Yeah just so long as being known to believe it is not going to get you fired like the Mozilla guy
Mozilla made a business decision – they thought they’d lose money by keeping him. I didn’t really care that much – but one of the consequences of free speech is that people might be listening, and some people might not like what you say.
And that’s a feature, not a bug.
Being an asshole isn’t a protected class under discrimination laws. Unfortunately for assholes.
Well, that’s certainly what you’re getting. And such language isn’t even allowed in the Pit. Don’t do it again, ever.
Could you point out the specific emanation from the particular penumbra of whichever clause of the Constitution contains “The Right To Not Be Called A Meanie Poopy-Head”?
Yes. In old days, people who opposed SSM were very respectful of the fags and dykes and supporters, who were presumably queer too, amirite?
There isn’t one, and I don’t think adaher is arguing there is one. I also generally agree with his sentiment.
If we are being honest, this is perhaps the one political issue where opinions can be changed and are changing. Look at how much progress has been made since DOMA was signed. I mean, even look at the change since 2008 when neither Obama, Biden, or Clinton would openly support same-sex marriage and now in 2016 it would be suicide for any Democratic contender to not support it. Views on this issue can and do change.
I would guess that many people who oppose same-sex marriage are not homophobes but do have a strong traditionalist feeling about the word ‘marriage’. These are the people whose opinions can be changed. Being civil with these people really has an effect, and demonizing them after their views have changed for their previous thoughts is not productive either. Some people truly are bigoted and will never change; being civil with these people is not going to get anywhere. Most people aren’t like that.
Baring the ability to read minds, how do we tell the “traditionalists” from the bigots, especially when they both use the same tired clichés?
If we’re considering this the equivalent of racism, then it goes much further than being called a meanie poopy-head.
So hopefully that means we aren’t actually comparing opposition to SSM to racism.
No it doesn’t, in most cases.
How does being called a racist/homophobe/bigot infringe on someone’s rights?
You don’t. That’s why civility matters. What percentage of people in Texas or Utah supported same-sex marriage in 1996? Polling in both states is about 50/50 now. That sounds like a lot of people changed their minds. If someone is openly bigoted, then sure. But many people can and have come around on this issue.
You assume someone is a traditionialist unless they say hateful things.
Unlike the race issue, where some religious folks tried to shoehorn it in somehow, opposition to homosexuality is actually part of almost every established faith. Secondly, racism has varied from place to place and from time to time. What white Americans did to African-Americans was a pretty noxious form of it that stands apart from the normal racial tensions that all societies suffer from.
The marriage issue, by contrast, is something that has been fairly consistent across time and across civilizations. It’s either between a man and a woman, or a man and many women. Adding same sex marriage to the definition is a brand new thing, and acting as if the 40% of Americans who haven’t reconciled themselves to it yet are the equivalent of Bull Connor is just damn ignorant. 4000 years of tradition, across civilizations, says there is no place for same sex marriage. Society’s views of marriage have evolved enough now that there is a place for it, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to just snap to and toe the line because an arbitrary number of people were persuaded by the argument.
What’s bugging me is that we were content to have a normal political debate on the issue when SSM proponents were the minority, but now that they are the majority, their attitude is that anyone who hasn’t figured it out by now is a Bad Person.
If political leaders ever pick up on that kind of attitude, public opinion will take an ugly turn against SSM advocates.
It’s okay to believe whatever you want.
Holding that belief is bigoted.
And this particular ugliness bothers you, right?
So, the President was a bigot up until 2012? And he will be campaigning for bigots like Mary Landrieu in 2014.
Good to know.
Gallagher’s message is clearly directed to the former, given the repeated references to carrying on the Lost Cause through other avenues (e.g. “We have the resources to survive, and if we survive, to eventually flourish.”).
The problem with “being civil” is that the irredentists to which Gallagher is addressing herself want to define “civility” in a way that defangs the normal mechanisms of social opprobrium that provide the very foundations of civility in the first place. She raises the specter of being “stigmatized and marginalized as the equivalent of racism in the American public square”. If she’s arguing that it’s wrong for people to glare contemptuously and turn away when someone uncorks a racist remark, she ought to have the courage to say so. If she is not taking that position, on what grounds does she consider it unjust for the same consequences to follow a homophobic remark?
BTW, there is a legitimate reason to believe marriage is between a man and a woman. Maggie Gallagher herself has expressed it.
Marriage isn’t for adult fulfillment and happiness. It’s a foundation for raising families.
Now I understand that society’s view of marriage has evolved and now it is all about the adults and what THEY want. But there are many people of faith who still hold to the old view of what marriage is, and they are not bigots.
Maggie Gallagher is not a bigot. Ross Douthat is not a bigot. Barack Obama was not a bigot pre-2012.
I agree that pure homophobia should be treated much like racism. Opposition to gay marriage, or as traditionalists put it, support for traditional marriage, is not homophobia in itself, any more than anti-Zionism is anti-semetic or being anti-affirmative action is racist. Heck, a lot of people are against interracial marriage who aren’t necessarily racists. Ask 10 black women what they think about interracial marriage and I dare you to call the 2 or 3 who have a problem with it that they are racists to their face.
The reason to maintain civility is because you just don’t f’ing KNOW. You don’t. You’re adhering to a morality that is different from the average persons and treating it like pure religious dogma. Outside the bubble that is SDMB I’d be surprised if you could find 1 in 5 people who believe that opposition to SSM is bigoted in and of itself. Even on SDMB I’d be surprised if you could even get a slim majority for that view. So, you can continue to be holier than thou, or you can acknowledge that most people have reasons other than hatred for the way they think about the issue.
Correct; there’s evidence he supported same-sex marriage in the '90s, before the public did. 