To mangle a quote from Baby Jane Hudson: “But you ARE, Maggie. You ARE a bigot!”

Who said that we have to be tolerant of intolerance?

My point was that I find it ironic that the same people who on another post proclaim that tolerating the intolerance of Muslims is unacceptable, but on this thread, tolerating the intolerance of anti-gays, well that’s just something we have to do.

People just pointed out that we should not call anyone who disagrees with equal rights bigots, as they are not necessarily bigoted.

Perhaps we should stop calling racists racist, as it shuts down conversation with them with respect to their racist ideas.

I don’t care if people have a problem being called out on their bigotry. The truth hurts.

Unconscious bigotry brought about by indifference is still bigotry, and IMHO, more pernicious than flagrant displays of conscious bigotry.

Who said that we have to be tolerant of intolerance? People just pointed out that we should not call anyone who disagrees with equal rights bigots, as they are not necessarily bigoted. The most vocal ones often are, but oftentimes, it is not bigotry. Imagine an 80-year-old person who has never met a real-life gay person, during whose life homosexuality was considered unspeakable and a crime, whose opinions are mostly based on newspaper accounts of outrageous freaks at gay pride events, and now he hears that two MEN want to get married – something that happened in 2001 for the first time in modern consciousness. Is it ‘bigoted’ to be uncomfortable with that? Is that person bigoted? Is that person evil?

I think people go way overboard in calling people bigots. People are sometimes called bigots if they are made uncomfortable when two guys kiss – but not react or say anything and fully respect gay people. Guess what, I am made uncomfortable by straight intimacy. Does that make me an anti-straight bigot? It devalues bigotry if everything is called bigoted.

We don’t have to call anyone bigots– unless of course, they are irredeemably so.

We do have to talk about bigotry,

First, as we have discussed, it shuts down communication. Once you’ve been labeled a bigot, you are no longer open to anything that the person slurring you has to say.

But the other way it hurts is in the thinking of the person who is slinging the label.

Once you have decided that someone’s views are based on blind hatred, bigotry, or animus, then you give yourself permission not to consider what they have to say. Oh, they are just bigots so I can just hate them and dismiss them.

I don’t have to care what they say, because I have devalued them as a person.

I think it is smarter of us not to just dismiss our opponents. I believe enough in my cause that I don’t need to just dismiss others. I’d rather listen to them, consider their views, and seek to persuade them. If I call them a bigot, neither of us can listen to the other.

If we use the same word for the ignorant person who make presumptions based on what she’s always heard AND for the guy who knows better but lies and seeks to harm people out of hatred, we lose the ability to communicate.”

Timothy, I’m surprised the conservative who’s not afraid to speak out seems so afraid of using a simple word like “bigot”.

Despite what NOM would have you believe, it’s not a swear word. It’s an accurate description.

And more the point Timothy, when you play by NOM’s rules, THEY WIN.

Now who’s being PC?

I never said we had to call all bigots “BIGOT” to their face, but pretending there’s a difference in outcomes when nice bigots and mean bigots both vote for bigotry is splitting hairs. It’s also counterproductive.

Like I said, it’s a question of reachability.

Would it be wise to use a different strategy with nice bigots vs. mean bigots? Sure, if they’re reachable, but I don’t see the point in coming up with a new label for bigots who don’t know they’re bigots. A lack of self-awareness IS NOT A VIRTUE. A mind that refuses to seek out knowledge is also not a virtue.

I as[sic] saddened when we rush to push all the various shades of gray into one category.

If we use the same word for the ignorant person who make presumptions based on what she’s always heard AND for the guy who knows better but lies and seeks to harm people out of hatred, we lose the ability to communicate.

What happened to refusing to be tolerant of intolerance?

I won’t deny a lot of people do this, including a lot of powerful activist or politician types. And to some extent my dad may have used his friend as a psychological crutch to prove he could have gay friends.

But again, to paint a few shades of grey, I don’t think it’s fair to paint everyone in the same corner. My dad never to my knowledge thought all gay people were “bad, awful, horrible, evil.” He perceived issues such as gay marriage, gays in the military, etc. as the work of a handful of militant gay activists (looking for “special rights”), and yes, if any of those issues had come up for a vote during those years, he probably would have made an anti-gay vote. He was more of the opinion that “Gays are okay if they’d just keep that stuff private, it’s the ones who parade it in your face that are the problem.”

Which was still wrong, yes, but in a different way and to a different degree, and it’s been much easier for him to come to terms with why that was wrong, much moreso than those like the NOM people who genuinely do hate gays and actively want to suppress us.

And bringing it back on topic, I think there are a lot of people like that, and it’s in our best interest to keep those shades of grey in mind and strive to open conversations with those we can win over … (as I see Timothy Kincaid has eloquently stated as I’ve been typing these replies) ;)

If they then realize their mistake and change their mind once they actually meet some black people and recognize the information they’ve been basing their opinions on was wrong, then sure.

Look, we can get into an analytical discussion of exactly what a bigot is, but the point I was making (in response to a couple other posts by TampaZeke and Brutus) was that injudicious use of “the B word” isn’t helpful in conversing with a large segment of people who may eventually be won over to our side. Yes, there might come a point in a particular discussion when you can point out to someone, “You realize you’re being a bigot when you say that?” and earn some shock and awe points as they realize it, but starting out by shouting at someone that they’re a bigot is only going to throw them on the defensive.

I wonder how differently my coming-out visit home might have gone if I’d started by bursting through the door and calling my dad a bigot would have been? There’s a conversation-starter. ;)