Among the replies to Dahlia Lithwick's article on why the proposed beyond marriage anti-gay amendment is pragmatically a bad idea (besides being bigoted) was one that suggested she missed the point. It was a bit silly to try to reason with people with faith-based prejudices. I replied that not only was the author aware of biases of those behind the amendment (one, as someone else noted, is a get out the vote effort), but that there is some value to such a strategy as well. Push comes to shove, hard-line bigots are in a minority -- even if a majority is bigoted, if that path will result in problems, many will bend. This is the value of civil rights laws -- relying on personal values is not enough, but a legal push often does the trick.
Furthermore, speaking truth to power has various benefits overall. Some people are either open to being convinced or promote wrongminded viewpoints that have a veneer of respectability to them. I made a reference to someone who thinks the middle class are major victims, the government not doing anything for them. She firmly said "you won't convince me otherwise," which was true enough -- she blatantly ignored any arguments, even based on her own views, which would ruin her emotionally satisfying trope (tripe?). Reasoning with such a person can be aggravating, which leads to aggravated responses that only help their case. Oh look, they are just emotional as well! But, even here, in other conversations, some reason can be offered. Hmm ... yes, I believe in a woman's right over one's body, even if I couldn't abort myself. Yes, I do believe even slimeballs should get fair treatment in court.
IOW, unreasonable sorts often have blindspots, not total blindness. As to the veneer issue, removing it can promote a cause as well. The linked thread is a case in point -- see the comments as to homosexuality among "animals." A frayster named "San" selectively challenged the replies, eventually basically making my point with distasteful name calling and other bully tactics. [Online discussions, like real world ones, often are annoying to the extent the other side doesn't really respond to your point. Politicians do this all the time ... it is called "spinning" or "framing." It is the job of the press, voters, and the other side to force them to face things directly ... to some extent at least.] I didn't want to continue to feed the animals, so did not toss in a "QED."
A person also suggested that we need to fight fire with fire -- Bible based arguments with Bible based arguments. As noted by my reply (cannot help myself), this seemed to be a bit self-defeating and even ironic. The person noted reasoning with such people was dubious, but then tried to ... reason with them. Doing so with arguments arising from sacred works is if anything more an exercise of avoiding land mines. Simply put, the Bible might be a good book in various ways, but should not quite guide public policy, and not even private morality in various respects. This is so because -- no matter how you do it (and the person, I think, did so a bit dubiously*) -- it has some questionable material.
And, even if you are a true expert -- again, a dubious proposition -- we still are dealing with faith. For instance, even twenty years ago, Catholic schools taught evolution, viewing the Genesis creation stories as poetic metaphor. [I only directly know about NYC schools, but the church is hierarchical, so surely it went beyond here.] The Catholic Church, even if they are about to release a somewhat more sympathetic report on homosexuality (a sort of make nice with the sinner deal), is still a pretty conservative religion ... with some liberal believers trying to deal with the fact. So, this is notable. All the same, about forty percent of the population retains a belief in some sort of intelligent design, some probably Catholics. Pointing out that not only science, but also the Bible, does not require them to do so has not really worked totally well, has it?
We should welcome all sorts of reasoned debates, especially in fascinating fields like biblical study, but be aware of the limitations. This is surely the case when we become emotional ourselves, which is particularly easy for those with especially a lot at stake. So, let's have all sorts of discussions, even though at some point the whole matter gets a bit tedious. When that occurs, there is always YouTube -- it was given an award for most important new invention, plus is pretty fun as well. I was checking out some clips, including pretty creative use of television shop clips (a soap opera, House, etc.) to make your own music videos, yesterday.
Fun stuff ... the "Goodbye Earl" music video with a few well known faces as song characters was great as well. Maybe, a song to play Tuesday night? I was thinking the DC song "Landslide" would do the trick, and a stanza sorta does, but not quite. The former song, including its downright playful tone (yes, it is about killing a wife beater), seems more appropriate. Of course, there is always "Not Ready To Make Nice."
Ha, no, not overplayed yet!
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* See linked discussion.