I thought a lot about John Corvino's piece on bigotry while listening to the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on same-sex marriage yesterday. I deeply agree with John that the word "bigot" should be used sparingly so that its very strong condemnatory force is not diluted. Many people who don't support same-sex marriage are not bigots, and it does not help us to use the epithet promiscuously.
John tries to tease out a more helpful definition of "bigot" than dictionaries provide, and moves the ball downfield a bit. But he sets himself a hard task.
That struck home for me when a rabbi (whose name I did not catch) testified against the New Jersey bill, and asked the legislators to think about the fate of an "innocent lonely child" who is adopted by a same-sex married couple. His testimony is at the 8:18 mark in Blue Jersey's live blog. The unadorned words do not capture the rabbi's deep, fearful concern for this hypothetical child.
I obviously can't speak about what moved this man. But listening to him, it is tragically clear that there is no room at all in his world for the simple possibility that such a child might not be lonely in a loving home headed by a gay couple, or that the child could thrive and have a wonderful life. The irony is that by eliminating such a possibility from his imagination, he may be preventing some real child that tangible benefit.
It is this moral editing - this internal censorship of good possibilities - that exempts some people from being called bigots. I can't really imagine how anyone could do that - suppress from their consciousness a fellow human being's decency or happiness or value. But it is something necessary (if not sufficient) for prejudice to prevail. I don't think this rabbi wishes us harm; but it is just not within him to see us as blessed. His cramped view of the world takes something essential away from us.
That is a blindness, but I don't think it is necessarily blameworthy. To my mind, it not as condemnable as the actions of those who can (and do) see us in our ordinary lives, yet intentionally exploit the bias against us for political advantage. The harm to our equality is the same in either case, but there is a moral difference that we should acknowledge.
It is possible this learned man falls into the latter category. But until we know for sure, I don't think we can call him a bigot. We can, though, wish him to see us more generously.
4 Comments for “Non-bigotry”
posted by Lymis on
I think the word you are looking for is “prejudiced.”
And, yes, it is still a negative word, but doesn’t carry the same permanence that “bigot” does, because it isn’t a description of someone’s identity, but rather of their behavior and outlook.
The rabbi you mention has decided in advance that there is no possibility of a happy home for that child. That is a prejudgment. Other prejudices he seems to carry are that the only children raised by gay people are strangers, rather than their own birth children, while a significant percentage of kids are the biological child of one of the gay spouses. And regardless, that adoption is on a case basis, and there are plenty of controls in place to try to screen potential parents.
Again, he’s asking the wrong question, which isn’t and never should have been “Are all gay people as good as the best straight parents?” but rather “Are most gay people at least as good as the worst straight people we let raise kids?”
It’s why we keep pointing out that convicted felons and child molesters are allowed to get married – not that we are trying to lower the bar, but that we are recognizing where the bar already IS for all other marriages.
I don’t agree that bigot is the wrong word for a lot of people, but I do agree that it is not a particularly useful word to help change minds. I wish we could inject the idea of heterosexism into the discussion, but the word is too long, has the word sex in it, and people are already skittish around the word “sexism.”
posted by Joe Perez on
David, you may be interested in seeing my rebuttal/response to your post here: “On John Corvino, David Link, and Andrew Sullivan, On Bigotry”.
posted by Amicus on
I donât think it is necessarily blameworthy
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You are correct. No, it is not.
But, these days, my patience wears thin.
Why?
Because, as time has drawn on, the standard for what we might call an ‘informed person’ has gone up, in relation to gay issues. We have had visible people and visible books, including Jon Rauch’s, and there are groups doing outreach who are not hard to find.
In other words, his ignorance is his choice, quite substantially. These days, he might have sought out a fuller understanding, without much penalty or cost, even from within his own tradition.
In general, religious groups have an obligation for discernment, even if there are hard asses in some denominations who sit in proverbial towers and proclaim that there is nothing for them to learn about the world (including gays) and that ‘sodomy’ is somehow the sum total of being a loving gay person so it will never be ‘blessed’.
posted by Pauliji on
I’m sorry, but I disagree with you. You seem to be saying that intention is essential to attaining the label of bigot. But it’s not. That is what makes this religious objection to gay rights such a pain in the ass. Because well-meaning people are given an exemption from the standards of fairness and equality based on their religion. Well, it’s not going to come from me. If someone opposes my full equality, based on my sexual orientation, then he or she is a bigot, regardless of whether or not they are well intentioned, or religious in nature.
Bigotry is an unwillingness to examine the other side of a question. And a religious person who cannot look at someone who is gay and see them as a loving parent, or responsible citizen, or supportive spouse, is bigoted. Just because the bigot isn’t wearing a white hood doesn’t make him any less bigoted. Loving the sinner, but hating the sin, is what those hypocritical religious boneheads call your position. Well, love the bigot, but hate the bigotry, is what I say.
If we confront people for their irrational, unreasoning and closed-minded antipathy towards gay citizens of our country, then we are correct in using the term bigot, because their behavior has earned them that title. If you really want to be all touchy-feely, then go ahead and say they they themselves aren’t bigoted, but their behavior is. I prefer to make ’em squirm. I don’t need to concern myself with the tender feelings of those who would consign me to second class citizenship, because their bronze-age mythological sky-daddy commands them to do so.