You could even have a pithy name for your anti-gay bigotry...I'm thinking something like "the ick factor".

Nice article, but the Chicago Bears haven't made an It Gets Better video; that's the Chicago Cubs.

@3: Eh, the gays have never been good with sports...

See THESE are the sort of offhand, unexamined generalizations that are the only hope left for homophobia, kinda like with racism: it's not gonna fly to say that Black people are the devil, but calling an area of town with a large Black population a "bad neighborhood" or complaining about gang violence or "thugs" or "the drug problem" or even using language like "taxpayers" (As opposed to whom? The intent is to create a subconscious divide between those of us who pay income tax and those who receive public assistance or who are paid under the table, like undocumented residents - though, interestingly, many of the wealthiest people also do not obtain money by way of taxable income - but, in fact, even people who have no taxable income pay taxes by purchasing goods and services on which taxes are levied. Everyone who isn't squatting somewhere and getting all one's possessions and comestibles by theft or self-production is a taxpayer.) or other coded language is still generally fine (if one calls someone on it, one is often "too sensitive" - see Solomon Georgio's piece in this here Queer Issue).

Commenter #1 is right, to a certain extent - one can still be an overt homophobe; Schmader is suggesting that we've already passed the human rights event horizon for gay people, though, and homophobia is going to need to either vanish or transform itself (much like what happened with racism) from overt public hatred/violence/discrimination to an offhand assumption of privilege for the homophobes and marginal status for their targets (consider, @1, that 15 years ago, Tracy Morgan would not have needed to issue a public apology to still have any hope of a career as a performer - the cultural center has shifted).

@3 I think it's safe to assume that the only bears and cubs David Schmader knows about are the ones that drink at CC's... and I can't fault him for that.

@1 Whoa, gay marriage isn't voted down every single time. Don't be so dramatic. Plus, it keeps getting brought up in bills or in voter initiatives and yet people who support it don't get the shit kicked out of them (unlike in, say, Moscow). Yeah, we're not done yet with the gay equality struggle, but the world isn't as bleak as you seem to think.

@1, It's an uphill climb and don't take away the progress that is being made when people pick apart these tired old arguments immediately instead of just letting it happen.

So is there any room at all for a differing of opinion on gay marriage or the overall morality of homosexuality? Is anyone who dissents automatically a "homophobe," or is there room for one to respectfully disagree, and yet still respect those with whom he or she disagrees? It seems as though, in the same way the discussion was once shut down by Bible-Thumping and hate crimes, it is now being nixed by name-calling and demonization in the opposite direction. I may be wrong, though.

So is there any room at all for a differing of opinion on gay marriage or the overall morality of homosexuality? Is anyone who dissents automatically a "homophobe," or is there room for one to respectfully disagree, and yet still respect those with whom he or she disagrees? It seems as though, in the same way the discussion was once shut down by Bible-Thumping and hate crimes, it is now being nixed by name-calling and demonization in the opposite direction. In the same way that demonizing the queer community won't win evangelicals any converts, demonizing evangelicals won't win the queer community any converts either.

@10 Is there any room for a differing opinion on black people, or jews or catholics? Would it automatically make you a biggot to say "I just don't agree with the the idea of seeing those people as equal to me, deserving of the same rights as a citizen". You know @10, that is sorta-kinda-really-unequivocally does make you a biggot.

Aww, Donald called his gay friends "fabulous". So will he show just what a great friend he is to them by not showing up at their weddings, which they will inevitably be having now that it is legal for them to do so? Or will be partake of the pleasures of events whose legality he was opposed to?

Honestly though, it comes down to this: anyone who is against to gay marriage and also claims to have gay friends is a liar. Either they are lying to the audience by saying they have gay friends when they do not, they are lying to their "friends" by claiming to be a friend when they are not, or they are lying to themselves by telling themselves that they are not a bigot and are not a terrible friend. Because any friend who thinks you shouldn't have the same civil rights as everyone else is at best a terrible friend, and at worst an outright false one. Either way, you should not be a friend to them.

@10: You have a right to a moral view that encompasses what you would do, not one that affects others, particularly not one that takes away rights from other people.

It's totally OK for you to say, "based on my reading of sacred text X, I will never have a romantic or sexual relationship with someone of the same sex or marry someone of the same sex." It's homophobic when you say, "My beliefs about gay people trump their own experience of their life and gives me the right to determine how they should live."

isn't the church the main reason this hateful bigotry still exists in the world today? I think they might be ' doing it wrong'...

@9 Um, like what? You're either married or you aren't.

Oh I wasn't talking about marriage rights, I honestly am fine with people marrying whoever they want to marry. I come from a pretty conservative religious background, and I'm actually becoming pretty convinced that what I've learned is wrong and that LGBTQ is fine, etc., I just don't know how to normalize it with my staunchly conservative friends and family, with whom the rhetoric in this article would have no sway.

My response to the "ick" factor when I speak with the PFLAG Speakers Bureau is this: imagine your parents having sex—icky; imagine your grandparents having sex—icky! Does that make it wrong? Nope.

@17 Ok, there is some leeway here. In some countries, you have to go and have a civil ceremony at the courthouse to get married. Then if you want a religious ceremony, that's afterwards. My international friends are very confused that in a country which claims to enshrine freedom of religion that we don't do this.

Why not make the ceremony be a state thing that you can "make real" later in the chapel?

@9 What possible reason could you have against gay marriage that was not bigoted?

It gives two consenting adults the same tax breaks, property inheritance rights, and hospital visitation rights any straight couples have.

Gays pay taxes and marriage is granted by the state not the church. Any 'moral' argument against it implies you're paying way too much attention to other people's bedrooms.

Please ask yourself why you believe you have the right to sniff about other people's crotches.