I’m not sure what hate speech is, but I do know that it is against the rules. I think maybe an answer to the title question (all members, guests, and staff are welcome to comment) might help me to understand it better. To me, intuitively, hate speech is the deliberate classification of whole groups of people by use of a term that they might reasonably believe to be pejorative.
I acknowledge that I could be completely wrong about the definition, but let’s just go with it for the time being until it’s corrected. I guess that by that definition you could argue two ways that “fundie” does not qualify as hate speech— (1) it is not reasonable for fundamentalists to feel insulted by the term, and/or (2) they are a special class who deserve insult.
As far as I’m concerned, (2) is questionable at best. There are, in fact, fundamentalist Christians who are reasonable people who do not deserve insult, and so therefore it cannot be true of the whole class. But (1) seems downright insidious to me mostly because, on principle, it seems to nullify the wrongness of number (2). In other words, if it is granted that fundamentalists may not reasonably be offended by “fundie”, then those who truly are bigots — who really do believe that fundamentalists as a whole comprise a special class of subhumans — have license to use the term when they in fact intend it to be insulting. They do indeed hate fundamentalist Christians and are delighted to have a vehicle for the expression of their hatred.
Of course a term that is not in itself insulting can be used that way. I can make just about anything an insult based on how I say it. You cannot classify a word as automatically hate speach just because some people might use it in a perjorative manner. That would just be silly. The classification must be based on how it is commonly used in out culture.
“Liberal” seems to have been used as a pejorative word for some time now. The same for “neo-con.” If “Fundy” is offensive, is “Christian Fundamentalist” any less so? Is it worse to say “them Fundies are sincere,” than to say “them Christian Fundamentalists are all a bunch of barking idiots?”
by your definition, “Liberal loonies” would also classify as hate speech. and if you go on w/the concept of ‘find offensive’, all of the ‘why do you hate America’ and accusations of treason would also qualify.
from the examples I’ve seen of what qualifies as ‘hate speech’ here, it isn’t sufficient that the perjorative comment be offensive to the group. the group involved seem to also be minorities (blacks, hispanics, gays for example, and I’d hope you would know what the pejoratives would be) and have some demonstratable bias exist IRL.
Christians in America are the majority (even if fundementalist Christians, being a subset of the larger group, may be a minority), and while I do indeed recall examples IRL of people being physically harmed simply for being members of certain racial/ethnic groups or having a particular sexual orientation, I’m not as aware of fundementalist Christians being subjected to the same sort of thing.
those are the differences I’ve noted, but do not claim that the views represent the administration here.
OTOH, I’ve not been cited by the mods as participating in Hate Speech, so perhaps I have a decent handle on what is and isn’t (though honestly, I don’t recall ever using the term “fundie”, certainly w/o any regularity).
I’ve never called them fundies (to my recollection) but I have to say #2 seems valid to me. Every person who’s self identified as a Fundamentalist to me has
Wanted to press their religious views into the government and oppress other religions by doing so.
Contrary to all evidence and logic holds the bible to be inerrant
Usually has thinly disguised racism (though this is hardly universal)
Wishes to oppress ways of life they consider ‘immoral’
Uses the bible to excuse their bigotry
Are hypocrites (this is universal in my experience I’ve yet to meet one that didn’t harass others about immortality yet do plenty of immoral things themselves)
Will not recognize other ways of life are valid.
Harass and argue with me about my feelings towards religion and when I fire back accuse me of oppressing them of all things.
The fundamentalist movement itself may not deserve mockery but the individuals I’ve encountered that represent it definitely do. This is a group that seems to spread intolerance and ignorance under the guise of love.
When a group goes by such a long, pretentious, difficult to spell and pronounce name, they’ve no right to bitch when others shorten it for them. With a root like this, the fundamentalists should be grateful they got off as easily as they did nickname-wise.
Our own Duck Duck Goose belongs to one of the original churches that subscribed to the Five Fundamentals, back when “Biblical inerrancy” was talking about deriving doctrine from it, not using it to prove that Noah opened a seagoing branch of Jurassic Park! On another board I know a retired Marine gunnery sergeant who with his wife runs a successful and effective group of recovery programs for addicts; he’s a Biblical literalist who is proud to be called “fundamentalist” and a man who puts his whole life where his mouth is.
So I can say “fundamentalist” of somebody and mean it as a term of respect for their beliefs.
On the other hand, we have Paul Cameron, who persists in forging and using falsified statistics to advance his personal social views, and his boss, who uses a major radio ministry to fund-raise for political campaigning and to underwrite Cameron’s work, and all the people who persist in quoting Cameron statistics after having had their falsity demonstrated to them, in order to continue hate-mongering disguised as evangelism. These guys deserve far worse language than gobear is accustomed to use.
I dunno, maybe there’s a point in the OP. Aren’t certain types of speech hate speech based on their intent, not their content? In other words, while the word “Hispanic” might not be a no-no word on the nightly news, if it were used with derogatory intent, wouldn’t it be hate-speech?
I know that when I use the word “fundie”, I do mean it in a derogatory manner. I wouldn’t say if it I were saying something nice about somebody. I might say they were “very religious” or say something nice first and then say “BUT she’s a howling nutjob fundie.” I mean, clearly it is a derogatory term in the way that I and most people use it.
If I were having a serious discussion about, say, evolution, or gay marriage, or some other issue where one’s place on the religious spectrum was important, I’d use “fundie” to be insulting, yes. If I were trying hard not to be insulting, I’d use the specific term that dealt with what I was discussing (for example, “literalist”) or perhaps use their specific denomination, or say “fundamentalist”, even. But “fundie” is equivalent in my mind to “religious nutjob”, and Lib is honestly right - now that I think about it, I realize maybe it’s ruder than I think.
“Hate speech” seems to be one of those ‘I know it when I see it’ issues. It’s hard for me to see “fundie” as hate speech, but hell, it’s not like I’m not biased on the issue. But I think there’s a certain point to the OP that’s easy to ignore with the “Well, they deserve it - they’re the ones who use hate-speech and are on the whole big mean poopyheads” argument.
I think that friend gobear is hitting on a very important point. The element of the power dynamic. For example, if a black person were to call me a honkey, I really would not feel as if I were a victim of hate speech. On the other hand if I, a white man, were to use racial pejoratives it would be hate speach. This is because, in this society, I am a member of the group in charge.
The same is true for the term fundie. Bottom line here is that the Christians are running the show in this country. Now, it may be that it is offensive language, but I think that you would be engaging in some pretty tricky mental gymnastics to label it as hate speech.