Since I can't be honest in GD . . .

The BBQ Pit
41

I’m not going to go as far out on a limb as Der Trihs and say that ALL opponents of gay marriage are bigots, since I don’t know all of them. Maybe one of them has a compelling argument.

magellan01, however, is a bigot. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, at first, but then he posted this gem:

The part that really sticks out for me is the idea that gays would prefer to be straight because straight people enjoy, ahem, a “fuller human experience” because they can procreate. He lets straights who can’t procreate off the hook and allows them to marry in his paradigm, but feels that the gay experience is less then fully human because they lack this ability.

Then, he goes on to let us know that he believes that being gay is deviant. It deviates from “the norm.” Even though it in fact occurs in nature among animals, even though it’s an unalterable part of a person’s identity, he still feels it’s correct and acceptable to label being gay “deviant from the norm.” The norm being, of course, straight people. A range of sexual identities is not, in his paradigm, normal, nor are those along the spectrum part of “the norm.” Only straight people are “the norm.”

Children need societal guard rails, you see. If gay marriage were allowed, then the children wouldn’t realize that being gay isn’t as full a human experience. They might not know that being gay is deviant from the norm. They might actually think it’s natural, normal, and acceptable, and not some falling off the path that magellan01 thinks it is. As if children, seeing gays getting married, might decide to be gay. For someone with gay friends (all of whom wish they were straight, apparently), he doesn’t seem to realize that there will be gay people whether gays can get married or not, whether they are persecuted and criminalized or not, no matter what you do. You don’t have to protect the children from the gays, really. And you can’t protect or steer them away from The Gay. Preventing gays from marrying isn’t doing those things. It’s just blocking gay people from enjoying the same rights as straight people, period.

But he refuses to acknowledge any of this. Thus, he’s a bigot. I’m sorry, I can’t find any other way to read his above words. If someone else can, they are welcome to try.

42

Ok, good. Needn’t trouble myself to read further then.

Of course I’ll sneak back in later, but I’ll at least feel all guilty and shit when I do.

43

This is all IYO, and misses my point completely.

Other people do not think that you are able to successfully “point to millions of people who have been hurt, or oppressed or killed in the name of religion.” They don’t buy your argument – I sure as hell don’t. You have been unsuccessful in convincing me of its justice, just as the anti-SSM crowd have been unsuccessful in convincing you of the justice of their arguments.

YOU think the anti-SSM marriage people can’t come up with rational reasons for their position, or prove it. Lots of people think the same thing about you and religion: That you cannot come up with rational reasons for your hatred, or prove it. Your bald assertion that you are right and they are wrong is just that: an assertion. But the reasoning in both cases is the same, and it is the reasoning I am trying to point out to you, not whatever conclusion you might personally draw.

However you define bigot, you’re one if they are, and if you’re not then neither are they. The fact that you disagree is irrelevant unless I grant you standing as the Arbiter of Bigotry, which you will not be surprised to hear I emphatically do not.

44

Say there is a majority in a society. Call the majority group X. Now say there is a minority in the society. Call them group Y. Say group Y is different from group X due to some characteristic beyond group Y’s control. It could be skin color, ethnic origin, parent’s religion, gender, or, to pick something at random, sexual orientation.

If someone in group X feels that everyone in group Y should be denied a right people in group X enjoy, and can give no valid reason for this position, that person is a bigot. In fact, that’s pretty much the definition of bigotry right there.

Trihs is correct. People against SSM are bigots, plain and simple. There’s just no other word for it.

45

No, it’s not, and no, it doesn’t. Your analogy would only work if people in single sex marriages had a history of forcing other people into them and slaughtering people while proclaiming it was in the name of SSM. You know, like religion does of conversion by force and killing unbelievers. You might not LIKE my opinion of religion, but it’s a simple fact that my condemnation of it has plenty of objective reasons for it, unlike the anti-SSMers who have none. That’s why we see all these variations on people demanding actual Evil Consequences for single sex marriage, but none of religion’s defenders bother to post a thread about “What Bad Things Has Religion Ever Done ?” Because unlike the anti-SSM crowd, the critics of religion could casually fill pages and pages and pages of actual harm done in the name of religion.

46

I’m going to go with they are correctly defined as bigots and Magellan is a troll. Der Trihs may have many flaws himself but i think he is using the word correctly.

47

Instead, say that some people consider it a privilege and not a right. Say that some people consider it a religious institution that the state recognizes rather than the other way around. Say that some people are so averse to any form of societal change that they’d rather keep to the status quo than change for anybody, at all. Say that some people have a gut reaction to the semantics of the word and want a separate word/category/legal situation created to sooth their semantic gland.

Say any of a number of things, but acknowledge that while opposition to marriage for all people regardless of sexual orientation may be something you (or I) think is wrong, irrational or unable to be defended on persuasive grounds, that does not mean that everybody holding that position is, by necessity, a bigot.

48

You mean like sitting in the front of the bus ?

49

How about my word? For your convenience I will state the following:

Every argument I have ever heard to the effect that legal marriage should be preserved for different-gendered couples and prohibited for same-gendered couples has been the product of bigotry. The opinion that legal marriage should be preserved for different-gendered couples and prohibited for same-gendered couples is homophobic, because it states that gay, lesbian, and bisexual people should be unequal to heterosexuals under the law.

50

Off topic, but this made me laugh:

An argumentative sort, in the same way that the planet Jupiter is “a tad large”.

51

All of the rationales you have proposed above are, by my lights, bigoted.

52

First, it’s not an analogy. The reasoning you’re applying to the anti’s is the exact same as can be applied to you – not analogous, the same. Second, you’ve leapt to a level of detail by which I assume the reasoning IYO would only hold if I could show that pro-SSM’ers were collectively known as “Schmistianity” and went on “frusades.” The reasoning holds just fine, thanks, because it’s not based on details like forcing over here and slaughtering over there. It is based on asserting that (1) a harm stems from a particular action and (2) that harm is objectively provable. You claim the anti’s are bigots because they cannot satisfactorily prove either (1) or (2). My point is that the same goes for you, in regard to religion. You can’t prove (1) or (2) either. Your rebuttal that “yes, I can” is worthless, for the same reason that their rebuttal that “yes, we can” is also worthless: Because it is unpersuasive. If you doubt that it is unpersuasive, ask around. No need to take my word for it.

You don’t get to decide who is or is not a bigot, you only get to set the definition. That definition hangs you as easily as them, and for the exact same reasons. Don’t bother to respond with “no, it doesn’t,” because my response can only be “yes, it does.” Again, ask around.

53

Really. So where are all the people murdered in the name of single sex marriage ? Where are all the people forced at gun or swordpoint to marry someone of the same sex ?

54

While I find Der Trihs’s belligerent absolutism tiresome, I think he may actually be making a more subtle point here than you recognize. I think his position is that there is no ground for opposition to same-sex marriage that isn’t fundamentally based on bigotry. Religious doctrine, societal tradition, whatever, it all ultimately originated in anti-gay prejudice.

And what Der Trihs maintains, AFAICT, is that anybody who accepts any of these arguments against allowing same-sex marriage is automatically tainted with that bigotry. Even if you personally happen to love gay people and think gay sex is a great idea and consider it a tragedy that same-sex marriages were historically forbidden, if you uphold an anti-same-sex-marriage tradition for any reason, you’re condoning bigotry and thereby being a bigot.

55

Where are all the people murdering in the name of Christianity? Where are all the people forced at gun or swordpoint to convert to Christianity? And I’m talking specifically about modern Christianity, today, not a thousand years ago. Since your rabid anti-religiousity encompasses modern moderate religions, I trust your arguments will as well.

56

Exactly.

Just to clear something up; that quote in your post is from FinnAgain not me.

57

Der is totally right. Those against SSM only have stupid appeals to emotion on their side.

I imagine that people against inter-racial marriage really meant it too. They were still bigoted though.

58

It doesn’t. Someone can be a bigot and oppose gay marriage on purely semantic grounds. The important point is that someone can also not be a bigot and oppose gay marriage on purely semantic grounds.
To give an anlogy tht Der trihs should enjoy, people can hate all Americans and oppose the war in Iraq on purely legal grounds, right. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who opposes the war in Iraq on legal grounds is a bigot, right? Someone could oppose the war in Iraq on legal grounds and love Americans? Right?

I wouldn’t be in any way justified in claiming that everyone who opposes the war in Iraq is a bigot who hates Americans, right? And Der Trihs isn’t in any way justified in claiming that everyone who opposes gay marriage is a bigot who hates homosexuals, right

See how this works? Two sets can intersect without one being a subset of the other?

They aren’t. What exactly is your point? Because you can’t be so dense that you don’t understand the difference “oppose gay marriage on purely cultural sensitivity grounds” and “oppose gay marriage because they can’t tolerate anything they think is icky”.

So that only leaves a blatant strawman.

Shit, this is like arguing that anyone who opposes the use of the term “nigger” to refer to black man is a bigot because they can’t tolerate anything they think is icky. Bullshit. That’s a decision based on cultural sensitivity. If you want to say it’s bigoted because the opposition finds it icky then you are a fool.

Frankly Tao’s Revenge I expected better from you. Obviously some people find it hard to be objective or even to think when discussing this topic.

Really? Stop and think about that for 10 minutes and then get back to me and tell me if you;ve changed your mind.
Because if you really can’t think of at least 5 reasons why someone can oppose gay marriage on the grounds I listed without being hateful, shallow or stupid I will have lost all respect for you as a poster.

I’m about 75% European myself (best I can work it out).

You should probably do more reading on the subject then.
One reason often given was that mixed race children were left in a cultural wilderness, accepted by neither one culture nor the other. The argument essentially being that it is unfair on the children.

You may wish to argue that that isn’t/wasn’t true (although almost any mixed race child raised in Japan right now will tell you that it is), or that the effect itself is a product of bigotry (which it is in large part). But what you can not argue is that such a position is inherently bigoted. There is nothing bigoted in any way about the argument a stated since it requires no favouring of one race over the other.

And I could give you a dozen other equally non-bigoted reasons for oppose interracial marriage if I thought it would do any good. But based on your behaviour so far you have lost your usual ability to think or even consider any position that opposes your own.

Uh huh. And the wino down the street has been a bottle-of-whiskey-a-day alcoholic since he was 16. And he’s healthy, and smart. So any scientific reasons to oppose alcoholism are pure bullshit.

I really had you pegged as being capable of better reasoning than this. I’m sorry to see how wrong I was.

59

Oops, sorry, you’re right. My apologies to you and to Finn.

(And to the readers of the thread who may have been confused by the misattribution, and to the moderators for failing to uphold the best Straight Dope posting standards, and to anybody I may have forgotten to apologize to. I think it’s time to go home.)

60

Such as?