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While you should be allowed to express whatever viewpoint you have regarding gay marriage, I have yet to see an argument against which is not rooted in bigotry.

While you should be allowed to express whatever viewpoint you have regarding gay marriage, I have yet to see an argument against which is not rooted in bigotry. Is your argument that people should be allowed to spew bigoted and hateful nonsense without facing any social repercussion whatsoever?

lmorris84 12y ago
Well no, I'm saying society has become hyper-sensitive to anyone expressing a view that isn't fitting with the current trend. spew, bigoted, hateful - emotive words that illustrate my point exactly (as does the downvote). Even a discussion about a discussion about gay marriage is enough to incur wrath from some. My real argument would be that in many cases rational discussions should be possible without social justice warriors trampling all over freedom of speech.
alextgordon 12y ago
Many (non-religious) gay people don't like gay marriage. I agree with the previous comment that the level of social pressure on the issue has reached ridiculous levels. You can't have a conversation about it without one of those awful social disclaimers "now I support gay marriage but..." tacked on to your opinion.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  I don't like any form of marriage, gay or otherwise, but I like discrimination even less. There should be a heavy social cost associated with wearing certain opinions on one's sleeve... and there is, as Brendan Eich discovered. In short, this is exactly what social behavior is for: moving civilization forward as a whole. If people like Eich insist on being left behind, they have that right, but they don't have the right to drag the rest of us down with them.
  - alextgordon 12y ago
    In most parts of the world there would be a heavy social cost to supporting gay marriage. The costs of cracking down on undesirable opinions greatly exceed the risks of allowing people to voice them. Not that it makes much of a difference. People will continue to be closed-minded, whether I like it or not.
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      Who said you weren't "allowed to voice" your opinion? Only the government (or terrorists) can stop you. That's very different from social pressure. You have a right to speak, and to not be physically restrained from doing so, but you don't have a right to be free of any social consequences that follow. You're free to talk your way into a job, or out of one.
      - paulhauggis 12y ago
        Right. You are free to have your opinions. But if you offend the wrong person, you will most likely get fired from your job, shunned completely from your community, or bullied online. It's not even about the truth anymore. Even mainstream news organizations spin and lie about what actually happened, with real-world consequences (and no consequences for the news orgs or the reporters). Every news outlet spread lies about the Ferguson incident, before we even had any credible witnesses or facts. When the facts finally came out, they continued to spread the same lies (and many continued to believe them). In the past couple of years, there have been dozens of reporters that have gotten fired for an obvious mistake that was deemed 'offensive' by the likes of political activist groups and used as fuel to fire them. It's just another form of bullying. Many people don't even know that Al Sharpton will threaten companies and demand money or work in exchange for not going after them publicly. Pepsi paid him thousands per year in the 90s and XM radio actually gave him his own show for a couple of years to get him to stop talking about the "homeless charlie" incident that happened a few years back. A quick Google search will show you many companies that essentially pay him hush money. It tells me that when he cries racism, it's not about bettering society, but lining his pockets. It seems this is public knowledge now. Why isn't he in jail? I don't really use Facebook besides some simple private messaging between friends. Why? I can predict the coming storm that many people don't seem to see. Anything online can and will be used to instantly form an opinion about you and your life style. Not having the right "culture fit" might just mean someone in management doesn't agree with your political opinions. The ex-Mozilla CEO is another good example of the problem with today's society. He donated a small amount of money to a cause he believed in and was bullied and ridiculed online until he quit. If it had been the reverse (he supported gay-marriage and was bullied until he quit) many of those same people would be crying out about how we need to stop online bullying and probably demand the government step in. If I were the Mozilla CEO, I would have set an example and found the people that worked for the company that spewed the most hate against me and fired them on the spot. As I've gotten older, I have found that most people are the same: they preach open and honesty..until it's for a cause that they disagree with. Then, they just want to silence and discredit the opposition. Few are for actual freedom, which is sad.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  I've met one. He also didn't want gays in the military. This was because he wanted the entire concepts of marriage and the military not to exist in the first place though. I do know quite a few folk who were against the civil partnership law in the UK, but that was because they wanted marriage equality, rather than a marriage-lite.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  > Many (non-religious) gay people don't like gay marriage. The person you're responding to never said that all anti-gay marriage arguments are religious. They said that all of them are rooted in bigotry. Do you believe it's acceptable to disapprove of people who are opposed to interracial marriage? If so, how exactly is being anti-gay marriage more justified and less bigoted?
  - alextgordon 12y ago
    I only put the (non-religious) in to preempt the response "the only gay people who disapprove of gay marriage are self-conflicted fundamentalists". I believe the objection that many gay people have is that they perceive gay marriage as attempt to push heterosexual norms of monogamy and family life onto a culture of people who have often rejected them (and suffered heavy criticism for that rejection, plus blame for HIV). So rather ironically, gay marriage becomes a tool by the heterosexual population to "straighten out" gay people. Whether or not you are swayed by that argument (personally I am not), it's not true to say that all arguments against gay marriage are rooted in bigotry. By closing their mind and throwing labels like "bigot" at their opponents, the grandparent poster loses the opportunity learn about the world. That's truly unfortunate.
demarq 12y ago
The way I see it, you just proved his point. You say people should be allowed, but in the next sentence place conditions that what they say should agree with you. Would it have been a completely different post if it only read: > you should be allowed to express whatever viewpoint you have regarding gay marriage I think it would.
- woofyman 12y ago
  Replace gay marriage with racial segregation. What should be the social repercussions, if any, when a person advocates racial segregation? At what point does a good faith disagreement become taboo? Edited: A closer analogy would be interracial marriage. Laws prohibiting interracial marriage weren't struct down until 1967. Could a respectful person advocate banning interracial marriages ?
  - paulhauggis 12y ago
    "Replace gay marriage with racial segregation. What should be the social repercussions, if any, when a person advocates racial segregation?" How about we replace gay marriage with Christian? I have found that in the same circles that want acceptance and open thinking start to sing a different tune when it comes to religion.
    - woofyman 12y ago
      True Christians are wonderful people. Intolerant Christians, not so much.
      - thesagan 12y ago
        Like true Scottish people. I don't want to be a prick, but that's a can of worms, right there.
        psquid 12y ago
        There's no one source which any Scotsman claims defines a Scotsman, though, whereas pretty much the core part of the definition of Christianity is following the teachings of Christ (it's in the name!), which the vast majority of bigots-who-call-themselves-Christians certainly don't.
elwin 12y ago
I was going to say that social repercussions are prone to be abused, but I think it's more accurate to say that social repercussions are abuse. For every source of bigoted and hateful nonsense that is silenced, there are a hundred victims of thoughtless discrimination and a dozen people using their social power to punish those they hold grudges against.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  The various civil rights movements got where they are today through the use of social repercussions. Do you think we'd be legalising same-sex marriage over the globe, for example, if it were still socially acceptable to look down on gay people as lesser beings? Or do you think we'd still be chemically castrating gay men? The lack of social repercussions for things means the status quo stays, because there's no reason for it not to so long as it doesn't directly affect the majority in a way that they can see. EDIT: Additionally, frankly, you can't make me interact with people, or support people, who refuse to accept that I exist as a real, healthy person who doesn't need to be "fixed". That goes against all manner of rights, and is severely unhealthy for me.
  - elwin 12y ago
    > The various civil rights movements got where they are today through the use of social repercussions. I don't think this was the case. Look at, for example, the abolitionist movement. You'll find the social repercussions directed against the movement. It took over twenty years of convincing people of the justice of their cause, despite the forces used against them. > The lack of social repercussions for things means the status quo stays Isn't it more likely that social repercussions will be used to enforce the status quo? Only when change has already won can it use social force to complete its victory.
    - vertex-four 12y ago
      > Isn't it more likely that social repercussions will be used to enforce the status quo? Only when change has already won can it use social force to complete its victory. Not quite. It works in two steps. At the first, while an idea is growing, there are social repercussions against it. Once it reaches a certain mass, the social repercussions start working against the majority. Even a relatively small minority can affect the majority through social repercussions, by definition, doubly so if the members of the minority are still relatively hidden - if they can't be attacked directly. In the UK, there's serious social repercussions against supporting UKIP, and they're still plenty strong.
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
I have yet to see an argument against which is not rooted in bigotry. I can give you one. The state should have no involvement in the institution of marriage, and instead the latter should be privatized and handled by non-governmental organizations. The terms of a marriage contract should be outlined solely by the individuals (or the service/organization providing the contract for individuals), which can then be optionally arbitrated by courts and/or registered with a state entity so as to work out issues like visitation rights. Only then will marriage equality be achieved. That said, this is more of an "anti-marriage" (at least in its current conception) argument than a specifically anti-gay marriage one, but it naturally intersects with gay and all other forms of marriage. The anti-gay marriage part comes into play when you say that legal recognition of same-sex marriages serves as a feel-good quick patch solution that will only slow down or even diminish support for more profound solutions to the problem of marriage equality.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  When you replace all the social functions of the state with a collection of privatised NGOs, those NGOs just become the state and you are back to square one, only with even less representation.
  - _yosefk 12y ago
    No, because more than one such NGO could operate inside a given state and you could start a new one. Hence, "more representation", not less.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  "Anti-marriage" is a completely different, basically unrelated position than "anti-gay marriage," just as, say, "anti-gun ownership" is a completely different position than "only white people should be allowed to own guns." You've presented a coherent, non-bigoted argument for the anti-marriage position; it does nothing to legitimize the anti-gay marriage position.
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago

lmorris84 12y ago

Well no, I'm saying society has become hyper-sensitive to anyone expressing a view that isn't fitting with the current trend. spew, bigoted, hateful - emotive words that illustrate my point exactly (as does the downvote). Even a discussion about a discussion about gay marriage is enough to incur wrath from some. My real argument would be that in many cases rational discussions should be possible without social justice warriors trampling all over freedom of speech.

alextgordon 12y ago

Many (non-religious) gay people don't like gay marriage. I agree with the previous comment that the level of social pressure on the issue has reached ridiculous levels. You can't have a conversation about it without one of those awful social disclaimers "now I support gay marriage but..." tacked on to your opinion.

CamperBob2 12y ago
I don't like any form of marriage, gay or otherwise, but I like discrimination even less. There should be a heavy social cost associated with wearing certain opinions on one's sleeve... and there is, as Brendan Eich discovered. In short, this is exactly what social behavior is for: moving civilization forward as a whole. If people like Eich insist on being left behind, they have that right, but they don't have the right to drag the rest of us down with them.
- alextgordon 12y ago
  In most parts of the world there would be a heavy social cost to supporting gay marriage. The costs of cracking down on undesirable opinions greatly exceed the risks of allowing people to voice them. Not that it makes much of a difference. People will continue to be closed-minded, whether I like it or not.
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    Who said you weren't "allowed to voice" your opinion? Only the government (or terrorists) can stop you. That's very different from social pressure. You have a right to speak, and to not be physically restrained from doing so, but you don't have a right to be free of any social consequences that follow. You're free to talk your way into a job, or out of one.
    - paulhauggis 12y ago
      Right. You are free to have your opinions. But if you offend the wrong person, you will most likely get fired from your job, shunned completely from your community, or bullied online. It's not even about the truth anymore. Even mainstream news organizations spin and lie about what actually happened, with real-world consequences (and no consequences for the news orgs or the reporters). Every news outlet spread lies about the Ferguson incident, before we even had any credible witnesses or facts. When the facts finally came out, they continued to spread the same lies (and many continued to believe them). In the past couple of years, there have been dozens of reporters that have gotten fired for an obvious mistake that was deemed 'offensive' by the likes of political activist groups and used as fuel to fire them. It's just another form of bullying. Many people don't even know that Al Sharpton will threaten companies and demand money or work in exchange for not going after them publicly. Pepsi paid him thousands per year in the 90s and XM radio actually gave him his own show for a couple of years to get him to stop talking about the "homeless charlie" incident that happened a few years back. A quick Google search will show you many companies that essentially pay him hush money. It tells me that when he cries racism, it's not about bettering society, but lining his pockets. It seems this is public knowledge now. Why isn't he in jail? I don't really use Facebook besides some simple private messaging between friends. Why? I can predict the coming storm that many people don't seem to see. Anything online can and will be used to instantly form an opinion about you and your life style. Not having the right "culture fit" might just mean someone in management doesn't agree with your political opinions. The ex-Mozilla CEO is another good example of the problem with today's society. He donated a small amount of money to a cause he believed in and was bullied and ridiculed online until he quit. If it had been the reverse (he supported gay-marriage and was bullied until he quit) many of those same people would be crying out about how we need to stop online bullying and probably demand the government step in. If I were the Mozilla CEO, I would have set an example and found the people that worked for the company that spewed the most hate against me and fired them on the spot. As I've gotten older, I have found that most people are the same: they preach open and honesty..until it's for a cause that they disagree with. Then, they just want to silence and discredit the opposition. Few are for actual freedom, which is sad.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
I've met one. He also didn't want gays in the military. This was because he wanted the entire concepts of marriage and the military not to exist in the first place though. I do know quite a few folk who were against the civil partnership law in the UK, but that was because they wanted marriage equality, rather than a marriage-lite.
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
> Many (non-religious) gay people don't like gay marriage. The person you're responding to never said that all anti-gay marriage arguments are religious. They said that all of them are rooted in bigotry. Do you believe it's acceptable to disapprove of people who are opposed to interracial marriage? If so, how exactly is being anti-gay marriage more justified and less bigoted?
- alextgordon 12y ago
  I only put the (non-religious) in to preempt the response "the only gay people who disapprove of gay marriage are self-conflicted fundamentalists". I believe the objection that many gay people have is that they perceive gay marriage as attempt to push heterosexual norms of monogamy and family life onto a culture of people who have often rejected them (and suffered heavy criticism for that rejection, plus blame for HIV). So rather ironically, gay marriage becomes a tool by the heterosexual population to "straighten out" gay people. Whether or not you are swayed by that argument (personally I am not), it's not true to say that all arguments against gay marriage are rooted in bigotry. By closing their mind and throwing labels like "bigot" at their opponents, the grandparent poster loses the opportunity learn about the world. That's truly unfortunate.

demarq 12y ago

The way I see it, you just proved his point. You say people should be allowed, but in the next sentence place conditions that what they say should agree with you. Would it have been a completely different post if it only read: > you should be allowed to express whatever viewpoint you have regarding gay marriage I think it would.

woofyman 12y ago
Replace gay marriage with racial segregation. What should be the social repercussions, if any, when a person advocates racial segregation? At what point does a good faith disagreement become taboo? Edited: A closer analogy would be interracial marriage. Laws prohibiting interracial marriage weren't struct down until 1967. Could a respectful person advocate banning interracial marriages ?
- paulhauggis 12y ago
  "Replace gay marriage with racial segregation. What should be the social repercussions, if any, when a person advocates racial segregation?" How about we replace gay marriage with Christian? I have found that in the same circles that want acceptance and open thinking start to sing a different tune when it comes to religion.
  - woofyman 12y ago
    True Christians are wonderful people. Intolerant Christians, not so much.
    - thesagan 12y ago
      Like true Scottish people. I don't want to be a prick, but that's a can of worms, right there.
      - psquid 12y ago
        There's no one source which any Scotsman claims defines a Scotsman, though, whereas pretty much the core part of the definition of Christianity is following the teachings of Christ (it's in the name!), which the vast majority of bigots-who-call-themselves-Christians certainly don't.

elwin 12y ago

I was going to say that social repercussions are prone to be abused, but I think it's more accurate to say that social repercussions are abuse. For every source of bigoted and hateful nonsense that is silenced, there are a hundred victims of thoughtless discrimination and a dozen people using their social power to punish those they hold grudges against.

vertex-four 12y ago
The various civil rights movements got where they are today through the use of social repercussions. Do you think we'd be legalising same-sex marriage over the globe, for example, if it were still socially acceptable to look down on gay people as lesser beings? Or do you think we'd still be chemically castrating gay men? The lack of social repercussions for things means the status quo stays, because there's no reason for it not to so long as it doesn't directly affect the majority in a way that they can see. EDIT: Additionally, frankly, you can't make me interact with people, or support people, who refuse to accept that I exist as a real, healthy person who doesn't need to be "fixed". That goes against all manner of rights, and is severely unhealthy for me.
- elwin 12y ago
  > The various civil rights movements got where they are today through the use of social repercussions. I don't think this was the case. Look at, for example, the abolitionist movement. You'll find the social repercussions directed against the movement. It took over twenty years of convincing people of the justice of their cause, despite the forces used against them. > The lack of social repercussions for things means the status quo stays Isn't it more likely that social repercussions will be used to enforce the status quo? Only when change has already won can it use social force to complete its victory.
  - vertex-four 12y ago
    > Isn't it more likely that social repercussions will be used to enforce the status quo? Only when change has already won can it use social force to complete its victory. Not quite. It works in two steps. At the first, while an idea is growing, there are social repercussions against it. Once it reaches a certain mass, the social repercussions start working against the majority. Even a relatively small minority can affect the majority through social repercussions, by definition, doubly so if the members of the minority are still relatively hidden - if they can't be attacked directly. In the UK, there's serious social repercussions against supporting UKIP, and they're still plenty strong.

vezzy-fnord 12y ago

I have yet to see an argument against which is not rooted in bigotry. I can give you one. The state should have no involvement in the institution of marriage, and instead the latter should be privatized and handled by non-governmental organizations. The terms of a marriage contract should be outlined solely by the individuals (or the service/organization providing the contract for individuals), which can then be optionally arbitrated by courts and/or registered with a state entity so as to work out issues like visitation rights. Only then will marriage equality be achieved. That said, this is more of an "anti-marriage" (at least in its current conception) argument than a specifically anti-gay marriage one, but it naturally intersects with gay and all other forms of marriage. The anti-gay marriage part comes into play when you say that legal recognition of same-sex marriages serves as a feel-good quick patch solution that will only slow down or even diminish support for more profound solutions to the problem of marriage equality.

lotsofmangos 12y ago
When you replace all the social functions of the state with a collection of privatised NGOs, those NGOs just become the state and you are back to square one, only with even less representation.
- _yosefk 12y ago
  No, because more than one such NGO could operate inside a given state and you could start a new one. Hence, "more representation", not less.
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
"Anti-marriage" is a completely different, basically unrelated position than "anti-gay marriage," just as, say, "anti-gun ownership" is a completely different position than "only white people should be allowed to own guns." You've presented a coherent, non-bigoted argument for the anti-marriage position; it does nothing to legitimize the anti-gay marriage position.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago