Saturday, September 29, 2012

Are people who oppose marriage equality "bigots"?

THis comes from a new video series by equality advocate and philospher Jon Corvino.

How do we describe our opponents accurately?  What words should we use:  Heterosexists? Bigots? Homophobes?  Opponents?  Anti-equality activists?

Is there room for respectful disagreement?  Does it make a difference if they are telling lies and promulgating hatred of gay people (like the National Organization for Marriage, or Focus on the Family), or if they are a Bishop uncomfortable with the church blessing gay unions (as we've seen in the wake of last summer's GC)?

Is there a difference between  Prop8 advocate Pastor Jim Garlow and blessing opponent Bishop Edward Little?  I think there is.  What do you think?

 

7 comments:

JCF said...

Oh joy, Sir Spamalot has arrived.

IT said...

I don't understand.

JCF said...

The Spam was removed, IT. Sorry, I should have just ignored it.

Paul Powers said...

One practical difference is that while Bishop Little has declined to authorize the blessing of same-sex unions in his diocese, he hasn't spoken publicly (as far as I know) on the issue of whether the _state_ should recognize same-sex marriages or unions.

dr.primrose said...

This is the Supreme Court's first day of the term. In the 88 pages of orders issued today, it didn't decided whether or not to hear the Prop. 8 case or the DOMA cases. I'm a bit surprised.

IT said...

Aww Primrose, no one else is. If they were going to say something, we expected it last week.

Some watchers think they aren't in a hurry because of the election. Some think they aren't in a hurry because they havent got all the briefs for the DOMA cases. Frankly IMHO the fewer causes they give for right wing nuts to pour into the polls the better.


dr.primrose said...

Actually, I would have been very surprised if the up or down orders came down at the end of the previous term last week. There was a little bit of stuff but not much. The backlog generally gets handled in a huge bunch on the first day of the term.

Several of the DOMA cases ask the court to leapfrog over the intermediate Courts of Appeal. There's always a possibility that the court might do that but it's really, really rare. So the court could have refused to hear those at this point and made decisions on the others. The Prop. 8 case has different legal issues from the DOMA cases; it would be easy for the court to deal with that separately.

But it's all tea-leaf reading!!