(10-08-2011, 11:23 PM)kandrathe Wrote: That is why I offered the example of Bill Clinton, who is obviously not against homosexuals, but it was him, in fact, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act while he was president. You can check into it as I have, since he was called on it many times. His reasoning is complex, and much of what he did he claims after the fact, to have been defensive. Underlying the argument is an undercurrent of political position, where on the one side claims for equal rights and fair treatment of minorities, and on the other, the outright destruction of societal norms, traditions, and institutions.
Societal norms, traditions, and institutions do not have human rights. To be opposed to them might be good or bad, but it isn't bigoted. To be opposed to peoples' rights, simply on the basis of some arbitrary fact about them (gender, race, sexuality), to say that they should not enjoy the freedoms enjoyed by others entirely on that basis, is bigoted, and is so regardless of the reasons. I have no doubt many a person opposed to miscegenation, or supportive of Jim Crow, could claim "I am obviously not against blacks" while simultaneously opposing their full equality under the law. I have no doubt many a person who opposed women's suffrage and against equal pay for equal work claimed they were "obviously not against women." The claims do not matter to me - I call them like I see them.
Case in point: Bill Clinton. When he says: "I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages and this legislation is consistent with that position." ... he is being a bigot. (And, I suspect, a coward.) If he has since come to disavow that position, I can only be glad, but if it's half as weasely as the rest of his opinions, then I can only assume it is what it appears to be: politics. And there have been times when all sorts of bigotry, racism, sexism, religious discrimination, and so on have been politically expedient.
Quote:I see his work as redemptive, and you see it as absolute and condemning.
No doubt, progress on this topic is impossible. I will merely point out that the redemption he offers is entirely a function of his claim to divinity.
-Jester