Ok, I’ll bite. What are the rational non-religious reason to oppose, as opposed to “not support” SSM?
The changing of definitions of words for a feel good moment. Don’t you think people might get pissed at a definition gets changed so that some group can feel “normal”?
How would gay groups start feeling if conservatives hijacked the term LGBT and started using it to mean Lettuce Guacamole Bacon and Tomatoes? You’d be fine with it? I mean it’s just a word/acronym, right?
Marriage has always been between men and women. ALWAYS. So it would be okay for someone to change the meaning of homosexual to also mean an exercise bike?
It’s really a demonstration about childish behavior. Gay groups want people to think they are “normal”, so they want to use the word that “normal” people use. If straights changed the term marriage to “ooogahboooooogah!!!” gays would start demanding to use that word.
My question is what’s next ont he left’s agenda after they get all their homosexual related demands. My belief is that they’ll wage a war on gender, to make a genderless society EXCEPT when it comes to giving women, or people who say they are women (transsexuals) special privileges.
By opening a separate thread in which to discuss the topic.
A comparson of the two or arguments for polygamy deserve their own discussion.
Take it out of this thread.
[ /Moderating ]
All that argument does is underline that the real reason that the homophobes are forbidding SSM is spite. They want to humiliate same sex couples by rubbing it in their face that they aren’t “worthy” of a term we are willing to let serial killers apply to themselves.
That’s silly. Letting same sex couples get marriage is just slightly expanding an already existent institution; it’s no more changing the definition than letting interracial couples marry changed the definition. Changing marriage into an equal partnership instead of essentially a master/slave arrangement where the husband owned the wife; that was much closer to a change of definition. And that change too went against tradition; do you want to roll back those changes too?
They want the legal rights that come with the word.
:rolleyes: And what does any of that have to do with homosexuality?
That’s quite an … *interesting *way to argue that opposition to gay marriage is not hateful and bigoted. No doubt honest, though.
If they were changing the definition of “marriage” anymore than my parents did when they engaged in “miscegenation” you’d have a “point” but they don’t so you don’t.
You totally missed the point. You resisting calling someone a bigot because their bigotry stems from understandable if incorrect notions. A man who believes women are wonderful but happier at home is just as sexist in not hiring women as someone who thinks women are too stupid to have real jobs. a person who honestly believe God hates gays is just as bigoted as someone who finds it icky. People with these worldviews will probably hang out with people just like them. Would you admit bigotry if they don’t try to see other views? Do we have to cram pictures of happy, loving, gay couples down their throats?
Maybe Will and Grace helped, but I suspect the best way of forcing people who are currently bigots to change their positions is to legalize SSM everywhere, so they can see that the world does not end when it happens. That people can change doesn’t mean that you can excuse where they changed from.
You missed the point. I decline to call it bigotry because for many people it fails to meet the definition of bigotry.
If nothing else, the very fact that so many people have begun to change their views to an acceptance of same sex marriage proves my point. The definition calls for a bigot to be “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices,” yet every year, more people accept the reality of same sex marriage as they come to understand its meaning differently. If they were really clinging to their opinions “obstinately and intolerantly,” the numbers of people who accept Same Sex Marriage would be anchored somewhere in the low 10% range of the population, yet every year the number changes as people who did not accept it change their opinions so that by 2010, the number of people who accept it in the U.S. exceeded 50%. Those numbers reflect changes in attitudes that are not possible among bigots who would be “obstinately and intolerantly devoted to” their “own opinions.”
Among people who oppose Same Sex Marriage:
Many do not consider homosexuals lesser people;
Many have no hatred or disdain for homosexuals;
They simply cannot conceive of a same sex marriage
and your insistence that they are bigoted is simply name calling.
There are certainly bigots out there. Making the wierd claim that anyone who disagrees with your position is a de facto bigot despite the large numbers who are not demonstrating the “obstinate” “devotion” to their opinions is just silly.
Untrue. The conservative position is that a marriage is constituted of one man and one woman. There were marriages between people of different races long before your parents wed. Even within the United States.
I disagree. I think if you oppose SSM you fit the definition oif bigot. I also think there’s a range of bigotry from decent people who just can’t let go of a cultural or religious error, and the extemeists who wear thier hate on thier sleeve and preach it openly.
The wholle issue constantly reminds me off.
“I have no problem with black people, as long as they know their place”
Would people who make a statement like that not be bigots?
Thios whole civil unions , seperate but equal thing, IMO, is an attempt by decent people to try and still claim the mantle of a good person , on this issue while also trying to cling to those same false notions of religion and morality, that create thier aversion to SSM. It’s similar to the seperate but equal of the old south, which wasn’t all that equal was it?
IMO, it can’t work over the long term because it’s dishonest. The very part of human nature that wants , them, that group over there, the ones not like me, to be seperate, is the part standing in the way of true equality. You cannot have both.
The fact that they have the potential to change their minds and may change thier minds means they are not bigots? I think that definition means they are still, clinging to , rather than , “Always will”
I think it’s great that with effort and persistence people can be moved to and are willing to leave thier bigotry behind, but that doesn’t mean they never were bigots.
I agree that for many people the issue is barely a blip on the radar and they gaven’t really thought about it much or examined and weighed the facts much, but remember we’re talking about people who oppose SSM, not those who are indifferent. I understand the implication of widespread cultural indoctrination and the multiple generations it takes to overcome it. It’s a part of humanity. It doesn’t mean they are not bigots.
When something happens and they see the light, finally not clinging to religous and cultural prejudice and intolence, THEN, they are no longer bigots.
Surely by now virtually every person in the USA has become aware that same-sex marriages can and do occur, given the presence of the topic in the news (and the presence of gay couples in popular media). The idea that people continue to be unable to conceive of such a thing, in the face of all the evidence, would suggest a bizarre degree of reality-avoidance.
And I think you are wrong, otherwise the word bigot has no serious meaning.
meh
Agree with me or I will call you a nasty name. ::: shrug :::
People who are pretty well read probably know that there is a Scandinavian lady who “married” the Berlin Wall. I still don’t believe that one may marry a wall, although I doubt she will be persuaded otherwise.
It is fun, but not productive, to project one’s own beliefs onto others for the purpose of making straw man arguments against their beliefs.
“Projection”? Try arguing without these constant snide and absurd ad hominems (although given your persistent and inaccurate use of “projection”, perhaps giving that one up will be extra-difficult for you–I dunno), and let’s see if we can get somewhere. It’s not about trying to divine my internal state, or the state of bigots, or anyone else’s internal state. It’s about what people do.
Nice fake-quotes there. It’s not motivated by intolerance, it IS intolerance, and is therefore bad. I don’t give a crap about what motivates it.
Again with the mind-reading. No, Carnac, it doesn’t make me feel superior. It’s a simple statement of fact, like saying that someone who shuns all violence is a pacifist, or that someone who hates Jews is an antisemite. I may be wrong in that statement of fact, but your frankly pathetic attempts to divine my mental state are signs of a muddy argument indeed. Try focusing on the issue rather than your imaginings of my internal workings, see where that gets you.
Are you kidding? I read extensively on the issue, and I’ve changed my mind over the last several years on a point involved in the issue (which I won’t get into here, for fear of another hijack). No, I’m not prejudiced on the issue.
For pity’s sake, you’ve said many things about how I feel, and about how others feel. Your claim otherwise is simply untrue. And when you talk about their motives, you’re talking about how they feel. I don’t especially care about their motives for the purpose of figuring out whether they’re a bigot; I can about the actual opinions and positions they hold, and whether those opinions and positions are intolerant.
It’s not remotely meaningless to call everyone a bigot who opposes SSM. Why on earth would that render the word meaningless? It makes total sense to call people bigots as long as they’re holding to intolerant positions.
Far be it from me to junior moderate, but you’re gonna want to be careful with your quote tags there–you put someone else’s words in my mouth :).
I’m not sure that there is much point in continuing a discussion with a poster who cannot distinguish between ironic quotation marks and actual quotations.
At any rate, your insistence that simple opposition to (or failure to accept) Same Sex Marriage is a de facto example of “intolerance” is simply wrong.
You appear to enjoy calling people names. I have pointed out why the name you employ is inaccurate. We are not going to agree.
No. You have repeatedly made that assertion. You have *not *“pointed out why”, except by way of calling bigotry other names instead.
If, as you say, you are not going to agree, that reflects your own refusal to call a thing by its real name, nothing more.
Ah, so when you wrote that my argument was that
you were using ironic quotes? Is this the Alanis Morisette kind of irony? Because it’s certainly no kind of irony I’ve ever heard of.
No, it wasn’t ironic quotes. It was a crappy revision of my argument, one that’s easier to dismiss than my actual argument.
No, it’s not simply wrong. Refusing to tolerate a gay person’s marriage is precisely the sort of intolerance that bigotry is all about.
Yeah, calling you Carnac was kind of fun. So this time your mindreading act paid off. But I don’t enjoy calling people “bigots.” It’s just a term that applies in this case. You, however, appear to enjoy making arguments all about your opponent’s mental state, talking about their projections and need to feel superior and so on. Unless you can up your game, you’re right, there’s not much point in continuing this.
No one has established (outside their own minds) that failing to accept Same Sex Marriage is an example of intolerance.
I have pointed out how different people simply cannot understand the concept of Same Sex Marriage, which would not be an example of intolerance, but of ignorance or misunderstanding.
I have pointed out where people, (using President Obama as one example), have treated homosexuals without hatred or intolerance, but have opposed Same Sex Marriage.
I have pointed out that the U.S. population is steadily changing its views in regards to SSM which indicates that very large numbers of them cannot be successfully accused of obstinate devotion to a belief.
Those are key elements in a definition of bigot (and its usage notes) that simply do not apply to a very large number of people. I have pointed out the “why” and your failure to recognize that is not my problem.
I have laid out the reasons why I think the use of the word bigot is inappropriate in regards to many millions of people who have simply not (yet) changed their minds on an issue, while acknowledging that there are, indeed, bigots who hold a similar view. Motivation is an extremely important aspect of the word bigot and my opponents, here, appear to wish to ignore motivation simply to make available to themselves a derogatory word.
You appear to be using the word bigot as a synonym for disagrees with me and I reject that definition.
Are there degrees to bigotry? Let’s presume for a moment that everyone who doesn’t support SS is a bigot. Are there degrees of bigotry? Is someone who is a “bigot” because they only support civil unions instead of SS marriage the same as someone like the Islamists in Gaza or Iran who kill homosexuals for merely existing? Bigot is a bigot? Or perhaps throwing out terms like bigotry for situations where it doesn’t apply perhaps cheapens the meaning of the word? It’s done a lot by the left, to an almost laughable level cheapening words like racism, genocide, etc… I’ve heard people saying that gentrification is “genocide”. I often want to purchase people dictionaries so they can understand the words they are trying to use. But using terms like a word with “cide” at the end and using it in a way where nobody is even being killed?