quote:I would say that a more fair summary of racists would be "Black people are so much more likely to be criminals that society can't afford to have them live in my neighborhood."
Which is, of course, different than what racists actually say. Rather, some say that, and a great many say stuff like the crap Pixiest is saying.
I find it amusing but very human that when confronted with naken, blatant, hateful prejudice like Pixiest's, people try to find ways to excuse or try to pretend that she's saying something different from what she actually said. ---
Pixiest, even overlooking that California is not the human race, and that your pet issue is not the end all and be all of human experience, and that your very framing of the issue in those terms shows a fundamental and willful ignorance, your own numbers don't bear out your prejudiced statements.
Unless it is 100% on all counts, you are wrong to spew such hateful bigotry.
Not mention the snobbish classism displayed there.
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quote:I find it amusing but very human that when confronted with naken, blatant, hateful prejudice like Pixiest's, people try to find ways to excuse or try to pretend that she's saying something different from what she actually said.
Forgive me, kat, but if you're going to complain about naked, hateful prejudice, I have some suggestions for prejudices that really hurt people that you could be railing against.
I mean, seriously, "Oh, no! Pixiest is assuming that people who want to prevent her kind from getting married are stupid bigots, and that religious people in general are worse than non-religious people! In this country, those opinions will surely have horrible consequences for everyone!" Is that really where you want to spend your energy?
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Then find someone on Hatrack advocating using the law to steal the votes of gay people and knock yourself out.
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So we're agreed that we shouldn't pass laws against letting religious people vote, but should remain free to (optionally) obnoxiously accuse religious people of being dangerously stupid when they vote based on religious edict? And the consequence of this is that some religious people will accuse the original accuser of bigotry?
I'm just trying to boil this down to some sort of shorthand, so we can speed through these arguments in the future. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I believe in free speech, even when people use it to spread nasty lies and bigotry.
I also believe in pointing it out when people do it.
Do you believe in that spreading viscious lies is an appopriate response to speech you don't like? If not, why are you intent on defending Pixiest?
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Well, for one thing, I don't see what she's saying as a particularly vicious lie. Why do you think it's "vicious?" What about it is especially hurtful?
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So tell me, How is my pointing out that religious people are bigots (at least, in a sample of size of several million Californians) worse than religious people using the force of law to deny a basic human right to gay people?
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: So tell me, How is my pointing out that religious people are bigots (at least, in a sample of size of several million Californians) worse than religious people using the force of law to deny a basic human right to gay people?
Honestly, I think you hate those people Pixiest, and I don't think you get to claim that you hate those who hate without being a hypocrite.
You are right about proposition 8 and you are correct that *some* of those people are bigots, but becoming a bigot to fight them and painting all of them with the same brush is incorrect as well. In fact, it is much easier to hate and demonize these people, it's much easier to simply dismiss them because of a belief, but it is much harder to embrace them and to understand them.
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quote:Originally posted by Humean316: Honestly, I think you hate those people Pixiest, and I don't think you get to claim that you hate those who hate without being a hypocrite.
Why?
I could be wrong, but I don't think she's saying that them hating is the problem. It's the fact that the reason for their hate is wrong.
Hate is fine if it is given to those who deserve it, IMHO.
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Joe believes that all Venusians are stupid and deserve our hate. This is what he has been taught, and he refuses to do change his mind no matter what.
Jane believes that all Venusians are animals and routinely sets out to hunt and kill them. This is what she read on an internet forum, and it makes sense to her.
Mark was beaten up by a Venusian once, and since then he has hated all of them. He talks bad about them to everyone.
Mary had her house destroyed to make way for a Venusian off ramp. The Venusians construction workers just laughed when she tried to stop them. Since then she has assumed that all Venusians were as uncaring as those workers, and as greedy and dangerous as the Venusian government that stole her house.
These are all bigots, since they all hate Venusians.
However, does the circumstances of how they came by their hatred make a difference?
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Hum: I've defended christians for a long time. Have you read my poorly drawn comic? Most of the main characters are christian.
But I'm pretty damn angry about prop hate and I no longer believe that befriending them will work. (once again, thanks to my, now former, best friend.)
Until the current generation of christians have grown old and died, the rights of gay people will never be safe.
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quote:Hate is fine if it is given to those who deserve it, IMHO.
Absolute baloney. This isn't true at all, and I can't believe the words didn't choke in your mouth as you wrote them. It's classic bigotry with a fascism on top, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Pixiest: Countering what you see as an injustice by becoming much, much worse than what you hate is no kind of victory. Not only will it not get you your goal, you will have become what you claim to loathe.
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kath: What have I done that's as bad as what prop hate did to gay people? (I ask for the 5th time without you responding...)
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I'm talking about the religious people you are slandering. What has some innocent Catholic in Tennessee done to you? But you are happy to include that person in your blanket and sweeping indictments without nuance, and you are happy to take away their vote if it doesn't pass your personal standards.
The almost nice things about blanket, bigoted statements like that is it does make the speaker sound so ignorant and unsophisticated - like they have never been out of their bubble, and they can't imagine people different than the few they've encountered, and they don't know enough of history and sociology and current demographics to know how wrong they are and ridiculous they sound when they claim that all religious people don't use their heads, don't value goodness, and are uniform in all ways, those ways being bad.
I am talking about your wrong statements, and I was talking before about the attempt to steal votes from all religious people. Both of those things are unjustifiable, even if you are really, really angry about something.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Hum: I've defended christians for a long time. Have you read my poorly drawn comic? Most of the main characters are christian.
But I'm pretty damn angry about prop hate and I no longer believe that befriending them will work. (once again, thanks to my, now former, best friend.)
Until the current generation of christians have grown old and died, the rights of gay people will never be safe.
I'm angry about proposition 8 too. Why that's important for the debate is both dubious and interesting, but that's for another time. I can't say that I understand what you have gone through, that's patronizing to the nth degree, but I also know that some people, including best friends, are stupid. Shocking, I know.
Let me ask you this, do you really think the world will be a better place if homosexuals gain the rights they absolutely deserve at the expense of demonizing half the country? If so, then you have more in common with those you fight against than you really believe.
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quote:Originally posted by Humean316: Let me ask you this, do you really think the world will be a better place if homosexuals gain the rights they absolutely deserve at the expense of demonizing half the country? If so, then you have more in common with those you fight against than you really believe.
Honestly, if that is what it took (I don't think it is, but if it did) I would prefer that gays get the rights they deserve.
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quote:Originally posted by Humean316: Let me ask you this, do you really think the world will be a better place if homosexuals gain the rights they absolutely deserve at the expense of demonizing half the country? If so, then you have more in common with those you fight against than you really believe.
Honestly, if that is what it took (I don't think it is, but if it did) I would prefer that gays get the rights they deserve.
One of the justifications of Rovian politics, the idea put forth by Karl Rove where demonizing half the country and governing to 50+1 of the country to insure a majority, is that the political ideology they embrace is correct, and thus, demonizing half the country is fine as long as a conservative political ideology is advanced. To be the good guys, you can't fight Rovian politics with Rovian politics, you have to find a way get the results you know to be right without resorting to his tactics or you are no better.
And the same is true for SSM.
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Was it worth demonizing people (to the extent we did) who wanted to keep racial segregation in order to get rid of Jim Crow laws? Was it worth demonizing half the country to end slavery?
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katharina, how many times are you going to repeat the "take away their vote" strawman? It's been repeatedly pointed out as a strawman and disavowed.
Is outrage so much fun that you have to manufacture your reasons for it?
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Has the absolute ridiculous idea of subjecting laws and votes to "a secular justification" been dropped, then? If so, then I'll take back the accusation of attempted disenfranchisement. If not - if that still sounds like a jim dandy idea - then it is completely accurate.
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"Has the absolute ridiculous idea of subjecting laws and votes to "a secular justification" been dropped, then?"
Your "and" there is the problem.
Secular justification for laws, which would be tested via judicial review. That idea has not been dropped. (I would like to pass a clarifying amendment to the Constitution making this more clearly required than it is now, but I do believe it is required now.)
Requiring a secular motivation for votes was only ever your own straw man, as far as I can tell. You constructed it on the first page, which was pointed out on the first page, and here you are on the fourth still repeating it.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Was it worth demonizing people (to the extent we did) who wanted to keep racial segregation in order to get rid of Jim Crow laws? Was it worth demonizing half the country to end slavery?
I think the real question is, could we have achieved those same goals on a different path? Ending slavery and racial inequalities in America was a noble goal, but sometimes, I think we take the easy way out in trying to accomplish that which we need to accomplish.
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quote:Has the absolute ridiculous idea of subjecting laws and votes to "a secular justification" been dropped, then?
I think people should absolutely demand that laws and votes have a secular justification, and should ruthlessly mock people who cannot provide one. Do you disagree?
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Was it worth demonizing people (to the extent we did) who wanted to keep racial segregation in order to get rid of Jim Crow laws? Was it worth demonizing half the country to end slavery?
I think the real question is, could we have achieved those same goals on a different path? Ending slavery and racial inequalities in America was a noble goal, but sometimes, I think we take the easy way out in trying to accomplish that which we need to accomplish.
But you are the one who offered the either/or choice. You will note that in my response, I noted my scepticism about that.
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quote:Secular justification for laws, which would be tested via judicial review. That idea has not been dropped.
Then you are seeking to gut the vote of a certain group of people because you don't like their motivations.
That's reprehensible.
And, fortunately, would fail a judicial review in a spectacular. It would crash and burn like a cement kite, as it should when you seek to disenfranchise huge numbers of people because their values are not your own.
You don't get to pick and choose the motivations of fellow citizens when comes to running the country. Welcome to democracy.
Laws stand unless they fail a challenge, which must be based on a secular reason. The default is to let it stand. As it should be.
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quote:Then you are seeking to gut the vote of a certain group of peole because you don't like their motivations.
But this is *already* how it works. It's why sodomy laws are gone and part of why black people can marry white people now.
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kath: Can you think of a law with strictly religious reasons behind it that would not be thrown out for constitutional reasons?
boots: Since I'm a bigot against all christians I have to bash you now. You're a... umm... uhh... forget it, I got nothing. *smooch*
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Ok, usually I ignore kat, but this I have got to hear. Now just what the devil was the non-religious reason for anti-sodomy and miscegenation laws?
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quote:They weren't tossed because their was no non-religious reason for them, but because there were Constitutional reasons against them.
That's all anyone is talking about. The quote you were responding to when you said this was reprehensible referred to laws "tested via judicial review". It was a clear reference to a test for Establishment Clause violations through our existing processes.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Was it worth demonizing people (to the extent we did) who wanted to keep racial segregation in order to get rid of Jim Crow laws? Was it worth demonizing half the country to end slavery?
I think the real question is, could we have achieved those same goals on a different path? Ending slavery and racial inequalities in America was a noble goal, but sometimes, I think we take the easy way out in trying to accomplish that which we need to accomplish.
But you are the one who offered the either/or choice. You will note that in my response, I noted my scepticism about that.
How so? I believe I simply argued against Pixiest's approach to the SSM marriage issue, and I later claimed that that there has to be another way. Of course, I could be wrong or I may have been unclear.
Pixiest
quote:boots: Since I'm a bigot against all christians I have to bash you now. You're a... umm... uhh... forget it, I got nothing. *smooch*
If that sentence is because of my argument, then I must say that you aren't a bigot Pixiest, nor did I ever claim you were. If you understood my argument as such, then I apologize. I simply believe there is a better way to fight the fight you fight. We can't tell good guys from bad guys by the hats they wear anymore, but we can tell who they are by the means they employ to accomplish right.
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quote:Then you are seeking to gut the vote of a certain group of people because you don't like their motivations.
That's reprehensible.
Actually, I'm seeking to avoid or remove a subset of the silly laws that don't actually benefit or protect all of the people they apply to.
Since I brought it up before, let me return to the example of special restrictions on Sunday: whether it's requiring that certain businesses be closed, or forbidding sale of certain products, or special noise ordinances, some of the people who don't agree with the reason for the law can be harmed. They might make less money, or be put at a disadvantage compared to other businesses. I think that is wrong, maybe even reprehensible. To "gut" the power of a religious majority to impose such harms would be great, actually, not reprehensible.
And I think such laws should be struck down.
I would really, really like to hear your counterexample. I've asked for it many times now. What kind of law do you think might get struck down, that shouldn't be struck down? How do you think the power of religious voters might be gutted in a way that is unjust?
I think you've abstracted this into "religious people will be powerless," but that's inaccurate. What this will do is more strictly delineate government from religion, and protect minorities from being subject to restrictions and penalties that exclusively stem from religions that they don't share.
Again, if you could be more specific, you'd have a much greater chance of convincing others that there's a real danger of gutting the vote of a portion of the population.
quote:And, fortunately, would fail a judicial review in a spectacular. It would crash and burn like a cement kite, as it should when you seek to disenfranchise huge numbers of people because their values are not your own.
You don't get to pick and choose the motivations of fellow citizens when comes to running the country. Welcome to democracy.
Laws stand unless they fail a challenge, which must be based on a secular reason. The default is to let it stand. As it should be.
What do you mean, the challenge must be based on a secular reason? The reasoning that seems most obvious to challenge laws that are solely religiously motivated is this: that they violate the first amendment. That's a secular reason.
To return to a question you asked earlier, along the lines of "so you're fine with the way things are then?" No, I think we've been too lax in applying the first amendment. This has led to some harmful results, some of which are significant and a lot of which are relatively minor.
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quote:Originally posted by Humean316: How so? I believe I simply argued against Pixiest's approach to the SSM marriage issue, and I later claimed that that there has to be another way. Of course, I could be wrong or I may have been unclear.
This certainly sounds like a yes or no question, which is how I took it.
quote: Let me ask you this, do you really think the world will be a better place if homosexuals gain the rights they absolutely deserve at the expense of demonizing half the country?
My answer was, if it comes to that (which I don't think it will) then, yes.
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quote:Originally posted by Humean316: How so? I believe I simply argued against Pixiest's approach to the SSM marriage issue, and I later claimed that that there has to be another way. Of course, I could be wrong or I may have been unclear.
This certainly sounds like a yes or no question, which is how I took it.
quote: Let me ask you this, do you really think the world will be a better place if homosexuals gain the rights they absolutely deserve at the expense of demonizing half the country?
My answer was, if it comes to that (which I don't think it will) then, yes.
Ah gotcha. Isn't what I claim though simply a rebuke of an either/or? My question wonders whether the country will be a better place if, as Pixiest argues, demonizing half the country leads to the deserved rights of homosexuals. In that sense, I'm not presenting an either/or, I am arguing against one, and I think that's important to my argument because my belief is that there has to be another and better way to achieve this goal.
Oftentimes, we fail to make the hard decisions that need to be made to solve deep and difficult problems. We still face some of the same problems today that we did during the 19th century; those same divisions about states rights (Texas secession anyone?) and racism and equality and freedom are still as relevant today as they were during the civil war. After WWI, we did what was easy and allowed Germany to fall into right-wing extremism and fascism, and that led to the deaths of millions of people and the near extermination of an entire race. At some point, we are going to run out of fingers to plug the holes in the dam, and when that dam bursts, we will look back and wonder why we couldn't find better ways to solve our problems.
Demonizing the other side is an easy way to achieve what is right, but I also believe that, like history before has shown, failing to come up with a better solution makes us no better and worse off in the future.
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quote:Has the absolute ridiculous idea of subjecting laws and votes to "a secular justification" been dropped, then?
I think people should absolutely demand that laws and votes have a secular justification, and should ruthlessly mock people who cannot provide one. Do you disagree?
Oh sure, turn this into a civics thing. Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:I would really, really like to hear your counterexample. I've asked for it many times now. What kind of law do you think might get struck down, that shouldn't be struck down? How do you think the power of religious voters might be gutted in a way that is unjust?
I can't speak for others, but I'm not so much concerned with any given law being struck down as I am concerned with the side effects of being a culture where religious reasoning doesn't count in the public sphere. I think that essentially cripples our ability to talk, as a nation, about issues of right and wrong - because the vast majority of people believe in a code of ethics based in religion, one way or another. If religious reasoning is disallowed, our civil society is unable to give a consensus answer to questions like "Why should I bother to act morally?" or "Why should I bother to care about things beyond material possessions, wealth, and my own personal happiness?" Instead those questions are answered with a million different answers, or perhaps just with "You have to decide that on your own."
On top of that, it takes away the voice of religious moderates (who want to respect the principles of our civil society) and instead places responsibility for moral issues into the hands of religious extremists (who are so religiously oriented that they don't care about offending anyone with strongly religious reasoning.) Secularism is, in this way, responsible for placing so much influence in the hands of the religious right. It prevents anyone other than the extremists from representing moral virtue in our country.
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I don't think there would be any side effects of that sort, to be honest.
What it might do is force religious moralists with legislative twinkles in their eyes to justify their ideas of right and wrong with something besides scripture or revelation. This is something they largely already do, of course, so public discourse wouldn't actually need to change very much at all.
Most religious ethics translate quite well outside the religion, luckily enough.
Since you're not concerned about any specific laws, per se, (though it sounded like katharina was, so my invitation to her stands) I'd like to know if there are specific forms of religious reasoning that you feel can't be sufficiently secularized without taking the teeth out of them...and how they benefit society. (Taking as given - for the moment - that it's possible that religious reasoning will count for less in the public sphere if laws without a secular basis go away.)
Quick edit: not to discount the examples you gave above, of course:
"Why should I bother to care about things beyond material possessions, wealth, and my own personal happiness?"
As you mentioned, churches probably do this job better than government. And churches would not be restrained from providing their versions of answers to this question.
"Why should I bother to act morally?"
This is a question that is almost circular. Morality provides the answer to why people should behave certain ways. It's unclear to me how a more strictly secular government would undermine the general impulse almost everyone feels to be "good".
More generally speaking, public discourse about government can remain as religious as people want to make it. If there's a religious point of view on tax rates, expound on it all you want (and let your Congressmen do the same - though it might lead to mockery, as Tom suggested). Just expect that if that is ALL a law has behind it, the law won't stand.
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quote: It prevents anyone other than the extremists from representing moral certitude in our country.
Fixed that for you.
Not even. As a secular humanist (as are most religious people), I have moral certainty about certain things. I just got into a heated argument with some friends about whether it's okay that I condemn Muslim culture in the Middle East, specifically their treatment of women.
My friends were appalled that I would apply Western secular standards to a much different part of the world -- in their eyes, Middle Easterners have the right to do what they want in their cultures, no matter how horrific. I simply don't understand this attitude, and I don't think it represents secular humanists at all. Religious fundamentalists aren't the only ones who can have principles.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: ... Secularism is, in this way, responsible for placing so much influence in the hands of the religious right. It prevents anyone other than the extremists from representing moral virtue in our country.
I'm interested in how your model explains the relative lack of influence the religious right has in countries that are much more secular than the States, like say Canada?
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quote:Hate is fine if it is given to those who deserve it, IMHO.
Absolute baloney. This isn't true at all, and I can't believe the words didn't choke in your mouth as you wrote them. It's classic bigotry with a fascism on top, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Can you try to sound less hateful as you write that?
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quote:I'm interested in how your model explains the relative lack of influence the religious right has in countries that are much more secular than the States, like say Canada?
If I understand it correctly, Canada has no equivalent to the Lemon Test - the Canadian government allows religious reasoning as a valid justification for laws. So, Canada pretty much is doing what I'd suggest we do. They do formally recognize the right to religious freedom, but they don't prevent the government from touching on religion at all.
Their Constitution also officially recognizes the "supremacy of God", and I believe have public financing of some religious schools.
quote:Morality provides the answer to why people should behave certain ways. It's unclear to me how a more strictly secular government would undermine the general impulse almost everyone feels to be "good".
I don't think it would undermine that impulse. I just think it has, in practice, undermined our ability to collectively discuss how to fulfill that impulse. Aside from extremists, our leaders are willing to declare what they hold to be right and wrong, but they aren't willing to get into the foundation of WHY we are supposed to hold those things right or wrong. At a lower level, in schools you can find posters with words like "Character" and "Respect" on them, but they end up being superficial as schools have their hands tied when it comes to explaining why character and respect should count; any explanation they give is likely to end up touching upon religion. I don't think you can separate morality from religion. At a minimum, accepting a non-religious basis for morality entails rejecting the religious basis that so many people in this country accept.
I don't think these problems are hypothetical; they are going on right now and can be observed. The question is, would changing our legal principles do anything to change it? I'm not sure about that, but I think there may be a connection between the two.
I do think the example of gay rights that Pixiest used earlier gives a good example though: The "Christian" side of the debate seems to have been designated the anti-SSM side, based on the polls she listed. Yet, I think there is a very strong and rather obvious case to be made that Christ would support helping out a discriminated minority and would oppose a position associated with hatred. I've heard this argument presented by other Christians in a church environment, yet I rarely seem to hear it coming out in the general public, particularly from the leaders of the pro-SSM side. Why is that? It is as if moderates and liberals have ceded the religious element of the discussion entirely to the far right. As a result, we should not be suprised when Christian church-goers vote heavily in favor of the anti-SSM position.
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quote:At a minimum, accepting a non-religious basis for morality entails rejecting the religious basis that so many people in this country accept.
I think perhaps it could bolster religious morality, without necessarily replacing it. To the extent that it obviates religious morality, it would seem that the religious basis was unnecessary. You might end with a more unifying shared belief system than religion provided.
quote: I've heard this argument presented by other Christians in a church environment, yet I rarely seem to hear it coming out in the general public, particularly from the leaders of the pro-SSM side. Why is that?
I suspect, although I don't know for sure, that reasons include:
- A sense that arguing the issue on religious grounds would be counterproductive - since religious opposition to SSM probably overwhelms religious support. Making a religious argument here would be to concede that religion should guide public policy, in a way, and most of the religious guidance would be contrary to the goals of the pro-ssm movement.
- Reluctance to speak for one's church in public, out of fear of misrepresenting the church or a simple lack of authority. (Leaving out the churches that actually instruct their members that SSM is wrong.)
quote: It is as if moderates and liberals have ceded the religious element of the discussion entirely to the far right. As a result, we should not be suprised when Christian church-goers vote heavily in favor of the anti-SSM position.
Yes, I think that's exactly what moderates and liberals have done. But I think that's to the credit of moderates and liberals, as you'd probably guess.
While I acknowledge that a religious person who refuses to make a religious argument in the public sphere might seem hamstrung, I don't quite see how anyone but a fundamentalist can honestly project his religious beliefs into the public sphere this way - or rather, I think the religious arguments, short of direct divine lobbying, that would tend to support SSM would ALSO tend to mirror the secular versions of those arguments, and the secular version would be persuasive to the same people for mostly the same reasons.
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