There would probably be a world-wide shortage of cocaine.
He’d be OLLLLLLLLLLLD.
And have polyps on his vocal cords.
I think the OP’s mistake is that the American media is a poor representation of life in America … you’d think only cute white girls ever get kidnapped … the truth is that showing pictures of kidnapped cute white girls sells shampoo … supporting LGBT equality sells antacid …
There’s plenty of churches in the United States one could join where hating on gays is encouraged if not expected … just that the corner of Gerry and 19th isn’t one of them …
Sort of, but it’s getting vanishingly small. Mainline Protestants as an example are over 70% in support of gay marriage. Evangelicals are at 35% support. There is no religious demographic where the majority of under 50s are against gay marriage. The only real groups that are showing any real negativity towards gay marriage are older Evangelicals and Mormons (born before 1964) and minorities.
No, it is not the same. The issue is the difference between actively *opposing *something, and not wanting to participate in active support of it. It’s a false dichotomy to claim those are the only two options - “Either proclaim that you support Thing X, or else we will consider you to be anti-Thing X.” Not wearing a “Hillary 2016” shirt doesn’t mean I support Trump. There is wide middle ground.
Hinkle did not say “I want to wear a jersey that says ‘gay is wrong.’” She merely did not want to wear uniforms with pro-LGBT symbols on them.
As a Cowboys fan, I won’t go around holding banners reading “Fuck the Philadelphia Eagles.” But I would be reasonable in objecting if someone wants to require me to wear an Eagles jersey.
My point in an atheist being required to wear a crucifix wasn’t a religion debate, it was a requiring-someone-to-pretend-they-support-something-they-don’t issue.
Janaele Hinkle actively opposes gay rights. She’s posted about her opposition frequently on social media. She’s definitely a bigot, regardless of how you try to contort the jersey thing to find an excuse for her.
Incidentally, there is no “middle ground” on the question, “Do gays deserve the same rights as everyone else in this country?” You can’t be “a little in favor of equal rights,” in much the same way you can’t be “a little pregnant.” You’re either all-in, or you’re supporting something that’s less than equal.
QFT.
True, although I think **Velocity **is onto something with the jersey issue independent of her bigotry.
By way of analogy, let’s say that for whatever reason, someone’s sports team decided to support Islam for some reason, and wanted to put star and crescent symbols on the uniforms as a form of support. Now you can be entirely accepting of Islam and tolerant of all religions, and not want to wear that religious symbol on your shirt- be it because you’re of a different faith, or because you’re an atheist. Not wanting to wear that symbol doesn’t make you bigoted, but your reasons for refusing may be.
Even though I’m not homophobic, and I’m LGBTQ friendly, I think the black or white, with us or against us kind of attitude is not productive. There are a lot of people out there who are probably on the fence in varying degrees, and while they may support gay marriage and equality under the law, that doesn’t mean they’re socially comfortable with it, nor are they entirely comfortable wearing pride flags or going to parades or anything like that. Are they bigots? Hardly. But this all-or-nothing mindset would probably lump them in with the bigots if they refused to wear a pride flag on their uniforms, even if the reason is just some kind of ill-defined discomfort with wearing that level of support on their sleeve, so to speak. There’s a lot of gray area between fighting against something and fighting for something, and I think it’s a mistake to try and force everyone to choose.
First of all, let’s be clear: she wasn’t forced to wear the jersey. The only issue at stake is that she could not be on the team if she did not wear the jersey. So what it comes down to is not whether she has freedom of expression (she does), it’s a question of what differences in worldview the USWNT should reasonably be expected to accommodate among its team members. Was it reasonable for the USWNT to effectively bar her from participation if she didn’t wear the jersey?
And here’s where you can’t just draw an analogy with the USWNT endorsing (say) Islam, and say “that’s the same”. It’s not. You don’t just get to call all beliefs equivalent and analogous and equally deserving of respect and privilege just by labeling them “religious”.
The USWNT surely could not reasonably force its members to endorse a particular religion, and of course there would be outrage if it did so (whether or not it’s technically part of the government). Endorsing (say) Islam and expecting Christians or atheists to comply is clearly not acceptable.
However, the USWNT was not endorsing a specific religion. It was endorsing tolerance and equality. I do not think that the USWNT should be expected to exempt players who are intolerant bigots from joining their team members in endorsing that message. It matters fuck all whether their intolerance and bigotry stems from “sincerely held religious beliefs”. Tolerance and equality are core values for Americans and for any civilized society, and should rightly be part of the identity of any team representing the U.S.
First of all, this *is *coercion. “Force” doesn’t have to mean physically tying someone down with stakes and chains; there are varying degrees of it. More often than not it takes the form of presenting someone with a stark, binary choice: Either do Option A, or take Option B, and Option B is typically presented as something highly undesirable or detrimental to the person’s career/happiness/relationship/circumstances/other. It can be considered “soft” coercion, but it is a form of coercion.
Secondly, this thread is titled “Are Americans kind of forced to support LGBT standpoints?” The thread has morphed from a stance of, *“No, they are not required to support LGBT,” *to one of, “Yes, they do have to support LGBT, because supporting LGBT is the right and equitable thing to do.”
It’s exclusion from a team representing the U.S. if you don’t comply with wearing a jersey that endorses LGBT tolerance and equality. If you want to call that “coercion”, I won’t quibble.
Now, would you care to address the substance of my post?
They don’t have to support LGBT rights, as long as they can deal with the consequences of outing yourself as a bigot.
You gave the example of a U.S. national sports team, characterizing it as “coercion”. That’s a rather specific case, so I addressed it. It’s a question of whether somebody who is a religiously-motivated bigot must be accommodated and allowed to be part of that team.
Many soccer teams in Europe have participated in similar anti-racism endorsements (including on jerseys, as I recall). Do you believe these teams are obliged to accommodate racists who don’t agree, to avoid “coercing” them into racial tolerance? Or are the teams allowed to exclude racist bigots from their teams?
Is it time to link to xkcd yet again?
Sorry, what is the substance of your post? (Not being sarcastic; You were tackling multiple issues and I’m not sure which one/focus you are referring to.)
As mentioned earlier - someone isn’t necessarily a racist for not wanting to publicly promote a political message. Sure, racists wouldn’t want to wear the anti-racism endorsement, but there are some politically neutral people (or even anti-racist people) who might not want to wear a Black Lives Matter logo on their jersey either. They might want to say, “I would prefer not to get publicly involved in politics.”
(Not referring to Hinkle specifically, but a more general thing.)
Just because someone doesn’t want to* actively, publicly endorse* “Political Stance A” does not mean that they necessarily *oppose *Political Stance A.
I have a bit of sympathy for Hinkle – refusing to play might have been her version of “taking a knee,” no matter how misguided her motivation. I wonder if she talked to the team about options that didn’t include wearing the uniform but did include playing? None of the news articles I’ve seen mentions that, but I haven’t checked out her full 700 Club interview. (Nor am I likely to. Life is short.)
I will say that I find her line-drawing hard to understand, since 1) she is playing for the team of a nation that has legalized same-sex marriage and 2) several of her teammates are LGBT (I think).
Back to the OP’s question: I think many Americans feel intense pressure to support tolerance of LGBT people. Many other Americans do not. Even young Americans – I teach high school*, and believe me, homophobia is alive and well among plenty of the next generation. Take comfort – I guess…
*my student population is rather special – incarcerated teenagers. The LGBT ones almost always don’t dare identify as such – I can only think of one who did in five years, and she would’ve felt comfortable kicking anyone’s ass who gave her shit.
Yet this hard-assed juvenile delinquent told me about how hard it was for her to go out because – simply because she’s a butch girl – she gets shit for going into public women’s restrooms.
The struggle is real for all of us, but I have to say, I’m more sympathetic to her issues than Hinkle’s.
So now you’re going for “political stance” rather than “sincerely held religious belief”?
No, bigotry is bigotry, whatever the motivation. We grant respect to a wide spectrum of civilized political and religious beliefs. But not all beliefs are equal, not all are civilized, and not all are deserving of similar respect and privilege in our society. We have constitutional freedom of speech and more generally we endorse freedom of expression. You are absolutely free to hold any beliefs. You won’t get sent to jail for those beliefs. But there may well be social consequences, one of which might be that you don’t get to play on a sports team that endorses tolerance and equality.
You call that “coercion”, I call it the normal operation of a civilized society.
May I ask what would be wrong if the USWNT simply allowed players to individually choose, and those who wanted to endorse LGBT would get the rainbow patch (or whatever it was) sewn onto their jerseys, while those who did not want to, wore normal jerseys?
I disagree. INSIDE of the religious angle, there is exactly zero to criticize LGBTQ people for. Unless you’ve decided you’re going to try to singlehandedly dismantle freedom of religion.
Unless gay people are dragging you by force into their bedroom and forcing you to participate, you have NOTHING to complain about from ANY angle, especially not anything to do with having a problem with their religion. Your religion has no relevance at all regarding other people’s actions, because your religion is none of their business and there is no reason for others to respect or care about your religion one bit, as long as they let you continue it.
Megan Rapinoe is a lesbian. She’s the only out one I know of after Abby Wambach retired, but I can’t say I follow the USWNT closely.