Are we forced to support LGBTQ standpoints?
Well, we are expected to support LGBTQ rights. Because some LGBTQ people and groups may have really terrible *standpoints *(see: Milo Yiannopoulos, Peter Thiel) but we should and do support their equal rights.
We are “forced” to support LGBTQ rights like we are “forced” to support racial desegregration. It’s the right thing to do. Putting it most coldly, you don’t have to *like *it, you *do *have to learn to live with it.
As already said, people think this because in the situation described, it’s true.
Your reasoning here is misleading in this instance, not because it’s necessarily always wrong, but because it crucially depends on the balance between the importance of the principle being expressed and the intrusiveness of the action in question that is required to express it. If the principle involved is something trite and I’m being asked to engage in a major inconvenience to support it, such as joining a protest over something trivial, I would probably decline to do so because it’s not worth my time, even if I agree with the protesters on the issue.
In this case, the principle is nothing less than the most basic human rights. The intrusiveness is essentially zero, a temporary redesign of a sports jersey. In this extremely lopsided balance between principle and intrusion, the only plausible motivation for refusing to wear it is, as we’ve seen, that the person is a bigot and opposes the principle.
There is (to be a bit over-nuanced) more than one other reason besides being bigoted.
Wanting to impress others who themselves are bigoted. Wanting your asshole friends or your unethical pastor to see that you’re on their side instead of on the gay side.
Being gay but not ready to come out.
If your religion says gay people shouldn’t have equal rights, then your freedom of “religion” has just dried up, because your “religion” is not a legitimate one.
I think that last bit might be the actual reason for this extended argument; people who cling to invalid ideas in the name of their so-called religion are seeing the writing on the wall, realizing that in the near future their church is going to either be transformed or collapse, and they don’t enjoy the prospect.
(Such people applaud the same abrogation of “religious principles”, when it happens to the Taliban.)
Please explain how you believe we are doing this and applauding it.
Otherwise you’re just making an unsupported provocative statement.
Please show me where ANY religion expressly states this.
American Christians (myself included) applaud when girls in Afghanistan are sent to school instead of being confined to their houses, even though their religious leaders are often against it. We know that the Taliban leaders’ “freedom of religion” is in this case merely an excuse to oppress their own people. Same situation with gay equal rights in the USA.
Religious leaders encourage it, either tacitly or explicitly. Religious books in general don’t say it. Come back when conservative Christian leaders are publicly denouncing all unequal treatment of LGBT people, or perhaps come back when conservative Christian leaders are LGBT people.
As far as I know none say anything about equal rights but homosexuality is often taught as sinful and some have used that to persecute gay people.
I think you could interpret that as a denial of equal rights.
Give it a rest; it’s a figure of speech. I mean, I’m sure there’s SOMETHING that the LGBTQ community could be legitimately criticized for, just like any large group of people. I don’t know what that is, but I’m hesitant to say that any group is entirely above reproach.
Not so much. There’s a world of difference between being tolerant of something, and actively endorsing it, and that’s the crux of the issue here.
You can be tolerant of something, and still not want to actively endorse it for whatever reason, and that doesn’t make you a bigot. Which is what I was trying to point out upthread, and what **Velocity’s **trying to say as well.
I don’t say above reproach in all things, I just say nobody’s religion has any bearing on how someone outside that religion decides to live. To be specific, that Christians who claim to have a problem with gay people getting married, or buying wedding cakes from Christian bakers, are by definition out of line. In exactly the same way that you buying a pizza can’t ruin your neighbour’s diet.
What are LGBT standpoints?
That’s what he’s trying to say, all right, and sometimes there’s a difference, and sometimes no difference at all. As I said, it depends. Seriously, you would consider wearing a standard team uniform, exactly the same as that of all your other team members, to be actively endorsing homosexuality? Seems pretty damn passive and unexceptionable to me!
To take a converse example of when a difference actually exists between those two things, in general I would probably not wear a T-shirt with any kind of ad or political message on it. But that’s for the same reason I won’t typically even wear a shirt with a brand logo on it: I don’t consider myself a walking billboard, and a political message in particular would quite properly be interpreted as feeling so strongly about the issue that I’m going out of my way to publicize it, and am probably anxious to engage people in conversation about it. It would be realistic to assume I was some kind of fanatic about this issue. But in fact there are relatively few things I feel that strongly about, and am rarely anxious to preach to strangers IRL, so I don’t go around wearing slogans on my personal clothing.
Would any reasonable person make such an interpretation of a freaking team uniform of a US national team that an individual is wearing for game play, just exactly like the one all her other teammates are wearing? Of course not. The personal commitment, the personal intrusion here, is exactly zero. Team uniforms are always celebrating something or other and are frequently festooned with patches or special designs. I wouldn’t have a second thought about wearing any of it, unless it was something I so strongly disagreed with that I was repulsed by it and offended that the team could take such a position. If I found it that offensive then I would refuse to wear it on general principle and quit the team, which is apparently what this bigot did over the celebration of gay rights.
I think I’m pretty clear on what you’re both trying to say, and I’m pointing out why in this case it’s not applicable and makes absolutely no sense. It’s no surprise that in this specific case the woman turned out to be a raving bigot.
That’s right. And I see the rainbow symbol as endorsing tolerance, not homosexuality in the sense that a celebrity endorsing a product tells you that you should buy it.
When gay marriage was legalized in California my large company (run by at least one Republican) raised the rainbow flag, which I thought was awesome. They were not telling me to get into a same sex relationship, they were endorsing tolerance which to their credit was their policy for as long as I worked there, including things like insurance benefits for same sex partners before marriage was legal.
Who decides what is put on the uniform? What if they, whoever they are, decided to put an anti-gay message on the jersey? Should I take it as having zero affect on me? Also, as this is the US team and given the political climate in the US electing creatures like Trump, it is far from given that the US supports gay rights. Should the national team not reflect the national reality rather than working to change it?
But, I’m still confused as to what soccer has to do with with LGBTQ? Should they not be concentrating on kicking the ball into their opponents net more times than the team they are playing against? I can imagine if I’m playing on the team that I’d be happy to answer questions related to soccer and anything on my history with the game. Having to answer questions on areas I’m either not interested in or don’t support just creates a distraction, a controversy or unnecessary drama even if it is just to explain that I don’t want to answer political questions. The latter response obviously meaning, at least to many in this thread, that I must be a bigot.
Replace the pride flag with a cross patch, or a patch with calligraphy of Allah, or even just the letters “MAGA” - is it still a passive, unexceptionable endorsement, and would you still find it weird that anyone would object to it?
Yes, on the object level, gay pride is obviously less objectionable to us (and objectively less bigoted, awful, and reality-denying) than the other symbols. But demanding someone wear that symbol is demanding their endorsement, one way or another, and this meta-level disagreement becomes more clear when we replace the symbols we like and support with the symbols we don’t.
Your political cause may be hella righteous (lord knows I think gay pride is), but you don’t get to use the righteousness to pretend it’s not political (compare/contrast support for the national anthem/flag). It’s definitely still political.
That’s a ridiculously simplistic and narrow view of the role of sports in society. As a milieu with an enormous following and one that is looked up to by young people, professional and lower-level organized sports have long had a role in mentoring youth and in promoting social causes. The Philadelphia Eagles refusing Trump’s WH invitation is just the latest example of that. No, the US national team should not reflect discreditable and shameful values that still persist in dark corners of society; its high public profile gives it a duty to promote objectively better ones. Whether it’s about police violence or whether it’s about gay rights, most of these issues are fundamentally about human rights and there isn’t really a lot to debate about them. The involvement of pro sports in LGBT issues is neither new nor particularly surprising; for example:
NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB & WNBA all marching as leagues in NYC Pride March
24 Major League Baseball teams to host LGBT Pride nights in 2018
I didn’t claim that it isn’t political in some broad sense of the word, but it isn’t political in any partisan sense, like support for a particular political party or candidate about which people may have honest disagreements. It shouldn’t be divisive. Human rights is a fundamental value about which there are no grounds for debate, no rational basis for taking offense, especially not at minor symbolic gestures. Unless one is a bigot.
You seem to think you’re making a point by showing that one might have a legitimate objection to wearing something offensive. I already addressed this. Of course one might. That doesn’t make those offensive things in any way equivalent to objectively humane and rational things in the argument about the balance between importance and intrusiveness, nor is the magnitude or personal impact of wearing this uniform in any way equivalent to being made to wear such symbols on one’s individual personal clothing, as if it was a self-initiated confirmation of a personal belief. It’s a simple, non-intrusive act of wearing a uniform that could be objected to only by someone so seething with hatred against the concept that it represents that they can’t bear to have even the most superficial association with it, like a vampire reacting to a crucifix.
Uhhh…
About seven-in-ten (73%) Democrats and independents (70%) favor same-sex marriage.
A smaller share of Republicans favor same-sex marriage (40%), although they also have become more supportive in recent years.
It’s definitely a partisan issue! As recently as 2012, it was a major wedge issue!
I agree with you. About a third of the country does not. About a third of the country is liable to see the pride flag as just as offensive as a christian might see Allah’s name, a muslim might see a cross, or a sane person might see MAGA. It’s not just a mere political issue, sure, but it’s still politics. And there are still quite a few people who disagree with you. I think they’re wrong. You think they’re wrong. But you also think their objections to feteing this political issue is inherently something that shouldn’t be tolerated. That’s… kinda the claim of the OP, isn’t it?
I don’t think I would want to wear a gay pride shirt as a condition of my employment, any more than I would want to wear a breast cancer awareness outfit, or a MAGA hat or a pro-universal healthcare onesie or a WWJD bracelet or a ‘Keep Portland weird’ pair of boxers or ‘nevertheless she persisted’ booty shorts or a ‘Go Mohammed’ mini-skirt or any other item of political or religious significance. If they asked me to do so not as a condition of employment, I probably would wear some of those, but I object to being forced into representing any viewpoint whether or not I agree with it. I would not take a job where I am simply a human billboard, nor do I want to be treated like one. I don’t want to be coerced into appearing to support something I don’t, nor do I want my coworkers to be coerced into appearing to support something even if I do agree with it. I am a devout Christian, but I would be incredibly offended if my office were required to wear crosses to work. They are not relevant to the jobs we are doing and I know that some of my coworkers do not share my beliefs and I would object to forcing them to appear as though they did. I strongly support liberal politics and policies, but I do not want conservatives to be forced to appear to support my causes.