Lit Apropos of Nothing - ACKBAR IN CAPITALS - The Lit Forum Social Thread, v2.0.15

My stance:
Those who oppose gay marriage aren't inherently bigoted (they're allowed an opinion, too); however, people who do propose "overthrowing governments which condone gay marriage" and presumably act upon their views in a dangerous way afterwards are bigots.

 

Were 'allowed' to have an opinion? Gee, thanks Do we need to apply for a permit from the opinion police? Hehe, j/k.

People against gay marriage are not Bigots, if reasonably argued. People such as the Westboro Baptist Church ARE bigots. Disgusting bigots. Hateful bigots. They word bigot is too easily thrown around these days, however, it certainly does apply to those folks.

 

Honestly, almost all my beliefs and positions have been shaped and changed significantly by arguments and discussions of one sort or another. Generally, every time I have an argument with someone, I try to go over it afterwards to see what I can learn from it; and I've rarely had a debate that I haven't learned something from.

Exchanging insults--which is what a certain number of political debates can turn into--tends to be almost totally counterproductive, but I've had good and constructive discussions with anarchists before. So it really depends a lot on the context.

 

While I wouldn't say that all who oppose gay marriage are bigots, I would say that opposition to gay marriage is an inherently bigoted argument, regardless of how it's represented. While "bigoted" is a strong word, the dictionary defines it simply as "utter intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from ones own". I'd say the desire to deny homosexuals something that is a right for everyone else based on personal discomfort fits "utter intolerance" fairly well.

 

My personal mantra is 'Protect the Minority, Respect the Majority'.

It seems that in these political correct days we live in, the respect of the majority is loosing traction.

There needs to be balance.

Specifically in regards to the gay marriage debate, this is such a fundamental society altering decision, in my personal opinion, it should be put to the nation (Australia) through referendum. I believe in their hearts, gay marriage supporters know that they would loose this, that is why they are seeking change via lawfare.

 

Well, marriage equality was put up for referendum in my state - Maryland. I was horrified, to be honest. Should we vote on civil rights? I kept trying to imagine if we'd put something like the Voting Rights Act up for referendum in the 60s.

That said, it passed - and by a big margin.

 

It's generally accepted in the US that desegregation would never have happened (or at least not until much later) if it'd required a majority vote. Sometimes legislation is required to shape public opinion, not the other way around.

 

Like the Nuremberg laws?

 

I flatly oppose gay marriage, but to treat such people as less than human is wrong.

 

I don't think calling any human being a 'biological mistake' is ever justifiable; but perhaps that's not what you meant to say?

 

This discussion is pretty interesting. I'm probably not going to see the movie myself, not because of the author but because I just didn't like the book.

 

However, desegregation and the end of Jim Crow had a hard time taking even after the judicial rulings of the fifties; it took the increased public awareness of the horrors of Jim Crow and consequent shift in general public opinion provided by images of racial oppression on the television in the sixties to really get the civil rights movement moving. It was that wave of changing public sentiment, accompanied by legislation reflecting the will of the public, that truly defeated Jim Crow. What was Brown followed by but a flurry of court orders attempting to enforce compliance against unwilling school districts? The courts couldn't tear down an institution that massive on their own, not without public support, and while court rulings played an important role in helping to get the ball rolling, it took a shift in public opinion -- which could not be created purely by court rulings attempting to force the public to think one way or the other -- to make the civil rights movement a success.

The idea of courts as bastions of enlightenment forcing the population to change its ways against its will is romantic, and especially appealing to lawyers for its crusading, influential self-image, but it's not particularly reflective of the process of reality.

 

Yes, legislation is reflective of public support -- and that's a good thing. Issues become settled because the public decides them settled, not because five to nine people say it's time for the public to get in line. And the idea that five to nine people telling the public to get in line (or, often more relevantly, one person in a federal district court, or a couple people on an appeals circuit, or whatever the majority is on a state supreme court) has a sea-change effect in settling the public mind is largely a myth. Much more important than Brown, which changed the law, was the televised, national civil rights movement, which changed hearts and minds. Reconstruction changed the law, too, but absent the ability to change hearts and minds, that meant very little in the long run.

It's also a mistake to see a slow shift in attitude as inferior to forcible action. You can't change society overnight one way or the other, never mind whether it's desirable or not. The slow sifting out of the issue through the democratic process of appeal to public opinion may be painful to some, but it produces a more stable final result and it's necessary to the integrity of the democratic process. Absolute confidence in your "rightness" is not the criterion by which good political theory is made, and reposing critical questions in the society that will live under them, in the form of democratic process, is ultimately superior to imposition of controversial measures by an unaccountable elite on the grounds of their self-designated "enlightenment." That's a formulation that can backfire, but unfortunately there's a great, short-sighted tendency in politics right now to ignore structural questions of political theory -- the critical stuff that makes sure the system works no matter whether the people you think are "right" or "wrong" are in power -- in favor of "I'm right, so I can do anything, and he's wrong, so he shouldn't be allowed to do anything" self-righteousness.

 

My bad on that, Jello; I was thinking VRA, not Brown. Not a majority vote, was my point.

 

Once you have a government of people rather than a government of laws, you have a government that can only function in a positive manner when the 'right people' are in charge--and once you finally find these rare people, there's no reason you wouldn't want to keep them in charge forever. Then, since the right people are in charge anyway, there's not much reason why you wouldn't want to give those people all the power they need to do all the good things they want to do. Thus, in the absence of good, constructive systems and fixed laws, tyranny (in the technical ancient sense, rather than the pejorative modern one) is a pretty logical alternative.

Part of the point of a government of fixed laws and systems is that large change is not just rushed into effect before anyone has time to think or argue about it and its long-term consequences. This is not a bug, but a feature. In other words, I agree with Havac.

 

I was using your post to bounce into a discussion of larger issues relevant to everybody reading this exchange (that also happen to be among my political pet peeves). The "you"s are generally generic.

As for judges, there are all too few really resentful of being made into legislators. The good ones, yes, but it's a recurring trend in the judiciary to see opinions based more on what the judge thinks is good policy than on real application of legal principles, and it's a phenomenon that's harder to eradicate the more the idea of politics as an absolutist battle of good vs. evil (in which all that matters is that your side "wins"), rather than a system through which society mediates good-faith disagreements about policy. It's contributing to a warped sense of politics in which result wholly supersedes thought of process, and it's also the prime driver of political polarization and extremism that's making good-faith political dialogue so incredibly difficult these days (especially on the internet). Not that political dialogue has ever been peaceful and harmonious -- a good-old-days fallacy that bears little resemblance to fact -- but this particular problem of absolutist positions, and the consequent push to delegitimize dissenting positions, seems particularly acute in the modern era.

 

I'm not fond of the discussion point of the 'right people' in charge. This is so subjective. Who decides who is 'right', and what standard are they judged against?

 

Man, the Social Thread isn't ****ing around today

 

To be fair, the issue in emerging democracies like that is that there isn't the faith in the system continuing beyond the first election, and often justifiably so -- if you vote the wrong guy into power, they too often like to consolidate that power, influence the system or rewrite the constitution or stuff ballot boxes or call off elections or otherwise rig things. Elections can get people into power, but they can't get them out if it turns into a mere facsimile democracy before the next election.