This is silly. Opposition to interracial marriage is bad, as is opposition to SSM. But I know, for a fact, that an individual who opposed both was pretty critical in taking action that may have saved my life while I was in the Navy.
I don’t think that guy is a bad person (and this was years ago – he may have changed his mind on both counts). But his opposition to SSM and interracial marriage was bad.
No, SSM is a civil rights issue. It’s not as big as slavery, or as big as fighting Jim Crow and other aspects of the '60s Civil Rights movement, but it absolutely is a civil rights issue.
The debate is “over” in the sense that it is clear which side will win. The anti-SSM side is literally dying off. The demographics show that opponents of SSM are older and proponents are younger. And unlike other issues, this is generational and not something that changes as one grows older.
In a more technically correct sense, no debate is ever “over.” Even if only 2% of the population agrees with a position, sometimes that 2% can be objectively right and should still advocate for their position when required. I’m sure that at one point in this country’s history only 2% of the people were abolitionists, for example.
I tend to agree with adaher here, though. I don’t pretend that the world will end and the sky will fall when SSM is legal nationwide, but it is definitely shortsighted to call the opponents “bigots” when all they do is retain their support for what has been assumed to be true for thousands of years and what the most liberal President in history supported only two years ago.
The comparisons to interracial marriage are just question begging; I’ve never seen a decent argument as to how the two are the same.
But you see, they don’t mind that. It’s already well on its way to happening. And if people who oppose SSM are looked at the same as people who support ending the Fed, that’s fine.
It’s when you regard them as hateful people that it crosses a line, and that’s what many of us are worried about.
Once you cross that line, then it’s a very tiny step to saying that churches must marry gays.
Holding illogical views about race (say, ‘black people are more dangerous and less intelligent’) might indeed make one bigoted!
But I won’t say anything about individuals – just about claims and beliefs. Opposing SSM is a bigoted thing to do – just like opposing interracial marriage.
This is ridiculous, and would be an absolutely massive and unConstitutional step. There’s no possible way churches could be forced to marry gays. Churches don’t even have to admit gay people (or black people, or X people) as church members!
It could, sure. And likewise, many anti-zionists cross the line into anti-semetism. But being against SSM not bigoted in and of itself.
That’s a good point, although I disagree. Considering a view bigoted that was a majority view just two years ago(and was considered sacrosanct since the beginning of human civilization before that) is kinda nutty.
This is clown-car stuff. You can’t really believe this. Are you saying slave-owners in 1867 weren’t bigots, because their support of slavery may have been a majority view just a few years before? Were the White Citizens Councils in the 60s south not bigoted because their view may have been the majority view in the recent past?
You really ought to think hard before posting stuff like that.
Things are changing fast. A pretty large number of people who are opposed today will be in favor five years from now. Even more five years later. Many people are just haters, of course, and will never come around. Others are religious traditionalists, and they’ll need some time. Cheesesteak keeps hitting me with a good point which I’ve failed to acknowledge: views on SSM can be the same as views on divorce, as long as people reconcile themselves to the legality of it. But, religious people tend to move slow on that kind of thing, not because they are hateful, but because it takes a lot of soul-searching and a lot of sermons.
Given the movement of legislatures to approve SSM, I’d expect that SCOTUS would rather wait to give SSM democratic legitimacy.
Sure, but I saw very little of it. And SSM advocates were mostly very tolerant of divergent views, since most of them were the minority even among people they knew. Plus the political party they were most likely to support was against it in every election until 2012. That’s going to tend to make people have a little patience and civility.
Now that pro-SSM advocates are fairly comfortable in their camp, some of them are getting a little, er, frisky and combative. It’s counterproductive and will prolong the debate, because eventually it will get loud enough that politicians will have to take a stand on it. And those in favor of the “anti-SSMers are bigots” stance will not be happy with where those politicians choose to stand. I doubt that very many of them would endorse the view that 30-40% of their constituents are bigots. At least not if they want to keep their jobs.
I did, and I anticipated your response. I’m going Socratic on you.
If you read newspapers or what people wrote from the time, even the people who were doing this crap knew it was pure evil, but thought it a necessary one. They came up with all sorts of rationalizations, but few of them really believed any of it if they gave it a second of thought.
Secondly, marriage is a tradition. Slavery and Jim Crow were not traditions, they were ad hoc responses to what southerners thought they needed vis a vis social and economic policy. And their rationalizations were based on what they perceived as necessity, not some sacred tradition.
Marriage has meant a certain thing forever, up until about 2012, when public opinion finally turned. Some people are going to be slow. They should receive the same consideration the 90% of people who support same sex marriage now but didn’t 20 years ago received.
And adaher takes the Always Wrong About Everything Show on the road to visit other sacred right-wing blatheries. I appreciate your massive CONCERN for my people, adaher. I also give it about as much respect and thought as I give anything you post.
They were still bigots, obviously. Are you saying they weren’t? And if not, then I suppose you’re taking back that ridiculous “two years ago” post #107.
Slavery and Jim Crow absolutely were traditions, and they were even sacred traditions to some. Economics were only part of it – and in some cases a very small part. Many Southerners were happy to go against their economic interests if it meant they could still oppress black people.
They were still bigoted. Traditions can be bigoted.
Marriage has been many things. And yes, some people are going to be slow.
I would have been less slow to come around if someone had called me a bigot 15 years ago, I think. In my opinion, calling out bigotry is absolutely doing them a favor. If I do something bigoted, I absolutely want to be called out on it.
And further, they would have welcomed the term “bigot” because it is the very definition of the term. They would have agreed that blacks were inferior, needed to be kept in slavery, etc.
This new “being against SSM is the same thing as being against interracial marriage” is a comparison that is simply assumed without being shown to be similar in anything but a superficial way.
If I am in favor of adult incest, may I claim that anyone opposed to a legal marriage between me and my sister is a “bigot” because after all, people used to say the same thing about SSM? IOW, there is no equivalence unless it is shown.
No quite the opposite, opposition to interracial marriage was bigoted long before that. It’s just that you previously said
Suggesting that as long as 45% of the country is against it, you can’t call opposition bigoted. Yet you then produce a cite indicating that until recently, (long after such a view was seen as bigoted) that a high proportion of people opposed interracial marriage.
As far as Obama’s slow public acceptance of gay marriage, it just reflects political reality, which has been changing at a breath taking pace. I don’t think that most people would say that Kennedy was racist before 1961, yet at first he was reluctant to get directly involved in the fight for integration. There is a big difference between “don’t help” and “actually hurt”.
I think the majority of are people who may not like gay marriage and haven’t thought about it too much, and who can be easily informed and persuaded (not bigoted) and those who have been informed and yet still vehemently fight, argue and speak out against it (bigoted).
Yes, and he’ll be judged accordingly by people of good will. The incest comparison is almost as insulting as the bestiality one that opponents of marriage equality also like to bring up.
This is one of the most prescient posts from 2008 I’ve ever seen.
We’ll see. But I’ve lost track of how many state supreme courts have overturned anti-SSM laws in the last couple of months. I don’t see how the Supreme Court can refuse to take up all of those cases.
That’d be consistent with my “you were not paying attention theory.” That and selective memory also explain your view that anti-SSM advocates were polite. Perhaps you recall Senator Man-on-Dog?
I only wish there had been a way for you to post here in the '60s and '70s you could have complained that African-Americans were ruining the civility of the civil rights debate.
But where that falls apart is the feigned ignorance of one huge distinction: same sex couple are not naturally capable of producing children. And child-rearing was historically THE reason that society recognized pair bonding.
People against miscegenation never claimed that mixed couples couldn’t have kids; just that it was socially undesirable.
You may disagree with that assessment but it certainly has historical validity. My hypothetical incestuous marriage is at least capable of producing natural offspring.
Why is that so? Two people (brother and sister) love each other in a sexual way and wish to form a life-long loving relationship. You say they cannot marry each other and it is “insulting” to compare it to SSM? Is it because you personally find it immoral or disgusting?
I find it hilarious that people think they can pull out Obama’s lack of support for gay marriage to get me to say you can be against SSM and not be a bigot.
When he was against SSM he was saying bigoted things and, if the things he said were indicative of his mental state, he was a bigot. This isn’t gay rocket science.
