On the Threshold of Bigotry

Hi Hoot,
I would like to see the reasoning you use that separates your argument from the arguments used to maintain anti-miscegenation laws. I couldn't find it. Since the topic is about bigotry and I assume we both agree anti-miscegenation laws were bigoted...what criteria exactly pushes your argument over the threshold of bigotry?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I don't think bigotry changes through time. What is commonly called bigotry may change as awareness changes. You are a bigot if you are intolerant of lifestyles/opinions that are different from your own regardless of when in history you were intolerant of them.The Victorians were on the whole bigoted simply because they generally were intolerant of lifestyles that are different from their own.Is being opposed to gay marriage an intolerance of a lifestyle not your own? Could be. Could be that you are just unfair. However, if we simplify and say that the unfairness of blocking mixed marriages is bigoted, then there is no reason you can defend the gay issue as not being bigoted.I have yet to see a reason beyond "subjectivity" which can be used to support preventing gay people from marrying. There are reasons why we shouldn't allow amateur farming of Labradors. There are reasons we shouldn't prevent mixed-race marriages. Allowing gay people to marry one another won't effect current or future heterosexual marriages and will provide security to gay people and children. Sounds like an actual reason to allow it, with no reason beyond 'subjectivity' against it - shouldn't we allow it? Otherwise, using our understanding that anti-miscegenation laws are bigoted we should likewise call anti-homosexual marriage laws are bigoted.Or have I missed something?Would you be happy if your desired marriage was blocked for no reason but the 'subjective judgements applied on a temporal landscape'...and when you ask about how the judgement was arrived at you get a shrug of the shoulder and 'just subjectivity'?

I didn't miss it. But its just a semantic argument. I have no problem with the arrangement: the name is irrelevant. Gays could open their own churches and those churches could 'marry' them making them just as married as 'straight' people. Indeed, people could marry animals, children, 20 different people, their nation, the concept of happiness, purple etc etc. Either that or people wouldn't bother with 'civil union' as a phrase and would just use 'marriage' as a shortcut since everyone would see the two as meaning exactly the same thing.And if marriage is only a matter for the churches, what about the atheists, muslims, jews, hindus, wiccans, sikhs, buddhists, confucianists, jainists, shintoists, taoists, those of the multitude of pagan religions, animists etc etc? Are you saying that these cannot get married? Or is it only religious people in general who are allowed to get married under your idea? Can philosophical positions institute marriage, humanist marriage for example?You also have to deal with the 'same but different' problem: I see no forthcoming solutions from you. Theft implies that someone is being deprived of something. How would the straights be being deprived of something? Would you be equally willing to say that black people should not marry but they could get a civil union which is the same? And who polices this language anyway? I fail to see how you could find that problematic.Or how about marriage only being what gay people are allowed to have, and straight people are only allowed to have a civil union which imparts the same rights as a marriage? If you think this is problematic maybe the conclusion should be that straights are only after clinging on to a titular prize to lord it over the gays?You haven't at any point during your explanation told me what possible reason you can have for wanting to deny gays the right to marriage other than by implying they are merely after stealing some titular prize. Your misdirection has failed: it was after the sneaker ad misdirection that I originally asked you to clarify the bigotry issue.So let's be clear: You cannot explain the subjectivity judgement that makes anti-miscegenation laws bigotry and anti-gay marriage laws perfectly fine. You seem unwilling to discuss how you would feel if your chosen marriage to your loved one should be blocked with only a shrug of the shoulders and vague murmurs of 'subjectivity' and 'opinions' with eventual attempts at misdirection when you start trying to point out the inconsistencies/unfairness/immorality/bigotry of their positions.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

But here's the thing. The law uses language as it is commonly used. We can arbitrarily start calling legally based marriages 'civil unions', but within a few generations they'll probably all be called marriages anyway because people will just call them marriages and sneer and smirk at the overt political correctness the US legal system has been forced into in order to stop wetting themselves over gay marriage issues. After all, the rest of the world (that's a lot of people), will still call them marriages (or a suitable translation thereof) - will still have gay marriages or anti-gay marriage laws. The whole thing seems pointless.But what difference does it make what US law chooses to call it and why would people be obligated to pay any attention to that wording and not change it back when the laws are revised?Can you honestly imagine the people accepting this compromise? "The happily civilly united couple.", "We've been civilly united for 5 years.", "Happy Civil Union Ceremony anniversary sweetheart!". No, it'll never happen. Depends on why you want to change the name of legally binding marital contracts. If it is because, in your view, "Marriage is a civil union between a man and a woman.", then yes it might be bigotry since you might be being motivated by an intolerance of lifestyles not of your own. If it is because you hate the idea of marriage so much you want to make it seem like a meaningless phrase by letting anybody get married to anything they like ("We're married", "Yeah, but by whom?"), then you might be a bigot. If you are doing it because you feel like it is the best political move to seek middle ground on a debate and get gay people the legal protections they need, whilst attempting to placate the religious anti-gay people with regards to the sanctity of marriage - then I don't think you are a bigot.As it stands, I can only say that which I said before: it's an argument of semantics.The threshold of bigotry is where one stops being tolerant of others ideas/opinions/lifestyles and starts becoming intolerant towards them.

I'm not. I'm comparing the arguments and language used for denying interracial marriages to the language used for denying gays the right to marriage. They aren't the same, but there are some startling similarities. I am having difficulties in understanding the fundamental difference that marks one as being bigoted and one that isn't. Nonsense. The classical understanding of marriage is that it is between people of the opposing sexes of the same race. Why else would God separate the races onto different continents? You argue, correctly that not having the right parts is a natural barrier - but so is not having the right ancestral homelands. If you think you can tell me why ancestral homelands are irrelevant I'd be keen to hear.Yes, it is possible to define marriage anyway you like, that does not advance the discussion, though. Nonsense again. Race clearly matters - otherwise races and languages would have been created mixed or not created at all. They aren't and they don't want to be. They'd like the same rights afforded to them though. Yes they do - they have financial responsibilities and they have the capacity to have the state provide them with rights. What makes you think they aren't? Being human, being compassionate, and having the same love for their partners you do - they fight to help protect the interests of their partner and their partner's children. That's exactly like being themselves...human. They are feeling inadequately protected by law. That you feel silly is a sign...follow it. Your argument is one of semantics, not the gay's argument. Your argument is "let's change the name of the contract and then give it to gays". If they have the same rights afforded married couples then that's great.There are two types of possibilities that spring to mind:1: You want gays to have the same ability to bind themselves into a contract which puts certain responsibilities on their shoulders and provides them with rights and securities they are currently not permitted to have.2: You don't want gays to have the 'titular prize' recognized by law because, in your opinion, men should not share this titular prize with other men because the two do not possess mutually marriageable body parts and you are not prepared to tolerate the contrary opinion gaining recognition in the eyes of the law.You may be a blend of the two. Any part of two that is in you, which you seem to be demonstrating in your justifications of the whys and wherefores of your seemingly fair and balanced system, pushes a part of you across the threshold of bigotry.

Which laws? Anti-miscegenation laws were written in America before the USA existed (17th Century), and continued afterwards - into living memory. Your statement that is false. For example.

quote:

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For prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious issue which hereafter may encrease in this dominion, as well as by negroes, mulattos, and Indians intermarrying with English, or other white women, as by their unlawfull accompanying with one another, Be it enacted . . . that . . . whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free, shall intermarry with a negro, mulatto or Indian man or woman bond or free shall within three months after such marriage be banished and removed from this dominion forever. . . .

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And be it further enacted . . . That if any English woman being free shall have a bastard child by any negro or mulatto, she pay the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, within one month after such bastard child shall be born, to the Church wardens of the parish . . . and in default of such payment she shall be taken into the possession of the said Church wardens and disposed of for five yeares, and the said fine of fifteen pounds, or whatever the woman shall be disposed of for, shall be paid, one third part to their majesties . . . and one other third part to the use of the parish . . . and the other third part to the informer, and that such bastard child be bound out as a servant by the said Church wardens until he or she shall attain the age of thirty yeares, and in case such English woman that shall have such bastard child be a servant, she shall be sold by the said church wardens (after her time is expired that she ought by law serve her master), for five yeares, and the money she shall be sold for divided as if before appointed, and the child to serve as aforesaid.

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source. Virginia (1691).And if this definition is ingrained in US Law why would anyone feel the need to pass amendments to state constitutions explicitly defining marriage as "between one man and one woman" (see Alaska, Nebraska, and...well a whole load of others). Or through statutory initiatives such as California's prop-22. And why the need for DOMA to explicitly set out the definition if it was already there?What you might be thinking of are the ever-powerful Catholic church and its definition of marriage as "The conjugal union of man and woman, contracted between two qualified persons, which obliges them to live together throughout life". In Maryland, when marriages were first used in the USA the law also stipulated that they had to be performed by Christian clergy so it would be surprising if the prevailing Christian viewpoint didn't become seen as 'the standard, traditional marriage' despite there being no such thing. Civil marriages were not legal until...living memory. The laws also specifically only dealt with whites. Blacks would need to wait a century or so before being granted the right to marry (and another century before they could marry white women).Polygamous marriage was permitted within the USA for a long time, from the beginning.Where are these laws to which you refer? Do you mean the laws that meant women lost all their rights to property? That they were not allowed to control their own wages? (That state of affairs didn't change until 1848 when New York became the first state to allow women to own property in a marriage). The laws that allowed for 12 year olds to get married? Are these the laws as written that you wish to appeal to?In short: could you provide specific examples of these laws that you say were written with the presumption of the type of marriage you refer to. Can you demonstrate this presumption was there? Can you give any reason why the presumption should matters when it comes to granting equality/human rights and how we should weigh this up with the knowledge that the laws of the time were already at odds with the concept of equality/human rights. Should it matter if the laws were written with presumptions of a certain type, when that very presumption is what is being challenged as unconstitutional?From my limited knowledge, the early laws of marriage were a mixed bag allowing for many marriages that are explicitly prohibited today and prohibiting marriages that are legal today. So I stick by the statement: there are many ways to define marriage but appealing to one definition or another doesn't really advance things. If they had presumed that marriage was between white people only (and I think the evidence supports that many people did), would appealing to that fact have any bearing on a debate over whether or not we should allow black people to marry?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : sorry for the strange development of the post. It has been highly edited which means the tone is a bit off and I really don't have the patience to change it all now...

I'm a racist homophobe, why should I need to 'spell' anything out to?Oh wait, no I'm not. You just decided to ignore the bits which would have otherwise made it clear I was mocking Hoot Mon's "because nature provides them with the marriageable hitching equipment" argument with an equally ludicrous (but one that was actually used) argument against inter-racial marriage before concluding that arbitrary personal definitions of marriage are irrelevant to a discussion about human rights.

Yes, some of them. If they are married to a woman, that should clue you right in. A married man is somebody's husband. Two men who are married to one another are each other's husbands. There is no wife, since a wife is a married woman. Male spouse=husband. Female spouse=wife. This should be plainly obvious so you are either playing dumb as an evasion tactic or there is something psychological blocking such obvious relationships in your mind.It is not your ideas on changing the name of marriages to unions and giving them to gays that people take as an indication you have stepped into the landscape of bigotry, it is this kind of talk that shows some kind of stubborn cognitive blindness to the obvious.It is talk about how gays should be able to be unionised and that they can marry if their church/wherever permits it, but that they can't marry because they don't have the right equipment, that it doesn't fall under your own interpretation of marriage shows an intolerance to ideas other than your own.Whether or not you are intolerant of other ideas in this manner I cannot say. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

No Hoot, they want the rights and protections and they don't want to be treated differently. Your scheme works fine in principle, it just wouldn't work in practice. When you say that they can't be married to one another because one needs a wife in a marriage and that they don't have 'hitchable' equipment and other such things, it is demonstrating that you have some intolerance towards the idea of simply allowing homosexuals to get married. If you were totally tolerant of the idea, and you want to avoid denying somebody their rights, I don't see the problem with simply allowing them to marry. Why have different titles for different people? Is that not arbitrary discrimination? Also: DPed, unless you are using the phrase, does mean something else.The one challenge you have yet to meet, you have been busy at trying to evade it for many posts: If I proposed that black people shouldn't get married, as per the understanding of marriage at the founding of the USA. They should be afforded the same rights though - they should have their own unions: Negriage...would you support me? If not, how is your argument different? And if you didn't insist that it was a niggling detail, you would be less likely perceived as a bigot. I said it before, I'll say it again: Why don't heterosexual people have a different title, and gay people 'married'? The only reason you'd have a problem is if you are trying to hold on to some titular prize.The end result is this: If there was a way to get the exact same rights as marriage, but not get to be legally called 'married', I'm sure many homosexual couples would be delighted...and they are. However, these partnerships aren't necessarily respected by law in other states so as it stands, any time such an arrangement is made in the US it is always inferior to 'marriage'. And marriage, to other people does not mean that. Since when did your usage of the word have to be the final word? You paint a Hoot_Mon tinted view of history: Marriage has not always meant a civilly united man and woman. For lots of time it has meant a union blessed by the church alone, sometimes marriage was simply a state you were in if the community you lived in agreed you were married and you lived with your partner. A fair amount of marriage has simply been political expediency. Plenty of history (especially US history) has had marriage as meaning a 'civil union between one white boy aged 14 or over and as many white girls (aged 12-24) as he can, wherein the women sacrifice their rights to own property or control their own wages.' Well that is pretty bigoted, and the cognitive blindness I pointed out is in effect again. It's like you are determined to paint homosexuals in a negative light (ie., prejudice). I'm sure some homosexual couples do refer to one another as husband/wife, but they are the exception as far as I can tell. Chuck does not have a wife, so he would introduce you to his husband, Larry.Ah well, the thread is over now. If you don't understand by now, it's probably because you can't understand. The dissonance it would take to reconcile such an alien (to you) point of view seems like to much right now.