Gay Marriage Bigotry

Rod Dreher over at Beliefnet writes:

Unless I'm missing something, in the 31 states in which voters had a say on whether or not gay marriage was going to be the law of the land, they all rejected it. Every single state.

. . .

[U]nless you're prepared to call more than half the country bigots -- and I have no doubt that many, perhaps most, gay marriage supporters are, and let that self-serving explanation suffice -- maybe, just maybe, you ought to ask yourself if there's something else going on here. And that maybe, just maybe, serious attention should be paid, instead of paying attention long enough to insult people who disagree with you as evil people who deserved to be excoriated and harassed.

Ta-Nehisi Coates responds:

I probably wouldn't use the word "bigot." I don't think, for instance, that half this country thinks hate crimes against gays is a good thing. But I have no problem believing that half the country--maybe more--is deeply prejudiced against gays. This generally fits into my view of all -isms. I think prejudice is part of who we are as humans, and thus as Americans. Following from that, I think prejudice is one of the many forces that influence how we vote. Hence the notion that half this country is deeply prejudiced against gays really doesn't shock me.

I'm sympathetic to Coates's argument. In my experience, people who strongly oppose gay marriage do tend to be animated by some form of prejudice. However, I think this debate is extremely counterproductive. Charging your opponents with bigotry -- or even the lesser offense of "prejudice" -- is a surefire way to lose the argument.

Even some social conservatives would admit that the secular case against gay marriage isn't very strong. Those of us who support marriage equality should be engaging with that argument and trying to expose its tortured logic, not hurling ad hominem attacks at our opponents.

We can accept prejudice as a given, but it doesn't serve our purpose to use it as a trump card when we're in the minority. Instead, why don't we just call on our opponents to defend their position?

It shouldn't be hard to point out the illegitimacy of that position.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Hate Crime Legislation

Today, Andrew Sullivan linked to an old piece that he had written for the New York Times Magazine ("What's So Bad About Hate?"). It's a brilliant exploration of hate crime legislation and the standard concept of "hate." Definitely worth reading.

Here's a short excerpt:

So the concept of "homophobia," like that of "sexism" and "racism," is often a crude one. All three are essentially cookie-cutter formulas that try to understand human impulses merely through the one-dimensional identity of the victims, rather than through the thoughts and feelings of the haters and hated.

This is deliberate. The theorists behind these "isms" want to ascribe all blame to one group in society — the "oppressors" — and render specific others — the "victims" — completely blameless. And they want to do this in order in part to side unequivocally with the underdog. But it doesn't take a genius to see how this approach, too, can generate its own form of bias. It can justify blanket condemnations of whole groups of people — white straight males for example — purely because of the color of their skin or the nature of their sexual orientation. And it can condescendingly ascribe innocence to whole groups of others. It does exactly what hate does: it hammers the uniqueness of each individual into the anvil of group identity. And it postures morally over the result.

In reality, human beings and human acts are far more complex, which is why these isms and the laws they have fomented are continually coming under strain and challenge. Once again, hate wriggles free of its definers. It knows no monolithic groups of haters and hated. Like a river, it has many eddies, backwaters and rapids. So there are anti-Semites who actually admire what they think of as Jewish power, and there are gay-haters who look up to homosexuals and some who want to sleep with them. And there are black racists, racist Jews, sexist women and anti-Semitic homosexuals. Of course there are.

Obama's Gay Problem

Andrew Sullivan blasts President Obama over his party's substantive failure on gay rights:

In some ways, Obama's fealty to the big gay lobby rather than to the real gay community is testimony to why Democratic party politics remain repulsive to me. HRC has achieved nothing substantive for gay equality on a federal level in the twenty years I've been observing them. But they sure know how to milk donors at swanky black tie affairs. They are the Rotary Club for affluent gays, and their prime job is to explain to the gay community why it is never in the Democratic party's interest to do anything for gay people that might actually resemble equality. Oh, yes, we'll get a lovely Obama speech. Like that costs him anything or proves anything. There is nothing Obama can say at this self-satisfied, well-heeled Rotary Club dinner that he hasn't said before.

. . .

If Obama wants to support gay equality, he knows what to do. If Pelosi and Reid want to support gay equality, they know what to do. If HRC believes in gay equality, they also know what to do. So spare us the schmoozing and the sweet-talking and do it. Until then, Mr president, why don't you have a nice steaming cup of shut-the-fuck-up?

Ouch.