That’s in Christianity, in wider religious philosophy universalism is the idea that a religion applies to everyone.
Exclusivism is a related but distinct concept. For example, Jewish people believe that only the Jewish God is real, but that doesn’t mean that they believe that everyone has to be Jewish.
Also, the belief in Hell. If anyone who doesn’t believe in the one true way will suffer in agony eternally, then literally anything is justified to convert people. If you kill a thousand people to convert one, that’s infinite gain.
A lot of people are neither though; they don’t think of themselves as bigoted, so they don’t think they need to change.
Then some asshole tells them they’re a bigot and like @Velocity points out, imagine someone’s saying they’ve got a white robe and pointy hat in the closet, or that they go around saying the n-word casually or something.
And of course they bristle. Why wouldn’t they? From their perspective, you just insulted them terribly.
Furthermore, some issues aren’t as cut and dried as people around here might want to think. Trans stuff for example, isn’t exactly settled except for the far Left’s perception of it. And that binary way of looking at it tends to turn off as many people or more than it entices.
I mean, if there’s some housewife in rural Nebraska who’s not hateful and doesn’t bear anyone any ill will, but is uncomfortable with trans people because from her inexperienced perspective, they’re weird and unnatural, going off and demanding that she act and think a certain way is probably more likely to push her to the people who tell her “Yes, this discomfort is justified, they ARE weird and unnatural.” as it is to cause her to reflect on WHY she finds it weird and unnatural and whether or not that’s valid, and beyond that, whether it matters in terms of human rights and legal treatment, etc…
That’s what I’m getting at- being shrill, demanding, and uncompromising is like preaching to the far-Left choir, instead of preaching to the actual congregation, or better yet, going into the community to preach.
And don’t forget those who over react. You point out that what they said was bigoted, and they explode all over shouting about robes and things.
Barney Frank has died.
RIP Barney, you were a good guy.
He fought the good fight, that’s for sure.
Just to reiterate, if someone says I said or did something bigoted, my first response isn’t going to be ranting about PC culture or “back in my day”, I’m going to apologize, look at my behavior or statements or assumptions, and try to do better.
If the person saying that is a left-wing loony that thinks eating Thai food is cultural appropriation or something, I’ll smile politely and say I’ll do better, and then dig into my pad thai noodles.
My first response is not going to be to assume that I’d done something wrong, or that the other person is correct.
Just because someone thinks or claims something is racist/sexist/whatever, doesn’t actually make it so, regardless of what ethnic group/sexual preferenc/etc… they may be part of.
I don’t think I’d tell someone “I’ll do better” if they said that eating Thai food was cultural appropriation. I think I’d probably tell them that it is stupid and to go away. And we’d both be annoyed with each other, because we’d both been told that what we were doing was wrong and stupid instead of a gentler approach like I advocate upthread.
Well, I’m old-ass, almost 60, so I know that standards have changed from when I was a kid. My goal is not to offend people unnecessarily, and I’m happy to learn and change, move with the times. So, if my kids tell me I shouldn’t use, for example, “retarded”, which was super common when I was their age, I’ll listen.
This was a tough one for me 
. It was my favorite exasperated expletive for less intelligent policies as well as the willfully ignorant and offensively clueless. But, yep - I dropped it some years ago. Same as words like gypped which I somewhow grew up having no notion it was an offensive reference to gypsies (whom I had zero knowledge of or experience with) until I was a mature adult.
You just have to keep on growing and fight the urge to settle into a cantankerous stasis in old age, as comfortable as that would be.
If you agree that you were being bigoted, I’m sure you would.
On the other hand, if you made some (in your opinion valid) criticism of a group that heavily favors Trump, and were accused of being racist as a result, you probably wouldn’t “apologize, look at your behavior, and try to do better” - you’d strenuously disagree with the characterization of your statements as racist.
Which, to be clear, is the correct reaction in that sort of situation. Just because somebody tells you that you are being racist does not mean that they are correct.
We don’t call them Gypsies anymore. It’s Romani People or Roma. The genre of music is still called Gypsie Jazz. It was created by a Roma Person (Django Reinhardt) and that’s what he called it in the 1930s.
Would I? That certainly wouldn’t be my first reaction. If I’ve offended someone, I’m going to apologize, and not some “I’m sorry that you took offense” BS.
Look, I’m not holier than thou, but I’m also not looking for be righteously indignant, like so many.
I’m well aware and I really should have stated that better to clarify that fact, thanks. I thought about doing so too late to edit and was pretty sure I’d get called out on it .
Now is where you rant about how that word was fine when you were younger, and what difference does a word make? And, they call themselves that sometimes, so why can’t you use the word, etc.
Lol. I used that words as a child too. But only verbally, never in writing. If I’d had to write it, i would have guessed “jipped”. I was shocked to learn the origin, and haven’t used the word since. But honestly, it was “child word”, and one i hadn’t used for years by that point, so it wasn’t hard to decide not to use it going forward. Also, having not used it in years, i didn’t feel particularly threatened or “corrected” when i learned better.
There are other slurs i used as an adult, and had to be called out on. I was lucky, the people calling me out didn’t say, “you bad person!”, they said, “I’m shocked you used that word, you should know better”. That’s a much easier message to accept.
That transphobic asshole. Fossils like him need to die out so we can finally get some fuckin’ progress around here.
We have to be nice to the poor bigots, aww, we meanies are hurting their precious feewings.
I’m with Martin Luther King, Jr.: Justice too long delayed is justice denied.
We all have good points and bad points. He was brave to come out as gay as a time when that was risky. Despite his personal transphobia, i suspect he did more good than harm to the trans community.
As someone who has struggled with my own homophobia and transphobia, and now hopes to be considered an ally, i am sympathetic to him.