I don't think the best audience for this post is people who oppose gender-neutral marriage. The people who should read it are people who have previously had trouble understanding that the actions and attitudes being described are indistinguishable to us, the victims, from actions of people who admit they hate us. In particular, there are many people who aren't homophobic themselves but believe that queer people are going over the top to use words like "hateful" to apply to the people actually spreading homophobia. People who, once we start using the word "hate", would rather try to stop us from using that word than focus on the damages being dealt.
I don't know about gaudior. But if I were trying to communicate with someone who hates what I am rather than shut down the conversation, I would not call them bigoted or hateful. I would possibly call them condescending, overbearing or disrespectful, but mostly explain to them the rest of this post: the harm they and others are doing.
(For my own background: I'm queer myself, and I think it's stupid that marriage should not be gender-neutral, but I'm not much invested in marriage politically compared to other queer issues.)
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-05 06:40 am (UTC)I don't know about gaudior. But if I were trying to communicate with someone who hates what I am rather than shut down the conversation, I would not call them bigoted or hateful. I would possibly call them condescending, overbearing or disrespectful, but mostly explain to them the rest of this post: the harm they and others are doing.
(For my own background: I'm queer myself, and I think it's stupid that marriage should not be gender-neutral, but I'm not much invested in marriage politically compared to other queer issues.)