On Being A Bigot...

Well, there's quite a little dustup going on over at "What's RIGHT in Montana." The proprietor of that site posted a piece pointing out that some guy in Ohio prepared a list ranking legislators on their votes on gay...excuse me, homosexual, issues. (I love the fact that this guy gives some people a grade of F-. That's hilarious.) (This same fellow, by the way, also says "Many states have been passing laws putting people in prison for life for the crime of having consensual sex, and the rest will soon follow." Wow. I have got to start reading the paper more closely!)

Anyway, the guy who runs "What's RIGHT in Montana," Eric Coobs, posted this list and pointed out that this Ohio-en, Ohion...er...Ohioan gave John Tester an A+.

Well, holy smokes. You would have thought that Coobs called Tester a Republican or something. Our friend Wulfgar went off on Coobs, declaring him a bigot. (Don't feel bad, Eric, he's called me a racist and stupid too.) Coobs responded, and then Wulfie put up another post on the same issue.

I don't know why I am weighing in on this issue (maybe it's because Wulfgar hasn't told me for a while how much smarter he is than me), but I think there are some topics for discussion.

First, as far as gay marriage or the gay rights movement are concerned, my personal belief is that we face far bigger issues at the moment. When we do something about the Chinese economic invasion and oil prices, then we can worry about whether Bruce and Tom should be mom and dad. In the meantime, the states seem to be handling the issue just fine.

I do not oppose homosexuals. I think that the gay rights movement also implicates civil rights of people other than gay people. I think there is something wrong with a group of adults advocating a point of view to children on what is still a political, moral and religious issue. I frankly don't care what gender you're kissing; I don't want you to do it in front of my kids or talk about it in front of my kids.

Ok, with all that introduction out of the way (whew) let's move on to the actual debate between Wulfie and Coobs.

The first thing that struck me about the whole discussion was the fact that Wulfgar took the A+ rating of Tester as a smear. I understand that he took it that way because he thinks that Eric meant it that way, but that seems illogical to me. If some whacked out Nazi guy in Idaho presumed to tell me what the "pro-nazi" vote was, and Wulfgar pointed out that this guy gave a particular politician an A+ rating, I don't think it would be a smear. It would be up to me as the reader to decide what the votes were and what they meant to me.

Which brings me to the next point. Whether or not this is really a smear or attack on Tester, or at least an effective one, depends on the mindset of the people reading it. In other words, if a majority of the people reading it think that his receiving an A+ grade is a bad thing, does that tell us something about Coobs, or about the population as a whole?

And the alacrity with which Wulfgar is willing to label people tells you as much about his own arrogance as the person he is attacking. Whether or not you agree with them, there are people with sincere, deeply held religious or moral beliefs that homosexuality is immoral. To simply label everyone who disagrees with the homosexual agenda as a "bigot" simply wipes away these people's rights to worship and believe what they see fit. Who are you to simply cross your arms and declare what is right and what is wrong?

As far as the gay marriage issue, let's face a fact. We have thousands of years of precedent here, cutting across cultures, whereby marriage means a man and a woman. Does that mean that gay marriage is inherently wrong? No, it doesn't.

But it does mean that before we alter a cultural institution that has withstood the millenia, we might want to have a debate that goes beyond "agree with me or you're a bigot." Maybe there should be a teentsy, weentsy discussion about whether gay marriage will impact the social fabric. And, by the way, something like 11 states voted in the last election to ban gay marriage. When a signficant percentage of the population, perhaps a majority of the population, believes a certain way about a cultural institution, I, for one, believe they are entitled to hold their beliefs without being smeared themselves.

You see, for all their talk about tolerance, those on the left are not any more tolerant than us right-wing extremists. It isn't tolerant to accept those you agree with.

And there's a practical aspect too. The gay marriage bans have passed in many states. Do advocates of gay marriage really think that the way to gain the trust and acceptance of their fellow citizens is to attack them as bigots and homophobes? Or might those attacks simply lead to real bigotry and homophobia.

Maybe advocates for the gay agenda might want to start by recognizing that there are legitimate, perhaps not ultimately correct, but legitimate arguments on both sides of the issue. Then, engage those arguments like grown ups, rather than yelling at 40% or more of the population like petulant children.

(Endnote: This little diatribe was not intended as an attack on Wulfgar. I actually enjoy Wulfgar, even if I find his standard rhetorical device somewhat ineffectual and tiresome. A little humility is not a vice, my friend. Nor is it intended as a defense of Coobs who bailed on me when Wulfgar attacked me. These two guys simply gave me the chance to make what I hope is a somewhat reasonable approach to this whole issue.)