A new Pew survey has some encouraging results about intermarriage in America: people seem to be more willing to accept it. The numbers show that a majority across the board will readily accept a family member of a different race.
Although I do have to find a few continuing problems there. Who are the biggest bigots in the poll? White people. There doesn’t seem to be anything said about that unsurprising result.
There are also some kinds of marriages that would be unacceptable. Guess who?
The survey finds that most Americans also are ready to accept intermarriage in their family if the new spouse is Hispanic or Asian. But there is one new spouse that most Americans would have trouble accepting into their families: someone who does not believe in God. Seven-in-ten people who are affiliated with a religion say they either would not accept such as marriage (27%) or be bothered before coming to accept it (42%).
I bet most of you would have guessed gay marriage, but that isn’t even mentioned in the survey. We have to go to the Daily Show for a discussion of that, in the context of the New Jersey senate’s recent rejection of a gay marriage bill.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Dreaded Bliss | ||||
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The woman at the end is particularly oblivious — she’s so proud of how far she has come as a woman and as an African-American, a person who would have been doubly disenfranchised historically, and now, thank God Almighty, she is free at last to engage in a political process to deny someone else their rights. You aren’t truly free until you can stand proudly next to someone you’ve slapped down.
I wonder if those same white people would be upset if a family member married an African Non-American.
And this is exactly why neither my parents nor my soon to be in-laws know my /lack of/ religious belief. And why I have to put up with at least a nominally xtian wedding ceremony.
Gawd bless America, the land where people are free to deny other people their rights, and be proud of it.
I’m impressed how my adopted Irish family accepts the fact that as a Yankee lapsed Catholic turned atheist, I only do weddings and funerals these days. The wife and I also lived together for 15 years before getting married, and neither of her folks seemed to have a problem with that.
The Irish are a lot more liberal than most would think. OTOH, the way the priests have been outed as child molesting hypocrites might have a lot to do with their largely indifferent attitude towards the RCC, and falling attendances of late. An Irish solution to an Irish problem, as we say…
How can the people in the video be so oblivious to the irony? Boggles the mind!
Prof MTH made one of his usual trenchant vids about this:
PZ, you forgot to say “Mormons.” We have to say “Mormons” and “LDS Church” a lot to get them started fooling around in here!
As a gay man I’m incredibly proud of my atheist brothers and sisters. I would be surprised if someone could point me to a less bigoted group of people. Thank you all, and especially you P. Z. for constantly bringing this stuff up.
At least inter-racial and inter-faith marriages are allowed by law. Too bad if some people won’t accept it; they can just fuck off. You’re still married. Unlike teh gheys. Progress, but not anywhere near enough.
Why does this poll not register the opinions of Asian-Americans and Native Americans? Especially given that it shows white/black/Hispanic opinions of having an Asian-American in the family.
But anyway. If all those people would have such a problem with an atheist marrying into the family, then I guess my options are: 1) marry a fellow atheist, and we don’t give a fuck what our families think, or 2) live in sin, which is meaningless to us because we don’t believe in g0d anyway.
I wonder how those numbers would change if you broke the categories down further:
-Black of lower economic status
-Black of equal economic status
-Black of higher economic status
-White of lower economic status
-White of equal economic status
-White of higher economic status
-Hispanic of lower economic status
-Hispanic of equal economic status
-Hispanic of higher economic status
-Asian of lower economic status
-Asian of equal economic status
-Asian of higher economic status
(And where are the Asian responses?)
When presented with a hypothetical, many people revert to stereotypes to complete the picture. It is my experience that most whites assume a mixed race marriage to be a step down in economic status. (A gross assumption, I am aware.)
-Wayne
Also interesting, how would the numbers change if the minority spouse had his or her gender designated? Do groups more readily accept a minority husband or a minority wife?
This statistic doesn’t really surprise me in the least. I think one of the most powerful ways religion is propped up in our society is its ability to make us feel like we are part of the out group. I dated a girl a while ago for nearly two years and let me tell you dealing with her bigoted overly religious parents was extremely difficult. There is nothing like the schism brought onto a relationship by zealots. I felt motivated to attend church just to appease them. In retrospect, I shouldn’t of accepted her parent’s demands and stood up for myself. But I think that is the biggest problem… often it is hard to find someone who isn’t religious or at least according to that poll, not offended by someone who is not religious. Depending on where you live it can really be quite difficult. I really feel for all of those single atheists out there looking for someone who isn’t offended by the very thoughts that are in their head. Oh the world we live in….
Anders @ 8;
As a gay man I’m incredibly proud of my atheist brothers and sisters. I would be surprised if someone could point me to a less bigoted group of people. Thank you all, and especially you P. Z. for constantly bringing this stuff up.
Any person of principle should be able to see the grotesque inequality that has been, and continues to be, forced upon LGBT groups in societies the world over. Unfortunately, religion does have this insidious ability to create moral blindspots, especially in relation to the sexuality of other people, in otherwise reasonable human beings.
In any case, as a straight atheist man I feel a sense of kinship with my homosexual brothers and sisters. Fundie idiots hate ‘teh ghey’ because they are too narrow minded to see the beauty in same-sex love. Those same fundie idiots hate atheists because they think we are baby eating, godless abominations ‘in teh Sight of teh Lard’. Of course, homosexual atheists get double the portion of hatred.
Those of us who the Xians would define as sub-human need to stick together. In the common vernacular of the USA, we have ‘got your back’.
Could someone do us Canadians a favour and say what date that Jon Stewart clip is from? If I have the date, I can go to the Canadian site and watch it, but the direct link won’t work.
Thanks.
Sorry. I am foiled by blockquotes yet again!
Yeah, you’d think after the Mormons had had their leader lynched, their homes burned down, and forced into exile, they’d be a little more sympathetic toward others with similar plights.
But they’re (alleged) Christians, after all.
PaleGreenPants (@1):
Good point! I’ve often thought/suspected that we react to foreigners differently than we do to domestic ethnic minorities: The former are exotic while the latter are just different… a distinction that might seem like trivial semantics, but I don’t think so. People who are exotic in predictable, expected ways, and are thus intriguing; people who are different when they’re supposed to be like us are just annoying and scary.
Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I suspect there are people (though, happily, the study PZ posts suggests there are not many of them) who would be profoundly troubled if their daughter or sister1 married even a light-skinned biracial man (e.g., a Barack Obama or Tiger Woods2), but would be less troubled if she married a man from Cameroon with a cool Franco-African accent, regardless of how dark and different he looked. All the suppressed stereotypes (to the extent that they are even suppressed at all) of legacy racism apply to the relatively dark-skinned neighbor; to the fancy foreign stranger, not so much.
This analysis isn’t, I don’t think, as cynical as it sounds. I think it’s fairly natural for people to subconsciously expect their neighbors to be like them, and they have no such expectations of foreigners (rather the opposite, in fact). Of course, “natural” doesn’t make it right — we all need, IMHO, to keep a wary eye on our “natural” inclination to value homogeneity — but it’s understandable, at some level, I guess.
1 Sorry to be gender-specific, but in my experience people are much more judgmental (“protective,” they would say, as if that makes it better) of their female loved one’s choices than of their sons’ and brothers’.
2 No jokes about Woods, please; his recently exposed (you should pardon that word) proclivities are not relevant to my point about how relatively un-different he looks from “regular” white people.
Try being one in Utah.
But there is one new spouse that most Americans would have trouble accepting into their families: someone who does not believe in God.
Well naturally! These people want grandchildren; what’s the point if those grandchildren are just going to be eaten by their child’s new spouse?
My guess is they didn’t have enough of either. Natives make up ~1.4% of the population while Asians are at 0.6%.
For my fellow Canadians:
http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/
– Video Library -> The Daily Show with Jon Stewart -> Full Episodes – > Jan. 12, 2010 -> Clip 2.
Well since marriage is an institution meant to promote procreation and since atheist lack any morals and therefor eat babies, I can understand why some people might have problems.
I think I need a new irony meter. This one is broken.
And how in hell does same sex marriage lead to higher abortion rates?!
I couldn’t care less about what two (or more) consenting adults do with each other when they are alone.
PZ, am i missing something here? The highest % of ‘Be fine with it’, & the lowest % of ‘Not accept it’, is for whites regarding marriage with other racial groups.
That makes whites the least bigoted.
Fehnmaniac, not sure where you are getting your numbers. Asians make up 5% of the US population. Don’t know about Natives, the 1.4% looks like it might be about right.
IIRC, Native Americans (First Nations) make up 10% of the Canadian population.
@ #23
My thoughts exactly.
Where does this claim come from?
I highly recommend the industrial model. It has a built in snubber to protect it from inputs exceeding the range of the device. It’s more expensive and not as portable, but much more suited for the levels of stupidity in these kinds of conversations.
You’re right. I misread a chart. Thanks for the correction.
Addendum to me @17: Obviously, my hypothesis wouldn’t apply to a confirmed white supremacist, whose unjustified horror would no doubt be directly proportional to the non-white-ness of the person in question. Instead, I really had more in mind relatively decent people who struggle with the received prejudices that are an inherent risk of our cultural history of racism.
Also, in the first footnote, it should have been “…loved ones’ choices….” </apostrophe_FAIL>
Nate Silver crunched some numbers the other day and found that of 43 states from 2003 to 2008, those that have not banned same-sex marriage or civil unions tend to have decreasing divorce rates while states that have outlawed same-sex marriage or civil unions tend to have increasing divorce rates with Alaska leading the pack as the first state to go that route (along with Hawai’i which does not appear in the list).
New Jersey itself has had same-sex domestic partnerships since mid-2004 and civil unions since 2007 and the failed marriage vote discussed on The Daily Show was an attempt to eliminate the disparity between same-sex civil unions and opposite-sex marriages in that state. You can see the problem in that video clip: the protesters don’t show any sign that they consider civil unions to be on the same level as marriage, and they don’t even appear to appreciate (or comprehend) the separation of church and state.
@ vanharris & Dan
Looking at the image, adding the “be bothered” and “not accept it” values and you find that Whites are the biggest bigots compared to the others. Even the “be fine with it” values are smaller percentages for Whites.
The only ones that match the Whites are the Hispanics if they marry an Asian American (23%).
@30
Gotcha…reading it correctly now. Thanks.
Vanharris @ 23 and Dan @ 25;
This is a mistake I almost made as well, but look carefully at the poll again. At the top it says;
“% saying they will___if a member of their family were to marry…”
So the first poll entry indicates that only 64% of white people would ‘be fine with it’ if one of their family members married an African American. 27% would ‘be bothered, but accept it’ and 6% ‘would not accept it’.
This is a higher level of intolerance than that expressed by any other ethnic group in the pole.
The bottom entries, that show the highest level of acceptance, are dealing with how Black and Hispanic people responded to the idea of one of their relatives marrying a White American.
I think that this is the source of your confusion.
You’re reading it wrong. The race of the respondents is the left column, not the header of the graph.
64% of whites would ‘be fine with’ a member of their family marrying and African American versus 73% for hispanics. For marrying an hispanic, 71% of whites approved versus 81% of blacks. For marrying an asian, 73% of whites, versus 80% for blacks and 76% for hispanics.
#23 and #25 – you’re reading the poll backward. The category “A white person” is the target race being married, not the race of the person being polled.
vanharris (@23) and Dan (concurring @25):
???
I think y’all are reading the chart PZ posted backwards: In every case (except the bottom chart, in which whites are the target rather than among the respondents), whites had the lowest “fine with it” number, and in two of the three cases whites had the <>highest (ableit only by a tiny bit) “not accept” number (apparently whites and African-Americans are marginally less likely than Hispanic-Americans to reject intermarriage with Asian-Americans).
Perhaps you’re confusing the respondents (left side of each graph) with the intermarriage “target” ethnicity (top of each graph)? Enquiring minds want to know.
@waynerumsey
I would also be interested in how stereotypes concerning race and socioeconomic status come into play here. It does seem plausible that for many people there is an automatic association of black spouse=lower socioeconomic status.
I think the idea about specifying the gender of the spouse is even better. My guess would be that in general people would be more accepting of their son having a wife of a different race than their daughter having a husband of a different race. I think the most extreme negative response would be for a white daughter having a black husband.
This all reminds me of an article I read a while back about how it is much more rare for a black woman to marry a white man than for a black man to marry a white woman. Someone responded to the article and suggested that perhaps that is in part due to the fact that white women still overwhelmingly define the standard of beauty in our culture. In other words, white men don’t find black women as attractive. I found this idea to be rather interesting (and depressing).
Yeah, it’s somewhat ambiguously presented.
I would, without other information, interpret the results thus: that the ‘% saying they will’ refers to the heading on each diagram, e.g. ‘An African American’.
Having left North America a quarter of a century ago, i wouldn’t want to guess at how the racial groups perceive each other now.
Aratina Cage (@29):
Nate Silver rocks, doesn’t he?
No way any of my kids (if I ever have any) are gonna marry a honky.
Off-topic, but I thought people here might appreciate some hypocrisy from his Popiness:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8457618.stm
How very Christian.
Bill Dauphin, OM:
Indubitably! He and Rachel Maddow were the best things to come out of the 2008 election madness in the USA.
Apparently also part of this survey, is the finding that none of them want an atheist to marry into the family.
That’s where we stand. Fuck all y’all!
Steve_C
Ahah, bigotry.
Pew Pew Pew: Seven-in-ten people who are affiliated with a religion say they either would not accept such as marriage (27%) or be bothered before coming to accept it (42%).
Note for anyone else skimming: that’s roughly 3-in-10 “would not accept” and 4-in-10 “be bothered”. (I first was wondering how they got 7-in-10 equal 27%. I guess I need more caffeine today….)
I don’t know if it’s a Canadian thing or what, but I can’t imagine many people ’round here having a big problem with mixed ethnicity relationships. In the near decade that my African ex and I were together, I don’t remember even my father–who liked to play up the Archie Bunker stereotype–ever once having a problem with our relationship, save for the time I told him I was going to take her surname if we got married. (I wasn’t, we’d never discussed it, it wasn’t relevant to the conversation, and don’t even remember the incident, but apparently one day at dinner I just up and blurted it out in front of everybody. Maybe I have some sort of shit-disturbing tic, or something.)
Nonetheless, I have heard stories about couples dealing with this issue, and I’d bet the general live-and-let-live attitude toward mixed couples wouldn’t apply if one of the couple were aboriginal. They still get the short end of the stick, socioeconomically.
And, in case it needs to be said, my kids can marry honkies if they want.
The irony of that African-American woman at the end was just amazing, jaw-dropping. Just goes to show, once again, that the religious have no sense of: Subtlety, irony, cognitive dissonance, etc.
I just read the first few pages of Rick Warren’s The Puprpose-Driven Life, (the first 7 chapters are available free online) and I just about blew my wine out my nose. What a heap of bollocks! God owns yo’ ass. You owe God yo’ life. That-there’s yo’ po-pose in life, now git out thar and convert some people. Gaaaak!
“This all reminds me of an article I read a while back about how it is much more rare for a black woman to marry a white man than for a black man to marry a white woman.”
Reminds me of when a friend’s brother (white British, Jewish) moved to the USA and fell in love with a co-worker, a black, American nominally Christian female lawyer. The American thing wasn’t an issue with his parents. Neither was the lack of Jewishness, really. The black thing, on the other hand … phew. Suddenly Mr. and Mrs.Usually-PC Liberal Tolerance Zone, had a serious case of the vapours. His father got snotty and disapproving with him, trying to convince him he was marrying ‘down’. His mother pleaded on behalf of their poor, ‘half-breed’ (!!) future children! He told them to deal with it or STFU and married her anyway.
Well, this queer atheist isn’t planning to marry anyone, anytime soon, so it’s a moot point, but I can’t marry who I want to in far too many states (I’ve lost count, but the crusher was my home state of California). Am I at least 3/5 human? The Constitution is silent on that point. I guess I’ll just go about my
merrymary, promiscuous way and keep not-marrying my sex partner(s). I’ll echo something said up-thread, and something I’ve said before on this blog: thanks for gettin’ my back. I’d be happy to oblige with a reacharound or even a flipfuck if the occasion arises. Some of my best friends are straight. Not really, but I at least allow for the possibility.The continuing strong prejudice against atheists is evidence for the need for atheists to not just come out of the closet, but make their arguments public. The “nice atheist” strategy has been to try to blend in as much as possible, and avoid challenging anyone’s faith. If they see us acting “normal,” and don’t feel threatened, then the prejudice will disappear.
That’s not a bad idea as far as it goes — but, given the strength of the prejudice, it seems to me that it just doesn’t go far enough. If people are asked why they would be unwilling to have an atheist marry into their family, they trot out all the hoary old apologetics: God’s existence is self-evident, morals come from religion, love is only real if there’s a God, blah blah blah. It’s just as if they have never heard the skeptical case against God, or the positive case for humanism. That’s because they haven’t.
Insisting that atheists will be accepted by society if they stop being so “aggressive” in arguing against the truth claims of religion is like claiming that gay people will be accepted by society if they stop being so “aggressive” in wanting to marry. Bow your head and pretend to pray; don’t hold hands with your beloved. If you make sure you’re not making people uncomfortable, then they’ll “like” you.
But the poll statistics won’t move. They’ll like you staying away.
Blending in may be a reasonable personal strategy for specific situations — but I think it’s a rotten overall strategy for changing cultural attitudes.
This statistic is not as bad as it looks.
The 7/10 are people who are affiliated with a religion. A substantial number of US citizens are unaffiliated.
24% of the US population are No Religions. While 76% identify themselves as xians, only about 25-35% go to church. A lot of those xians are apathetic box checkers.
And it works both ways. How many No Religions would want to marry a wild eyed, brain dead religious fanatic who thinks the earth is 6,000 years old anyway?
I posted this in the endless thread, but meant to post it here.
In reference to the New Jersey vote against gay marriage rights, many of you know from my past comments on this issue, that NOM (National Organization for Marriage) was the largest single contributor to the campaigns in California, Washington State, Iowa, Maine, and New Jersey. NOM is sometimes hidden behind a PAC that is formed for a campaign, and then they show up on the PAC’s filings as the largest contributor to the PAC. But so far, NOM has not been pushed enough to reveal their donors. PACs reveal their donors, NOM does not.
NOM was ordered to reveal their donors in Maine, and responded with a suit that questioned the constitutionality of Maine’s election laws. Now they’re fighting the trial in California with some of the same tactics. They are trying to question the validity of the trial itself. And they’re using the same lawyers they used in Washington State, Maine, etc. Remember the mormon guy, Bopp, who worked for Mitt Romney? Well he is now busy filing lawsuits all over the USA to prevent anyone from finding out that NOM is still partially funded by mormons (not just money, but services).
The mormons produce most of those awful ads that equate gay marriage with the downfall of civilization and with forced gay recruitment of children within the school systems.
Video of the Mormon pollster, Gary Lawrence, who was hired by NOM to ramp up press coverage, also reveals his tactics in dealing with critics of mormon temple construction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J7t–UfyVw
Here’s Gary Lawrence writing about Prop 8:
Luckily, Gary Lawrence and his ilk have a problem, gay mormons. Matthew is gay and is the son of Gary Lawrence, 67, who is the “State LDS Grassroots Director” for the state of California.
Lawrence Research earned at least $500,00 off the California Prop 8 campaign alone (sources vary on the amount). Here’s the “MormonGate” list from queersunited.blogspot.com of mormons
allegedly reimbursed by the yes on 8 campaign.
And here’s Matthew Lawrence quitting the mormon church:
http://www.calitics.com/diary/7520/
What I’d like to see is a mass exodus from the LDS Church in New Jersey. New Jersey mormons leaving the church publicly would make news.
The other thing I’d really like to see is for at least one of these states that have been negatively affected by NOM anti-gay campaigns successful in getting to NOM to reveal it’s donors.
From New Jersey, a personal view of the negative impact of anti-gay campaigns: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNW3mNFC3D4
What about the groups that we so seriously *need* to hate? What about the Evil, Alien Esquimaux (came down from Zeta reticuli to devour humankind)? Or the Vile, Batrachian Manxmen (crawled up from undersea lairs to feed on humans; see HPL, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” for allegorical version)? Or the Loathsome, Unhuman Andaman Islanders (defined as non-human by Victorian ethnologists, actually came through from Hell Dimensions at behest of Azathoth)?
Precisely. It’s the same reason gays came out publicly. If you don’t, the bigots are never confronted with the possibility that someone they know is one and isn’t evil.
Why is this not available for sale as a bumper sticker?
Did they check about christians marrying jews or muslims? I bet that’d give funny results too.
Or worse… A buddhist!
Michelle R (@55):
I wonder. I’m sure the interfaith “tolerance” numbers would be dismal (and nevermind Jews and Muslims; some fundamentalist Protestant wouldn’t even countenance intermarriage with Catholics or Orthodox people, whom they don’t consider to be true Christians). But I wonder if Buddhists would get the exotic foreigner “pass” I speculated about @17. Muslims would suffer in many Christians’ eyes, I think, from the current fearmongering about terrorism; Jews would (sadly) suffer from the lingering slanderous notion that their ancestors “killed Christ”; Buddhists might seem “safe,” however lost they may be to eternal damnation.
Isn’t is sad that we even need to speculate about all these permutations and configurations of intolerance? <sigh>
I suppose it works out about the religion thing… as a young man, I wouldn’t even date an obviously religious woman, let alone marry her.
Thanks Sastra (and Lynna too),
I have to say that as a left-handed gay democratic-socialist atheist, I usually have to pick my battles. My coworkers just know me as the lefty (in both senses), and as unpleasant as it may be to keep it that way, I still feel I have to. Socially, I come out with guns blazing, but that has created a really weird compartmentalization of my life. Would that it were not so.
tsg,
I didn’t come out as gay for that reason. I came out because I couldn’t live anymore in hiding, in pretending to be straight to my familly and friends. It’s a miserable life, lying about who you are. Pretending to be attracted with that girl when you’re actually drooling over her brother.
The fact that it helps our cause is a plus point, but it’s not the main one.
It’s the selfish reason that seems to win over the community one.
Hah!!! Those are Fake Fundamentalist Xians(TM).
A lot of the fundie cults are far more restrictive than that.
The Mormons strongly discourage marriage between non-LDS and LDS. It isn’t completely forbidden because they don’t have the power to do that. But pagans can’t even walk in a temple much less get married in one. And temple marriages are the Real Marriages.
Same thing with the Jay Dubs. They don’t even like Real JWs associating with the pagans and Fake Xians.
Some of the Appalachians are even more restrictive, considering cousins and siblings as…..well, we won’t go there.
I like the way the small print at the bottom of the graph pretty much says “Hispanic” is not a race. Europeans tend not to see Spaniards and Portuguese as non-white.
Me being a filthy foreign person, I have learned so much from The Daily Show, about America.
From America (The Book):
Here’s a good example of good Christians slapping down the gays:
This article talks about the campaign in Maine, but is applicable to all the anti-gay campaigns. The same people are always involved: lawyer, Bopp; TV and radio ad producers, and the National Organization for Marriage, for example.
Here is the script for their video called Bigot:
Starting early in New Jersey: NOM was active in New Jersey in 2007. The National Organization for Marriage Inc. filed a Tax Return for the 2007 calendar year (beginning June 1 and ending December 31).
In that return the organization listed $166K paid to Common Sense America, a 501(c)(4) chaired by NOM’s executive director, Brian Brown.
Common Sense America’s address is listed as a PO Box in this Form 990. An online search quickly turns up a familiar street address: 20 Nassau St, Princeton, New Jersey. Source
NOM spent more than a million dollars in Maine. Source
Example of how state PACs are used to hide NOM contributions:
Source
Huh. I have been an atheist all my life and I have never felt like a member of a despised minority. But I guess I have never tested it out. I don’t bring it up because it never seems to come up. It is not as though I participate in atheist group activities that I would have occasion to chat about the way co-workers might talk about what they did at church on Sunday.
I did have a boyfriend I dated for quite a while suddenly out of the blue demand to know whether I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. When I said no, he was quiet for a long time but we kept dating for over a year after that. At one point, he wanted me to go with him to see a priest about the fact that we were sleeping together because he was all conflicted about it. My response was “bring it on” but he chickened out; in retrospect, I am sure such a meeting would have been a horror show!
This white guy had a black girlfriend ca. 1980…we sure did take a lot of shit from people. My “mother’s” side of the family disowned me as a n(bleep)-lover. I’ve never had contact with any of them since. No big loss there.
Sastra, the gay marriage thing pissed me off enough that I came out of the closet. I was pretty quiet about atheism, but using the bible as an excuse to discriminate against teh gayz did it for me. I’m generally gentle* with folks, but I do tease about the foolishness that is religion.
*Except, of course, with bigots, woo-soaked fools and parasitic preachers. No holds barred!!
I don’t really have a problem with parents not wanting their kids to marry an atheist. It makes sense to me that parents would want their children’s spouses to share their values. I might be bothered if my child married a creationist, an anti-feminist, and/or a fundamentalist, to give a few examples.
NOM-RI [National Organization for Marriage-Rhode Island] signs their anti-gay letter to legislators, “With warm regards for a Happy New Year”. Source
You know, I have never been conscious of atheists as a despised minority. I have never really brought up my atheism because I just assume it would be no big deal. I am probably naive on that score.
I did have an issue with a college boyfriend. He asked me if I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and when I said no, he got quiet for a long time. Then at one point, my boyfriend wanted to take me to see his priest because he was all conflicted aobut the fact that we were sleeping together. My attitude was “bring it on” but boyfriend chickened. In retrospect, I am sure a meeting with the priest would have been a horror show. Could you imagine?
NOM: The Love (Organization) That Dares Not Speak Its (Contributors) Name(s)
You can see that at least some of them are conscious that they’re bigots in how hard they fight to keep anything said at the prop 8 trial by their witnesses out of public.
This is extremely effective propaganda. Here in California, after the Prop 8 vote, it seemed to me that a lot of people who voted yes had the attitude “I don’t really care, but don’t make me talk to my kids about it.”
I’ve been asked “Are you a …?” questions by my son a few times. It’s always seemed to me to be a fairly easy question to answer as a parent. I explain what the word means, give him any information he doesn’t have about it, and ask him what he thinks.
If your kid thinks you’re a bigot, maybe you are.
re: the video I love the guy trying to come up with reasons gay marriage will lead to the destruction of Mom, God and Apple Pie.*
My favorite one, and it seems to be echoed in the “bigot” commercial, is the idea that children! will be! confused! And we simply can’t have that. Their brains might just explode out of their flexible little skulls.
Who was it that said children were confused by long division and green ketchup?
Is the worst thing that this guy can imagine kids learning that not every family is like their own, that their parents don’t know everything, and that even people we love can be pretty terrible, bigoted human beings? Because I’m fairly sure that learning those lessons is one of the fundamental steps to being a mature human being. Isn’t experiencing confusion and then seeking clarity the very process of thought?
Silly me, I’m assuming they want their offspring to think.
*Cherry’s better anyway. But Mom can stay.
“You aren’t truly free until you can stand proudly next to someone you’ve slapped down.”
Nicely put. Is it your own?
#23: Obviously you’ve never been to a same-sex wedding. The eating of a fresh fetus, like the breaking of a glass in Jewish weddings, is a custom that’s as old as the hills.
I’ve been out to most people for years. My last job, with a fairly large multinational corporation, was different. The first day I was on the job ten people came up to me and said they were glad I was hired because the last guy who had the job was a “fag”. I desperately needed the job to support my two sons and myself, so I kept quiet for six years.
I live in Canada where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2005. The religious busy bodies were all over this with full page newspaper ads and the like but fortunately for us, the decision was one taken by our legislative assembly. It wasn’t up to the bigots.
Funny enough my kids never had a problem with it. Then again we didn’t raise them to be anything but godless liberals. I have one in college and the other in her last year of high school. Both have friends of various gender identification and the lack of bigotry at their schools is refreshing.
So, my wife and I are still married with no sign the fabric of our marriage vows is disintegrating because of same-sex marriages.
Maybe it’s because we wrote our own and god wasn’t in them.
My wife and I are really hoping that our vows aren’t legally enforceable. “Till Death or Legalization of Same Sex Marriage Do Us Part” might come back to bite us on the ass.
My girlfriend’s daughter is dating a religious kid. His parents invited her to dinner where they told her that they disapproved of their son seeing someone who isn’t a Christian. If there were plans for a wedding, the grooms parents would not give it their blessing (or whatever). Hilarious to me is that my girlfriend’s daughter is a Christian — she’s Orthodox. Apparently that’s not good enough, though. The boy’s parents are evangelicals.
Per Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia), “Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court declared Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute, the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924″, unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.” The case was decided on June 12, 1967.
In 2007, Ms. Loving said, “I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.” (Source: http://www.freedomtomarry.org/pdfs/mildred_loving-statement.pdf)
Well, PZ, according to the poll and the criteria you are citiing 64% of whites are not biggots. That’s almost a 2-to-1 ratio–an overwhelming majority by any standard.
Furthermore, there is no proof that an individual white bigot is any less likely to be virulent in his or her bigotry than, say, an hispanic bigot.
Also, it is possible to not be bigoted oneself but to still be concerned about the social consequences of interracial marriage recignizing the long and often violently nasty history of racism in America. This would be especially true among older white Americans who are sometimes slow to adjust to new realities.
A more accurate way of putting it would be to say that, whites had the highest percentage of bigots of any of the groups, though even here the bigots are firmly in the minority.
Be nice if you applied the same standards of critical thought to your political views as you presumably do in biology.
Yours in honest dissent,
HTTB
Note the fine print, though:
“Seven-in-ten people who are affiliated with a religion”
So, of out of people unaccepting of atheism, how many are unaccepting of atheism?
Also, it is possible to not be bigoted oneself but to still be concerned about the social consequences of interracial marriage recignizing the long and often violently nasty history of racism in America. This would be especially true among older white Americans who are sometimes slow to adjust to new realities.
OH, looky here. It is the one should act like a bigot because other people are still bigots argument. I heard this one from my parents decades ago in order to tell me I should not bring home a black friend.
Tii bad this poll doesn’t have Asian Americans. If my grandparents are to be believed us Chinks probably on par with the whites in terms of racism.
My parents are born-again Christians although in all fairness my Mom is a hell of a lot less religious than my Dad. It took 7 years for my Dad to accept that my boyfriend and now betrothed is an atheist whereas it took my Mom less than 3 hours. Then again, she only converted when she got married.
First, it’s a poll.
I never trust polls when it comes to socially sensitive topics. It’s too easy to give the answer you think you should give instead of the answer you believe for real.
Second, I don’t care who you marry/contract/live with/date. It’s not open-mindedness, it’s just apathy. I don’t care. it ain’t my life. within the bounds of reason and law it is your life to lead as you see fit. I think the wiccans say “an it harm none, do as you will. ”
Dear Foul Mouth at 82
Snarkilicious little b-person that you may be, there was a time when biracial couples were the subject of harrassment and a national ban on banning interracial marriage was not put into effect until 1967, which is well within living memory of some of us late-middle-aged to old folk. The mere act of waxing sarcastic does not change that sordid historical reality.
As for your parents, even if they were the hypocrites you seem to think, if you lived in certain southern neighborhoods (or even some northeastern neighborhoods I could name), fear of the consequences of bringing home a black person would have been well exceedingly well founded. (This led to a few murders while I was living in NYC.)Racism has historically not been enforced by reason. It’s been enforced by fear and coersion, which has had the effect of silencing critics and restricting the freedoms of those less prone to bigoty, which, last I checked, was the idea.
At least that’s what my fellow liberals have told me. According to you, I suppose, they were full of shit.
In any case, allow me to congratulate you on your enormous sense of moral superiority, which can only help you in the fight against bigotry in all its forms, not to mention being a sign of high intelligence.
J: OH, looky here. It is the one should act like a bigot because other people are still bigots argument.
HTTB: Racism has historically not been enforced by reason. It’s been enforced by fear and coersion, which has had the effect of silencing critics and restricting the freedoms of those less prone to bigoty, which, last I checked, was the idea.
—
Hieronymus, you’ve just agreed with Janine’s point!
Please re-read her post.
No, I didn’t, John Morales. I never claimed that one “should” act like a bigot (Janine’s claim which you yourself just quoted). I said that the fear of bigotry often coerces people to act more bigoted than they actually are out of fear and that in the past such fears were all too justified. The whole point of coercion is to deprive people of choice by making the consequences of acting the way one would like too awful to be tolerated or ignored.
This is an excruciatingly simple distinction.
Oh, excuse me. Allow me to stylistically borrow from you: This is anexcruciatingly simple distinction!
I have found that in the PC enviornment of the left-wing blog-o-sphere commentators such as yourself often exhibit a strangely willful sort of mental impairment. See how liberated we are?
Let me try to make this clearer: The term “should,” implies having a choice. As a general rule, one should be polite but one doesn’t necessarilly have to be. One might want to be rude. On the other hand, if someone is pointing a gun at me, I may expereience an impulse to wise off but the threat of being shot is going to have a most certian chilling effect on the natural indulgment of my sarcastic wit. In other words, I’ve been deprived of a choice because the consequences of wising off are just too high to be ignored. Therefore, as a practical matter, there’s really is no “should” here because my options have been limited to doing what the guy (or woman–let’s not be sexist) with the gun wants me to do.
One more thing.
I said this before but stuff like this tends to get lost. The example I originally used was of an older person who had grown up when violent racicm and the social repercussions of being friends with black people were so high that people were often coerced into going along with the racist culture even if they didn’t buy into racism themselves. Not everybody’s a hero. Sometimes people are slow to realize when things have changed and hang on to old fears long after they make sense. Therefore, it is possible to be at odds with a young relative marrying a black person without actually being bigoted against black people. The problem isn’t racism: It’s living in the past.
This reminds me of the Harry Reid thing. He wasn’t attacking blacks. (He was, in fact, an early promoter of the Obama candicacy to Obama himself.) Reid was looking for a way to elect a black man president despite risidual racism in the electorate. If he’s really a racist, the guy’s street cred is in need of some serious rehabilitation.
People can hold both wrong and right opinions for very different reasons than the people who agree with them.
Let’s see. My father was from the south side of Chicago and was part of the white flight in the fifties. My mother was from Tennessee. More then once I have heard her talk about a time when a certain people knew their place. And I had her parents telling me to keep away from the darker part of town. I will claim moral superiority over all of them.
And guess what, Braintree. Change was not brought about by sniveling little coward like you. Progress was brought about despite the likes of you. I will sneer at you. My heroes are those who ignored the words of wisdom of people like you.
I think what is going on in the anti-gay marriage people is the belief that “gay” is “just a phase” that the person will eventually out grow. Like smoking pot. But if you let them get married, then it will “lock them in” to being gay. And the problem is that it isn’t that some random gay couple wants to get married. It is the fear that their child could go through this “phase” and they just want to be sure their child cannot become “permanantly” gay.
yeah, that’s the ticket.
Okay, that’s a load of simplistic bullshit, but I do think there is something about the expected permanence of marriage that dashes any hope of homosexuality just being a phase that is behind this whole “defense” of marriage.
Dear Mistress of Foul Mouthed abuse.
It is clear that you are so full of anger that you simply cannot bring yourself to comprehend the very simple point I am trying to make and have busied yourself eviserating a straw man. It is also clear that it is no use explaining any further.
But here goes: It is, of course, true that we need brave people to stand up to bigotry. I’ve caught a great load of shit in years past for espousing unpopular opinions and standing up to what I consider the popular bigotries of the left because to me they seem to help conservatives far more than they help us. I expect more of the same in the future. But not everybody has the stomach for it. They lack the wit. They feel in over their heads. They don’t know how to handle abusive a-holes such as yourself. Your utter lack of compassion for such people is the stuff of Republican dreams.
It’s odd that you should have so little sympathy for people who feel coerced but verbally abuse those who you disagree with. Aren’t you trying to cow them into silence? If not, what is the purpose of your abuse? That is not a rhetorical question.
BTW, last I checked being mealy mouthed meant one is afraid to state one’s honest opinion. Since you’ve called me by that name, what evidence can you present to show that I’m being anything less than straight forward? It seems clear to me that your accusation has eminated from a very personal undisclosed location.
Cheers, my eloquent little muffin.
A few more questions: Do you understand that I am NOT saying that everyone who is against mixed marriage is not a bigot? Far from it. I imagine that the overwhelming majority are bigots, plain and simple. I am merely arguing that that may not be the explanation for all cases. There may be a significant minority of people who are afraid of integration because of past intimidation. Therefore, they are opposed to mixed marriage out of fear for their loved ones but aren’t necessarilly bigoted themselves.
Oh, and when was the last time you were physically threatened for having a black person as a friend? What did you do about it?
At the risk of becoming a “b-person” or a “muffin”, I’ll point out that the phrase “social consequence” has a well-understood meaning in economics and sociology of “a cost or consequence not born by the agent making the choice”. I understand linguistic deconstructionism, but “concern about the social consequences of interracial marriage” has the very strong connotation “concern that society will suffer an unfair burden because of the private decision of an interracial couple to marry”.
“I’m concerned about the social consequences of you two marrying” simply does not mean the same thing as “I’m concerned for your safety if you two marry”.
Hieronymus,
Look, all I’m saying is that some people may be opposed to inter-racial marriage because of an exaggerated fear of the the consequences because they’re older and remember when racism was really bad. They don’t want their younger relatives dealing with harrasment and other forms of racist behavior. PZ is stereotyping all people opposed to mixed raced relationships as racists and I’m saying that that’s not necessarilly the case. There is at least one alternative explanation which may account for a minority of those opposed.
This really isn’t hard, folks.
Dear negentropyeater,
I perceive your reading skills aren’t exactly up to snuff.
But now:
is setting up a straw man. PZ didn’t say that everyone who didn’t choose “Be fine with it” is a bigot, but that white people were the biggest bigots in the poll. It’s possible that non-bigoted whites who would nevertheless have a problem with an interracial couple in their family are disproportionately represented to the extent that the results would be flipped were all non-bigots removed from those groups; the wounds from Occam’s razor on that would be deep, though.
Such behaviour is still racist.
Seems it is bit harder than you thought. But then you do seem to have trouble thinking.
Again, the same nonsense. The fact that they are opposed to mixed raced relationships makes them racist. Whether it’s because of their age or whatever doesn’t make it less racist.
Why are you making it so hard on you ?
Says Mister braindead,
Ehm, yeah, because they are ??
Can we at least have agreement that there’s a basic qualitative difference between being against mixed-race marriage because you think racists will harrass your younger relative for being married to a black person and not wanting a mixed race marriage because you’re hostile to black people?
And can we have agreement that in the former case there isn’t necessarilly any bigotry towards black people but a fear of bigotry toward black people boomeraning on a love one?
And since the title of this thread is “I guess you have to hate someone,” can you see the relevance to my original point that PZ’s characterization may not be wholley accurate?
It seems Hieronymus does not understand what racism is.
He admits, it would seem, that some people treat people differently based on their race but is trying to argue that does not always mean such treatment is racist.
Given racism means treating people differently based on their racist he is wrong. Treating people differently based on their race is racism for the simple reason that is what racism is.
Hieronymus,
I think you need to admit that you did not even understand what racism is first.
No, again you miss my point. Yes, racism is treating people differently. Yes, racism is wwrong. Got it. That’s not what I’m arguing. PZ is saying that if you don’t want a young relative to marry a black person it’s because you’re a hater as implied by the title of this thread. I’m saying that there are other reasons besides bigotry such as the fear of the consequences of bigotry. I’m not arguing that the behavior isn’t racist. I’m contesting motive. Something that should be obvious to anyone who has been reading me.
I have explained this over and over and over again.
I think a lot of people here are in need or reading remediation.
Truly this is an exasperating experience.
No.
Being against mixed-race marriage means being hostile to another race. Puncto basta.
No. Because if someone is obstinately devoted to his prejudiced opinion and can’t change his mind about it, he’s a bigot, whatever the rationalization you might make of it. Puncto Basta.
That is not the definition of racism you have been using.
I think you realised you cocked-up and now are intent on trying to deny the fact. It will not work with us, since we see plenty of idiots like you and we can see through your bluster and lies.
There’s a difference between doing or supporting something because you’re racist, i.e. you think black people are inferior or bad and doing or not supporting something because you’re afraid of racists assholes. Got it?
Is that simple enough?
Heironymous,
Yeah, that whole mixed race thing really had disastrous consequences for, oh, say, Barack Obama or Tiger Woods.
Bigotry is unfounded fear of those who are different. Buying into society’s bigotry is still bigotry.
I remember when we (of the USA) were protecting “our little brown brothers and sisters” of the Phillipines from harm because they clearly couldn’t make their own decisions safely. Whether it springs from disdain or a sense of the rectitude of paternalism, it’s still bigotry.
Hieronymus,
I see you have switched your definition of racism yet again.
Racism is treating people of different races differently solely because of their race. Thus being opposed to inter-racial marriages is racist no matter what the motivation.
a-ray, etc.
You have no idea what my point is. Your response has nothing to do with what I’ve been trying to say.
As for the Penford. There’s a difference between behaving in a racist way and being a racist. You can act as a racist w/o having your heart in it.
Treating people differently on the basis of race is one way of defining it. Again, this can be caused by societal pressure not because of one’s honest opinion.
Thinking that people are different and judging them differently because of race is another way of defining it.
Words often have differrent but related meanings.
Everybody knows this.
What I’m saying is really, really effing simple and not at all difficult to understand.
Well, I guess if you let the black person use your bathroom then you aren’t a hater.
A racist is simply someone who acts is a racist manner.
Please, stop making up your own definitions. It is dishonest.
Penford: The mere fact that you are apparantly too stupid to get my point does not make you right, though I’m sure you’re not aware of this.
I’ve dealt with idiots like you before. You are legion.
Penford, let me ask you a question: Is it not possible to act racist because you feel pressured but not really want to–yes or no?
Arguably, the difference between the two groups he sketches is that one has a negative view of the race of the different partner, while the other has a negative view of (the assumed reactions of) his own. Unless the argument is “their family/race will give you two trouble”, I guess …
And of course, a significant fraction will just be using it as a rationalization to cover up a less explainable dislike – which muddies the waters.
Anyway. It comes down to “is it racism if it’s solely based on (avoiding) assumed social responses”, and I agree that the answer to that has to be yes – but moving onto a gray scale instead of the B/W of “racism or not” it’s less bad.
(Just for complications, there’s also the “I did it but you should know what you’re in for”-angle. I won’t even try to dissect that.)
Hieronymus,
First, I am not sure who Penford is. My name is Penfold. I can only assume that your superior comprhension skills have failed you.
Second, you seem to confuse disaproval and non-acceptance of inter-racial marriage with concern.
I imagine that many parents of gays who are accepting of their child’s sexual orientation are none the less concerned that their child may suffer discrimination. Such concern need not, and should not, spill over into outright disaproval or rejection. Once it does then the parent has gone beyong paternal concern and crossed the line into homophoboa and bigotry. Most people here will see the analogy with inter-racial marriage, although I have little hope you will.
Penford?
Hieronymus,
Who is this Penford you speak off ? If you are directing your comments to me, then you need to know my name is not Penford. I have no idea why you would think it was, other than your not being very bright.
Hyeronimus,
Yeah, the all too usual “I’m not against black people but I’m against interracial marriage”, or “I’m not against homosexuals but I’m against same-sex marriage”. Whatever the rationalizations you try to come up with, they are still racist homophobe bigots.
Penfold,
Cut the bullshit and answer my question, which you have not. Is it not possible to act in a racist manner because you’re being pressure to and not because your heart’s in it–yes or no?
The answer is obviously yes. You just don’t want to admit it and grapple with what it’s like to have lived in a society where racism is dominant and to be afraid of its consequences when you have no animosity towards black people yourself. God forbid you should have to treat the people who found themselves stuck in a situation like like that and who never really got over it with any degree of compassion.
Dweeb.
negentropyeater,
I know you think that’s a cutting remark that’s showing me up somehow. The only thing you’re showing my is your lack of reading comprehension since it shows a basic lack of understanding of my agrument.
Please stop wasting my time with your asinine bullshit.
Hieronymus @123, why do you employ sophistry?
Actions speak louder than words.
I have to run out for 45 minutes.
Penfold, answer my question, OK?
Uhm, you know, it is.
Hyeronimus,
no, I understand very well your “argument”. Your “argument” is based on your obstinate misuse of the term racist or bigot, despite what all other commentators here have tried to explain to you.
No wonder you think what I write is bullshit. It’s what is called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Um, I might’ve been too subtle for Hieronymus @125, and I’m going to bed now, so I’ll be blatant:
“Your Honor, yes, I did torture, rape and kill that little boy, but I’m not a torturer, rapist or murderer — I was pressured to do so! My heart was not in it!”
That’s your argument, writ large.
And further, I was pressured into saying so on a poll. You never know what those pollsters will do to you! The hair on my balls still won’t grow back after I told the last one that I thought a universal health care mandate wasn’t necessarily a bad idea.
I see HTTB has comprehension failure. Institutionalized bigot. Thinks he isn’t, but to anyone who really thinks about the issue, his lack of comprehension shines through. Time for him to remove foot from mouth, unless he loves the taste of toe jam and sock lint.
Back sooner than I thought.
Wow, I’m amazed at your incomprehension. You seem to completely lacking in common sense never mind being able to handle a nuanced argument.
You’re also strike me as a bunch of spoiled, self-righteous twits who don’t remember what it was like when the country was really racist.
I once tried to have a black roomate in Astoria, NY and was threatened with arson. Needless to say, he did not move in as I have an extreme prejudice against being burned alive. Of course, if the religious types are right, I’m bound for a pretty good taste after I croak.
As far as I’m concerned, you’re all a bunch of self righteous wussies who are exploiting the comparative safety of today to sanctimonously piss on the people who had to live through this crap.
And, algthough I’m back early, I’m still waiting for a non-bullshit answer from Penfold.
Yes or no, Penfold. Yes or no?
You’re making a lot of assumptions about who commentors are and what they’ve lived through. Everyone comprehends what you’re saying (perhaps I should not say everyone, but everyone commenting has demonstrated that they do), we just don’t agree. Just as undercover cops “acting” as drug addicts sometimes end up really addicted, if you’re still “acting” racist because of things that used to happen, it may have solidified into actual racism.
BTW, if you want to know why most Americans distrust liberals despite they’re being right on most of positions, this thread is a pretty good example why: When it comes to identity politics, they’re either insufferable assholes or all-too-quiet insufferable asshole enablers.
Well, how about you, Miki Z? Did you ever live through anything like I did? How about it?
My life and the life of my wife have been personally threatened with a loaded gun because she’s black and I’m white. Not that it’s any of your business, asshole.
So, let me get this striaght. You and your wife were threatend by racist at gunpoint and you really can’t understand how someone could be so freaked out that they wouldn’t want a friend or relative to go through the same horrifying experience?
No, we are constantly amazed by yours. You are not nuanced or anything but an idjit. Once you understand you operate under delusions a adequacy, you might be capable of actually learning something and understanding your institutionalized bigotry. What an insufferable asshat.
And further, that people who are made afraid of the dangers of mixed race relationships and don’t want their loved ones to be put in the same terrifying position are by definition, racist, hater assholes completely undeserving of our compassion and understanding?
Great argument. I’m staggered by you concise analysis of the facts. Would you believe that some of my critics are name-calling assholes?
You know, it just occurred to me that these are weasel words. I tried to move a black guy into my apartment and was threatened with arson. I ask this guy if something similar had happened and he says that both he and his wife have been threatened because of race but in what, upon further reading, seem like separate instances unrelated to their relationship. So, it would seem that the answer is, actually, no. What happened was undoubtedly terrifying but it’s not the same thing.
I sure wish MikiZ had been a little clearer about that.
And another thing Miki Z. This argument is complete bullshit. Here’s why: An addiction is not the same thing as a mental attitude. Repeated use of a drug endagers with the possibility of an addiction, but if you think racism is wrong but are coerced into acting in a racist fashion it would seem to me that that would have the opposite effect. That one would likely hang on to one’s mental resistance because, ineffectual though it may be, at least they’re not allowing themselves to be intimidated to the point of brainwashing. Secondly, according to your premise, some cops don’t get addicted which means some people, even by your scenario, don’t really become racist, which means that such people very well could exists.
Congratulations! You just destroyed your own argument!
Who the asshole? I’m the asshole!
Chant: Asshole, asshole, asshole!
Hyeronimus,
Are you against interracial marriage ?
And where the hell is Penfold?
HTTB, who the fuck are you to demand a response? Your ego is way ahead of your capabilities. Time for you to go to bed. Constantly repeating your inanities doesn’t make them right. What an ignorant asshat.
clown shoe @ 134,
Define “liberal”.
Say wut?? And I am curious as to what a “mental attitude” might be !
Clown shoe….
negentopyeater,
There’s a difference between being against interracial marriage and afraid of the potential threat to an interracial couple in a racist society. Therefore, it is entirely possible to be for interracial marriage but to be so afraid of the potential actions of racist assholes that one is hesitent to want such a marriage to take place in one’s family.
Thankfully, times have changed. Regrettably, not everybody knows that as some folks’ perceptions get stuck in a certain time and place and don’t change.
Are we at last clear?
Dear Nerd of Redhat,
Please explain why what I’ve asked isn’t a fair question and be sure to accurately quote the question first, not some distorted parody.
Hyeronimus:
to Janine :
to me :
to Matt Penfold :
to a_ray :
to all :
I live in the South and know a few interracial couples and (I know anecdotes do not equal evidence) from their shared experiences I believe you are HIGHLY exaggerating the “risk”.
In the past sure, maybe. Now, not so much.
Yawn, I passed HTTB’s simple and inane point thirty years ago. When I realized that it perpetuated racism, and it was nothing but sophistry. HTTB needs to move on. Until he does, he is an asshat.
hyeronimus,
I just wanted to know how you would have answered that poll about interracial marriage :
if a member of the family were to marry an african american :
1) be fine with it
2) be bothered but accept it
3) not accept it
Big Dumb Chimp,
I’m not referring to the actual risk. I have been referring to the potential assessment of the risk among older people who lived through our racist asshole past and may be more afraid of the consequences of mixed marriage than reality may warrant. PZ, is assuming that if you’re against an interracial marraige in your family it’s because your a bigot. I say, not so fast. It could be an exaggerated fear of the current state of American racism.
I still cannot work out how Hieronymus thinks that being concerned for a family member because their lifestyle might mean they are subjected to discrimination and possibly violence is the same as opposing or rejecting their lifestyle.
I am sure most people with family members who are in the forces, or the police or other jobs in which their lives be at risk are supporitive of their loved one doing that job. That does not mean they would not have concerns about the person though.
Being concerned about someone is not the same as objecting to the behaviour that gives rise to that concern.
negentropyeater,
1) I’d be fine with it or at least not because of the race. There’s always the possibility that said person could still be an asshole. I had a white brother-in-law who’s as pasty faced a galloot as you could want who was also, by acclimation, the biggest asshole in all creation. I think he drugged my sister before popping the quesiton.
He had nerd glasses but was built like Bluto the sailor.
But race would not be the issue.
And we keep telling you, and you cannot understand, that when such concern leads to objecting to inter-racial marriage it ceases to be ordinary, understandable concern, and becomes racist and bigoted.
See, it is quite simple. Being concerned is reasonable. Opposing a marriage because of that concern is not. One is the result of love, the other has passed from love into racism and bigotry.
Penfold,
If you’ll go back to the top of the page you’ll see that the question is whether one would be “fine with it.” That is not the same thing as rejecting a lifestyle. You could be seriously worried about the potential dangers due to a racist society, that is not fine with it, w/o rejecting it. I have to accept things I’m not fine with all the time. Self awareness for example.
hyieronimus,
so you’d be fine with it, despite the fact that you have daid that you were personally menaced by racists for wanting to share a flat with a black man.
You’re just one more piece of evidence that people who aren’t racist bigots will be fine with it, even if they live or have lived in a predominantely racist environement and have fear of racist repercusions.
PZ is right to call racist bigots all people who are bothered by it or don’t accept it. Whatever the environement they live in or have lived in.
Great, Penfold. And tons of people tell me I should believe in Jesus to save my immortal soul. So far, no one’s given me a good reason why this makes any sense. The above statement from you doens’t make any sense either. Screw them and screw you.
You have said nothing to make me doubt my stance. You’re not even pretending to make an argument anymore. You’re just repeating unsubstantiated PC assertions.
And you still haven’t answered my question.
The only thing you’ve convinced me of is that you’re one first-class arrogant weasel.
I declare myself winner of this thread!
Nighty nite.
If that makes you satisfied with yourself…
@141: They were not separate incidents. Your reading is as twisted as any creationist’s. Enjoy your life.
Proving once again to the Pharyngulites you are egotistical fool with delusions of adequacy. Considering the brainpower telling you that you were a fool, all you have is idjit bombast. No surprise there, as cogency wasn’t your friend. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out…
Again you have been unable to come up with any substantive criticism of this poistion. Which leads me to conclude you are neither willing nor capable of doing so.
Ah, the “It’s PC gone mad” gambit. The last refuge of the bigoted and clueless. Again, no sunstantive criticism.
Try asking one.
Comment on my part would be superfluous.
You will not be missed.
Hieronymus, the point is that the action you describe, not being cool with a family member’s interracial relationship due to fears of how they will be treated, contributes directly to racism in society. It simply doesn’t matter why you are disapproving, because your disapproval contributes to racism and is therefore a racist action. Although you wouldn’t think that you are a racist, you are in fact acting exactly like one, and from the rest of society’s viewpoint there is no difference. No one knows what’s going on inside your head, only what your actions are.
And yes, “concern” is a negative thing like outright disapproval; it will manifest itself by causing uncomfortable interactions with those family members, by you providing a constant undercurrent of negativity, by them sighing in resigned annoyance when they have to listen to you being “worried about them” yet again. It will be a drain on their relationship, and it could indeed contribute to the relationship not working out. This is racism. It doesn’t matter how you feel on the inside about it; what matters is that your actions are racist.
Wow, you really are showing your true racist colors. How did the man’s skin color have anything to do with the threat of arson?
The things that my son does which cause me worry fall into two categories:
Things I wish he wouldn’t do because I think they’re needlessly risky.
Things I wish he wouldn’t do because they’re risky.
I don’t try to stop him from doing the second, only to minimize his risk. If that risk is disapproval from society in whatever form it might take, my own silence or disapproval increases that risk. One of the tragedies of the world is that there are people for whom love is a needless risk.
I have heard the “It’s not that I’m bothered by it – I’m worried about them in a racist/homophobic society” bit many times in my life. Invariably, it’s dishonest, and it comes out in another context that the person is bothered by it.
The Troll’s attempt at an interpretation of this survey is simply implausible. The responses offered were: Be fine with it; Be bothered, but accept it; and Not accept it. Anyone who thinks any significant number of people who answered the latter two didn’t understand the question or were nonracists who were simply concerned (“I accept it completely, but I’d be concerned for their safety; guess I should answer b or c”) shouldn’t be allowed near sharp objects. People understand what “accept” means in this context. And you’ll note that the people in the groups that have faced racism and therefore would have most reason for concern or fear about their relatives in a racist society are, as PZ noted, less likely to be bothered or not accept it.
So, I am just so filled with leftist anger that I could not understand and have compassion for those people who have physically threatened me in the past. And, for the fucking record, I have had a deranged asshole threaten to shot the group of women I was with at a parade.
Also, I am quite impressed by the fact that you fucking know that in real life transaction, that I am abusive to people around me. Sorry, jackass, I save my verbal abuse for special people, people like you.
I am so sorry that I am unable to comprehend the bravery that you show when you inform others that the act of standing up for their rights ends up alienating those people who are suppressing their rights. Yeah.
Fuck you and everything you stand for, you sniveling toad.
Oh, so you were threatened by neighbors or what? There is so much more to this story that you are not sharing, but what did you do to fight such KKK-like attitudes? From the sound of it, you did nothing but kick out the Black man who was living with you.
Janine, not that I have any right to ask, but did you first check with that deranged asshole before entering the parade? If you check first, they’ll warn you of their intentions and you can back out. You could print out cards:
Fill in the blank for action and address and distribute liberally (as if you could distribute any other way).
Thanks, Miki Z. That was funny.
@ HTTB
Or you could grow a fucking backbone and do what’s right in spite of the racist assholes.
I confess that as I tried to get caught up on this thread this morning, I very quickly lost patience with HTTB, and I make no pretense of having read all of his bloviating.
I do think there’s a distinction to be made between people who, in a more-or-less self-aware fashion, express hatred of an ethnic or social majority and those who, more or less unconsciously, promote stereotypes or prejudices they’ve absorbed from the legacy culture… but to suggest (as HTTB seems to be) that the latter condition doesn’t count as racism is bogus. Maybe we need subtler and more precise language around these issues… or maybe we must need subtler and more precise commenters than HTTB appears to be.
If anything, the sort of racism that occurs when otherwise decent people thoughtlessly recapitulate historical prejudices is more dangerous, in the long run and over the whole society, than the ostensibly more horrific actions of true haters: Hateful assholes are relatively easy to identify, and the struggle against conspicuously hateful acts and policies is easy to promote and defend. Unflinchingly recognizing our own received prejudices, and those of our loved and respected fellows, is much more difficult… and yet, it is ultimately this undercurrent of ignorance and acquiescence that has the greatest power to retard social progress.
The answer can never be, as HTTB counsels, to accommodate prejudice; we must stand up in its face. The fact that your neighbors may not be conspicuously hateful assholes makes it more important, not less, that we not say, “Dear, I have no problem with the fact that your fiance is [a different race, a different religion, the same sex, etc.], but I’m worried about what your neighbors may think or do, so you’d better call it off.” Instead, any hope for the future demands that we say, “Dear, you may find that your neighbors and family, people who love you and whom you love and respect, may react negatively in ways you don’t expect… but that’s why you must go ahead anyway; the world needs — I need — the example of your love and tolerance, if we’re ever to be better than we are now.”
D’Oh!!!
@173, “…an ethnic or social majority…” should, transcendently obviously, have been “…an ethnic or social minority….”
I hate when that happens!
If it makes you feel any better, on a recent evolution thread, I claimed that microbes were my direct descendants.
If I had any standing at all in this community, I certainly don’t any more.
MrFire (@175):
Nah. If it were that easy to get cashiered in this community, I’d’ve had my OM rescinded, the buttons stripped off my coat, and my saber broken long since. Be of good cheer!
“However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being.But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.” [Senator Barry Goldwater]
Unfortunately this is a worldwide problem.
What? Someone made a goof and corrected it? Welcome to the club Mr. Fire. Corrected mistakes are shrugged off. We just blame them on the typo cooties that infest this si
ghte.How can anyone be quite as lacking in self-insight as HTTB? Does he really not know that “Oh it doesn’t bother me, but I’m worried about how other people would react” has been the racist’s favourite excuse for decades, if not centuries? However, what’s really gobsmacking is his claim to be of the left. As far as I recall, every time he has put in an appearance here it has been to espouse or excuse some form of bigotry generally characteristic of the right.
Right. “We don’t think there’s anything wrong with being lesbian, we’re just worried that other people will make your life harder.” That’s not a very convincing argument when it’s followed by “so you have to go see a psychologist once a week after school.”
Fortunately, the psychologist was professional enough that I doubt she ever told my parents that I spent the sessions talking about my parents, not my sexual orientation. (Well, I may have mentioned that they disapproved of my girlfriend and were trying to keep me from seeing her.)
What a statement like that says is “so don’t tell us about your personal life.” Turns out I’m about a Kinsey 5, not a 6, and that let my parents pretend I was straight for a long time, and by the time my mother ran into the reality again, she was able to accept it. But folks, do you really want to give your about-to-start-college children reasons to hide important things from you?
Isn’t it an internet law that whomever declares himself “winner of the thread” is in fact the massive loser? For all of HTTB’s blathering, *nothing* was as galling to me as this.
I think I am suffering from de ja vous. The… um,… (oh lets be generous and call it an argument), made by Hieronymus The Troll Braintree (the last word of that handle may be superflous, methinks) is almost an exact word-for-word repitition of the argument my father used, while he was still with us, to explain why he opposed interracial relationships.
He would say that while he was personally OK with a white person and a black person getting married (as long as their genitalia were different, but that’s a whole other story), society was still full of bigoted people, and as a result the ‘half-caste’ (yes, he actually used that horrible term) children would have lives utterly blighted by their mixed race parentage.*1 He also argued that marriages accross ethnic groups and dual heritage children inflamed inter-community tensions and lead to riots and increased rates of racially motivated violent crime, and so were best avoided in order to maintain the peace.
The sad part was that my father had no time whatsoever for the far right, that he used to describe as ‘vile little skin head punks’, and would have been horrified if anyone accused him of racism, yet he still held this clearly racist position.
I was not convinced by these types of arguments when my own father used them, coming from Hieronymus The Troll Braintree I find them still less persuasive.
Ahh, the final defence of one who knows the day is lost;
“No I didn’t lose, I won! So there! NA Na NA-NA NA!”
I have not found anyone quite so annoying since Hyperon last slithered about the blog. It is just as well Hieronymus has gone. If he had uttered but one more slanderous slight against Janine, Fair Lady of Pharyngula, OM, Then I would not have been responsible for my actions. Cheeks would have been struck with gauntlets! Challeges would have been issued! And I would have met the troll with the Bright Sword of Reason (+5 agaisnt Chaotic Stupid) upon the field of honour come the next dawn!*2
*1 He also used to destroy his own figleaf by going on to espouse a ridiculous notion that dual heritage people were genetically weaker than than people of a ‘pure’ race because the genomes of the various racial groups were not entirely ‘compatible'(my father was wholly unqualified when it cames to genetics, but this never stopped him from holding forth on the issue), and so dual heritage individuals were pre-disposed to certain illnesses “through no fault of their own”, as if a person could be held accountable for the ethnicity of their parents under some circumstances. I tried to explain the idea that genetics do not work like that on countless occasions, but I am afraid I never got anywhere.
*2 Note to self, to maintain the illusion of sanity amongst my fellow Pharyngulites I must reduce geekiness level by 25%. Also, consider entering fantasy fiction rehab.
v.rosenzweig @ 180;
I am afraid that I am going to expose massive, cringe-worthy ignorance here, but would you mind explaining what a ‘Kinsey’ is? I assume it is some kind of gradated scale of homosexual activity or attraction, but I have not heard the term used before.
Actually, the very idea of trying to pidgeon hole to what degree a person is homosexual seems a little bit off to me, but that may be my ignorance talking…
This is really embarrassing. :-(
Raven @ 61,
Got a source for your assertion re Appalachians?
— JPS, Appalachian atheist
Gregory-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale
Damn. Meant “Raven @ 61.
Well, I have just gone to Wikipedia, and the all-knowing site of the intertoobes has furnished me with a definition. It is interesting that the site says that many contemporary sexual psychologists consider the Kinsey scale a somewhat simplistic expression of the complex interaction of sexual orientation and sexual identity.
At least I have learned a new thing today, and filled in another small part of the yawning chasm of my ignorance.
I shall reward myself with some bacon I think.
Double damn!
“Raven @ 60.”
RickR;
Thanks for the link, but I managed to stumble upon the page myself. Aren’t the intertoobes wonderful?
Thanks again.
wasn’t that the excuse used by the judge of “I even let them use my bathroom” fame?
Seems the entire derail was just about Hieronymus the troll being unpleasantly reminded of his own cowardly actions. Here’s a clue, coward: if your actions result in mistreatment of someone because of their race, it’s racism and you’re racist. The difference being that they are hateful racists, and you’re a cowardly one. And it takes both to perpetuate the status quo of racism.
RickR (@185):
Let me add my thanks to Gregory’s for the linkie. I knew what the Kinsey Scale was in concept, but, in the way of these things, had never actually seen it with the spelled-out descriptors of the various steps.
Now that I have seen it, I find myself wondering how people use the scale to self-rate, and what the distribution curve of such self-ratings would look like.
Personally, I’ve always self-identified as straight, and at first blush, I’d rate myself as a Kinsey 0 (exclusively heterosexual), because I’ve never had any homosexual experiences (unless you count strip poker with other boys, back when we were all so young we didn’t really understand why it was naughty), and the object of my erotic imagination is never another man.
OTOH, I have an instinctive horror of placing myself at the extreme end of any scale1, especially when the numerical designator is 0… so I find myself wondering how people interpret predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual (Kinsey 1). Does that imply actual incidents of homosexual behavior? Occasional (albeit rare) homosexual fantasies? Or would simply not being squicked by homosexuality, or not recoiling at the idea of accidental, incidentally sexual contact (e.g., accidentally touching another man’s butt in a crowd situation), be sufficient to call oneself a Kinsey 1. Are there lots of people who would rate themselves 1, 2, 4, or 5 on this scale, or do self-ratings cluster around 0 (totally straight), 3 (fully bi), and 6 (totally gay)?
I realize I’ve wandered way off topic, but I’m curious: Are there psychologists, sociologists, cultural anthropologists, or sex researchers among you who can offer any insight into how the Kinsey Scale (or any similar attempt to gather data about the distribution of sexual preferences) plays out in actual populations? Enquiring minds want to know!!… or at least, this one does.
1 As an aside to those who actually know something about the science of surveys and ratings, is there a generally recognized bias regarding the extreme ends of rating scales? I know I’ve heard of professors who seemed to be biased against giving students “perfect” grades.