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[botias]

While I'm at it, I quite liked this: why gay marriage DOES affect het marriage, and why society should put on their 'big girl' pants and accept it anyway

I've often found the notion that gay marriage is a non-issue and anyone who feels otherwise is deeply confused, to be kinda not the case. I know how it is to get out in the big world and find that my One True Path complete with safety rails actually wasn't. It's scary for a bit to have that taken away--feels a little wobbly. I got over it and was the better for it, and I believe that others will too.

For more on wearing the 'big girl' pants, it was nice to hear someone, especially someone who no doubt has a much wider audience than I, express my feelings about Prop 8's defeat (from deborahw37):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27650743/

Comments

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

I rather like that blog, must read some more of it , thanks for the link

[botias.livejournal.com]

I see she's wearing 'full pirate regalia' in her picture. :D I think she may be a devout Pastafarian.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I have little sympathy for people so coddled they struggle so hard with reality.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Yes, I sense a hayooge lack of sympathy in my internet environs for anything but fierce condemnation with regard to homophobia. :)

But, if I expect Them to hate the sin but love and embrace the sinner, if I expect Them to make an attempt to walk in another's shoes even if they would rather hold their nose and run away, and the shoes pinch very badly, it seems like I ought to hold myself to the same standard.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, only I don't expect them (whoever they are) to do any such thing. I just expect people to take in more viewpoints and make their own minds up.

After that, I don't care. I have a stupidometer and go below a certain level and I'm not going to bother.

Your way is much nicer, of course ;D

[botias.livejournal.com]

*shrug* My grandmother voted yes on 8. She's one of the most selfless people I know, and she's hardly stupid, but she's homophobic. How is hating her and calling her stupid going to change her mind, or bring gay marriage closer to reality?

I know there are a number of matters that no amount of viewpoint collecting is going to budge me on. Some things are 'just wrong'.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Some things aren't particularly moral questions, they're logical questions disguised as moral questions.

My aunties also are old and would vote against it. So? I don't think my aunties are evil.

Old people are sort of separate, they don't like things but they tend to die off.

There are two ways to manage change - gently baby people through it, making it all about them and their fear. Or changing, and waiting a couple of years for them to realise the world never ended.

People essentially are selfish - making gay marriage all about how straight people are afraid for their way of life... not my cup of tea. It'd work, and it's nice, but I care very little for fearful people's feelings. Fearful people are dangerous.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if there are any logical questions where culture is concerned. In any case, I'm not talking about whether it is rational to think homosexuality is immoral. I'm talking about whether I think this one statement is true:

Gay marriage will have no effect on marriages that conform to the current status quo.

I don't actually believe the above statement is true. I would like to note that this is not because I think gay marriage will shoot out noxious rays that threaten marital bonds from sea to shining sea, but because accepting gay marriage, as a culture, means redefining, perhaps only subtly, what marriage is. For everyone.

I happen to prefer the new definition to the old one.

This doesn't mean I think homophobic people should be coddled. Sometimes you win the culture war and sometimes you lose, and I think they should bear their loss with grace and dignity. However, I am not much interested in demonizing, hating, or stereotyping, homophobic people or people that think that marriage is by definition a man/woman thang.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I agree, but again - it's just *tough*

Change is tough. We change, people grumble then some of them change. Some don't.

But my question is... so?

And I don't demonise, stereotype, whatever whatever. I think people who fear it are stupid, on many levels, but that's not quite (or even nearly) hate. Maybe I'd have been better off saying they lack the critical facilities necessary to come to an informed and ethical decision.

But whether or not I should actively feel *sorry* for these people? I have better things to do, like feel sorry for the people who are actually affected by it.

It's like... there used to be a job in Change Management that was literally explaining to people why they'd been sacked/demoted/whatever for the good of the company. Now there's a time I can actively feel sorry for people.

It sounds like I believe there's a limit to compassion in some way, and I don't believe that, but I'm not going to feel overly sorry for people too dim to come to the conclusion themselves or with help.

I was raised in a religion that *hated* gays, literally preached against them. We were brainwashed from a very young age to think it was an abomination. I don't feel sorry for them, I think they're effing stupid for failing to question the obvious.

Old people and some other people, well okay, whatever. I don't like it but I'm not going to hunt them down. But people with the benefits I had? of being white and educated? no way.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I'm pleased you agree. *g*

Nah, you don't have to feel sorry for people who fear gay marriage. I don't care. :) Is it hypocritical not to direct some tolerance in their direction? Perhaps not. *shrug*

Probably, I should have taken care to point out that I find all the arguments commonly presented by those opposing gay marriage to be false. Whereas with those supporting, I can only think of this one which seems false to me.

I definitely get a sense that it is not socially acceptable to say one of the planks in a platform is rotten or that not all of the planks on the other side are. Or indeed to point out that any belief that people find comforting is false, even if it pertains to modern medicine which is research-based, at least in theory. I've begun to think of these gaffes of mine as 'Brennan Moments' after the main character in Bones. :)

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

But we all know that no moral position is absolute. It's just that there are certain positions that social intolerance for the opposite is the only way forward.

I know why some nationalists feel the way they do. I understand the arguments against more immigration and I *get* that people fear waking up and their entire street smells like curry/whatever.

Do I feel sorry for those people? I have no more than a fleeting sympathy for the sad f**kers. Because intolerance for their POV is the only thing coming between society and What Is Right.

But I am aware that my POV is a complicated minefield and not really a yes/no question. It's fine to me if there are one or two disbenefits to gay marriage, because the benefits SO outweigh them that if people are hurt, I don't care much and it's their own problem.

[botias.livejournal.com]

" ...if people are hurt, I don't care much and it's their own problem."

This sounds so much to me like something one of those sad f**kers might say that I just can't work up any enthusiasm for it.

I tend very liberal on social issues, but I find liberals are often shockingly intolerant. :D Perhaps because conservatives have had their way for so long.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

You're looking at everything in black and white. If something is wrong for one set of people, it ought to be wrong for every other set of people. Because logically, you're saying the 'thing' is wrong, so nobody should do it.

[botias.livejournal.com]

You mean no one should get a free pass on the bigotry issue? No, they shouldn't. Which is why I support gay rights even though it will cause sizeable groups of people pain and distress.

But, my understanding of the issue is that many of these people have a culture and world view is profoundly different from mine. They are people that believe in the supernatural, in a deity that knows all and has a preferred path in mind for every individual's life through which they will receive both maximum earthly benefits as well as supernatural ones. Given these 'facts', which I cannot prove to be false as it happens, I'm sure their 'position' makes as much sense to them as mine does to me, and may very well seem compassionate to them.

I just can't seem to believe that my not believing as they do is because of some natural superiority on my part and not some quirk of fate, culture and biology that created an atheist rather than a born-again Christian.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

That's incredibly patronising. 'these poor people can't do anything but believe that, so we mustn't blame them'.

Only we can. The LDS and the fundamentalists have their own universities for goodness sake. These aren't dreadfully undereducated savages, they're people who have looked at the facts and decided to *campaign* for a lack of civil rights.

I don't care about 'ordinary everyday' people who vote for whatever these people tell them. Once they make it past, say, local pastor, I BLAME THEM. It *is* their fault. Absolutely.

[botias.livejournal.com]

So, should I rail on everyone who eats meat and cuts bits off their babies genitals and drives cars and buys produce and consumer goods and lawn chemicals and cleaning agents that are all poisoning some people somewhere. Who among us is without sin?

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Some people do. That life of rage is best left to young people though- you tend to run out of anger eventually, or focus on the one thing you care deeply about.

Can't you see the difference between one issue and another?

See. Here's the thing. Some things *are* worth getting angry about. And anger leads to negatives and people getting hurt. But it also leads to change. Maybe not in the way you seem to be advocating (gentle persuasion to individuals that they could be wrong) but it leads to swift, legislative change.

Michael Moore is a liar and a trickster, I don't like him. But I *get* him. I understand that he's necessary to counterbalance the right wing radio hosts that are just like him.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I can't really see the difference. It's all doing harm through ignorance, sometimes willful ignorance as you say they must be, living in the world as they do, and sometimes not.

I read about Darfur in the news, I see the many evils my nation has wrought in protecting my oil supply, and I still purchase gasoline. Sometimes knowing the facts is not enough to combat the powerful duo of habit and self-interest.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Well I've tried to argue about oil with USians before and it seems to come down to that you absolutely can't live without travelling because the distances are different.

I personally don't drive and try to walk wherever I can, but that's because the option is open to me.

Which is another aspect of this whole thing - you do what you *can* do.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Don't let those USians fool you. :P If the LDS people have a choice, so do we all about driving. Just because the choice is HARD, and might require considerable sacrifice, doesn't mean it is not there for the taking.

Who knows, maybe Obama will lead us to the promised land of energy independence. :D Goodness knows there have been a number of false prophets. I saw a documentary that showed footage of every president for the last 50 years promising to wean us from foreign oil in 10-12-15 years.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Well at a certain point you all have to draw a line. Even if you don't care about oil or the environment, there's a limit as to how much you can afford.

And there's a limit to how much I'll sacrifice. I live in a small house with minimal consumption of pretty much everything, but it isn't a mud hut in a field.

And some of my friend disapprove mightily of my lack of cooking from scratch because it's wasteful. So find a level you're comfortable with and prepare to live with people being annoyed at you.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I just realized that I really ought to include proponents of alternative medicine among the people I must rail against! They are willfully ignorant and do significant harm.*begins to feel lazy* *plus people get VERY offended when you are skeptical of their pet quackery*

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

I wonder how many people quackery kills as opposed to faith vs. medicine anyway...

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Also did you read they (gay rights campaigners) LJ that argues that protests against prop 8 are damaging their cause, because they scare people and don't persuade people?

She's right, of course. No homophobe is going to walk past a protest of jeering, angry people and change their mind.

But can't she see that the protests are *in tandem* with other social movements? You don't protest and be angry OR normalise gay sex.

You do BOTH.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to protest angrily so long as I don't have to feel myself superior. :D *asks nicely for permission*

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

Look, I'm not even being supercilious. Morally, you're on the higher ground. Some issues put you on the moral higher ground. You can be humble about it or a t**t, but you'd be in the right.

[botias.livejournal.com]

And yes, I agree there has to be both for the fastest effective social change.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

So then, what's the problem?

[botias.livejournal.com]

I just feel a distinct chill in the air if I acknowledge the existence of the pain of the other side, if I make any effort at all to understand their world view, if I don't feel myself superior for being 'right'. That's what I don't like and can't get behind.

I'm deeply disappointed and outraged that Prop 8 passed and while I agree that vigorous protests will not bring warmth to the opposition's hearts, I do believe that humans are social animals that want to conform to their society, and large angry protests will have an effect on people. Their opinion might not change, but they may get a sense that their opinion is no long socially acceptable, or is at least very controversial, and will be more likely to keep it to themselves, and that is the first step to reducing the incidence of the opinion.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

So that's exactly why you feel a chill in the air.

Look, we KNOW you're right. We KNOW people will be hurt. But some opinions *are* intolerable, no matter how much it hurts the person involved. Precisely because of your second paragraph.

You cannot afford to give people a platform from which they can cry victim. 1)it's probably their own fault and 2)inches can't be given, for certain values of inch.

[botias.livejournal.com]

And no, I'm not saying they are uneducated savages, but their set of edumacational facts seems profoundly different from mine, as mine gives no credence at all to the supernatural or for related dogmas. For some people that is a pillar of their humanity and the source of all their joy and comfort. How strange a creature I must seem to them. That's also assuming that homophobia is the main thrust of the churches that espouse it. I don't believe that's true.

[bendy1.livejournal.com]

No. That's a level of po-mo I can't deal with.

In education and science, there are *facts*. You can only state that there are certain facts in so far as whatever our knowledge constrains us currently.

But anyone educated enough to give them a degree, they should *at least* know which of their facts are facts, and which are based on belief.

And once you accept that you only believe a thing, you look at why and what effect that's having.

Take, for example, my old religion. They don't believe in further or higher education, so I'm safe in saying they really *are* mostly undereducated.

But they also taught us to question the bible, because they're fundamentalists and the bible TELLS US TO QUESTION IT.

All you have to do is read a damn bible. I've read it, and there is nothing in it that says a church ought to dictate personal matters of conscience. Nothing. Anything over and above the bible is an individual church's dogma.