IGF contributing author David Link has an op-ed in the Los Angles Times that finds President Bush, in avoiding the word "gay" (or any reference to gay people at all) is trying to define same-sex marriage as a hetero-only issue.
On the other side, conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby opines that calling same-sex marriage opponents "bigots" is uncivil and forestalls, rather than encourages, dialog and debate. It's an interesting question: Are they bigots if they don't know they're bigots? And if they don't know they're bigots, does calling them "bigots" simply fuel their bigotry?
How about when Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) says:
I'm really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family, we've never had a divorce or any kind of a homosexual relationship.
That's not bigotry?
Sarcasm aside, believing that gays should not have the right to marry their life partner, whether founded on deeply held religious beliefs or not, does suggest you aren't exactly viewing gay people as your equal. But I would agree that such folks are not moved to be less prejudiced by calling them "bigots" who seek to perpetuate "discrimination." It would be far better to make a positive case for same-sex marriage, which most of our Washington-based gay leaders, following Howard Dean's talking points, simply won't do.
On a brighter note (kinda, sorta), the conservative Washington Examiner, known for its close ties to the Bush White House, editorializes:
By bringing up the proposal now, when it is certain to be defeated, and making it clear in comments to the media that they are doing it only to "bring out the base" in November, Bush, Rove and company are also laying the groundwork for permanently shelving the initiative after the ballots are counted. Let the marriage amendment fail now and odds are overwhelming that there will be many other "more winnable" goals for Bush and the GOP leadership to push. (hat tip: Right Side of the Rainbow)
See, they're not "bigots," are they?
17 Comments for “Who’s a Bigot?”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Steve: “It would be far better to make a positive case for same-sex marriage, which our gay “leaders,” following Howard Dean’s talking points, simply won’t do.”
Oh, horse-hockey, Steve.
I don’t know who our supposed “leaders” are, or why you think that our “leaders” are mouthing Howard Dean’s talking points, but a large number of GBLT folks who are making a positive case for same-sex marriage — Jonathan Rauch, Andrew Sullivan, Evan Wolfson, and many, many more of us around the country.
The case is strong and compelling, the reasons for denying same-sex marriage weak, which is why we keep winning the court cases.
But I’m heartened to hear that you’ve turned a corner in your thinking, Steve. It wasn’t too long ago that you were arguing that we should abandon the push for marriage in favor of civil unions. Keep moving right along, Steve.
It is risky, I know, and far from politically expedient, for GLBT folk to push for marriage equality, and the devil take the hindmost. But we are going to win this fight.
It is this simple: If gays and lesbians want be “tolerated”, then gays and lesbians should be “sensible” and ask to be “tolerated”, accepting something less than full citizenship. If, on the other hand, gays and lesbians want to be treated as every other American citizen is treated, then gays and lesbians have no choice but to demand marriage equality and risk being clobbered.
I’m glad you’ve come on board.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
“It would be far better to make a positive case for same-sex marriage”
Actually, I think it would be far better to make a positive case for getting government OUT of the marriage business entirely for everyone.
posted by Lori Heine on
The reason the states started issuing marriage licenses to begin with was so they could prevent interracial marriage. Government involvement in marriage has been a tool for bigots all along.
posted by raj on
Regarding the post, it is not surprising that Dubya, six years into his pResidency, would avoid the use of the word “gay.” The NYTimes, during the entire reign of its idiot editor in chief Abe Rosenthal (mid ’70s to mid ’80s), refused to use the word gay. And, St. Ronald, he of Reagan, refused to even talk about AIDS in public until–some six years into his pResidency.
As an aside, I suppose that I should be surprised that Miller has cited a column by the jackass Jeff Jacoby, but I’m really not. (I’m from Boston, the home of Jacoby’s home newspaper, the Globe.) One thing that Miller really should consider is that, just because a columnist has a gig with a newspaper, doesn’t mean that he should be taken seriously.
To the comments
Lori Heine | June 7, 2006, 10:36pm | #
The reason the states started issuing marriage licenses to begin with was so they could prevent interracial marriage. Government involvement in marriage has been a tool for bigots all along.
This might be true, but I doubt it. The reason that states started regulating marriage (by issuing marriage licenses and registering marriages) is that they wanted to do away with common-law marriage. Why did they want to do away with common-law marriage? Because, when someone wanted to assert marriage rights–which in the past usually came about after the death of a spouse–the surviving spouse had to go through the arduous task in court of proving that the common-law marriage actually existed. By eliminating common-law marriage and having marriages registered with the state, that task would be eliminated.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
The reason marriage was licensed in the first place was threefold:
1) Easier administration for lazy bureaucrats and courts who didn’t want to spend time determining if a contract between two married couples was bona fide;
2) Ease of making life difficult for minorities who were unpopular, such as Mormons, interracial couples, etc. It’s no coincidence that the first instances of marriages being “licensed” were in the 1870s, directly following the end of the Civil War, in southern segregationist states.
3) Revenue for the state and local governments. Hey, lots of people get married — why not add yet another set of taxes to people’s everyday lives and hold them hostage yet again? If they cannot get married without paying us our extortion fee, that’s a great source of guaranteed revenue. We can even make it more difficult by passing laws which ban cohabitation by unmarried couples. . . forcing them to pay up.
posted by Bobby on
“Actually, I think it would be far better to make a positive case for getting government OUT of the marriage business entirely for everyone.”
—Nah, Americans love having their government involved in that issue. They love the official documents, and I suppose some might love the exclusivity marriage brings. The joy of saying “I am married, you are not.” Look at how they wear their wedding rings, it’s so obvious.
Besides, without legal marriage, divorce becomes more complicated. In some states, if your partner cheats on you, you can use the adultery to avoid paying alymony. Without legalized marriage, we’d be stuck with contract law and all the complications that creates.
Rather than getting desperate, it’s better to be patient. 50% of americans are already against the constitutional amendment. So why not wait, in 10 years, 70% of Americans will favor same-sex marriage, then we can legalize the damn thing and move on to something else.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
I’ll tell you what it is: conceit, heterosexual supremacy.
It’s the same irrational superiority complex that allowed white people, or men or anyone else confronted with a fellow human being they had little knowlege of but were certain weren’t ‘their kind’.
The beauty part about gay folks is the universal integration in every human culture, religion, economic strata or family structure.
There are no exceptions and straight people are not exceptional when it comes to decency, competence and accomplishment. They just think they are better and label heterosexuality as if it’s a virtue.
One doesn’t have to prove character or virtues to be accepted, you’re hetero and that’s good enough for the other heteros unless and until you do something seriously bad or dangerous.
And even then, it’s not because you’re hetero, it’s because you’re a bad person.
Of course no other heteros are called on to explain or justify the bad behavior of their straight peers.
Gay people have to or are expected to be saints or adhere to impossible standards that are not set forth for heteros, let alone at the suspension of equal protections and privileges within the law.
And heteros are convinced that anything gay people do, that they do, is at their expense.
Theory and abstraction are substance, rather than reality being substance.
If straight people don’t like being called bigots, then they certainly are conceited, selfish and irrationally convinced of their worth.
Their power comes from being a majority, not being right.
Let’s see them try and deny THAT!
posted by Lori Heine on
It can be compellingly argued that since heterosexuality has become so emphatically enshrined as a virtue, people have become even less virtuous.
After all, if we’re to spend all our time focusing on the “virtue” of a particular accident of birth, we need not focus on the moral choices people actually make: how they treat one another, or how they choose to live in the world in general.
As if straight people needed one more excuse for sloppy moral behavior.
By no means let us focus our attention on whether these people can keep their pants on, keep their promises to each other or even keep their hands off their own kids. Let’s focus on their heterosexuality.
A fine kettle of fish hetero morality is turning out to be. But if you’re gay and you dare to comment on this, the straights will viciously attack you.
They have their little fantasy that they were born virtuous, and any attempt to get them to examine their own behavior sends them into irrational rage.
posted by CPT_Doom on
As far as calling them “bigots,” perhaps the better term is “prejudiced.” Because, after all, nearly every argument in favor of less-than-full marriage equality prejudges both the value of the same-sex relationship (“they’re never monogomous” “they’re not good for children”) AND the value of hetero relationships (“the best place to raise children”). What the anti-gay marriage folks never seem to realize, or concede if they do, is that the concept of “family” is a wide-reaching one, and always has been. Throughout the course of human history children have been taken in by grandparents, aunts and/or uncles, cousins, even friends, when their “traditional” families have been destroyed by death or desertion, not to mention the myriad ways single parents have come into being. Yet there are examples of fine and upstanding children being raised in all those families.
This prejudgement may not qualify as bigotry, but it is certainly of questionable moral and pragmatic value.
posted by Adrienne Critcher on
I have sent the following email to Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe:
Dear Mr. Jacoby,
In your Boston Globe column “A Civil Debate on Gay Marriage” you criticize Ted Kennedy and other gay marriage advocates for using the term “bigot” to refer to many who oppose gay marriage. While I agree with you that name-calling rarely does any good, I am at a loss on how to interact with the people who oppose gay marriage simply because they despise gay people. If you read the opinions of the most out-spoken opponents of gay marriage like James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, or the Pope himself, you will be met with slander and the most contemptible ad hominem attacks on gays.
And I don’t follow your reasoning that because lots of people oppose gay marriage that they all can’t be bigots. Sure they can. Maybe they aren’t, but numbers don’t prove anything.
You concede that most people who advocate gay marriage, while perhaps wrong, do so motivated by fairness and tolerance. Just what is it that people who oppose gay marriage are motivated by? I assume your second-to-last paragraph addresses their motivations, so let’s take a look:
1. It is not bigotry to insist that there is a good reason why marriage has existed in every known human society, and why it has always involved the uniting of men and women.
This is the “it’s always been that way” argument which has been used to justify lots of things that used to be a certain way but we’ve seen fit to change for the better. I’ll admit that some people just don’t like change at all. Letting more progressive states like MA give gay marriage a try would be a tempered approach. Unless you just don’t like the basic idea of gay people marrying and don’t plan to change your mind regardless of the data (is there a short acceptable word for those kind of people?).
2. It is not bigotry to acknowledge what reams of scholarship confirm: Family structure matters, and children are more likely to suffer problems when they are not raised by their married mothers and fathers.
Research in refereed journals (not the so-called research papers published by anti-gay religious institutions that are not subjected to peer-review) shows that children do best when raised by two people. Being a single parent is very hard and children often times do suffer as a result. But there is no peer-reviewed research that shows that children do better when raised by a married couple of opposite genders than the same genders because those studies can’t be done. We cannot compare the children of a married man and woman to the children of married men or of married women, because these married same-sex couples do not exist. (They have not existed long enough in MA to conduct valid research.) What the research on family structure would lead us to do for the sake of children would be to make it harder (impossible?) to divorce, but no one is suggesting that. And why not?? The limited research has shown that the children of same-sex couples fare just as well as the children of opposite-sex couples, and they do so with parents who have no legal recognition or protections. I’d say we might infer that same-sex couples are doing a better job. But I’d never suggest that opposite-sex couples are hence in general unfit parents (even though so many of them are unspeakably cruel to their gay offspring).
3. It is not bigotry to resist the dishonest comparison of same-sex marriage to interracial marriage — skin color has nothing to do with wedlock, while sex is fundamental to it.
Of course skin color has a lot to do with wedlock! As you admit, sex is fundamental to wedlock. Well when an interracial couple has sex, they produce mixed race children. This was a primary objection to interracial marriage. Another objection is that people recoiled at the idea of someone having sex with a person of a different race. The objections to interracial marriage in fact are rooted in exactly the same objections to gay marriage–the discomfort some people have with sexual activity going on between people of different races or between people of the same sex.
4. And it is not bigotry to fear that a social change as radical as same-sex marriage could lead to grave and unintended consequences, from the persecution of religious institutions to a growing clamor for legalizing polygamy.
We always need to consider unintended consequences, but if the best we can do is the ones you cited then there is no cause for concern. It is legal for divorced persons to marry even though some churches will not marry them, but these religious institutions are not persecuted for that. It is more accurate that the real concern of religious institutions is that their persecution of gays will no longer be acceptable by mainstream society as it is now. There are many activities that are legal (divorce, drinking, contraception) that many churches condemn, but these churches are not persecuted for their stands–most people simply ignore these churches’ admonitions. Churches do not fear persecution–they fear being unable to persecute. Polygamy is unrelated to gay marriage. It has a long history and is usually practiced by straight men wanting to legitimize their sexual activity with more than one woman. This has been a heterosexual problem and should be dealt with on its own merits as it has been through the ages.
Sincerely,
Adrienne Critcher
Shreveport, LA
posted by Bobby on
“I’ll tell you what it is: conceit, heterosexual supremacy.”
—Nope, most heterosexuals don’t define themselves as heterosexuals nor do they think all day about straight rights. Except for a few radicals, they don’t wear “straight pride” t-shirts, and when they do, the best thing to do is ignore them. It is minorities that isolate each other on purpose. Go to your average cafeteria and you’ll see the blacks seated with blacks, whites with whites, hispanics with hispanics, liberals with liberals, etc.
Now, if you start persecuting heterosexuals, then they will start acting like a minority and go right back after you. Wanna make an enemy? Make him a victim first. Soon enough they rise up and strike against you.
“It’s the same irrational superiority complex that allowed white people, or men or anyone else confronted with a fellow human being they had little knowlege of but were certain weren’t ‘their kind’.”
—You see? Did you notice how she didn’t mention black men or muslims? They have the same views about gays, if not worse, than the views she accuses white people or men of having.
It doesn’t matter what you do. People will accept gay marriage once they feel good and ready, and no amount of liberal guilt, heterophobia, heterohatred, christianhatred or personal attacks agaisn’t the majority will change that.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
“notice how she didn’t mention black men or muslims”
Yes, I mean, black men and Muslims are both setting the national discussion AND driving the national agenda forward. Shame on her for overlooking them.
“heterophobia, heterohatred, christianhatred”
All of these are indeed severe social ills, Bobby. I am glad you’ve called them up.
Just last week, I was discussing with several straight friends of mine the scourge of heterophobia. Gays are now so all-powerful that many have taken to out-and-out discrimination against straights! In entire swathes of the country, heterosexuals are now forced to remain closeted, or even pretend to be gay, in order to gain acceptance. An epidemic of firings and hate crimes is the result of this hateful reality.
“Breeder bashing” has become one of the country’s biggest sources of serious assault. Every day, millions of heterosexual families live in fear in the suburbs of the roving packs of gays and lesbians who get drunk and decide to go “bash some breeders.” The severity of this cannot be underestimated — it’s not to the point where many heterosexuals literally dread stepping outdoors.
And finally, Christian hatred has indeed reached epidemic levels. The government is now filled with mostly atheists, and many Christians find themselves unable to get a job or even buy a home in most neighborhoods. Neighborhoods with churches have been redlined by major financial institutions, and the next bill in front of the Senate for consideration is a “Defense of Secularism” amendment which will ban the recognition of religious groups by the government for any taxable status and will ban governments from allowing Christian organizations to incorporate.
This relentless assault by the powerful secular gay lobby is bringing straightdom and Christendom to its knees from Georgia to Alaska and should be confronted by bold conservatives who stand alone in the face of this awesome onslaught.
posted by Lori Heine on
I think it is important to remember that Christians and gays are NOT automatically in opposite or mutually-exclusive camps.
I am gay, and I am a Christian. My church welcomes gays, and nearly half of its membership is gay. It’s been at least thirty years since the use of rhetoric automatically placing gays and Christians in separate and mutually-exclusive camps has been in line with reality.
What people usually mean by “Christian” is “member of the Religious Right.” That does not even cover every conservative Christian, much less everyone who is a Christian, period. We can’t go on complaining about the way the Religious Right is trying to dominate the nation if we’re going to help them out by conceding power to them.
They WANT to be thought of as the only “real” Christians. Why on earth are so many gays and lesbians so anxious to help them perpetuate this myth?
posted by Bobby on
NL, examples of discrimination against christians and heterophobia are out there. I’m sick and tired of quoting them. Only in America each group acts like they’re the only ones who have ever been persecuted.
I am sick of words like “straight,” “male,” “white” and european being used as a negative.
Go to college and you’ll hear students complaining about the “eurocentric” curriculum.
The same schools that won’t publish the muhammad cartoons will publish cartoons of Jesus with a big erection getting a BJ (University of Portland). Of course, to the modern liberal, there’s free speech to make fun of christians, but not muslims, straights but not gays, whites but not blacks.
I’m sick of the double standard. And just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m gonna support people who are doing wrong.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
“examples of discrimination against christians and heterophobia are out there”
Of course they are. You’re completely right. America is suffering a crisis of heterophobia and Christophobia which threatens the very existence of both heterosexuals and Christians. Neither group has much political power and massive secular interests are about to completely destroy what tiny representation both groups have in society, overnight.
“there’s free speech to make fun of christians, but not muslims, straights but not gays, whites but not blacks”
There are those nasty liberals under the bed again. Of course liberals censor political speech they don’t like — but then again, so do conservatives. Just try and get “Piss Christ” displayed at the local Republican-operated public museum in Cincinatti, or say “fuck” on the radio anywhere in the country.
Of course, you’re also confusing disapproval or disgust of average, everyday people with “censorship.” You’re free to tell a racist joke about blacks if you like — but you’re also going to learn that others are free to take issue with your joke and the underlying meaning.
“just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m gonna support people who are doing wrong”
You’re right. You’re not supporting people doing wrong because you’re gay — you’re supporting people doing wrong because they’re in your party.
posted by Bobby on
Interesting you mention “Piss Christ.” The ACLU can’t stand to see the 10 commandments next to a court building, in the garden. But when it comes to funding “piss christ” with public money and displaying it at a public place, no problem.
Conservatives don’t care about “piss christ” as long as you don’t fund it with federal dollars!
Another example of the anti-christian double-standard. The ACLU is clearly not offended by attacks on religion. But read one paragraph of creationism in a classroom, and you’re toast.
As a matter of fact, if you’re such a libertarian, you are expected to support abolishing the National Endowment for the Arts and PBS as organizations that not only show leftwing bias but are organizations that waste taxpayers dollars. In fact, maybe I should sue, yesterday I saw some kook talking about metaphysics and how all religions are the same. Had it been a christian giving such a volatile speech, the ACLU would have already been suing.
posted by Lori Heine on
I would object to my kids being taught “creationism” in school for the same reason I’d object to their being taught the moon was made of green cheese.
My reasons have nothing to do with not believing God created the cosmos. “Creationism” teaches a “literal” interpretation of Genesis as scientific fact.
Those who’ve actually bothered to read the Bible know that there are actually two parallel creation stories in Genesis, and that they contradict each other on some very significant points. It is, therefore, not even logically possible for one who claims to be a Biblical literalist (whatever the heck that really is) to believe in a “literal” interpretation of Genesis that could be considered cohesive and rational, much less scientific.
Fundamentalists who claim that they “literally” believe in the Genesis account of creation are merely showing that if they read the Bible at all, they are unable to understand what it says. Before they even undertake Bible study, they need to take a course in reading for comprehension.