ZACH HOTLINE

[Edminster]

Read this http://i.imgur.com/yrlxv.png then reconsider whether they could possibly have thought anything else.

The comic was literally posted as a comic with no commentary by the person posting it. You are looking at this through the lens of your ideology which calls these people subhuman and undeserving of love and compassion simply because they (through ignorance) do not understand.

[Amerika]

Ed you are only one step up the ladder of racism because you are a white devil

[Edminster]

oh man how lucky that means nobody can be racist against me!

[DonRetrasado]

Being white just became a super-power. Oops!

[Sahan]

NOM is an organisation full of intolerant, narrow-minded people who wish to stubbornly choose ignorance on the matter to maintain to avoid their viewpoint being swayed. Most people are like this with regards to some issue or other. The prank was funny because it undermined the cause of their organisation, and forced them to accept how much they are disliked with certain parts of the community, and other than it didn't do much else, but I don't think it was aiming to either. I think Zach was just enraged that his work was being linked to an organisation that goes against what he believes, so he retaliated.

It was still funny though.

[Edminster]

it undermined the cause of their organisation

How? Who, upon seeing that, said to themselves "Gee, these people that I was considering joining had a rainbow flag up for a very brief period of time. I had better not follow them"?

forced them to accept how much they are disliked with certain parts of the community

Pretty sure they already know that pro-gay-marriage people are not fond of them.


As Oldrac said, this has done literally nothing except make people on both sides of this stupid fucking argument pat themselves on the back for being "right". The question should NOT be "should gay marriage be legal" but rather "why have we engrained a religious institution into our legal system".

I think Zach was just enraged that his work was being linked to an organisation that goes against what he believes, so he retaliated.

The price of shying away from making things that could be considered 'offensive' is that your audience starts to contain people like this.

[Oldrac the Chitinous]

NOM is an organisation full of intolerant, narrow-minded people who wish to stubbornly choose ignorance on the matter to maintain to avoid their viewpoint being swayed.

I am going to speculate that you don't personally know anyone in the National Organization for Marriage. As far as I'm aware, I don't.

Some of the nicest people I've ever known have been opposed to same-sex marriage. These are people who'd tell you their opinion on the subject is "hate the sin, love the sinner." Which would be a good lesson for us to take.

(It was funnier when it happened to John McCain. Preachy and funny make poor bedfellows.)

[Gangler]

Some of the nicest people I know are also opposed to same sex marriage. Same sex relations even. Doesn't make them any less bigoted. The fact that when they try and cure you of the gays they do it with a smile on their face and think it's in the interest of your eternal soul doesn't really help the situation too much. Not bad people, but I wouldn't go around saying that just because they're nice means they're also tolerant and open minded.

That being said, I have no idea what the people who comprise NOM are generally like. Hadn't heard of them until this whole thing.

[Sahan]

NOM is an organisation full of intolerant, narrow-minded people who wish to stubbornly choose ignorance on the matter to maintain to avoid their viewpoint being swayed.

I am going to speculate that you don't personally know anyone in the National Organization for Marriage. As far as I'm aware, I don't.

Whoa, whoa. If you read the second sentence in my post, my point was that everyone's like this with regards to some issues they have opinions on. I was trying to say that it's a flaw, but not one I take offence at since it's part of human nature. And I was basing my assumption in a quick glance at the comments on the website, particularly the arguments going on with regards to the SMBC comic.

It's funny because you interpreted my message as hateful towards NOM simply because that's what you assumed I would try to prove, the very thing you were accusing the other forum members of doing to NOM in the first place.

[Edminster]

can we all just agree that gay marriage is for fags

[Sahan]

I wouldn't want it any other way.

[Astrogirl]

Read this http://i.imgur.com/yrlxv.png then reconsider whether they could possibly have thought anything else.

The comic was literally posted as a comic with no commentary by the person posting it.

And all of the posts on their blog are about how gay marriage will destroy straight people's lives.

You are looking at this through the lens of your ideology which calls these people subhuman and undeserving of love and compassion simply because they (through ignorance) do not understand.

Sure.

[Lethal Interjection]

Some of the nicest people I know are also opposed to same sex marriage. Same sex relations even. Doesn't make them any less bigoted. The fact that when they try and cure you of the gays they do it with a smile on their face and think it's in the interest of your eternal soul doesn't really help the situation too much. Not bad people, but I wouldn't go around saying that just because they're nice means they're also tolerant and open minded.

I'm not sure "nice" fits in here. I've known plenty of Christians who are all smiles and judgement. The combination of superiority and evangelism is a dangerous thing.

[Eikinkloster]

Some of the nicest people I know are also opposed to same sex marriage. Same sex relations even. Doesn't make them any less bigoted.

How do you differentiate a bigot from someone who disagrees with you in any relevant thing?

Context:

Definition of BIGOT
: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance

Definition of OBSTINATE
1
: perversely adhering to an opinion, purpose, or course in spite of reason, arguments, or persuasion <obstinate resistance to change>

Definition of INTOLERANT
a : unwilling to grant equal freedom of expression especially in religious matters b : unwilling to grant or share social, political, or professional rights : bigoted

I'm diagnosed as bipolar. Manic depressive. There is a lot of bigotry and ignorance towards depression and I have had to deal with it every single day of my life for the past 20 years. My depression drives me through kinds of suffering I could bet most people can't even begin to conceptualize. I need to hide it from nearly all of my co-workers, and sometimes I worry those I did confide in will betray my trust.

And yet, there are people who say the whole concept of depression as a disease is wrong. And I tend to agree with them, but I don't think the concept is in itself *bigoted*. That just by considering depression a disorder you're bigoted. I go through phases in which I actually treasure my bipolarity, and other phases in which I dread it, much like Stephen Fry describes it in "The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive". I'm locked in with it about as much as homosexuals are to homosexuality. I've been through all the meds and therapies, and even when they helped me for a while, they all ended becoming unbearable themselves, so, as far as I am concerned, it's not treatable in the way a flu is treatable. I'd say it's not treatable at all, actually.

I'd like not to need to hide my condition without jeopardizing my employability. I'd like everybody could discuss it openly. That those who think it is a treatable disorder, to do so in a "hate the sin, love the sinner" attitude. And that those who think it is not even a disorder, but just a wider than average spectrum of ups and downs, don't automatically label those who think it is a disorder as bigoted.

[Gangler]

Some of the nicest people I know are also opposed to same sex marriage. Same sex relations even. Doesn't make them any less bigoted. The fact that when they try and cure you of the gays they do it with a smile on their face and think it's in the interest of your eternal soul doesn't really help the situation too much. Not bad people, but I wouldn't go around saying that just because they're nice means they're also tolerant and open minded.

I'm not sure "nice" fits in here. I've known plenty of Christians who are all smiles and judgement. The combination of superiority and evangelism is a dangerous thing.

Yeah, I wouldn't use the term if they were all smiles and judgement though. Perfectly nice people to be around. Good sense of humor. Avoid jokes at the expense of others. Dedicate lots of time to helping out the people around them. Some of them (not all) don't have a judgemental bone in their body. Everything you'd characterize as "nice". Just terribly misguided on a couple issues.

The people who are big on the "Holier than Thou" shtick I wouldn't really classify as nice at all, and certainly not tolerant or open minded. Those are just very hateful people wrapped in a thin layer of religious pretense and smiles.

Eikenloster: You have my sympathy. My dad's bi-polar. Can't say I know what you've gone through, but I've certainly seen what it's done for my dad, and how much of a journey it's been to carve out just a bit of stability in his life. Haven't seen a lot of bigotry, but his diagnosis isn't really a commonly known fact. He doesn't go around talking about it and his family members are pretty much all of the opinion that medical information is private, so we don't go around talking about it either.

You certainly make some good points about what qualifies someone as bigoted. You're right, there's not necessarily any hatred in them. They don't feel that homosexuals should be allowed to pursue homosexual relationships though... I don't know if that qualifies for your definition of Intolerance or not, but at the very least it doesn't seem to speak too well of them. Definitely obstinate though. These are religious people we're talking about. When was the last time you ever saw one of them listen to reason regarding something that contradicted their interpretation of the Bible?