If you’re not being sarcastic, then of course. Actually, you can use it as a sig even if you *are *being sarcastic. 
'Cause it was really important that we have a pile-on.
No sarcasm. I like the way it’s dismissive of bigoted opinions. It indicates just how much contempt you have for the opinion if you don’t even bother to respond to it. It seems far more scathing than rebutting it would be. It’s akin to the arguing with an idiot and getting beat by experience adage.
Though I do wonder how to distinguish between ignorant people who can be reasoned with and have their minds changed and those who are too pig-headed and self-righteous to bother with.
And maybe things would have gone better if you didn’t open your end of the discussion with the horseshit line.
I don’t have contempt for any “opinion,” if it’s about a matter of opinion. “Disapproving” of homosexuality is not a matter of opinion; it’s not rational at all. Everyone here recognizes the absurdity of a statement such as, “I don’t approve of black people.” Very few people here would argue that such an “opinion” is worthy of engagement.
By honoring such irrational statements of “opinion” with respectful debate, you continue to encourage such people with the suggestion that their “opinions” are rational. Will you change a racist’s mind with debate? No. We’ve learned over the last 50 years or so, after trying to educate the racism out of the racists, that ultimately the only strategy that works is to marginalize them; to refuse to confer upon them the ammunition that respectful engagement confers upon them.
We’re at the same stage with homophobes. The educational phase has been going on, in earnest, for over 30 years now. The educables have been educated. It’s time to write off the irrational stragglers. Racists have to gather in secret, by firelight, with pillow cases over their heads. Let the homophobes gather in the closets they’ve built for me to live in. It’s vacant.
So yes, I have the same kind of contempt for homophobes that I have for racists. But it’s not because of a disagreement of “opinion.” It’s because of their willful clinging to an irrational, harmful ignorance. “Opinion” ain’t a part of it.
Interesting points, lissener. I consider myself a tolerant person, but one thing I’m not very tolerant of is intolerance. Someone pointed the contradiction in that out to me once, and I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that some things are not to be tolerated. Some things are empirically bad.
I respectfully disagree. Byrd is a fine example. While sometimes it seems a battle not worth fighting, it would seem to me that there is a segment of any subgroup that makes the fight against ignorance worth fighting.
Sorry, but whenever I see the term “Gay agenda,” I can’t help but think of this.
I never said it was not “worth” fighting. Only that the fighting has been done. It’s time to move on. Lone stragglers wandering around the battlefield whining “why won’t somebody fight with me?” don’t really mean the fight is still going on.
(And I get so bone tired of people who respond to an argument with nothing but an example that serves no purpose other than to say, in effect, “there’s an exception to every rule.” [“Human life expetancy is around 75 years.” “Nuh uh! my sister died when she was three, and my grandmother is 102!”] Well duh. Intelligent adults understand, going into a debate, that if you turn over enough rocks, you can find anomalous exceptions to almost EVERY general statement; that’s the universally acknowledged Achilles’ heel of most generalizations. Finding the odd exception does absolutely nothing to invalidate my basic position.)
And even putting all this aside, do whatever you want: continue trying to teach that pig to sing. If someone needs to “debate” their disapproval of homosexuality–if they’re still ignorant enough to feel that this is a debatable “opinion”–then they’re gonna have to find another teacher. Me, I’ve put in my time educating. I’m moving on, to try to devote the rest of the time I have left on this planet to myself. I’m not wasting any more of my time engaging with homophobes. You want to, go head on. Me, I’m moving on.
Homosexuals as marginalized second-class citizens who bear the burden of proving that we have a right to an equal place in society is the old paradigm. The new one is that our social and legal equality is a given; that gays as mainstream citizens is the status quo.* The burden is now upon the homophobes. I don’t have to take the stand in my own defense just because they’re unable to make their case.
*Not that we have achieved complete equality; only that my paradigm is that such equality is my inalienable right, and the burden is on the homophobes to prove why it should taken away from me. The burden is no longer on me to prove my worthiness of being given such equality as a privilege.
I agree. “Intolerant of intolerance” is nothing but a word game. “Intolerance” this context means being “intolerant” of another human being’s essential selfhood (how nonsensical is that?). Being intolerant of that intolerance is to reject such irrational thought. THere’s no parallel between being “intolerant” of a harmful opinion, and being intolerant of another human being.
Besides, my disagreeing with a homophobe’s ideas does not in any way limit their rights; they have a right to express their irrational thoughts, and I have a right to respond to them. The homophobes want to limit my actual rights, civil and otherwise. Again, there’s simply no parallel.
This reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to start a pit thread about for a long time, but never did. There was an anti-gay conference that was run by various Religious Right groups with the word family in their name in this area about a year ago, and my parents went. They brought back a lot of brochures and stuff.
One of the brochures was about supposed health issues related to homosexuality. I can’t remember most of it except that it was really bad, but one thing was particularly appalling: They printed the claim that it’s a common homosexual practice to anally insert gerbils.
You’ll never guess what they cited (they didn’t actually quote from it). Their source for this bit of knowledge:
The Straight Dope column about the subject.
Now go look up the column. You should be able to find it by searching the archives for ‘gerbil’.
You see the disconnect, right? These people are liars, pure and simple. You can’t even attribute it to ignorance. They are spreading lies about gay people.
But of course, it’s only the things you oppose that are “empirically bad.” Other people’s moral positions are just prejudice, right? :dubious:
If your position is that the fundamental rights of other human beings should be limited because of your own personal prejudices, then that’s hardly a “moral position” at all.
Here’s the thing, and it’s a point I’ve made so many times I swear I ought to have it saved somewhere so I can just cut and paste it.
Jesus and the Bible condemn a lot of things, often in the same verses which are used to condemn homosexuality, things such as gossip, malice, slander, etc., along with adultery, theft, and murder. I’ve never seen a person use homosexuality to damage another person. I have seen gossip, malice, and slander damage people, including me. Indeed, a very dear friend’s marriage was destroyed by malicious gossip and slander. While the person responsible for this was gay, his actions had nothing to do with his homosexuality, and everything to do with his desire for self-aggrandizement. A few years ago, I read an article in USA Today about people’s attitudes toward homosexuality and one thing that annoyed me is that members of a church ruined a man’s reputation by spreading rumours that he was gay.
The person Jesus first revealed Himself was guilty of sexual immorality – she was the Samaritan woman at the well who’d had five husbands and her most recent one was not her own. One of the few times Christ speaks of condemnation, it has nothing to do with sexuality, and everything to do with not caring for the poor, hungry, and needy.
As some of you know, one of my oldest friends is gay. I’ve known him since 5th grade, and he was my friend at a time when I had very few friends and being my friend meant getting insulted and ostracized. I learned he was gay when we were in our 30’s – our lives had taken us to different places after high school. I still remember how nervous he was when he told me, as if he were afraid that telling me would cost us our friendship. This man showed me kindness at a time when there was very little in my life. I’ve also talked to the man he’s been partnered with for over a decade now, and who loves him almost as much as I do. If refusing to believe my old friend is somehow less honorable, more sinful, or less deserving of happiness because of his sexual orientation, if being glad he’s found someone worthy of him to spend his life with means I’ve bought into the homosexual agenda, then please, someone send me the bill because I don’t regret the purchase, whatever the cost. My old friend is one of the kindest, most decent, most honorable people I know, and his partner’s also pretty dead good.
By the way, much as I like this message board and much as I’ve learned here, I’m afraid I can’t give this place the credit. I held these opinions before I signed up here and I see no reason to change them.
Then again, what do you expect from a rogue Episcopalian?
CJ
Serendipity moves in mysterious ways, its wonders to perform {From the extant Cafe Society thread Everything I Know About Jesus I Learnt From Rock’n’Roll}.
Nah, that’s not what I meant. “Empirically” means that some things are bad, period. They’re not subjectively bad, they’re objectively bad. They have the inherent quality of badness. I don’t assign many things to the category of “empirically bad” - they have to be pretty darned bad to get that special label.
That’s one of the biggest issues of the “secret” and sinister agenda. gays simply want to be left alone, and allowed to live their own lives. That’s all. It’s one of the reasons I (and a few others) tend to get short tempered when we get lectured about the need to understand and educate and persuade and be patient. It is one of the reasons we get sick and tired of trotting out the same arguments, and biblical references/quotes/scholarly theses to counter the bigotry over and over and over. Sorry, that hasn’t worked very well for the more noisy people who lead the anti’s. It hasn’t worked for their more ignorant and intolerant followers. Patience only goes so far. Then it’s either drop the subject, or start a flame fest. The whole gay agenda can be summed up simply as “Leave us the hell alone”. That’s it.
What do you consider empirically bad?
With all due respect to your quite valid rant, Steve, there’s one other element that is worth adding in: you want legal equality: if a court recognizes my and Barb’s marriage, or Bricker’s and his wife’s, for purposes of land ownership or inheritance, you want yours treated equally. If I’m entitled to have my wife and (hypothetical) kids covered by my employee medical plan, you want to have the same entitlement for your partner and any kids you might adopt. And similar places where the law intersects the right to live one’s own life in peace.
What thoroughly ticked me off is the idea that someone has the audacity to tell me that I’m playing into a sinister agenda by looking at the Scriptures and trying to figure out what the heck they meant to the people who wrote and first heard or read them.
The only agenda I’m supporting is one I’m supporting overtly: the 21st Century’s effort to get people to treat others as they themselves would want to be, including the right to freely live their own lives in peace. It’s been taught by people as various as Kung Fu Tse and Hillel, a direct command of my Lord and Savior, and implicit in the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers. And it doesn’t sound to me to be that hard to grasp – though living it out is a different story.
That’s not actually how I read his post. What I thought he was saying was that you have to have an agenda to not interpret the bible as being against homosexuality. In other words, you find that interpretation because you want to. And not because of being part of a gay agenda, but just trying to make it say what you personally want it to say.
I know you still disagree with that, but it’s not the same thing you were mad about.