Even if I grant that it's God's will, how is it not prejudicial and intolerant?

I was hopeful that the ZOMG BIGOTRY AGAINST BIGOTS! Stuff died in that thread a year or two ago, it hasn't gotten any less silly IMO.

In something like the Lemon example, let's get the easier of the two out of the way first:

• Intolerant: not showing willingness to allow the existence of opinions or behaviour that one does not necessarily agree with.

The singular act of believing, i.e. being "against", gay adoption, so long as one does not show an unwillingness to allow the existence of it, is not exhibiting intolerant behavior. This one is pretty clearly not applicable, I think.

Now, insofar as prejudice goes:

• Prejudice: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

This one is quite a bit more tricky, and may, or may not apply given how stringently you want to define 'reason' or 'experience', but I'm willing to give someone like Lemon the benefit of the doubt given the colloquial usage of 'prejudice', especially when it usually connotates dislike or hostility, which almost certainly isn't the case here.

I would basically agree with the first one, although I would say that it certainly still could be intolerant based on the extent of the belief. I don't know lemon's views intimately but if he was so against it he wanted it outlawed, I would call that intolerant.

I still hold that it is a prejudice though, as it is necessarily a preconceived opinion. As we know, his opinion is biblical and has nothing to do with how gay parents actually behave, so I think we can safely rule out the experience part, the reason, I agree, is a gray area.

I would agree, which is why I put in the qualifier.

Okay.

I'm pretty sure lemonzest and I would hold the *exact* same views on this subject.

Again, the singular act of believing that gay marriage is wrong is not, in my view, sufficient to label one a bigot. Something like intolerance is generally considered as a prerequisite to bigotry, which I don't believe Lemon exhibits, but you, on the other hand, do.

We shouldn't use Lemon's alleged views when he's not here to comment, correct, or defend them (even if you might be right about them). I don't even remember seeing his views on SSM adoption specifically.

Incidentally, my previous experience was that while I accept this is a possibility, I had yet to experience anyone who was against gay marriage and who did not, usually very quickly after letting them talk for a small amount of time in defense of this position, then espouse bigoted views as well. Aaron, however, provides a counter example of someone who is against gays being able to legally marry and who, despite having some truly odd views of the gay community, either doesn't have a strong animus against them or whose particular debating style is effective at hiding said animus.

I know you're not into logic and stuff but the number of people supporting a bigotted idea makes it no less bigotted.

I'm sure you're right about 50% of the world... you can count yourself proudly in groups that think gays shouldn't marry, women should wrap their faces and be treated like property, etc. Yeah, you can find lots of ugly, hateful and bigotted ideas supported all over the world. I'm glad you take pride in sharing that with a lot of people.

I don't know lemonzest all that well but I am familiar with festering zit. I'm pretty sure in this and other matters he has regularly attracted criticisms of bigotry. It goes without saying that he may share some views with other people who don't get attacked like he does. I'd offer that there's something about the way that he expresses himself that is probably very different then other people who may also have opposition to gay marriage but don't act like... well, like festering zit does.

What stands out to me, and I really don't mean this as a personal attack but as a recollection of a much earlier thread, that it had been remarked that he really lived up to his name. Furthering my belief that while I don't know lemonzest, he's probably markedly different then FZ.

This is just about as telling.

I'm not sure I follow your point, but if you were referring to the part of my post that said "even if you might be right about [his views]", I was actually referring to asdf's original post ("I don't think Lemon is intolerant, etc" as being most likely correct), not whatever fz was claiming after.

Boy Scouts of America are allowing gay kids in, but not gay leaders (and presumably kicking out gay kids when they transition to leaders in their late teens/early 20s?) It is a kind of cool story just in terms of the absolutely intense amount of pressure and coverage that has been given on BSoA to change their policies (despite a membership base firmly against it). It is also kind of funny in the sense that this is one of those truly indefensible policies where it is hard to imagine a possible justification to allow gay kids in but not gay leaders, but such is the nature of a political compromise.

Meanwhile, most news reports are not even mentioning that they are still discriminating against atheists and agnostics, but that movement on gays happens before movement on atheists demonstrates the relative acceptance of these issues in society.

On the list of people who are being unfairly discriminated against, athiests rank below just about every other minority group imaginable, so im pretty ok with the fact that that this issue goes first

I apologize for quoting your post. In retrospect, I was just attempting to comment on the conversation you were posting about and the idea that all people who might oppose gay marriage are not necessarily as offensive as Festering Zit tends to be.