Except the claims of 'hate and bigotry' are false and are merely the excuse to practice said intolerance.
But it was never about being intolerant of your religion, except to the extent that your religion should not dictate policy that is
intrinsically biased against a certain group of people, as I will now enumerate.
Dan Cathy and Chic-Fil- A dont hate homosexuals. They support what they deem as the biblical example of marriage and dont want to see our government change that. That is not hate, nor bigotry, and those opposing him for that are indeed themselves haters and bigots not any better than those same kind from the WBC.
I understand it is popular to say that one merely "supports traditional marriage," as opposed to supporting
nontraditional marriage I suppose, but this stance does not by itself absolve one of any guilt of hate or bigotry. But even if I were to assume that one could support traditional marriage on the one hand and yet suffer to ignominiously flatter the gays with "understanding" of their "condition," that does not make the quality of "supporting traditional marriage" a positive assertion. To the extent that it is characterized in part by a categorical rejection of gay marriage, it is bigotry - that is to say, it is obstinate intolerance of the homosexual marriage; it is rejection based wholly on sexual orientation. It is intolerant devotion to your opinions and prejudices, laid down by an ancient book with an excellent
track record on complex moral questions, and one that actively harms people. It is this point, I think, that deserves the primary consideration.
It is foolhardy to imagine that denying homosexuals the right to marry is not a form of prejudice in some way. It is, of course, not seen as
denying them any
right so much as
preserving an institution that one might assert was
never meant for them. On this point I will happily grapple with the notion that marriage, as a concept, is incompatible with the idea of two members of the same sex mating for life. I need not expound at length on marriage's mutability and general functionality, although I will say, in summary, that marriage is:
- Not meant for procreation (we permit marriages where this is as unfeasible as with same-sex marriages).
- Not a religious artefact (it is culturally significant among people of innumerable different stripes and hardly special to Christians only).
- Thus, a cultural phenomenon, which has become...
- A binding contract between a monogamous* couple and the crowning achievement of romantic affection.
And thus it behooves us to ask ourselves "whence come the restriction on
gay marriage?" But furthermore it begs us to think of the gay couple, who would seek marriage for a multitude of reasons - not merely to obtain benefits that the government provides for such a union, but because marriage is symbolically important to them. As with many Americans, marriage is the ultimate stage of romance, and to deny the satisfaction of that from gay people is cruelty. It is unceremoniously stripping their romance of the capacity to flower
in the sense that their culture has raised and taught them to believe that it should flower. If the love of a gay couple is meaningful, they will seek marriage, because that is what a couple in love
does in this society. If you dare deny that symbols are important and meaningful, then I defy you to
explain this. Refusing to allow gay people to marry under the same auspices that you allow straight people to marry harms them as clearly as it tells them that their love is wrong and improper. That is emotional cruelty.
Part of not being a bigot, part of being legitimately and truly tolerant, is understanding that gays want to get married for the same reason you or any straight person you know wants to get married. It is not part of an overarching
kulturkampf, hell-bent on annihilating Christianity once and for all. It's merely a move made by a legitimately desperate group of people to secure support from the society that bore them for the love they have chosen.** Now if you want to tell them that they are fools and that they have chosen wrongly, that they will be judged and damned for their sin, then so be it: but don't you dare pretend that you're merely defending your institution against the vagaries of barbarous influences. They're just people in love who want to be treated like it.
*I am aware of arguments in parallel that state that altering the definition of mariage, to the extent that it can really be said to be
altered, also bears impact on the notion that it need be monogamous. You will find no argument from me on this question.
**Even assuming homosexuality is a choice, although very good evidence shows that it probably isn't.