Are there any homophobic atheists out there?
Almost certainly quite a few, but the skeptical/atheist community does tend to be predominantly tolerant, progressive, and queer-friendly, at least in my experience. But I’m not going to ponder the possible reasons for that now.
I’m not trying to start a typical discussion about gay rights here. I’m not, at this point, going to blather on about why I think what I think, the importance of tolerance and progressivism, and all that. I just have a question.
First, though, maybe it is worth reiterating the obvious points to be made, and explicitly adding my voice to those in support of the people who need supporting in this issue. (That’s was pretty much the point of my last post, after all.) But I imagine most of the people likely to read this are already in agreement on a lot of things.
I think things like sexual attraction, romantic attraction, lust, and love, deserve to be acknowledged as complex, intricate, often confusing phenomena, and insisting that one particular narrow band within these experiences is the one and only “correct” way to be is unconscionably out of touch with reality.
I think gay people should be allowed to marry each other and raise families in exactly the same way that straight people are, with every single legal right and financial benefit that comes with it. (Also that what churches choose to recognise should be an entirely separate issue from what the state chooses to recognise.)
I think “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is bullshit.
I think we’ve all still got a lot of growing up to do, but we’re well on the way to reaching a general level of understanding and tolerance such that, in a few decades, discrimination against same-sex relationships and inter-racial relationships will be looked back on with equal repugnance and confusion.
I want to make all that as clear as I can, because… well, I have this question. It’s not something I remember ever hearing anyone on this side of the debate express any curiosity about; it’s unnervingly similar to what some of the people I completely disagree with have sometimes asked; and I really don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to make the same rhetorical, intolerant point as they are. But here goes:
When did it become the case that everyone who’s not actively in favour of gay marriage is a bigoted homophobe?
Does that seem to have snuck up on anybody else? Just in the last few years, it seems that we’ve been the enlightened, liberal, progressive, tolerant ones – and they have all been homophobic, bigoted, and generally driven by hate.
But this is a very new thing. For centuries of western civilisation, it’s been a given that marriage is a one man, one woman deal. It was also a given that homosexuality was aberrant and abnormal – and you probably didn’t really need to hate anybody to believe this, it was such a default setting. The idea of two guys getting married to each other would have sounded as silly and contradictory as letting squirrels vote, or serving chocolate cake with gravy. It really can’t have occurred to many people to actively oppose it. (I know there have been pre-now cultures with very different views on same-sex relationships than I’m describing here, but this isn’t about them.)
And even once the gay rights movement started gathering steam, and people started demanding the right to hold hands in public with whomever they liked without being harassed for it, my understanding is that there wasn’t generally much emphasis on marriage. Maybe they were just taking one step at a time, and were aiming for wider recognition as simply being fellow human beings first, before going for anything so ambitious. But even while people were coming around to the idea that gays are people too, and shouldn’t be reviled for it, and can have perfectly functional relationships just as well as anyone… I don’t think they were spending much time thinking about letting them marry each other. I could just be wrong, but I think for a lot of years it just didn’t get much play. Sure, they’re fine, don’t have a problem with ‘em, great people, some of my best friends, etc. But… they want to do what now?
To reiterate, I love my dead gay son friends. I think we’re definitely heading in the right direction. I’m glad to see the distinctions between straight and gay marriage shrinking toward zero, which is where I think things are headed. I just think there are more reasons not to be in favour of a particular kind of social change than a spiteful, vicious, hostile desire to keep those damn fags in their place. That’s not a fair or useful way to characterise everyone on the other side.
And I think it trivialises words like “bigot” if you use them as a blanket term for absolutely everybody who’s not with you on this.
Some of the Founding Fathers of the USA famously (or notoriously) owned slaves. A number of black people belonged to them, as property. We can now feel justified in calling this pretty seriously messed up, but it does a severe injustice to some great men if you conflate modern racism with the mindset of Thomas Jefferson.
But then, however different the societal norms of his time, he did own some black people. You could argue that Jefferson was prejudiced and bigoted, along with everyone throughout history who’s ever been against any kind of inclusive tolerance which we now consider reasonable. By that measure, we might be bigoted against all kinds of things that we don’t even realise, and the truth about our cruel prejudices will only be revealed centuries down the line, when everyone takes squirrel suffrage for granted and wonders how we could ever have been so callous as to deny it.
Well, maybe, but I think we can cut our species some slack for needing some time to come to terms with these new ideas.
Or perhaps it was reasonable back then for people to believe the discriminatory things they did, but now those same beliefs are unacceptable, because we’ve moved on so far and we all ought to have learned better by now. Perhaps society has changed so that, a hundred years ago, you didn’t have to be a homophobe to think gays should be stoned to death, or a racist to think black people should be whipped until they did what they’re told – but now, some elusive and ephemeral quality of “society” has brought the bar of bigotry down much lower. And although we can get away with denying rodents a say in the democratic process today, in the 22nd century that might just be beyond the pale.
I’ve started being sarcastic about that idea without even really noticing, which is usually a sign that I’m not convinced by it.
So maybe the other option is that the gay rights movement, wonderful and important though its achievements have been, and noble its aims, sometimes goes a little too far in demonising the people it’s theoretically trying to win over. Is there a chance that I sorta kinda have a point there? Or am I only offending everybody and demeaning the kind of intolerance gay people have had to face with my retarded squirrel analogy?
Oh, Xenu’s scrotum. I was in the middle of writing this when @badjournalism on Twitter alerted me to this Daily Mail story, which is full of points disturbingly similar to mine, but which is so wrong about so many things that it makes me want to disassociate myself from everything I’ve just said. But that really doesn’t seem right. I don’t want to avoid saying something because I’m worried it might make me sound like I’m saying something very different from what I intended to. That just means I need to choose my words carefully and make sure my actual point doesn’t get lost or obscured.
I’m all worded out for now, though, so I think I’ll just have to hope that I’ve done a good enough job so far.
That’s probably enough sexual politics for now. Tomorrow I’ll try and get back to something more directly in keeping with the themes of this blog, like all those sightings of Michael Jackson’s ghost. Actually, hang on, I think I can actually do that one quickly now:
You people are idiots.
Ah, that’s better.
I think atheists are open-minded. They don’t give in to the bull share of religion and other stupid shit.
shit*
Been reading for a little while and I enjoy your writing and ideas.
I can’t figure out if I want to say “yes, but…” to this post, or “no, but….”
“Bigot” and “homophobe” definitely work better when converted to adjectives. As Ill Doctrine and others have said (http://www.illdoctrine.com/2008/07/how_to_tell_people_they_sound.html), it’s more productive to characterize *actions*, rather than people, as “racist.” Same for homophobia.
If a person thinks civil marriage is a right that hetero but not homo couples should have, then that is a homophobic position. The person may not be hostile or vicious. But he or she has an irrational feeling that “they” are not equal to “us”. This kind of homophobia isn’t the worst you can imagine, but it still is what it is.
That doesn’t mean that gay marriage is not a radical idea right now — it is, for the reasons you mentioned, and others. So it is understandable homophobia. Just like Jefferson was racist, but understandably so. Hell, many of the white abolitionists were racist back then too. They were doing their best, or at least we hope so.
So the bigotry bar keeps moving. That can be confusing and ironic. But who moves the bar? We do.
We can hold ourselves to the prevailing community standard, or we can question our assumptions and define better ethical standards. That’s what the gay movement* is asking people to do, to see that a better standard is possible. To ask, “well, _am_ I perhaps a bigot in some way?” and think about the answer.
*that’s right, I speak for the global GLBTQI movement.
Finally, it can be useful to shame those who are publicly homophobic. There, epithets are not meant to win over anyone, they’re meant to show bystanders that homophobia is intolerable and will be called out. Shame helps control sexist and racist behavior and it can also be employed to control homophobic behavior. I wish we could just convince everyone to think as you do, and be a happy rainbow family, but it’s not going to happen soon.
I think the “bigotry” and “homophobia” categories are important, but as you described, they are so loaded that they alienate some of our potential friends. I want these words to become more useful for talking about everyday assumptions and inequalities.
Or is there another word that will serve that purpose, that will help people see previously invisible bias, help them feel positive about possibly changing their minds, instead of demonized and recalcitrant?
First and foremost. I am a bigot. I am a bigot to close-minded people. Simply put, people who are not willing to really evaluate their beliefs and why they hold them to be true. Is it something they have been taught growing up and have never questioned. Or have they thought and or prayed on them to know how they feel about them.
To tell you the truth I don’t care if my neighbor or congressman or even my president thinks I am morally wrong as long as they understand who I love and who I marry is as personally my choice as their marrige was their own. I simply want the same rights given to all married couples. It shouldn’t matter who you marry your spouse should be able to help provide and protect your family if ever anything happens to you.
BTW I am also an Athiest raised by a Mormon and an Athiest and if they can agree to disagree and still be married after 42 years why can’t society as a whole agree to disagree. I am not asking my neighbor to validate my marriage anymore than the woman down the street is. My marriage is between myself and my wife.
I love my family and I understand that some of my family will never believe that I am right or normal. My family has mormon beliefs and many of them though knowing me know that I am the same girl they have always known I am not sinful or depraved but some can not look past my pride to see the person inside. This makes me sad but for them not me.
I look at it like this. Until very recently, marriage was first and foremost a contract of ownership. It was one gentleman’s way of saying to another gentleman, “Hi. You’re in our family now. Here’s a daughter me and my wife made. We hope you like her.”
Now, clearly trying to put two gentlemen into this sort of situation doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. A gentleman can’t *own* another gentleman the way he can own a piece of art, or a wife.
But then things started to change. Marriage stopped being a contract between families and became, more and more, a contract between two *people*. Whether or not the husband and wife actually *liked* each other – which in the old times was a nice bonus, but not required – became of paramount importance.
Marriage, in short, is a bond between two *people* who deeply care about each other and want to be together for a long time. And gay people, well, they figure they can probably do that, and they want in on that action.
(The fact that it also means the authorities recognizing your bond and taking it into account when making decisions about the two of you is an added perk.)
My personal opinion is that bigotedness is determined by reaction, not passive response. Once the questionable views are being widely discussed and challenged, taking an active stand against the more enlightened view makes you a bigot. For example, though the abolitionist movement had started in Jefferson’s time, it didn’t become really widespread and unavoidable in America until the 19th century, particularly where Jefferson lived in Virginia.
Once gay marriage became a major issue with widespread discussion and support, actively working against it became bigoted.