I read this and thought, “Well, what else would you expect?” If you behave and vote in a way that others perceive as hateful and bigoted, you will be perceived by them as hateful and bigoted. There really isn’t anything shocking about that, is there? Assuming for the moment that this blogger is in earnest and is genuinely shocked at this idea, are they being naive in their surprise at this professor’s response, or is the professor really saying something shocking and ugly?
(The post is pretty short, and I while I think I grabbed the important bits, you may believe differently.)
I agree with the professor. I have personally prevented an openly anti-gay employee from being granted a management position. Were any of the employees she would have managed gay? Maybe, I don’t know.
Was she able to leave her anti-gay sentiments at the door when she entered the office building? No. she had attempted to “convert” gay co-workers and left pamplets for religious “healing” workshops on the desks of openly gay subcontractors. I treated her as I would any other person whose personal predjudices impinged upon the atmosphere and productivity of the workplace.
Remember that slave-owners also pointed to religious texts to justify their behavior, even stating that they were mandated by God to control the lives of “lesser” beings.
It’s the marketplace of ideas in action: groups will either change with the times or they’ll get rejected and left behind. That applies to political parties, it applies to religious groups, it applies to everyone. I have no sympathy for people who whine that society is rejecting their prejudices.
I imagine most Catholics who remain opposed to SSM will just learn to separate their views on the institution from the people who actually practice it, at least publicly.
I mean, the public has pretty much decided that they are OK with couples co-habitating (and presumably shagging and using birthcontrol) without being married. And despite the fact that the Catholic Church has decreed such people to be in “grave moral error”, and at least some subset of Catholics presumably agree and occasionally try and convice others of the error of their ways, modern Western Catholics seem to function in a world of unmarried couples without too much friction.
I suspect they’ll be at more or less the same place with gay marriage in less then a generation.
Of course, you can be against SSM and still get elected. That might change someday (just as there’s now a practical limit on how much racism a candidate can express and hope to win), but not in your lifetime or mine.
Various American denominations supported slavery at certain points in history, and (IIRC) many Southern Baptist congregations have openly opposed interracial marriage as recently as just the last few decades. They’ve changed.
It’s probably tougher for the Catholic Church to change, because it’s so big and centralized, but I’m pretty sure they were ok with slavery a few hundred years ago- and only recently admitted that prosecuting Galileo was a mistake. I think they can change too.
Are they seriously trying to argue that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed because if it is then those opposed to it will be perceived to be bigoted?
I would bet my next paycheck that 90% plus of the people expressing indignation on “very conservative message boards” (and make that 99% for Free Republic) would have no objection – and in general would actively support – the exclusion of gays from “public office, political and judicial appointments, or places of trust and responsibility within private institutions”.
Any among them who seek sympathy are cordially direction to the pages of the dictionary between “shit” and “syphilis”.
Reviewing this “argument” a bit further, I found this gem:
(emphasis added)
One has a right to hold an office such as law firm partnership? Hot damn! Now all I need to do is decide which law office I shall visit to assert this right (preferably one characterized by high six-figure salaries and a nymphomaniacal secretarial staff)…
It’s just fun to see the faux “pro-liberty” crowd contorting themselves in anguish over a potential future in which bigots could be taken to task for their bigotry while, at the same time, they ignore the bigotry we have right here in the present.
I’m not sure about that. The LGBT has taken amazing strides in the last decade even. In 2004, the GOP’s national strategy was to oppose SSM as visibly as possible. Now, most Republican candidates have awkward canned responses, and would really like to go on to the next topic.
It’s probably related to the supercharged cultural development in response to the widespread use of the internet, but whatever the reason times’ they are a changing, but with a faster and faster beat. I suspect the Catholic Church will probably schism over gays (and over a lot of other issues that currently bubble below the surface), into a progressive and regressive church. No idea which side the Vatican ends up on. The conservative church (or the whole Catholic Church if there is no meaningful split) will have a lot of LDS-esque problems as they are forced by the tide of progress to accept people for who they are.
All of this presupposes that religion continues to exist in a meaningful sense and / or our society doesn’t collapse into another dark age, which I think is ultimately more concerning than the fate of bigots.
The idea that religions don’t change their fundamental doctrines in order to remain socially viable, and then pretend the new beliefs of convenience were what they really believed all along, is so contrary to every bit of evidence about how the world actually works as to belong in the ever-expanding category of pure fantasy items that conservatives believe.
Catholics will be doing same-sex weddings in cathedrals within fifty years, shaking their fingers at anyone who has a problem with it, and yelling claims of “bias” and atheism at anyone who disputes the claim that they have been doing so since first century Rome.
On top of which, the idea that Catholics don’t have any choice about being homophobic will come as a great surprise to my very Catholic, very pro-SSM mother.
No… They’re complaining that same-sex marriage will infringe on their right to act upon their bigotry. A guy who is, say, a County Commissioner of Public Records will be forced (gasp!) to issue marriage certificates to two men. This (somehow?) infringes upon his rights.
Same old sewage in a new package. They’re also claiming (falsely!) that ministers and rabbis and priests (what is this, some kind of joke?) will be forced to celebrate SSM in their churches. Completely untrue, but their kind of fear-mongering has never been particularly truth-dependent.
It seems like no one involved in that exchange realizes that this is the most likely result. I mean, the Catholic Church doesn’t recognize divorce, but I haven’t seen anyone going around trying to get rid of legalized divorce because of it. One bishop or another complained about the divorced Andrew Cuomo living with Sandra Lee and Cuomo was known before the election to support SSM. Apparently the Catholic voters didn’t much care about any of these issues since he got elected anyway.
It’s true that the Catholic church doesn’t officially recognize divorce, but they do recognize annulments, which are really not that hard to obtain and which are a de facto divorce. Personally the ease with which one can obtain an annulment these days says to me that the Church has tacitly caved on the whole “no divorce” thing. (And before anyone says that annulments are carefully considered and blah whatever, I’ll just point out that my mom has now had three. She is currently engaged to what will be her fourth husband, and they plan to get married with the full blessing of the Church.)
This may depend a lot on the local diocese. I know several people who have been denied annulments, even one that could prove emotional abuse and had no children.
