I thought it was fair, the conversation on protesting a company vs their belief on what marriage should be is conversation about gay rights. Especially when you reference the biblical definition. Its not about how many kids you have, or cars you own, or how much money you make, its about having a partner that is not of the same sex.

I disagree.

The bolded "that" is in reference to the sentence is in reference to the paragraph preceding it, which speaks only about "support" (ie, "FOR").

Here's the original article: ** Whoops -- not the original article **

http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=38301

To me, the statement looks gay-marriage-neutral and the comments are traditional-marriage-positive.

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As soon as Obama declared that his position had evolved, I was expecting companies to start publicly taking sides. It's a PR race during an election year.

If he was gay marriage neutral he wouldn't of qualified his statement as such. Simply being for traditional marriage isn't unpopular with almost anyone.

Sorry, that was a follow-up article to the original. Here's the original:

http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=38271

So you're taking a position different from asdfasdf. If I say I'm "FOR traditional marriage" you are arguing that this automatically means I'm "AGAINST gay marriage." Is this a correct restatement of your position?

If so, I'll pull back to the affirmative action position. Some argue that being against affirmative action is essentially a racist position. That if you are against it, you're standing up for years of institutional racism. Is "political climate" enough to make it impossible to say that you're against affirmative action without being racist? Perhaps not as much today (though some may still say so), but if you had said this in the late 1960s, would it be fair to assume that you're racist?

That depends on how one interprets what it means to be "FOR traditional marriage."

With this understanding, it's unpopular to say you're "FOR traditional marriage."

I think we should take it one step further in our society and if someone say they are 'for traditional marriage' then they are racist homophobes.

The next question about "fairness" is whether it's appropriate to conclude that if someone is against gay marriage that the person is homophobic, or if amounts to "hatred" of gays, or any of the other characterizations that are given under this circumstance.

Yes, because it almost always denotes an opposition to gay marriage. If Cathy was simply ambivalent or apathetic he would of said as much as it's the much smarter business decision.

Are people who are against gay marriage homophobic? Not by definition, no. You could certainly believe that the legal definition of marriage is only between a man and a woman without holding a negative attitude towards homosexuals. Of course this says nothing about whether or not the average person against gay marriage is homophobic, and I would put the vast majority of such people in the homophobic category.

We're not talking about you or I discussing our position on SSM in a fairly private environment. We're talking about a public statement made to the media at a time when the issue of same-sex marriage is a hot-button topic, as you pointed out with Obama's recent "evolution". You don't read the media using the same rules as you do a discussion with your friends, family, peers etc.

By "political climate", I am simply referring to what is currently a popular political topic, and hence receives a lot of media attention (perhaps "political climate" was not the best choice of phrase, I don't know). When businesses make press releases or interviews on such topics, they [should be] well aware of how their position will be seen based on the phrases they use. In the media currently, I am happy saying again that "for traditional family/marriage" is accepted code for "against gay marriage", and at the same time you could tell me here semi-privately that you are "for traditional marriage" but ambivalent towards SSM.

As for you "fairness" Q: were you expecting anything different to what asdfasdf32 said?


Oh yeah, affirmative action - I'm not sure I see much similarity. Does the group that is against affirmative action consist only of non-minorities? If so, then perhaps you could try to argue a point, but as far as I was aware, affirmative action is not ONLY aligned with race.

My previous comment was obv exaggeration so can be ignored for discussion, but your statement here I'm not sure if its true. If were talking about legal definition then denying it to gays would be a negative attitude towards them?

I don't actually disagree with on this. I recognize (as a matter of reality) that this is what happens. You can say the same thing about any political operative making any statement at any time. But I still question the "fairness" of the implication. If we treat public discourse with blunt language and a lack of nuance, we negate the ability to effectively communicate thoughts and ideas that may be require parsing.

For example, my position (which I've mentioned before) can be characterized as both for and against gay marriage and for and against traditional marriage. The issue is resolved as a matter of trying to parse marriage in different ways (social contract, legal contract, religious concept).

Not really. To me, it reads the same way as the "FOR traditional marriage" conversation. Although the words don't mean it, you are basically automatically (and I think unfairly) implicated if you say it.

Meh -- All I would need to do is change the language to "affirmative action as applied to racial minorities."

what this guy said.

So isn't this thread really about media, and the shortcuts they take with language, whether by omission, by using sensationalism etc?