# Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 2, 2014, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472 "2014-05-02T00:00:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/221 "2014-05-03T11:36:29Z")
I have eradicated bigots from my life (not that I ever had much, or any that I can actually recall past high school), haven’t ever worked for any to my knowledge, and do not vote. What do I win, and what was that supposed to prove ? Besides, I think \*\*Bricker \*\*holds the copyright on the Come See The Liberal Hypocrisy card and you don’t want to tangle with a lawyer about copyright, it’s bad mojo. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/222 "2014-05-03T11:40:56Z")
Heh, good point. Let’s backtrack to more amiable ground here. And this question is directed at everyone. What is your reaction when accusations of racism or anti-semetism or any other -ism get thrown around and you don’t feel the accusations are justified? Are you familiar with the Walt/Mearsheimer paper which purported to demonstrate the power of the Jewish lobby in Washington? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/223 "2014-05-03T11:47:43Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I also wonder, since what your advocating is about as bad as imprisonment, why not go a step further and just throw people in jail for having views you don’t like? Yeah, I’m gonna go with **Brian Ekers** here. > [@](#): > > I assume you meant this to be funny and flippant, rather than a thoughtful response. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/224 "2014-05-03T11:50:31Z")
Why? Other democracies throw people in jail for expressing the wrong thoughts. And personally, I don’t approve of extralegal methods to achieve the same ends that imprisonment does. But at least we’re admitting now that the goal isn’t just to criticize. It is actually to destroy people for thought crimes. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/225 "2014-05-03T11:56:08Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s been that way for 5000 years. Some people haven’t come around yet. Be patient. Us damn impatient queers. Waiting a mere 5,000 years for equal rights. After all, what’s the big rush? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/226 "2014-05-03T12:05:48Z")
You have a dream I guess. You dream of a day when you can destroy your enemies. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/227 "2014-05-03T12:06:53Z")
BTW, who here is boycotting Alec Baldwin movies? Anyone? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/228 "2014-05-03T12:32:53Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I would have just been pissed off. Andrew Sullivan persuaded me to support SSM. And he continues to be a voice of reason on the issue. This is what he wrote about the Eich firing: > > [The Hounding Of A Heretic – The Dish](http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-brendan-eich/) > > Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us. You really oughta quote stuff that others say to avoid confusion. But in any case, so what? Eich wasn’t ‘hounded’, there wasn’t even a boycott. There was just angry emails, and then a company made a business decision. Sometimes, doing bigoted things can have consequences. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/229 "2014-05-03T12:33:28Z")
The President, explaining his evolution from hateful bigot to enlightened individual who tolerates and respects hateful bigots: “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word marriage was something that invokes very powerful traditions and religious beliefs.” ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/230 "2014-05-03T12:35:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > You really oughta quote stuff that others say to avoid confusion. > > But in any case, so what? Eich wasn’t ‘hounded’, there wasn’t even a boycott. There was just angry emails, and then a company made a business decision. > > Sometimes, doing bigoted things can have consequences. It was a political campaign. So you’re saying that it’s justifiable to not hire someone based on their political involvement? Of course, it is legal to discriminate based on political beliefs, but is it right? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/231 "2014-05-03T12:36:15Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I think you’re eliding the issue about people’s rights being violated for thought crimes. if all that came from having the “wrong” views was being criticized for those views, no biggie. If we’re all adults, then we can take it. It’s when it crosses into social ostracization and the ending of people’s careers that it crosses a line. Does the same go for racism, or just anti-SSM? If the CEO of a company, it turns out, has privately said black people are inferior, should we keep our mouths shut because that’s his private views? > [@](#): > > There was an attempt to get a boycott of Enders’ Game going because Orson Scott Card dares to actually take his Mormon teachings seriously. Fortunately, that didn’t get very far and Harrison Ford rightly said, “It’s just not an issue.” Ford disagrees with Orson Scott Card. he did not feel morally bound to disassociate himself with the man, as some of you would wish. It was a bit more than that, as others have said – Card isn’t just anti-SSM, but has said many extremely homophobic and bigoted stuff. If a contemporary author said similar things about black people or Jews, I would hope he would suffer a loss of readership. Would you? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/232 "2014-05-03T12:38:42Z")
I think it’s quite inappropriate that Noam Chomsky doesn’t often get to appear on American TV. I think his hateful views should get a proper hearing. Plus the fact that he can’t get on TV in this country gives credence to his arguments. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/233 "2014-05-03T12:45:07Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Do you know a lot of religious people? A few years ago, there was a guy, a young guy too, with a petition to ban same sex marriage in front of a grocery store. He was going on about the “gay agenda” and how they were recruiting new members by preying on our children and good God the ignorance just burned. That guy was acting in a very bigoted manner. > [@](#): > > But then there’s the people in my wife’s church, all African-Americans who know a thing or two about being discriminated against and marginalized, but their faith tells them clearly that homosexuality is sinful. They don’t hate their gay brothers and sisters, but they just can’t support legal or social recognition of their permanent relationships. Instead, they try to convert them to straight people. Those good people are also acting in a bigoted manner. They still might be good people, but the actions you describe are bigoted actions. > [@](#): > > It’s stupid, but it’s not hateful. Most bigotry is stupid and not hateful. Bigotry is far from always about hatred. [quote] And I just don’t see most religious people changing on this. Why not? Many have changed, statistically, in just the last decade. > [@](#): > > they’ll eventually come to accept SSM as a legal reality(thus the “terms of surrender”), but socially they’ll never regard a same sex marriage as equivalent to a traditional marriage. It’ll always be just a civil union to most religious people. Who cares what their personal views are? I just care about _not doing bigoted things_. If they don’t advocate against gay couples (or the like), then they’re not doing bigoted things. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/234 "2014-05-03T12:45:28Z")
Okay, so lets say I concede the bigotry issue. Opposition to same sex marriage is bigoted. That being said, how do we treat the people who are still bigoted? Do we hound them out of public life, ostracize them, shun them? Or do we show understanding and wait until they come around, as SSM advocates did for the President? I have to confess, I can’t recall a single person calling the President a bigot when he expressed his support for traditional marriage based on his Christian beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/235 "2014-05-03T12:47:24Z")
…So, can we conclude at this point that “The debate is over, but **adaher** hasn’t gotten the memo yet”? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/236 "2014-05-03T12:48:20Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’m tolerant. That was once a virtue. Tolerance of bigotry, if it means saying and doing nothing with regards to bigoted actions, is certainly no virtue. > [@](#): > > I believe that a society which hounds certain views so that they are not expressed even though many believe them to not be a healthy society. I think that applies even to racism. I want to know how racist the average joe is, I don’t want to wonder. And we should call such views what they are when they cross that line, and when we’re SURE they cross that line, and we’re also sure that the view being expressed is outside the mainstream. If the view is mainstream, we need to change the view through education. Shouting them down doesn’t tell them they are wrong, it tells them they are right and the truth is too uncomfortable for other people to hear. So you’re just arguing about tactics? Fine – shouting down is often a poor tactic. And most pro-SSM folks aren’t shouting people down. Some may be, but most aren’t. But calling out bigotry is not shouting people down. It’s doing them a favor. I wish someone had done me that favor 15 years ago – I would have come around a lot quicker. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/237 "2014-05-03T12:52:03Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The President, explaining his evolution from hateful bigot to enlightened individual who tolerates and respects hateful bigots: > > “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word marriage was something that invokes very powerful traditions and religious beliefs.” He wasn’t a hateful bigot – he supported something bigoted. As did I, 15 years ago. He was wrong, as was I. Calling that bigoted is the right and correct thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/238 "2014-05-03T12:53:28Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It was a political campaign. So you’re saying that it’s justifiable to not hire someone based on their political involvement? > > Of course, it is legal to discriminate based on political beliefs, but is it right? Who wasn’t hired? Do you mean because he resigned/ was forced out? Companies don’t force people out because of political views, they force people out because they’re afraid they will cost them money. That’s about the purest and best reason for a company to force someone out. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/239 "2014-05-03T12:53:57Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Tolerance of bigotry, if it means saying and doing nothing with regards to bigoted actions, is certainly no virtue. That depends on the situation. If someone is actively seeking to do harm, or incite hatred, then that is cause for a strong response. > [@](#): > > So you’re just arguing about tactics? Fine – shouting down is often a poor tactic. And most pro-SSM folks aren’t shouting people down. Some may be, but most aren’t. But calling out bigotry is not shouting people down. It’s doing them a favor. > > I wish someone had done me that favor 15 years ago – I would have come around a lot quicker. Maybe I should feel morally superior for having been persuaded by an argument, because I certainly wouldn’t be persuaded by a moral scold. But I guess us right-wingers aren’t as sensitive to that line of “argument”. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/240 "2014-05-03T12:54:45Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I think it’s quite inappropriate that Noam Chomsky doesn’t often get to appear on American TV. I think his hateful views should get a proper hearing. Plus the fact that he can’t get on TV in this country gives credence to his arguments. You really need to spell out when you’re serious or not. Chomsky doesn’t get on TV much because many of his views and the things he says are way out of the mainstream. But so what? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472.md?page=13)