The hate debate goes on! (As you can see in the comments to my Instalanched post, I have taken some flak for Steven Malcolm Anderson’s comment.)
According to Mike S. Adams (also linked by Glenn Reynolds) a student was recently raked over the coals and basically censored for having stated that he found homosexuality to be “disgusting.”
There is no question that the student’s remarks are protected by the First Amendment. In censoring him, his teachers did something far worse than had they simply insulted him in return. Sometimes, in robust debate, people say things which others deem offensive. If free speech means anything, it must mean allowing people to say what they think — and allowing others to comment in return.
Let us suppose though, that the teacher had simply allowed a group discussion of the issue.
“Is homosexuality disgusting?”
Or, possibly,
“Is it hateful to describe other people’s sexual practices as disgusting?”
Whether or not it is hateful seems about as relevant as the question whether it is hateful to describe black people’s habits as disgusting, or Jewish or Christian practices. Hateful or not, “disgusting” is certainly not a word I would hurl at people and not expect repercussions.
But censorship should not be one of them.
Does it matter whether calling someone’s practices disgusting is based on someone’s interpretation of the Bible? In the context of the First Amendment I don’t think so — any more than it would matter if it came from the Koran, Mein Kampf, or any other book. The religious views of the student are entitled to just as much respect as the religious or non-religious views of any other student.
Should religious views be accorded more weight than non-religious views? In logic they should not. I know this stuff is not always treated logically, but let us suppose an atheist were to state that he agreed with Leviticus that lying with a man as a woman is an abomination. Would his view be less protected than the same view uttered by someone who believed that the same words were God’s law? It strikes me that saying that religious speech is more protected than non-religious speech grants a special privilege to anyone claiming his views are supported by God. And, once we start down that path, then what’s to stop someone else from claiming that his religious views should be accorded even more weight, and so on?
All views are entitled to equal respect. (And by “respect” I do not mean agreement, nor approval; only an equal right to be heard!) But as a practical matter, if you tell people that the way they make love is disgusting, you can expect that they will respond in kind.
That’s not moral relativism; it’s life.
I have long maintained that sexual practices are about as relevant to me as tastes in food. I find hard-boiled eggs disgusting, and I love cream-filled doughnuts.
I don’t mean to insult hard-boiled egg lovers either.
Would it matter if I said that I hate hard-boiled eggs?
ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE: Notwithstanding my deliberate facetiousness, civility and respect for other people are important. I think we need to practice civility, but also develop thicker skins.
Disgusted by hate….
by
Tags:
Comments
11 responses to “Disgusted by hate….”
This is only my opinion and no one else’s, obviousl, but why is the word of the homophobic and extremely biased Town Hall being taken as gospel?? Why are we treating with such whispered tones a website which features Ann Coulter? The mere fact that they are so upset about this horrible “censorship” makes me roll my eyes, as they are not upset by “censorship” which involves stripping gays of any legal rights, or of non-Christians to want to live their lives without being told that the Bible is the judge and jury for every single aspect of society. Why doesn’t the horribly-headshotted author of that hit piece go to North Carolina and say “hey, I’m gay”. And then after he winds up losing a few teeth or being verbally torn to pieces, he might understand why a professor might not want to put up with smug gay-bashing in what is supposed to be a secular classroom. BTW, since, from what I remember, although I could be wrong, Town Hall is in favor of the David Horowitz blacklist brigade (Ann Coulter definitely is), it’s hypocritical of them to lash out on censorship when they themselves want to punish and censor non-fundamentalist Christians.
As for Bush-bashing, I don’t remember Clinton being treated any better. Actually he was treated a lot worse. No one has put out lists of 12 or 15 people Bush supposedly murdered. No one has called Laura a “feminazi” or used every part of her past in order to demonize her and her husband. No one has called his daughters ugly, or used their drunken binges and lawbreaking to make him look bad. No one has dredged up his brother’s love for Japanese callgirls or constant business scandals. Bush has had much more of a free ride from the media and the public, due to the media bias and to 9/11. “Polite society” tried to tolerate the man even when he associated with cohorts like Falwell and Robertson who blamed “polite society” for terrorism and murder to start with. The difference is that when anyone criticizes Bush, many conservatives gasp in horror and run from the room. They are being unAmerican, liberal, blah blah blah. How dare you criticize the war hero President who saved us all on 9/11 and who gave soldiers turkey while he simultaneously tried to cut their hazard pay bonuses and shut down their VA hospitals?
I should add that I support free speech. But bigotry and free speech are not always one and the same. How many college classrooms would allow things like “I don’t like n****** because they eat watermelon and can’t read” or “I don’t like spics because they knock up white women and can’t speak English”?
None.
And yet, colleges are supposed to allow students to go on and on about how disgusting and sick gays are?
Why the double standard? Why is it that gay-bashing is always seen as free speech, while racism and Christian-bashing are seen as evil?
Excellent points, James.
“Neo-conservative” Irving Kristol, a long-time advocate of censorship of “obscenity”, once said, in a symposium on “Sex and God in American Politics” (“Policy Review”, Summer 1984):
“I don’t think advocacy of homosexuality is protected by the First Amendment.”
And these people now posture as defenders of free speech! That’s the kind of hypocrisy I’m talking about. When Justice Hugo Black, one of the few true “strict constructionists” in the Supreme Court’s history, opposed censorship on the grounds that in his literal reading of the First Amendment “‘no law’ means no law”, he was vilified by these same people as an ultra-liberal and even a Communist, as was Justice William O. Douglas.
I’m consistent. I consistently defend the First Amendment both for myself and for my enemies.
A man was arrested in England for carrying a sign saying “Stop Homosexuality! Stop Lesbianism! Stop Immorality!” I oppose that censorship of him. I say he has every right to say that.
And I have the equal right to disagree and to condemn him for it and to say the opposite: “Up With Homosexuality! Up With Lesbianism! Up With Beauty!”
Ernst Zundel has the right to say the Holocaust is a Zionist hoax. Let him say it.
And I have the equal right to despise him for it and to say that Zundel is a hoax of a human being and that Holocaust deniers are Nazi frauds and: “Never Again!”
A Communist has the right to advocate his Utopia.
And I have the equal right to say I’d rather be dead than live in it.
Free speech is a two-way street.
I have noticed that what squicks one person is perceived to be disgusting by them notwithstanding, someone else may find what they do disgusting. I think preferences are hardwired, can’t change them. It would be nice if people would recognize that differences exist and not mistreat others cause of their differences.
Hate is not Christian or a family value. The egg analogy was good, certainly better than the one I would have used.
I doubt any of the noble uber-conservatives clucking over evil critics of Bush are still around here, but if they are, you can enjoy your party’s laughing and guffawing over the death of Paul Wellstone. Young Republicans, what a group, huh?
http://www2.sltrib.com/columnists/RollyWells/main/index.asp
Not to defend Bush, but the uber-conservatives are plenty pissed at him right now — for not condemning gay marriage in fierce-enough terms. Doubtless, they’re still unforgiving about the gay appointments.
James, I think there’s quite a difference between saying that one is disgusted (whether by blacks, gays, Hispanics) and using words like “nigger”, “spic”, or “faggot.” There is just as much right to say that one is disgusted by Biblical literalists as for them to claim religious disgust over homosexuality.
By the way, Town Hall is not “taken as gospel”; it is treated as true for the sake of this argument. If the incident never occurred, that reflects poorly on Town Hall and on the writer, but it really doesn’t affect the hypothetical discussion of it. My point is, whether someone is disgusted by me is his absolute right — and irrelevant unless he wants to harm me, in which case I am armed. There really is no way to live your life “without being told that the Bible is the judge and jury for every single aspect of society” — any more than there is any way for Biblical literalists to live their lives without being told that gays have the right to marry and live in society. You have just as much right to answer them as they do you.
Even in North Carolina!
http://www.ncpride.org/pride/index.shtml
By the way, I am against having anyone “losing a few teeth” because of personal opinions or lifestyles, although when I marched in a “Gay Guns” float in San Francisco’s 1982 Lesbian/Gay Pride Parade, I was “verbally torn to pieces” (booed, hissed, called “traitor”, “murderer”, “pig”), was spat at, and had bottles thrown at me. (I don’t imagine it would be much worse if I drove down to North Carolina and said “Hey I’m gay!” but I could be wrong….)
I agree with Eric (as always!). Like fear, anger, hate, love, joy, and all other affects, disgust is a basic human emotion. (Dean Esmay wrote an excellent defense of hate a while ago.) E.g., certain foods disgust me.
Those at the extremes of the spectrums of sexual orientation are, I think, more prone to disgust.
A purely heterosexual/gynosexual man often feels disgust, revulsion, at the mere thought of a man kissing or having sexual relations with another man — but he would feel the opposite emotion at the thought or sight of a woman kissing or having sexual relations with another woman. Most societies have been dominated by such men, and their disgusts have, all too often,been translated into social norms or even laws and often projected onto the Divine (e.g., the infamous Leviticus 20:13).
Conversely, a purely homosexual/androsexual man would feel disgust at the thought of a man kissing a woman. In childhood, boys often feel this and express this openly: “Ugh! Kissing a girrrrl! Ick!” — and the girls feel the same way about boys. I remember this well from my own childhood. Teachers sometimes assigned seating “boy-girl-boy-girl” as a _punishment_. In adolescence, it becomes a reward for most, as the boys come to like the cheerleaders as much as they like the football, and even more so. Seems to me there’s something in Freud’s theory about a homosexual “latency” period in early childhood.
A purely homosexual/gynosexual woman, a Lesbian, would feel disgust at the thought of a woman kissing a man. Not too different from a gynosexual man’s feeling: “What does she see in _that_ jerk?” (Jealousy being another emotion we are prone to, again the Old Testament strictures against adultery reflect this.)
Few societies have been dominated by homosexuals, as they are nearly everywhere a rather small minority, and so they have not been able to translate their disgusts into law or culture. In some high cultures such as ancient Greece or China, they did often have high status and much power, but not to the point of being able to stigmatize heterosexual relations to the degree some of them may have desired. Certain Lesbian separatist feminists today would like to do so.
Those tending closer toward the middle of sexual orientation spectrums, the bisexuals of various kinds and degrees, would seem not to feel disgust so much. I myself lean pretty heavily toward the far end of gynosexuality, but not quite all the way, so I don’t feel such disgust at the thought of a man, yet I can still understand that emotion. I can understand both the androsexual’s attraction to man and the gynosexual’s aversion or revulsion toward him. I think that’s one of the problems I have with the “we’re all bisexual” theory popular among certain liberals, they don’t understand this emotion of disgust and they think it can be eliminated, just as they promote polyamory on the theory that jealousy can be eliminated. I disagree with that. Attraction and repulsion, desire and disgust, love and hate, are all intertwined and inherent in our very being.
Silvan Tomkins, an extremely interesting psychologist and spectrumologist, wrote that those of the Right, and conquering and ruling classes, were more prone to the emotion of disgust, that this was an emotion often encouraged on the Right. An interesting thought. I have often found that to be so. Ayn Rand very often said things or ideas were “disgusting”, from Lesbians to modern art to the “New Left” to William F. Buckley’s “National Review”. Back in my youth, the “squares” often expressed disgust for the “filthy, long-haired hippies”. Nietzsche often expressed disgust for “women, Christians, Englishment, cows, and other democrats”, and Germans, too. (He was a gynosexual, but prone to bitterness toward the female sex due to some of his experiences with some of them such as his Nazi sister, a most complex and contradictory thinker). I think the Right is often more inclined to feel disgust or contempt toward the Left, when the Left is more inclined to feel hatred and fear toward the Right. Interesting spectrumological questions…
i don’t use the term “homophobia” precisely because it falsely conflates the visceral aesthetic disgust that purely gynosexual men feel toward the idea of sex with other men, which is morally neither worse nor better than an androsexual’s attraction to men, with a more abstract theological, moral, or legal condemnation of homosexuality as such. The latter I call “anti-homosexualism” and I oppose it without compromise, but I respect every man’s or woman’s right to his or her attractions _and_ aversions on a private level. In short: Saying “please don’t do it in front of me” is of a different order from saying “there should be a law against doing it even in your own home”, as, e.g., Santorum advocate. I totally oppose Santorum, though what he does with his dog is his own business even if it is disgusting.
I see no difference between calling gays “disgusting” and calling them faggots when the words are coming from young conservatives. These groups mourn the days when their fathers or grandfathers could bash gays and minorites on any campus and get away with it. Today, in a world where some people don’t see gays as devil spawn, young conservatives and the people who pay them money want to roll back the clock. By allowing them to say the usual “disgusting” “deviant” “violates the word of the Lord” stuff all over campus, they then have the right to spread their hate, lies and calls for violence and death in every area of campus life. They already did that last year in Rhode Island, publishing magazines about how gays killed and molested children. They and most of the other current powers in the GOP are hypocrites — they go out of their way to suppress the voices and rights of gays, and yet, when someone tries to whisper even a word of protest against *them*, they sob like babies about censorhip.
And Eric, unless the people in that parade beat, raped, or tried to kill you, then I’d say you were far more fortunate than many in North Carolina have been over the years. Of course Texas is even worse. About 10 years ago a gay man was at a pride parade. 2 men lured him into the woods and beat him so badly that his corpse was barely identifiable. Many of the people I went to class with, and many teachers, were thrilled. God had spoken His word yet again.
Extremist conservatives are only complaining because that’s their key to power. By never being satisfied, they guarantee they aren’t taken for granted. They get more and more and more. Most recently, the appointment of Bill Pryor. Or the NEA allowing ex-gay organizations to infiltrate schools and the minds of young, vulnerable students:
http://www.exgaywatch.com/xgw/2004/02/nea_exgay_educa.html
Speaking of NC, there was a Nazi rally in Raleigh this weekend.
http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/02/022204naziRally.htm
Thankfully there were counter-protestors as well. Maybe this will help the black/gay/Jewish communites come together. Naive of me, huh?
James,
While I still see a distinct difference between calling behavior “disgusting” and using vulgar epithets, from a First Amendment standpoint it’s irrelevant. I have no problem allowing “hate speech” or whatever you want to call it, just as I supported the ACLU’s defense of Nazis parading in Skokie, Illinois. Once “hate” becomes a crime, then anything which offends anyone could be considered “hateful.”
Hateful words are not violence or murder, and I do not blame the “ex gay” movement if some psycho kills someone. The “ex gay” movement does not trouble me in the least, even though I disagree with it. (Why should anyone care whether someone wants to change his sexual preference, anyway? I mean, unless he’s coerced, isn’t that his business?)
To me, this stuff is a fundamental free speech issue, and to restrict the rights of one is to restrict the rights of all.
Learning proficiency with firearms strikes me as far more useful and productive than supporting unconstitutional “hate speech” legislation. I should have the right to hate anyone I want, and to say so.
The old expression “sticks and stones” is still quite apt.
IN READING THESE LETTERS IT BREAKS MY HEART.
GOD LOVES EVERYONE REGARDLESS OF WHAT OR WHO THEY
ARE,OR WHAT THEY’VE DONE.BUT HE HATES THE SIN.A TRUE CHRISTIAN LOVES THE SAME.I KNOW A FEW PEOPLE
LIVING THIS LIFE STYLE AND I LOVE THEM DEARLY.BUT
THIS LIFE IS SO SHORT AND THERE IS A HEREAFTER.
GOD WON’T ALLOW SIN OF ANY KIND INTO HEAVEN.WE MUST CHOOSE NOW WHERE WE WILL SPEND ETERNITY.GOD WILL HELP ANYONE WHO CALLS ON HIM FOR HELP IF THEY DO IT SINCERELY WITH ALL THEIR HEART AND SOUL.WE MUST BELIEVE, AND EXCEPT HIS SON JESUS CHRIST INTO OUR HEARTS TO RECEIVE TRUE FORGIVENESS.I MUST SIGN OFF NOW.ONE LAST THING PLEASE GO TO A GOOD BOOK STORE AND GET A BIBLE IF YOU DON’T HAVE ONE. DON’T TAKE OTHER PEOPLES WORD ABOUT GOD AND CHRISTIANS. THERE ARE MANY OUT THERE THAT CALLS THEMSELVES CHRISTIANS BUT
BEWARE.A BIBLE CAN DIRECT YOU,AND ANSWER YOUR OUESTIONS…I CARE