visceral disgust for homosexuality, and some are motivated by both, I’d agree.
The problem is that if we allow either straight-up theocratic preferences or visceral disgust to determine our politics, we fail as a pluralist society. And we don’t have the option of succeeding as any other kind of society. These “I want to legislate what God says is best for everyone” tendencies are every bit as irrelevant as “I think homosexuality is disgusting” is.
(I’d love to be proven wrong about whether you prefer to respond to substantive or snarky posts–please look at my last post and consider what you’ll do!)
Fine, include, ‘some’. I have stated many times that I am certain there are plenty of bigots who oppose SSM because they are bigots.
Agreed.
You mean this one or the one before it? I’m confused. The ones where it’s just insults I’m not going to respond very well to.
Well it’s useless if you don’t care. Would you honestly be so blithe if it were a culture that you personally care about?
Yes, there is some truth to that. I stated something similar in the Pit thread to Tao’s Revenge.
I don’t think it boils down to that.
It makes them sad because they see the loss of what they believe to be the moral culture. They honestly believe that homosexuality and its acceptance is a descent into depravity and indecency. They may be wrong, but I don’t think it’s about singling out the ‘icky fags’ as much as it is about a shift in the entire culture to more prevalent pornography, a coarser acceptable language, the celebration of violence on television, etc… etc…
See here’s your problem, you can’t make a substantive post without commenting on whether or not I have value as a human being for showing empathy to someone you disagree with. It’s that sort of totalitarian attitude that I think is also straight up bigotry.
Here, I have responded to your post, I don’t think it’s all that particularly substantive, but I responded to it. You simply said, “They are evil bigots.”, more eloquently than others. Of course the meme has been added with a superficial, “Who cares if they are sad?” It goes a lot deeper than that. What bothers me and what has lead me to simply throwing my hands up in exasperation so that I don’t take this particularly seriously anymore, is that you guys don’t go any deeper. “It’s all bigotry. Who cares if Evangelicals are sad?”, is not a sufficient answer, it’s not equally valid, it’s not intellectually sound, it’s simplistic in the extreme. I don’t have respect for anyone who holds this view and argues it. I think it is a sign of an inferior intellect, a vestigial irrationalia on otherwise intelligent people. Since you have already decided why do you even care what I have to say on the subject? Why do you keep harassing me? I do not think that the position you hold is valid, morally, logically, or emotionally. You similarly dismiss my point of view. So what does it matter? Why do you so much want me to respond to the same dumbed down argument? You are all saying the same thing, in almost exactly the same way.
Can you really just not accept that most of us in this thread don’t value nor feel much empathy for a culture that apparently places keeping homosexuals second-class citizens as a high priority?
It’s like what posters here often say in religious discussions. “If God is someone who intentionally allows bad things to happen, then that’s a God I don’t want to believe in,” or something similar. This culture that cannot abide homosexuals marrying doesn’t seem one worth keeping.
Nor is this culture you mourn for going away completely. The only thing being changed is the bit about not letting homosexuals be treated like equal human beings. Everything else is the same. And if someone’s worldview hinges on gays not marrying…well, sucks for them.
Really, what do you expect people to say? What is it that would please you and you would consider rational? Right now it seems like anything less than out-and-out cultural/moral relativism is irrational to you.
A friend of mine talked about his sadness in travelling to Kenya and seeing a Masai warrior with a cheap plastic water-pistol at his belt. I disagreed with him, saying that it was none of his business if that dude wanted a plastic water gun, and his lamenting the death of traditional Masai culture was kind of paternalistic. I think Masai culture is pretty amazing. So, to answer your question: yeah, I would be just as blithe, because I think culture is a useful term but not an entity worth defending.
If you want a moral culture, you live a moral culture. It’s not your right to force your culture on anyone else. That’s the point I keep making: as sad as those anti-SSMers may be, their sadness is irrelevant within the political arena. They’re choosing the wrong way to deal with their sadness.
Since you were so kind as to tell me my problem, I’ll return the favor: I said nothing of the sort, and your problem is that you read for self-righteousness sometimes, not for comprehension.
Who cares what other people do in their own private relationships? is it constitutionally right to disallow gay marriage? I honestly think,’ to each his own’, as my grandma would say.
I would guess that as soon as something is written in the constitution, it becomes constitutionally right, so gay marriage is indeed constitutionally forbidden in a number of U.S. states that took that step.
That it’s inconsistent with existing legislation and a generally increasing respect for the individual rights of all citizens doesn’t seem to matter.
Do you think one can draw any meaningful conclusion about how evangelicals feel about a particular group based on their decision to include or exclude them from the group, “unrepentent sinners”?