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So now anyone who opposes gay marriage is homophobic? You do know that homophobia is defined as "an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homose

So now anyone who opposes gay marriage is homophobic? You do know that homophobia is defined as "an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people." (New Oxford American Dictionary) Edit: Clearly I touched a nerve - before the hate mail comes in, I should clarify that I don't oppose gay marriage. I support the elimination of government sponsored marriage all together.

antimagic 13y ago
Precisely. There is no rational[1] grounds to oppose gay marriage, so we are left with the only remaining possibility - irrational aversion to homosexuality. [1] where by "rational" I mean justifiable with facts and statistics to back it up.
- nilsbunger 13y ago
  The real issue for some folks is that "marriage" is a word defined by their religion. (not for you or me, but some folks) If government ditched the word "marriage" and said you can designate a person you "cohabit" with for purposes of taxes, benefits, etc, how many of those folks would be against designating someone of the same gender? Those people I'd call "homophobic".
  - masklinn 13y ago
    Government has as much right to the word as religions, it's not like religions invented marriages. The catholic church, for instance, only took over marriage during the middle ages. Historically, > marriage vows did not have to be exchanged in a church, nor was a priest's presence required. A couple could exchange consent anywhere, anytime. For the first quarter of the common era, the church was split between trying to get the church involved in marriages (e.g. Tertullian recommending that christians "request marriage from their priest") and recommending eternal celibacy and virginity. Augustine and Isodore of Seville developed the sacramentality of Christian marriage (Augustine at least still taught that virginity remained superior). The official catholic declaration of marriage as a sacrament (and thus declaration of the takeover) was actually political: it was made at the Council of Verona in 1184 as part of the case against Cathars, who held that marriage and procreation were evil. The case for marriage belonging to religions is "it's been that way for as long as I've lived". Previously in that category: slavery, illegal abortions, children labour and lots of other awesome company.
  - mitchty 13y ago
    You hit the nail on the head with marriage definitions. A bigger problem, not admitted by the religious side of this debate, is that the legal definition of marriage is what grants many states rights. To some extent that some states would have to rewrite their constitutions to no longer honor marriage as an institution. I don't think the end game legally would end very well for the people stating that "marriage" is a religious term. It might be in common speech, but given we're talking about granting legal rights its about as relevant as ice cubes to an eskimo. Push this matter too hard and its likely that marriage as a legal term or definition goes away entirely. I'm all for it but pushing the religious points too far will only cause more issues for those fighting via that angle. (no i'm not a lawyer)
- sehr 13y ago
  https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/ https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/ ... the donation does not in itself constitute evidence of animosity. Those asserting this are not providing a reasoned argument, rather they are labeling dissenters to cast them out of polite society. To such assertions, I can only respond: “no”. There are other reasons for opposing things, religious reasons for example. Not saying they're well thought out or even remotely valid, but thinking in such a black and white manner isn't beneficial to decent conversation.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    You're saying that if I have a religious reason for harming you, then you'll be happy to treat that harm as a good-faith action, and propose "decent conversation" with me?
    - sehr 13y ago
      Of course not, but then again I don't consider intentional physical harm & objections to marriage even remotely comparable situations. Latent effects of refusing marriage like lack of insurance coverage leading to preventable deaths would be a much better match though. And to that, I still believe conversation is a better tool than outright condemnation & intolerance.
      - wpietri 13y ago
        No idea where "intentional physical harm" came from, but it wasn't me. Preventing a family from getting married is harm. It is at the very least expensive in time and money. But it also puts children at substantial risk. See the recent decision on the Michigan Marriage Amendment for more on that: http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF
        sehr 13y ago
        Sorry, I took 'harming you' as meaning physical harm, that's my mistake.
- shasta 13y ago
  It's marriage. It's a tradition, not something which you can derive rationally. Let's hear your rational explanation of the role of marriage. Be sure to explain why it follows logically that it should only apply to groups of two or more. If you're honest with yourself, you recognize all of this language about rationality as rhetoric in a culture war in which you're attempting to shift cultural norms. I'm for gay marriage.
  - vertex-four 13y ago
    Marriage is not solely a tradition, or there wouldn't be a problem here, as anybody could claim themselves to be married and the world would go on. Instead, it's tied heavily into the legal system, as well as into policies of organisations across the world. When people say that gay people are not to marry their partners, that is discrimination under the legal system, entirely ignoring any cultural aspects.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    Religious marriage may be a tradition. Civil marriage, though, isn't, and that's what's at stake here. For the full reasoning, See page 25 of Friday's federal court decision on Michigan's anti-gay-marriage amendment: http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF It's the "Tradition and Morality" section.
  - JohnTHaller 13y ago
    In the United States, the tradition of marriage excluded interracial marriage until rather recently as well. Just because something is a tradition doesn't mean it morally right.
- humanrebar 13y ago
  Why should Brendan Eich or anyone else who supported Prop 8 share any of their views when they have already been pre-judged as irrational? Stuff like this is why the secret ballot exists.
  - MrZongle2 13y ago
    Because, obviously, Eich is a witch and must be burned.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Dirlewanger 13y ago
  Bullshit. Glad to see you lump people who don't want government in the marriage business at all with homophobics. Believe it or not, these people exist.
  - npizzolato 13y ago
    That justification is what is bullshit. We're talking about support for Prop 8. If Prop 8 was about getting the government out of all marriage, you would have a point. But Prop 8 was about removing the ability for a specific group of people to marry while still keeping the government in all other marriages.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    > Believe it or not, these people exist. Their position makes even less sense than the other one, the creation of stable family units, and thus the provision of legal and financial advantages to these units trough official recognition of them is usually considered a social good, and the government "being involved" as the provider of the aforementioned advantages is sensible.
    - WoodenChair 13y ago
      Right because government marriage is really doing a great job at that with its >50% divorce rate. Of course there's also the fact that your position is incredibly unimaginative - you can't imagine there are other systems of social organization, other than government licensed marriage, that might be an even greater public good? As long as we keep promoting the paradigm of government sponsored marriage we'll keep going down the same rabbit hole.
      - mercurial 13y ago
        That's a very bizarre argument to have. What does the government have to do with the stability of a relationship?
        WoodenChair 13y ago
- piokoch 13y ago
  Rationality is not the only factor we should look at. Think of having sex with 12 years old girls - there is nothing irrational in it (it was normal and legal a few hundred years ago), why we keep it forbidden now? Similarly it is not legal to merry 4 woman (or man). Why? Where is rationality in forbidding this. In fact rational is the opposite - it would be good to have spare wife or husband, just in case of death or ilness.
  - munificent 13y ago
    > Think of having sex with 12 years old girls - there is nothing irrational in it (it was normal and legal a few hundred years ago), why we keep it forbidden now? Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, we've lengthened human childhood. Because people have more to learn today before they can be productive adults in society, the period of your life that is "youth" is longer, and the age where we consider a person mature enough to be fully responsible for their own body is older now. 12 year olds used to be adults, now they're children. > Similarly it is not legal to merry 4 woman (or man). Why? Where is rationality in forbidding this. In fact rational is the opposite - it would be good to have spare wife or husband, just in case of death or ilness. If there was complete gender equality and polygamy was as common as polyandry, it would be probably be fine. In reality, polygamy is historically dramatically more common than wives with multiple husbands. If you take as a given a roughly 50/50 distribution between men and women (and relatively even proportions of homosexuals), that means widespread polygamy causes a large number of men for whom there are no wives available. If one person has five wives, it means there are four men out there with none. That has a destabilizing effect on society. It's best for everyone if the possibility of finding a mate is not hampered in that way.
    - humanrebar 13y ago
      Regarding polygamy, we would have to rewrite all sorts of laws (inheritance laws, laws detailing benefits to spouses, etc.) with multi-partner marriages in mind.
      - ScottBurson 13y ago
recusancy 13y ago
I'd say that working to keep a group of people from gaining rights that I already have are extreme and irrational.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
> So now anyone who opposes gay marriage is homophobic? Yup, same as anyone who opposes interracial marriage is racist. There's not a minimum threshold of bigotry. You don't get to say "How bigoted can I be without people calling me a bigot? ...I can't be bigoted at all?!? That's not fair!"
- lttlrck 13y ago
  You cannot conflate bigotry with homophobia. People may simple be bigoted towards gay marriage, but hold no strong opinion on the individuals themselves. That this is a possible stance is self-evident given the current legal situation.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    > You cannot conflate bigotry with homophobia. If their specific bigotry is homophobic, why would they not be conflatable? I mean people may simple be bigoted towards interracial marriage, but hold no strong opinion on the individuals themselves. That this is a possible stance is self-evident given the current legal situation. (and apparently not at all racist)
  - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
    How would you react to the statement "I'm not racist, I just don't think blacks and whites should be allowed to marry"? If you oppose equal civil rights for group X, you are bigoted against group X. There are certainly different degrees of bigots--I'd much rather deal with someone who favors most civil rights other than interracial marriage than someone who thinks black people were better off as slaves--but they are all still bigots.
- btilly 13y ago
  Yeah, no. That's an impossible standard. How do you feel about abortion? If you're against it, then you are seen as bigoted against women's right to their own body. If you're for it, then you're seen as bigoted against the rights of unborn children to not be murdered. And even if you could think that way, you shouldn't. Why not? Read http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html for why I don't want to put such mental blinders on.
camus2 13y ago
> So now anyone who opposes gay marriage is homophobic? Yes,like anyone who opposed civil rights for blacks was racist.
- masklinn 13y ago
  > anyone who opposed civil rights for blacks Or interracial marriages, since that's much closer to the issue.
- lliamander 13y ago
  It is actually interesting that you should bring this up. I am opposed to slavery, and I am for the civil rights of all, but what about those people who are opposed to certain outcomes of the civil rights movement, like affirmative action, because they believe it undermined the principle of equality before the law and created legal privileges for certain groups in order to try and eliminate certain material inequalities? What if they simply believed that such legislation lacked a clear definition for success, and thus opened the gateway for future oppression in the reverse? To take it even further, what if someone thought that the civil war was not (primarily) about the rights of African slaves, but rather a proxy for a rivalry between two political factions? Does the Union treatment of Native Americans suggest they were overflowing with humanitarian sentiment when it came to dealing with non-WASP peoples in general? It's important to ask such questions, because the Union of the 1800's, and the political supporters of the civil rights movements of the 1900's, could have in fact been harmful to the very people they were claiming to help, because helping them was never their true goal. I am not saying that such people were consciously manipulative, rather it was simply easy for them to use the cause of others as a justification for actions that benefited themselves. Likewise, could it be that Mr. Eich was not against the rights of homosexual people, but rather attempting to resist another political faction's attempt to control the moral narrative? Based upon his own statements, as well as the statements by those who have worked with him who are homosexual, I see no indication of malice. Furthermore, since he has been with Mozilla since the beginning, it would stand to reason that if he had a significant opposition to the organizations policies, he would have left long ago.
- beauSD 13y ago
  Comparing the horrendous and brutal treatment of African Americans during slavery and the civil rights struggle to someone peaceably disagreeing with a person's lifestyle or voting for a proposition is nowhere close to a fitting comparison and is downright disrespectful of the suffering of black people. It is plastered everywhere as a superficial emotional argument but it is logically baseless and, worse, it is hijacking the compassion people rightfully have for the suffering of black people in order to push a particular agenda. It's shameful. Of course, I expect to be downvoted because I know that in our current society all opinions and preferences should be held in the highest regard, except those you disagree with and especially those that appeal to an objective morality.
xutopia 13y ago
Someone purporting that gay couples should not be allowed to marry are homophobic just like someone purporting that blacks should not be allowed at the front of the bus are racist bigots.
josefresco 13y ago
Bigoted ...was the word he was looking for.

antimagic 13y ago

Precisely. There is no rational[1] grounds to oppose gay marriage, so we are left with the only remaining possibility - irrational aversion to homosexuality. [1] where by "rational" I mean justifiable with facts and statistics to back it up.

nilsbunger 13y ago
The real issue for some folks is that "marriage" is a word defined by their religion. (not for you or me, but some folks) If government ditched the word "marriage" and said you can designate a person you "cohabit" with for purposes of taxes, benefits, etc, how many of those folks would be against designating someone of the same gender? Those people I'd call "homophobic".
- masklinn 13y ago
  Government has as much right to the word as religions, it's not like religions invented marriages. The catholic church, for instance, only took over marriage during the middle ages. Historically, > marriage vows did not have to be exchanged in a church, nor was a priest's presence required. A couple could exchange consent anywhere, anytime. For the first quarter of the common era, the church was split between trying to get the church involved in marriages (e.g. Tertullian recommending that christians "request marriage from their priest") and recommending eternal celibacy and virginity. Augustine and Isodore of Seville developed the sacramentality of Christian marriage (Augustine at least still taught that virginity remained superior). The official catholic declaration of marriage as a sacrament (and thus declaration of the takeover) was actually political: it was made at the Council of Verona in 1184 as part of the case against Cathars, who held that marriage and procreation were evil. The case for marriage belonging to religions is "it's been that way for as long as I've lived". Previously in that category: slavery, illegal abortions, children labour and lots of other awesome company.
- mitchty 13y ago
  You hit the nail on the head with marriage definitions. A bigger problem, not admitted by the religious side of this debate, is that the legal definition of marriage is what grants many states rights. To some extent that some states would have to rewrite their constitutions to no longer honor marriage as an institution. I don't think the end game legally would end very well for the people stating that "marriage" is a religious term. It might be in common speech, but given we're talking about granting legal rights its about as relevant as ice cubes to an eskimo. Push this matter too hard and its likely that marriage as a legal term or definition goes away entirely. I'm all for it but pushing the religious points too far will only cause more issues for those fighting via that angle. (no i'm not a lawyer)
sehr 13y ago
https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/ https://brendaneich.com/2012/04/community-and-diversity/ ... the donation does not in itself constitute evidence of animosity. Those asserting this are not providing a reasoned argument, rather they are labeling dissenters to cast them out of polite society. To such assertions, I can only respond: “no”. There are other reasons for opposing things, religious reasons for example. Not saying they're well thought out or even remotely valid, but thinking in such a black and white manner isn't beneficial to decent conversation.
- wpietri 13y ago
  You're saying that if I have a religious reason for harming you, then you'll be happy to treat that harm as a good-faith action, and propose "decent conversation" with me?
  - sehr 13y ago
    Of course not, but then again I don't consider intentional physical harm & objections to marriage even remotely comparable situations. Latent effects of refusing marriage like lack of insurance coverage leading to preventable deaths would be a much better match though. And to that, I still believe conversation is a better tool than outright condemnation & intolerance.
    - wpietri 13y ago
      No idea where "intentional physical harm" came from, but it wasn't me. Preventing a family from getting married is harm. It is at the very least expensive in time and money. But it also puts children at substantial risk. See the recent decision on the Michigan Marriage Amendment for more on that: http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF
      - sehr 13y ago
        Sorry, I took 'harming you' as meaning physical harm, that's my mistake.
shasta 13y ago
It's marriage. It's a tradition, not something which you can derive rationally. Let's hear your rational explanation of the role of marriage. Be sure to explain why it follows logically that it should only apply to groups of two or more. If you're honest with yourself, you recognize all of this language about rationality as rhetoric in a culture war in which you're attempting to shift cultural norms. I'm for gay marriage.
- vertex-four 13y ago
  Marriage is not solely a tradition, or there wouldn't be a problem here, as anybody could claim themselves to be married and the world would go on. Instead, it's tied heavily into the legal system, as well as into policies of organisations across the world. When people say that gay people are not to marry their partners, that is discrimination under the legal system, entirely ignoring any cultural aspects.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Religious marriage may be a tradition. Civil marriage, though, isn't, and that's what's at stake here. For the full reasoning, See page 25 of Friday's federal court decision on Michigan's anti-gay-marriage amendment: http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF It's the "Tradition and Morality" section.
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  In the United States, the tradition of marriage excluded interracial marriage until rather recently as well. Just because something is a tradition doesn't mean it morally right.
humanrebar 13y ago
Why should Brendan Eich or anyone else who supported Prop 8 share any of their views when they have already been pre-judged as irrational? Stuff like this is why the secret ballot exists.
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  Because, obviously, Eich is a witch and must be burned.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Dirlewanger 13y ago
Bullshit. Glad to see you lump people who don't want government in the marriage business at all with homophobics. Believe it or not, these people exist.
- npizzolato 13y ago
  That justification is what is bullshit. We're talking about support for Prop 8. If Prop 8 was about getting the government out of all marriage, you would have a point. But Prop 8 was about removing the ability for a specific group of people to marry while still keeping the government in all other marriages.
- masklinn 13y ago
  > Believe it or not, these people exist. Their position makes even less sense than the other one, the creation of stable family units, and thus the provision of legal and financial advantages to these units trough official recognition of them is usually considered a social good, and the government "being involved" as the provider of the aforementioned advantages is sensible.
  - WoodenChair 13y ago
    Right because government marriage is really doing a great job at that with its >50% divorce rate. Of course there's also the fact that your position is incredibly unimaginative - you can't imagine there are other systems of social organization, other than government licensed marriage, that might be an even greater public good? As long as we keep promoting the paradigm of government sponsored marriage we'll keep going down the same rabbit hole.
    - mercurial 13y ago
      That's a very bizarre argument to have. What does the government have to do with the stability of a relationship?
      - WoodenChair 13y ago
piokoch 13y ago
Rationality is not the only factor we should look at. Think of having sex with 12 years old girls - there is nothing irrational in it (it was normal and legal a few hundred years ago), why we keep it forbidden now? Similarly it is not legal to merry 4 woman (or man). Why? Where is rationality in forbidding this. In fact rational is the opposite - it would be good to have spare wife or husband, just in case of death or ilness.
- munificent 13y ago
  > Think of having sex with 12 years old girls - there is nothing irrational in it (it was normal and legal a few hundred years ago), why we keep it forbidden now? Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, we've lengthened human childhood. Because people have more to learn today before they can be productive adults in society, the period of your life that is "youth" is longer, and the age where we consider a person mature enough to be fully responsible for their own body is older now. 12 year olds used to be adults, now they're children. > Similarly it is not legal to merry 4 woman (or man). Why? Where is rationality in forbidding this. In fact rational is the opposite - it would be good to have spare wife or husband, just in case of death or ilness. If there was complete gender equality and polygamy was as common as polyandry, it would be probably be fine. In reality, polygamy is historically dramatically more common than wives with multiple husbands. If you take as a given a roughly 50/50 distribution between men and women (and relatively even proportions of homosexuals), that means widespread polygamy causes a large number of men for whom there are no wives available. If one person has five wives, it means there are four men out there with none. That has a destabilizing effect on society. It's best for everyone if the possibility of finding a mate is not hampered in that way.
  - humanrebar 13y ago
    Regarding polygamy, we would have to rewrite all sorts of laws (inheritance laws, laws detailing benefits to spouses, etc.) with multi-partner marriages in mind.
    - ScottBurson 13y ago

recusancy 13y ago

I'd say that working to keep a group of people from gaining rights that I already have are extreme and irrational.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

> So now anyone who opposes gay marriage is homophobic? Yup, same as anyone who opposes interracial marriage is racist. There's not a minimum threshold of bigotry. You don't get to say "How bigoted can I be without people calling me a bigot? ...I can't be bigoted at all?!? That's not fair!"

lttlrck 13y ago
You cannot conflate bigotry with homophobia. People may simple be bigoted towards gay marriage, but hold no strong opinion on the individuals themselves. That this is a possible stance is self-evident given the current legal situation.
- masklinn 13y ago
  > You cannot conflate bigotry with homophobia. If their specific bigotry is homophobic, why would they not be conflatable? I mean people may simple be bigoted towards interracial marriage, but hold no strong opinion on the individuals themselves. That this is a possible stance is self-evident given the current legal situation. (and apparently not at all racist)
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  How would you react to the statement "I'm not racist, I just don't think blacks and whites should be allowed to marry"? If you oppose equal civil rights for group X, you are bigoted against group X. There are certainly different degrees of bigots--I'd much rather deal with someone who favors most civil rights other than interracial marriage than someone who thinks black people were better off as slaves--but they are all still bigots.
btilly 13y ago
Yeah, no. That's an impossible standard. How do you feel about abortion? If you're against it, then you are seen as bigoted against women's right to their own body. If you're for it, then you're seen as bigoted against the rights of unborn children to not be murdered. And even if you could think that way, you shouldn't. Why not? Read http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html for why I don't want to put such mental blinders on.

camus2 13y ago

> So now anyone who opposes gay marriage is homophobic? Yes,like anyone who opposed civil rights for blacks was racist.

masklinn 13y ago
> anyone who opposed civil rights for blacks Or interracial marriages, since that's much closer to the issue.
lliamander 13y ago
It is actually interesting that you should bring this up. I am opposed to slavery, and I am for the civil rights of all, but what about those people who are opposed to certain outcomes of the civil rights movement, like affirmative action, because they believe it undermined the principle of equality before the law and created legal privileges for certain groups in order to try and eliminate certain material inequalities? What if they simply believed that such legislation lacked a clear definition for success, and thus opened the gateway for future oppression in the reverse? To take it even further, what if someone thought that the civil war was not (primarily) about the rights of African slaves, but rather a proxy for a rivalry between two political factions? Does the Union treatment of Native Americans suggest they were overflowing with humanitarian sentiment when it came to dealing with non-WASP peoples in general? It's important to ask such questions, because the Union of the 1800's, and the political supporters of the civil rights movements of the 1900's, could have in fact been harmful to the very people they were claiming to help, because helping them was never their true goal. I am not saying that such people were consciously manipulative, rather it was simply easy for them to use the cause of others as a justification for actions that benefited themselves. Likewise, could it be that Mr. Eich was not against the rights of homosexual people, but rather attempting to resist another political faction's attempt to control the moral narrative? Based upon his own statements, as well as the statements by those who have worked with him who are homosexual, I see no indication of malice. Furthermore, since he has been with Mozilla since the beginning, it would stand to reason that if he had a significant opposition to the organizations policies, he would have left long ago.
beauSD 13y ago
Comparing the horrendous and brutal treatment of African Americans during slavery and the civil rights struggle to someone peaceably disagreeing with a person's lifestyle or voting for a proposition is nowhere close to a fitting comparison and is downright disrespectful of the suffering of black people. It is plastered everywhere as a superficial emotional argument but it is logically baseless and, worse, it is hijacking the compassion people rightfully have for the suffering of black people in order to push a particular agenda. It's shameful. Of course, I expect to be downvoted because I know that in our current society all opinions and preferences should be held in the highest regard, except those you disagree with and especially those that appeal to an objective morality.

xutopia 13y ago

Someone purporting that gay couples should not be allowed to marry are homophobic just like someone purporting that blacks should not be allowed at the front of the bus are racist bigots.

josefresco 13y ago

Bigoted ...was the word he was looking for.