Can You Believe Acting on Homosexuality is a Sin Without Being a Bigot?

Mmm… disagree. The very act of believing in the Bible makes one ignorant, and the beliefs therein are bigoted, homophobic and motivated by fear.

Is Fred Phelps bigoted? Why would he not get the same free pass by this definition?

Webster’s definition of bigot sites your regard for others not the reason for your regard.  Using the bible as an excuse does not exclude one from being a bigot.

That’s kind of my gut reaction. I feel like “bigoted” is too tied to “hatred.” You can be bigoted without hating. Bigotry has to do with not accepting evidence that doesn’t conform to what you have already decided is true. 
If you are single-sourcing your opinion on anything, you’re likely a bigot. 
I am bigoted against the Yankees. I was raised that way and no matter how hard I try I can’t get over my core belief that they are evil. I even have tons of “evidence” to support the “fact” that they are evil, but I’ve never tried too hard to challenge that belief because I’m so sure of it.

The problem is that bigotry tends to be driven by ignorance, even the wilful ignorance of believing an old book of dubious sources, rewrites and re-interpretation. We all know that it is common practice to project bigotry and hatred but claim innocence whilst blaming a religious tome.

Learning from the holy book is like learning from Wikipedia, any nutter could have written it.

Both the question and answer conflate behavior with sexual orientation. You can disagree with a heterosexual couple living together and having sex outside of marriage without being a bigot. Ditto if the couple is gay.

However, treating homosexuality itself – physical, emotional, psychological attraction to the same sex – as an ‘abomination’ is another matter entirely. And that is where the real crux of the debate is, isn’t it? It’s not about merely “disagreeing” with some behavior, but about condemning something essential about the person.

So the question is whether condemning that attraction is necessarily bigoted or not. Yeah, it probably is. Would Justin Lee “respect” the viewpoint of Christians who thought that the Bible condemned interracial relationships? I hope not. But those Christians were/are just as sincere.

Bigotry doesn’t cease to be bigotry just because there is a sincere religious belief behind it. A bigot doesn’t cease to be a bigot just because they are fallible or seeking the truth.

Does the fact of opposing the legality of interracial marriage make you racist?

I suppose, stretching your imagination to the limit, you could imagine a situation where someone could oppose interracial relationships, including their legal recognition, and not be a racist. However you’d be safer assuming that person really does hold racist views.

Here’s another question. Does opposing the legality of burglary make you prejudiced against robbers?

Most people, after looking at you funny for the silly question, would answer “Of course!”. People have no problem admitting a distaste for robbery and fully support any and all efforts to repress what they see as a harmful activity. If you really see homosexuality as a “sin”, a destructive behavior, then you should not hesitate when answering the same question. No one stops to think “Oh gee, if I say that I think robbery has to be stopped, robbers might think I hate and/or fear them”, because even Christians who genuinely believe that robbery is just another sin and that people can be redeemed understand that open disapproval is completely appropriate.

So why is it different with being gay? If homosexuality is a sin like stealing, why then do Christians go to such pains to say that even as they want to treat people’s sexual orientation as a sinful choice (and deny any legal recognition of them) that in no way means they are prejudiced against them? I’m not entirely sure, but I think it’s a bit of cognitive dissonance. They are mandated by their religion to treat gays like robbers. However decent people fundamentally realize that being gay causes no external harm and rebel internally at the idea of hating someone who has done them no wrong. So they try to have it both ways, opposing the core of an entire group fo humans while simultanteously not hating them. They dislike the accusation of homophobia because, unlike the dislike of robbers, they sense internally that disliking homosexuals is wrong.

Their fundamental human sense of right and wrong is coming up against religious dogma and it makes them very uncomfortable. Good. I hope they are extremely uncomfortable. Nothing could approach the agony of a woman dying in a hospital bed while her partner and children are denied any access to her, partly because of people who thought they could deny her the most basic civil rights and still call themselves loving, but its a start. Hopefully that discomfort grows, and like “Oh I don’t hate the coloreds, I just think everyone should stick to their own” whites before them, they abandon their harmful beliefs for the benefit of all.

You can disagree with a heterosexual couple living together and having sex outside of marriage without being a bigot.

Can you, though? This seems to be at odds with what you say here:

Would Justin Lee “respect” the viewpoint of Christians who thought that the Bible condemned interracial relationships?

Can you really disagree with a mixed race couple living together without being a racist?

They’re mistaken, not (automatically) bigoted.

But the fact that they refuse to listen to all the gay people telling them otherwise does make them bigoted.

How do you know they are refusing to listen?

They may just not agree.

That’s a little like saying atheists are bigoted because they don’t agree with all the arguments theists make.

The simple act of being wrong does not make you a bigot.

Incidentally, if someone was born bi-sexual, I could very easily see how they might consider being gay a choice, and find it hard to believe homosexuals OR heterosexuals who say otherwise..

A bigot by any other name..

My impression is that these sincere people are motivated less by a book and more by peer pressure.  Can a person be wrong, and yet not be a bigot?  Well, perhaps, if they’re wrong by virtue of pressure from their primary support group.  On the other hand, that very statement would excuse all those who (I know, old & overused example) stood by and allowed Nazi atrocities.  So, very, very wrong, and no, I couldn’t respect that in those people, though there might be other things about them I could respect.  Human beings tend to not be ‘all this’ or ‘all that’ with a few notable exceptions.

It doesn’t mean you are defending them, it just means SteveInMI needs a better analogy. Kinda like how science works 😉

I don’t think the fact the Nazis were wrong excuses them from anything, to be honest. Nazism is obviously a very difficult topic to deal with because of the extremes involved, the perceptions of those people, and our distance from them in both time and attitude. They can almost be the perfect comic book villains at times, but I’m sure there was a scale between Nazis – the people piling people into gas chambers are at a different point on the scale to the people desperately trying to scrape by a living, and not thinking much at all about these matters, even if they might both have been Nazis.

The only thing it does is imply that some of the Nazis were weak-minded, lacking in intelligence, taken in, confused, mistaken etc, rather than being utterly vile human beings at their core. It explains their actions without exonerating them.

They can hold their poor opinions on homosexuality if I can continue to hold my poor opinions of them.

sorry, but this is wishy washy nonsense that panders to the twisted version of love and compassion that Christianity and most other religions create.

“There are also many compassionate, loving Christians who sincerely want to be able to give their blessing to their gay friends’ relationships but are unable to because they believe the Bible forbids those relationships. I absolutely respect that.”

How compassionate and loving can they be if their only reason for bigotry is that some dusty old tome told them to be?

In the preceding sentence Justin says that the bigots are those who use the bible to justify their hate. How is that different from the following sentence where he tries to draw a difference simply because this particular group of Christians seem more “loving and compassionate.”

So one group hates gay people, wants to restrict their rights, force them back in the closet, and beat them with baseball bats and use a dusty old book to justify it. The other is very nice and loving, sends birthday cards but also believes the gays are sinful because a dusty old book said so. They are both bigoted. One group a bit more than the other, a bit more extreme, a bit more scary, but they are both bigots.

The religious ditch specific pieces of dogma all the time and continue to believ as whole heartedly as if the crap they threw out was never their. 

For example, suicides go to hell. My aunt killed herself. My Catholic mom decided that people who kill them selves don’t really go to hell regardless of what the Bible says. Problem solved. 

Here’s another, my friend saw a billboard “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t hate gays. -God”. Vey nice sentiment. I could be friends with that sort of believer, hell, I have friends that are that sort. But we all know that billboard is 100% wrong. The Biblical god is absolutely dead set against gay people. Emphasis on dead. Yet here are some loving and compassionate believers who could bare a god that would be do wicked, so they ditched the dogma.

What does a compasionate and loving mother who believes that gay is evil do for her child. She sends to kid to pray-em-straight camp to be physically and psycologically tortured. Its a twisted version of love and compassion perverted by hateful dogma.

So lets dispense with this lovey dovey garbage as an excuse to give bigots a pass. We should be wary of their “love” and “compassion”. 

If they really cared, if they are really loving and compassionate, they would choose to love their gay friends and family w/o bigotry. 

But they have to choose between people or dogma.

I’m going to have to agree. Being deeply wrong doesn’t make one a bigot. Anecdote for when I was still religious: For some time while I was still religious I both thought that gay marriage should be allowed and thought that gay sex was sinful. The key distinction was that I didn’t think that I had any right to impose my religious beliefs on others.

The key issue here is not bigotry but the just general wrongness of the ideas in question. I can understand someone is not a bigot and still understand that their (or my former) beliefs are harmful. This is similar to how not every person who advocates for alternative medicine is a heartless con artist, but whether or not they are sincere people will still suffer. 

People who we disagree are not necessarily evil. This doesn’t make them right. It might be easy for rhetorical purposes and helping us sleep better at night to say that the people we disagree with are all evil and nasty but that would be a failure of rationality. 

Sorry that this is wandering into OT territory, but experiments such as the Milgram experiment and the Stanford University experiment illustrate that average people are extremely susceptible to authority figures and social pressure to conform.  It’s a little dismissive to try to explain away Nazi participation as “weak-minded people.”  But you’re also right to say that it’s too simplistic to claim that they are purely evil people as well.  If they were weak minded, then most people are weak minded, because most people are unable to fully reject this pressure to conform and to bow to authority.

[quote]There are also many compassionate, loving Christians who sincerely
want to be able to give their blessing to their gay friends’
relationships but are unable to because they believe the Bible forbids
those relationships. I absolutely respect that.[/quote]If these people are more concerned about being good christians than being good friends. The’re not really friends, are they?

Or, even more specifically, “The Bible says slavery is Ok, and some of my Bible-believing friends believe this and condone slavery because of this sincere belief. I absolutely respect that.”

I strongly and profoundly disagree with Justin Lee.  I absolutely do not “respect” the “right” of Bible-believers to say that anything is true for everyone based upon their holy book.  Furthermore, social pressure to continue according “respect” to Bible -based (or other “holy” book-based) beliefs has been the well-worn road to oppressive laws and cultural policies which have caused untold misery, persecution and death for thousands of years.  The only way we will ever be free of this particular form of   vicious inhumanity is to cease giving religion undeserved “respect” and to work tirelessly to expose its evil and manipulative purpose as a force in cultures around the world.

I try to have compassion for those deluded and lost people who are ignorant of the ultimate goals of religion but are enmeshed in the twisted psychological traps of belief, but I will never respect the views they hold.

Josh, did you see these?

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2011/09/a-one-issue-vote-against-community-interests-345.html

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2011/09/a-word-about-last-nights-election-456.html

Being a serious Christian already requires you to engage in doublethink: hold two completely contradictory viewpoints in your head and think you have reconciled them

This is no different. Religion either necessitates or creates a mindset that makes such absurd opinions possible. There are simply things where there is nothing to “disagree” about. Not all issues have two sides that are equally valid

Use pointy brackets instead of square ones:

Hmm… Webster is unhelpful here. Here is their definition:

“bigot – a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance”

So according to this, if you hate Nazis, you are a bigot!

To offer my own definition, I’d say a bigot is someone who believes false negative things about a group when they have every ability to know better. So in regard to people against gay marriage, I’d say that if they’ve heard all of the arguments about how gay couples can be loving and build better lives together and have been shown examples and they still are against gay marriage, then they are bigots.

“For some time while I was still religious I both thought that gay marriage should be allowed and thought that gay sex was sinful.”

Me too.  But I nevertheless think that I was a bigot for holding that viewpoint.  I’m much happier with myself now.

Yes, because one naturally follows the other. Separating the two like that is just silly. So-called “homosexual acts” are just an expression of feelings people have. One can try to suppress those feelings, but it’s a bad way to live and has severe negative effects on mental health in the long term. Most eventually give up on it and live their life honestly.

In this context,  I strongly suspect the line between “unable to give their blessing to” same-sex relationships and “judging same-sex relationships as inferior” is so vanishingly small as to be nonexistent.

In other words, it’s bigotry.

Clearly still doing something wrong (other and going way Off Topic)!

I am sure someone bought this up in the comments. 

The reason why slavery and Jim Crow laws lasted so long in this country is not because of the rabid racists and preying politicians, those people are in the margins. It was because of the nice, genteel folk who would  give you the shirt off their back and raise your child if you died even though you were a stranger who helped maintained those antiquated systems. 

Its the problem i have with Hollywood. Hollywood portrays racists and nazi’s as these evil sadistic people. While some of them were wretched and evil, MOST nazi’s and supporters of segregation and slavery were regular folk who paid taxes, looked out for their neighbors, were highly educated, and volunteered to help those less fortunate then they are. 

So i worry about regular folks who are nice and harbor these antiquated and ANTI HUMAN feelings in their brains and believe that they are right. It is those people, and yes i said THOSE, who help put in and support policy that is detrimental to certain groups in our society. 

This fella probably doesn’t know how good he is at compartmentalizing his beliefs. He’s like an evangelical biology teacher that sees no conflict between Noah’s Ark and evolutionary theory.

This is such a good post!  I would love to see it broadcast everywhere! 

I think that is true (Xians see all humans as “inferior” in some sense),  but it is more a belief that is nurtured in “followers” to keep them feeling inferior so that the leadership can continue to reap the benefits of power and riches that they gain from this sick belief system.
Also, you can believe you were born a sinner.  It is your right to demean yourself and others in that way, as long as you cannot force others to accept that self-hating assessment for themselves.  For the record,  I am not a “sinner”.  I was born pure and innocent and full of human potential and I remain a human being doing the best I can in this life.

You know what, the only people I’m going to give a pass to on the anti-homosexuality front is Orthodox Jews.  

You see, the New Testament doesn’t say anything about homosexuality.  Everything about homosexuality is in the Old Testament.  

Now Christians already say that most of the Old Testament doesn’t apply to them.  For example, they no longer keep the laws of Kosher.  They willfully mix linen and cotton.  (The Old Testament says that’s an abomination, the same word used to describe a man lying with another man.)  They kindle flames on the Sabbath.  They no longer observe any of the fasts.  They do not take mikvah or wear tallit or pray with phylacteries or wear kipot.  Many are not circumcised, and do not become Bar Mitzvot.  So when they pick one rule out of the Old Testament and say that THIS rule still holds, I say, Nope.  You cannot pick and choose which rules you want to follow.  Either follow all of them, or follow none of them.

Personally, I wouldn’t call a person who thought that homosexual behavior was sinful a bigot as long as they didn’t try to run others’ lives based on those views.  But then, my own case rather parallels theirs, so I’m hardly objective.

I’m of the opinion that human reproduction is morally indefensible–if not in all cases, at least in most cases.  I think that there’s a particularly strong case against having babies at this point in history, considering the uncomfortably large number of humans on the planet and the strains that our ballooning population (and style of living, for the wealthier countries) are putting on Earth’s ecosystems, but even were our global population much lower, I’d be against childbearing for several reasons, which I won’t go into here (it’s not really relevant what my reasons are; suffice it to say that I think that they’re strong, and that others would disagree with me).

These views notwithstanding, I don’t go around trying to convert others to the Gospel of Childlessness, or make bitter comments near babies, or anything of that nature.  This is mostly because I know that my views would be tremendously unpopular and that airing them would not make a particle of difference and would only offend people.  I don’t think I’d use the word “sin” to describe people who choose to have children–I’m not from a religious background, so I don’t tend to think in those terms–but I don’t approve.  I keep my disapproval to myself, though, and other than leading me to the personal decision not to have children, my views don’t have much effect.

So.  Am I a bigot?  That’s not meant as a rhetorical question; I don’t have any strong expectations as to what the response will be.  If I’m not misreading your comments, though, several of you have voiced the view that folks who disapprove of homosexual behavior are definitely bigots, and I’m curious as to whether a more unconventional opinion (which I’m sure a fair few will find similarly abhorrent) will elicit the same response.

While some of them were wretched and evil, MOST nazi’s and supporters of segregation and slavery were regular folk who paid taxes, looked out for their neighbors, were highly educated, and volunteered to help those less fortunate then they are.

Yes, precisely. I think it was Eli Wiesel who termed it “the mendacity of evil”.

To be fair, most of those requirements pertained to the Israelites, not to the gentile nations.

Of course, they do consider themselves to be the “New Israel”…

Oh, the code for quotes is “blockquote”, not “quote”

Duh..

Bigot is such a loaded word; I prefer to simply think of them as horrible people.

I would also like to link to this: Intent!  It’s Fucking Magic!

Intent is the ultimate alchemy. It doesn’t change lead to gold, it
changes harmful, negative or damaging actions into happy, fun, “everyone
hugs and no one is oppressed”, magical unicorn actions.

Sorry if I seemed to dismiss them as being weak minded, I didn’t intend to. It wasn’t meant as a list of things that they were, but rather a list of things that they could have been. If you see what I mean. 🙂

Worse. At least Wikipedia authors are encouraged to sign their edits. And nowhere in the bible does it say [citation needed].

You may have a point.

There are Christian denominations who don’t hold with the idea that homosexual activity is a sin. As Matto says, they have chucked out the parts of the bible that condemn it (or rationalise them away, or conveniently ignore them). Also, many liberal believers who belong to denominations that do think it’s sinful, disagree with the party line (kind of like Catholics who believe in reproductive rights).

or rationalise them away, or conveniently ignore them

There’s the crux of it.

Ordinairly, I agree with the fundies – what liberal Christians are doing, although preferable from our point of view, isn’t “real” Christianity. However, on this issue, I think  there is room for interpretation – but that isn’t the position taken by most evangelicals, a term which characterizes many (probably most) of Rachel’s readers (and certainly the people who put up the billboards).

“At length” is overstating it. It’s one or two sentences.

It’s also arguable if he was even referring to same-sex behavior. He used made up words that appear nowhere else. Some people think he was referring to things like temple prostitution and/or pagan rituals that were common in the communities he addressed in the letter.

From wikipedia, bigotry generally implies disapproval, animosity, hostility. Since our person only checks for one of the three red flags, I’d just call it ignorance.
Of course, we’d have to see how he really acted around someone with a different sexual orientation to be certain.

That tells me that their bigotry preceded their awareness of what the Bible says.

There is no evidence for that assumption. At one time Christians did believe that slavery was okay and that the Sun revolves around the Earth, according to the bible. They’ve since abandoned those ideas.

Human sacrifice
* isn’t in the bible as a common practice
* Christians have never condemned the attempted sacrifice of Isaac, nor the successful one of Jephtha’s daughter (though some post-Enlightenment Christians have attempted to reinterpret the story)
*  is the basis of the entire Christian religion. Have you forgotten that Jesus was a human sacrifice? Far from not subscribing to that horseshit, Christians wear crosses to commemorate the activity.
* this sacrifice was the last one required. It wouldn’t make sense for them to make blood sacrifice anymore, according to their doctrine.

Jesus himself overturned the OT idea about executing people for not keeping the Sabbath, so it wouldn’t make sense for Christians to disagree on that point. And if stoning a woman for adultery isn’t okay, then it’s not a far stretch to think the same for a woman who has sex prior to marriage. They can be shamed, abused, and condemned–just not stoned to death.

In every case you mention, what’s in the bible precedes the doctrine.

I agree. Paul is the source of much of the worst stuff in the New Testament, IMHO.  If his letters had never made it into canon, I do think the world would be better off.

Maybe “at length” is indeed overstating it, but my point was simply that the NT does at least appear to say something on the topic (at least, most fundamentalists read it that way, I believe).  So it’s not only an OT thing, it seems to me.

Nobody’s forcing them to believe in the bible.  Yes, there’s a tremendous amount of social pressure and probably pressure from the family as well, but it’s still their choice to believe in something that is rationally unsupportable.  That doesn’t absolve them.

Yes. That hits a lot of it in a nutshell. But even aside from how they treat people what I think matters a lot is the actual impact it has. If some highschool student commits suicide after being told that his desires are evil, it doesn’t matter much whether the person who told him that was bigoted or genuinely trying to save a soul. Either way some family needs to bury their child. 

I agree with Shmarya’s take on it: they’re shooting themselves in their collective foot. They’ve elected a Republican who will very likely work to reduce or eliminate their Section 8 vouchers, food stamps and all of the other social services of which they’ve availed themselves over the past thirty-odd years – but I guess God will provide, eh?

Like the evangelical masses they emulate, they’re too stupid and brainwashed to realize they’re being manipulated by people who care absolutely nothing about their welfare, in this world or in the next.

(I’m also rather astonished that a Modern Orthodox guy A) is a Democrat; B) voted in favor of same sex marriage. Apparently, he hasn’t been getting the memos.)

No, but homophobic Christians group homosexuals as people who willingly and in flagrant disregard for God’s will choose a lifestyle wherein they live in a perpetual state of sin. “We’re all sinners” implies that you (not my heathen ass) have to try not to be a sinner and choosing a lifestyle that either requires or is defined by a sin is inferior to at least trying to avoid it.

There’s a substantial fraction of the MO that are Democrats

I’d like to meet them. I’m friendly with an MO rabbi and his wife. The wife dislikes “Leftists”; I think he’s a little more liberal, but not that far removed.

although, I agree that the intersection between Democrat, MO, and votes for same sex marriage is pretty tiny.

Yeah, I think it’s likely a constituency of about one.

“They’ve since abandoned those ideas.”

So they can and do abandon biblical nonsense.  So why can’t they abandon the anti-gay nonsense?  Inconsistency: it’s still there.

So if Jesus overturned the need for blood sacrifice, because it’s in the Old Testament, who cares what the Old Testament says about homosexuality? Oh, they do? Inconsistency: it’s still there.

Before you respond that Paul had a serious beef with it too, Paul also said to shun people who disagree with your doctrine [Romans 16: 17-18].  So shouldn’t they ignore gay Christians?  Inconsistency: it’s still there.

Conclusion: They’re using a convenient excuse to justify their culturally transmitted bigotry.

Just to clarify 2, seeing as you didn’t seem to get what I was saying the first time – when I talk about being ‘bisexual’, I mean being, rather than identifying as. I’m talking about the kind of person who has been indoctrinated into hating homosexuality, and therefore tries to deny the part of themselves that finds their own sex attractive.

Incidentally, I got the impression that you’re treating me as if you think I am anti-gay. I thought I made it clear in my initial post that I am not. If not, let’s hope I have now. 

I first met Justin in the 7th grade, so I can tell you he has had a *lot* of practice at compartmentalizing. I haven’t talked to him in a few years so I can only speculate on this point, but I suspect that he’s referring to his own family with his answer to this question, because as I recall when he finally admitted to himself that he was gay his family to ostracized him for a time, and perhaps they’ve managed a manner of reconciliation by “agreeing to disagree” or something like that.

No, they don’t, and here’s why.

Suppose for a moment that ‘interracial’ sex atheism caused horrible birth
defects in a child foolish, dark hearts [Romans 1:21], which caused immense suffering in hell. Would a person be a
racist bigot for opposing interracial couples atheist organizations on those grounds?

Now, obviously, as I said, it doesn’t.

Suppose, however,
that someone has been convinced that it is the case by a very skilled
manipulator. So skilled was the manipulation, that you are unable to
convince them otherwise – not because they aren’t giving your arguments a
fair hearing, but rather because they have been utterly deluded by
someone else. Is that person a racist bigot?

Clearly, the answer is a resounding, YES.  It doesn’t matter why or how they came to their bigoted beliefs.  It takes a pre-existing level of ambient bigotry to not be able to analyze the lies being presented about an entire group of people and think critically.

A)Truth value of the claim: Yes, this matters.  Part of being a bigot is that your views are unjustified and untrue – that they are a prejudice.
B)Reasons behind the belief: “I was lied to” is an explanation of bigotry, but it does not change the fact of your bigotry – especially if you are unwilling to admit you were lied to (and thus to change your views and abandon the bigotry).
C)Willingness to change your views: The third quality of being a bigot is that you are obstinate – that you are unwilling to change your views.

So yes, your hypothetical person is a flaming bigot.

No, they don’t, and here’s why.

Suppose for a moment that ‘interracial’ sex atheism caused horrible birth
defects in a child foolish, dark hearts [Romans 1:21], which caused immense suffering in hell. Would a person be a
racist bigot for opposing interracial couples atheist organizations on those grounds?

Now, obviously, as I said, it doesn’t.

Suppose, however,
that someone has been convinced that it is the case by a very skilled
manipulator. So skilled was the manipulation, that you are unable to
convince them otherwise – not because they aren’t giving your arguments a
fair hearing, but rather because they have been utterly deluded by
someone else. Is that person a racist bigot?

Clearly, the answer is a resounding, YES.  It doesn’t matter why or how they came to their bigoted beliefs.  It takes a pre-existing level of ambient bigotry to not be able to analyze the lies being presented about an entire group of people and think critically.

A)Truth value of the claim: Yes, this matters.  Part of being a bigot is that your views are unjustified and untrue – that they are a prejudice.
B)Reasons behind the belief: “I was lied to” is an explanation of bigotry, but it does not change the fact of your bigotry – especially if you are unwilling to admit you were lied to (and thus to change your views and abandon the bigotry).
C)Willingness to change your views: The third quality of being a bigot is that you are obstinate – that you are unwilling to change your views.

So yes, your hypothetical person is a flaming bigot.

So according to this, if you hate Nazis, you are a bigot!

Not if you know what the word “prejudice” means: A preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience

We know that Nazis cause harm.  We’ve had historical experience that informs our opinion of them.  Hatred of Nazis is in no way a prejudice.

A) Nope.  All anti-gay people have incorrect views.  All bigots have incorrect views.  Does it follow that I said all gay people are bigots? No.  If you’re still confused, draw a Venn Diagram.

B. No. I’m saying that if you broke your leg, it doesn’t matter whether you did it falling off a roof or being hit by a car. Your leg is still broken. 

C.  So we agree. Are you going to retract your unjustified insult in A)?

My ‘problem’ is that your hypothetical person was unwilling to change their views on accounta being deluded.   QE-fucking-D.

1)Oh, and which fallacy is it? The fact that it has more emotional resonance does not actually make it logically fallacious.

It’s one thing to be against throwing around words without much thought. But as someone who actually bothered to look up the definition of the word, I have no problem using a word accurately, even if the people its applied to don’t like it.

Yakamoz

I was disagreeing with John’s conclusion that the bigotry of people who hate gays [always] precedes the bible. Some people might seek out biblical passages to back up their bigoted notions, some people might have a feeling that hating gays isn’t quite right, but feel obliged to do so because of what the bible says, the vast majority of Christians were indoctrinated into hate and Christianity at the same time (i.e. they believe homosexuality to be a sin the same way they believe in heaven and hell or that pre-marital sex is wrong), and still others (both as individuals and denominations) have abandoned the anti-gay passages of the bible the same way they have the idea that women should have unshorn hair that is to be covered in church, or that  or that slavery is just one aspect of a divinely ordained social hierarchy.

None of this is consistent.  The point is,  people aren’t necessarily using the bible as a post hoc excuse.

The thing is though, it really doesn’t matter. If your “holy” book condones immoral behaviour or condemns moral people, there’s no excuse for continuing to adhere to it.

the statements of gay people, who universally say that their sexuality is not a choice

It’s not quite universal, but it’s pretty overwhelming.  And of course there’s the statements of straight people who overwhelmingly say their sexuality is not a choice.

Kinda hard for Option A to be a choice but Option B not be a choice.

It’s only a prejudice against creationism if you know what it is and why it’s wrong.  The pre- prefix keeps getting overlooked in this thread, but it has a meaning.  If I am convinced of the rightness of my position, and my position is in fact, right, that isn’t a prejudice – that’s a conclusion.

In contrast, many creationists don’t actually understand evolution, and they have been prejudiced against it by their parents and their pastors.  They don’t understand it, but they are absolutely certain it’s wrong because “we don’t come from monkeys!!”

Paul is the source of much of the worst stuff in the New Testament, IMHO. 

Agreed – but Christian theology in general has been shaped by some of the most disordered personalities in history.

It’s not a sin to be an anglophone. I just object to speaking English words out loud.

And one more thing… HOW many angels can dance on the head of a pin???

Dude, I AM bisexual, and it’s STILL NOT A CHOICE. I didn’t choose to fall in love with my partner, it just… happened. I could just as easily have fallen in love with a woman.

Yes, and if you have to ask “why”, I’d suggest going back to high school…

Best reply to this question I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen this question brought up a lot.

How big are their feet, and what dance are they doing?

In many cases yes, unfortunately.  I think it is wrong, but people get away with far worse than that by calling it a religious belief.

 but at least they don’t hand-wave the harsher verses they don’t like: they just embrace a Stone Age social code in its entire.

Of course they do.  They claim they don’t, but they do it all the time.  There are a ton of old testament laws and new testament commandments they just ignore.  Their claim that they are “biblical literalists” is a flat-out lie.  So I have much less respect for them than other Christians.  At least most groups of Christians will admit that certain parts of the Bible need to be interpreted or ignored, groups like FLDS or Westboro interpet or ignore about as much but pretend they don’t.

Well this is why the whole question is just academic and really pointless. If that same person goes on to vote against marriage equality, for example, then yes, they’re a bigot.

This isn’t a disagreement about whether you should go out tonight to get Italian or Chinese, it’s a disagreement that seeks to marginalize and oppress a minority. Even if you’re not actively out there protesting homosexual rights or being some anti-gay firebrand when the time comes to vote on whether something like gay marriage should be allowed you’re going to go with the ignorance imparted on you by your religion and vote it down which makes you a bigot.

To be clear: “love the sinner; hate the sin” is a tawdry excuse for hating the sinner.  First, it has no basis in the Christian bible, unless one contorts the original writing beyond recognition.  Second, reinforces the assumption that the Christian (the lover/hater in this model)  has the right to presume what is “sinful” behavior by the “sinner” (the loved/hated).  

“Love the sinner, hate the sin” implies that you embrace the person, but reject their actions.  The reverse case of “love the sinner; hate the sin” would be “love the beliver; hate their church attendance”.  That would be an obviously extreme position, and it calls out just how wrongheaded the love/hate model is.

I happen to think that Christianity is inherently harmful, like all superstitions are.  But I don’t think that Christians should be treated badly, punished for their choice of church service, or denied basic rights under civil law.  That would be bigotry.

Greg, you’re right to point out that I didn’t connect the dots very soundly with my analogy.  I do have a built-in assumption that nearly all of the Christians who “disagree with homosexuality” also oppose efforts to treat LBGT persons equally under civil (employment, taxation, marriage, military service, housing access, banking, divorce, healthcare, adoption, parenting, custody, etc.) laws.

To my knowledge, Christians who support civil equality while opposing homosexuality as sinful are as mythical as the unicorn.  (Again, I did not spell that out in my post, and the result was an incomplete argument.)   Do you believe that this unicorn exists, and if so do you have any demographics, statistics, or anecdotes that would demonstrate their existence?  I’m hopeful that you might; I actually enjoy having my own cynicism contradicted.  🙂

Here’s a bit of followup http://www.atheistmedia.com/2011/08/college-student-schools-rick-santorum.html  Notice how Rick gets to dismiss any evidence he wants since it doesn’t support his position.

How exactly can we prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that
homosexual -or premarital – sex is morally acceptable? There’s no test
for that.

You need to go think about this more.  Don’t let the theists define morality as only coming from God, as only those things which offend god.  We can derive morality, and test whether homosexuality and premarital sex is morally acceptable by thinking about it for two minutes.  Do adults have the right to do what they want with their own body? Yep!  Does this include having sex with another consenting adult? Yep!

Claiming that two adults who would otherwise have the right to consent to sex (two adult men) are wrong for engaging in sex with each other are special pleading, and the burden of proof is on them to justify the exception.

the Christians who “knew” that God was real and disapproved of homosexual/premarital sex told us to just accept their argument, why would we?

Christians have to demonstrate first that there is a God, that this god disapproves, and that this god’s opinion on sexual behavior matters more than my own when it comes to what I do with my own damn body.  Burden of proof: they have it. 

Can’t we get past just shouting pejorative terms at people we disagree with and actually discuss the disagreement? (which is what Justin seems to be able to do with his friends in question).

You can disagree about what food, movies or music to like. There is simply nothing to disagree with about homosexuality. It would be like disagreeing with the weather. It just is. And it’s simply not an option to willfully discriminate a minority and deprive them of their rights. Especially when all you can come up with are arguments rooted in religion

Steve, you’re showing your age; nobody calls it grass anymore.  ;p

Speaking as a bisexual, I don’t think I could ever call it a choice which sex I’m attracted to. It’s not. But I could see someone who hated that they’re bi assuming that everyone has such attractions, and therefore it must be a choice what you do about it.

Consider it contradicted. I wish I could remember where (maybe on this site?) but there was at least one woman who’s brother believed homosexuality a sin, and she convinced him that was still not a reason to oppose *civil* equality. 

Only one, but at least it falsifies the hypothesis that they’re as mythical as unicorns. 😉

If I am convinced of the rightness of my position, and my position is in fact, right, that isn’t a prejudice – that’s a conclusion.

And if that conclusion is reached based on false premises, making it practically an accident that you got it right?

The reverse case of “love the sinner; hate the sin” would be “love the beliver; hate their church attendance”.  That would be an obviously extreme position, and it calls out just how wrongheaded the love/hate model is.

How does it call it out? I hate the belief that faith is a virtue, and consider it to be an immoral belief. Yet, I love many people who hold that belief. Should I hate them instead? I do not see a problem with “love the sinner, hate the sin.” As far as I can tell, many of us, maybe most, are doing just that.

 There is nothing to disagree with about homosexuality.

In the context of Justin’s discussion, the disagreement is about homosexual activity for Christ followers. 

I’m not opposed to governments redefining marriage to include same-sex unions (surely the government’s interest in marriage is economic anyway?), however this won’t end marriage discrimination. People who are already married and love an additional person, or people who are related and have a consensual adult sexual relationship (if pro-creation is not an integral part of marriage anymore, then the usual ban on incest is moot) will not be afforded the right to marry whomever they love. Perhaps you support a change in the legislation for such couples – perhaps you don’t (does that make you a bigot?) The issue then is not discrimination, per se, but whether discrimination is arbitrary or justified – to use an extreme example, we do not grant paedophiles the right to marry whom they love for very good reason – the discrimination is not arbitrary but justified.

Hmm… Webster is unhelpful here. Here is their definition:

“bigot – a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group [e.g. Evangelical Christians] with hatred and intolerance”

(bracketed insert mine of course) Is it unhelpful because it sounds a whole lot like how many in the online Atheist communities act?

By this standard definition, I reckon it’s pretty difficult to call someone else a bigot without being a little guilty oneself..

I think we are all entitled to our own opinion. Free speech is what makes our country so great. We all have to tolerate each other. Tolerate even the intolerant views because, guess what? We all have the right to believe and think how we want to.

In my opinion, if a Christian disapproves of homosexuality, it is the same as a Christian who disapproves of sex before marriage, or drunkenness, or adultery. For the Christian, all sins are created equal. 

They are taught to hate the sin and love the sinner. They aren’t hating the human being. Don’t gay people see themselves as more than just their sexual orientation? Don’t prostitutes define themselves as more than just people who are paid for sex? Its just one facet of their lives, its not who they are as a person.

The problem is that some Christians and other religious people can easily fall into judging others or looking “holier than thou.” That is not okay. God created every human being and therefore loves every human being as a child of God. It doesn’t mean God likes every thing we do, but God is the ultimate judge, and its not up to human to pass judgement for all of us are sinners. If any human doesn’t think they are a sinner, then they are sinning by thinking too highly of themselves. My hope is that Christians will practice what they preach: Loving God and Loving People.

http://ideaswithheld.blogspot.com/2011/12/can-you-believe-acting-on-homosexuality.html
I realize I’m responding a few months after the original post, but I wanted to think about this one before I responded.

The short and sweet of it is that the god of the Bible is a bigot, and anyone, including believers, who are complicit in his bigotry are themselves bigots by association.

I’m not the person you’re responding to, but since there’s a good chance Matto won’t see it (since this post is several months old), I’m going to take the liberty. Hope you don’t mind. 

First of all, please stop calling the Bible a dusty old book.  Chances are the reason you talk about religious people with so much hatred and disrespect is because you have no faith of your own. 

Not exactly. When I talk about some religious people with hatred and disrespect, it’s based on their actions and stated opinions for the most part, not my own lack of faith. If they have behaved in a manner that I find immoral or hypocritical, then that might earn a little hatred or disrespect or disgust from me (examples: members of the Westboro Baptist Church, the Catholic Church’s leadership’s cover-up and protection of child molesters, those who’ve spewed bile at Jessica Ahlquist and Damon Fowler for standing up for the Constitution and their rights, etc). I will admit to less respect for those who think faith is any sort of virtue, but there are religious individuals who earn my respect in other areas.

Doing the right thing is not always easy. 

Very true. We can agree on that.

You shouldn’t hate on the Christian religion as a whole just because of the fact that many of the Christians you know appear to be hypocrites.

Well, actually, I should. There are many, many vile things in the Bible that God either commanded or allowed without protest. The nice parts just don’t make those go away. In as much as the Bible is the basis for Christianity, I can hate the religion. The Christians that don’t follow those parts are the ones I like.

Your mom probably could not bear the thought of her sister being in hell for all eternity.  Many people who commit suicide are not in the right state of mind.  They are mentally sick.  I believe God forgives those people.

A couple things here (and Matto, I’m sorry for you loss, and hope it doesn’t cause too much pain to have your aunt’s memory used in this way): 1) How do you justify the idea of anyone  being in hell for all eternity, simply because they never repented? 2) Why do you believe God forgives the mentally ill? 

It is not even a sin to be gay.  The sin is the sexual act between same sex couples.  The same goes for sexual acts before or outside of any heterosexual marriage.  It is also a sin.

I’m wondering how you, as a Christian, justify a conclusion that seems directly at odds with what Jesus himself said: 

Matthew 5:28King James Version (KJV)
 28But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

If simply feeling lust for someone you look at is equivalent to the sin of adultery (and presumably, it’s also a sin if you’re unmarried), then for a gay man to look at another man and feel lust would be equivalent to having sex with that man, and therefore a sin. In other words, that seems to make being gay a sin in itself. Or do you argue that the verse refers only to men looking at women? If so, that leaves both gay men and all women off the hook.

No one is perfect and God knows that.  If He wanted everyone to be perfect He would not have given us free will.

Really? Then why that bit with the Garden and the Tree of Knowledge that should not be eaten from? You know, the one granting knowledge of good and evil, and therefore the option of choosing one or the other. Without choice, free will is meaningless. Yet, he forbade the eating of the fruit. Did he think they were perfect from the get go? Did that knowledge make Adam and Eve and (somehow) all who follow them imperfect? This whole thing looks fishy to me.

It is God’s job to judge them.  If you or me or anyone is truly sorry for their sins, truly sorry, He will forgive you.

 And what if you sin against me, and I do not forgive you? If you wronged me, then I fail to see how a third party’s forgiveness should matter. So what happens then? Also, suppose a gay person commits many many acts of homosexual sex, and isn’t sorry, not one little bit, for any one of them, and would happily do it all over again? Suppose further that this person is truly sorry for every other thing they did that God judges bad, and that they strived to be most excellent in all other areas of life, donating more than 10% to charity, volunteering at soup kitchens, working hard, being an awesome friend, invariably kind, never stole, hardly ever got angry and was instantly sorry he did, etc. Does that person go to hell? For eternity? Eternal punishment, for finite “sin”?

Do I believe that every gay or lesbian person is a bad person? Of course not.

Well, at least you’re not totally bad.

Do I feel that they are making a mistake in their lifestyle? yes.

Why?

Is it my place to tell them that what they are doing is wrong and there are other ways? Absolutely.

Hey, we agree again! If anyone sees something happening they think is ethically wrong, then they have every right to speak up and say so. But they also have a responsibility to explain the reason think the thing is wrong. So, why do you think gay sex is wrong? Why do you think gay marriage is wrong? And if your answer boils down to “God says so,” then why does God say so? After all, it can’t be the case that merely creating a universe means you have moral authority. God (if such a being exists) could be a complete and utter immoral asshole who likes playing “hide-and-seek,” and still have created the universe. Given the world we live in, even taking out the individual actions of humans, that would seem the most likely type of creator to exist — that, or no conscious creator at all. The evidence seems equal either way.

 I believe what God teaches through the Bible is the truth and I am trying my best to live my life by his teachings.

Why?

I simply have faith in God.

Why?