…and in a flourish of insults and circular logic, Jersey_Diamond disappears, until the next thread on homosexuality. When the cycle can repeat itself, yet again…
It is ever thus. Somebody asks a question about a gay issue, the debate evolves into a christianity vs. acceptance thread. The Christians state and restate their position, and try and make it look like they’re debating. The rest of us try and address their points logically, trying to show them where they’re using irrational and contradictory arguments to support their position, but they just restate their position. It goes on until the Christians quit the thread, claiming we’re not listening to them.
All the arguments in favor of treating gays like garbage boil down to “God says so” or “It’s icky.” Every single time. No rational reasons, no good arguments, no legal precedents, no logic, no thought. Just dogma and bigotry, with a garnish of “My god is better than your god.”
Every single thread I’ve seen on this issue ends up in that pattern. It’s amazingly consistent, and I’ve had some time to think about what it means.
First off, I think the reason the Christians quit first is that their lives and the safety of their loved ones isn’t at stake. This argument is pivotal to my fate, and to my family and to the man I love; it’s not one I quit easily. I’d like to believe that the reason the anti-gay faction quit is that they’re starting to see their position from a rational perspective, and it creates a cognitive dissonance that makes them uncomfortable. But they just keep coming back to threads on the same subject, with their positions still unchanged, so I’ve pretty much dismissed that theory.
Mostly, I’ve been wondering what good it does to argue this at all. It’s become obvious that these people haven’t reached their conclusions through logical means, so logic is pretty much useless. If someone is convinced that persecuting a faction of society is the compassionate, beatific thing to do, then they’re pretty much impervious to logic.
So, the question becomes, how can they believe this stuff? How have they been convinced that thousands of people are so evil they deserve to have discrimination against them written into law? And the only answer I can come up with is the irresistible attraction of superiority. If you’re at all insecure, finding someone to whom you can feel superior is a cheap and easy way to bolster your cockiness. You can’t be all bad; look at those horrible people over there. You’re much better than they are. The lure of this feeling of superiority is so strong that it seems the human mind can support any amount of circular logic, any number of dogmatic contradictions, any degree of hypocrisy, in order to maintain it.
The final question is, why continue to argue?
If they’re so entrenched in their beliefs that they’re invulnerable to rational discussion or even human compassion, why bother?
The answer is faith. Oddly enough, it is a faith that makes me wade back into this, time and again. Faith in the innate goodness of human beings. Faith that, while bigotry is learned, kindness and generosity are natural human qualities.
Even if the people in the thread can’t be swayed, there may be someone out there reading that hasn’t had their position carved in stone as of yet; they may have heard the lies about us, and not quite believed. They may be doubting that we are deserving of such hate.
So, I try and argue calmly while they tell me they wouldn’t let their children play with mine, that I’m an abomination, when they condemn my boyfriend and I to hell, when they call me swine. I argue knowing that the message that I’m trying to get through to them is worth it, that their very humanity may depend on their grasping the simple concept I’m trying to convey.
It’s not tough to understand.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.