I thought I'd best reply--
No. I don't intend to be a bigot. I fully endorse you to disagree with me, but you can do that without calling me a bigot. I never invoked anything other than a definition of marriage. That definition of marriage came from reading a non-religious specific article examining marriage under the lens of reason--by Robert George, Prof. of Jurisprudence at Princeton. The article researched why the marriage relationship has ever been considered separate from a casual sexual liaison, or a heterosexual friendship, etc. It examined whether or not there's anything distinctive about Marriage at all.
So, yes--I can see some of you don't agree with me--but that's what my reasonable conclusions were, not an intentionally thin veneer of fallacy, trying to cover an agenda (though I'm sure there are better ways to state it, and better ways to argue the position I took), nor a hate-speech. Bigotry, it seems, and especially religious bigotry, is what I'm being accused of--and I don't understand how, or why. I put forth a definition, and if you want to read the Article by George or ask me specifically, I can back it up. If you don't, at least realize that you've got to start by defining your terms, somewhere. If you don't like my terms, you can give me a more reasonable definition, and we can talk about it.
Don't just call me a bigot on assertion. I have friends who experience same-sex attraction, and I've been to the support-group for them on my local campus--I ask them questions about it, as well. They seemed a lot more willing to examine the issue. If you don't agree with my reasons, isolate them (as many of you are very good about doing) and then ask me about them and we can explore them. If you can't read the whole message without getting frustrated, maybe I need to concentrate on saying more in less space, or saying more in spaced-out, bite-sized chunks so you're not tempted to vomit up the whole post. What is bigoted, however, is calling names when you disagree with someone, without taking the time to hash out the arguments. I may be right, I may be wrong, but I'm willing to search it out.
No. I don't intend to be a bigot. I fully endorse you to disagree with me, but you can do that without calling me a bigot. I never invoked anything other than a definition of marriage. That definition of marriage came from reading a non-religious specific article examining marriage under the lens of reason--by Robert George, Prof. of Jurisprudence at Princeton. The article researched why the marriage relationship has ever been considered separate from a casual sexual liaison, or a heterosexual friendship, etc. It examined whether or not there's anything distinctive about Marriage at all.
So, yes--I can see some of you don't agree with me--but that's what my reasonable conclusions were, not an intentionally thin veneer of fallacy, trying to cover an agenda (though I'm sure there are better ways to state it, and better ways to argue the position I took), nor a hate-speech. Bigotry, it seems, and especially religious bigotry, is what I'm being accused of--and I don't understand how, or why. I put forth a definition, and if you want to read the Article by George or ask me specifically, I can back it up. If you don't, at least realize that you've got to start by defining your terms, somewhere. If you don't like my terms, you can give me a more reasonable definition, and we can talk about it.
Don't just call me a bigot on assertion. I have friends who experience same-sex attraction, and I've been to the support-group for them on my local campus--I ask them questions about it, as well. They seemed a lot more willing to examine the issue. If you don't agree with my reasons, isolate them (as many of you are very good about doing) and then ask me about them and we can explore them. If you can't read the whole message without getting frustrated, maybe I need to concentrate on saying more in less space, or saying more in spaced-out, bite-sized chunks so you're not tempted to vomit up the whole post. What is bigoted, however, is calling names when you disagree with someone, without taking the time to hash out the arguments. I may be right, I may be wrong, but I'm willing to search it out.
