Things I Agree With / We Hate Your Hate

my own commenters edition!  Here's Henry Akona in the comments:

It is impossible to know if Mr. Eckern's resignation was entirely voluntary or if it was encouraged by the board. Nonetheless, as artistic director he was not merely a "employee" of the company: he was an executive and the public face of the organization. Executives and politicians are (and should be) held to a higher standard. They resign all the time for saying stupid things (just ask Larry Summers or Trent Lott). What they say (and here I'm using the Republican definition of political contributions as "speech") is not illegal, but, if it undermines their capacity for leadership, they have no choice but to go. Mr. Eckern has admitted to being (at best) a careless dupe, which is enough to cast doubt upon his fitness to lead any organization. It's a tragedy but not a witch-hunt. He brought it upon himself and, if he could not maintain the trust and goodwill of the patrons, members, artists and employees of the organization, he was right to resign.

That pretty much sums up how I feel.

To add onto this however... there's an odd bit of Conservative Victimhood malarky going around here in the comments and elsewhere in the news, in commentary etc. that goes a little something like this:

Those of us who wish for "tolerance" for (in this case) gay people are being hypocritical if we demonstrate "intolerance" towards those who themselves show some form of "intolerance" towards gay people. I think it's important to just note that in most cases what "tolerance" and thus "intolerance" means are left (perhaps deliberately) vague. The argument here goes that "tolerance" cuts both ways. If you want people to tolerate gays, you must also tolerate their intolerance towards gays.

I don't find this point of view particularly convincing, but then again, I've never been a fan of the "tolerance" rubric at all. And I think the above argument- which seeks to pervert the idea of tolerance to make it essentially impossible to advocate against homophobia- shows why it's a stupid way to approach a lot of issues. (A good way of knowing this argument is a cheap shot is that it was deployed by Tucker Carlson on Crossfire, btw).

Basically what this false equivalency does is make organized persecution of homosexuals and people being upset by or fighting organized persecution of homosexuals into things of equal value. But they arent. The former is coordinated legal and/or social action that actively oppresses people. The latter is agitating for rights for people, especially the right to be left alone and lead their lives so long as its not hurting anyone else, which is pretty much what most gay rights issues are about.

Doing the latter, and fighting for rights for our GLBT brothers and sisters frequently means challenging the beliefs of people who disagree. And here is where the "intolerant!" charge usually comes. But it's not intolerant to disagree with someone's beliefs. Nor is it intolerant to tell someone that they are wrong to believe what they believe (although sometimes it might make you kind of a jerk). Nor is it intolerant to tell someone not to use words like sissy or faggot around you (a request, it should be noted that the other person is free to ignore, but not on this blog cause I'll delete your comment and block you in a hot minute). It is not a requirement of being tolerant that I be okay with someone farting on my face in the subway. Similarly, it is not a requirement of being tolerant that I allow someone to spout off ignorant hateful bullshit (no matter how well scripturally sourced) without arguing against them (And yes, I'm the asshole who argues with people prosletyzing in the subway.)

The organized social and political persecution of GLBT people is not about challenging someone's beliefs. It's about challenging who someone is and denying them rights as a result. No one is arguing that Christians should be denied rights because of organized homophobia within various christian faiths. There's a real difference between the two actions.

We try to go through life in a way that ensures that we're never challenged by disagreement on our fundamental beliefs. I think that's a natural human impulse, and that people on both sides of the political spectrum do this. Part of the issue here is that "that thing you said is intolerant/bigoted/offensive." has been wielded by people on the left to shut down conversation (just to be clear here, what I'm saying is not that calling something offensive is never called for, but rather that perhaps it's been used too much to avoid useful conflict and challenge), and now people on the right have adapted that tool and used it in a rather maddening way (just when, btw, people on the left seem to have put that tool down for awhile).

I'll take another example from the comments, here's Booboo:

I would suggest that those who are so vocal in calling others "bigot" and "intolerant" may want to take a close look in the mirror. Fair warning, you may not like what you see.

People calling Eckern a bigot are not themselves being bigoted.  Here's why: If you met someone who was a Mormon and called them a bigot based on their faith, that'd be pretty bigoted and intolerant of you, you'd be immediately assuming things about them based on their religious beliefs.  That's not why people are calling Eckern a bigot. They're calling him one because he donated money to strip a group of people different from him  of rights. Calling him "intolerant" again gets a little fuzzy because it means seeing into his heart on some level, but still he behaved in an intolerant manner by donating money to a Yes-On-8 group. 

So I'd prefer it if we just engage in the argument. Not about Scott Eckern, honestly, 'cause that story is done and frankly I think everyone involved did the right thing. Scott Eckern was working in an art form and business built largely by the efforts and talents of gay people and their allies. Eckern made a decision to donate money to a cause antithetical to the interests of those people because of his religious beliefs. People reacted to and acted in response to his decision in an appropriate way (by ceasing their business relationship with his business). He in turn resigned to avoid costing his organization more business. That's the way things are supposed to work. Regardless of whether you think his initial decision to donate money was right or wrong, the truth of the matter is that's how the market is supposed to work to solve these kinds of issues. As a thought experiment, come up with an analogue for this that doesn't involve a hotbutton cultural issue or flip which side of this one you agree with, and I think you'll come up with the same determination I did.

I do think some of the rage at the Mormon Church has to do with how "Strange" the church is to a lot of people. And it's easier as I said earlier to agitate against semi-marginalized groups rather than mainstream ones. And so yes, there is a strain of anger about Prop-8 that has disturbing (and somewhat intolerant) racial and religious undertones to it. But acting on what you think is right by your faith is not a Get Out Of Jail Free card, nor should it be.

Anyway... back to the subject at hand... rather than tossing around intolerance charges, we could actually have the debate about gay marriage and gay rights. I'm all for it, although my mind's pretty made up. I don't understand the case against gay marriage at all except if it's a religious conviction issue but in our country, that's not how the government's supposed to make decisions about people's rights.

... also let me just add as an afterthought that this has nothing to do with the argument over whether pointing out that someone is being a bigot or a racist or a homophobe or whatever is a tactically appropriate or intelligent thing to do. I believe in general it is not. Because then you get into a side debate (is this guy a bigot or not??) that doesn't have much to do with the much more important subject at hand. It is, however, a great tactic to use against liberals which is why I think liberals themselves try to use it against conservatives to little avail.

Comments

[Christopher Shelton]

"Those of us who wish for "tolerance" for (in this case) gay people are being hypocritical if we demonstrate "intolerance" towards those who themselves show some form of "intolerance" towards gay people."

In my experience, the best way to deal with this argument is to agree.

To say:
"You are right. I was not tolerant of you and I wished that you were unable to act on the things that you feel and believe. In fact, I was about to argue that people who are intolerant of gays should not be allowed to marry. I was about to argue that *you* should have your marriage nullified because you are intolerant."
"Now I see that you are absolutely correct and we all must be treated equally. I no longer believe that you should be denied your right to marry, and I'm sure you will grant me the same goodwill."

I like this approach because it collapses the "be tolerant of the intolerant" argument into "be tolerant".

If you feel the person on the other side is not sophisticated enough to follow that line of reasoning, you could always go with:

"No, *you* should be tolerant of *my* intolerance of *your* intolerance!", which also highlights how useless it is to follow that line of debate.

[Joshua James]

Great post. I wished I'd been as clear earlier when discussing it on your previous post.

[Scott Walters]

I'm not certain if this is a reference to the discussion of Tom Loughlin's post. If so, and you are arguing with my comments concerning it, then you are distorting what I said. What I called for was civil discourse, which does not mean a quiet, polite discussion -- a passionate argument, such as what you describe yourself doing on the subway, is very much civil discourse, and the basis for a democratic society. However, literally silencing the opinions of others by drowning those words out is not civil discourse, not only because it prevents the speaker from speaking, but because it denies the right of others to listen to and engage that speaker. By all means, engage a speaker with whom you disagree, and martial all your rhetorical strategies to show that he is misguided. But do so while respecting that the democratic process is based on the civil exchange of ideas. Bigotry should be confronted, not given a free pass. That is not the same thing as preventing speech.

[isaac]

Nope, Scott, this is in reference to comments here on my blog, one of which I quote within the post itself.

Also, in the post, I wrote the following:
"To add onto this however... there's an odd bit of Conservative Victimhood malarky going around here in the comments and elsewhere in the news, in commentary etc. that goes a little something like this:"

"here in the comments" is another tip off! If I was talking about you, I'd just argue with you directly. You and I are (pretty much) on the same page on this one, although we might disagree w/r/t specific things in the post Tom wrote.

[Scott Walters]

I couldn't remember -- I knew I had commented on your original post, and I thought Joshua and I had argued a bit, so I was wondering. Thanks for the clarification.