Response to a person frightened by gay marriage

Susan took issue with this post and left a comment. I respond in bold:

Blogger Susan said...

on April 10, 2009 at 7:03 pmSusan Salisbury
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

(Susan, you should have deleted this bit ... it looks like you have copied and pasted this rant about the blogosphere.)

The statements made in this video are true.
Read Parker v. Hurley, 474 F. Supp. 2d 261 (D. Mass. 2007)– in this case a federal court held that Massachusetts parent have no right to withdraw their children from school during times when it teaches that homosexual marriage is normal and desireable. If you favor homosexual marriage– you may think this is a good decision but it is disingenuous in the extreme to claim that the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts which lead to this teaching and this decision has no impact on those parents. Their children are being taught that their parents are bigots. So there is state enforcement of the pro gay marriage view through the children.

What I don't understand is why you are unable to teach your children in your church and in your home that gay marriage is something you are against and why you believe this does not mean you are a bigot. Children are able to understand philosophical conundrums, conflicts, differences and will be exposed to these concepts whether you control what the teachers say or not.

What do you think people of different faiths teach their children who go to public schools in the US? What do you think Hindu parents teach their children? Muslims? Buddhists? And anyway, public school should NEVER teach one faith, philosophy over another, EVER. Public school by default should be 'faithless'. And why on earth is being gay somehow locked into a religious argument? Being gay is not a choice like choosing a religion. Why is being gay such a threat to God?

There are many things I disagree with that my children have been taught or exposed to and I have explained my position and listened to what my children think. You want them to be able to think for themselves, weigh the arguments, choose their path. They will be doing these actions throughout their adult life, so the training starts now.

That is unless you think that they should NOT think for themselves and that the only true way is total and absolute submission to your church's tenets. Then you believe they cannot be exposed to ANY concepts that threaten their precarious grip on their religious beliefs and you must sweep before them cleaning up everything that challenges them.

Then the question would be why is your and your children's belief in God so weak, so easily threatened that it cannot stand up to questions, challenges, denials?

Catholic Charities adoption agencies were given the choice to either treat placement with gay couples as equal to placement with heterosexual couples or lose their license to run an adoption agency. They gave up their state license.

Children who languish in orphanages have been quoted as saying they'd love to be in ANY loving home with anyone who wants them. They don't care where the love comes from. And I do mean love not the bizarre belief that gays are pedophiles. They aren't. There have been many children who have been raised by gays. Listen to them.

Contrary to other comments that have been posted in response to this story, the California Supreme Court held in North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group, Inc. v. Superior Court (Benitez) (2008) 44 Cal.4th 1145 [-- Cal.Rptr.3d --; -- P.3d --] that a doctor may not refuse to provide artificial insemination services to an unmarried woman who was a lesbian because of religious objections to pregnancy outside of marriage.

Good. The doctor who has religious qualms should ask himself (herself) why he is in this specific area of medicine.

so the video is true and the people who think it is filled with hate are at least wrong as to the facts alleged in the video. The truth is that the pro gay marriage group seeks to impose its views on those who disagree with them.

I disagree with you and am not trying to silence you. In fact here I am responding to your comment which I doubt you will ever come back to read. I am not imposing anything on you but living my life. For those who are gay, I believe they want to live their lives without interacting with you as well. Can you leave them alone? Obviously you have not even considered what it is like to be on the receiving end of your 'not filled with hate' actions.

If that is not the case, I challenge each of you to show where you have been willing to sponsor exemptions for people who disagree with you— where you have been willing, for example for President Obama to keep the conscience clause in place ( allowing physicians to refuse to perform certain services like abortions) where they have a firmly established religious belief that such procedures are immoral.

Why on earth would I want to be operated on by a doctor whom I assume has my best interests in mind but turns out that he is using his religious tenets to guide him? What does his religion have to do with my health, safety, and life? And yes, I do 'sponsor' people I disagree with all the time. I believe in tolerance.

I’m still waiting. Where are the pro- gay marriage people who think that Mr. Parker had a right to control what his children are taught about gay marriage? Not on this blog, I’m pretty sure.

Actually I'm not really pro-gay as much as anti-fundamentalism, anti-hate; more pro-diversity, pro-tolerance, pro-people. There is no 'gay agenda' by the way, as much as you think there is an evil conspiracy to invade your churches and your minds. The way Mr. Parker 'controls' (interesting choice of verb) his children's teachings is to do it at home and at church. His children should be able to handle the fact that life is filled with things that will challenge and question their faith. Every day. Or do you expect to sweep ahead of them forever, demanding that everyone stop doing things that disturb you?

Where are the pro-gay people who think that Catholic Charities has a right to keep its license to operate an adoption agency even if they have moral qualms about placing children with same sex couples?

Again, I think most of you think that people should not have the right to disagree with you about homosexuality and gay marriage. You think anyone who disagrees with you is a bigot and should be punished or sanctioned for expressing his or her opinion, so far as I can see. You think it is a good thing that public schools and the law should line up to force YOUR point of view on those who disagree with you.

Have you looked at the definition of bigotry?

The state of mind of a bigot; obstinate and unreasoning attachment of one's own belief and opinions, with narrow-minded intolerance of beliefs opposed to them.

Some of think that’s fascism and tyranny. You all seem to like it as long as it is the fascism you have chosen.

And have you looked up the term fascism?

Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, p. 218:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal constraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Do you really know what you are talking about? You are angry that your bigotry is being called what it is yet you profess that your God is love. You talk about fascism without realizing you qualify for the term. You are angry because you are afraid and out of your comfort zone. How do you deal with it? To demand that society return to the benighted days when gays were ashamed and silenced. Why? What threat do they possibly pose to you? If you haven't noticed, society is moving on.

Thank God.