So, according to Mr. Sosoth, outing this minister in this way is not unethical or immoral, because the minister is a bad person. I’m willing to accept that logic. What I would like to know is, what are the limits on what we’re allowed to do to this guy, and how do we determine what those limits are? For example, can we kill him? Certainly, killing him would do a lot more to prevent him from spreading his evil than attempting to shame him publicly. Probably be a much better deterrent for his fellow evil-doers, too. If killing him isn’t okay, why not? We’ve already established that the ends justifies the means, and really, what’s snuffing out one little life, compared to the damage demagogues like this inflict on the body public? And if murder is ruled out, what exactly is the upper limit on what acts are permisable, provided we disagree with the victim strongly enough?
Maybe you could force him to watch “I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry” repeatedly until he has changed his views on homosexuality…
Let them think that. Those people wouldn’t change their minds anyway. Trying to appease them will be an exercise in futility. How do you change the mind of someone who thinks being gay is evil and tries hard to deny their own homosexuality? You can’t reason with them, you can’t convince them, you can’t provide enough proof to change their minds. The only way to affect their behavior is through fear, fear of outing, fear of shame, fear of ostracism.
This isn’t a “let’s just leave them alone and they’ll come around” issue. If you do nothing to these people, they’ll go to these brainwashing camps and come out like Ted Haggard, “100% straight”. Or they’ll hide it. Or they’ll molest kids or something. But for these ultra-religious nuts, coming around to the correct belief that being gay is ok will not happen.
As for laws, they are already trying to pass, and have sucessfully passed, many laws limited gays. Marriage, adoption, hospital visiting rights and inheritance. Hell, come out as gay, and you can’t even be a scoutmaster, the military can still kick you out, and retarded parents may pull their kids out of school to get them away from you. You are fearing a slipperly slope that has already happened. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by not violating the privacy of these jackasses
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It’s also higher among minorities. Should we take blood only from the safest racial group? Rich people are also healthier, maybe only they should be allowed to donate as well.
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Like others have asked me, where do you draw the line? Gays are less safe than straights. Poor are less safe than rich. White vs. black, and probably men vs. women, old vs. young.
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When did they start letting gays donate?
It’s so tiring to always come across this line of debate as if it’s the be all, end all of debate strategy. I suppose Rosa Parks should have given up her seat, slaves in the South should never have ran away, or the US fired a shot at the British? People ask me how far I’m willing to go as if outing a guy in a support group is the equivalent of waterboarding a suspected terrorist. Maybe you people need to get some perspective
Yes, in this case, the ends justifies the means. The means isn’t even all that horrible. A reporter outed a notoriously anti-gay bastard attending a brainwashing session. Big fucking deal. Nobody died, and at worst, the pastor will have to deal with people knowing who he really is instead of simply what he pretends to be
Yeah, and when a bad thing happens to a bad person, the bad thing becomes not so bad. Might even be a good thing
You can assume that suddenly AA or Gambler’s Anonymous will have people fearing for their privacy. I choose to live in reality where this is simply a singular event and not part of some grand conspiracy to attack anonymous groups or a descent into a world where anonymous groups are harder to infiltrate than the Taliban. It’s just one reporter outing one anti-gay bastard. Hell, if he wasn’t such an anti-gay bastard and spoke publically about his hatred of gays, I doubt the reporter would even bother. Did the reporter out anyone else in the group? Would you guys bet your life that he’ll out another one within a year? There’s speculation and then there’s crazy talk and you guys have ceased speculation and crossed the line
The old “let’s agree for a second so I can seem reasonable then hit you with a bunch of hyperbole” debate tactic? You couldn’t have just come out and ask me how far I’m willing to go?
Ok, I’ll tell you my limits, and if you’re sincere, I’m sure you won’t be following up with “So why have the line here and not there? Why not a little further? Just a little more? Oh wait too far YOU LOSE!”
No, we can’t kill him, that goes too far. We can’t physically beat him to a pulp, also goes too far. We can’t harass his family and friends, goes too far. We can’t steal or damage any of his property. No physical harm should come to him, though I’m all for allowing physical harm to come to him through inaction. I draw these limits simply because I think they go too far, just as I think it was ok for the reporter to out him. Make him live up to his beliefs, especially since those beliefs are his. If you don’t want to face what you believe in, then don’t fucking believe in them, especially if it harms people
If you think that arbitrary, well I got news for you, every such line is abritrary. There’s no real reason any of our protections should end where they do. All of it is human invented and all of it has changed at one point in history or another, or will change in the future. You can bitch and moan about arbitrary lines you don’t like all you want, but you have no more objective correctness on your line than I do mine. I simply have no problems with what that reporter did, you guys do, that’s all there is to it.
The expectation of privacy has been degraded. That’s simply a fact. And if it happens again, it will be degrade further. That means fewer people who might benefit from a support group will be going that route. And this is fine with you because why? “Oh, he’s such a bad man because he doesn’t believe what I believe.” I guess you’re unable to take a stand on principle—whatever jives with your world view is good, everything else bad. Doesn’t matter how you win, just that you win. Doesn’t matter if innocent people will suffer because of it, just that you feel better.
Gotcha.
Dude, you have some serious issues.
It’s a slippery slope that’s already happened. There are reporters and other assorted busybodies who cruise the parking lots of the churches and community centers that host 12-step meetings to see whose cars are parked there. In fact, (at least about 20 years or so ago) there were meetings in some places that moved around frequently to protect the privacy of the (generally) famous people who attended so they could deal with their problems without facing reporters and paparazzi waiting at the door (or worse, who had infiltrated the meeting itself). Alcoholics Anonymous, as an organization, has tried to encourage the media to respect the anonymity of meeting participants. (Here is AA’s statement requesting that respect.) It’s not just about the press, either. I know people who have lost jobs because someone saw their car in the church parking lot on meeting night and told their bosses; in a small town, that can guarantee that another job may be hard (if not impossible) to find.
My own opinion is that attending support group meetings of any kind in order to gather dirt on one or more of its participants is morally and ethically scummy, and the “reporters” who engage in this practice don’t deserve to be working journalists. Whatever you feel about the Rev. Brock, the other people in that group are entitled to attend without fear of having their privacy (and their trust) violated.
That being said, this very topic came up in a journalism class I took in college. The professor was pretty emphatic that there is no ethical way to use personal information gleaned from infiltrating private meetings. Obviously, if the reporter is doing a story on the group itself, that’s different. But there can’t be any personal information in the story, and even discussing the demographics of a group as a whole is questionable because it can be used to identify specific members. The point of the discussion was that utmost care needs to be taken to preserve the privacy and dignity of all of the members of a support group, and that includes the guy you’re targeting because you disagree with him. Anything else is, as I said, scummy.
This was completely wrong, and the reporter in question should never work again.
That being said, I have to wonder what the hell the pastor was thinking. There’s no mechanism to enforce the anonymity and confidentiality at meetings like this one, so it’s basically just a courtesy that the participants extend to one another. You just can’t count on everybody in the meeting maintaining that courtesy.
I’m a professional in a small town, where almost everybody knows who I am. I’m lucky enough to have never had issues with substance abuse, but if I did there’s no way in the world I would go to a local AA or NA meeting, because it would take less than 24 hours before half of the town knew about it. I don’t even think it would be malicious, since I don’t know of anyone who would want to tear me down, but gossip is hard to resist and people are generally not good at keeping their mouths shut.
It doesn’t excuse what the reporter did, but the pastor really should have seen this coming.