Bigotry.<\/p>\n
What is it? Well, it\u2019s bad. I know that.<\/p>\n
People refer to conservatives as bigots on a regular basis, and they\u2019re not being especially kind when they do it. It seems we on the Right fit the dictionary definition of those with \u201cstubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.\u201d As opposed to the tolerant, kind, and loving Left, who call us Nazis and Neanderthals, or, as we were recently called by a Proposition 8 supporter in California, \u201corcs\u201d inflicting their \u201cvampire-dripping heterosexist nightmares\u201d on everyone else.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t live in California, but Proposition 8 has become a big deal, since my church officially supports it and is helping to lead the charge to solidify the traditional definition of marriage. This has led to angry words, which invariably include the charge that those of us who support traditional marriage do so out of bigotry. To those making the charge, there can be no other explanation.<\/p>\n
Consequently, even the most reasoned, dispassionate response is dismissed out of hand, because it\u2019s hiding how we bigots \u201creally\u201d feel. See, we try to sound sort of reasonable in public, because if we let the electorate know how dark and vile our souls really were, they\u2019d recoil in horror. But when we\u2019re alone, we let down our hair and burn pictures of Harvey Fierstein and let the expletives fly. It\u2019s kind of like that old Eddie Murphy SNL skit where he dresses up as a white guy and discovers that white people give things to each other for free when there are no black people around.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written extensively on why I think redefining marriage is a terrible idea, and I\u2019m not interested in rehashing that again \u2013 you can find my original thoughts on the matter here<\/a> and here<\/a>. Instead, I want to make the case that bigotry, as a charge, does not constitute argument, and is, in fact, a substitute for it, used primarily to just shut people up.<\/p>\n All the cool people know this when they\u2019re talking Right-on-Left bigotry. Call a Lefty \u201cunpatriotic\u201d and anyone who\u2019s anyone won\u2019t let you get away with it. But call us Righties \u201cbigots\u201d and you get thoughtful questions like \u201cwhat do you think made them go so wrong? Are they evil, or just stupid?\u201d Suddenly, whatever was being initially discussed is taken off the table, and the Righty has to defend his motives. That\u2019s how the well gets poisoned. Even if a Righty is correct on the facts, they can be dismissed, because nothing good can come from a bigot.<\/p>\n Once you discredit the messenger, you can ignore the message completely.<\/p>\n A relatively benign example of this can be found in my own weird little online world. Back when Battlestar Galactica was being revived, many of us geeks were posting in various online enclaves that the reimagined version proposed by Ron Moore was a bad idea, and, instead, the revival ought to be a continuation of the original series. Unfortunately, we were joined in our cause by a loon named Languatron, who insisted \u2013 and still insists – that anyone who disagrees with him is on the payroll of Universal Studios, that God Himself will smite the head of the SciFi Channel if she doesn\u2019t comply with his demands, and, by the way, gay people are scum.<\/p>\n Reasonable voices no longer mattered once Languatron took the stage. As far as anyone in Moore\u2019s camp was concerned, all of us original series supporters were a bunch of Languatrons, and we didn\u2019t have to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n Are there bigots on the Right? Yes, of course. But I will only concede that point as long as those on the Left recognize they have their share of bigots, too. I don\u2019t know if their share is larger or smaller than ours. I do know that they\u2019re far more effective at using our bigots to dismiss our arguments than we are at doing the same.<\/p>\n Case in point: Almost anything that the McCain\/Palin ticket says or does to fight back is portrayed as an appeal to conservative\u2019s latent racism. They\u2019re not saying bigoted things overtly, but apparently they\u2019re using \u201ccode words\u201d that sleeper-cell racists recognize. This puts the GOP in a defensive crouch, because not only do they have to defend their charges against Obama, they also have to defend their motives for making the charges and prove they\u2019re not bigots.<\/p>\n This wouldn\u2019t work with a principled, persuasive conservative a la Ronald Reagan, who would ignore the charges with a twinkle in his eye. But John McCain is far more concerned about what the New York Times thinks of him than he is about what his own party thinks, so this tactic works well against him. He\u2019s constantly on the defensive as he tries to assure the cool people that he\u2019s one of them.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also losing. There\u2019s a direct correlation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bigotry. What is it? Well, it\u2019s bad. I know that. People refer to conservatives as bigots on a regular basis, and they\u2019re not being especially kind when they do it. It seems we on the Right fit the dictionary definition of those with \u201cstubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}