Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Friday, November 07, 2008

No, Actually, You're A Bigot

"Look, I'm a good person, I'm not a bigot, but I just feel that marriage should be a man and a woman."

No, you're a bigot.

Your denial may indicate something promising we can work with. You don't want to be a bigot. Excellent news.

But you need to stop lying about this, and stop lying to yourself. You need to understand this about yourself, you need to work on this thing.

You're a bigot.

Of course, that's certainly not all you are. Indeed, you are surely not a bigot in all the ways that are logically available for folks to be bigots in this splendidly diverse world, you may not even behave in a bigoted manner in all the ways that are logically available for folks to be homophobic bigots to the lgbtq people in your life, in your extended family, in your workplace, in your neighborhood, behind the desks and counters or on the streets of your everyday lives. Hell, "some of your best friends may be gay."

But your discomfort at loving couples who are adult tax-paying law-abiding citizens who happen not to be straight getting married if they want to do is a discomfort that is bigoted, and which makes you behave as a bigot if you act on it to support discrimination against lbgtq citizens.

Separate is not equal. This isn't rocket science. You know this stuff already.

Overcome your bigotry, fight to extend legal rights and protections to all your fellow citizens. Or, at any rate, don't act on your bigotry in the voting booth of all places, and then you can sit back and allow the boring normality of a more equal world blunt your present discomfort over time.

You don't want to be a bigot.

This isn't a nice thing about you... so be the nice person you tell yourself you are, the nice person you declare yourself to be, and just get past this hurtful , not-at-all-nice but very real bigotry of yours.

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