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On Bigotry
Feb. 8th, 2012 06:14 pmI've been spending a lot of time* lately reading news articles on same-sex marriage, and their comments sections. One thing I've noticed is how very upset opponents of same-sex marriage get at being called "bigots." "We're not bigots for trying to hold the line on our religious beliefs," they say. Or "The definition of bigotry is not ‘fear and intolerance.’ It’s making a judgment without knowing the facts."
Now, this is not true-- according to the OED, the definition of bigotry is: "intolerance towards those who hold different opinions from oneself." Merriam-Webster agrees, defining "bigot" as "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." Even dictionary.com goes with "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own."
Those definitions don't specifically mention fear, but they're very clear about the intolerance. They don't say bigotry is ignorant; they say it's stubborn and refuses to change its mind.
Similarly, opponents of same-sex marriage will sometimes say that they aren't practicing discrimination. "Upholding Traditional Marriage is Not 'Discrimination,'"they say, because "when gay activists and their supporters cry 'discrimination' they conveniently avoid the question of whether homosexual relationships merit being granted equality with marriage." The basic argument there is that all laws make choices which discriminate between two things (no murders is inherently better than murders), so doing that about gay marriage doesn't count as discrimination against gay people.
This particular piece of double-think comes directly from three beliefs about bigotry and discrimination. The first is that they are bad. The second is that they are historical, not current. And the third is that they are always based on nothing.
This is where I wish to hell more people read more intellectual history, and had at least a primer on race theory. Sure, I'm glad that people agree that being hateful is a bad thing. But do they honestly believe that this is a new concept? The idea "you should be nice to people different from you" isn't new, nor did the modern use of the word "bigot" spring into existence in 1965. George Washington, slave-owner, praised the United States Government as one which "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." (Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island (1790)) Voltaire wrote the Treatise on Tolerance in 1763, decrying prejudice against Protestants and others.** I'm sure if I looked harder I could find plenty of older sources; suffice it to say that it's not like everyone used to be unquestioningly bigoted Back in the Bad Old Days. Nor is bigotry over-- there are plenty of people who hold negative views of people of different races, and like to explain that they're not racist-- they just call it like they see it/think affirmative action is unfair/have a sense of humor, what?
But the most important thing is that opponents of same-sex marriage can't imagine that historical bigots had reasons for their beliefs. Ta-Nehisi Coates explains this really well with the concept of "a muscular empathy." "It's easy," he says, "to say you would have acted better than a slave master if you had lived in the antebellum South... But it's much more interesting to assume that you wouldn't have, and then ask 'Why?'" You have to realize that most people believed the things we now think are wrong, not because they were all stupid and hateful, but because these things were, at the time, self-evident. Historical bigots knew that what we now call racism was proper, the way things should be. Because it was obviously right and natural, because the Bible said so, because Black men with White women made them feel uncomfortable and icky-- they didn't think they were "making a judgment without knowing the facts." They had the facts. They were quite sure of it. The facts they had are different from our facts, but that doesn't mean they didn't have them. They had scientific papers, they had the words of religious leaders they trusted-- they had thought this through. There were reasoned debates about slavery, about denying women the right to vote-- and the people we would now see on the wrong side of history often had excellent logic and rhetoric to back them up. They were not unthinking. They simply had beliefs we now see as wrong.
The difficulty that same-sex marriage opponents have is that they cannot bring themselves to question what they believe. Which is fair. Most of us, even the most liberal, have a deep level where we simply believe what we believe because we believe it's true. We can play all the questioning games we like, but: I believe that you shouldn't torture kittens. I just believe that. It just seems innately true to me, and understanding that some people have reasons to torture kittens takes a huge leap of understanding. Even if I get to where I truly understand the theoretical framework wherein torturing kittens is a fine use of an afternoon, I will still have a little voice, deep inside me, saying, "but that's still wrong!"
But the thing is: believing something deeply, having all sorts of evidence to back it up, doesn't make it not bigotry. Treating one group of people differently from another is discrimination.*** Refusing to accept other ways of life is bigotry. That's just how it is. Having reasons and (in your opinion) the will of God behind you doesn't make you not a bigot. It may mean that you're right. But you cannot both hold that view and claim not to be a bigot. That just makes you a bigot in the 16th century meaning: "sanctimonious person, religious hypocrite."
--R
*Some might argue a terrifyingly obsessively lot.
**"It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?"
***And, yes, the argument, "Gays aren't discriminated against! They have just as much right to marry someone of the opposite sex as straight people do!" is very cute. It even holds some water if you believe that "the union of husband and wife" is innately the definition of marriage, and it's as impossible for a wife and wife to "marry" as it would be to "drive" without a vehicle, or make an "omelette" without eggs. But as the Iowa Supreme Court pointed out, this argument says "gay people can have this right if and only if they give up the thing that distinguishes them as a group." It's like saying "Jews have a perfect right to freely practice their religion, if by 'practice a religion' you understand it to mean 'go to a church and worship Jesus Christ.'"
Now, this is not true-- according to the OED, the definition of bigotry is: "intolerance towards those who hold different opinions from oneself." Merriam-Webster agrees, defining "bigot" as "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." Even dictionary.com goes with "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own."
Those definitions don't specifically mention fear, but they're very clear about the intolerance. They don't say bigotry is ignorant; they say it's stubborn and refuses to change its mind.
Similarly, opponents of same-sex marriage will sometimes say that they aren't practicing discrimination. "Upholding Traditional Marriage is Not 'Discrimination,'"they say, because "when gay activists and their supporters cry 'discrimination' they conveniently avoid the question of whether homosexual relationships merit being granted equality with marriage." The basic argument there is that all laws make choices which discriminate between two things (no murders is inherently better than murders), so doing that about gay marriage doesn't count as discrimination against gay people.
This particular piece of double-think comes directly from three beliefs about bigotry and discrimination. The first is that they are bad. The second is that they are historical, not current. And the third is that they are always based on nothing.
This is where I wish to hell more people read more intellectual history, and had at least a primer on race theory. Sure, I'm glad that people agree that being hateful is a bad thing. But do they honestly believe that this is a new concept? The idea "you should be nice to people different from you" isn't new, nor did the modern use of the word "bigot" spring into existence in 1965. George Washington, slave-owner, praised the United States Government as one which "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." (Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island (1790)) Voltaire wrote the Treatise on Tolerance in 1763, decrying prejudice against Protestants and others.** I'm sure if I looked harder I could find plenty of older sources; suffice it to say that it's not like everyone used to be unquestioningly bigoted Back in the Bad Old Days. Nor is bigotry over-- there are plenty of people who hold negative views of people of different races, and like to explain that they're not racist-- they just call it like they see it/think affirmative action is unfair/have a sense of humor, what?
But the most important thing is that opponents of same-sex marriage can't imagine that historical bigots had reasons for their beliefs. Ta-Nehisi Coates explains this really well with the concept of "a muscular empathy." "It's easy," he says, "to say you would have acted better than a slave master if you had lived in the antebellum South... But it's much more interesting to assume that you wouldn't have, and then ask 'Why?'" You have to realize that most people believed the things we now think are wrong, not because they were all stupid and hateful, but because these things were, at the time, self-evident. Historical bigots knew that what we now call racism was proper, the way things should be. Because it was obviously right and natural, because the Bible said so, because Black men with White women made them feel uncomfortable and icky-- they didn't think they were "making a judgment without knowing the facts." They had the facts. They were quite sure of it. The facts they had are different from our facts, but that doesn't mean they didn't have them. They had scientific papers, they had the words of religious leaders they trusted-- they had thought this through. There were reasoned debates about slavery, about denying women the right to vote-- and the people we would now see on the wrong side of history often had excellent logic and rhetoric to back them up. They were not unthinking. They simply had beliefs we now see as wrong.
The difficulty that same-sex marriage opponents have is that they cannot bring themselves to question what they believe. Which is fair. Most of us, even the most liberal, have a deep level where we simply believe what we believe because we believe it's true. We can play all the questioning games we like, but: I believe that you shouldn't torture kittens. I just believe that. It just seems innately true to me, and understanding that some people have reasons to torture kittens takes a huge leap of understanding. Even if I get to where I truly understand the theoretical framework wherein torturing kittens is a fine use of an afternoon, I will still have a little voice, deep inside me, saying, "but that's still wrong!"
But the thing is: believing something deeply, having all sorts of evidence to back it up, doesn't make it not bigotry. Treating one group of people differently from another is discrimination.*** Refusing to accept other ways of life is bigotry. That's just how it is. Having reasons and (in your opinion) the will of God behind you doesn't make you not a bigot. It may mean that you're right. But you cannot both hold that view and claim not to be a bigot. That just makes you a bigot in the 16th century meaning: "sanctimonious person, religious hypocrite."
--R
*Some might argue a terrifyingly obsessively lot.
**"It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?"
***And, yes, the argument, "Gays aren't discriminated against! They have just as much right to marry someone of the opposite sex as straight people do!" is very cute. It even holds some water if you believe that "the union of husband and wife" is innately the definition of marriage, and it's as impossible for a wife and wife to "marry" as it would be to "drive" without a vehicle, or make an "omelette" without eggs. But as the Iowa Supreme Court pointed out, this argument says "gay people can have this right if and only if they give up the thing that distinguishes them as a group." It's like saying "Jews have a perfect right to freely practice their religion, if by 'practice a religion' you understand it to mean 'go to a church and worship Jesus Christ.'"
