Well, you’re outraged without offering much of substance. Is the Nation of Islam a hate group or not? Is the very peaceful Westboro Baptist Church a hate group or not? If you answer ‘no’ to both, I will respect the fact that you won’t call the FRC a hate group. You’ll be wrong, but at least you will be consistent.

Blake: But words like “hate group”, “hate crime”, and “racist” aren’t yours to play with.

Who mentioned ‘hate crime? Other than you (twice in this thread), no one.

Blake: Slander is serious. That is why it has to be proven in a court of law, and there’s a serious burden of proof. What the SPLC is claiming is slander, or defamation. If they believe defamation has taken place, let them prove it in a court of law.

Not true. Slander is directed against an individual. Defaming an entire group does not legally count as slander. If I made the monstrous accusation that “Jews poison wells”, that would not be slander. However, if I said: “person X is a Jew who poison wells”, that would be slander.

You know what’s wrong with deliberately using fallacies of ambiguity as a tactic?

It’s that you’re spending political capital that isn’t entirely yours.

Sure, it works in the short run. You’ll be able to use language that summons up visceral imagery – white supremacist tatts and terrified prison guards and black people cowering in their house at night while the Klansmen chant outside is, of course, what hate groups are all about.

But words like “hate group”, “hate crime”, and “racist” aren’t yours to play with.

They exist because they not only were but still are needed to communicate something urgent.

That urgency is what the SPLC and its defenders are trying to steal with their lies.

Slander is serious. That is why it has to be proven in a court of law, and there’s a serious burden of proof. What the SPLC is claiming is slander, or defamation. If they believe defamation has taken place, let them prove it in a court of law.

Instead, they are squandering their credibility. What’s far worse is that they’re squandering the credibility of the entire civil rights movement.

By acting as if you’re talking about a real hate group – but secretly slipping in an asterisk, where you generously grant yourself the right to misuse the term to refer to anyone who called someone else a name – you’re using dishonesty to incite a reaction for short-term political gain.

If it ever happens that real hate groups become powerful enough that black people or gay people need to use those words, they will find that you took it upon yourself to sell their well-being.

It’s clear that this is a tactic that comes out precisely when someone knows he can’t win his argument on political merit, on substance.

Little boys crying wolf are little boys who don’t get taken seriously for very long.

I bet you’d be right – if they think there is something inherently disordered about homosexual sex.

For instance, if they believe that anal sex is destructive (as many do), or if they believe that homosexual encounters are repugnant to God.

I bet if I took a survey of people in favor of gay marriage, I’d find that the majority of people in favor of gay marriage have ignorant, bigoted views of religious people.

Not sure what such fictitious surveys really reveal, though, except insofar as it reveals the assumptions – and bigotries – of those who invent such non-existent surveys to “scientifically” validate our prejudices.

I value freedom as well. Very much. The devil between us would be in the details..

But, some agreement anyhow. Thanks for some good conversation. A Presbyterian pastor and an atheist having a civil conversation and reaching some concord. Who would have thought?

david c.,

It’s one thing to have bisexual entertainers. It’s another to have a bisexual king! Do you suppose if Charles had taken up with a man instead of Camilla Parker Bowles, they would look forward to having Charles’s lover as their next queen? :P

Yes, yes, not necessarily, no, no. But I definitely do agree that the sexual revolution, like any revolution, has had negative consequences. It’s the price of freedom. Freedom of speech means that people can advocate for evil ideas. Yet I would not oppose it.

Islamic theocracies have none of these pathologies you mention, and yet I would not trade all the wealth in the world for living outside such a place.

Well, you’re just rehashing now, and so would I be so we should probably just move on. I am amused, however, at the idea that the great British public would be ‘scandalized’ if Prince William was discovered to be bisexual. Sir Elton John and Sir Ian McKellen beg to disagree.

Cheers.

Like I said, it’s all about the content of “this”. I am glad that we agree (it appears) that the sexual revolution has been a mixed bag. I would add “at best” which would likely be a step (at least) too far for you. But i’ll take agreement where we can find it.

If in fact the criminalization of marital rape and the decriminalization of private sexual acts (whether homosexual or heterosexual) can, in fact, be ascribed to the sexual revolution, then I will not “forget the good things about the sexual revolution”.

It is my hope that you will perhaps agree with me that the explosion in the numbers of STD’s, out-of-wedlock births (and the all too often resultant social pathologies), the drastic increase in the rate of divorce, 1.2 million abortions annually, and the saturation of our culture (particularly the internet) with pornography should all be placed on the negative side of that ledger?

For me, the social costs of the latter negatives, impacting as they do millions and millions more than the former ‘goods’, lead me to at least wonder if the ‘revolution’ really has been worth it?

Could the “good” that we agree upon have been accomplished in some other less catastrophically costly way?

My positions is rather simple, I think. You have said:

As such, they [homosexual acts] are as wrong/sinful (and no more than), as adultery, fornication etc. and I have said so, publicly – in writing, in the classroom, in the pulpit.

I take your word that this is what you believe. However, I think those who believe homosexuality is sinful, and those who oppose same-sex marriage largely take in stride, say, cohabitation prior to marriage, for themselves, for their young-adult children, and for people they know. It is not a scandal any more. In fact, Prince William, the future head of the Church of England was cohabiting with his fiancee prior to their wedding with the knowledge and approval of the current head of the Church of England, Queen Elizabeth. How many were scandalized? And another future head of the Church of England, Prince Charles, is now married to the woman he committed adultery with when he was married to Diana. Camilla may even become queen!

You talk of “defining deviancy down.” Well, if we take premarital and extramarital sex as deviancy, then deviancy has been defined down to the point where princes and politicians can openly live with their female companions and few are scandalized. I really don’t think the same standard applies to homosexual relationships. I sincerely doubt that if Prince William were bisexual and had cohabited with his male lover prior to cohabiting with Kate, the reaction to the two premarital affairs would have been equally blasé.

In the Catholic Church, I can point to the fact that those who are religiously married, civilly divorced, and civilly remarried are considered to be living in adultery, yet they are officially welcomed into parish life (although they may not receive communion). On the other hand, same-sex couples, who are equally sinners, are not welcomed. In fact, there was a famous incident a couple of years ago when Archbishop Chaput decreed that children of a lesbian couple could not attend Catholic school. I have said a number of times that I don’t see why same-sex couples (homosexual “fornicators”) and divorced and remarried couples (“adulterers”) cannot be treated the same in the Catholic Church. While they may indeed be in some liberal parishes, officially they are not.

All of the above (including what I have written about people’s discomfort at depictions of same-sex public displays of affection and depictions of gay sex in television and movies) leads me to conclude that probably most who oppose homosexuality and same-sex marriage are motivated by something more than a purely intellectual understanding of the interpretation of the Bible. As I said, I think people react to sexual expressions other than their own in a visceral or “instinctive” manner. I used my own reaction against transvestites as an example, this, I think, doing away with the notion that I think such reactions can be defined as “hate.” If I were to describe in full my own personal, instinctive reaction when I see a man dressed as a woman—particularly in cases when it is done atrociously, as it so often is—I wouldn’t come off as a very sympathetic or tolerant person. However, sometimes sympathy and tolerance have to be summoned up and willed, and “instinctive” reactions suppressed. Even for those who are able to do that, I think those “instinctive” reactions color opinions. We all have more than a little prejudice inside of us. Or maybe you don’t, but I do. Not only don’t we make dispassionate, rational decisions without the involvement of emotions. We can’t.

For example, one of the consequences of the sexual revolution is that homosexuality is no longer a crime in all 50 states. What think you of that?

Marital rape is now a crime, because women are no longer regarded as the property of their husbands. I will not insult you by asking whether you agree with this, I’ll only ask you to not forget the good things about the sexual revolution.