If you think that Heck can be reached, please don’t let me discourage you. I don’t think so, but I will be delighted to be wrong.

The point of my commentary is really more about the way that Heck thinks, how everything filters through black-and-white self-confirmation. If you can plant a seed that grows into the vine that clogs the self-confirmation channel, I’ll happily help you water it.

People like Heck, as pointed out, think they already know as much of or what they need to.
While those of us a great deal more informed are dismissed as somehow of lesser intelligence or under some kind of spell that makes us blind to ‘The Truth.’

Our friend Rob Tisinai had an article on his blog called “The Soft Bigotry of Telling Us Who We Are.”

I wouldn’t even call it soft. I have easily confronted people like Heck on taking on what they think is the glorification of themselves for being all knowing, all seeing, yet lacking the integrity to say how they have come to having more credentials than the person who has LIVED and experienced it more than they have.
Equivalent to a man, waxing expert on child birth, while denying a woman with children has anything to say about it.
Or virgins saying the same to people with sexual experience.

As I always say, you can consult a non Jewish anti Semite about Jews, or a Jewish person about being a Jew.

And who one chooses to get their information from, and how they use that information, especially if the purpose is discernible harm (from an anti Semite), or discernible good (based on the legacies of equal rights and protections.)
People like Heck don’t want to consider their limits, they are too arrogant and assume they are NOT REQUIRED to explain themselves.
But those unafraid of the truth, do not put up walls.
The truth has it’s own defense. And doesn’t need it from the likes of this guy.
THAT is the point.

“No Phil. And I don’t care to.”

“I suspect, more and more, that most of our deeply rooted opposition is based upon the fears of people who want desperately to be 100% heterosexual, but who are never going to be.”

I suspect Ben is correct. How else can so many people still cling to the notion that “it’s a choice.” Obviously, if you’re 50% hetero and 50% homo, it’s going to look like a choice. But if you’re 90% hetero and 10% homo, it’s probably still going to look like a choice, to some degree. Vast numbers of people can’t understand why everyone isn’t just like them, especially on sexual matters. So, when those 90/10ers see others in same-sex relationships, they may believe a decision was made to go with their 10% side. Of course, the 90/10ers have been conditioned to conceal their 10% homo side (and thus fear it), but it’s easy to see how they may believe that social acceptance of homosexuality could open the flood gates.

Am I nuts?

Also, it may be discouraging, they may not understand what you’re saying, they may not even want to listen, but if you stand before them and confront them you can gain a toehold. Sometimes. Who among us would’ve expected the driver of NOM’s tour to convert to our side of the debate? Or that state senator in Iowa? Who would’ve expected Haggard to come-out as openly bi-sexual and start a new church? It’s a little like being a missionary. Mormons spend the better part of two years spreading their message and convert on average 1 person to the Mormon faith. Not every foray is successful, most aren’t, but you can plant that seed of doubt or show them a new way of thinking.

We are so close to equality but the other-side is trying to change the game; has anyone seen what Ralph Reed has been saying lately? He’s tying the finical crisis to a “moral crisis”. This populist argument will gain traction: only roughly 20% of Americans think the country is on the right moral path according to Gallup. As my fellow Georgians know R.R. has boatloads of charisma. If we don’t try to counter these arguments with a well-defined patriotic secular morality then we’re going to see ourselves increasingly demonized as we get blamed for not only the dissolution of the black family in the south (already on us), the fault for rising HIV infections in the black community (already on us), but also as the underlying cause of the financial crisis. It’s difficult to look into the economics of why the crisis happened (especially if you’d rather “see no evil” in Republican policies), it’s much easier to listen to Ralph Reed tell you why it happened.

My personal paranoia regarding charismatic conservatives aside, even if we win the political debate a well organized stubborn opposition to gay marriage (even if it makes up less than 1/2 the population) will be at least as violent as the well-organized stubborn opposition to abortion is (and now they’ve swung the polls back to their side on abortion. This will be the template they will use). Remember E.R. Rudolph targeted abortion clinics & gay bars with his terrorist attacks. We have to address these people early, often, and loudly. We have to win this argument.

Also, in your characterization of people, Mr. Kincaid, you seem to be setting up two extremes of people “those who can be reached” and “those that cannot”. How is that different then “Good” vs. “Evil”? I disagree. You never can tell who’s open & who’s not. Even if you speak to a street preacher who is convinced he’s saving your very soul, you can still plant that seed in his mind that you might not be exactly what he thinks all gay people to be. But it only really works if you’re not the only one talking to the street preacher and it really only works if you defy their presupposed stereotypes. This is a part of being “openly gay”. Us in committed monogamous relationships have to confront people but we must do so calmly, based in reason, with a defined idea as to what our morality is, and when you start getting irrationally angry, walk away. But you have to come back and try again especially to those you have a personal relationship with. I apologize for the long post.