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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
I really do want to know why people can't grasp the concept of one word being used for two different things--civil marriage and religious marriage. And I always want to ask these people with indeterminate fears if they have ever heard of a single case of a Catholic church being forced to marry divorcees. Because it's exactly the same thing, if they could just be brought to realize it.
I was raised Jewish. I always knew I was a minority and so were others of my religion. I was taught that most people eat pork, but we do not eat pork. I was taught that most people celebrate Christmas, but we do not celebrate Christmas. And that was fine. We didn't try to make other people not eat pork (many of my friends eat bacon in my presence and that's okay). We didn't try to make other people not celebrate Christmas - and I've given Christmas gifts at times to friends who do celebrate. I just never celebrated Christmas with my family or of my own initiative (sometimes I've gone to someone else's house as a fun, social thing, although most years I do not).
You can be different. You can even teach your kids to be different - and they may or may not agree with you. I don't have the same values or beliefs as either of my parents, but they certainly were able to teach me theirs. And I certainly didn't grow up to just mindlessly adopt whatever views were the majority. But these people are so used to being the majority that being in the minority seems to terrify them.
They need more adversity so they can learn how to have integrity and courage and make their beliefs theirs - ones they can truly live and teach - without needing the crutch of forcing them onto other people. It's so easy to hold a belief if everyone else holds it to. True faith holds a belief regardless of what other people believe and can share that view if it chooses to. True faith isn't afraid of being wrong just because other people believe differently. These people seem to lack that. If they had true faith, they wouldn't care what the secular laws were doing, so long as their religion could stay pure. Your eating of bacon affects me not in the slightest.
This is the heart & soul of the rank hypocrisy of the center of the religious right.
"Well, if you donāt know, you need to studyāI am not going convince you."
Bigot. That's all.
I see that kind of "logic" all the time.
It means that they know that you do not already agree with them and that you will wreck their arguments for/against whatever.
Either you can say what is wrong or you cannot.
Second, how fucking old is the time-defying Mr. Curtiss "I was with Lincoln" Wikstrom?!?
Great article.
Fixed
I..I think I love you a little right now.
What a bunch of fuckwads. I am thrilled that these people have bilked themselves out of their money in their efforts to control what others may or may not do.
I mean, if the answer is "the bible" then should we still be selling women?
If the answer is "procreation" should straight couples who choose not to, or who are unable to, procreate be prohibited from marrying?
If the answer is "domestic partnerships" should non-religious straight people also be barred from marriage?
I think you have to take their arguments and show them that, contrary to the beliefs they've been able to construct in their heads, they are being discriminatory. I'm sure none of these folks would like to live under Sharia law (to take a popular republican fear mongering tactic), why would they force gays and lesbians to live under their Christian equivalent?
Allergic to the idea that they are bigots
<<
I think that cuts straight to the heart of it.
And if anyone wants to judge this in an ageist fashion, take a look at who marched Sunday. Lots of greyheads included in the crowd.
Stay tuned for scenes from next week's episode of Tacoma Revisited ...
I'm pretty tired of the notion that a person's religious beliefs gives them a veto over someone else's marriage, though.
What then? Would the bigots shut up? If they would take that as a win, the "you can have marriage" bit, I would vote for secular civil unions in less than a heartbeat. But the cynic in me doesn't believe that they would let that happen.
It's really quite simple: Hetero-supremacists like their little exclusive marriage club where they get to feel special, and if you let the gays in, if you acknowledge that gay people are just as good as straight people, those straight people feel like you're saying that they're not special anymore. The hetero-supremacists think marriage belongs to them, and they're afraid that marriage won't be regarded as special anymore if you let the Gays have at it and sully it up with their perversion. Anti-gay marriage supporters are, by definition, bigots, and what they're most afraid of is being told that they're no better than any homosexual.
marriage has changed drastically since biblical times.
these people are bigots, if at least polite ones.
i really hope 74 passes tomorrow! my vote was in a week ago and ive been emailing and calling my fellow heteros to make sure they vote!
And it is hatred of homosexuals, even though they keep saying that they love them. (They probably believe that themselves.) The more retirement money they throw in this hole, the more they hate homosexuals, deep down.
I don't believe for a second that they don't. They probably think a lot of things in this world are "wrong". But to commit that much money to it, when they could be spending it on a trip to Paris, or whatever? That takes it to a different level. They can't sleep at night unless they're safely secure that gays and lesbians are still second class citizens.
Thanks for being fair with them in this article. It reflects well on the rest of us.
This is why these people can throw away $1000, or $12,000 or however much they've burned. They're okay with it, because they believe they are defending some higher value. Neither you nor I will ever talk them out of this belief. One hopes that some day, they'll come around on their own, once they see that marriage equality does not cause the end of times.
Repealing the measure would be much more obviously bigoted, and once the Beast doesn't appear to brand 666 onto every straight married couple in response to gays getting married, any impetus for repeal that may exist tomorrow night will be gone.
They speak as though they "gave us" this gift of "rights" and that we should actually be thanking them for doing so, yet my bet would be that all of them voted against R-71 for the same reasons they plan on voting against R-74. When each spoke of Domestic Partnership rights, I felt the sting of "we gave you this, why are you still coming back for more" attitude. Yet I'd bet a weeks pay "they" never even voted to give us any of the current rights we have.
Seems strange to me.
I'd suggest that a nebulous concern about bad consequences of change is a truly conservative temperament. There are ALWAYS unforeseen consequences to change, both good and bad. And risk averse people, who may otherwise be good and loving people, may oppose change just out of that concern. That's a legitimate political philosophy, and one that should not be denigrated.
In a lot of ways, it's good that there's a bias in favor of the status quo, even when the status quo is unjust. It makes life more stable and predictable and just plain easier and safer.
Like I've said, my guess is that the unintended consequences here will be pretty minimal. And the gains immense. But that doesn't mean I don't respect the other side.
I'm pretty sure this is the definition of crazy. "I don't know why I believe the sky is green, and I know there's science to prove that it isn't green, but I still think it is green".
Honestly, I'd just prefer them to come out and say they hate/fear Teh Gay, at least they'd be intellectually honest.
Conservatives have always been as good at lying about the past as the present.
I think that outcome is great. They think that outcome is awful.
It's the little girl in the ad being taught at school that same-sex marriage is okay. That's what they're voting against. And they're right. That will happen. Not that kids will be taught that at school. Even worse: they'll be taught that by just observing the world around them.
And if same-sex marriage is okay, then being gay is okay too. Equally okay as being straight.
That's what these people are afraid of. And the fact that they are ashamed to come out and say this (in large part because they have loved ones who are gay), means that in the long run they've already lost. (And they know it. "I don't think in my lifetime." He knows that that's his very best case scenario.)
And ask if Mormons should be able to ban coffee for everyone, since it goes against their religious beliefs to drink it.
And don't get me started on pork.
Clearly these reasons, like all anti-74 rationalizations, are rooted in anti-gay animus. There's an assumption that homosexuality is deviant rather than within a normal variance of human sexual expression. The change in cultural attitude toward glbt people from "deviant lifestyle choice" to "normal sexual variant" triggers fear and/or loathing in these people. Why? Because their anti-gay prejudice is entrenched.
And yet they are not introspective enough to reflect honestly on their own assumptions and motives. Is that insanity or stupidity? Or both? Or merely an aspect of the human condition?
One problem with correctly identifying these people as "hateful bigots" is that the terminology tends to flatten them into caricatures. Ordinary monsters never live up to our monstrous expectations of them. This is what they look like.
"Ooh, one notes the Matthewses of Madison Park live di-rectly across from the new Madison Park Beach North. Who knew their front windows would be facing a lovely public beach where hordes of homos might gather at any time"
I think @60 has it.
Also, is he a practicing or retired proctologist? He seems awfully preoccupied with the details of buttseks.
Will no one think of the straight, married mothers?
In some ways they're a lot worse that out-and-proud Archie Bunker types, because they spend so much energy trying to redefine bigotry, and provide a rhetorical cover that makes bigotry "okay."
That said, I got to a point not so long ago in a fairly heated discussion on the subject where I had to point out that I wasn't calling someone a bigot because they were opposed to marriage equality. Rather, I am for marriage equality because I believe that to be against it is to be bigoted.
If you cannot explain why you believe what you believe, it's just an arbitrary opinion.
Thank you for shining a light on these people who toss money towards issues that they cannot even seem to coherently legitimize their views about. I wonder if they give to charities & churches in the same percentage of giving to campaigns to deny human rights to a minority.
To God be the glory!
And yes you do.
After all, if all that's necessary is just to claim not to hate X, Y or Z, cite a feeble statistic or two as incontrovertible proof, and then oppress X, Y or Z to smithereens, that's not the most difficult standard to meet...
No surprise there. Religion is based on belief -- whether it's the belief that God created Adam and Eve, or the belief that Allah spoke to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of 23 years, or the belief that same-sex love is an abomination -- not on reason.