re: Is it possible to be against gay marriage/homosexuality without being a bigot?

quote:

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Gay marriage? Yes

Homosexuality? No

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Weirdly, I think this is kinda backwards. To me, bigotry is a question of how you treat people. There are tons of people with personal religious convictions that don't reflect outwardly in any way. They don't treat gay people any differently and don't go preaching about the sin of homosexuality unless asked or provoked. Those people clearly aren't bigots.

But if you're against gay marriage, you're voting (maybe donating/advocating) that the state should confer certain legal privileges only to the relationships of straights rather than gays. You can be earnest and polite about it; not everyone who opposes gay marriage is Fred Phelps. But at the end of the day supporting the enshrinement of unequal treatment under the law implies a small amount of bigotry.

(A small amount of bigotry doesn't make someone evil. Most of the time it just indicates a little too much unthinking deference to tradition.)

In theory, it's also possible to be for universal civil unions and returning "marriage" to the church exclusively but I've never heard this compromise floated by actual politicians, just Internet posters and Bill O'Reilly. In practice most civil unions are weak-sauce and lack full marriage protections; the only decently equal example I know of is Oregon.