[QUOTE=Otto]
With this particular fellow? Not so much. That being said…
I don’t agree. Our legal system has been a work in progress and the struggle of individual rights vs. the best interest of our society. It’s an ongoing struggle that we participate in as citizens. None of us should be so arrogant to think we come down on the side of truth and justice on every issue. It’s the give and take and the reasonable exchange of ideas and attitudes that helps us find solutions together . I happen to agree with you on these issues but I don’t begrudge or judge harshly people who don’t agree. My friends are good kind people who have a sincere concern about the moral direction of this country. It would be incredibly unkind and judgemental of me to condem them because they haven’t grown as people in the way I think they should. In simple words, if I become a judgemental asshole by condeming them for being judgemental assholes am I not then guilty of the same offense as they? Who benifits from that? How does socieity grow and advance?
It’s also innaccurate and ignorant to paint every person who has an opinion on this issue with the same brush. I don’t compare my friends with the likes of Jimmy Swaggart. I’d have to confess to little patience and understanding for his particular brand of prejudice.
I don’t think they’re on par when it comes to the issue itself. It’s the method and manner by which their opposeing views are defended or promoted that makes them equally guilty. Two people on opposite sides of an issue who have nothing more rational or productive to offer than calling the other names are equally useless.
Have to agree with otto here - your friends who support prejudice against gays and restricting the reproductive choices of women are playing a dangerous game. How long until they manage to do something that doesn’t sit well with the Moral Majority, because once you start down that path, those restrictions get tighter, and tighter…You know that old saw about seeing your neighbour taken away, and doing nothing, and now they’re coming for you.
(Oh, by the way, cosmoSdan, you’re completely right about criticizing spelling. Feeble is a good word for it.)
See, the thing is, the people like your friends who think they have a direct line to The Lord God Almighty do absolutely think they are on the side of truth and justice. They have no interest in finding solutions together with the people who disagree with them because in their calcified minds the solution is self-evident. Ban abortion and punish those who perform or receive them, with no exceptions. Ban any positive recognition of homosexuality, from civil rights protections to rights for couples to books that are positive or even neutral on the topic. Read the rhetoric they produce on the topic and you tell me where there is room for a reasonable exchange of ideas to reach a compromise. At the same time, explain why those whose personhood is impugned by these wretched people should be expected to compromise on their equality.
Maybe you should.
How good and kind are they if they are unwilling to acknoweldge that large segments of the population are deserving of equal treatment before the law? How good and kind are they if they support writing bigotry into the supreme law of the land?
Calling bigotry bigotry is not being a judgmental asshole. Calling bigots on their bigotry is righteous.
How exactly do your friends’ opinions differ from Swaggart’s?
And if those who support equality and oppose your friends’ bigotry did nothing other than call names I would agree with you. That isn’t what happens.
Your point was simple, but it was also completely boring and irrelevent and out of step with the tone of this thread. Nobody here is disputing the right for companies to be Christian. They’re just saying this particular company is stupid. Try less to demonstrate your broaderminded-than-thouness by being a humorless and sanctimonious prick and try more to have the slightest fucking idea what a conversation is about. Christ. All we needed on this board was a Liberal/Libertarian Sequel.
There’s a difference between the occasional typo and persistent misspellings of easy words.
Unfortunetly, there’s not much room for compromise on this issue. You’ve got people on one side who will not settle for anything less than full and total equality under the eyes of the law. You’ve got people on the other side who want to alter the highest law of the land to specifically discriminate against that same segment. Neither side is going to compromise. At least, I know I sure as fuck am not going to accept being a second-class citizen in my own nation. Meanwhile, people like your friends are working as hard as they can to prevent gays and lesbians from receiving the same protections granted other minorities in this country, and further trying to strip from us what protections we already have. I don’t see much interest in compromise on their side, either. How do we move from this position to “finding solutions together?” What possible motive can you give me to work with people who do not bat an eye at calling me sinful, unnatural, a threat to American society, and an abomination? Should I not fight back, when I am attacked like that? Should I not defend myself?
Which is very easy to do, when you are not one of the people directly affected by their bigotry.
No, you would not be. Because, and this is crucial, calling someone an asshole for being a bigot does not actually harm them in any tangible, measurable way. The agenda your friends support is devastating to the lives of gays and lesbians. Not just emotionally, but legally and financially. Their actions, if succesful, would cause genuine, objective harm to millions of people. You prefer to let this go unremarked, because you don’t want to be rude?
The struggle for gay rights - for any civil rights - takes two prongs. There is civil and reasoned debate, the importance of which cannot be understated. However, there also the necessity to make our outrage and anger at these people heard, to emphasize that this is not merely an academic or philosophical exercise, but a vitally important struggle for our lives and our livelyhoods. There is a cultural war going on in this country right now, and we will lose it if we are not willing to return fire.
How do your friends differ from Swaggert? If they simply think homosexuality is sinful, but do not seek to put their beliefs into law, than I don’t have a quarel with them. I don’t want to associate with them any more than I’d want to associate with someone who thinks Jews are inherently greedy, or blacks naturally inclined to crime, but so long as they’re not trying to hurt me, I’m not going to try to hurt them. At least, not beyond being snarky about them on an internet messageboard. Once they try to put their prejudice into action, though, all bets are off.
I disagree. Villanization can go a long way towards swaying the undecided. I’m never going to convince Jerry Falwell that he’s a miserable piece-of-shit bigot (pretty sure he already knows that, actually) but if I can successfully paint him as such in the public eye, people are less likely to listen to him and support his agenda. The religious right has been doing this to us pretty effectively for a couple of decades now. We can either learn from their playbook, or we can just give up and roll over right now, because your kumbaya approach isn’t going to work.
Here’s a prime example of an attitude that seems counterproductive to me.
Not everyone that oppposes gay marriage or abortion has all these attitudes or feels this way. Do you think you can fight prejudice with prejudice of your own?
I certainly can be judgenmental at times. I don’t think it helps. I do see the difference between being judgemental and the need to make a judgement call.
I see your point. Consider your own friends. Aren’t there some good people who have their human failings , their blind spots. Do you think they deserve consideration and patience or condemnation and anger? Here again you assume that all who oppose gay marriage support a constitutional amendment against it. That simply isn’t true.
Perhaps we need to recognize our own bigotry as much as we condem the bigotry of others.
Remember the old joke, “I hate thoose fucking bigots, they shopuld all be shot”
Some christians speak of love with little in their heart. They are the people you describe above. Some take Jesus admonition of loveing others seriously. They are sincerely striveing to be good people, and to grow to be better, in keeping with the teachings of Jesus. They have their human frailties and opinions like you and I. I believe they can be swayed if approached in the correct manner. Anger resentment and condemnation are human traits as well and I share in that experience. I just don’t see those emotions as a path to improvement.
Agreed. I’d like to see the balance shift a little more. A little less self righteoous name calling and more effort toward communication and understanding. I believe those things can be promoted while still vigorously fighting for what you believe.
Please note that it was you who first responded to my post to someone else. Nothing compelled you to comment on my boring point or engage me in any way. You chose it. I remind you again, I saw what the conversation was about. There is no implied guideline that in order to comment I have to agree with those who posted before me. In fact it is quite the opposite. And you call me clueless. What a joke.
I asked you to defend a statement you made and you haven’t been able to do so.
Instead you resort to name calling and critisizing my spelling. Fine. We’re done.
I admit I do need to practice my spelling. I’ll start now.
feeble… F-E-E-B-L-E…feeble.
see I’m not humorless
My first post in this thread which was a response to you is in post #21:
You poor victim.
Nowhere in there was an insult to you.
But you of course claim injury to try and deflect your support of a level of bigotry and twats like Otto come in and get their twisted little jollies giving you a ‘there there’.
And thus dishonesty reigns in a thread where you have been dishonest with yourself and thus with the thread and us.
That’s a good point, Mockingbird. It wasn’t until your second post in this thread that you started in with the unfounded, unprovoked insults. Kudos to you for your uncharacteristic restraint.
You make an intelligent, rational and compelling arguement. I sincerely appreciate it. I’m not suggesting that you accept anything less than equal rights as a citizen of this country. I’m suggesting that lingering anger and resentment, although understandable and human, only hurt all those involved. I’m requesting that you understand that not all conservative christians feel the same as the extremists.
I don’t expect you to work with or compromise with those extremists. I do think you should fight back and defend yourself.
A very valid point. Just to clarify. I wasn’t thinking of the hateful extremists when I made this statement.
No I would not. I insist that it be challenged and continually so. I don’t consider it rude to state my beliefs on a certain subject or to challenge someone’s whom I don’t agree with. With friends I try to keep the conversation civil, built on mutual respect. In my mind I seperate the two events. Taking a stand for civil rights is one thing. The manner and method used is another. Again, I see your point.
I agree. I used to support gay rights just on principle. I have several gay friends but their lives seem pretty positive so I never had any first hand experience with the kind of harm done by this prejudice. Since the debate has gained center stage I’ve done more research and read several accounts of how people are directly effected {several here on SDMB} It’s that kind of information that I think could sway reasonable and compassionate people. Even reasonable and compassionate conservative chirtians.
That may be a fairly accurate discription. I would also say that they are simply not aware of the harm done to the gay community.
Rather than villanization I would call it simply bringing the truth to the fore. I don’t think of it as a kumbaya approach. More like a Gandhi approach. Resist the temptatin to return hatred for hatred. Bring the arguement and the evidence before the public repeatedly and persistantly. Let the hatefulness of the extremists make itself apparent to the american public.
I stand correceted. I was not immediately. You waited one whole post.
I don’t consider myself a victim. Feel free to call me every name you can think of. {it can’t be that long a list} Go ahead and insult my mother, my friends, my race,my education, whatever you like. Since I don’t value your opinion one iota it doesn’t matter.
Your posts are like farting in public. It’s rude, it smells bad, and occasionaly it might be somewhat amuseing in a “what a jackass” kind of way.
I do understand that not all conservative Christians are extremists. However, I also think that these are the people who most need to understand how hurtful and insulting their opinions can be. To that end, the “lingering anger and resentment” are necessary. It is, however, a fine line to walk. One must let these people know, in no uncertain terms, that their opinions are unacceptable and unwelcome, yet still avoid rabid outbursts like Mockingbirds’s. Figuring out how to balance this is both subjective and context-sensitive, though. There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to it.
Other than that, I don’t think we significantly disagree.
You made an argument that there was no difference wanting to help the environment and wanting to crush civil liberties. I pointed out that there was a significant moral difference. There’s not much to defend there – there’s no way to present facts or logic to what is, in essence, a value system. You may think all citizen actions – cleaning up the environment, crushing civil liberties, burning books, etc., are all the same. I say they are not. And so we are at an impasse.
If I called you “cluelessm” it’s because you really do not seem to get what I (or anyone else) is saying – about the subject of the OP or anything else. So taken are you with the bright shiny coin of moral relativism, and so taken are you with your own reflection in it, you seem to take only a peripheral and distorted glance at anyone else’s opinion. However, I will apologize forthwith for allowing my annoyance to get the better of me and attacking the person instead of the argument.
Oh for fuck’s sake, what the fuck ever. Be more busy being a fucking apologist for your bigot friends. Your bigot friends a re the fucking salt of the fucking earth.
Jesus fucking Christ on a goddamn crumb heap, about the only thing worse than bigots are the people who excuse them because there are bigots out there who are more bigoted. Fine, there are some bigots whose attitudes are less extreme than those I described. They are still fucking bigots and their fucking bigotry is not to be tolerated.
And you still have yet to explain to me why it is that those who aren’t fucking bigots and who just want equality before the law should be expected to compromise with the fucking bigots.
Now that you’ve explained it in this way I do understand your point. If you look at my first post you see that my comparision was porn and pollution. Not civil rights. I agree that not all citizen actions are the same. You assumed I felt that way and I understand why, but it is not the case. It seemed to me that a peripheral glance was all I was allowed.
You may ridicule my attitudes on moral relativism but I take them seriously. I realize it does come off as sanctimonius at times but my concern is that too many on both sides are doing exactly what you apologize for. Attacking the people and not the arguement.
I appreciate your explaination and your apology.
They are people with human failings like you or I.
I take this to mean you don’t get the joke I mentioned.
It’s because saying “those fucking bigots” makes you a fucking bigot as well.
You may think your own bigotry is completely justified. Thats what those fucking bigots think too. If you truly want to stamp out bigotry then start with yourself.
I’m not suggesting compromise. I’m suggesting pursuing civil rights and equality without returning hatred for hatred and bigotry for bigotry.
because some people think if you ever raise a voice on behalf of the oppressed, you must raise equal voice on behalf of the oppressor. Seems like if you have to be possessed of a Jesus-like love for everyone or say nothing at all.
I agree with you. I’m not suggesting that we ignore and accept hurtful actions because we think the people who purpetrate them are basically good. I think we temper our response with that thought while continuing to resist and persuade.
We try to forgive their human frailities and weakness because there are most likely areas where we are in need of some patience and forgiveness.
I realize how difficult this is and how idealistic it sounds. As you said. A fine line to walk and there will be setbacks. We do the best we can day to day situation to situation.
Sometimes I hate those fucking bigots. Thats my failing not theirs.
