bo_sox, of course, that's the best justification there is.

The simple fact that he tries to justify legal oppression of people based solely on religious views goes against the whole "separation of church and state" thing, which - correct me if I'm wrong - is supposed to matter to Americans and nowadays just about everyone else in the world.

@PE & CA

Some Tru Ninja quotes for you:

"From the article itself. As a Christian, I mostly agree with him."

So, right off the bat he blatantly endorses an Islamic preacher that has been banned from a university for being bigoted against homosexuals, not by me mind you, but by the university leaders. Well, if you endorse a bigot, you're probably one yourself.

"Christianity teaches that homosexual it is a sin, and, like all sins, is wretched in the sight of God."

Homosexual is a sin and it is wretched. Nothing hateful there.

"I'm not Islamic, but I can empathize where he's coming from"

In case you had missed his first endorsement of the Islamic bigot banned from the university. Note that he empathizes with someone who considers homosexuality "a filthy disease" and categorizes it as "obscene, filthy, shameless".

"Imagine you and everyone you know are sick and dying from a disease that is killing you from the inside."

That's Tru Ninja comparing homosexuality with being sick and dying from a disease that is killing you from the inside. Again, not at all hateful of course.

"... you are wasting away ..."

Being homosexual equates to wasting away. Not hateful at all.

"We are greedy, covetous, self-seeking, selfish, wrathful people who are compelled to lie, cheat, steal, kill and destroy to get what we want."

Some of the behaviors that Tru thinks are akin to being homosexual. No hate there.

"Homosexual it is a sin because it goes against the natural design."

And there he says that homosexuality is unnatural. Wow, he really loves them gays.

"any parent that doesn't allow their child to do anything they please has hate in their heart"

So, homosexuals need guidance same as children. How sympathetic. I'm sure all homosexuals are very charmed by these loving words.

http://tinyurl.com/lh26svt

This will likely be my last post on the subject, because it's increasingly clear that no one here is interested in a charitable discussion. Which is a shame - in no reasonable world should I even have to defend Tru's posts in this thread, since I don't agree with the thrust of them myself. I support gay rights and see nothing wrong with homosexuality. But I also have the rhetorical acumen not to assign egregiously unfair characterizations to Tru despite my opposition. I find the meta-error of failing to be fair in arguing far more offending than what I perceive to be the object-level-error in Tru's arguments, so here we are.

"Okay, we have disdain. Is that enough for bigotry?"

It's probably pretty close, yes, but that quote hardly serves as a justification for calling Tru a bigot, since bo had already explicitly called him a bigot before Tru said that quote, and several others had very thinly implied as much.

"Okay, so it's a horrible crime against god to have consensual sex between adults (justification being, "it doesn't promote life"). Great, that doesn't even count as bigotry anymore.
He has compared being homosexual to "lie, cheat, steal, kill and destroy" and being "greedy, covetous, self-seeking, selfish, wrathful". That is just plain horrible."

Words carry implicit assumptions, and the problem I have with the term "bigot" being used here is that there's an implicit assumption behind it that serves to attempt to discredit the position Tru holds without really engaging it. I have my doubts that my attempt to engage this will go any better, but we'll see.

Question: Would you consider yourself a "bigot" against murderers?

I ask because per the definition of bigot, I would assume almost everyone in civilized society is bigoted against murderers. Murder is considered an innate evil and great harm to civilized society, and so people come down ardently against it and the people who practice it. This seems entirely noncontroversial.

And yet we would never bother to describe ourselves as "bigoted" against murder. Why? Because "bigot" is a negative label. A bigot is not merely someone who has hatred (or, granted, disdain, or strong antipathy or what have you) for a particular group. A bigot is someone who has *inappropriate* hatred for a particular group.

I am in agreement that hating/etc. homosexuals for being homosexual or committing homosexual acts is inappropriate hatred/etc. But simply shouting the word "bigot" at Tru without making a meaningful engagement doesn't prove this. In fact, it doesn't advance the discussion at all. It's already apparent that those of you arguing with Tru think his views on homosexuals are inappropriate - if you didn't, you wouldn't be arguing with him. So what purpose does the term "bigot" serve?

Like I said before: it's a negative label. It's an attempt to discredit Tru the person in lieu of engaging Tru's arguments. It's an insidious move to turn the discussion into a meta-level referendum on Tru himself, forcing him to defend against the charge of bigotry, instead of engaging him on the merits and demerits of his argument. It seems to have worked, since you've run him out of the thread and left the argument incomplete. It has no place in civilized discourse, and y'all should be ashamed of even entertaining it.

Yes, Tru views homosexuality, by way of it being a sin, in a similar light to a slew of things we all agree are bad. But by simply labeling him a bigot for it, instead of attempting to engage the argument, you are effectively putting your hands over your ears and shouting over him. Calling him a bigot doesn't magically prove that homosexuality is in a different class of states of being compared to, say, murderer. All it does is attempt to strongarm him into dropping the discussion and create a phony consensus on the issue.

---

Before I go on, I want to call out kasimax for not doing this and for substantively engaging Tru on the issue. In fact I think kasimax did an excellent job of debating the issue, with strong object-level arguments, while also avoiding meta-level garbage like personal attacks.

---

"If the only avenue of argumentation left available to you is a semantic one such as this, you should probably stop arguing."

I don't agree, at all. Rather, I think the meta-level debate about how to engage one another is MUCH more important than the object-level debate about homosexuality. After all, it's not like this forum hasn't had the latter, in abundance, over the years. As far as I see it, and I think most other people see it, the object-level debate is simply an interesting exercise in discussing the issue. It's ultimately not terribly important in the grand scheme; tomorrow there will be an abortion thread and the next day an immigration one and by next Monday no one will remember the object-level debate at all (unless it's somehow still going on, but you get the point; all things come to an end).

The meta-level debate, on the other hand, is a constant process in every discussion on here. And frankly, we as a community have been GODAWFUL at doing this right. One of the reasons the moderator staff felt the need to introduce forum moderation at all is because discussions were so toxic from abhorrent meta-level practices. While the shenanigans in this thread are a far cry from some of the flame wars in years past, it is still of the utmost importance to confront bad argument form and uncharitable debating wherever it happens; that is the only way webDiplomacy can continue to be a good forum for discussing object-level issues and the only way the forums will ever be cleaned up long-term.

You might feel that my entry into the thread to decry the use of the word "bigot" is a semantic sideshow, and as it pertains to the object-level discussion I completely agree. But that's not the important part of the discussion here. Certainly an argument over the use of "bigot" to strongarm people out of debating their views here is more than a semantic sideshow with regard to the meta-level discussion, and unless you simply don't consider our discussion environment important, the fact that it's important on the meta-level should still make it an important discussion to have.

Thanks for your explanation.
Merriam Webster: bigot
"a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc. : a bigoted person; especially : a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group (such as a racial or religious group)"

Bigot is a negative word, with good reason. You are not bigoted against murderers, because it is pretty fair to dislike them.

The use here seems perfectly justified to me, even given only the statements made before the first use. TruNinja refuses to accept the members of a group (actively gay people), and he unfairly dislikes a group of people (same). We can talk about whether it is unfair, but given, again, the whole "Who is harmed by consensual sex between same-sex adults" thing, to me, it is very much unfair.

I do agree that simply dismissing TruNinja as a bigot without justifying that view was insufficient, though. It took us a little while to get where we were justifying it, and thanks for bringing us there. When we got to justifying the point with object-level points and simple questions, though, I think it was part of productive discussion.

"We can talk about whether it is unfair, but given, again, the whole "Who is harmed by consensual sex between same-sex adults" thing, to me, it is very much unfair."

I agree with the object-level conclusion that it's unfair to feel disdain for gays for being gay, but it's still worthy to note that even if this would mean bigot is, in fact, correctly applied, and even if it's already justified, calling Tru a bigot still doesn't advance the discussion and serves only to silence his viewpoint and the viewpoint of those like him. Some would consider that acceptable (I won't necessarily ascribe that position to you, phil, though if you'd like to claim it you're welcome to), I absolutely don't. Even if Tru's position is strongly distasteful to some or even most posters here, the correct response from the standpoint of promoting the optimal environment for the best possible object-level discussions is to demonstrate how it is flawed and distasteful without bringing the person involved into it.

"When we got to justifying the point with object-level points and simple questions, though, I think it was part of productive discussion."

I'm in agreement here and don't mean to shout down object-level discussion in making my meta-level point (and I apologize if I come off this way), but I'd still request that we refrain from attempting to discredit the person in our efforts to discredit one another's arguments. Fair?

@PE

I don't share your objections to the word bigot. It simply means someone who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people. I have a strong dislike of attempts to ban certain words.

As far as my own posts go, your suggestion that I've used the word bigot merely for defamatory effect is just plain false (and in fact in a way in itself defamatory towards me). If I had gone around calling Tru a bigot without further explanation you would have had a point. That's not what I did though. Each time I also explained why the word applies to him using, as you call them, object-level arguments and, as you seem to like, engaging almost all of his arguments.

Sure bigot is a strong word. So is murderer. I'm still going to call someone who murders a murderer and someone who is bigoted a bigot. I also tend to call a spade a spade, but I guess that's just me.

Tru's bigotry extends to our last discussion on this matter. Look at that other thread. I judged him as such long before this thread even existed. I apologize for infringing on his religious "freedom" to walk all over those who don't follow his religion and don't care what he thinks of them. I apologize for pointing out how ridiculous it is to legislate against those who don't believe in the Christian Bible. I apologize for referring back to a discussion that he surely believed would never resurface. Most importantly, though, I apologize for not having "the rhetorical acumen not to assign egregiously unfair characterizations to Tru" when he himself is egregiously assigning unfair characterizations to upwards of 8% of all of humanity. As far as I'm concerned, he can taste his own nasty, cherry-flavored, vomit-inducing medicine.

What I guess I'm trying to say, PE, is that while I respect your opinion on what constitutes a good discussion or a "correct response", you should also accept that not everyone will agree with you on such a subjective matter. We all have our own style of debating and should be allowed to express ourselves as we wish as long as it is within the limits of forum rules.

It is also awfully convenient that what you consider constitutes a good style of discussion happens to pretty much coincide entirely with your own style. You should really consider becoming a bit more tolerant in that respect and take some of your own medicine. Criticizing other participants on their style does not further the discussion at all, it merely serves to derail and defame.

On the specific point of whether the use of strong words in addition to arguments serves a purpose I respectfully disagree with you. I think they do. You've pretty much admitted that the word bigot in its dictionary meaning does apply to Tru in your opinion. I think sugar coating your opinion by using euphemism or avoiding the issue altogether, while friendly and nice is also somewhat dishonest and therefore in my opinion not at all a sign of a good style of discussion. I prefer that the tone matches the content.

i like your mid-post love declaration, pe. we should go and kiss someday.

That's disgusting kasimax. Go and repent you filthy shameless sinner.

Oscar, I'm both flattered and confused by your post. I consider it the highest compliment that you would assign the concepts of charitable discussion and good-faith argumentation to my style; but at the same time, I don't agree. These are necessary prerequisites of any discussion which has greater understanding and truth-seeking as their goals. It's not a matter of style: good learning cannot come from bad discussion.

I think you mischaracterize my position on the word "bigot" - the issue is not that it is a strong or colorful term, the issue is that it does not advance any argument, and turns the debate into a referendum on the debaters instead.

Regarding defamation and an attempt to ban words: I apologize if I have mischaracterized your use of the word "bigot," however I stand by my previous assessment. If your use of the term was not meant to defame, I struggle to understand what it was. I think my analysis before was sufficient to make the case, so I would appreciate it if I could see where it is flawed.

I don't mean to ban words but behaviors that I think are contrary to the goal of having a discussion with the aim of expanding understanding. Do you object to the goal or the means, and why?

Bo, what is the point of your indignant faux-apology?

Kasi I <3 u

@PE

"I consider it the highest compliment that you would assign the concepts of charitable discussion and good-faith argumentation to my style;"

You're welcome.

"but at the same time, I don't agree."

Nonetheless, I meant what I said.


"... charitable discussion and good-faith argumentation ... These are necessary prerequisites of ... greater understanding and truth-seeking ... good learning cannot come from bad discussion."

1. Charitable discussion is not at all a necessary prerequisites to greater understanding and truth-seeking. In fact, charitableness and truth are often a trade-off: shall I be honest or shall I be nice? I can see where you are coming from with your assertion that good-faith argumentation is a necessary prerequisite, but even there I have to disagree. One can learn a great many things about someone from their bad-faith argumentations. One just need to not take them at face value.

2. "Charitable discussion", "good-faith argumentation", "good learning" and "bad discussion" are all pretty much subjective terms. I respect your interpretation of them, but I think you should in turn respect that other people have other reasonable interpretations of them.

3. Greater understanding and truth-seeking are not the only valid goals of a discussion. There is also personal expression, political and/or religious propaganda, entertainment, letting off steam, making friends, whoring +1's etc. etc. Unless specific goals are agreed upon beforehand, which in this thread they were not, then realistically each participant will enter a discussion with their own set of goals, which may even vary during the course of the discussion. Your goals are apparently greater understanding and truth-seeking and that's fine. It's rather narrow-minded though to just assume, as you appear to do, that everyone must have these same goals. It should be noted though, that fortunately, unlike you seem to suggest, all these different goals are not at all mutually exclusive. While one participant is successfully spreading their propaganda, another can simultaneously gain greater understanding, while a third is hoarding +1's. All in the course of a single discussion.

4. With the goal of greater understanding there is still the matter of whom one wants to target for enhanced understanding. I for one have never had the illusion that Tru Ninja's understanding of homosexuality was going to change in any way due to any contribution, no matter how charitable, I could make in this thread. Instead, although I addressed Tru Ninja, my actual audience were those reading along. I never really cared much whether Tru Ninja learned anything or whether he was comfortable with my choice of words. He was never my target audience.

"I think you mischaracterize my position on the word "bigot" - the issue is not that it is a strong or colorful term, the issue is that it does not advance any argument, and turns the debate into a referendum on the debaters instead."

Your position is still contingent on bigot being a strong and colorful term. For how would it otherwise have this alleged effect?

Also, "I disagree with Tru Ninja about homosexuality because so and so" is just not the same argument as "Tru Ninja is bigoted against homosexuals because so and so." That is, in this case at least, the strong and colorful term advances the argument simply because it is an essential part of it.

"If your use of the term was not meant to defame, I struggle to understand what it was."

It was to illustrate that the position defended by Tru Ninja is actually rooted in bigotry rather than in a reason. This is a relevant thing to point out in my opinion. And if someone actively tries to hide their bigotry under a veil of friendly sounding religious non-arguments then I consider forcefully pulling down that veil a perfectly acceptable tactic.

In contrast, although I disagree with you on debating styles, I acknowledge that your position is a defensible one and that your arguments, although subjective, are reasonable. I hope you can appreciate the difference and see how I adjust my style accordingly.

"I don't mean to ban words but behaviors that I think are contrary to the goal of having a discussion with the aim of expanding understanding. Do you object to the goal or the means, and why?"

I don't object to the goal as such but it is not the only goal one could have and I'm perfectly fine with people having other goals. As such, even as I also have that goal, I object to forcing it upon everyone, which is what you are basically suggesting.

I object to the means because I am a strong supporter of freedom of expression and as such can't agree with banning words or behaviors other than those that violate forum rules.

Finally, I'd like to repeat what I said before: "Criticizing other participants on their style does not further the discussion at all, it merely serves to derail and defame."

Congratulations PE, you seem to have successfully derailed this thread.

But why can't we just be nice to the people telling us that our very lives are immoral?

Why can't we simply respect their opinion thag we are all damned and burning for eternity?

Why do you care Bo? Do I care if Islam says I will go to hell? Or any other religion besides the one I believe?

If you don't care, then don't care.

If you simply point at me, I don't. If you use your twisted yet for whatever reason popular views to create laws that diminish my life and take away my rights, then I care.

@bo
Yet, Tru hasn't advocated taking any rights away from anyone (I'll acknowledge that you seem to be responding to another thread that I do not have access to), but in this thread, he hasn't.
His first response was largely ignored:
“From the article itself. As a Christian, I mostly agree with him. Christianity teaches that homosexual it is a sin, and, like all sins, is wretched in the sight of God. I have seen numerous universities allow religions onto campus that teach all manner of things, but will ban other religions that choose to teach doctrine tjat the university leaders disagree with. It's a form of hypocrisy, dictatorial, and prohibits the views of at least half of the world. I'm not Islamic, but I can empathize where he's coming from, especially when a university will grant classes in religion and religious studies to bar various views and beliefs simply because university heads disagree with them.”

“You continue to preach the idea that the fact that you follow a certain religion gives you the right to tread on other people's lifestyles.

You continue to be wrong.”

If you look at what he was saying it seems to be more about administrators banning ideas that they disagree with (even within classes designed to survey those ideas), than about treading upon anyone’s lifestyle. Yes, he characterized homosexuality as a sin, and that was what people jumped on. That same paragraph was quoted multiple times as evidence of Tru’s bigotry, but every time the quotes focused on the first two sentences and part of the last one.

At most Tru’s statement is one of disapproval that then turns to the issue of censoring. He wasn’t advocating treading on anyone’s lifestyle. It looks like he was stating that some views are seen [by some] as so horrid that they must not be listened to. A point that you seemed to further by not listening to him.

Anyway, I think that might have been what PE was talking about. With that one response it became a character assassination of Tru and not a discussion of censorship in the academic community.

@CA ... read this post of Tru's from Nov. 6.

"The real issue that is at stake is who holds the authority to define marriage.

We Christians understand that God is the author and initiator of marriage, and so it is His decision to define it as the union of one man to one woman. Mankind wasn't given the ability to override this decision.

Secularism simply denies this and says that man instituted marriage and it is up to man to decide, because secularism removes God from the issue."

Not only is he implicitly bashing homosexuality (as he did throughout the rest of that thread), but he is also ranting about the fact that non-Christians feel like they have a place in the lawmaking process. Christians, obviously, would ***never*** disobey the word of God by not loving all of his children or anything, so they ought to be in charge. Sarcasm aside, it's made quite clear that Tru is against the separation of church and state, and since he very clearly refers to homosexuality here in this thread as a sin, it is not exactly difficult to assume that he would support outlawing homosexuality in any of its forms, a view he expressed throughout that thread as well. Search his profile if you want to read more of his twisted hatred.

So, yes, this is a character assassination, and justifiably so, because Tru has no decency and would like to see people such as myself who are attracted to members of our own sex stripped of our right to marry and I intend to expose that.

Character assassination would be a dishonest portrayal of a good character as a bad one. An honest portrayal of a bigot as a bigot does not qualify as such.

I'm sure Tru Ninja has many good character traits but when it comes to his views on homosexuals he is a bigot plain and simple. Pointing this out is not character assassination.

I'm also pretty sure that Crazy Anglican is accusing people of character assassination just to assassinate the character of those he accuses. It's a rather hypocritical debating tactic.

Really? That's interesting. PE was just trying to see the good in everyone and I'm being hypocritical?

Especially considering that I agreed with you about the University's call and then stated, up front, that I realized there was something going on between bo and Tru that I wasn't aware of.

You seem a little quick to apply labels oscar? At least when it suits you to do so.

@CA

I said "pretty sure" where I made a guess as to your motivation so as to explicitly leave open the possibility that I'm wrong. But yeah, given that you have been kind of defending Tru all along, whereas PE has not, that's how it came across to me. Also note that the label "hypocritical" is on the debating tactic, not on you personally.

@oscar

Okay so P.E. said this:
"In most conventional uses of the term ‘bigot,’ hatred of the targeted group is typically considered a prerequisite to successful use of the term. Whether or not one thinks Tru is misguided in his views on homosexuality is one matter, but not only do I not read any hatred in his posts, I question the charity of those who do - it would take some decidedly unfair or irrational interpretations of his post to come away with the impression that he hates gay people."

and I said this:

"I agree PE. I don't see that bigotry can apply. More and more it seems like oscar sees anything other than joyous approval or strict silence on this issue is hatred. Nothing Tru said actually amounts to hatred or bigotry."

I’m still curious as to why I am painted in a negative light and he’s generous. Now I did say that it appeared that you had a loathing for Christianity. I think I was being fair there because you made several references to “religious hate speech”, “irrational religious arguments”, thinly veiled a comparison of Christianity to racism, equated religion with neo nazi ideas (and that was only on one page).

You then went out of your way to unfairly characterize disagreement as hatred by stating, “And yeah, I consider labeling people immoral [your word not his, he said that it was a sin and like all sins was…] a form of hatred.” Of course ask him who sins and he’d say everybody. Thus the ludricrous logical end of that argument is that Tru hates everybody including himself and his family. You backed that up with this gem:

“I realize though that you are not intentionally hateful towards them and that due to your irrational believe system you don't even realize that you are hateful towards them. You are nonetheless very much hateful towards them.”

So, not only does he hate EVERYBODY; he’s too stupid to realize that he hates anybody. Hatred is apparently so well engrained in his psyche that he just oozes it unintentionally upon anyone who comes near him. And you said this guy probably had some good qualities, huh, go figure? But happily, it absolves him from bigotry (bigots center upon one group). Since (according to you) Tru hates everybody; he must be a misanthropist, right?
Given the fact that you were so intent on applying the labels of hatred and bigotry that you actively misrepresented much of what he said (rememebr merely saying that something is a sin among many others is "calling people immoral and a form of hatred"); I might find that there was a fair bit of misrepresentation in the other thread too. I have no idea though, I haven’t read it beyond bo’s quote from it.

On top of this a Christian agrees with you, but sees that another community member is being railroaded [which was exactly what was going on from the standpoint of anyone who hadn’t read another thread from a month ago] and has the temerity to say so. Then that person is “using a hypocritical debate tactic”? I think that we can fairly say that you are unwilling to believe the best of any Christian, even one who begins by agreeing with you.

PE asserts, and kasimax demonstrates, that the discussion can be had without resorting to labeling anyone. As someone whose initial agreement with you has turned to skepticism of your motives, since you appear to be the one who can "fairly" apply labels (being completely without prejudice and all). Not that I have changed my initial opinion about the University’s actions (that was arrived at independently without regard to any debate here). Character assassination was, likewise, a label of the tactic, I did not label anyone character assassins. I do think that the behavior can be separated from the person, as I stated earlier in the thread.

@CA

I'm sorry to say but with most of what you just wrote you were just battling a huge strawman as anywhere where I referred to religious beliefs in this thread, I specifically meant those religious beliefs that condemn homosexuals just for their sexual orientation. I thought this would be obvious from the context of the discussion but apparently I should have made that more clear for you. I have no problem whatsoever with the equally irrational religious belief that an imaginary omnipotent friend ordains that we must feed the poor and tend to the sick and would never label the expression of that irrational religious belief as hate speech.

You also seem to have completely missed the fact that I have made a point of using the phrase "religious beliefs" rather than "Christian beliefs", because my objection to religiously motivated bigotry against homosexuals is not at all specific to Christianity. The article linked in the OP is about an Islamic preacher after all.

Furthermore, the phrase "Christian beliefs" quite falsely suggests that there is much consensus amongst Christians about anything. Sure, like adherents of any religion, many Christians too like to portray their personal beliefs in regards to morality as absolute and immutable rules ordained by God. That is most obviously false though. In the 50's and the 60's many Christians in the U.S. argued for race segregation and against interracial marriage, using arguments quite similar to what Tru writes about homosexuals now. Peculiarly though, nowadays, you never much hear any Christians express those beliefs anymore.

As for homosexuality, specifically gay marriage, there isn't much consensus amongst Christians about that either. Instead there is a rapidly growing number of American Christians that support gay marriage. Take a look at this comparison of survey data from 2003 and 2013 (http://publicreligion.org/research/2014/02/2014-lgbt-survey/). You will find that as of 2013 62% of white mainline Protestants, 58% of Catholics, 56% of Hispanic Catholics all favor gay marriage and that Hispanic Protestants are utterly divided on the subject (46% pro, 49% anti). Even over a quarter of white evangelical Protestants and over a third of black Protestants support gay marriage. And even amongst evangelicals this seems to be mostly a generational issue as other polling data (http://www.freedomtomarry.org/resources/entry/marriage-polling) reports that amongst evangelical millennials 64% of them support gay marriage.

And so, to assume that Tru's personal beliefs equate to "Christian beliefs" and that therefore my opposition to them equates to opposition to Christianity in general is just plain false and utterly silly.

It is true that I feel kind of sorry for anyone who holds irrational beliefs, religious or otherwise, and I think they would be better off with an evidence based belief system. However, as long as their beliefs are benign I really have no problem with them. As for Tru specifically, although I strongly oppose his religious beliefs in regards to homosexuals, I'm sure he has many other (religious) beliefs, most of which are likely benign. That is to say, just because he hates gays, doesn't mean he is an entirely detestable person.

---------------------------------------------------------
Alright, let me now respond to a few of the specific points you raised.

"I’m still curious as to why I am painted in a negative light and he [PE] 's generous."

First off, I should note that I have criticized both you and PE for arguing against style rather than content. I said for instance the following things to PE in this regard:

"your suggestion that I've used the word bigot merely for defamatory effect is just plain false (and in fact in a way in itself defamatory towards me)."

"Criticizing other participants on their style does not further the discussion at all, it merely serves to derail and defame."

"Congratulations PE, you seem to have successfully derailed this thread."

So, no difference there.

However, you and PE might still have had different motivations to attack style rather than content. Now obviously I can't read PE's mind, nor yours. So the best I can do when discussing these motivations is make conjectures about them to which PE and you can respond. It is then up to the reader to decide whether they think there is any merit to my conjectures and how honest they think your response to them is.

PE made a point of it to make it clear how much he disagrees with Tru on all points and wrote walls of text about how what he considers good style is beneficial to all. Therefore I conjectured that his motivation to attack style rather than content was his desire to improve the quality of the debate.

You on the other hand have been mostly supportive of Tru and had already falsely been painting me as the enemy of all Christianity even before the style debate took off. Hence I conjectured that your motivation to attack style rather than content was primarily to discredit your opposition. As I have already admitted, I might be wrong about that. It's just how it came across to me, which I freely admit doesn't make it true. Nonetheless, whatever your true motivation was, you might find it useful to know how it came across to me. Or, as seems to be the case, you might not give a shit about that.

"Thus the ludricrous logical end of that argument is that Tru hates everybody including himself and his family."

Yeah, I'm sorry, but the notion that Tru considers everyone including himself a sinner is a cop-out for hating homosexuals that I'm not gonna buy for several reasons. First off, as has already been pointed out before, all these other sins he mentions are harmful to others whereas being an active homosexual is not. Secondly, I never hear many Christians arguing to limit the legal rights of fat people because gluttony is a sin. Unless I missed something Tru certainly never has. So, even if he does consider everyone a sinner, it's still a fact that he is a lot more persistent in denouncing homosexuals than most other sinners. And finally, while all these other sins apply to homosexuals just as much as to heterosexuals, the reverse is not true, the "sin" of homosexuality only applies to homosexuals. As such Tru still proposes, on top of what he applies to everyone, an additional condemnation of homosexuals.

And so, no, even though he thinks everybody is a sinner, I do not think Tru hates everybody. I do think he hates homosexuals though.

"I think that we can fairly say that you are unwilling to believe the best of any Christian"

I wouldn't be surprised to see you continuing this rhetoric, but I nonetheless hope that the above has made it clear that I do not condemn Christians just for being Christian. Instead I condemn individuals for spreading bigoted ideas. Fortunately many Christians, unlike Tru, don't go around bashing homosexuals.

Obi, is that you? Long time no see, buddy.

I'm not quite clear on why this conversation has drifted away from debating the actual topic at hand to whether or not there is fallacious reasoning here - it is very obvious that Tru and his "supporters" (though they've been remarkably quiet in this thread, he's getting random +1s - come out and play, don't be shy) need to be educated on what it's like to live in a modern, 21st century world.

“I'm sorry to say but with most of what you just wrote you were just battling a huge strawman as anywhere where I referred to religious beliefs in this thread, I specifically meant those religious beliefs that condemn homosexuals just for their sexual orientation. I thought this would be obvious from the context of the discussion but apparently I should have made that more clear for you.”

Wait? I’m attacking a straw-man because you were not clear enough in your attacks to begin with? How is this my problem? You set up the target; I hit what was in front of me. If you truly have no problem with religion then why did you quite unnecessarily use the words irrational (twice) and imaginary again when referencing a positive behavior associated with religion? No, this is pretty much still biased.

“In the 50's and the 60's many Christians in the U.S. argued for race segregation and against interracial marriage, using arguments quite similar to what Tru writes about homosexuals now. Peculiarly though, nowadays, you never much hear any Christians express those beliefs anymore.”

Again, with the Christians are racists theme? It does no good to use card stacking and try to ignore the many Christians (and Muslims) that protested and brought about change on this issue. You consistently seem to ignore the good (or belittle it when you have to save face and acknowledge it). You, yourself, point to the many Christians that support gay marriage, but try to portray it as a weakness in religion such as, “We never agree on anything”. It would be horrid if (as jmo suggested) we simply saw it as moving to a point where this could be accepted. As you pointed out, a lot of Christians are already there. After all, we brought about civil rights legislation and we’re no less Christian because of it. Most of the folks that voted for the civils rights acts were Christians as were most of the voters who put them there. Most of the protestors were religious, and most of the people who led them were as well. They studied and emulated a successful movement that was largely led by Hindus and Muslims.

This is why I’m skeptical. Although, I’m in agreement with you on the issue, it seems as if you are purposefully making it hard for me to do so, with an unnecessarily anti-religious tone. You assume that it should have been obvious that you weren’t attacking religion, but go on to attack religion even when religious people agree with you. That’s what I don’t understand. You shouldn’t want it to be an “us against them” scenario, because if you truly did turn Christians against the idea; it wouldn’t pass. I fail to see why anyone on your side on the issue, Christian or otherwise, wouldn’t be treated with respect.

What is more, it will take a Christian to point out the other Christians who aren’t truly your enemies. I did go back through the other thread. The one that bo said was full of Tru’s hatred. I was shocked, he only posted twice in a five or six page thread. I would have thought that, if he were a bigot, he’d be more verbose. He makes some statements that largely show that he does not approve of homosexuality, but I have seen little that overtly shows he’s in favor of denying rights to anyone. I did something that none of you did, not once in eight pages. I asked him. On top of that, he did acknowledge that marriage could be redefined. He states his opposition to it, but when I asked him he also said he wouldn’t protest it. That pretty much cuts the feet out from under bo who spent many lines of text decrying him but assures us that he’d be fine with it if Tru was not advocating taking rights away from others. He hasn’t done so. He has certainly expressed his opinion on the issue. Since he is a citizen of this country, I presume he still has a right to do so.