It is a question of history, and context. There is a long, and disgusting history of attacking being gay as a "choice", as it being something from nurture not nature, something that you can use "gay conversion therapy" to undo. These kinds of delegitimizing comments have been used to defend anti-sodomy laws, to deny the right to marriage equality, and even ITT where it was not "REAL discrimination" when it is against gays.

Most commonly, I've found, this kind of argument is used mainly as an explicit defense from the comparison to black people. While you don't accept it, many people DO accept the CRA as good, so have to construct arguments why it shouldn't be extended to gay people as well. So the response is the (generally terrible argument, regardless of how offensive it is) that being black is "immutable" while being gay is not, ergo CRA shouldn't be extended.

Whether being gay is "ummutable" or not simply has no relevance to a discussion on rights or protections or social acceptance of gay people. They should be able to be married - and not fired - regardless of where exactly being gay sits on some nature/nurture spectrum. So sure, while it is possible to have a non-homophobic scientific question related to this (I think the second son thing is kinda cool, for instance), not in how it was used earlier ITT.

I said this, because I dont see anything that was openly homophobic, so was conceding that, in general, I understand that christians are seen as anti-gay. I dont think thats a contraversial statement.




Again, your portrayal as "whataboutisms" is extremely uncharitable. Its not whataboutism in the logical fallacy sense, my bringing up the cafe owner incident was not intended to prove a position false, or to strengthen my position. For the 4th time, it was to clarify if standards were being applied consistently.

ok, but I still dont see how a question can be disgusting and homophobic. You could just answer the question.

You are free to read any decision rendered by any court on the matter. There are petitions to change this fact, but it remains a fact nonetheless.


Protected class refers to immutable traits, as is defined by controlling precedent. Precedentially, religious freedom is immutable. I would say philosophically speaking I disagree.

I'm really unsure how to respond. This is sort of a "no the sky is green" type situation. You are looking at the four page pamphlet here right? You seriously don't see anything the least bit homophobic about that?

If you don't, I'm genuinely unsure of where to even begin.


I emphatically disagree. I don't think Christians are anti-gay at all, nor that this is a common perception. Large majorities of Democrat christians, for instance, support gay marriage. I work at a university, almost every christian colleague I know is a firm defender of gay rights. So I would be extremely uncomfortable with any form of sweeping criticism of christians as anti-gay.

What is clear is that these specific christians are anti-gay, as evidenced from the anti-gay pamphlets they were distributing.


Ok, I will take you at your word that you were making a good faith attempt to clarify standards, and that you were not attempting to discredit us with an implicit charge of hypocrisy. When you left out the crucial context, and presented it as random Christians being "verbally abused" by a gay owner (as opposed to homophobic proselytizers being told their propaganda was offensive) it didn't make me think you were arguing in good faith. But you are adamant that this was not your intention, and so I accept it on face value.

Regardless, since you appear to accept my argument that indeed these are legally and morally different positions, it seems like there is nothing left to say on the substance of the example.

I suppose in utter isolation and devoid of any context, just about anything can be seen as innocent. It is sort of like how "are black people lazy?" is a question with a massive history of racism, but of course one could ask some academic question about racial stratification of workplace productivity or something. But there is a clear context here.

I don't really care to do a deep dive into the nature vs nurture question on being gay in the context of granting them the same rights as christians or black people have. It just isn't relevant.

I dont understand. If you werent applying standards consistently, then of course you would be hypocritical. so when I was seeing if you applied standards consistently, of course I would have called you hypocritical if you hadnt applied standards consistently. I dont see what this has to do with whataboutism, or "faux concern"

A whataboutism is when you attack me not by addressing my arguments, but by saying "what about example X" that tries to make me look hypocritical. It has become a meme because of how commonly and poorly this is used. When you stripped the crucial context away that makes the lack of hypocrisy clear, my first reaction is that you were engaging in a classic example of this poor type of attack, and were not making a good faith attempt to understand the position of your opponents. However, I accept at face value your claim that this was not your intent. It appears you instead you were some combination of unaware of the context and disagreed that the context is indeed one of people spreading homophobic propaganda. But regardless, your position is that you thought it was a meaningful example that would be edifying for the conversation. I accept that, and it seems we have now exhausted the usefulness of this example.

Your link does not support your claim that immutability is the fundamental basis of discrimination law. The authors note that prevalence of arguments based in immutability but also point out that in the history of law relating to equal protection immutability was only one of several considerations:

As an aside, those quotes should also speak to our prior discussion about the way in which courts evaluate the outcomes associated with potential rulings.

I also just cited another article which discusses the same case (Frontiero v. Richardson) as well as others, making a similar argument. I will quote a longer section:

I'm not sure why you think it's useful to link to the wiki page on legal precedents. You should be citing the actual case which establishes the fact that protected class can only refer to "immutable" traits defined so as to exclude sexual orientation.

The above is incoherent. When the CRA prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion it's not the individual's "religious freedom" that is at stake, legally. The question is about whether -- in the contexts specified by Title II, III, and VII -- it is legal to discriminate against a person on the grounds of their religious identification. Refusing to hire someone because of their religion is not infringement of their religious freedom in the 1st amendment sense, but it does violate anti-discrimination law.

Referring back to the arguments about sex and race discrimination made in Frontiero, it's quite clear that religious affiliation is not immutable in the sense contemplated in the analogies presented in that decision, nor in the sense that neeel is using the term. And yet religious affiliation is protected. Basically, you're trying to twist the definition of immutability so as to cover religion without abandoning your claim that only immutable traits can be protected under discrimination law. But instead you should be abandoning that claim because your own citation shows it to be false.

I did not claim that you *were* avoiding difficult questions. I claimed that simply calling things disgusting and walking away makes it "look like" you're avoiding difficult questions.

My assertion was that you would be better off linking to those other posts, rather than simply washing your hands of the conversation because it *LOOKS LIKE* you're avoiding. By pointing back to previous comments, you can demonstrate that you've actually addressed it rather than saying that someone else should be hunting to find your ideas.

A quick search reveals that you've got 80-ish posts and in 10-ish of those posts you label something as "disgusting," including the first one in which you spent a great deal of time repeating labels of "disgusting" and "homophobic."

Your basic content is fine. "REAL" discrimination as a label to distinguish it from discrimination is absurd (true scotsman-like). The comparison of other non-genetic forms of discrimination is fine.

But trying to use the stupidity of the label to also try to classify it as "disgusting" and "homophobic" really makes your position appear weak. It appears from the outside you're playing more of a game with emotional labels than you are with content. The first word expresses emotional and not intellectual disagreement, which weakens it. The second one in this context seems appropriate, but you should be cautious in your applications.

This also isn't the only time you've used those two in combination regarding LGBT issues.

Well thank you. Since you were so worried about how I would look, it seems you've linked back to the first time I put him on ignore. Anyone who gave a **** can go back and see that this perception is false: I clearly maintained a long back and forth explaining my position. Yay!

I disagree. I don't think that emotion necessarily weakens intellectual disagreement. I agree that adding disgusting conveys and emotional weight, as intended, and one that I believe is appropriate here, but I don't see how that weakens my intellectual disagreement, the basic position of which you seem to think is more or less fine.

Take the homophobic pamphlets from my conversation with neeeel. I intellectually disagree with them. I also, at an emotional level, find them disgusting. If anything, expressing these work in concert with each other, not opposition. I sometimes think in "polite society" we actually are too sanitized from emotion, that while we (rightfully) reject emotion without intellectualism, we shouldn't reject emotion with intellectualism. Besides, the reason I put him on ignore are emotional, not intellectual. So I find it appropriate.


This isn't the only time people have made homophobic arguments before.

Right, there was an extensive back and forth on the two issues of comparisons to pedophilia and the "REAL discrimination" thing, where I elaborated about it on some length. And now we have a new example of a homophobic pamphlets being passed out. I'm happy to have those conversations, and not really worried about your tone policing, especially when it seems you don't have many substantially disagreements that I'm using 'homophobic' when it isn't actually accurate.

I'm fine with saying that I'm absolutely avoiding answering questions that are designed to distract and obfuscate the discussion.

We all knew right when it was first asked that Do0rDoNot was going to go down this silly line where he argues that you can't really discriminate against gays anyway, or it doesn't really count, or you can't legislate for it. He hasn't made a secret of it.

It's okay to not play along with that kind of bull****.

Yes it does. From the first line: "Courts often hold that antidiscrimination law protects “immutable” characteristics, like sex and race." The article then goes on to say that LGBT activists have attempted and have succeeded in persuading some courts to widen the scope of application of antidiscrimination law, most likely because this is an extreme weakness in the position that antidiscrimination laws can/must apply to sexual preference. The philosophical basis upon which antidiscrimination laws are even feasible is protecting immutable characteristics.





I didn't say it can only refer, and clearly in cases of religious belief it doesn't refer since religious belief is as immutable as sexual preference (meaning, not). I said, by precedent, until recently it has been the fundamental basis. Certainly the scope of the law can widen if courts rule that way, and LGBT activists are attempting to persuade courts to do so.



I agree, philosophically, which is one of the major reasons I think anti-discrimination laws are unconstitutional. No individual has a 'right to not be discriminated against' by another individual, and this includes businesses.



Yes, and those laws are not within the bounds laid out in the constitution. The government can make no law abridging the liberty held by its citizens, including religious expression and freedom of association. Anti-discrimination laws do precisely that.

It's protected from laws the government can make abridging it. It is not protected on a person to person basis. Otherwise, Christians would be in an uproar about atheists making fun of them or rationally dissecting problems with their doctrines, in the same vein that LGBT activists throw a temper tantrum when anyone points out any difference whatsoever between homosexual and heterosexual behavior. I've already said that religious belief is mutable. So aside from my belief that anti-discrimination laws are illegal as it is, I also don't think, at the very least, that they should apply to either religion or sexual preference.

I think you need to read my posts more carefully. A lot of your insinuations of arguing in bad faith, etc. are most likely you reading more into my position than there is, and drawing false conclusions about the integrity of that position.

Lol it's super amusing and satisfying to me that neither your nor uke have any idea how to counter my arguments and have to not only revert to the silent treatment, but make posts explaining why you're giving the silent treatment to even stay in the conversation. I'll consider that a decisive victory at this point.

It also makes me further respect wellnamed and OrP who are both well-equipped to engage in this conversation. One of the reasons why they are so well-equipped is their continued history of not playing that silly game.

These two statements are not equivalent:

1) Immutability is the fundamental basis of illegal discrimination.
2) Courts often hold that antidiscrimination law protects “immutable” characteristics, like sex and race.

The first is false, the second is true. I am not interested in your (idiosyncratic) philosophical interpretation of the law. I'm interested in the actual law. The law protects religious affiliation, which is a mutable characteristic, and you cannot cite any actual court decision which holds that immutability is the fundamental basis of a discrimination claim.

It seems to me that you clearly did. In response to my statement that sexual orientation was not immutable (at least not in a straightforward and universal way), you wrote:

I am only interested in your claim that immutability is fundamental to anti-discrimination because it appears to be premise from which you reach the conclusion that there can be no legal protection against discrimination on the basis of a mutable characteristic.

My point is that both your (1) and (2) above are false, as a matter of law.

I'm fairly sure this is a lie. I'd bet good money that you're annoyed and wholly unsatisfied with the fact that I've refused to play along with you.

Let me restate this. I think there can be an interesting conversation about what the law should be. But if you want to have that conversation then I think you ought to write that sexual orientation shouldn't be legally protected rather than it cannot be. It would avoid a lot of confusion.

Calling it out as a distraction is fine. I agree with that. "Since you've asked this disgusting question, I'm blocking you" isn't really doing that.

We all know that there's no intellectual foundation for most everything DODN says. He has shown himself to be uneducated in the things he has put forward, including both political philosophy and history, and he has shown himself a failure of both rhetoric and logic.

I'll leave it open to interpretation what it means to "play along" with it. From what I can tell, there's a full-on intellectual smack-down of DODN happening.

I suspect otherwise. He likely feels he's bested you into silence.

Yeah, but the Democrats hasn't made one of them president recently.

Almost twice as many people live in just democratic India alone than in all of Europe. There is also Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philippines, etc all are at least partially liberal democratic countries in Asia Pacific. More or less the entire continent of North America is democratic. South America and Africa also have democratic countries. The evidence to me indicates that people all around the world have found the ideals of democracy, human rights, freedom and equality exemplified in the republican forms of representative government attractive and worth implementing.

Two points:

1) I disagree that our national ideology of race functioned well during the time when white people were a larger majority of Americans. It didn't unify the country, with millions of Americans and Africans being forced to obey its dictates by literal chains and whips. It led to our most deadly war and the biggest social movement of the twentieth century. Even today, you can see in the utter repudiation by Democrats of the Trumpian anti-PC attitude towards race that it still divides the country.

2) My own view is much more corny. I believe the American system of government and the American people have created a good country to live in. I think that if people come here fleeing violence or oppression in their home country, or even just because of its greater economic opportunities, that they will more typically become America's fiercest and most loyal partisans. This is generally my own experience of recent immigrants, who typically have both a clearer understanding and more positive appraisal of American values than the average native-born American.

I'm glad we agree on race. Also, I agree, we should generally bar people who are members of the Taliban, ISIS, or a Mexican drug cartel from immigrating to the US. Those are all criminal organizations and their members should be considered criminals and so barred entry. What I oppose is using the existence of ISIS as an organization as a reason for banning all Muslims, or all Arabs, or even just all Syrians and Iraqis from emigrating to the USA. This overestimates both the probability that they are secret terrorists and the harm that would result if they were. It also underestimates the benefit to the US from a more welcoming and fair immigration system.

I agree that most Trump voters are not motivated by a hatred of people from other races or ethnicities. However, most of them support policies that explicitly discriminate against ethnic/race minorities. The ban on immigration from specific countries is an obvious example. Demagogic politicians like Trump also use people's natural fears and uncertainty about the future and the basic tribal instincts of humanity to make people more worried about and scared of minorities by lying about their criminality and the extent of their influence over society, and as a result they support bad policy.

However, this is all a distraction from what is actually important - what I (and most of the Democrats I know) care about is that the policy is bad law. It harms our relationships with people in the Middle East and Africa in ways that makes us less safe. That we owe a debt of honor to Iraqis, Syrians, and other people who have cooperated with us in our fight against various terrorist organizations to let them in come to the US. That the US should try to use its power in a manner consistent with its best ideals of human rights, democracy, rule of law, and so on, and this discriminatory policy is not consistent with these ideals. Democrats say all these things, but if we also mention the word "racism," nothing else we say will be heard by Republicans* because they definitely know that they are not racists and that anyone considering them racist is obviously just super biased.

My view is that Donald Trump calls news organizations "fake news" as a means of inoculating his followers against criticism of him. His obvious disregard for the role of the press as understood by the Founders or in the Constitution is one of the more obvious ways in which he regularly demonstrates his unfitness for office.

EDIT: *Not all Republicans.

A couple points:

1) You had three replies. That's hardly a "long back and forth."
2) In a 600+ post thread, saying that someone can "go back and see" something is factually accurate, but it's really unlikely because of the sheer volume of text to sift through.

There's also the potential of faulty memory. I still remember that at one point there was a particular poster in some monster thread that accused me of saying something, and despite multiple challenges to produce the statement and several people also saying that they were not able to find those comments, the challenging poster continued to insist that it was there.

I make heavy use of quoting and links to previous comments precisely because it grounds the conversation in the written record and not just the mental one.

That's fine. We disagree on many things.

First, I don't think of RGT as "polite society."

And it's not so much about "sanitizing" intellectual ideas from emotions. I would argue that the primary positions in the LGBT conversation are emotional and not intellectual. This isn't to say that there isn't intellectual content on both sides that can be discussed (political, historical, and religious perspectives). Saying that we're "sanitizing" makes it sound like the intellectual part came first, then the emotion got put on afterward, and so we're needing to wipe it off.

I would say that it's more about "distilling" the intellectual pieces. Once you get past the emotion, what do you have? Do you have a solid intellectual foundation or not? We're clearly seeing in DODN that he lacks the intellectual foundation, but that's only because he's continuing to put out and try to defend intellectual garbage.

Most of our thoughts/emotions come from emotional places. I think to deny that is to deny reality. But I also think that those emotional places are some of the least reliable sources of what's actually true in the world. That's why we need to distill those thoughts. Those intellectual pieces arise from the emotional messiness. It's not that the emotional pieces are bad or harmful, but they aren't the best form of expression.

To address the last sentence, I think it's both an intellectual and strategic error to use "homophobic" as any form of expression that is anti-gay. I know you use the term very loosely, and it seems that you do it primarily to try to use broad labels with emotional impact.

I don't find the pamphlets to be "homophobic" as much as I find them to be weird, misguided, and stupid. But I would assent to the idea that they are "anti-gay." In my mind (and in the minds of lots of people), those labels are not interchangeable. Homophobic is a stronger term than anti-gay, and encompasses far more emotional content. The term anti-gay carries a more precise feel of an intellectual assessment.

This difference comes from the same place that my disagreement with you loading up on emotional words like "disgusting" comes from. Your use of "homophobic" seems primarily to be driving at the emotional content it carries for you. Your distaste is reflexively strong and it carries that type of emotional reaction from you. But I think it actually weakens your ability to argue against the anti-gay message of the pamphlet by taking that approach.

Consider the following:
1) Policy X is anti-gay.
2) Policy X is homophobic.

For any given X, you will find more people agreeing with 1) than with 2). And this is why I think it's strategically an error to use homophobic loosely. It's not so much about the person you're discussing with as much as it as it is creating more space for people to agree with you.

In the end, you can use language however you want. But from an outsider's perspective, it comes off as a much weaker argument when you put more stock into the emotionally-laden words.

I'm going to give a shot at a narrative, not expecting much coming from it:

The narrative you have espoused here is one that begins with laudable goals, but ends up being somewhat limiting by the end. I think a lot of people think as you argue here. They see the manifest problems of emotion lacking intellectualism in our society, they see the "mess" and try to replace them with intellectualism, that the latter is the "best form of expression". I would suggest the two should play a more complementary role, where we are adding intellectualism to our emotional primitives. But we don't just discard the emotion at that point, we use it to feedback and motivate action, and further intellectualism, and further emotion, and more action, and so on. I suggest that we should embrace emotion in our public discourse more.

Let me give an example. I remember the speech by Emma Gonzalez after Parkland. It was very compelling. It was seeped in emotion befitting the tragedy. It also made various intellectual arguments. I don't even remember if the arguments were all that good....it was a young kid in an impossible situation, they probably weren't. Eitherway, i've forgotten them, but I sure remember the emotion I felt. But to just view it through the lens of intellectualism, divorced or "sanitized" from emotion, would play a different role in society. It motivates people differently, it affects our memory differently, it helps us direct our attention differently.

On a personal note, I've worked hard over the last few years to try and channel my own emotions more positively, allowing them to flourish and motivate (particularly in my role as an educator), not just to argue silly intellectual points on the internet.





Interesting. I wasn't meaning it this way. As in, I don't feel I have some lessened emotional reaction to anti-gay than homophobic. Perhaps I'm the odd one in this case, but I don't think "anti-gay" is particularly common in our lexicon. We don't really say such and such is "anti-black". We say it is racist. I think the same is true here.

But let's flush this out a bit. Can you give me an example on the margin? Some people are distributing pamphlets around town that criticize gay people. The ones ITT are, in your estimate, better referred to as "anti-gay". What is the least kind of phrase or image (or action beyond pamphlets) or whatever you think is necessary for it to be upgraded to "homophobic"?

As time has gone on, my impression is that some of these terms have accepted wider, more encompassing definitions. What was called racist in 1960 is far more stringent than what is called racist today. That's generally a good thing (even for those who think some on the left go too far in calling things racist today, I think we'd likely agree the general trend of widening the scope is good).

I agree that emotion is a better motivator of action than intellect. But I would similarly argue that, at least on this forum, action is quite far from any realistic outcome. This isn't a forum where we're trying to organize ourselves into action (protest, boycott, etc.).

I don't object to "embracing" emotion in public discourse. But I think it needs to be done with care. The same wave of emotion that drives people to come out in droves to protest family separations at the border are the same type of wave that comes over people who feel threatened by racial diversity.

But you're not an orator in this forum. And this forum isn't the type of place for that. And I doubt you're going to motivate people into action from this forum. If you're going to embed emotion into your posting, I think the best form is positive emotional persuasion that draws people into agreeing with you, not using it as a way to draw sharper forms of disagreement.

Congratulations for this. I've argued elsewhere (not in this forum, but in general) that the primary battle of math education is emotional, not intellectual. A wide range of students (particularly female and minority) have stories about teachers that made them feel stupid or inferior, and those become burdens that they take with them.

Think about how you got into a discussion with another poster about the -phobic suffix of "homophobic" and you'll see more clearly why there is a distinction to some.

Although I admit that there's not as clear of a distinction. For example, here's an article in the Atlantic from 2013. In this, the author seems to use them interchangeably, which more reflects your sense of the words.

https://www.theatlantic.com/national...ophobe/282333/

I would say that in news articles, it's more common to see a piece of legislation or policy by called "anti-gay" or "anti-LGBT" instead of being called "homophobic." (A probable exception is an opinion piece.) However, when you have people screaming about something or another, that will receive the label "homophobic."

I think the distinction I would draw is a bit similar to what the article above suggests:

I don't think that the pamphlet contains an intentional animus or malice towards the gay community. I think it's a terribly misguided attempt at communication, and that it could be received as malicious, but I don't believe that this is the actual end goal.

So what would need to be different? I think it would need to have a more explicit message of animosity. "God hates you" or something like that would probably do it.

I would agree with the evolution of the term "racist" over time. Part of that does include an explicit acknowledgement of "racist" things, which I think is good.

However, I wouldn't hinge any arguments on the success of that term over other terms. It's the sort of post-hoc analysis that gets you into trouble. It's good that we acknowledge racism more broadly, but I don't think it's either good or bad that the label "racist" is applied to more things.

I think an example of this is the Obama-birther thing. I will agree that there were many who had a level of racial animus towards Obama, and that this emotion was communicated in their support of the birther movement. But there were also some people who were legitimately confused (uninformed) and were honestly seeking answers. I would call the first group racist but I wouldn't use that for the second group.

When birthers in general started to be labeled as being racist, that second group got swept up into the same net, and then they didn't really have as much motivation to listen to reason and facts when they were brought up because they've already been labeled negatively for their honest questions.

I think that using "homophobic" has the same net effect. You lose more than you win with the term when you use it. When it's clearly a personal animus, it makes sense to use it. "Homophobic rant" makes more sense than "anti-gay rant", but "anti-gay policy" makes more sense than "homophobic policy."

------

As a side note, I think that labeling policies that have a disproportionate affect on certain ethnic groups as "racist" is going to be problematic in the coming years. When a bill objectively does not appeal to race, it's a lot harder to "prove" that it's "racist." I think that this lazy labeling is going to start hitting some legal problems.

Redlining is a "racist" policy. Voter IDs laws are "discriminatory" (discriminates against the poor and others who are less likely to have certain forms of legal identification) and can be considered a way to suppress voter turnout, but they are not "racist" (because the specific language is race-blind, even though they may have a measurable race-based impact).

So I'm not sure that it should be considered a win that the label has started to be used more broadly.

That’s way too much typing for me to get to right now but I did have one question: are you going to mathfest this year by chance?

Unfortunately not. I've actually never been able to find my way to mathfest. It always falls at the same time as an annual faculty retreat that I attend.

I used to be a little bit more consistent (about every other year) at the JMM, but I was department chair for a few years and currently don't have any research going on (either for myself or with students). I'm neck-deep right now trying to build/grow our degree program, so I don't have a lot of extra time for research stuff. (Fortunately, I'm at a teaching-focused institution, so research can be pushed to the back burner without any real penalty.)