Gay Marriage Sinks Miss California's shot at Crown

[louisev]

How do you figure?  If she said the same thing about black people would you still think she wasn't being a bigot?

It's just that simple.  Replace gay people with blacks or Jews or any ethnicity of your choice and let me know what you think.

No one is a bigot for honestly expressing their opinions.  But their opinions can certainly make them a bigot.

Unfortunately for gays, being intolerant of their civil rights is not yet politically incorrect.  It's politically incorrect to be intolerant of blacks, since it's been 50 years since they got full civil rights enforced, but for gays it is still a battle.  Hating gays and not wanting them to have full civil rights is the last acceptable bigotry in America.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Unfortunately for gays, being intolerant of their civil rights is not yet politically incorrect.  It's politically incorrect to be intolerant of blacks, since it's been 50 years since they got full civil rights enforced, but for gays it is still a battle.  Hating gays and not wanting them to have full civil rights is the last acceptable bigotry in America.

Sigh.

The following letter to the editor was published in this morning's Metro (Monday, 4/27/09).

Black struggle has no gay empathy.

(Via e-mail). As a black male, I'm highly disgusted and insulted by the article "Gay Marriage the Next Battle Front?" Being bumptious to convince Americans of gay marriage is very selfish. The slogan "gay is the new black" is a smack in the face to every black American. Martin Luther King, Jr., JKF, RFK and Malcolm X did not die for gay rights. You are born black no matter what, you can't be born gay because it's a volunteer conduct and it's not biologically proven. Employers discriminate against blacks in the workplace, not gays. Police brutality affects black people the most, not gay people. And to equate the fallacy of gay struggles with civil rights struggles of African-Americans ... there is no comparison and they can never feel a black person's pain.

(Signed) Tyrone Jones

I'm not going to bother commenting. The ignorance and logical inconsistency speak for themselves.

Note: The elipsis following "African-Americans" is in the original. I didn't edit anything out of the text.

[louisev]

the fact that the youth vote is strongly in favor of granting rights to GLBT and ushering out the old bigotry (Miss California notwithstanding) means that it is only a matter of time before full civil rights are granted in all states.

[milomorris]

My assessment of Prejean is that her statement is not homophobic or bigoted. She has said nothing different than what ALL of the candidates said during the general election: "no same sex marriage." She did NOT say "no civil rights for sexual minorities." The part she alluded to in mentioning the handful of states--and could have clarified--was that there are alternatives to marriage. Some people here fail to realize that there are people out there, both hetero and homo who think there are other ways besides marriage for sexual minorities to achieve legal parity in this country.

Moreover, the current gay dogma says that if you're not for SS marriage, that means you hate us. That's just not true, and its a pretty lame stance to take. As I have said a gazillion times, we have to stop beating people over the head with the homophobe stick if we're going to make progress. Martin Luther King Jr. didn't win by running around calling white people names.

[delalluvia]

It IS just that simple.  For reasonable thinking people anyway...


I just want to say how impressed I am with your amazing patience, Del.  I get way too emotional dealing with the right,  while reading this thread I must have started three replies that I'm sure if I had posted them, they would have been deleted and gotten me banned from the forum.

I can't believe that people are defending religious homophobia on a BbM forum.   

Me neither.

[Katie77]

Hey Oilgun......I take offence when you insinuate that people here are "defending religious homophobia on this forum".

I for one, do not defend any type of homophobia, whether it be religious, ingnorence, social or whatever.

We are talking about whether the term bigot applies to this person, not whether we agree with her opinion.

"Bigot" is a very strong tag to put on someone, it's meaning conjures up words such as "hatred" and "violence", which there has been no signs of from this particular person.

[delalluvia]

Hey Oilgun......I take offence when you insinuate that people here are "defending religious homophobia on this forum".

I for one, do not defend any type of homophobia, whether it be religious, ingnorence, social or whatever.

We are talking about whether the term bigot applies to this person, not whether we agree with her opinion.

"Bigot" is a very strong tag to put on someone, it's meaning conjures up words such as "hatred" and "violence", which there has been no signs of from this particular person.

Perhaps it does to you Katie, but I've grown up around bigots.  I have friends/relatives who are bigots.  Most of them are nice, friendly, honest and upfront.  Those traits still don't change the fact that they are bigots.  Don't labor under the mistaken idea that bigots are slavering, abuse-yelling skinheads, sheet wearing KKK members or "God Hates Fags" poster waving Phelps zombies.  Majority of them are perfectly nice people who went to the polls and voted down gay marriage proposals because they think gays are "sick" and "abnormal" because of their "ick" factor or because of their religious upbringing.       

[injest]

Perhaps it does to you Katie, but I've grown up around bigots.  I have friends/relatives who are bigots.  Most of them are nice, friendly, honest and upfront.  Those traits still don't change the fact that they are bigots.  Don't labor under the mistaken idea that bigots are slavering, abuse-yelling skinheads, sheet wearing KKK members or "God Hates Fags" poster waving Phelps zombies.  Majority of them are perfectly nice people who went to the polls and voted down gay marriage proposals because they think gays are "sick" and "abnormal" because of their "ick" factor or because of their religious upbringing.       

and for you the audacity of not agreeing with your point of view makes people bigots. That sounds bigoted to me. you are clinging to your opinion. you are expressing hatred.

People have a right to their thoughts.

[louisev]

dictionary check:

Del is using the term correctly.  Bigotry is focusing a hatred or dislike against a class of people for holding a belief different from one's own or for an innate quality they exhibit  That applies to disliking blacks for the color of their skin, Asians for having an epicanthic fold, and gays for having sexual desire for the same sex.  See also: intolerance.

It would be somewhat arguable that one may dislike someone for exhibiting intolerance - pretty much the only people who WOULD like a bigot are those who agree with him. or her.

[brokeplex]

  Majority of them are perfectly nice people who went to the polls and voted down gay marriage proposals because they think gays are "sick" and "abnormal" because of their "ick" factor or because of their religious upbringing.       

You are making generalizations that don't hold up under even a casual analysis of the Prop 8 election and the exit polls.

It is a remarkable stretch to say that all people who went to the polls and voted for Prop 8 voted that way because they "think gays are sick and abnormal - because of their ick factor or because of their religious upbringing"

included among the main reasons Obama handily carried CA handily but Prop 8 passed are:

1) Revulsion among moderate liberals and independents towards the tactics of the Anti Prop 8 campaign - the same types of angry labellings, sneerings, and sweeping generalizations were the rule among the anti Prop 8 supporters that we see here coming from some of those who condemn Ms Prejean as a bigot. In fact, Mr Lavandeira (aka Hilton) must have written the campaign manual for the anti Prop 8 folks, as he sounds just like them.

2) An increasing discomfort among both conservatives and moderates when public policy is being made by the Judiciary. In this case the Supremes in CA overturned a previous referendum in which the voters of CA by very wide margins disapproved of same sex marriage.