# Since I can't be honest in GD . . . **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 27, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768 "2009-05-27T02:40:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/161 "2009-05-27T14:47:14Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > So you oppose my marriage? > > I’m a non-religious, non-spiritual person who just got married last year, and you want to tell me that I shouldn’t be able to call myself married? > > I don’t claim to know whether or not you’re a bigot but you’re definitely a nosy asshole with delusions of grandeur if you think you can tell me what to call my marriage. Stay out of my business. I hate to break it to you, but I don’t give a good goddamn about you or your marriage. I wouldn’t know you if I ran over you, and I don’t care if what you call “marriage” is actually an every-other-Tuesday orgy and the entity to which you are married is a carved wooden drug store Indian, or if you were married in a Catholic cathedral by the Pope himself with God’s own angels in attendance. So if you think for one minute I give a shit about your “business,” nevermind want to intrude into it, then you’re the one with delusions of gradeur. My position is that government-endorsed unions should be called one thing and religious or spiritual unions should be called something else. This is not a novel position, nor one held only by me. There is no reason for, no excuse for denying equal rights under the civil law to gay people, and that obviously includes the rights and responsibilities of a marital union. But conflating the “moral” and religious issue of “marriage” with the civil and legal issue of “marriage” muddies the waters and gives the religious right the base they are using to object to equal extension of the marital franchise. If we were scrupulous in differentiating between what is required or owed by the civil law and the government, from what is allowed or permitted by whatever the hell church or spiritual group, we would remove that weapon from their arsenal. I have no right to say whether you are or are not married. But in my opinion, _neither does the government, because it’s none of their business._ That doesn’t mean I run around informing _anyone_ they are not married. The term “marriage” is currently used to describe both civil and spiritual unions. I think it should be limited to one or the other – and I honestly don’t care which, so long as we come up with a good term for whatever is the other state. So I may in fact be an asshole, but this isn’t why. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/162 "2009-05-27T14:47:55Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > First and foremost all unions are technically civil first as well as religious. I was married in the catholic church, (despite not being catholic) I however do not recognize the place the church claims in my marriage. If I divorce my wife, it is the county I have to deal with, not the church. Other than for my own interest or reasons, I never have to step into a RCC again, however I MUST stop in a gov’t building if there are certian things I need done, this includes marriage. > > If I never went to a church, at least here in Illinois, I could still be ‘married’ but that’s a sematic point if ever there was one. No church = civil union. The county/state etc cannot, per-se ‘marry’ even though it’s called that, it is a union recognized by the AHJ, not marriage in the truest definition. Conversely, the church cannot entertain a ‘marriage’ without a license from the AHJ because it is not binding. The fact that these things are intertwined is the true source of the problem. > > Now, despite my previous post in this thread, I suppose that by the dictionary definition, those who oppose SSM would be “bigoted”. I do not believe however that this makes them all-around bigots any more than instaling an outlet makes one an electrician. I believe you can hold viewpoints based on your honest opinion that seem bigoted to others and still be a decent and good person. I believe this because I’ve seen it in my life first hand and because as people, we are not measured on a single point but on our lives as a whole. What **Der Trihs** does is say you’re anti-SSM, therefore you are a bigot. In fairness, I did the same thing, but that’s illustrative of the point I’m making; people have ideas, ideas do not have people. I can believe that SSM is wrong and I can still be a good person and do good in this world. A fact that I think Der Trihs has missed, or is ignoring. In fact, on review I retract my statement that **Der Trihs** is a bigot, instead, he is acting in a bigoted way, and should stop it. > > The fact is that by having such staunch and vehement arguments against those who believe differently than he, Der Trihs actually hurts the cause he champions, pushing those on the fence one way or the other. If the aim is to enact SSM and gain wide acceptance, then you have to appeal to a wide audience. The militant SSM crowd, indeed, the militant gay crowd is doing as much harm as they are good. If you just want to be accepted for who you are, that’s fine, but if who you are is a dude that wears assless leather chaps, platform heels and nipple clamps at noon on tuesday on your walk past the middle school, it’s gonna take people a while and you can’t just wander up to 'em and scream at them how they need to accept you. It will not work. > > For the very religious or very conservative, SSM (and the publicized argument therefore) is the equivalent to the assless chaps guy. People need to accept that and adjust their arguments, their PUBLIC arguments, to their actual audience, not the conservative or middle of the road straight people. The fist pounders, the screamers, the banner wavers are doing these things to inspire their own side, they aren’t changing minds on the other. This is a pretty thoughtful and objective post and it gives a lot of food for thought to the conversation. I have nothing else to add right now but I want you to know it’s appreciated even if I’m part of the hostile audience. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/163 "2009-05-27T14:48:49Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > On the contrary, it’s happened quite often, the reasons just aren’t sufficient for the group who dismisses them out of hand, despite them being true for their believers, some of which are: > > [ul] > [li]It is against the teachings of the church / bible :rolleyes:[/li][li]It is the next step to inter-species marriage (a particulary specious argument)[/li][li]It will cause incredible economic impact to businesses (somewhat true)[/li][/ul] > > I don’t believe any of these, and the only one that implies direct bigotry is #2. 1 and 3 are motivated by what could be considered bigotry, however even if #3 was debunked by study, that is not real-world, only a potential model of what might happen, so it’s a case of not knowing what we don’t know, but you don’t necessarily have to be a bigot to believe it. Garbage. All of those would still qualify you as a bigot if you tried to deny, say, black people or Jews marriage using those reasons - as long as it’s not a same sex marriage you are denying. You are simply trying to claim that SSM is a special case, where what would be called bigotry if applied to racial or ethnic groups suddenly isn’t bigotry when applied to homosexuals. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/164 "2009-05-27T14:48:50Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > It doesn’t matter if your cousin is black and marries a white guy. You can go to college too with your blackself and marry whoever the hell you like. > > Finally the bigots who expose this are fucking stupid too and fail at math. It doesn’t matter what race your kids are because they don’t affect the poverty level of other people. By appeasing bigoted KKK degenerates and banning interracial marriage all you’ve done is make the percentages change. > > Say you have 10 purple people in poverty. Two goes off to college and marries a green people. Well you still have 8 purple people in poverty. So you have 80% of purple people in poverty. > > Now those two purple people got married and had a kid named nurple instead. Well now that changes the percentages so that only 72% of purple people are in poverty but you still have 8 purple people in poverty. The percentage changed but you still have 8 bleedin people in poverty. The argument claims that in the latter case, the existence of “nurple” would somehow make it more likely that the 8 poor purple people would be inspired to improve their lot. Even if one supposes that this is so, the notion that the two successful purple people should have a _government-enforceable obligation_ to provide this example is outrageous Big Brotherism. Similarly, even if it could be demonstrated that the presence of married gay couples had any of the alleged sociological effects on the straight population, such a finding would simply not be a legitimate basis for state policy, and invocations thereof to advocate such policy would remain nothing more than a fig leaf rationalization for bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/165 "2009-05-27T14:49:52Z")
> [@choie](#): > > But don’t you think this is (at least sometimes, possibly most times) used as a smokescreen? Perhaps not in your case. But where were all these other people who oppose all state-sanctioned marriage before gay marriage came up as an issue? > > Admittedly there may have been a huge groundswell of opposition to the government’s role in marriage prior to the gay marriage thing, and I’m just woefully ignorant of it. (I don’t doubt there’s a lot I’m ignorant of, to be sure!) I don’t rule it out, but … I dunno. Just seems like one helluva coincidence that all these folks woke up suddenly and vocalized just how _awful_ the government’s role in “marriage” is only once the boys started marrying boys and the girls started marrying girls. It’s a libertarian thing. Wanting to remove the government involvement in the social sphere. You are putting the cart before the horse. The reason people didn’t want to remove government involvement from marriage before the issue came up is because nobody thought about it, or if they did it was a minority opinion that was just something you talked about over cocktails or while passing the joint, not something that got much press. I for one always opposed government involvement in marriage but before this became a hot-button topic on the issue I was just some iconoclastic late teens-early twenty-something and people just patted me on the head and said I held my opinions just to get a rise out of people. Which is probably partially true, though now that my thoughts are more well formulated I do see a certain wisdom in removing the government from marriage. I would like to get the government out of social issues wherever possible. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/166 "2009-05-27T14:51:35Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > In the case before the thread, membership in the relevant “group of people” is **defined** by a specific bigoted viewpoint. . No, it’s not. People are not opposed to SSM on a single specific viewpoint. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/167 "2009-05-27T14:51:57Z")
> [@der trihs](#): > > a rather amusing accusation, since that’s one of the standard arguments used by the anti-ssm people to condemn those who call them bigots. that was his entire point you fucking moron! ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/168 "2009-05-27T14:53:44Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Nope. You don’t get to employ the no-true-Scotsman fallacy in order to exclude evidence against your position. I think that you can make a similar argument without using the no-true-Scotsman fallacy. Clearly, there are people in the world who discriminate and kill in the name of religion. However, there clearly also are people who do wonderful things in the name of religion…feed the hungry, house the homeless, etc. Even within the same religion there are some who do one and some who do the other. Further, there’s no real evidence that if there were no such thing as religion, all of those same human opinions and behaviors wouldn’t still occur, with some other ideology to blame them on. So a person who believes that relgion is inherently evil or that all religious people are evil by nature is a bigot, since it’s demonstrable that this isn’t true. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/169 "2009-05-27T14:55:29Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > Well, since you trotted out this old argument… > > I think it’s becoming increasingly obvious it’s not about these rights. California, for example, with it’s domestic partnerships, provides for all of these, and has for quite some time. Yet, despite that, only about 50,000 couples (including elderly hetero couples) have bothered with it over nearly 10 years of existance. [The San Diego Union-Tribune: Local News, Sports and Things to Do](http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081013/news_1n13partners.html) > > Yet, when marriage was briefly legal over a course of about 6 months, almost 20,000 couples got married. Why the difference? If it was about rights, why haven’t more people made use of the domestic partnerships? Because they are not and never will be the equal of marriage; not in rights, not in recognition, not in respect. That’s what they are for; a ghetto. A slap in the face, and an attempt to write bigotry into law. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/170 "2009-05-27T14:57:47Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > Yet, when marriage was briefly legal over a course of about 6 months, almost 20,000 couples got married. Why the difference? If it was about rights, why haven’t more people made use of the domestic partnerships? A couple reasons that come to mind. When was the last time “separate but equal” was tried in America? How’d that work out? Even something as simple as a drinking fountain. Water is water but civil rights advocates fought for everyone be able to drink from the same fountain. How would you feel about being told repeatedly “this marriage/drinking fountain isn’t for you” simply because of your race/sexual preference? Would you be a good boy and drink from the other or would you fight for your rights to be treated the same as anyone? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/171 "2009-05-27T15:02:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, I’m not. I can point to millions of people who have been hurt, or oppressed or killed in the name of religion. They can’t even come up with a rational reason WHY SSM would harm straight marriage, much less prove that it would do so. They just assert that some unspecified harm will occur in some unspecified fashion. You do understand why this is a morally vacant argument right? Because there are no historical examples of widespread homosexual marriage that are pertinent to our situation. I happen to think yeah, it’s ridiculous to think homosexual marriage will hurt straight marriage, but I also understand the overall theme that is the eroding of the Christian culture in this nation, which is a real and actual thing that is occurring. You constantly cheer it on so I hope you won’t be so base as to deny that it’s something that’s occurring. To those that value Christian culture watching it be wiped away in mainstream society does appear as harm. Their culture is being destroyed by forces way beyond their control. Gay marriage is merely one symptom and aspect of what is doing it, but the decoupling of sex and procreation is what most disturbs conservatives IME. This is a natural trend toward a transhuman society, which is a horrific notion to cultural conservatives. The arguments put forth on this message board regarding the nature of gender are the very foundation of transhumanism. When the outward characteristics of a person are insufficient to determine their identity as a human, then the definition of what it is to be becomes a lot more malleable. That’s frightening to cultural conservatives. That fright, I perfectly understand and have sympathy for. It all goes a lot deeper than, “They are bigots”, allows for. It’s not that people who oppose SSM aren’t bigots, likely most if not all are. It’s just that, “They are bigots tells us nothing about their motivations.”, it’s the answer of someone who is intellectually incurious. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/172 "2009-05-27T15:04:15Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > On the contrary, it’s happened quite often, the reasons just aren’t sufficient for the group who dismisses them out of hand, despite them being true for their believers, some of which are: > > [ul] > [li]It is against the teachings of the church / bible :rolleyes:[/li][li]It is the next step to inter-species marriage (a particulary specious argument)[/li][li]It will cause incredible economic impact to businesses (somewhat true)[/li][/ul] > > I don’t believe any of these, and the only one that implies direct bigotry is #2. 1 and 3 are motivated by what could be considered bigotry, however even if #3 was debunked by study, that is not real-world, only a potential model of what might happen, so it’s a case of not knowing what we don’t know, but you don’t necessarily have to be a bigot to believe it. Both #1 and #3 imply bigotry, because both #1 and #3 rely upon selective citation to support a predetermined bigoted conclusion (i.e. teh ikky gays don’t get to have the same rights as me). I’ll assume from the “:rolleyes:” that I need not go into detail on #1. As for #3, the “incredible economic impact” of gay marriage is no more and no less that from marriages involving people whose maternal grandfather’s last name includes thus-and-such a string of letters (chosen so that the number of people affected turns out to be the same). Thus, to insist upon an exclusion for the former and not for the latter cannot be explained on non-bigoted green-eyeshade grounds. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/173 "2009-05-27T15:04:56Z")
I can’t think of anyone who has ever been hurt by Gay marriage, but atheism, I can easily point to millions dead in the cause of an [atheist agenda](http://firstfriday.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/stalin1.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/174 "2009-05-27T15:06:02Z")
> [@Jodi](#): > > Hi, **Not Shirley**. There’s actually not lots of killing in Ireland these days, thank God. Hang on a second, it’s going to take me a while to find the goalpost again. So instead of finding an example of Christians killing in the name of religion in the last 1000 years, I have to find an example in the last 10 years. > [@](#): > > There’s also a lot of political and nationalistic reasons for The Troubles that can’t be distilled down to “killing in the name of Christianity.” It’s a very complicated issue. Maybe you should look it up. Yeah right. :rolleyes: And the civil war was about “States’ rights.” So let me see if I have all the parameters down. You want an example of killing in the name of Christianity (not some other religion, or religion in general). It has to be in the last 10 years or so. The killer must declare in a sworn affidavit that he is killing in the name of Christianity, and there is no other conceivable or related reason why he might be doing the killing. Perhaps you would also like to limit it to victims named Steve, or acts committed on Tuesday, but only if it was Tuesday to the east of the international date line? By all means, keep narrowing it down until you win. Congratulations! ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/175 "2009-05-27T15:07:44Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > To those that value Christian culture watching it be wiped away in mainstream society does appear as harm. Their culture is being destroyed by forces way beyond their control. Gay marriage is merely one symptom and aspect of what is doing it, but the decoupling of sex and procreation is what most disturbs conservatives IME. This is a natural trend toward a transhuman society, which is a horrific notion to cultural conservatives. That point is true enough, and causes what little sympathy I have for cultural conservatives to evaporate like a snowball on the surface of Rigel. If opposition to transhumanism delays the defeat of aging by so much as a decade, simple arithmetic shows that the opponents will have enough blood on their hands to make Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin look like a couple of naughty boys who should be slapped soundly upon the wrist and sent to bed without dessert. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/176 "2009-05-27T15:10:06Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > … The racism you recall wasn’t as bad as what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust or the blacks during slavery; should it therefore have been dismissed as not “real” bigotry as well ? Of course not. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Just as you knew that “dismissed” was insulting, misleading, and dishonest. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/177 "2009-05-27T15:17:49Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Can’t it be “secondary bigotry”? You’ve adopted the bigoted stance of an established group (i.e., the church) for no other reason than because you’re a member of their group. In other words, you can’t be a “good believer” if you don’t marginalize the way they marginalize. Unless the economic reasons are why you believe it bad, then what? There’s no established group to blame there (unless there’s a group of economists out there railing against SSM). It can be ancillary, augmented or even inherited bigotry if you like, but that one belief does not that person a bigot make. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/178 "2009-05-27T15:21:54Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > You do understand why this is a morally vacant argument right? Because there are no historical examples of widespread homosexual marriage that are pertinent to our situation. But we have millions of people married right now, and no rational reason to think that single sex marriages are any different than them. And wild eyed speculation about vague disasters is not a valid reason to deny people their rights. > [@mswas](#): > > To those that value Christian culture watching it be wiped away in mainstream society does appear as harm. If they define Christianity according to bigotry, then their version of Christianity is something well lost. I’m not going to cry for the World Church of the Creator, either. And as a wild guess, I suspect the gay Christians who want to marry have a different viewpoint on what qualifies as Christian culture. Why do the bigots alone get to define “Christian culture” ? > [@mswas](#): > > Their culture is being destroyed by forces way beyond their control. Gay marriage is merely one symptom and aspect of what is doing it, but the decoupling of sex and procreation is what most disturbs conservatives IME. This is a natural trend toward a transhuman society, which is a horrific notion to cultural conservatives. The arguments put forth on this message board regarding the nature of gender are the very foundation of transhumanism. When the outward characteristics of a person are insufficient to determine their identity as a human, then the definition of what it is to be becomes a lot more malleable. That’s frightening to cultural conservatives. That fright, I perfectly understand and have sympathy for. I rather doubt most of them know what transhumanism is, much less care. Nor does it have any rational connection to same sex marriage. Rather the opposite; marriage is a very human thing. > [@mswas](#): > > It all goes a lot deeper than, “They are bigots”, allows for. It’s not that people who oppose SSM aren’t bigots, likely most if not all are. It’s just that, “They are bigots tells us nothing about their motivations.”, it’s the answer of someone who is intellectually incurious. Their motivations are irrelevant. By holding the position they do, they demonstrate the worthlessness of those motivations. I don’t really care why a particular person is racist or sexist either. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/179 "2009-05-27T15:25:32Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I think most of us regard marriage as a right, not a privilege. I’d agree. And I’d say that it’s a civil right. But it’s possible for others to view marriage as a religious institution that the government simply happens to sanction and which is between a man and a woman, and have no logical contradiction to not feeling the same way about non-religiously sanctioned unions. Sure, they’d be upset if their view of marriage was challenged. But that’s hardly surprising. In their view, “marriage” means “what the Church does and the government recognizes”, it can be a dozen different flavors of wrong, and it can be bigoted, but it is not, _by necessity_ a bigoted position. > [@matt\_mcl](#): > > you’re equivocating Wrong. I’m drawing the 100% valid (and indeed, necessary and true) distinction between someone who holds a position that results in discrimination because they are bigoted against those who are discriminated against, and those who hold a position that results in discrimination for reasons that have nothing to do with bigotry and/or when that person is, in fact, not a bigot. An inability to deal with nuance is not the sign of accurate perception. > [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Hell, maybe if Granny Fuddy-duddy realized that what she was proposing was the continued oppression of a group of people, she’d change her mind. I’ve certainly seen it happen numerous times. Ex-fucking-actly. A bigot is _for_ oppressing a group of people and/or hates a group of people for non-objective reasons. If someone can be convinced to change their mind if they can be shown that their gloss was inaccurate and they were supporting oppressive policies, then they _aren’t a bigot._ Do you think that explaining to them the logical necessity of marriage as a civil right is more effective than screaming at them that they secretly hate gay people? > [@Isamu](#): > > So your hypothetical grandma (why are there so many hypothetical people posed in this thread?) is opposed to all change. Some people are adverse to societal change. Call them extreme conservatives, call them reactionaries, whatever. > [@Isamu](#): > > So when a bill is introduced to actually improve and extend her life at no cost to anyone else (indulge me here, and let’s call it the ‘golden years bill’), she is actively against it, simply because it’s different. In that case she’s probably mentally incapable of looking after herself, let alone anyone else. Come on now. Let’s not head down the “conservatism is a mental disorder” path. > [@Isamu](#): > > People who are so old that they no longer know what is good for them or their community. Of course, because someone whose opinion of what’s good for the community is different than yours and who values stability over even well intentioned change is obviously a mental invalid unable to care for themselves. Now all we need is Ann Coulter to come in to this thread and we can fling all sorts of slurs at people on both sides of the political spectrum. > [@Steve\_MB](#): > > In other words, you are describing someone who is simply not mentally competent to manage her own affairs, or to have opinions driven by comprehensible motivations. Good luck trying to make reactionary political philosophy part of the DMV IV. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768/180 "2009-05-27T15:25:50Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Both #1 and #3 imply bigotry, because both #1 and #3 rely upon selective citation to support a predetermined bigoted conclusion (i.e. teh ikky gays don’t get to have the same rights as me). > > I’ll assume from the “:rolleyes:” that I need not go into detail on #1. As for #3, the “incredible economic impact” of gay marriage is no more and no less that from marriages involving people whose maternal grandfather’s last name includes thus-and-such a string of letters (chosen so that the number of people affected turns out to be the same). Thus, to insist upon an exclusion for the former and not for the latter cannot be explained on non-bigoted green-eyeshade grounds. Quite the contrary, we don’t truly know the economic impact of SSM, franky, one can use data to bolster either side of #3. I don’t know if it’s a solid argument or not, but it implies if nothing else, fiscal conservatism but not necessarily bigotry, though bigotry COULD be used as a motivator. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/since-i-cant-be-honest-in-gd/497768.md?page=10)