Opinion of TJ in Cleve

[Antonio the Sixth]

One of the best, if not the best, conservative posters. I really enjoy opportunities to confront our perspectives on policy and morality.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Anyone who believes that LGBT folk are not worthy of the same rights as straight people is an HP. He's nice and he's personable, but I'm not sorry. We need to make loud and clear that there is no room for these views in any decent society. They perpetuate the idea that gay people are inherently "less than," and it is absolutely not okay.

"Gay marriage is the most important moral issue ever and constitutes the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is good or evil. On the other hand, supporting economic policies that make it possible for people to starve or not have a roof on their head is a legitimate position, though I disagree with it."

^ Modern American liberalism in a nutshell.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Again with your trivialization of the importance of gay rights? This is really becoming quite the annoying shtick. Literally no one ever said anything remotely similar to your hyperbolic statement. If anything, people who support gay rights are in fact more likely to support ending the War on Drugs and creating conditions that improve the position of homeless people.

Again? I might have done at most 2-3 posts on the subject in the past two years.

Of course no one actually said it outright, but compare the way some of our resident liberals react to people who oppose SSM to the way they react to people who want to gut social security or repeal Obamacare and "let the free market handle it". The double standard is staggering.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ugh, I really don't want to get into a long-winded argument about this and I probably should have kept my annoyance for myself. Let me just say I'm not entirely convinced by the analogy. I do think that opposing SSM is discriminatory, but not in the way and to the extent of the other instances you're describing. I find the Jim Crow analogies frankly inappropriate, tbh.

And what I'm merely objecting to here is mainly the fact that you don't find the same level of emotional involvement in other issues that have far more massive implications on people's lives. Saying "it's complicated, people have disagreements" is really just a cop out. There are policies that condemn people to a life of misery, and we KNOW that. Even the people who advocate for them know it. They shouldn't be left off the hook so easily.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ugh, I really don't want to get into a long-winded argument about this and I probably should have kept my annoyance for myself. Let me just say I'm not entirely convinced by the analogy. I do think that opposing SSM is discriminatory, but not in the way and to the extent of the other instances you're describing. I find the Jim Crow analogies frankly inappropriate, tbh.

I wasn't referring to you. As of Jim Crow analogies, I think when a gay person is being killed because of their sexual orientation isn't very diffrent from a Black man lynched by the KKK. Hate is hate.

And if TJ had said it's OK to kill gay people, then he'd obviously be an inexcusably despicable individual. However, he never said anything even close to that.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Ugh, I really don't want to get into a long-winded argument about this and I probably should have kept my annoyance for myself. Let me just say I'm not entirely convinced by the analogy. I do think that opposing SSM is discriminatory, but not in the way and to the extent of the other instances you're describing. I find the Jim Crow analogies frankly inappropriate, tbh.

And what I'm merely objecting to here is mainly the fact that you don't find the same level of emotional involvement in other issues that have far more massive implications on people's lives. Saying "it's complicated, people have disagreements" is really just a cop out. There are policies that condemn people to a life of misery, and we KNOW that. Even the people who advocate for them know it. They shouldn't be left off the hook so easily.

Your opinion is a legitimate one, and I think we can all agree there are certain issues that are more pressing than SSM, but I simply don't understand why you bring this up when Hagrid makes his point (with which I do not entirely agree, btw, because I think TJ is an FF despite his views on gay rights).

The bottom line is this. Hagrid says he thinks TJ is a HP for his stance on gay rights, which is not acceptable in Hagrid's eyes, and you randomly decide to complain about SSM supposedly being the number one issue for "modern American liberals". Nothing in Hagrid's post or in this thread provoked such a response, so why do you even bring it up? It comes across as if it's not only about "priorities" for you, but as if you really find people's concerns about SSM (even if you support it) or gay acceptance a bit silly. And that is something I'd very much object to.

I just find it annoying that people go to such length to base their judgment of someone as a person on their stance on this one particular issue, when they clearly wouldn't be doing the same thing for other issues that I believe to be even more morally compromising (Hagrid himself was fairly neoliberal until recently, as far as I remember, though not too outrageously so).

The question of the extent to which someone's political views reflect poorly on their own personality is a complex one, and I'm open to arguments from both sides. What annoys me is when people apply one logic to a specific issue of theirs, but otherwise resort to the "legitimate disagreement" default on everything else.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I understand that it hits close to home. I can't know how it feels and as such I can't comment on whether you are justified to react the way you did.

However, we can all agree that there are things that feel worse than being denied the right to marry, right? And there are people on this very forum who are very vocal about supporting policies that make these things more likely to happen, right? Sure, they might have ostensibly valid reasons for believing those policies are legitimate, but guess what, TJ too has ostensibly valid reasons for opposing SSM. I disagree with those reasons, just like I disagree with the former, but you can't see the validity of the former while pretending the latter don't exist.

[Antonio the Sixth]

TJ's brand of Republicanism is the type of brand that spiraled out of control and gave us the more annoying elements of the Trump movement. I don't think he gets a pass for being a "reasonable Republican" when he represents politically the worst leftovers of the Bush decade.

You realize the exact same could be said of your brand of Republicanism, right?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh for f**k's sake people. I knew that post wasn't going to go over well, but this is f**king ridiculous. The fact that so many people feel the need to go to such lengths after many other posters have already gone to great lengths is quite indicative in itself.

Amid these walls of text there are a few good points that I'd like to acknowledge and a few problematic ones I'd like to push back on, but I have neither time nor will to do so. Maybe another time.

Let me just say, Scott, talking about my "contempt towards the issue of SSM in general" is just plain wrong. Nothing in my posts indicates contempt, please reread them and don't just assume this kind of things. I am a staunch supporter of SSM and have always have argued for it fervently in several instances. It might not come out here that often, because there's absolutely no point in discussing it when 99.9% of the forum supports it and the remaining 0.1% is keeping fairly quiet, but it's come out in real life a few times.

[Antonio the Sixth]

You didn't "try", Snowguy. Your post was a rapid succession of misinterpretations (I won't call them strawmen because I want to leave open the remote possibility that you're being in good faith) that had nothing to do with anything I said or believe.

If I had the time and energy, I would be happy to clear things up with thoughtful, well-meaning posters like Scott, Kalwejt or Afleitch, but I certainly wouldn't waste any time on you.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sure, guys, keep theorizing and speculating about my supposed views on LGBT issues. It's not like I've made them clear many many times over.

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK seriously, what the actual f**k is going on in this thread?

I make a simple post wondering if maybe, just maaaaaaaybe support for SSM isn't the only morally relevant litmus test among current political issues, and all of a sudden, "I don't care about LGBT rights", I have "contempt for SSM", I think it's a "bourgeois" issue, and maybe I'm even a little homophobic, who knows?

Have you all actually gone insane?

[Antonio the Sixth]

You were the one who first derailed this thread by dissing Hagrid instead of addressing the substantive issue he raised.

And I already said I regret it. This doesn't change the fact that nothing I said in that post in that post justifies the deranged accusations and insinuation people have started throwing out here.

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Flippantly? What I said was that I wanted to respond in more detail but just didn't have the time. How is that flippant? It's just true. I'm in the middle of a quarter where I'm TAing for the first time and have to deal with a methods class far too advanced for my current level. Whatever free time I have goes into election news and polls and trying to maintain the semblance of a social life. Responding to a series of four or five effortposts is just not feasible.

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Believe me, I'm not the kind of person who refuses to apologize when he's done something wrong. If anything, I'm prone to apologizing way too much. It's something most of my friends tease me for. If I felt like I had anything to apologize for, I would have.

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Yes, I tend to react badly when people baselessly accuse me of bigotry. I'm weird like that.

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Can someone cite one thing, one thing I've said here that implies contempt? Because all I've seen is people repeatedly throw this word (and worse ones) around without backing it up with anything.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Perhaps maybe there is a diplomacy problem here. Surely there was a way to communicate that you are less inclined than some others to give more of a pass to those who are wrong on bread and butter issues, as compared to equality for gays, without this kind of blowback don't you think?

The fact that the tone of my post was a bit acerbic doesn't say anything about its content. There is, again, no way people can jump from my posts to the kind of assumption they're making here.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Fwiw I came to Antonio's defense when he was called homophobic, and none of my posts were mean-spirited or intended as cheap shots. Neither were other posters', like Scott and even Hagrid. Antonio trying to frame it as some deliberate, deranged attack on him does not do justice to the content of our posts. I understand why Antonio isn't happy with the way this thread turned out, because the homophobia accusation (with which I really disagree) is pretty harsh, but Foucaulf is right: he was the one bringing up this issue.  It wouldn't be damaging to try and see the issue from "our" perspective and some more introspection wouldn't be bad.

Perhaps it is also good to say that while I have had many disagreements with Antonio, I greatly value him as a poster and often find it worthwhile to get to know his perspective on issues, and it is exactly therefore that I am somewhat bewildered by the attitude he has shown toward LGBT issues not only in this thread, but also elsewhere.

I'm sorry if I ascribed malicious intent where there was none. You must understand that when I see a succession of lengthy posts accusing me of things that I find utterly abhorrent, I get a bit too overwhelmed to parse out well-meaning criticism from slander.

Now, if you can point to specific instances where I have expressed contempt or dismissal for LGBT issues, I'd be happy to discuss them and hopefully put an end to this misunderstanding. Again, I don't dismiss these issues at all and I sincerely still don't understand why everybody thinks I do.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Also, I want to clarify that I don't think Tony is a homophobe or wants to "send gays to the back of the bus." But I would argue that he has been privileged not to have the same experiences that many of us queerfolk have, and that not having or understanding these experiences makes it easy for him to get his back up when we bring them into the light. I don't think this makes him an enemy. In fact, it's understandable because we all have our blindspots.

Well, yes, I'm privileged for being heterosexual. I'm also privileged for being a guy, for being White, for being from an upper-middle class social background, and for a couple of other things too. I try to be mindful of all these privileges and to modify my behavior so as to avoid abusing them, but I know I'm not doing a perfect job.

If you're saying that privileged people have a duty espouse politics favorable to oppressed groups, guess what, I couldn't agree more! That's why I'm a staunch supporter of LGBT rights, as I have proven over and over.

Now what about you? You might be gay, but you're also a White man, and, unless I'm mistaken, not from a particularly disfavored social background. Are you applying the same logic to those forms of injustice as you want me to apply to LGBT issues? Are you investing the same amount of emotion in them? If you're not, that's your right, but don't come here to lecture me for daring to point out that they're not the only kind of injustice in the world.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm not trying to "find a way to react negatively" to your posts. We just happen to have some fundamental disagreements about how one ought to think of political issues and connect them to judgments about people's morality. I'd appreciate if we could discuss my argument on its own merits without you and others using it to infer things about my ability to empathize with LGBT people (which, I realize is far from perfect, just like my ability to empathize with most people is far from perfect, but this doesn't change the fact that people jumped to this accusation far more quickly than they had any basis to).

I have been arguing for SSM fiercely and fervently for years. I've literally yelled at people (during a class, no less) because they brought up what I believed were bigoted arguments against it. I've also regularly and repeatedly taken the most pro-LGBT stance in nearly all the discussions we've had on these topics here. I was at the forefront of calling out Wolverine's bigotry (which inspired perhaps the only worthwhile post I've ever made on AAD, back when I still posted there). I indeed try to defer a lot to LGBT people on those issues. I've been careful not to take too strong stances on issues I still have some trouble understanding, and I've tried to listen to people's experiences when I had a chance to. Again, I know that I'm not doing as much as I should, about this as well as about my other privileges, but I'm trying.

What I'm questioning here is not your position on any issue, nor is it the passion with which you advocate for LGBT rights. Really, my argument wasn't even directed at you, or at gay posters. I'm talking about a general trend within the broader current of modern American liberalism, to which straight liberals contribute just as much as gay ones. X did a very good job summarizing it, but if you skipped his post, here is it again. There is a general tendency to hold certain specific cultural issues (SSM being the quintessential one, but note that that's not true of all LGBT issues) as the ultimate litmus test for assessing the morality of someone's politics - to the point like someone like TJ, who certainly doesn't seem to have any personal animosity toward LGBT people, has to be a horrible person because he opposes SSM out of religious belief. Meanwhile, people who support equally morally objectionable policies (or worse ones) for equally flimsy (or flimsier) reasons, still get the "nice guy, FF " treatment. Think Vosem or Sanchez.

Now, is it so bad that you, as a gay person, are more emotionally affected by TJ's stance than you are by other equally despicable stances? Of course not. Your emotional reactions are what they are - and considering how erratic my emotions are, I'm in no position to judge you on that. Emotions can't be the end of this conversation, however. Morality is absolute, or it's not morality (if you're a moral relativist, we'll just have to agree to disagree, but hopefully you aren't). Thus, when you're making a judgment about someone's morality, you are trying to transcend your own perspective and reach a sense of the common good. If you fail to do that, and insist on being intransigent on issues that affect you personally while giving everyone a pass on issues that affect people that aren't you just as personally, then your moral judgment is unfair.

Again, I'm sure that I have my own biases, and you are free to point them out to me. But if, as a person with a psychological disability, I started proclaiming that anyone who supports cutting funds for mental health is an irredeemable HP while saying that the WBC crowd are perfectly fine people I just happen to disagree with, you'd have a right to call me out on this. Just because I happen to be unprivileged in this regard doesn't mean my moral judgment should be treated as gospel.

Besides, as I said earlier, my post wasn't really a response to you as much as a general point about the direction of modern liberalism. I certainly wouldn't be challenging your position if you were only a few to hold it. The problem is that the whole American left is embracing it, basically making of SSM (and a couple other issues) the alpha-and-omega of political morality, while shrugging off or only faintly opposing horrific policies that literally kill people and condemn millions to a life of misery. This has terrible consequence for the course of the nation as a whole: it means that some extremely harmful and hateful ideas and attitudes, which should be condemned as something no decent person could believe in, instead go unchallenged. Eventually, these ideas get widely accepted by public opinion, and end up shaping public policy even under a Democratic President. And that's how almost 1 in 5 children in a supposedly developed country can go without enough to eat.

Given all this, I feel that I have not only the right, but the duty to point it out when I see someone contributing to this mentality.