Defense of Marriage

[Flystripper]

Originally Posted by minn_stat

Such repartee, such wit. I can't possibly respond to such brilliant logic, you've reduced me to a quivering idiot.

I tried to outline the foundations of what I thought was a valid viewpoint on a controversial and difficult topic. Do I get honest, thinking critique?

From TripletDaddy and Seattle Ute and BlueHair, I basically get...
You are a bigot
Homophobe
Your words are just PR
Scaremongerer
You must not be secure in your marriage
Bigot
Just a bunch of empty rhetoric
Homophobe
Where is your argument?

Impressive, to say the least. (To your credit, YOhio, Venkman, and KiteRider, you had some valid feedback and comments.)

When I lived in the Metro DC area in 2nd grade, my mom likes to tell the story of how I came home from school one day crying because everyone was being mean to another little boy at the school. I ended up befriending him. My mom tells me it took quite a while for her to figure out that the problem was that the new boy was part of the first black family in the neighborhood, and apparently the neighborhood was quite up in arms about this encroachment into their nice neighborhood.

In the spring of 1980, when I was walking home from high school, I came across a group of kids bullying an Iranian kid who went to our school. (This was in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis.) Although I'm pretty small, I managed to shame the kids into leaving him alone, and then walked home with him to make sure they left him alone. I became his friend as well, and found his viewpoint on the crisis pretty interesting, even though it was largely in disagreement with mine.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, a muslim single mom moved into the new home directly behind ours. Her daughter regularly played with our kids, and I worked with the YM president in organizing a group to put in her sod. I did much of the mowing of her lawn for several summers, and we had several very interesting discussions on religion during this time.

In my current neighborhood, my next door neighbor is a single mom who happens to be black, and I've similarly spent quite a bit of time helping her with her yard care. My kids play fine with her nine year old boy.

The point is, you don't know me, you know next to nothing about me. I've tried to be patient with your idiocy, but frankly, I've got more interesting things to do with my time than listen to you call me names. I've never put a person on "ignore"; feel privileged that you will be the first. Oh sorry, I did put Bernards on ignore when he showed up a while ago, so you won't even be the first.

How is providing anecdotes of racially non-bigoted experiences proof of your lack of homosexual bigotry? There are many types of bigotry and none of the types are mutually exclusive. Be assured I am not calling you a bigot. However, the reasons you sited for wanting to prohibit homosexual marriage appear on the surface to be bigoted.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by Flystripper

How is providing anecdotes of racially non-bigoted experiences proof of your lack of homosexual bigotry? There are many types of bigotry and none of the types are mutually exclusive. Be assured I am not calling you a bigot. However, the reasons you sited for wanting to prohibit homosexual marriage appear on the surface to be bigoted.

Apparently he has me on ignore, but this was going to be my response. The two are not correlated...or only insomuch that his self-perceived UN upbringing thereby precludes him from having a bias against homosexuals...or anyone else.

"Hey, I mow black lawns. No way I can be a racist."

I never called him any names, but I wonder why some people are sensitive to them? Maybe conscience? I also find it interesting how people espouse random bigoted views, then bookend them with stories of tolerance and acceptance. "Hey, look, I lived near muslims, but you gotta admit, most of them ARE terrorists...."

At any rate, I don't think minn stat is a bigot, either. But I do think he likely knows zero gay people....unless you count the gay couple from his childhood that lived next door and paid him to wash their convertible Mazda Miatas.