Change “faith” to “race” in that last paragraph and see how it scans.
Yeah, that idiosyncratic, absolutist, dogmatic, erroneous definition that you’re using to support casting your mistaken claims as gospel truth isn’t particularly rational or applicable beyond this corner you’re painting yourself into.
As you are simply going to keep repeating the same absolutist, dogmatic, erroneous comments with no support other than your say-so, casting your opinions as facts, I don’t see this going anywhere. You keep arguing “anybody who wants to become part of our group is welcome to if they’re sincere” is a bigoted position, I’ll just leave it at that, on that issue.
You keep trying to change the goal posts. We’re not talking about people who want to be part of a group, we’re talking about people who want to marry somebody in a group. That’s not the same thing. When I married my Catholic wife, I wasn’t asking to be a Catholic. Saying that anyone who has no interest in your religion is unfit to marry your daughter is bigotry, plain and simple.
It pretty much is though. There’s debate over which the correct type of conversion is, but there is no sect that believes that once someone has undergone the ‘proper’ conversion, that they’re not a real Jew.
Eh… idiots abound.
The traditional position is:
[
](http://www.unisyn.org/our_community/conversion_judaism.htm)
You weren’t talking to me, but okay!
[QUOTE=nobody whatsodamnever]
A father forbidding his daughter to marry outside his race is not necessarily motivated by a general animus against other races, but by the more positive quality of seeking to maintain his race and its traditions. This is not fairly described as bigotry; it’s not a useful word to capture what’s happening.
[/QUOTE]
Now, I DO have a problem with the father’s actions here, because he is seeking to control his daughter’s life in an inappropriate and odious fashion. But I’d still agree with Bricker that bigotry is the wrong word to use here. The father and daughter may come from a long persecuted minority, such as the American Indians here, or the Jews in much of Europe*, that is in danger of becoming so few in number, or so assimilated to the larger culture, that it will no longer exist. I can understand the impulse to want to prevent that, and I refuse to call it categorically dishonorable..
I would not criticize the daughter in this case for wishing to only marry about Creek, or another Jew, et cetera. Hell, I’ll even grant that persons from majority groups may still reasonably choose to marry within the group.
The father’s forbidding is wrong because of its intrusive nature.
*I’m not saying Jews have never been persecuted in the United States. I’m must saying it’s never reached the level of trying to exterminate them.
So what if a minority becomes smaller in number? That’s the same stupid fear you always hear expressed by white racists. “If we intermarry, the white race will disappear.” So what if it does. Who gives a shit? Why does any “racial” group need to be perpetuated? Why is it bad if it gets assimilated into a larger genetic population?
That’s all I was saying.
Obviously the persons making the complaint care. The history of Native Americans in this country, for instance, is a cycle of genocide, perpetuated not merely by violence but also by elimination of their culture. It seems reasonable to me for a Creek or Tlingit or whatever to decide that his or her culture’s traditions and history are valuable enough that she or he will only marry persons of the same tribe, and so give the tribe a better chance of existing into the future.
And if Tlingits have such a right, why shouldn’t Irish or Italians or English?
It seems to me that the right to control your romantic and reproductive life is nearly absolute; the only reasonable limitation is that you may not force another person to date, couple with, or marry you. I prefer – in fact, I insist – on using the word racism only to describe immoral and unethical actions motivated by race, and thus exercising an indisputable right can never be racist. The racism only comes into play if you try to coerce others into following your preferences, whether by force, intimidation, emotional manipulation, or color of law.
You obviously do not feel that such a thing is valuable. Others disagree. I contend that by painting their opinions as racist, you are attempting to coerce (or at least manipulate) others into holding your opinions, and that, in my view, is wrong.
And no, I am not calling you a racist.
This. It’s a religious thing, not a racial thing.
I believe a principled distinction may be drawn between race and religion. Race is an immutable characteristic and religion is not. This does not authorize wholesale invidious discrimination on the basis of religion, mind you, but it does form the basis for an acceptable reason to discriminate on marriage partners.
And that’s really the bottom line. I think our society is not prepared to recognize as reasonable any per se racial factors, but is prepared to recognize religious factors when they involve marriage choices. Obviously you, personally, regard religion as mere superstitution, and thus devalue decisions based on religion as being unworthy of respect, but this attitude is not shared by the majority of society.
I will grant that society would be slightly less forgiving of a parent’s attempt to impose a religious choice on their offspring’s marriage. I think most people would regard this as the adult child’s choice… but of course it is the adult child’s choice.
Nobody’s saying any of them shouldn’t have a right. They’re all bigots, though.
Tell that to parents who refuse to let thir kids marrry outside of prescribed goups.
You’re trying to change the definition. Racism is an attititude or a belief, not an action.
So burning a cross, using racial profanity, believing in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or writing The Turner Diaries isn’t racist? By your definition, David Duke isn’t racist.
Nor should anyone else.
So what? My question is why.
Nope, just calling it for what it is. I don’t demand, or even request that they change it.
Tell that to parents who refuse to let thir kids marrry outside of prescribed goups.
[/quote]
As I wrote, I feel the offense there is being improperly controlling, not racism. And in my experience, American parents don’t let their adult children marry; they stand and watch. And, um, pay for the wedding.
You’re trying to change the definition. Racism is an attititude or a belief, not an action.
[/quote]
I’m not sure why you felt that was worth pointing out, as I specified that that was exactly what I was doing.
I wouldn’t say that I am changing the definition, though. I am specifying exactly what I mean when I call an action racist.
I am a large and burly black fellow. People often meet me and assume that I played football in high school, when in fact I don’t even know the rules of football, and more than once I’ve been asked to join company games based only on my size and race. The assumption these people make is based on racial prejudgments, but I would not – no, I refuse – to call the presumption racist, but it is not harmful to me, nor is it motivated by animus. Contraiwise, it’s sometimes happened that people, seeing me on a rare non-tie-wearing day and in raggedy clothes, have feared that I might be a mugger, and making that judgment tried to flee my presence. That is closer to being racist, but it’s still not all the way there, because any person has the right to choose to run down the street like a nincompoop, though of course I will mock them for doing so. But if the person fearing me reports to the police that I attempted violence, and if the police then harass or arrest me based only on the color of my skin, that is racism.
Reasonable persons may disagree on the definitions of words. A friend of mine contends, quite honestly, that racism includes acting from a position of power, and thus members of an oppressed minirity cannot be racist. I disagree, but I understand her position.
[QUOTE=Dio]
[QUOTE=the guy who just caught himself admiring the cut of his own jib and is suitably embarassed]
thus exercising an indisputable right can never be racist.
[/QUOTE]
So burning a cross, using racial profanity, believing in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or writing The Turner Diaries isn’t racist? By your definition, David Duke isn’t racist.
[/QUOTE]
It seems to me that you’re being disingenous. Burning a cross on other’s property, believing the Protocols of Zion, & writing the Turner Diaries are not indisputable rights in the way that deciding whom one will not date, couple with, or marry are.
[QUOTE=Dio]
[QUOTE=the guy who likes suits]
You obviously do not feel that such a thing is valuable.
[/QUOTE]
Nor should anyone else.
[/QUOTE]
You do not have the right to determine what others feel or believe.
As others have pointed out, just the opposite is true.
A Hasidic Jew marrying a devout Catholic would almost certainly have vastly more issues to deal with than a liberal marrying a conservative.
Now if you wish to say that parents who stopped speaking to their daughter if she married a Republican are bigots, then go ahead, which for the sake of intellectual consistency you’d have to believe, but that will simply make you look foolish.
The notion that conservatives and liberals are more different than (say) a Muslim and a Christian is patently absurd on its face.
Once again, I ask directly - are you of the opinion that the statement “I will not marry a non-Jew” is not bigoted?
Because unless you are, the distinction you draw - which has no substance in reality, since the OP was clearly not simply concerned with the one example - is meaningless, a red herring.
BTW, this is the opening sentence to the OP:
Closing sentence:
So you are shit outta luck, moving the goalposts. He’s clearly talking about personal decisions, whether or not made under family pressure.
What they can actually do about it is irrelevant. I had a racist grandmother who got angry at me once for dating a black girl (it lasted like 20 seconds), and told me never to bring her around her house. There was nothing she could do to stop it, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t a bigot.
Yes they are. All of those things are indisputable First Amendment rights (and I just said “burning a cross,” I didn’t say “on other people’s property”). Have you never heard of the First Amendment?
You know what is NOT an indisputible right? Who you will marry. That’s totally up to the government.
All I’m doing is observing it and calling it out for what it is. It’s pretty lame to say that I don’t have a right to call it the way I see it. Yes I do. Check the First Amendment again.
Considering the fact that intermarriage rates amongst Muslims in western countries are vastly lower than intermarriage rates amongst Jews that is a fairly ridiculous statement.
As it is, most Muslim families I know would object to their daughters marrying outside the faith and I don’t think anyone classifies them as bigots.
Those parents WOULD be bigots, and I didn’t say that religion couldn’t be divisive, just that it doesn’t have to be, wherein sharp political differences, by definition do have to be.
I used to work for a Christian woman married to a Muslim man. No problems there. They were both political liberals.
I also didn’t say that religion can’t be divisive, only that it doesn’t have to be, while sharp political difference DO have to be.
No. I am of the opinion that it’s bigoted.
Ah, so now you’re trying to compare “sharp political differences” to mere “religious differences”.
Nice shifting the goal posts.
Common sense tells us that “sharp religious differences” between two people who are married are vastly more divisive than “sharp political differences.”
No they don’t. My best friend was a political liberal married to a conservative.
Then the distinction you are attempting to draw makes no difference.