Initial reports of this afternoon’s shooting at the Family Research Council say that the gunman acted after “expressing disagreement with the conservative group’s policy positions.” Most assume the disagreement came from the left, and on the issue of same-sex marriage.
If so—and that’s a big “if” (remember the Nava case, anyone?)—we have reason to mourn. Whatever the deficiencies of those defending the orthodox view of marriage, the cause they advocate for deserves to be esteemed rather than held in discredit.
The first thing to be said is that no one should suggest that this incident shows that same-sex marriage activists have condoned or in any way intended to incite violence. They did not and do not.
Even if no one is to blame, no one has a right to be surprised. The same-sex marriage lobby set out to reorient the social consensus by labeling anyone who disagreed as bigoted and hateful. They spoke in the name of tolerance, but embraced intolerance as their main tool (for tolerance of one thing only comes at the price of intolerance of another). What the FRC shooting shows, then, (given the aforementioned assumptions) is that the campaign for same-sex marriage is working, and that it is not a campaign for “tolerance” in the abstract, but rather for tolerance of a very particular, even intolerant, kind.
August 15th, 2012 | 2:38 pm
Let’s not forget the Family Research Council is a certified Hate group, just like the Ku Klux Klan.
August 15th, 2012 | 3:02 pm
The same-sex marriage lobby set out to reorient the social consensus by labeling anyone who disagreed as bigoted and hateful. They spoke in the name of tolerance, but embraced intolerance as their main tool
More alarming: so few mind.
August 15th, 2012 | 3:44 pm
It sounds like no one is to blame, but someone is responsible. Do those working for gay rights want anti-gay bias (including opposition to same-sex marriage) to be socially unacceptable? Of course. And I think most heterosexual Americans agree. The problem is how tolerant you are of people you find to be intolerant, and I don’t think anyone would say the intolerant should be treated the same as the tolerant. But it’s kind of a paradox, isn’t it? Certainly no one wants tolerance and acceptance of people who hate Christians or deny them what they consider to be their rights. Religious groups, for the most part, have come to tolerate each other, and to expect tolerance, even when one religion considers the other religion the antichrist!
Bias Crime Statistics for 2010 from the FBI
By bias motivation
An analysis of data for victims of single-bias hate crime incidents showed that:
• 48.2 percent were victims of an offender’s bias against a race.
• 18.9 percent were victims of an offender’s bias against a religion.
• 18.6 percent were victims of an offender’s bias against a particular sexual orientation.
• 13.7 percent were victims of an offender’s bias against an ethnicity/national origin.
0.6 percent were victims of an offender’s bias against a disability.
Racial bias
Among the single-bias hate crime incidents in 2010, there were 3,949 victims of racially motivated hate crime. A closer examination of these victim data showed that:
• 70.0 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-black bias.
• 17.7 percent were victims of an anti-white bias.
• 5.1 percent were victims of an anti-Asian/Pacific Islander bias.
• 1.2 percent were victims of an anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native bias.
• 6.0 percent were victims of a bias against a group of individuals in which more than one race was represented (anti-multiple races, group).
Religious bias
Of the 1,552 victims of an anti-religion hate crime:
• 67.0 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
• 12.7 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.
• 4.2 percent were victims of an anti-Catholic bias.
• 3.0 percent were victims of an anti-Protestant bias.
• 0.5 percent were victims of an anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.
• 9.1 percent were victims of a bias against other religions (anti-other religion).
• 3.5 percent were victims of a bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).
Sexual-orientation bias
Of the 1,528 victims targeted due to an offender’s sexual-orientation bias:
• 57.3 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-male homosexual bias.
• 27.5 percent were victims of an anti-homosexual bias.
• 11.8 percent were victims of an anti-female homosexual bias.
• 1.4 percent were victims of an anti-heterosexual bias.
• 1.9 percent were victims of an anti-bisexual bias.
Ethnicity/national origin bias
Hate crimes motivated by the offender’s bias toward a particular ethnicity/national origin were directed at 1,122 victims. Of these victims:
• 66.6 percent were targeted because of an anti-Hispanic bias.
• 33.4 percent were victimized because of a bias against other ethnicities/national origins.
Let’s remember, when looking at these statistics, that gay men and lesbians make up about 4% of the population, and Jews make up about 2%. And straight white Christians think they are persecuted!
August 15th, 2012 | 3:54 pm
Wait wait wait…
I don’t think that anyone who disagrees with gay marriage is ‘bigoted and hateful’.
I believe they are misguided. And that besides, they have no right to impose their worldview on me by way of laws and Constitutional amendments. Whether gay marriage is legal or illegal, they lose nothing. But if it’s illegal, we lose something very real and very important.
The fact that ‘traditional marriage’ advocates are so selfish and hardened disturbs me, and my friends. But no one *I* know would call one of them hateful or bigoted based ONLY on the fact they disagree with us on this point.
There are, of course, some people who are bigoted and hateful. But this is case by case.
August 15th, 2012 | 3:58 pm
I’m having trouble understanding how you can believe that criticizing bigoted statements and attitudes amounts to “intolerance”. If I were to say I opposed interracial marriage, and I were criticized as a bigot for this, would that be intolerance, or simply legitimate criticism of an immoral and racist belief?
In a free society, of course you have the right to voice your opposition to gay marriage; however, everyone else also has the right to criticize you for being a bigot. It should go without saying that no one has the right to do harm to some one else because of an intellectual disagreement.
August 15th, 2012 | 4:20 pm
@Clematys: How does one identify a “certified Hate Group”? Is there some registry somewhere? Who keeps it and decides who gets listed?
The problem, Tomas, is that anyone can claim others, who disagree with them, are “immoral and racist”. Indeed, such claims were the source, on both sides, for the religious wars of the 16th and 17th century. The question is, how do we resolve such issues short of war? Particularly, when a minority is claiming such of a majority. History tells us what works is persuasion, which takes me back to Gandhi’s, MLK’s, and Nelson Mandala’s examples.
August 15th, 2012 | 4:22 pm
Of the victims of crime, 100% were victims of hateful disrespect and bias against human dignity and security. There are no “love crimes.”
August 15th, 2012 | 4:26 pm
Clamatys tells us “Let’s not forget the Family Research Council is a certified Hate group, just like the Ku Klux Klan.” Big deal. Every conservative is “hateful” according to liberals. Here in Canada, even the Bible was declared “hate literature”. I’m a pro-life conservative committed to the traditional family. That makes me a hateful, homophobic, and anti-choice. I’m proud to call the Family Research Council friends. So shoot me.
August 15th, 2012 | 4:28 pm
Just one additional point. Suppose we grant for the sake of argument that “the same-sex marriage lobby set out to reorient the social consensus by labeling anyone who disagreed as bigoted and hateful.” That is a far cry from saying, “Get a gun and go out and shoot people.”
Martin Luther King used some pretty harsh language (“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of ‘interposition’ and ‘nullification’ . . . .), but that didn’t mean he was giving anyone justification for shooting George Wallace.
There is a lot of very strong rhetoric around. Folks from the Tea Party say we are living under tyranny and taxation is theft. Anti-abortion activists use words like babykillers. Very strong language is used right here against gay people quite frequently. This does not mean anyone in any of these groups is responsible if somebody gets himself a gun and starts shooting.
August 15th, 2012 | 4:30 pm
I just googled “certified Hate Group” and got the Southern Poverty Law Center. I looked at some of their certifications and can agree with some of them. Others seem far more partisan.
Now, Clematys, how does this certification give a right to assault and battery with a deadly weapon?
August 15th, 2012 | 4:37 pm
I believe they are misguided. And that besides, they have no right to impose their worldview on me by way of laws and Constitutional amendments. Whether gay marriage is legal or illegal, they lose nothing. But if it’s illegal, we lose something very real and very important.
It’s illegal now. It always has been illegal – ‘they’ don’t want to make it illegal, most of civilization has saw fit to not recognize something that was by no means a ‘marriage’ by most reasonable definition. What is asked to be done is to have the state sanction gay marriage, which will certainly impact those who have a moral concern with homosexual lifestyles.
August 15th, 2012 | 4:39 pm
And I am guessing Clematys was being satirical, though few here seem to have picked up on it.
August 15th, 2012 | 4:41 pm
@Mike Melendez – true, “anyone can claim others, who disagree with them, are ‘immoral and racist’”. However, when the point of contention is the actually racist opinions of said “others,” the claim is perfectly VALID.
If you say you don’t like black people, and I criticize you as being a racist, then this criticism is VALID. Similarly, if you claim you don’t want black people marrying white people, one is left only with the assumption that it is because you don’t LIKE black people, and again, the criticism is valid. I don’t think I need to go further to draw the line from racist bigotry to homophobic bigotry.
August 15th, 2012 | 4:42 pm
[...] First Things writer blaming FRC shooting on SSM supporters for making SSM opposition socially unacceptable. Classy. firstthings.com/blogs/firsttho… [...]
August 15th, 2012 | 5:06 pm
Very interesting and astute op-ed, Mr. Schmitz. It was made very clear in recent weeks that same-sex marriage advocates are much better at denouncing organized opposition than they are at organizing themselves. Both the “kiss in” and the proposed Starbucks Appreciation Day fizzled due to lack of participation.
@Clematys – Only the SPLC has claimed that the Family Research Council is a “hate group”. Personally, I consider the SPLC to be a hate group.
August 15th, 2012 | 5:11 pm
David Nickol Just one additional point. Suppose we grant for the sake of argument that “the same-sex marriage lobby set out to reorient the social consensus by labeling anyone who disagreed as bigoted and hateful.” That is a far cry from saying, “Get a gun and go out and shoot people.”
I remember back when one or two abortion clinics were bombed by fanatics. I don’t recall much restraint in the mainstream media about blaming the mainstream pro-life movement, including the Catholic bishops, for their supposed incitements to violence. I could come up with plenty of other examples.
Shoe, meet other foot.
August 15th, 2012 | 5:17 pm
I disagree with the unfortunate tendency among some to proclaim that anyone who opposes same-sex marriage is a bigot. People invent rationalizations for this, but if you look at people who oppose same-sex marriage, it is very clear that not all opponents are motivated by hatred.
However, it’s overly simplistic to say that all the FRC did was advocate against same-sex marriage. Senior officials (e.g., Peter Spriggs) have advocated for the criminalization of homosexuality, and have even said that they would like to see homosexuals “exported” from the United States. The organization even spent tens of thousands of dollars, lobbying against a House bill condemning the Ugandan gay death penalty bill, which subsequently stalled. And that’s not even scratching the surface.This is a hate group, if ever there was one.
Of course, this is not to justify violence, and certainly not against a poor guardsman.
August 15th, 2012 | 5:19 pm
If you say you don’t like black people, and I criticize you as being a racist, then this criticism is VALID. Similarly, if you claim you don’t want black people marrying white people, one is left only with the assumption that it is because you don’t LIKE black people, and again, the criticism is valid. I don’t think I need to go further to draw the line from racist bigotry to homophobic bigotry.
However, if one argues that one does not want the state to sanction gay marriage because it fundamentally alters the nature and purpose of marriage, I hardly think that constitutes ‘bigotry’ any more than opposing sanctioning polygamy is bigotry against those who desire to practice it.
August 15th, 2012 | 5:22 pm
If so—and that’s a big “if” (remember the Nava case, anyone?)—we have reason to mourn.
Matthew Schmitz,
We have reason to mourn already. An innocent person was shot. But it will not really matter what the shooter’s motivation turns out to have been. You have already accused the “same-sex marriage lobby” of creating a climate in which violence should not surprise anyone. But of course violence should always surprise us. It should be understood by everyone that the harshest of words do not justify violence.
You are trying to do to the “same-sex marriage lobby” exactly what you accuse them of trying to do to you—make them socially unacceptable. But both your side and the same-sex marriage side should have a reasonable expectation that if they don’t mince their words, folks will not start shooting each other.
August 15th, 2012 | 5:55 pm
However, if one argues that one does not want the state to sanction gay marriage because it fundamentally alters the nature and purpose of marriage, I hardly think that constitutes ‘bigotry’ any more than opposing sanctioning polygamy is bigotry against those who desire to practice it.
Jack,
What if you say (and truly believe, as many people did) that interracial marriage violates God’s law? What if you believe dark skin is the Mark of Cain, as many people(Christians) did, and that people with dark skin should not marry people with white skin? How do you treat someone with a sincere religious belief (say, that the Jews are “Christ killers”) that you believe to be profoundly wrong?
August 15th, 2012 | 6:37 pm
David Nickol You are trying to do to the “same-sex marriage lobby” exactly what you accuse them of trying to do to you—make them socially unacceptable.
No, he’s trying to make one of their routine and increasingly common tactics as socially unacceptable as it ought to be: namely, the assertion that opposition to removing legal distinctions between homosexual coupling and marriage is nothing more than bigotry — a tactic in plain evidence in some of the comments above mine.
August 15th, 2012 | 6:54 pm
@Jack
How does recognizing gay marriages “fundamentally alter the nature and purpose of marriage”, any more than recognizing interracial marriages alters it, and why is altering this “nature and purpose” a bad thing? Incidentally, why do you think the State should be in the marriage business to begin with?
August 15th, 2012 | 7:49 pm
If anyone should get their “ox gored” politically for this it should be the SPLC for labeling both NOM & FRC as “hate groups”…
In no way shape or form is support for marriage and the family hateful. This entire movement for same-sex “marriage” is the biggest evil I have ever witnessed in my 40 years on the planet (yes I mean that)
It was gamed from the beginning by radicalized sexual Marxists and was designed a-priori, to attack the foundations of our civilization.
They have radicalized a group of seriously disturbed Americans (homosexuals) and set them up to ravenously attack the sanctity of marriage..
This cannot end well…and will not.
The blame is squarely on the left.
August 15th, 2012 | 8:16 pm
“I don’t think that anyone who disagrees with gay marriage is ‘bigoted and hateful’. ”
I guess you don’t get out much.
We have repeatedly been instructed by the gay lobby that opposition to same sex marriage is morally analogous to opposition to marriage between races. REPEATEDLY– as in over and over.
Accept the premise that opposition to same sex marriage is as bigoted, irrational and hateful as opposition to marriage between persons of a different race and the labels slapped on the Family Research Counsel as a hate group makes perfect sense. And the Boy Scouts. And the Catholic Church.
Of course, if you reject that premise….
August 15th, 2012 | 8:17 pm
[...] My post earlier today (which has been misread by some as blaming same-sex marriage advocates for today’s events) makes a similarly equalizing point. One cannot tolerate one thing without being intolerant of another. One cannot promote one vision of the social good without working against another. [...]
August 15th, 2012 | 9:27 pm
Due to a lack of reading comprehension and desire to deal in truth, progressive websites have for days peddled the lie that Chick-Fil-A supported the Family Research Council’s support of legislation which OK’d gay-killing in Uganda. A lie that took all of two seconds to debunk:
The Tony Perkins-led FRC said it did lobby on the bill, but not to kill it – rather to change the language it contained and to remove sweeping and inaccurate assertions that homosexual conduct is internationally recognized as a fundamental human right.
FRC did not lobby against or oppose passage of the congressional resolution. FRC’s efforts, at the request of Congressional offices, were limited to seeking changes in the language of proposed drafts of the resolution, in order to make it more factually accurate regarding the content of the Uganda bill.
FRC does not support the Uganda bill, and does not support the death penalty for homosexuality – nor any other penalty which would have the effect of inhibiting compassionate pastoral, psychological, and medical care and treatment for those who experience same-sex attractions or who engage in homosexual conduct.
………………..
What? So you mean the story about Chick-Fil-A supporting gay-killing is complete and utter hogwash? Of course it is. Do you expect any of the many websites to print retractions? No, you don’t.
Do you expect homosexual activists to continue to propagate the lie?
Of course you do. We all expect that from people engaging in a smear campaign.
August 16th, 2012 | 12:33 am
Fitzgerald:
“This entire movement for same-sex “marriage” is the biggest evil I have ever witnessed in my 40 years on the planet”
Worse than Pol Pot? Worse than anything that happened in the former Yugoslavia or Sudan or Congo or Rwanda?
August 16th, 2012 | 4:29 am
Would we claim that all advocates of endogamous marriage customs – Hindus who reject marriage between members of different casts, for instance – are bigots?
If not, why not?
August 16th, 2012 | 6:07 am
Gay marriage is not like interracial marriage. That’s why I should not be considered a bigot for not believing that two members of the same sex can be married in any meaningful sense. Marriage forbidden to members of different racest is a travesty, but notice that no one ever made the argument that a black man with a white woman COULDN’T constitute a marriage. The argument was that they SHOULDN’T. The best argument against gay marriage operates very differently. I argue that two members of the same sex cannot constitute a marriage no matter what anyone thinks. The government could pass a law that says 2+2=5, but the truth would still be that 2+2=4. Because marriage has a nature, no one has the right, nor does anyone have the power to change it. Reality is discovered, not invented.
If you want to use an analogy to try to make opponents of so-called sam-sex marriage look like bigots, please use one that works. Because race has a strong emotional appeal is not a justification for employing it in this instance. This issue is not analogous to race issues.
Ssm proponents want to use the force of law to impose a view of life that rebels against reality. People are not bigots for espousing the truth. Truth matters. Without it, we can’t have meaning. We must obey it and not act as if it obeys us.
August 16th, 2012 | 9:33 am
Fitzgerald, surely, you’re joking. You claim that NOM is labeled a hate group by the SPLC. It is not. Only the FRC, and for good reasons, too. Perhaps you think that “seriously disturbed Americans” (as you call gay people) should be jailed and “exported”, like senior FRC officials. Perhaps you are opposed to efforts to stop the Ugandan gay death penalty bill, but don’t be surprised if that is called hateful.
HarrietJ, that’s a total joke. You cite a press release (to cover their behinds) lacking in any specificity as gospel truth, and then pat yourself on the back for “debunking” a “lie”. FRC opposed the Obama administration’s attempt to end torture, execution and imprisonment for gay people abroad. It is also a fact that the Uganda bill stalled after the FRC lobbied against it. And still you’ll believe anything they tell you. Very sad. This has nothing to do with Chick-fil-A, which donated only $1,000 to this hate group, as opposed to millions to organizations that merely oppose same-sex marriage.
August 16th, 2012 | 10:49 am
What if you say (and truly believe, as many people did) that interracial marriage violates God’s law? What if you believe dark skin is the Mark of Cain, as many people(Christians) did, and that people with dark skin should not marry people with white skin? How do you treat someone with a sincere religious belief (say, that the Jews are “Christ killers”) that you believe to be profoundly wrong?
I think it needs to be noted that it was never claimed that blacks (or other racial groups) shouldn’t get ‘married’, nor was it claimed that whites marrying blacks would change the nature of marriage. The issue was miscegenation, or the idea that a pure racial type would be somehow diminished by interbreeding with lesser races. This idea certainly had some misguided theological underpinnings, but it was held as a secular and scientific notion as well.
In the case of gay marriage the motivation is almost the opposite – rather than excluding certain persons from marrying and bearing children together, traditional marriage advocates are saying that is actually one of the primary functions of marriage – to bind two people together in such a way so they can procreate and provide for the growth and development of children that result from that unity. To reduce marriage to a mere legal or social arrangement between any two persons diminishes not ‘the race’ but purpose and power of the institution. Again, it no more excludes a particular group than do laws against polygamy.
So I would say there is no comparison between the two cases.
August 16th, 2012 | 10:53 am
Many of you have made the claim the opposing same-sex marriage, and opposing interracial marriage are fundamentally different ideas, and that comparing the two is unfair. OK – I’ll take the Pepsi challenge. Explain WHY they are fundamentally different. “I believe marriage is this” is not an argument; it’s an opinion, without supporting reasoning.
How does the State recognizing gay marriage damage the “foundations of our society”? What damage exactly does this cause? Break it down for me, please.
August 16th, 2012 | 11:06 am
How does recognizing gay marriages “fundamentally alter the nature and purpose of marriage”, any more than recognizing interracial marriages alters it, and why is altering this “nature and purpose” a bad thing? Incidentally, why do you think the State should be in the marriage business to begin with?
The answer to your final question in a sense answers your earlier question. The state is in marriage because it affects the well-being of children – the primary connection between children and parents is biological, and the best organization and facilitation of that biological connection turns out to be marriage. It’s through that relationship that the primary provision, emotional support, and education of children are enabled. The state has an interest in the well-being of children, and when children are born outside of wedlock, or impacted by divorce or other disputes between parents the state has an interest in how that impacts the life and health of children. If the biological father doesn’t pay child support, or the basic needs a child isn’t being met, the state has a duty to deal with the situation, and the persons it holds accountable are the child’s parents. This is the most natural and healthy order of things. It explains why the state sanctions such relationships.
Now there are other concerns the state has like property ownership and the power to execute certain actions in the life of another person, but these are contractual considerations that don’t stem from a biological imperative the way parenthood does. The state needn’t sanction a relationship to create legal stipulations that might spring from certain relationships. And make such legal arrangements the primary purpose for state sanction actually entangles the state even more in human relationships. These are some of the alterations to marriage that will be incurred by gay marriage.
And I already explained above how gay marriages differ from considerations of interracial marriage.
August 16th, 2012 | 11:34 am
So I would say there is no comparison between the two cases.
Jack,
First, there is some comparison. And one of the main points of comparison is that some people sincerely believed, based on their religion, that mixing the races was an offense against nature and against God. In any case, you failed to answer my question, which was the whole point of the post: “How do you treat someone with a sincere religious belief (say, that the Jews are ‘Christ killers’) that you believe to be profoundly wrong?”
This seems to me to be a core issue. People who oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds seem to be demanding respect for their position simply because their motives, they claim, are religious. A very solid religious case can (and was) made that the Jews were collectively responsible for “deicide.” Is someone today who is anti-Semitic based on that case due our respect and tolerance because he or she is expressing a sincerely held religious view?
August 16th, 2012 | 11:37 am
“Worse than Pol Pot? Worse than anything that happened in the former Yugoslavia or Sudan or Congo or Rwanda?”
I did not witness those. I might have lived during them..and read about them…but not a first hand witness.
August 16th, 2012 | 1:17 pm
First, there is some comparison. And one of the main points of comparison is that some people sincerely believed, based on their religion, that mixing the races was an offense against nature and against God. In any case, you failed to answer my question, which was the whole point of the post: “How do you treat someone with a sincere religious belief (say, that the Jews are ‘Christ killers’) that you believe to be profoundly wrong?”
As a Christian I deal with them theologically. As a citizen of the US, I deal with them according to the rights and freedoms I understand men hold in their relationship to the state. In both cases I treat them as being wrong with regard to their view of their fellow human beings. What this has to do with the biological, sociological, cultural, theological and legal considerations concerning gay marriage I am not sure.
This seems to me to be a core issue. People who oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds seem to be demanding respect for their position simply because their motives, they claim, are religious. A very solid religious case can (and was) made that the Jews were collectively responsible for “deicide.” Is someone today who is anti-Semitic based on that case due our respect and tolerance because he or she is expressing a sincerely held religious view
Even if such a case could be made (an alternate religious case can and has been made – and is generally accepted) that fact doesn’t necessarily mean such a theological case could or should translate into law. A case can be made the Romans have the same culpability for Christ’s death, but even so I am not sure what that would have to do with legally modern Italians.
Nonetheless you continue to highlight the differences. Jews and African Americans are people of particular racial and cultural decent – they are what they are by as a matter of heritage, not by their personal behaviors or attractions. Marriage is ultimately an emanation of attraction and biology, at least in part.
Also, the are other reasons to oppose same-sex marriage besides ‘religious’ ones, so one need not demand respect for the position on that basis alone.
August 16th, 2012 | 2:26 pm
Jack,
Let’s forget about same-sex marriage. I am asking a rather simple question about how it is appropriate to deal with people who sincerely hold religious views with which we profoundly disagree and find repugnant. Should we treat them with respect and tolerance because they are sincere? We’re talking about “the new tolerance” here, and I take Matthew Schmitz to be saying something has gone wrong with the concept of tolerance. If somebody in my home, for example, makes an anti-Semitic remark I find offensive, am I supposed to say, “Well, I of course respect your right to believe that, but I disagree.” If someone persists in making anti-Semitic remarks in my home once I have said I object, would it be wrong of me to ask him to leave? Would that be intolerant?
I am not interested in whether a religious objection to same-sex marriage is similar to a religious objection to interracial marriage. I am interested in what is expected of us when someone justifies, with sincerely held religious convictions, any belief or practice we find deeply offensive.
August 16th, 2012 | 2:51 pm
Of course not, it’s your home. Should the government sanction a set of beliefs about Judaism? Absolutely not. And that is the difference. Think of it the other way – should a conservative Christian allow a person in their home to insist in that homosexuality is perfectly acceptable according to the Bible, and anyone who thinks differently is a hateful bigot? That such people should be shunned and mocked? Would it be wrong to ask such a person to leave? I think they are perfectly within their rights to have such rules. But the government certainly shouldn’t stop people from saying such things.
People are free to justify whatever they want. The question however is whether the government is right to modify a longstanding, virtually universal human institution to serve the needs of a particular group. It isn’t ‘bigotry’ to say that perhaps that isn’t right.
August 16th, 2012 | 4:28 pm
The question however is whether the government is right to modify a longstanding, virtually universal human institution to serve the needs of a particular group. It isn’t ‘bigotry’ to say that perhaps that isn’t right.
Jack,
I’m trying to get at the issue of tolerance, and “the new tolerance,” but you are intent on talking about same-sex marriage. I understand (or assume) that you believe people who oppose same-sex marriage are correct to do so. But it seems to me the concept of tolerance comes in when there is disagreement between two groups, both of whom think their group is right and the other group is wrong. If you are saying that when you are wrong, you have to be tolerant, but when you are right, you don’t have to be tolerant, that doesn’t help much. That permits everyone to be intolerant, because each side believes itself to be right.
August 16th, 2012 | 5:52 pm
Maximilian: “It is also a fact that the Uganda bill stalled after the FRC lobbied against it. ”
As it was written: The Tony Perkins-led FRC said it did lobby on the bill, but not to kill it – rather to change the language it contained and to remove sweeping and inaccurate assertions that homosexual conduct is internationally recognized as a fundamental human right.
Are you aware that any time any bill is being debated, it is “stalled”?
It’s called democracy. When people challenge your harmful homosexuality agenda written in bills, the bills aren’t going to immediately pass.
To claim that the FRC was lobbying for putting homosexuals to death is a disgrace.
Therefore, you are just smearing them.
August 16th, 2012 | 6:03 pm
I think where we are missing each other comes down to the personal tolerance versus official sanction. Personally I am not obligated to tolerate expressions I don’t care for on my own property. In public spaces I may have to tolerate them if I am going to share that public space, and the government certainly has to tolerate the public expression of different views. When it comes to policies, the government is obligated to respect individual rights and treat people equally. Official policy has to go through the lawmaking institutions we set up to deal with such things – or the courts in case of rights infringement and the like. Our laws aren’t really based on ‘tolerance’ per se.
August 16th, 2012 | 6:14 pm
Maximilian: “and have even said that they would like to see homosexuals “exported” from the United States.”
I am tired of seeing how perverse and perverted so many homosexuals and bisexuals are. This is compounded by heterosexuals who support the same homosexuality agenda.
Many environments where such people are not present are much more wholesome, good environments. I can certainly understand why he would say such a thing.
People with a homosexuality agenda are out to smear and make pariahs out of anyone who disagrees with them. They are stepping up the human rights violations against social conservatives and various religions.
No victims at all – harmful people. I can certainly understand why he would say it would be nice to export people who have such a harmful political and sexual agenda.
August 16th, 2012 | 9:17 pm
I believe they are misguided. And that besides, they have no right to impose their worldview on me by way of laws and Constitutional amendments. Whether gay marriage is legal or illegal, they lose nothing. But if it’s illegal, we lose something very real and very important.
This would be a lot more compelling if you actually took the time to learn the real reasons why I oppose gay marriage, instead of building a straw man.
You are within your rights to believe whatever you want. But you are the one forcing your beliefs on me, not the other way around. You do not have the right to force me to believe that marriage is not procreative, that gays are just as procreative as heterosexual couples and therefore entitled for the subsidies and benefits enabling couples to start families together, or that mothers and fathers are so interchangeable that a child is not adversely affected by having a “second mommy” (“daddy”) replace the chance to have and experience a real father (mother).
The truth is, marriage is procreative, gay couples and other non-procreative couples are not equal and are not entitled to the procreative subsidies or benefits, and all children are entitled to both mother and father – their own, unless a genuine crisis makes a judge acting on behalf of the child determine that it is in the child’s best interest to sever that tie.
Now, if you’re genuinely not interested in painting me as a bigot or a hater, please stop misrepresenting me and/or my views in your arguments in favor of gay marriage.
August 16th, 2012 | 9:21 pm
Gay marriage is not like interracial marriage.
What might be more to the point is that the assertion itself is an example of “begging the question”.
Interracial marriage is already settled. Gay marriage is not settled. Any attempt to compare gay marriage to interracial marriage ignores (or hopes to distract us from) the reality that whether gay marriage is a civil right, as interracial marriage is, is precisely what’s being debated.
Blacks have already proved that, for all reasonable purposes, there are no differences between blacks and whites, and no differences between interracial couples and other couples. Nor is there any compelling interest in maintaining genetic purity, which was the reason given for banning interracial marriage.
Gays have not yet proved that there are no differences between men and women, or that there are no differences between gay couples & heterosexual ones. And the reasons for objecting to gay marriage have nothing to do with concern (real or otherwise) in protecting “genetic purity”.
August 16th, 2012 | 9:25 pm
HarrietJ, it is not the claim that is the disgrace, but the disgraceful actions to which they refer. Namely, spending about $50,000 on killing a bill that condemned the killing of these “perverted… harmful people”. Worse still, FRC’s president claimed that the law in Uganda would only “uphold moral conduct”. You simply repeat whatever you find in the press releases of the FRC, without any critical inquiry into its accuracy, and that’s really sad.
I am also pleased to see you favor deportation of people who are gay, and even “heterosexuals who support the same homosexuality [sic] agenda”. Apparently, you believe in deporting about half of the population of the United States.
If you desire an environment in which such individuals are not present, I know a few in the Middle East. Tell me if you want more information, I will gladly give it you. Once there, you will finally be in a wholesome, good environment.
David, I think there are people more deserving of receiving your barbs, than a mere opponent of gay marriage.
August 16th, 2012 | 9:26 pm
Many of you have made the claim the opposing same-sex marriage, and opposing interracial marriage are fundamentally different ideas, and that comparing the two is unfair. OK – I’ll take the Pepsi challenge. Explain WHY they are fundamentally different.
Because black men and white men both make good fathers, but women do not.
If same-sex and opposite-sex were identical and interchangeable enough that a child is not deprived of anything important when he has “two mommies” instead of his own real parents, then it would also be true that same-sex and opposite-sex would be identical and interchangeable enough that gay people would not have special needs.
August 16th, 2012 | 9:36 pm
The state is in marriage because it affects the well-being of children – the primary connection between children and parents is biological, and the best organization and facilitation of that biological connection turns out to be marriage.
It’s also worth looking at the same, or similar, assertion from the other direction.
When two people intend to procreate together, they are better off if they can make a contract together for this purpose. As social science data is increasingly making obvious, attempting to procreate without a special, legally binding relationship results in abandoned mothers, abandoned children, estranged fathers, and so on.
It is also becoming demonstrable (from the data) what common sense has always said: people are best when their families are intact and unbroken. Marriage contributes in positive ways to helping families stay together, stay healthy, and stay strong. But gay marriage does the opposite: it actively works to break up and disperse families, encouraging rather than discouraging the reality of children abandoned by and separated from their biological family.
Marriage equalizes and protects family relationships. If a wealthy man marries a laundress, she’s still his wife – the recognized mother of his child – and thus entitled to certain rights. But gay marriage does exactly the opposite: it legitimizes the act of treating the mother or father of your child as disposable and irrelevant – reducing parents to donors and carriers, and granting to the affluent family member the right to name anyone he wishes as the child’s “other parent” for legal purposes. The idea seems to be that because gay people can’t enjoy sex with their child’s other parent, that they are within their rights to cherry-pick which family obligations ought to apply to them – even when this cherry-picking reduces a child to a commodity, a parent to a baby-making factory, and a family to something that is defined as a family not because it consists of people who are related biologically, but because some wealthy people have the right to decide who is and is not related to whom (while other, less wealthy people have no say in whether they get to know their real relatives, or will be “given” to someone else). It is fundamentally dishonest, because while marriage grants the right of both partners to be recognized as the parent of their spouse’s child, it also comes with an obligation: you’re not supposed to make babies with anyone but your spouse. Gay marriage necessarily breaks this, replacing it with a new paradigm where family trees can be rewritten by governments and powerful individuals for trivial reasons – a situation that is good for those with the power to control the outcome, but not good for those who find their own selves overwritten (to borrow the language that gay rights advocates like to indulge in, when it’s their own identities being violated instead of their kids’).
August 16th, 2012 | 11:49 pm
Re: Marriage & the inter-racial marriage anology
“But as Skinner, Loving, and Zablocki indicate, marriage is traditionally linked to procreation and survival of the human race. Heterosexual couples are the only couples who can produce biological offspring of the couple. And the link between opposite-sex marriage and procreation is not defeated by the fact that the law allows opposite-sex marriage regardless of a couple’s willingness or ability to procreate. The facts that all opposite-sex couples do not have children and that single- sex couples raise children and have children with third party assistance or through adoption do not mean that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples lacks a rational basis. Such over- or under-inclusiveness does not defeat finding a rational basis.”
Note the court appropriately applies Loving, etc.
“The plurality makes strong criticisms of the concurrence and two of the dissents at the outset of its opinion, including charging the main dissent with “sadly overstep[ping] the bounds of judicial review” for suggesting that supporters of marriage laws are bigots. Besides calling the lower court decisions “transparently result-oriented” and a reflection of “the dominant political ideas of their legal community,” the concurrence says: “[t]hough advanced with fervor and supported by special interests loudly advocating the latest political correctness, the arguments (and the dissenters) cannot overcome the plain legal and constitutional principles supporting Washington’s definition of marriage.”
August 17th, 2012 | 5:49 am
Maximilian said: HarrietJ, it is not the claim that is the disgrace, but the disgraceful actions to which they refer. Namely, spending about $50,000 on killing a bill that condemned the killing of these “perverted… harmful people”.
I see that you refuse to read what the FRC did. The bill was longer than one line, you see. The FRC objected to parts of the bill you refuse to acknowledge. They were very right to do so.
Maximilian: “Worse still, FRC’s president claimed that the law in Uganda would only “uphold moral conduct”. You simply repeat whatever you find in the press releases of the FRC, without any critical inquiry into its accuracy, and that’s really sad.”
I’m sorry that you cannot understand that the bill is longer than one line. A bill that does not normalize homosexuality does uphold moral conduct. Obviously, when you have an immoral sexuality agenda, moral understandings of sexuality must be destroyed.
The FRC is not in favor of killing people with a homosexual problem, they are in favor of upholding a moral understanding of sexuality, which is what the liberal homosexuality agenda destroys.
The FRC is a lot more truthful about the problems with people with a homosexuality agenda and a dysfunctional homosexual sexuality than you are.
August 17th, 2012 | 7:13 am
On the Uganda bill:
“Aggravated homosexuality” is defined to include homosexual acts committed by a person who is HIV-positive, is a parent or authority figure, or who administers intoxicating substances, homosexual acts committed on minors or people with disabilities, and repeat offenders.”
So Maximilian doesn’t think that a person who has a homosexual problem and sexually abuses a minor or someone with a disability is perverted? Transmitting HIV in a country that has little availability of drugs is not a horrible act? Maximilian doesn’t think these people are harmful?
If society wasn’t such a monstrous place, such people would be “deported” to prison where they belong. Unfortunately today most people who commit sex offenses aren’t even reported, much less charged, much less sent to prison. And this is due in part to cover-ups- witness the recent Penn State debacle.
The Uganda bill stipulates capital punishment for such offenses. While one can debate whether capital punishment is warranted, to claim that there is something wrong in demanding punishment for such heinous acts is really to engage in a smear campaign against the FRC.
“The offense of homosexuality” is defined to include same-sex sexual acts, – which is illegal and would receive life imprisonment
Personally, I’m not in favor of life imprisonment. The question of criminalization of homosexual activity is just what homosexual activists yearn for to paint anyone who suggests it as the same as Himmler.
However, the question that no one asks is: do people with a homosexual problem commit more or less violence and harm in Uganda than in the US? Who gets to decide who is going to perpetrate what kinds of violence and harm in society?
In the US, it’s the people pushing for a harmful homosexuality agenda who claim they have the right to destroy society and the rights of anyone who objects. There is enormous impunity for all kinds of crimes and harmful acts committed by people with a homosexual problem (abuse, harassment, spreading of STDs, promoting dysfunctional sexual ideologies and behaviors, etc.).
The FRC is a very good organization because they speak out about these many problems.
August 17th, 2012 | 9:57 am
HarrietJ: I refuse to take FRC’s word for what it did, as you do without critical inquiry, especially when I have audio of the FRC-president himself saying that the Uganda law would “uphold moral conduct”.
“A bill that does not normalize homosexuality does uphold moral conduct. (…) The FRC is not in favor of killing people with a homosexual problem”
If not, Tony Perkins would not call a law for killing gay people one “uphold[ing] moral conduct”. And that for a pro-lifer! Hah.
“So Maximilian doesn’t think that a person who has a homosexual problem and sexually abuses a minor or someone with a disability is perverted? ”
Like everyone else who opposes this law, I have a problem with the “repeat offenders”-part. Anyone convicted for the second time for offenses under this act, is liable to receive the death penalty.
“While one can debate whether capital punishment is warranted”
It is warranted, in fact imperative, for child molesters. It is not warranted for gay people, as the Uganda bill does, and as the part you quoted clearly shows.
“Personally, I’m not in favor of life imprisonment. The question of criminalization of homosexual activity is just what homosexual activists yearn for to paint anyone who suggests it as the same as Himmler.”
So you would advocate for putting gay people in jail, it’s just that you fear being painted as evil?
“In the US, it’s the people pushing for a harmful homosexuality agenda who claim they have the right to destroy society and the rights of anyone who objects.”
Yes, you’re the one who is persecuted. You openly advocate for deporting gay people, and anyone who believes in fairness for them, and yet you’re the victim. You admit that you would favor life imprisonment for gay people, except that it would be used against you, and yet you’re the victim.
My heart aches for Jesus. How his noble teachings have been reduced to… this. Whoever knew that “love thy neighbor as thyself” meant the things that you are advocating?
August 17th, 2012 | 11:37 am
Maximilian: “My heart aches for Jesus. How his noble teachings have been reduced to… this. Whoever knew that “love thy neighbor as thyself” meant the things that you are advocating?”
Spare us the soap opera. There is no ethics or justice with your harmful homosexuality agenda.
“love thy neighbor as thyself”
Let’s see you demonstrate a little brotherly love to the FRC. I see none of it.
Try this for a quote: Go, and sin no more.
August 17th, 2012 | 12:05 pm
My heart aches for Jesus. How his noble teachings have been reduced to… this. Whoever knew that “love thy neighbor as thyself” meant the things that you are advocating?
Jesus was never a teddy bear who could be made into whatever you want him to be. He was a guy with clear-cut views on how to behave. The fact that he opposed stoning people didn’t mean he thought adultery was okay. And I don’t think the man who walked on Earth – the man described in the Bible – would be okay with using “love” as a euphemism for indulging sin.
Everyone has the right to their own beliefs about God, of course, but then that goes for HarrietJ as well as anyone else. But to the extent that we are relying on what we know about Jesus, we are to “love the sinner but hate the sin”.
There is nothing “loving” about pretending that something is healthy and victimless if it isn’t. In fact, it is downright hateful to justify and excuse a behavior if you believe in your heart that the behavior is unhealthy and destructive.
August 17th, 2012 | 12:09 pm
Yes, you’re the one who is persecuted. You openly advocate for deporting gay people, and anyone who believes in fairness for them, and yet you’re the victim.
This is an example of what is called “black and white thinking”. You seem to be suggesting that because gays are in fact persecuted, it is therefore impossible that HarrietJ’s claims of unfair treatment could have any merit.
It is possible that both gays are persecuted and HarrietJ could be the victim of some mistreatment.
Justice demands that each claim needs to be treated individually.
August 17th, 2012 | 2:36 pm
Blake: “Jesus was never a teddy bear who could be made into whatever you want him to be.”
I do not suppose Jesus would approve of deporting or criminalization gay people, would he?
August 17th, 2012 | 6:28 pm
Sherry: “Personally, I’m not in favor of life imprisonment.
Maximilian: “You admit that you would favor life imprisonment for gay people,”
Care to read what I wrote? I guess not.
Why read what other people write if your objective is to smear them with your rants?
August 17th, 2012 | 11:27 pm
I do not suppose Jesus would approve of deporting or criminalization gay people, would he?
Please make your point clear.
You are not making any sense. I don’t understand what you are trying to get at.
August 18th, 2012 | 9:30 am
Blake: “Please make your point clear.
You are not making any sense. I don’t understand what you are trying to get at.”
Well, I wrote a comprehensive response, which did not get through, so I wrote this shorter one. I believed the the reference to a person here caused its denial. But you’re forcing my hand here. So let me tell you. HarrietJ has said that she would be pleased if gay people (and their supporters) were “exported”/deported. I told her that this is unlikely to be something supported by Jesus. You entered the debate and started talking about irrelevant matters like adultery. So now I’m asking you, do you believe that Jesus would support HarrietJ’s comments about “exporting”/deporting gay people and anyone who believes in fair treatment for them?
August 18th, 2012 | 12:39 pm
HarrietJ: Care to read what I wrote? I guess not.
I did write what you wrote, including the part you cut out. So I wrote the response, part of which you cut out.
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