Heck, just to keep it equivalent:
“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 bigoted..
“I wouldn’t date a Jew because I don’t like Jews” is bigoted.
“I only date Jews because my father won’t let me date non-Jews.” is probably unbigoted on the part of the speaker and bigoted on the part of the father (pushing your preferences on others is a form of bigotry, imho).
I find the “We’re not bigoted since you can always convert to our religion if you want to marry one of us” to be funny.
Imagine a Republican who doesn’t allow his daughter to marry a Liberal saying “We’re not bigoted since you can always convert to our political philosophy and join the Republican Party if you want to marry one of us”
I think what sounds a bit off is the sentence “any children we have will be raised in an ***exclusively ***Jewish context”, especially if that person is not that religious.
If someone who is Greek/Italian/Chinese and not very religious demands from all potential mates to accept that “any children we have will be raised in an ***exclusively *** Greek/Italian/Chinese context”, I think that wouldn’t come across too well.
Your first sentence is patently untrue. Even leaving aside permutations of meanings like east of south, starboard & correctness, here are some relevant definitions from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:
[QUOTE=well, obviously the OED. I like to think that JRR Tolkien wrote this particular entry, but obviously have no proof. It’s just the Silmarillion geek in me]
I †1 The standard of permitted and forbidden action; law. OE–E17.
†2 One’s duty. OE–ME.
3 ▸ a That which is consonant with justice, goodness, or reason; that which is morally or socially correct; just or equitable treatment; fairness in decision; justice. OE. ▸ b Consonance with fact; correctness. L18. ▸ c In pl. The just, good, equitable, or correct points or aspects of something; the arguments in favour. Chiefly in the rights and wrongs of. M19.
4 Entitlement or justifiable claim, on legal or moral grounds, to have or obtain something, or to act in a certain way. OE.
5 A legal, equitable, or moral title or claim to the possession of property or authority, the enjoyment of privileges or immunities, etc. Also, (dial.) an obligation (usu. in neg. contexts). Foll. by to, to do, (now chiefly Law) of (doing); also freq. with specifying word (when usu. in pl.). OE. ▸ b A document substantiating a claim or title. M16. ▸ c In pl. A title or authority to perform, publish, film, or televise a particular work, event, etc. L19.
[/QUOTE]
Definitions 1, 2, & 3 are not about law, and it was specifically definition 3a I alluded to (though 4 is also in there somewhat).
Free speech rights are not absolute. Go yell fire in a crowded theatre if you disbelieve me.
Ok, I’ll agree. But so what? Who said they don’t have the right? What do rights have to do with anything?
[/quote]
As I noted in both above in this post and earlier in the thread, when I mentioned a person’s rights, I spoke of the the liberties which I believe a civilized society may not justly deny its [del]citizens[/del] persons subject to its laws. The right to decide whom one will not fuck is, I am claiming, one of those rights. Such decisions need not be justified to anyone. It’s more basic than the rights of free speech, religion, assembly, and so forth, because it’s the right to control one’s own body. Any reason a person gives is acceptable; it is acceptable to give no reason whatsoever.
Diogenes, it is disingenous to say that I am using the word right in an idiosyncratic fashion. Not merely because of the cite I just provided, but because you yourself, in alluding to the concept of natural rights, acknowledged that others have used the term to refer to things other than legally guaranteed rights.
We have discussed this before, but I’ll say it again: words can have more than one meaning. I’ll go so far as to say that the vast, vast majority of English words can be used in multiple senses, some of which can seem contradictory. If this distresses you, I suggest you construct a langauge of your own for which that is not true. Of course, it won’t remain true unless you are the only person who ever uses that language.
But back to the thread topic. There can be reasons other than hatred of other races, ethnicities, and religions for a person to decline to marry outside his/her own race/religion/ethnicity. In my view, it devalules the word racism to use it to describe those reasons. Persons who strongly identify with their heritage or faith, and fear the extinction of same, may honorably decline to wed or procreate outside those groups.
Another thing: upthread you wrote:
[QUOTE=some guy wandering around with a lantern looking for an honest man]
Why does any “racial” group need to be perpetuated? Why is it bad if it gets assimilated into a larger genetic population?
[/QUOTE]
That seems to imply that no given race or ethnicity has a right to continue to exist. Is that what you meant?* Because it seems to me such a belief sanctions practices such as, for instance, the (hopefully former) Canadian & American practice of forcing Native American children to abandon their tribes’ language and speak only English. Put another way, saying that no given ethnic/racial group has a right to exist seems tantamount to accepting that the more powerful ethnic groups will assimilate (read: destroy) the less powerful.
*I am not accusing you of believing or asserting that. I asking if you do. I can’t read minds.
I am aware of at least one person who does that with “Irish” in my group of friends. Regardless, I don’t know how that can be bigoted if something like “I would only marry another meat eater” is not. Declaring that expressing a personal cultural preference in a mate is evidence of bigotry is a pretty odd step to take.
IIRC, absolutely everybody other than Dio and the OP have been repeatedly pointing out that in-group preferences do not amount to hatred/intolerance of out-group membership.
It makes perfect sense, and there’s absolutely nothing objectionable about it. At least, not if “We want out grandchildren to go to college, and as long as you commit yourself to providing them with that opportunity, we give our blessings to you marrying our daughter.” isn’t also objectionable.
You’re also ignoring the original context, which is that the OP bizarrely claimed that people having a preference for members of their in-group when it came to marriage and procreation meant that they were elitist racists. In that context, showing that those so called “elitists” will accept anybody who has a sincere desire to join them, and those “racists” will count anybody among their number who wants to join and goes through a few simple steps, well…
What does this prove except that religion is not fungible with nationality?
I don’t know of any Jewish families who would object to, for instance, their children enrolling in a Chinese cooking class or taking a semester abroad in a foreign country. I do know a great many Jewish families who would object to their children spending half their time at Hebrew school and half at Church.
Let’s take your Irish example. If he/she demands from all potential mates to accept that “any children we have will be raised in an exclusively Irish context”, I think most people would be like “WTF?”
People can understand that Irish people are proud of their culture and want to enjoy it and celebrate it, but to rule out all potential mates because they will not accept raising the kids in an exclusively Irish context, seems far fetched. This person doesn’t want the kids experiencing any German/Italian/Chinese traditions? Does he/she feel that Irish culture is superior to German/Italian/Chinese culture in every way and so does not want their kid to be tainted by experiencing any part of it?
Do you have examples of many Jews who get upset when their children participate in various cultural practices? Or are you conflating religion with culture?
There are a lot of Mormons in our town, and my younger daughter used to hang out with a lot of them. They have a whole infrastructure to encourage boys and girls within the church to date and to marry each other, and lots of social pressure also. We noted that willingness to marry outside of the church seemed correlated with lack of willingness to go on ones mission.
I never considered any of them bigoted in the least.
Oddly, religion doesn’t seem to have come up in this religious discussion. If one truly believes in a religion, is it odd that she doesn’t want to violate the dictates of what she feels God wants by marrying outside it? Given that this is one of the most personal decisions there is, how can you blame her? Given the importance of compatibility, how can you blame her?
As an atheist Jew, I would have had as much trouble marrying an Orthodox woman as marrying a fundamentalist woman. Marrying a Presbyterian by birth who was a deist at best was no problem at all.
Speaking of which, the OP has yet to offer any justification for why he claim that “jews get a pass when it comes to racism” when in-group preference isn’t racist, a huge percent of Jews marry outside their faith/ethnicity, there is significant debate within the Jewish community itself as to what sort of stance it should have on intermarriage and inreach/outreach, and conversion puts paid to the claim that it’s “racist” or “elitist”.
Substantiation or retraction would be ideal, sooner rather than later.
Finn, once again, you keep beating that term elitist racists. I never said that. Just because you keep saying it doesn’t make it so. And since you are so concerned that I posted in the wrong forum to rebut what you were saying, I’ll cut and paste it here for you to read again.
… and then he figured that “a LOT” of Jews were also elitist racists, and Jews as a group get “a pass when it comes to racism.”
And I suppose I won’t make any headway, but I believe that it’s quite unreasonable to ask a poster to modify forum-legal behavior (especially with a vague and subjective set of guidelines) when the only problem is that another poster may not follow the rules in the course of responding. But I’ll do my best not to draw a Warning.
[/quote]
Part of your problem is reading comprehension. The other part may be that I didn’t spell out every possible detail to make someone like you happy.
For example, I never said that the girl was “an elitist racist”. You did. A number of times. In fact, this is what I said at the bottom of my OP..
“If I love you in every way but won’t marry you because you aren’t of the same religion, color, or whatever, doesn’t that make me an elitist and a racist by definition?”
That is different than me explicitly calling her an elitist racist. Actually, what I was implying was as a white person, if I made that same comment on why I wouldn’t marry someone else based on religion, color or whatever, wouldn’t I be considered an elitist and a racist. You completely changed that to suit your shorthand, and it was perpetuated on page one of the thread.
You used the term “elitist racist” no fewer than 4 times on your own, typing it each time. You also used it in a post of your own, where you are claiming to quote me. See post #30 of the thread. You quote me from the op by using “elitist racist” in quotation marks. It’s something I never typed, and yet you use it with impunity. I used it once, when I quoted you with the quote button.
You can’t simply read something, filter out what you want and don’t want, and not expect some backlash. But you do. Constantly.
And where exactly do I say this? ... and then he figured that “a LOT” of Jews were also elitist racists, and Jews as a group get “a pass when it comes to racism.” (finn’s words, quoting them to me)
I don’t. I never even imply that a lot of jews are elitist racists. You’ve taken your own made up phrase, attributed it to me, and now claim I’m doing some figuring based on that. You spend so much time attacking me or anything that may be remotely viewing jews in an unflattering matter, and you make things up to support your theory. But making words up, putting quotes around them and then saying someone else said them is not only wrong, it’s unethical. It isn’t something you are going to go to jail for, but it makes all of your posts suspect. People that call you on it are always admonished and/or pitted.
As for where I might have done better: I could have explained in excruciating detail the reason I asked this question in the first place. The fact that this exact thing happened to a friend of mine recently. She was given the chance to convert, but unless that occurred, the relationship was over. I remembered my experience from my own life and used that, since my experience is the only one I can speak directly to. The recent event also caused me to revisit my jewish and non-jewish friends, their spouses and what I knew about their relationships. I cannot share with anyone an example of a Jew converting to a non-jewish religion, but I do have a number of examples where the conversion took place. There are also, like many folks in the thread, married and not in a twist about it either way. No conversion was required.
By the way, Finn. Somewhere in this very thread, you tell someone that jews **can **be considered a race. Therefore, the term racist does apply.
Which is it, then? I ask you since you are the one that everyone should go to regarding questions that pertain in any way to Judaism. You are the SMDB’s Moses.
More crap to dance around. Are you saying that being Jewish is *** just ***a religion? If that’s your position, then fine. There is no reason to hyphenate yourself when you describe yourself to others. You aren’t Jewish American. You are American. Jews that are from Germany are German-American, not Jewish American. Can’t say that I’ve never heard the term jewish-american, so someone better get on the stick and straighten this out. Or, tell every catholic that they can hyphenate themselves as well, and disregard country of origin.
So, being jewish is a religion when it suits you, and when it doesn’t suit you, being jewish is a culture.
What a pantload.
I honestly don’t know why I bother. You poke a stick for the sake of a reaction. When things aren’t going your way, you change direction. It doesn’t matter. Making up words and putting them in the mouths of others is SOP for you, and yet you do it repeatedly.
You simply aren’t an honest debater. You see the word “jew” and knee-jerk react immediately. Finn to the rescue!
come on… say it. I know you are dying to! just get it out, and you’ll feel better. remember, bizarre, elitist racist, and…?
You are now making a claim that has already been factually rebutted,in detail. You ignored that rebuttal, as it is of course factual. You are repeating the same errors and denying your own words.
It only “applies” if you ignore the refutation after refutation after refutation showing that you’re simply wrong. The issue isn’t that Jews can be modeled as a racial group, we’ve been over this multiple times. The issue is that in-group preferences, especially when it comes to marriage and child-rearing, do not suggest let alone necessitate hatred of out-group members.
So you are also unable to provide any factual substantiation to the claim that Jews are, in any appreciable (or, most likely, detectable) numbers, objecting to their children being exposed to other cultures rather than the fact that a certain percentage are instead objecting to their children being raised in other religions?
You are failing to understand a series of points that I have made and ignoring the actual nuances and specifics of the situation in support a thread that argues that “a LOT” of Jews are elitist racists for wanting to marry other Jews and “jews get a pass when it comes to racism”.
yeah, you are right. I fell into the trap of trying to explain things to someone that’s really not interested in the explanation. Round and round it goes until I realize I’ve spent too much time talking about this.
And you are wrong about your logic. That may be what it implies to you, but not to me. I don’t know how many jews engage in this behavior. But I know that some do, as some have admitted in this thread.
Here’s the thing. My use of the words elitist or racist had nothing to do with my reaction to my situation. However, I’ve heard those words used when a white (for example) won’t date a black, or a catholic won’t date/marry a protestant. And if you are telling me that if you were within earshot of me saying to a jewish woman that “I won’t date you because I can’t marry a Jew” and have no reaction, you are lying. What would you call me? Racist? Bigot? Elitist? dare I say, anti-semite?
whatever the words, you wouldn’t be ok with it. I wouldn’t get a pass. Even if everyone agrees that I should be able to pick my own mate and raise my children as I see fit, if I want to marry a white woman to share my culture and maintain what we are, what does that make me?
You can’t have it both ways. But it seems like everybody wants to.
I think the best term to use in such discussion is “culture,” because it includes many ways of understanding kind on equal terms. It’s particularly useful for Jewishness, which is variously perceived as an ethnic identity, or a strictly religious affiliation, or a fuzzy blend of both. Given that self-identified Jews themselves (even within a single family) plot this identity in different ways, I don’t think there’s much value in arguing what Jewishness “really” is.
As an individualist, naturally I would condemn parents who tried to force their child’s choice. There is no cultural imperative which should override individual freedom. Everybody ought to make this choice based on what feels right to them personally.
But as someone who likes diverse cultures for the sake of diversity, I have to say that I’m glad that some proportion of people within any given culture want to perpetuate it, making their marriage and family according to their traditional models.
I agree that “exclusively” is a problematic word choice right there, at best. Nobody here, I imagine, approves of parents imprisoning their children within a fixed culture, whether that culture is defined by ethnicity or religion or anything else. The half Hebrew school/half church example isn’t a good analogue of the cooking class; a better one would be simply attending a ceremony performed in a different tradition.
Well, I’d be unimpressed if the only criterion for “my culture and…what we are” was “white.” That’s not much to hang your hat on.
Still, you’re right, your choice of partner alone shouldn’t brand you a racist. You’d still be fine with your kid choosing to take a Chinese cooking class, spend a semester in Brazil, and maybe eventually marry an Indian guy, right?
There’s a MASSIVE distinction between these two paragraphs:
As I said above: “I only want to marry someone of my culture” is not bigoted.
“I will not marry someone of a specific culture/race/group” is bigoted.
The “race” thing is a special case, admittedly, for white people. That’s largely because there are so many white cultures in the US that saying “I want to marry a white woman to share my culture” is narrowing down the field not much at all. As I said above, I know at least one person who married on the basis of “I want to marry another Irish person”, someone who had mom’s recipe for corned beef and potatoes or whatever, that had similar values and expectations regarding diet, household, etc.
It’s easier to justify with religions or stricter cultures, and it’s supremely easy to justify with conservative versions of religions or cultural groups that have a lot of rules and rituals about day-to-day living that aren’t universally moral rules (like Judaism, Islam, and Roman Catholicism, and for that matter Veganism or the more rigid Local Food types).
Were I still a Roman Catholic, I’d want to marry someone who was at the very least familiar enough and comfortable enough with the religion that they’d understand without reminders that there was no meat on Fridays in Lent, that Advent was the official start of the Christmas season, and whatnot. I came very near to making “Eastern European background” a requirement, but ended up teaching my wife how to make peroghi and halushki and such myself–but I wouldn’t judge a person who wanted all that “included dealer standard” as it were.
I really don’t see how you can take away the idea that anyone is “worthless garbage” from that quote. Choosing a partner for marriage is a very specific choice and it has to be just the right person. In most cases (for people who are religious) that means of the same religion. Just because you don’t think someone is right for marrying you doesn’t mean you think they’re “worthless garbage!” By your logic, Jews (and all other religious people) think that everyone who is not part of their religion or culture is worthless garbage, and that is just not true.
I don’t get it, man. I know you’re against religion and always have been, and I respect your choice of being that way. But your post above sounds like Der Trihs talking, not you.
I’m not against religion (how many times do I have to point out that I’m married to a religious woman?), and I didn’t say anything against religion in that post. I’m against bigotry…actually, I should just say that I recognize it when I see it. I’m not out to try to stop it or anything. I also said the same thing about atheists who set these kind of absolutist rules.