The question has not been posed here, though. Just because endogamous bigotry is common among Muslims doesn’t mean people would say it wasn’t bigoted for a Muslim father to forbid his daughter to marry a non-Muslim.
And I say that it does. This is America, and that’s my opinion.
I didn’t shift the goal posts. Bricker’s hypothetical stipulated sharp political differences and did not stipulate the same for religious differences.
I don’t think I agree with this. I can get along with people I have vast religious differences with. I find political differences far more contentious. In any case, the hypothetical I was responding to specified that the political differences be sharp. If the differences were stipulated as moderate, I’d have had a different answer.
I did not mention law, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. It is my contention that certain rights of individuals should, in any civilized society, be absolute. This is regardless of whether they are enshrined in our nation’s, or any nation’s, constitution. In other words, I am saying that violating such a right is ipso facto immoral, regardless of whether it is illegal or unconstitional.
I didn’t say that deciding whom one will marry is an indisputable right. I wrote that deciding whom one will NOT marry is an indisputable right.
Deciding whom one will marry shouldn’t be an absolute right anyway. If it were, I could force Natalie Portman to marry me. That, obviously, would be wrong.*
The First Amendment is irrelevant to this discussion.
*Well, in theory, In fact Natalie might like being married to me, especially if I were wearing this new suit and thus very pretty at the moment. The tie was an especially good choice. On the other hand I would have to eventually take off the suit and then she’d say, “Dude, you are totally not on my level. I’d call your abs embarrassing but I’m not sure you have any. I don’t care if you’re in your 40s; do some goddamn pushups.”
But race and faith are not interchangeable concepts. No one can change the DNA which determine the phenotypes we ascribe to race . Faith in a religion that accepts converts is a matter of choice.
Ok, for starters you’re ignoring the fact that Muslim males are allowed to marry non-Muslim females. That’s not an issue.
Beyond that, I strongly suspect that their religious differences were not terribly “sharp”.
For example did the wife go to Church every week or was she one of those nominal Christians who goes to Church maybe twice a year? Similarly, did the husband pray five times a day and insist that the children be raised as Muslims?
I suspect the answer to both questions is no. In my experience, in most “interfaith” families(including my own) the religious differences between the two are hardly “sharp”.
The word “right” has no meaning other than a legal one, so I don’t know what you’re getting at here, unless you’re referencing some kind of magical thinking notion of “natural rights.”
In any case, Free speech rights are just as absolute as any other right.
Ok, I’ll agree. But so what? Who said they don’t have the right? What do rights have to do with anything?
You’re the one who brought up this whole irrelevant discussion of “rights.” If you don’t want to talk about rights, then don’t bring up the word. You appear to be trying to parse some kind of personal, idisyncratic, self-serving version of the word, “rights,” in such a way, that the right to not marry someone is inviolate (no argument here, and I don’t think the point has an relevance), but writing racist literature is not. If ypou’re not using a legal definition of “rights,” then you’re using the word insensibly and in a way which cannot be discussed.
Most people would disagree.
It’s very common for their to be “sharp” political differences between two people who are married than there to be “sharp religious differences”.
For example, when he was the Senate Majority leader, George Mitchell was dating a Republican official whom he wound up marrying. Similarly, Arnold Schwarzeneggar the former Governor of California who would certainly be a strong contender for 2012 were it not for the Constitution, is married to an ardent Democrat. And of course, lets not forget Mary Matlin and James Carville.
OK.
I had no idea this would be three pages. Don’t you people ever sleep? 
I’ll answer as many questions as I can remember:
I have no idea why I typed “jews” instead of “Jews”. WTF is the difference? Get over it. Cripes (not Christ, as I know that would offend), if you are spending that much time looking for things to offend you, you are beyond pathetic.
This “tragic” thing in my life occurred over two decades ago. Clearly, I haven’t been burning a candle. :rolleyes: Nor was I upset at the time. I’m not upset about it now. I was just wondering, as a similar situation came up in my life that reminded me of the one I describe in the OP. And for those keeping score, the girl in the OP was NOT permitted to *knowingly *date non-jews. She could go to the movies with a gentile friend, but if she had any feelings toward the guy, she said she couldn’t go down that path. Apparently, before I came along, she made the mistake of dating a non-jewish person, and was broken hearted when her father made her break up with the guy (or choose between him and the family, or something. I can’t remember.) The point is, she didn’t want to go through that again. Could that be a bullshit story for her to tell me she wasn’t into me? I guess. I think it’s a crazy thing to say to someone. It’s much easier to say “I’m not into you.” But based on our conversations in the early stages of flirting, she was into me. Enough at least to continue to go to lunch with me, or hang out after work. I didn’t even know she was jewish until I asked her out on a real date. She then asked my religion. I wonder what kind of story she would have come up with if I was jewish?
For all of you that think I just couldn’t handle the thought of being brushed off by a jewish girl… I could handle it. Perhaps she wasn’t all that into me, but I don’t think this was it. She wasn’t the only Jewish (note the capital J!) girl I asked out. (I asked out at least two others, and they said yes! - apparently, not a member of their family any longer, or they were slumming, 
) She was the only one that gave me this excuse. I have also gone out with African American women (shock!) as well as numerous christians, athiests, and/or whatever. Since religion is waaaaay down on my personal checklist, it rarely came up in conversation, and NEVER by me. I was an equal-opportunity serial dater.
If this is NOT racism, what is it? If I, as a gentile, were to say to a Jew, “look, I just want you to know that I can never date or marry you because you are a jew.”, I can’t imagine everyone just nodding their head in assent and saying “yeah, SFP isn’t a racist. What’s the big deal?”
One of my favorite posts, by msmith537, is her notion that somehow I come off as “entitled” (Whaaaaaa? entitled to what, exactly?) and my favorites “are you going to convert to Judaism”, and “if you get married and have kids, will you raise them jewish.” If the answer is either “no” or “I don’t care”, the OP is sour grapes. Wow… that’s some imagination. Why isn’t the woman required to convert to whatever I believe? What if she doesn’t care if we raise the kids jewish or not?
WT* are you talking about?
I don’t know the answers to those questions. I was not privy to the details. I met her husband a couple of times and he seemed nice enough. He was West African, not Arab. He was from Senegal, I believe. She claimed his culture was liberal for Islam. She herself was not particularly demonstrative in her religion. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess she was a probably a “Christmas and Easter” type Christian.
That all just goes to my point that religious differences don’t have to be sharp.
And yet…
My diagnosis is intermittent shift key allergy.
This has been explained to you over, and over and over again. Wanting to marry someone who is compatible with you culturally or religiously, or raise your children in a specific religion, has absolutely nothing to do with racism. You’ve invented an idiosyncratic definition to back up a position that’s unsupportable on its merits.
You seriously don’t understand the difference between saying “I want to marry someone from my religious/cultural tradition” and not liking someone because of their religion/culture?
You really don’t see the difference between “I only want to marry someone who has the proper in-group dynamic” and “there are specific groups I do not like on racial/ethnic/religious grounds”?
You don’t grok the difference between “I am attracted to women with red hair” and “I hate blacks”?
To have a serious relationship with someone who has a preference for the cultural/religious situation of the person she’s dating and the cultural/religious household into which any potential children would be born. To the point where you’ve created a definition of “elitist racist” with which to tar someone who exercises that right. It’s made even more obvious by the fact that there are no “elitist racists” who have a doctrinal obligation to accept you as one of their own if you convert to their race.
Yep, that’s a rather pronounced argument for entitlement.
A woman has a preference as to what sort of man she wants to marry and raise children with, and instead of accepting that you’re either simply not compatible or you can go through a fairly simple process to become compatible, you call her an elitist racist and wonder at why she can’t just change what she wants out of a marriage and go with what you want.
A few serious answers now:
A lot of the flak you’re getting is from the focus of your OP on Judaism specifically. I am not personally aware of ANY religion whose stricter followers don’t care if you marry a nonbeliever in the general case (I certainly got a LOT of “you need a nice Catholic girl” from my own parents, before I converted to Buddhism and they decided that being family was more important than religious principle after all). Another bit of flak is the idea that “Jew” is a “race”–leaving aside the argument (currently playing in a GD near you) of whether that’s even a valid descriptor of anything, Judaism accepts converts from humans regardless of surface morphology last I checked.
One could certainly call it bigotry in the case you’re describing: “I forbid you to marry someone who is not in Group X” is certainly bigoted in favor of Group X.
I would NOT call it bigotry, personally, if someone says “I’m sorry, but my culture is important to me and so I only date from Group X.” No different from me being “bigoted” against non-redheads–it’s a personal preference issue.
You’d have probably got a better response with a more generally phrased OP: “I have noticed that many religious and cultural groups attempt to date and marry only within their own group. In particular, I once tried to date a Jew whose father wouldn’t let her date me. Is this bigotry, and if so, why is it generally socially acceptable in a way that skin-color-based racism is not?”
To amplify what others have said: I’m absolutely convinced that you are equally allowed to require your potential dates to convert to StinkFishPotianism without accusations of being bigoted. Just like you have the right to set deal-breakers, she does as well, and if one of hers is “must be culturally compatible (demonstrated, generally, by similar or the same religious views)” that’s not bigotry so much as “good sense”.
As I said above from my own experience–I never had good luck dating Orthodox or Conservative Jews, even when I was willing to convert to Reform Judaism, because we were culturally incompatible on the issue of whether pigs belonged in the kitchen in our house or not.
Debate taken to the proper thread from ATMB:
Yes, you did. Surprisingly enough, your own words are not a lack of “reading comprehension” on my part. This girl, even if she liked you “[wouldn’t] marry you because you aren’t of the same religion” that that would “make [her] an elitist and a racist by definition.” Just as it would make any other Jewish woman who didn’t want to marry a gentile.
Ah, but you didn’t “explicitly” call her an elitist racist, so that’s totally different.
I’m reasonably certain that pretty much anybody reading along understands that’s an accusation that the girl (or any other Jewish girl who wouldn’t marry you because you weren’t Jewish) was an “elitist racist”. Especially since you’re now explicitly admitting that your whole argument boils down to ‘as a white person, if I did the exact same thing you did, wouldn’t I then be an elitist racist?’ That it’s an argument by analogy is not even disputable.
Your claims are nowhere near as subtle as you think.
Fictional, never happened, absolutely imaginary.
If you contend otherwise report it to the mods and they will fix it as you are not allowed to provide fake quotes of any other posters.
These games really are laughable. The first is a basic syllogism:
As for your denial that you’ve claimed Jews on a group get a pass on racism… people can still notice the title of the thread. It is "why do jews get a pass when it comes to racism? "
This, rather blatantly, means that you are claiming that “jews get a pass when it comes to racism”.
Your denial is, shall we say, less than persuasive.
Specifically not wishing to marry someone because they ARE of a particular religion or cultural background isn’t the same thing as not wanting to marry outside of one’s OWN religion or cultural background.
“I’m a Catholic and can only marry other Catholics” is different from “I will never marry a Jew”.
Not that the latter is, in and of itself, necessarily bigoted/racist - if someone isn’t turned on by Blacks, not wishing to marry a Black isn’t in and of itself of racism. It may however be indicative of racism, because people who specifically do not wish to marry Blacks often do so because they are racist.
So, for example, “I will not marry a Jew” may be indicative of bigotry, because the reason for singling out Jews as uniquely and specifically no suitable for marriage to me may be “…because I dislike Jews”. However, if the reason is ("… because I’m Catholic and I will only marry within my faith"), it is obviously not bigotry, because in that case the reason has nothing to do with prejudice against Jews.
Exactly. The confusion over this subject is bizarre.
“I require a mate who shares my cultural and religious outlook, and who will accept that any children we have will be raised in an exclusively Jewish context. If people aren’t cool with this, that’s fine, they’re obviously not a proper mate for me. If they’re not Jewish but are willing to convert, that’ll work too.” is not racist. At least not in any sense that anybody normally actually understands the word “racist”.
“I wouldn’t date a black person because I don’t like blacks” is entirely different.
Preference for, or even requite in-group dynamics in order for marriage and child-raising certainly does not imply, let alone necessitate, intolerance of out-group membership.
Hrm. Requite should be requisite.
Ah well.
Given that half of all Jews are married to non-Jews how can Jews be said to be bigoted? That’s a very rate of outmarriage. What are the comparable stats for other groups such as Asians or African-Americans or Muslims? I happen to be Jewish and married to a non-Jewish man. My parents were actually relieved when I dumped my prior Jewish boyfriend as he was rather conservative. My husband is extremely liberal and gets along far better with my parents.
Bigots!
I should note that everyone is bringing religion into this when it’s most likely not the most important factor, especially for people who are not that religious which I think are the majority of people.
From what I know, many Greeks/Jews/Chinese/Indians want their kids to marry other Greeks/Jews/Chinese/Indians because of the culture/“shared DNA”/whatever even if they are not particularly religious. They just want their “line” or heritage to continue.
So, let’s not focus too much on a factor that is not that strong among most of the population. I do agree that for devout people religion is possibly *the *strongest reason to want your kids to marry your “own kind”, but the fact that so many non-religious people also want this means that there are also several other factors at play.
Are any of you saying that non-religious people wanting/forcing their kids to marry their own kind*, are bigoted, but religious people who do the same thing due to religious reasons are not bigoted?
*I’m using “own kind” since calling these groups “races” gets people all caught up in the semantics of the word race