[MOD NOTE: Extracted from
PRSI thread.]
Enough of this crap already. I'm damn sick of it. And I'm more sick of this site tolerating talk against us.
At some point, MR needs to stop tolerating anti-gay speech. There are kids who see this site.
Kids need to know that we are fighting for them. They also need to know that this site will not tolerate anti-gay speech.
I have been thinking about what you have written and broadly speaking, I agree with you. From what I can see (and it is subtle), PRSI debates/discussions on broadly
political matters can be robust, but generally, a disagreement on politics boils down to a disagreement on respective political perspectives. You might disagree with someone (robustly), you might (privately) consider them a misinformed idiot for holding such views, but, broadly speaking, the debates on politics remain within the sphere of political and economic arguments and vocabularies.
Anti-gay (and anti-woman) speech here, (and elsewhere), tends to be something else again. This is because I strongly suspect that the motivations of those who are anti-gay (and often anti-woman - I was shocked by the extraordinarily vicious content of some posts in a thread started by iBlue earlier this year when she asked - reasonably enough - why conservatives - or those who label themselves as such - felt, or feel - so threatened by women?) are buttressed & fuelled & reinforced by citing what they see as divinely scripted sources in support of their opinions.
Quoting scripture, or some religion, in support of prejudice (which, in turn, can be, and often was, reinforced by laws), does not justify that prejudice in any way. However, it does seem to serve to make those who claim to think this way very certain of the rightness of their views, and very arrogant in the articulation of their views. Above all, it means that they often think they have the right to enforce their world-view on unwilling and disbelieving (and non-believing) others because it is (in their mind) divinely sanctioned.
Oppression, and prejudice are no less offensive for being inspired by what is cited as an interpretation of religious texts.
However, I must say that like this forum a lot, and have gained an awful lot from it. Most of the time, even when a few posts of mine were censored, it was done even-handedly, and usually because the wrong thing was said in the wrong place. I have no quarrel with that, and welcome the fact that moderation is, in general, moderate and balanced and sane.
Nevertheless, I will say that it is my personal perception - (not experience, but perception) - that those who claim religion as a justification for expressing appalling prejudices (anti-gay, anti-woman) are sometimes given what seems to me excessive leeway on fora such as this.
Simply because a prejudice is inspired by what is thought to be an interpretation of religious texts or beliefs does not in any way justify that prejudice. Nor, for that matter, should good faith be ascribed to those who hold such views simply because they say a god said they should hold them. Likewise, I'd argue that the benign tolerance traditionally accorded those who claim religious belief as their justification for holding such views, is, maybe, a little too generous.
Anti-woman, anti-gay attitudes give rise to allowing permission to express such views. History should teach us that rights which were won after extraordinary battles may not always rest on secure foundations. A world where respect is denied is a world where rights can be withdrawn. And to justify the expression of such attitudes simply because it is thought (or argued) that they are divinely sanctioned - and thus deserving of lesser intellectual interrogation or scrutiny than the mere opinions expressed by mere mortals - does not mean they should be treated more gently.
I come from a country where blasphemy is illegal and where organised religion, until far too recently, held far too much power in certain spheres of life, and is still shown far too much deference and respect. Seriously, I don't think a world view derived from religion should be accorded a deference and courtesy they often fail to extend to those who differ from them.