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But the thing is that there is so much personal variation within any religious group that I really can’t reliably state that someone believes something because they are a member of that group. I know catholics that are gay and don’t believe it is a sin, I know catholics who do believe that anyone not of their faith is going to hell. Given such examples of opinions held that are outside of that religion’s mainstream, I judge people based on the opinions they actually express. Much easier that way.
Well, that’s kind of my point. Most people are not going to bother themselves about learning what the actual content of a faith is before deciding that they don’t want adherents of that faith on TV or in the public sphere. They’re going to behave with as much bigotry and ignorance as they’re attributing to the religious people.
It’s a matter of interpretation, but I think these people condemn gays because they have a visceral reaction to the idea of homosexuality and use scripture to justify the prejudice. You can see that in the Duck Dynasty controversy: the guy has no idea what being sexual orientation is, but he thinks about buttholes and gets grossed out, end of story.
The issue with this claim is, in essence, that people are hypocrites, and this is one of those cases where that goes well. How many catholic women use birth control? How many homosexuals are devout Christians/Muslims? How many Christians ignore 99% of the laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy? The fact is that while assuming that being a Christian makes someone a bigot would be logical, human beings aren’t logical. As was stated in a pit thread on the subject, it’s a form of soft bigotry to assume that any given Christian redneck is a bigoted prick. It’s fair to give them the benefit of the doubt.
That said, I’m with Jeff Dee all the way in pointing out that saying “you deserve to be tortured forever (according to a being I consider infinitely just)” is grounds for permanent removal from the Christmas card list. But I have Christian friends. Why? Because I don’t assume that they are all extremely horrible people.
I think it would be more accurate to call it inconsistency. Everybody picks and chooses which doctrinal beliefs to accept and which to overlook. That’s not a problem unless you start claiming you believe every word in your particular scripture is literally true, as people who disapprove of gays tend to do. But again, not all the stuff this guy says came out of the Bible. And this kind of stupidity deserves criticism but there’s also room for a lot of “what did you expect?” here. Given who this guy is supposed to be, it’s not a surprise that he has some retrograde views about gays and black people.
Say whatever you want about your religion. I’ll oppose any effort to have you arrested or assaulted.
But you want to be protected from all negative reactions? Screw you.
Does “reject that” really mean campaigning for them to not star in a TV show, ever, even if he’s wildly entertaining to a lot of people? Seems petty.
I never associated an entertainer’s role with their real life counterpart very strongly because a lot of them are assholes anyway. Or maybe I just have a stronger suspension of disbelief than most. I just can’t relate to people who think the work is ruined when the real life person does shitty things. For a lot of people Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise movies are forever unwatchable, they can’t watch Michael Jackson music videos ever again, Woody Allen movies aren’t funny anymore, etc. That just seems weird to me.
Or less seriously if they find out their favorite guy or gal is a secret Republican…tainted!
See, what if this Duck dude really **was **a Nazi? Why would it matter? Does anyone think this guy is of such cultural significance that’s he going to change anything? The only reason it would matter is because a bunch of busy bodies would yell and scream that the network supports Nazis and their execs hate Jews.
Dude, the “religion in question” “openly expresses” and even “commands” that people hate those who keep their hair unkempt.
It’s rather obvious that Mr. Robertson did not think that people who keep their hair unkempt be murdered despite what Leviticus says.
Now, as you’re quite aware, communist countries were officially atheist and most were all extremely homophobic.
Now, I’ll assume that you’re intellectually consistent and believe that homophobic Russians were that way because of the commands of the Russian Communist party.
I think they clearly weren’t and were simply using Party propaganda to justify their bigotry.
Please explain either A) why I’m wrong or B)why homophobic Christians are that way due to Christianity while homophobic communists aren’t.
Thank you in advance for your well-thought out reply.
Golly, I wish you’d talk to some Dopers who have reacted negatively to my posts about religion in Great Debates! You’d think I was bellowing at them like a hellfire preacher!
Dopers have been responding with attempts to have you arrested or assaulted?
That would be a fascinating thing to see. Could you link to some examples, please?
Is that specifically claimed by anyone? I think most of us would accept that both the Bible and Communist Party Dogma followed homophobia, rather than led it or caused it. The people making up the rules suffered from homophobia, and thus the rules they wrote reflected this.
You make it seem as if you’re on to some great “gotcha” here, and that Der Trihs was following different rules for different groups, but I don’t see it that way. Communist dogma and Christian dogma are both bad for their condemnation of homosexuality.
They were both writing in eras of great ignorance, which is at least some mild excuse. People today do not have that defense.
I kinda like to see some links, myself. I had in mind something along the lines of:
Tom: [statement]
Jerry: You should go to jail for saying that!
or
Tom: [statement]
Jerry: If you said that in my presence, I’d bust you across the face with a tire iron!
For virtually any [statement], I’m pretty sure my reaction to Jerry would be more negative than my reaction to Tom. For me to even start to sympathize with Jerry, Tom would have had to start with something arrest- or assault-related himself, like “Jews should be put in camps” or “Jews should be driven into the sea.”
For “Jews”, substitute “gays” or whatever ethnic/national group one might belong to. So what did you say, dougie, and what was the response?
Er…Yes… Marley said in his opinion people who were homophobic looked for religious reasons to justify their bigotry, Der Trihs objected claiming that Christian homophobes were that way because of homophobia, which is why I asked the question.
Obviously you disagree with Der Trih’s claim.
Hopefully he’ll be able to enlighten us as to why we are wrong and he is right.
We’ll have to wait for his response.
I’m sure we won’t be disappointed.
:dubious: What makes you think that plenty of devout communists weren’t bigoted towards homosexuals because the party told them they were supposed to be? Or even just people afraid of being sent off to the gulags or whatever if they didn’t toe the line.
If anything the cause and effect relationship is going to be much stronger in a society where the anti-homosexual rules in question have the force of law. Like in Uganda just now, where they’ve passed laws imposing life sentences or the death penalty for homosexuality; in large part due to the efforts of American evangelicals. There’s a nice, straightforward example of bigotry being pushed by religion, and it’s even the Christian religion.
First of all thank you for showing that while Trinopus was extremely well-meaning and IMHO correct regarding the link between religion and homophobia(that the former was used to justify that latter) that you disagree.
That said, since you seem to be conceding that you think that communism is as responsible for homophobia as religion, would you mind explaining why I’m wrong to think that people who were ostensibly communists used communism to justify homophobia rather than, as you seem to believe, be homophobic because they’re Marxist-Lennists.
Thank you in advance for your answer.
What makes you think the two are mutually exclusive?
And I believe that Communists and Christians* and so forth are homophobes and otherwise evil because their ideology demands it, because they do things that their ideology demands all the time. Again, claiming that religion (or whatever) doesn’t make them act homophobic is just a standard excuse that gets pulled out whenever people do evil in the name of religion; suddenly, religion loses all influence when people do evil in its name. Of course, the same people who claim that religion can’t make you act badly don’t hesitate to given the credit for every good behavior they can think of to religion.
*I see little distinction between the two. Both are irrational, tyrannical, incredibly bloodthirsty faith based worldviews that demand that others be converted by force while pretending benevolence.
Once again, thank you for declaring that I was right and poor Trinopus was wrong regarding your beliefs.
However, I asked you not to explain what you believed, but why you believed it.
Since, by your admission, you think most communists are homophobes specifically due to the political ideology they’ve chosen to follow you can explain WHY you believe that as opposed to the idea put forth by Marley, myself and others that homophobes used Christianity or communism to justify their beliefs.
If you have a solid argument backing up your claim it should be easy to articulate and explain it.
Please do so.
Once again, thanks in advance for your response.
As long as they don’t act like wimps and complain about anything you do as being offensive to them.
Not really. There are plenty of religious opinions that lots of people don’t agree with while not wishing to silence them. It is just the hateful ones that are objected to.
The question is whether the hairy putz is accurately reporting on what his religion says. If no, religion is not the issue at all. (I don’t recall the Bible equating gayness with bestiality.) If he is, then religion is the problem, as well as his ethics. I rather think it is the former case, though Palin seems to think A&E is being anti-Christian, so she might disagree.
Let’s say your interpretation of Catholic doctrine was correct (and it was for most of the church’s history.) I don’t really care - but I would if there was a movement afoot to forcibly baptize Jews and atheists to get them into heaven, and the statement played to that movement.
So, you don’t believe that children without opinions on this matter could be influenced by respected church or party leaders feeding them homophobic propaganda from an early age?