Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over?

Great Debates
261

So, this is basically another case of a straight guy who’s been pro gay rights for all of fifteen minutes, coming in and telling people who have been materially involved in the gay rights struggle for decades that they’ve been doing it wrong.

That’s great. We don’t get nearly enough of that.

adaher’s posts in this thread are like a celebration of Not Knowing What the Fuck You’re Talking About. The constant Obama-gotcha he keeps trying to play is particularly hilarious, largely because he appears to think he’s come up with something new. He hasn’t, of course. Conservatives have been playing that game since before Obama’s “evolution,” and the answer to it then was the same as it is now. Barack Obama was a bigot for opposing gay marriage. He was also the least bigoted option for president, which is why we voted for him anyway. For much of his first term, he was regularly criticized for his tepid support for gay causes, starting literally from the day he was inaugurated, when he asked noted homophobe Rick Warren to speak.

The fact that the Democrats regularly would pay lip service to the gay lobby, then throw us under the bus as soon as they had our money, was a regular source of resentment in gay rights circles. Fuck, they even made it into a B-plot for a West Wing episode. It’s literally only within the last few years that the Democratic party has become an ally to the gay rights movement in any real sense, as opposed to merely being the least vicious of our enemies, and this is something that has been noted and discussed in the gay rights movement for decades.

Equally amusing is his idea that opposition to marriage equality only started being called bigotry when it became the majority position. The idea that opposition to SSM is a form of bigotry has been a core position of the gay rights movement since the beginning. There was never a point in the contemporary gay rights movement where opposition to full legal equality for gays was defined as anything other than bigotry.

Which leads us into the third nugget of nonsense: dire warnings that these sorts of tactics are going to backfire! Never mind that it’s precisely these sorts of tactics that have turned national opinion around on the topic faster than any other civil rights movement in our nations history. Turns out, calling people “bigots” is actually a really good way to get them to stop being bigots!

Which is, again, the sort of thing he might have figured out on his own, if he’d actually paid any attention to the history of the gay rights movement before he jumped in the boat and started giving out orders.

PS: the idea that bisexuals are necessarily polygamous is, itself, a species of prejudice.

262

I could’ve sworn this isn’t the first time you’ve made pretty much exactly that post… about exactly that poster. Or maybe that was someone else, I dunno.

263

Adaher seems to have entered loop mode, but I’m glad I checked back anyway, so I didn’t miss Miller’s glorious post. Well put.

264

Now we are at least getting to specifics about what is protected and what is not. But let me play devil’s advocate.

Drinking, at least to some, is immutable. An alcoholic didn’t choose to be that way but he drinks excessively nonetheless. Many studies show that alcoholism is genetic. I would put it on your list alongside sexual orientation. The only difference is the harm caused to others (alcoholism=huge; sexual orientation=not so much).

Also pedophilia has shown to be immutable in some instances.

You gave your (quite reasonable) standard for chosen actions. I notice that you didn’t give one for immutable characteristics. What discrimination, for example, should be allowed for blind bus drivers and female firefighters who cannot carry the same equipment as men, or for people who have a predisposition to have sex with children? I am not, repeat not, trying to say that homosexuals, alcoholics, blind bus drivers, or pedophiles have any more in common than immutable traits. I’m not saying that the result of their actions/genetics are in any way the same.

Further, religion should be elevated above other chosen actions. First, it could be argued that faith by its very nature is immutable. Second, it is protected by the Constitution unlike other choices or even other immutable characteristics. Speech is similar. I can CHOOSE not to criticize the GOP Congress, but I still have a protected right to do so.

So it seems that your distinction between genetics and pure choice is simply not supported by history and the Constitution, and I respectfully disagree.

265

Whatever is necessary to prevent harm to folks who ain’t consenting adults. You noticed it in the paragraph about alcoholics right there; just keep on applying it.

266

There’s also the market in political donations. Many of the conservative big-money donors are primarily interested in electing politicians who will cut taxes and regulations. A decade ago (e.g. the 2004 elections), hatin’ on Teh Gayz was a useful tool toward that end; now, it’s outlived its usefulness and has become a liability. So they’re cutting off the NOM wing – nothing personal, just business.

267

Yes, I did consider him bigoted to a degree. His opposition was entirely based on religion and used that as a reason. As I said earlier, expecting me or anyone else to live based on your religious beliefs is asinine. Now I did give him some benefit of the doubt because he was being supportive in other areas such as ENDA, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, etc. Not to mention that he was clearly hedging for political expediency. He supported SSM as a Senator and went through several public changes in that support.

268

Taking the OP in a completely different direction, I actually questioned the need for Gay Pride events these days. Yes, I know, “the fight’s not over,” and when I think about it I still see the need for visibility of gay pride.

But I went to SF and other CA gay pride events throughout the 80s + 90s, and it is SO AMAZING HOW DIFFERENT IT FEELS NOW.

269

Heh. I agree with that. Last year I went to LA pride and was bored senseless. It has completely been taken over by corporate marketing. The booths are all churches, HIV clinics and business (mostly banking, other financial services, timeshare companies) groups. There is no sense of community, working on goals and the great things we used to do. This year if I go near the area, it will just be to hang out at the bars with friends.

270

Maybe his dictionary has the words “bigerant” (meaning an opinion that is bigoted until 2015-01-01 00:00:01 and tolerant thereafter) and “tolot” (meaning an opinion that is tolerant until 2015-01-01 00:00:01 and bigoted thereafter).

271

I understand the philosophy; Libertarians say it all of the time. But such a thing is unsupported by our history and the contemporary belief of society. Nobody cares if the Clippers’ owner hates blacks. Nobody thinks that his personal beliefs hurt any other adult. Society still allows him to be divested of his ownership of the LA Clippers.

Likewise, I don’t hurt any other adult, specifically, by having homosexual sodomy, smoking marijuana, jerking off my dog, working on the Sabbath day, or swearing profane oaths. Yet all of the above have historically, and most importantly, been accepted by the courts and society as reasonable restrictions on freedom that hurts no one but society in general.

It’s a relatively new concept that morals laws are not only a bad idea, but bigotry and forbidden by the Constitution, and the “its only against the law if it hurts someone” has never been widely accepted.

272

Multiple marriage creates a plethora of potential legal complications (e.g. how to handle property division and custody if one partner leaves while the rest of the marriage remains intact) that simply cannot arise with a two-partner marriage of either heterosexual or homosexual composition.

It’s not an absolutely compelling reason to prohibit it, but the claim that there is “no good legal argument” against it is thus shown to be obvious nonsense.

273

I reject that premise. I think it’s perfectly healthy for a society to (for example) shun and disparage open expressions of racism to the point where most racists are too embarrassed to express these views very often and the ones who do are generally regarded as pathetic losers who should not be emulated. Lather, rinse, and repeat for a few decades, and a generation grows up that never learns the bad habits.

Religion is welcome to hang around. Over time, it gets purged of the tendency to teach its adherents to despise “Christ-killers”, “bearers of the Mark of Ham”, “sodomites”, etc, through the above-described social mechanism.

274

::shrugs:: We’re moving in the right direction; that we used to get even more things wrong is hardly evidence against it. Keep deriving that ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, though.

275

It’s good of you to point out a fact of which the gay community otherwise would have remained utterly ignorant.

276

You might want to get around to reading it yourself… or at least the following [noparse]TL:DR[/noparse] highlight:

277

Why are you all ENGAGING HIM?! Jesus Christ. Anyone who’s been around here for longer than a week KNOWS adaher doesn’t debate fairly or with anything resembling facts. It’s like declaiming to a brick wall. Give it up. Let him live in his bubble of delusion.

278

It can be good exercise, like punching a speed bag as a warm-up before taking on real opponents.

279

You omiitted the dash of “If you won’t tolerate intolerance you’re a hypocrite. Gotcha ya!” Otherwise, spot on.

280

If an action is sufficiently harmful to others (e.g. drunk driving and pedophilia), we make it illegal. It is not illegal to discriminate against felons in employment and that’s fine with me.

Discrimination based on bona fide occupational qualifications is legal. It is legal to not hire women for a male film role, for example. Blind driver or drunk worker falls into this category. Whether a requirement is an actual BFOQ, or not really necessary for the job but used to discriminate, is constantly being debated. “Must do X pull ups” for firefighters fall into this category.

Of all the chosen actions, I would argue that forming families and reproducing should be above all else, since these are much more fundamental to the human existence. Religion is indeed privileged over other beliefs in this country, even though it’s not particularly immutable nor universal.

Congress shall make no law suppressing/supporting the practice of religion or suppressing speech. The issue of employment discrimination falls under Equal Protection.

The criteria I outlined are consistent with current federal legislation, with the sole exception of sexual orientation which is the content of current debate (and legislative attempts). Protection from discrimination by sex, race, and national origin is broadest in the original Civil Rights Act, with religion subject to some exceptions. Pregnancy, disability and age were added later. Religious organizations can discriminate broadly based on religion but only narrowly (ministerial exemption) based on other characteristics. Alcoholics and pedophiles are not protected classes.