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Dude, he expressed his opinion about the gay marriage like Tim Cook did about his beliefs in God and society. What's the difference ? It's just opinions! And pe

Dude, he expressed his opinion about the gay marriage like Tim Cook did about his beliefs in God and society. What's the difference ? It's just opinions! And people have to respect both! Also anti means that you are against something, and Brendan never expressed that he was against gays or even hated gays. He was just against gay marriage. Suddenly being "gay" is cool and being "hetero" is not cool ?

ionforce 12y ago
You have to respect people's /right/ to an opinion, but you don't have to respect the opinions themselves.
mattzito 12y ago
Tim Cook expressing his beliefs does not deprive me of access to my rights as an individual. People are certainly free to not believe in gay marriage, but when they start donating money to groups dedicated to preventing gay people from getting married, that crosses a line. Put another way - Tim Cook believes in God, which is fine, that's his prerogative. However, if he started donating money to anti-atheist groups, now he's actively working to disrespect the opinions of those who are atheists. Note that this passage: > Brendan never expressed that he was against gays or even hated gays. He was just against gay marriage. Is basically identical to what many many people said about miscegenation/mixed-race marriage: > (Brendan/whoever) never expressed that he/they were against blacks or even hated blacks. He was just against mixed-race marriages. But in retrospect, it's really hard to look at that statement and not see it as an expression of bigotry. If you're "okay with gays" and "not okay with gay marriage", it really means that you're not okay with gays. > Suddenly being "gay" is cool and being "hetero" is not cool ? Seems weird to say that being gay is cool when we're arguing about people donating money to stop gay people from having the same rights as hetero people.
- exodust 12y ago
  > If you're "okay with gays" and "not okay with gay marriage", it really means that you're not okay with gays. That's not true. You're stretching a line between two distant things in hopes of having a nice neat world of bigots on one side, and everyone else on the other. "You're either with us, or you're with the bigots". That's an unreasonable ultimatum that I don't subscribe to. I might be "okay with gays" but I might be "not okay with the annual mardi gras." It's a festival that closes down the streets and has stupid giant penises and vaginas on floats to represent the "gay community"? If I were gay I would distance myself from that crap. In your world, I'm a bigot because I HATE that overly-camp, sledge-hammer decorative approach with men in g-strings running around in heels and pink fluffy decorations everywhere and don't forget the awful gay dance music. That's what it is to be gay? I don't think so. The mardi gras (at least the one where I live) needs to die. But I can't say that because I'll be "anti-gay". I'm not anti-gay, I just hate the annual celebration of the "gay community" by erecting giant penises on floats and broadcasting it all on live TV. Do you see the problem? Just because you see gay marriage as something only a bigot would oppose, doesn't mean you have the right to drag everyone else into that binary mindset.
  - mattzito 12y ago
    > That's not true. You're stretching a line between two distant things in hopes of having a nice neat world of bigots on one side, and everyone else on the other. "You're either with us, or you're with the bigots". I'm not, I assure you. Especially when your subsequent example is: > In your world, I'm a bigot because I HATE that overly-camp, sledge-hammer decorative approach with men in g-strings running around in heels and pink fluffy decorations everywhere and don't forget the awful gay dance music. That's what it is to be gay? I don't think so. The mardi gras (at least the one where I live) needs to die. But I can't say that because I'll be "anti-gay". I'm not anti-gay, I just hate the annual celebration of the "gay community" by erecting giant penises on floats and broadcasting it all on live TV. You're entitled to that belief. It doesn't (necessarily) make you a bigot. Lots of people hate annoying parades - I myself found myself trapped a few months back trying to get across 5th avenue while the gay pride parade was going on and was incredibly annoyed. So there we go - we share a common ground of annoyance towards loud, over-the-top parades. But I presume that if another group had a similar parade, you'd be equally annoyed - that it's not the fact that it's gay people having the parade, it's the fact the parade is loud, decadent, over the top, with awful dance music (and giant penises on floats). That's what makes it different than the example I gave. Your example (annoying, over the top parades with penis floats) is more akin to people who are against marriage entirely - they don't want anyone to get married, gay, straight, black, white, whoever. That's a position I can respect, even if I don't agree with it, because it's at least equally applied. Gay marriage, though, is a situation where you have one group of people having a bigger, broader set of rights than the other group of people. That's a bigoted view of the world - for some reason these people over here can get married, but these other people over here can't. If we were to apply it to your example, if you were only annoyed at the mardi gras because there were gay people involved - if straight people, puerto ricans, professional basketball players, whoever, threw the exact same parade and you were fine with it, then you'd be bigoted. I'm all about a level playing field. Either everyone gets to get married, or no one does. Either everyone gets to have a loud, annoying parade with giant penis floats, or no one should. Your example just doesn't apply here. I'm not dividing the world into neat examples of bigots and not, because people can have a broad range of emotions about a wide variety of things. And certainly, you can dislike aspects of gay culture without being bigoted as long as you'd dislike those aspects if they were present in other cultures. But when you single out one specific group as having diminished rights compared to the others, that's some level of bigotry for sure.

ionforce 12y ago

You have to respect people's /right/ to an opinion, but you don't have to respect the opinions themselves.

mattzito 12y ago

Tim Cook expressing his beliefs does not deprive me of access to my rights as an individual. People are certainly free to not believe in gay marriage, but when they start donating money to groups dedicated to preventing gay people from getting married, that crosses a line. Put another way - Tim Cook believes in God, which is fine, that's his prerogative. However, if he started donating money to anti-atheist groups, now he's actively working to disrespect the opinions of those who are atheists. Note that this passage: > Brendan never expressed that he was against gays or even hated gays. He was just against gay marriage. Is basically identical to what many many people said about miscegenation/mixed-race marriage: > (Brendan/whoever) never expressed that he/they were against blacks or even hated blacks. He was just against mixed-race marriages. But in retrospect, it's really hard to look at that statement and not see it as an expression of bigotry. If you're "okay with gays" and "not okay with gay marriage", it really means that you're not okay with gays. > Suddenly being "gay" is cool and being "hetero" is not cool ? Seems weird to say that being gay is cool when we're arguing about people donating money to stop gay people from having the same rights as hetero people.

exodust 12y ago
> If you're "okay with gays" and "not okay with gay marriage", it really means that you're not okay with gays. That's not true. You're stretching a line between two distant things in hopes of having a nice neat world of bigots on one side, and everyone else on the other. "You're either with us, or you're with the bigots". That's an unreasonable ultimatum that I don't subscribe to. I might be "okay with gays" but I might be "not okay with the annual mardi gras." It's a festival that closes down the streets and has stupid giant penises and vaginas on floats to represent the "gay community"? If I were gay I would distance myself from that crap. In your world, I'm a bigot because I HATE that overly-camp, sledge-hammer decorative approach with men in g-strings running around in heels and pink fluffy decorations everywhere and don't forget the awful gay dance music. That's what it is to be gay? I don't think so. The mardi gras (at least the one where I live) needs to die. But I can't say that because I'll be "anti-gay". I'm not anti-gay, I just hate the annual celebration of the "gay community" by erecting giant penises on floats and broadcasting it all on live TV. Do you see the problem? Just because you see gay marriage as something only a bigot would oppose, doesn't mean you have the right to drag everyone else into that binary mindset.
- mattzito 12y ago
  > That's not true. You're stretching a line between two distant things in hopes of having a nice neat world of bigots on one side, and everyone else on the other. "You're either with us, or you're with the bigots". I'm not, I assure you. Especially when your subsequent example is: > In your world, I'm a bigot because I HATE that overly-camp, sledge-hammer decorative approach with men in g-strings running around in heels and pink fluffy decorations everywhere and don't forget the awful gay dance music. That's what it is to be gay? I don't think so. The mardi gras (at least the one where I live) needs to die. But I can't say that because I'll be "anti-gay". I'm not anti-gay, I just hate the annual celebration of the "gay community" by erecting giant penises on floats and broadcasting it all on live TV. You're entitled to that belief. It doesn't (necessarily) make you a bigot. Lots of people hate annoying parades - I myself found myself trapped a few months back trying to get across 5th avenue while the gay pride parade was going on and was incredibly annoyed. So there we go - we share a common ground of annoyance towards loud, over-the-top parades. But I presume that if another group had a similar parade, you'd be equally annoyed - that it's not the fact that it's gay people having the parade, it's the fact the parade is loud, decadent, over the top, with awful dance music (and giant penises on floats). That's what makes it different than the example I gave. Your example (annoying, over the top parades with penis floats) is more akin to people who are against marriage entirely - they don't want anyone to get married, gay, straight, black, white, whoever. That's a position I can respect, even if I don't agree with it, because it's at least equally applied. Gay marriage, though, is a situation where you have one group of people having a bigger, broader set of rights than the other group of people. That's a bigoted view of the world - for some reason these people over here can get married, but these other people over here can't. If we were to apply it to your example, if you were only annoyed at the mardi gras because there were gay people involved - if straight people, puerto ricans, professional basketball players, whoever, threw the exact same parade and you were fine with it, then you'd be bigoted. I'm all about a level playing field. Either everyone gets to get married, or no one does. Either everyone gets to have a loud, annoying parade with giant penis floats, or no one should. Your example just doesn't apply here. I'm not dividing the world into neat examples of bigots and not, because people can have a broad range of emotions about a wide variety of things. And certainly, you can dislike aspects of gay culture without being bigoted as long as you'd dislike those aspects if they were present in other cultures. But when you single out one specific group as having diminished rights compared to the others, that's some level of bigotry for sure.