The other day, Brad DeLong wrote (via Mark Kleiman):
There is a certain kind of Berkeley professor who I am losing my tolerance for…
You know (or maybe you don’t): the kind who believes that your first duty is to sympathetically understand where people are coming from. Unless they’re Republicans. You have a duty to enter into the thought processes and sympathetically entertain the understanding of the world of a guy in Nigeria who as a picture of Osama bin Laden in his car, or a bureaucratic functionary working for Fidel Castro, or somebody who thinks that Bangladeshis should not be allowed to work in the textile industry. But Republicans? They are Blue Meanies. They are one dimensional. They are baaaaad.
And, of course, they appear to have no ironic consciousness of the huge disconnect in their intellectual stance at all. To say in one breath that we must not succumb to the temptation to turn those who express sympathy for Osama bin Laden into alien, hated, one-dimensional OTHERS; and then say in the next that those who express sympathy for Paul Wolfowitz are alien, hated, one-dimensional OTHERS…
The problem is, it isn’t just a few Berkely professors- it appears that this attitude is rampant in the mainstream left and right. Today, Oliver wrote the following:
According to the fundamentalist religious right, Armageddon was supposed to come knocking today because… some people got married.
Still waiting.
This type of hyperbole is rife among the mainstream of the Democratic party- if you oppose gay marriage, well, then you are just the same as John Derbyshire and this jackass.
Most people who oppose gay marriage, I am willing to bet, are not hate-mongering jack heels who think that armageddon will occur overnight. Most are probably quite reasonable, and probably just think that there is no reason to elevate same-sex union to the same level of a traditional marriage, some may have doubts about the necessity, some may have doubts about the implementation, others may have doubts about the long term effect this may have on marriage in general.
But hell- why not just villify your political opponents- it is so much easier than debating them.
*** Update **
I should probably point out that I am agnostic on the issue. I understand both sides of the argument. For the homosexual community, the simple fact isthat they simply love their partner and want what they perceive are they same rights as heterosexuals. For the other side, there are a number of misgivings, including religious beliefs, etc.
I would whole-heartedly support civil unions. I am tepidy indifferent about gay marriage, leaning in favor of it. So I guess since I am not all out in favor of gay marriage, I am a hatemongerer.
JPS
That is a freakin’ brilliant quote, John. Thanks for the link.
Unfortunately, when I followed it, I got to see how many of De Long’s commenters react with, “But they ARE!”
Jeff G
I’m a hate monger, too. I wholeheartedly support civil unions, but I’m not sure deconstructing the term marriage is a wise maneuver, legally speaking.
Nothing whatsoever to do with religion. But that just makes me a homophobe rather than a religious wacko.
Kimmitt
Have you really met a lot of people who cry homophobia if you claim support for civil unions? Because that’s just not my experience — most folks I’ve spoken to figure that the civil unions and marriage positions are both essentially reasonable.
Of course, they could just be being nice to me, me being a “civil unions for gays, straights, and we’ll see what else comes down the pike” kind of guy.
Jeff G
Yes. And they’re calling you a homophobe too. Just maybe not out loud.
Or not.
CadillaqJaq
In the early 990s, I was referred to as a “homophobic Nazi” by a lesbian lawyer in Boulder CO because as a trustee in our church, I read the bylaws to her that prohibited our church from espousing any political point of view… though our liberal minded minister had performed several same-sex marriages outside the church.
I plead guilty, especially now with the IOCC considering allowing transexual athletes to compete. I guess I will have to see how that turns out.
CadillaqJaq
that should read: 1990s
mercy…
dg
Sadly, what it has come to in this country is that if you don’t agree with someone you are labeled a bigot. We have lost our collective minds.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Do any of you commenters self-describe as members of the **Religious Right** (as opposed to various other flavors of conservative)? My impression has been that the Religious Right is indeed near-hysterical in their opposition to gay marriage, while even most other opponents don’t see it as an especially important issue. (I also think Kevin Drum scored a bullseye when he said the pictures of the pretty ordinary-looking gay couples lined up to get married took a lot of wind out of the opponents’ sails on this issue.)
CadillaqJaq
No, Andrew, as one individual speaking, I’m not one of the “Religious Right” at all: just a person that sees words as having basic definitions and meanings. To me it boils down to simple semantics.
To “marry” is to take a husband or a wife. “Marriage” is the condition of being married. Some refer to it as “Holy Wedlock,” or “Holy Matrimony,” etc.
I have no argument if Sam wants to join Harry in a civil union. I have a problem when Sam wants to “marry” Harry. Who is taking whom as a husband or wife?
Why do Sam and Harry now insist on the service being described as a “marriage” as opposed to a civil union ceremony? Is it another attempt to legitimize their relationship as normal?
Far North
dg,
It seemed that anyone opposed to GWB’s Iraq advendure was a traitor and wasn’t supportive of our US soldiers. Actually, according to many (most?) on the conservative side of the aisle, those that opposed anything Bush did in Iraq were “giving aid and comfort to the enemy”. Isn’t that the height of ignorance and stupidity, too?
Andrew J. Lazarus
You know, Cadillac, I’m not unsympathetic to your argument about the meaning of “marriage”, the word. I haven’t quite made up my mind, believe it or not. (I know two of the lesbian couples who got whatevered in San Francisco, and I have yet to hear what each now calls her partner.) What I *do* know is that I insist the civil unions have exactly the legal significance of hetero marriage w.r.t. inheritance, health insurance, child custody, tax filing status, etc. This is not currently the case. I sense you have no problem with this.
Dave
I have no significant qualms with civil unions. Nor even with civil unions that have all the -legal- equalities with marriage.
But if the word “marriage” is insisted on for “gay marriage”, I have a problem with it. Not one I can express readily, nor one I insist to be totally rational.
Of course, most of the arguments I see for “gay marriage” that try to claim Civil Unions ‘aren’t enough’, aren’t truly rational either, instead being emotional appeals cloaked in faux Civil Rights arguments or “feel-good-ism”.
Of course, it doesn’t matter with about 50% of the blogosphere (left, right, whatever) whether I ‘self-identify’ as a member of the Religious Right, because I admit to being religious and am politically on the Right, I MUST BE in the Religious Right.
Those who truly belong to the ‘Religious Right’ as a compact ideological group actually tend to be isolationist paleocons like Pat Buchanan… guys I’d denounce even quicker than I would Bill Clinton, because at least Clinton was willing to bow to reality in some things.
Kimmitt
“Is it another attempt to legitimize their relationship as normal?”
That is PRECISELY what it is.