Prop 8 (CA)

The BBQ Pit
241

I’ve asked myself that.

On the one hand, i want to say No, and welcome Mormons who voted against the measure.

On the other hand, when you voluntarily align yourself with an institution like a church, especially one in which so many decisions are made—and actions taken—on behalf of all adherents by the people at the top, then you have to accept that you will be associated with that decision. Especially if you choose to remain with the church even when it does things you disagree with.

I feel the same way about other groups, whether they be political parties, social organizations, whatever. If you are a member, and your group does something you don’t like, you can leave, or you can stay and accept that you will, in some measure at least, be associated with the actions you opposed.

I guess when i said the church was my enemy, i was specifically referring to the people who pushed this, and the institution as a whole. But i’m not feeling especially charitable right now.

I’ve always been a live-and-let-live guy when it comes to religion. In my American history classes, i teach my undergrads about the significance of religion in the history of the United States, and spend some time specifically dealing with the origins of the Mormon church, with Joseph Smith’s early days in New York and Ohio, the persecution he faced there, his troubles in Missouri, his death in Illinois, and the subsequent move to Utah under Brigham Young. The Mormon church is a fascinating part of American history, and perhaps the first and only truly (non-Native American) American religion. But right now, i wish it were consigned to history, rather than surviving to blight people who have never done it any harm.

242

Equal but separate. Where have I heard that before?

Oh. Right.

243

Let’s not forget the military. It’s one of the biggest employers in California, and there are thousands of gays & lesbians who, Prop 8 or not, can be legal residents of California but can neither marry, or “partnership” nor receive any benefits for their same-sex spouses.

244

I appreciate that point of view. That’s why it was in a letter to my already-sympathetic representatives, not a letter to the editor of a newspaper. But I do think it’s important to keep the political pressure on at the federal level.

245

FWIW I’m a straight, conservative, Christian male. I don’t have any objection to same-sex marriage…if two people love each other and want to get married, so what? How does it hurt me? There are a lot more pressing issues to confront without worrying about who gets married to whom. I also don’t have any objection to adoption by gay couples. If a child gets a happy, stable home out of the deal, who cares what’s the sex of the parents?

Maybe this makes me a bad Christian, but I would rather err on the side of the Christ I believe I know, rather than the Christians I think have it all wrong. Guess this is why I got into so much trouble in Sunday School…asked too many questions. The most important lesson I learned and try to live by is the greatest commandment: “Love thy neighbor as yourself”. Can’t go wrong with that.

246

On today’s show, Rush said that in the first 100 days of his presidency, Obama will issue an executive order overturning the ban on gay marriages in California. So, problem solved.

247

Well good then. Glad I voted Obama.:rolleyes:

Would that even be legal?

248

For once I’d like that fucking windbag to be correct.

249

Seeing as the drug addict Rush floated it as a possibility, my instinct is to say no.

250

I retract this statement.

251

No, no, and don’t let him off that easy. He’s not a troll. He believes what he’s saying, and what that makes him is much worse than a troll. I realize it’s fucking hard to think about it this way, and cold comfort, but homosexual couples in California will one day be married. Clothahump, on that day, will still be Clothahump.

To magellan01: Fuck, man, I don’t care about changing your mind. Your mind can’t be changed. The minds of the people who voted for Prop 8 can’t be changed, because their position is rooted in - again - irrationality and/or outright evil. You don’t change those things. In the 1960s, you’d be the guy who favored separate schools for blacks and whites, all the while swearing that racism had nothing to do with it. Fuck it. You don’t change that guy’s mind, and you are that guy.

What has to happen is this: we have to continue to hold the line. Your position, Clothahump’s position, the position of everyone who voted for Prop 8, is unacceptable. We continue to call it out as unacceptable. We hold you up for the ridicule and disdain that you deserve. We change the environment. We won’t change your mind, but we wouldn’t change your mind if we got Angelina Jolie to give you a lap dance, so why bother trying? What we’ll do is give the next generation an indication that your position is evil, and won’t be accepted in the future.

And the kids will learn. You’ll get old. The people who think like you will get old. The electorate will refresh itself, with people who have grown up in an environment where opposing gay marriage is increasingly viewed as the pathetic joke that it ought to be. And then?

Check out those poll numbers, separated out by age. All those people in their 20s who voted against Prop 8, you think they’re going away? You’ll be gone before they are. They’ll have kids, and the societal animus against your particular brand of stupid will increase. In fifty years, your kids’ kids will look back in wonder at people like you the same way we look back in wonder at the slaveowners; they’ll wonder how you justified it to yourself. And gay people will get married same as the rest of us.

We don’t need to be nice to you, because ultimately, we don’t need you.

Sincerely,

A Married Straight Guy Who Isn’t a Total Asshole

252

I find this incredibly short-sighted.

If those in favor of gay rights take a “you’re either with them, or with us” attitude towards every single person practicing a religion that does not fully support gay rights, they will soon find themselves standing largely alone. I am a Methodist, a member of the UMC. I support gay rights, but my church at a national level does not, at least not as fully as I could hope, although they are stuggling with it.

But I am never, and I mean never, going to leave my church and everything it means to me, and has meant to me, for this issue, or indeed for any single issue. Ever. If you make me choose between being a Christian and a Methodist and supporting your cause, I must choose my church.

If I decry and deny the actions of the church in one aspect, why would you insist on associating me with a decision you know fully well I did not support, indeed deplored? Why would you spurn my support and sympathy? I’m already in the church, as Reloy is in the LDS. How do you expect to change the hearts and minds of our co-religionists without our help? And how do you expect to ever win your cause without changing the hearts and minds of those who now oppose you?

I mean, if you tell us all to fuck off with the rest of our tribe, we will. But I fail to see how that helps you at all.

253

This is rather unfair. While it’s true that his posts often strongly resemble the droppings of Trollus vulgaris in their soft texture and noisome reek, I’ve seen nothing to suggest that Humpy-Dump is anything other than a true believer in the words that occasionally trickle down through his fingertips as they evacuate his composting brain.

254

Some of it is rooted in ignorance. You can fight ignorance. I even heard there is a website dedicated to it.

255

I don’t agree.

A couple of years ago, I took the position that civil unions for same-sex partners was fine, but that marriage should be reserved for opposite-sex couples.

I got a lot of vilification and insults for that position here.

But I also got a reasoned, step-by-step rebuttal from Left Hand of Dorkness, who undertook to examine each of my claims and refute them. It was, I think, a six-page thread.

And at the end of the thread? I had to admit he was right, and I had been wrong.

256

The reason I chose troll is because he never, ever comes back to do anything with his drive-by stupid fucking bullshit. People here can even politely try to engage him, to understand why he spews the hate-filled rhetoric that he does, but that’s all to no avail because he doesn’t have the balls to show up again even once to defend his drivel. So to me, if you couple that with dropping in a comment about “deviancy,” it equals being a loathsome, pathetic buttmunch living under a damn bridge. I couldn’t care less if he buys his own falsehoods or not.

And to story; BRAVO!!

257

Which is why added to my post, in the bit that you left out:

I also added that i’m not really feeling especially charitable right now, in the wake of this travesty. Give me a few days, and i’ll probably be more accommodating.

But what i’m not going to do is confine my enmity only to the individuals within the institution who pushed for this measure. With the LDS and Prop 8, the weight of the church hierarchy itself was behind the measure, so the church itself right now, as a whole, as an institution and an organization is the object of my ire.

As i suggested, in my calmer moments i recognize and appreciate the people within the church who did not support this hateful measure.

As for changing the hearts and minds of your co-religionists, well, with some of them, on some issues, i’ve really given up. There are people who aren’t going to be swayed by any argument i might make (or that you might make, for that matter), so it sometimes seems that there is no downside to telling them to go fuck themselves. It’s not pretty, but there it is.

Bricker, it might be that i recall incorrectly, but it seems to me that your opposition to gay marriage was never simply, “Sodomy is a sin, God only meant for man and woman to get married, so that’s how it should be.” And if it had been, i doubt you would have changed your mind. Maybe i’m wrong,

258

That was certainly a part of it. IIRC, once he reexamined his views, he realized that the rest of it wasn’t actually all there.

259

I think you deny yourself too much credit. You are not like most of the people who actively worked for Prop 8. You are more intelligent and apparently more intellectually honest.

I remember that thread, and I remember the breakthrough moment. It was one of the things that made me a Bricker defender, because the fact that you were capable of having your mind changed differentiated you from the more despicable right-wingers of that era (Brutus comes to mind).

But there are two roadblocks to repeating that performance to the general public:

  1. The ones who are actually most agressively poised against this aren’t as intelligent or intellectually honest as you

and

  1. I don’t think it’s possible to have a six-page thread with every one of them.

I’m convinced that you are a special case here. You were actually willing to read all of that, and have your mind changed. I don’t think that’s a universal trait.

260

Yes. They are scum, and my enemy, and the enemy of all who oppose bigotry. No better than the KKK.

No. Win or lose, they are still all scum.

Then don’t be a bigot and a homophobe. But you are, and therefore deserve contempt.

Hypocrite. If you oppose their right to marry, you don’t support their rights.

The problem is the people not the process. Evil people who vote will vote for evil.

I don’t believe for a moment that you or anyone who voted for this are anything other than bigots, or have much chance of being won over in any way. The pro-marriage people have been nice, they’ve been civilized, and look what happened.

90% of the time, scum stays scum. That’s why the fight against institutional racism is taking so long - the great majority of bigots don’t change, they have to be outlived.

Considering that you support the organization that helped pull this act of bigotry off, yes you are, whether you intend to be or not. Not as much as the ones who actively campaigned for it, but by the nature of the acts you are enabling, you are the enemy of homosexuals, even if you never give them a thought personally.

As for the argument that pointing this out will just drive you personally away; first, that makes you a worse person, for putting religious loyalty above human decency, and at most that’s just an argument for lying about it. It’s not the pro-marriage people calling you and your church an enemy that makes them enemies; it’s what your church has done, and the fact that you support it. Even if no one says so to you.