I am always gobsmacked by the bigots who claim to “have one in my family” and still remain bigoted. So much for coming out to your family making a big difference in their hearts.

It is a sad situation.

It’s justice that old Scott is now an out of work bigot.

One down, 62 million to go.

The thing I’ve never understood is, if gays get married how in the hell does that have any negative effect on straight couple’s marriages?

This really is about H8, isn’t it?

Particularly sad when Keith Olbermann, who had to think long and hard about whether he had “one in his family” could be show such raw emotion in advocating on behalf of _everyone_ who wants to make that sort of commitment to loving another person.

My only tiny quibble would be that as far as The State is concerned, marriage is about the legal, contractual obligations of the two parties, and the rights derived from them, far more than about love. Which is the biggest argument for keeping people’s religious/moral beliefs out of it, afaic.

Well, maybe that’s not a tiny quibble. I think KO-s comment was right on the money. I finally watched the video last night, and thought it stunning. Someday I want to shake that man’s hand.

FunnyD

In musical theatre and supported Prop 8? He’s either the most clueless person on the planet or thought he could get away with leading a double life.

Yes.
Simple answers to simple questions.

As for “how does someone else’s relationship threaten my own, or how would mine threaten anyone else’s?”…that’s the $64 million question, isn’t it? I and many of my friends and acquaintances have been asking for years, and still haven’t heard a satisfactory answer.

But, you meant it rhetorically, of course.

FunnyD

Hey Lisa!
There are worse things than watching a bigot from the back as he eases his way out the door.

There is no fixin’ stupid.

This issue just drives me stone crazy. Those who support Prop. 8 largely believe that being gay is a “lifestyle choice”. They refuse to accept the fact that it’s genetic. You’re either born gay, or you’re not. I keep reading their stupid comments suggesting that gays will “teach this lifestyle to our children”. Some of them say you can “pray away the gay”. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Banning gay marriage is no more fair than banning any red-haired person from marriage. It is just so wrong to deny people the right to do what every other person has the right to do because *you* think they’re “choosing to sin”.

Straight people devalue marriage every day, the divorce courts are always busy.

Did they think when Portia and Ellen got married that their own straight marriage would automatically dissolve. Argghhh! As I said, it makes me crazy.

Or that the “stay out of my private decisions” meme would work in such a liberal-dominated profession. Oops. IOKIYAR/B except when the R/B do not rule that corner of the world. Welcome to the life you’ve imposed on the rest of us, pal.

Sail me down that Eastern European waterway Crimea River. Give me my teeeny tiny violin.

FunnyDiva

I’m obviously an oponent of prop 8 but I am also an oponent of someone losing their job because of any political contribution

I don’t want to get fired because I support abhor prop 8 and I don’t want someone to get fired because they love it

I am pretty upset this gut lost his job over his contribution I have to tell everyone, I am also alarmed some of you think this is fine and dandy

Goopers idea of responsible governance:
Making government (and our churches) small enough to…
fit through your bedroom keyhole.

That one was in the wrong profession. He can now seek his heart’s desire and do work that soothes his soul like running for public office as a Republican.

If he needs a paycheck, he can just pick himself up by the bootstraps. This is America where anyone can earn $100 mm in a New York minute. /s

And even if it _was_ a lifestyle choice, who the He** are they to legislate against it in Secular society?!!!!! The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution is really not that difficult to comprehend. The words aren’t that big or archaic or anything. There is no secret “Except for X religion” clause visible only through special gold-rimmed glasses. If an argument for any sort of legislation is primarily religious, chances are it’s just not valid–especially if it’s primarily about taking away some else’s rights.

FunnyD
Still just sick over Prop 8 and its ilk.

Then I suppose a school with mostly black students shouldn’t fire a teacher who contributes to a proposition to made slavery legal. After all, it’s just a political contribution.

I really think the right-wing religious and GOPs see men (and perhaps also women) in their midst who HAVE made a choice: the choice to live a lie by marrying someone of the opposite sex whilst their attraction is to their own. Or they see longtime confirmed bachelors in their midst, e.g. Lindsey Graham, who live chastely and not as open gays. And so, they decide, there IS a choice: you can choose to be OUT or not.

And this is the “choice” they speak of, when they talk about a lifestyle choice: the choice some make to live dishonestly, and not frighten the horses or their fellow parishioners or politicos.

Of course, there is NO choice to be as the Almighty or our genes made us, but these wingnuts see among them (or are themselves) those who CHOSE not to live honestly as gay or lesbian — why can’t everyone make that same choice, they wonder in their misery?

I think we can push giving to prop 8 as a litmus test for Obama hires. That should be our next step along with targeted boycotts where we know we can exert pressure like Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

this is a good point ecahn

let me pose another;

I am jewish

I do not want the kkk losing their right to demonstrate and free speech

I am also hispanic, I do not want people losing their job because they want contribute to “closing the borders”

contributing to legal political campaigns cannot be grounds for losing your job

don’t forget, they are still going to get another job, this time with like minded people and that is surely more dangerous

…decisions have consequences

But when it comes to our civil laws, whether being gay is a choice or not shouldn’t matter. In America, you choose your religion and we don’t discriminate based on religion. In American, you don’t choose your skin color and we don’t discriminate based on skin color.

So whether being gay is a choice or it isn’t — doesn’t matter in America. The fundie/rightwing ‘choice’ argument fails on every level. First of all, we all know it’s wrong. Who chooses to be straight? Second, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a ‘choice’ or not.

He resigned. As far as I can tell he was not fired. If he was, or was pressured to resign by his employer, then he’s probably got legal remedies available.
Sometimes the consequences of ones actions are severe. Even if it’s “only” via the social mores of your circle or profession. Why shouldn’t he have to exercise the courage of his convictions?

FunnyD

Any other places where we have the leverage to do a successful boycott? We can’t boycott everything otherwise its likely to fail.
But in business where the LGBT community has the numbers the rest of us can pile on and maximize their leverage. Punish a few first win and then scare the rest that they will be next.
But one step at a time we can’t over reach and do it all at one time we need to build the boycotts one step at a time on success.

Ian is at the mothership with news on healthcare plans.

None of the alternative examples you give deprive any U.S. citizen of civil rights. Prop 8 does.

Besides, the post sez he resigned, not that he was fired. Guess he didn’t feel comfortable at work anymore. Happens all the time, often for reasons a lot less consequential.

He resigned. As far as I can tell he was not fired.

this is fine for me, so long as the actors and others did not pressure management

I have no problem if the other workers made it clear they wanted no part of him and that’s why he resigned but I would really be upset if the workers pressured management and then management pressured him

Your Hispanic too Cool:)

None of the alternative examples you give deprive any U.S. citizen of civil rights. Prop 8 does.

that’s not true

contributing to eliminating the kkk’s right to free speech deprives them of their civil rights

this prop was a legal submission, you can’t lose your job becaues you supported a legal submission.

I don’t buy it

1st amendment free speech protections don’t immunize anyone from criticism or social consequences of their political speech. This isn’t about jailing or legally prohibiting anyone from making what ever political contributions they wish.

FunnyD

we do live in America and we happen to be ‘progressives’

I would think our ideology stands true whether we agree with a persons civil rights or not

I have no problem with the social consequence that made his co-workers dissaprove and therefore he resigned

that would be completely differant then management pressuring him to quit

As ECahn points out, that kind of pressure is exerted in the work-world very frequently, and over much less consequential issues. In this case, and considering the status of the employee, I just don’t believe the artists were out of line.

FunnyD

I have no problem with the artists, but if management had anything to do with it, that’s the problem

my 35 is for your 34

going to dinner, see all later

I think the rule on political contributions to causes should be you can’t get fired accept if you are trying to take way someone else’s Constitutional Rights.
Sure Bush pushed to spy on Americans to protect our right to life but spying on American citizens was a perversion of the principle.
Protecting Marriage is used as an excuse for Prop 8 but really where is the threat if Gays get married to Hetrosexuals?
The GOP are masters at using/protecting one right to take away another right.
A debate about real threats that justify this would be interesting Prop 8 like listening to my phone calls does not qualify but what does?
Does anything should not our rights define us as people should we not live and die as we choose to?
Taking away another’s rights like Prop 8 does is the only thing that might justify taking away a lesser thing like a job.
But to actually take away someone else’s rights what justifies that?
Or are men animals and mere survival at all costs is our ultimate goal?
Conservatives like Cheney I think favor that. The idea that men are better than animals is our position I think.

Even at McDonalds social consequences unofficially can get you asked to leave well talked to as in the bosses know work does not get done if people are fighting.

Ah, then we are actually on the same page.
Again, if his employer forced his resignation based solely or primarily on his political position, he’s probably got avenues of legal redress.
The artists had every right to make their views clear to his employer, though.

FunnyD

I can see both sides of the argument. But here’s the simpler point: he could no longer be effective on that job. The theater would have gone under, the staff would at best barely tolerate him, knowing that he hated them because they were gay. Once his contribution came out, it was only a matter of time. If you want to hate gays, don’t work in a job where gays are all over the place. It doesn’t work.

I am also hispanic, I do not want people losing their job because they want contribute to “closing the borders”

Should bosses protect close the border types who choose to work in a Hispanic job environment? The GOP is or was until recently against integration in schools. Their whole states rights meme was born from that issue.
But no discrimination based on race creed or color is a right. However advocating to take away your coworkers rights would present the Boss with an undo burden in keeping the work place harmonious and PRODUCTIVE.
Arggh! I tried to think like a States Rights person who wasn’t a bigot and logically something Scalia can only manage to do one out of the three.
States Rights without bigotry and logical something an honest Conservative would come up with.
Dreaming impossible things hurts.

Best case is one thing most likely there would be pranks, confrontation and then fights. With possible sabotage of either parties work messing with productivity.

I’m not resigning, but I’ll never put a check in the collection plate that would go toward the Bridgeport Diocese. They collect every other week for my local church, and they will get my money. I will write on the check, “For the local parish”. And they’d better be the ones endorsing it.

Why? From the front page of their newsletter:

http://bridgeportdiocese.com/

William E. Lori, who joined his brother bishops in a statement from the Connecticut Catholic Conference in the collection plate again that would go for the Bridgeport Diocese.

BRIDGEPORT – The October 10 decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court to allow same-sex “marriage” has outraged Catholics across the state.

The traditional definition of marriage as a sacred union, before God, of one man and one woman for the purpose of procreation has now been changed by the vote of just four judges.

They will not be able to use my money for their own narrow minded and un-Christ-like agenda. Ever.

$30 a week for a year = $1,560. I’m 50 years old, and could contribute for possibly (if I’m lucky) another 20 years. They have just said goodbye to $31,200 tax free bananas. And that mention in my will? Whoopsies. I forgot.

““how does someone else’s relationship threaten my own, or how would mine threaten anyone else’s?”…that’s the $64 million question, isn’t it? I and many of my friends and acquaintances have been asking for years, and still haven’t heard a satisfactory answer.”

Well unless they are involved in a polygynous bisexual set of relationships and feel threatened that allowing gay marriage would result in one of his partners preferring a monogamous pairing – then I can’t think of one. Maybe he’s afraid that his secret gay boyfriend will run off with another, more devoted, guy?

He had been working there for 25 years. Now he’s blacklisted. This kind of thing just confuses people about who the bad guy is. As Dr. King said “the darkness cannot be extinguished by more darkness, but only by the light”. He also made a $1,000 contribution to the Human Rights Campaign (which WORKS FOR LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER EQUAL RIGHTS), so maybe he can make a right wing blacklist too. It’s too bad it was handled this way. Maybe he could have been convinced that his donation was not a defense of marriage, but violating civil rights. Maybe somebody named President Obama could be convinced that opposing the right to marry, is not constant with supporting civil (and more specifically GLBT) rights. Anybody here donate money to Obama?

I can’t believe I’m reading this here on FDL.

Same-sex marriage, i.e. the right to the same middle-class fairy tale conventional widget as the Joneses, is the same as freedom from slavery? And not a single poster before this to holler at this nonsense?

It’s OK to be fired or being forced to resign from your dream job because you simply believe that that fairy tale widget should be only reserved for distinct-sex couples on the grounds of incentivizing procreation? And believing that is “hating Gays”, like many here and the original title of this post claimed?

And, worst of all, it’s OK because this is America where everyone who needs a paycheck can just move their butts and get a job? Have you looked at this country lately, for god’s sake?

And if it’s OK to get rid of him there because of a campaign contribution, then it’s OK to bar him from ever getting a job again in the dance or theater world. I don’t have a clue who this guy is, but presumably he’s made a career in dance or theater through effort and talent, he has crendentials, he has probably sacrificed a lot for it – I don’t think that you get into that line of work to make a bundle of money fast; it takes work, dedication and love of the trade, nights and weekends away year-after-year before you make it, doesn’t it? The theater didn’t hire him on political correctness, they hired him on his hard-earned talent and skills.

All this has no meaning to you guys? It has to be all thrown to the dogs just because he believes in some antiquated tradition about state-sanctioned relationships, a position that is not preventing anyone from living the life they want (I’m talking real life, not some dead fantasy of it in which marriage is a civil right)?

Geez, with bigoted so-called “liberals” like this crowd here, who needs Bush and Palin?

Thank god for Perris.

What if a chicken farmer’s accountant gave money to a yes on prop 2 group, and the farmer found out about it.

Would it be unseemly for the farmer to fire the accountant?

There’s a lot to what you say.
Guy spent 25 years with this theatre group.
That’s a lifetime commitment to the craft.
This is where I live, too, btw.

I think for me the issue is similar to how I feel about the separation of church and state.
They should remain completely separated!

Along with that, in the workplace, there’s no reason to be discussing religon, sex, OR politics.

What this guy does in his own time (snark) with his personal life and his money is of no relevance and should be of no interest to his co-workers or the company he works for.

Do I think he’s asshat for donating to Prop 9? Yes.
He should have gone thru his church. Period.
Live in a closet, then donate there.

Bottomline? Dude screwed up, and it cost him his lifetime of work.
Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Although, I GOTTA ask how he reconciled his personal feelings about ‘marriage’ with the LGBT community day after day for 25 years . . . .

And then I go Devil’s Adcocate and I also gotta ask, if NO ONE IN THE PAST questioned him about his personal life, why now?

Like I said, he was in the wrong place. And the local LGBT took his ass down, fast.

There’s a lot to think about, in this one . . . . how a community could turn on one of their own (theatre community) with a 25 year commitment so harshly.

I would have thought there are much bigger dragons to slay out there for the LGBT folks, and for the rest of us, too. Like ENDING discriminations of all kinds.

Somehow, I don’t think this is the way it should be carried out.

Trouble is the artistic director did something that affected the ability of the theater companty he worked for to attract the talent it need to conduct its business.

Even if he was fired, it’s not because he expressed or supported unpopular views. But rather as long as he was there, the theater would be negatively affected in its ablilty to function well with a large portion of its resources unwilling to work for it anymore.

For whatever reason or cause, if I did that to my company, they would fire me too.

Will you people simply TRY to imagine musical theater without gays or lesbians.

Yeah that’s right — IT DOESN’T EXIST!!!!

The man was ‘outed’ by an actress and a writer, both gay, who work for the same theatre group.

The actress and writer called for the boycott, which threatens the livelihood of EVERY ONE in the theatre group.

It was the pressure of the boycott that caused him to resign.
It was being called out on his personal choices that caused him to resign.

For 25 years, NO ONE had a problem with this man, one who was artistic director before, a CFO I think, and maybe even a CEO of this theatregroup (which has emerged from other groups thru the years).

The man did NOT work at a school, that was government funded.

He worked for what is likely a 401, c, 3 not for profit theatre company.
So there’s no correlation to public officials being held accountable.

Here’s a local story of the issue from website of KCRA-TV3:

http://www.kcra.com/news/17964159/detail.html

Here’s a follow up story from Sac Bee:

http://www.sacbee.com/749/story/1392388.html

Here’s another:

http://www.sacbee.com/1089/story/1391705.html

And Another:

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1390297.html

There’s a LOT of room between the articles and the comments in each one.

This is simply a polarized issue. There does not seem to be a lot of give and take on it, from what I’ve read.

Now I read in here that the LGBT Community wants to target businesses, people, and more and make THEM examples if they don’t support Gay Rights. Which means some straight, white middle aged long term liberals/progressives are gonna get caught up in the crossfire. People that have stood and marched side by side with the LGBT Community time after time since the 60’s.

Which will further the polarizaton.

Sad, given we might have the beginning of sanity in the White House.

Sad, given we have ALL come so far from Selma to Stonewall, and more.

This is like watching the GOP fracture. Only that’s fun. This ain’t.

Here’s to gay rights, NOW!!! But don’t go burning your bridges folks.
We’d like to walk those bridges with you, once again.

Like Civil Rights in ‘64, we’re all best off impacting the political system.
Impacting the legislators, electing them and FIRING them when they let us down.
We’re better off holding feet to fire at the political level than burning down the missions.

We’re ALL better, than that.

Harumph.

Thank you. I concur with your statement.

Where were the artists for 25 years before this?

NOT A PEEP!!!!! Eckern was Mormon all that time!!!!

And so far, I count TWO artists, one actress and a writer, in the links I’ve provided.

TWO, who started this all.

And threatened the livelihood of everyone IN this company, top to bottom.

Gay and straight alike.

Militancy which takes out many who might not choose to play (innocent bystanders gay and straight alike), is misguided militancy.

Ian, that’s some pretty heavy extrapolations about hating gays and such coming from you.

Where did you READ about his hating gays?

He seemed to have 25 phreaking years of success WITH gays, day in and day out, show after show.

How do you account for using such inflamatory and ‘widely cast’ nets of dispersion?

It’s not your usual style . . . . and I regret seeing it in print.

Hey, Fire Pups. Long time lurker, first time poster here.

I am a theater professional working on Broadway in New York. I don’t know any of the people involved in this incident locally in Sacramento, but I do know many of the people who drove both his theater and ultimately him to this resolution.

To the decision makers in this industry, he became radioactive overnight. He quit under pressure because he became so radioactive in fact, that shows — really, really big Broadway touring shows that bring in lots and lots of money to their local hosts — were threatening to cancel their stops in Sacramento.

Lest anyone pretend this man has been paid a disservice, three things seem to we theater folk to be exceedingly hard for people we jokingly call “civilians” to grasp:

A.) Professional theater in America is a very, very small and tightly-knit community. I don’t have hard numbers, but theater as a profession (including actors, dancers, directors, playwrights, composers, musicians, stagehands, ticket-takers, etc…), probably supports fewer than 250,000 people full time nationwide. Artistic directors like Scott Eckern are part of a VERY small group, less than 100 nationwide. Because of touring shows, everybody knows just about everyone else, or is no more than two introductions away. In theater, it’s about one degree of separation.

B.) The cliches are true. Theater is gay. Broadway is really gay. Most people have merely a dim awareness, if any at all, of just how gay theater is, and particularly the Broadway touring shows that are the bread and butter of a theater like the one he was running.

C.) Real life is scary for misfits and a life in the theater can provide a welcome sanctuary. If you’ve seen “Waiting For Guffman” or “Hamlet 2,” then you can understand how professional theater is populated by the same collection of freaks, outcasts, rejects, weirdos and malcontents as community theater, just better paid. Being gay in a hetero world is one reason, perhaps the overwhelming one, why so many gays choose theater as a profession. Odds are, many or most people in this industry have been an odd duck of some kind since high school or earlier and, whether gay or straight, have always found comfort and tolerance amid fellow thespians.

So, into this mix of fragile people comes a man who is bigoted against the bulk of the very people who write, direct, act and dance in the shows that pay his bills. So committed was he to his bigotry that he would commit money to a bigoted cause. In turn, so committed are the people he opposes that they are willing to commit their money by losing it in a cancelled tour stop.

Seems like that fair’s fair, to me.

Like I said, I don’t know this man. But, I do know people who have been working these last few days to ensure their shows don’t go through his theater because his openly professed views made him radioactive.

Don’t cry for him. He chose his path.

On this matter, I concur whole heartedly with you.

Teh Bishops are organizing against Obama.

Cut them off at the knees with money. Or the lack of it.

Time to send the religons to the 3% of life where they belong and get them OUT of our lives in every instance other than to practice their freedom to worship in their places of worshop or at home.

They don’t get freedom to recruit, indoctrinate, spread fear and hate.

To single out a theatre company executive when there are the churches to go after is foolhardy.

And thanks for YOUR comments . . . and for the light they shed. You hit a few things I hadn’t even thought about in passing thru some comments (a few which left me throwing up a little in my mouth, seeing’s as they came from ‘progressives’).

There’s something inherent to me in what you posit, that’s greatly flawed, but I can’t put my voice to it yet.
Something’s just WRONG with what offer . . .

The wrong is, that the people exerting pressure on the theatre are wrong . . . for SO many reasons.
And they are pissed, sure. But they beat up the wrong guy.

They should be beating up on the CLDS. On the Catholic Church (and are there any Catholic’s in the theatre biz who contributed to Prop 8? Any Jews? Muslims? When do THEY get singled out?).

Beat the institutions. Beat them hard.

Eckern was a soft target, and it was a cowardly move to target him.

FOR 25 YEARS NO ONE HAD ANYTHING BAD TO SAY ABOUT HIM!!!
Not the LGBT community, not no one.

That’s some ironic shit, ain’t it . . .

For 25 years, he was a saint?

And now he’s hung from the light array?

I’d say there’s a bit more to the people who WENT radioactive on him, and the theatre group.

Cuz they were there for him, for 25 years . . .

And I think, you give discredit to how many people ‘out here’ know about the back sides of theatre, be it nationally touring or local reps.

Now, outside the liberal/progressive community, yeah, they have NO clue as ‘teh gay’ in theatre!!! Cept they all talk about it at the country club . . . . . *G*

But they have no clue’s about a lot of things, which is why we all oppose them.

This is a polarizing sitch, and a human lost their lifetime of giving to their craft for it.

It smacks of vapid hate, fear and anger.
It don’t smell like justice . . . . and that’s IMHO.

Thanks for your ifno . . . good to see someone on the national scene wade into all this.

I’ll leave this thread with one last thought.

In the 50’s, thanks to Nixon, and mostly thanks to McCarthy, actors, actresses, writers, artists one and all were blackballed for their work and beliefs, or alleged beliefs. Not a small part of all that, was the blackballing of gays of all stripes.

Eckern was blackballed, by no less a mean and hateful manner.

When you become the thing you are fighting . . . . . . you have lost your cause.
I don’t care WHAT the issue or battle is.

When you become the thing you are fighting, the cause is lost.

I’m not arguing that he was or wasn’t a saint. He probably, like many bigots, thought he was a pretty tolerant person. He also kept it more or less quiet, because you really can’t be hatin’ teh gay in theater.

I guess what I was trying to get across in my previous comment was that so many in this community are fragile, damaged people (for various reasons that are not their fault in any way — I mean no moral judgement in my characterization) who have been able to find a career and a lifestyle that accepts them AS IS, in fact celebrates it. No mere tolerance, here.

To then find that one of their own privately hates them, even if he participates in other public displays of his magnanimous tolerance, is wounding. It is akin to discovering that your old dear friend — who you always knew was religious in some way but never realized secretly judged you — actually does think you’re going to hell and always has. It changes the way you recall every interaction you ever had with him or her and the fundamental nature of your relationship.

It hurts. If it were a marriage, it would likely result in divorce.

What I think people should realize is that this was not some anonymous protest of some faceless hater in our midst. Unlike the protests advocated here against a monolithic and well-financed church, the people choosing to pull their art (commercial, money-making art, but still art) in protest of his presence at a theater on the touring circuit are making a personal decision with professional repercussions to reprimand someone they know personally who has hurt them. The fact that it is high-profile and nationwide enough to make the news and merit a blog post on this site doesn’t make its essential nature any different than if two friends split up acrimoniously.

I would like to know if he was aware his contribution would become public knowledge. I suspect not. What I haven’t heard is how the public knowledge part of it came about.

As an aside, this man has been a very hot topic in our social circles for the last 48 hours, as I am sure you can imagine. Several of the people I know here who know him personally have described him as VERY closeted and covering it with creepy womanizing. He has never been particularly well-liked. If it is true, then we have yet another case of a self-hating gay working to legislate against his own human impulses.

Finally, I apologize for not giving enough credit to this readership for understanding the gay-ness of theater. Of course y’awl know about that. I’m just so used to being a straight, married guy in this overwhelmingly gay industry and think often how weird it would seem to anyone who isn’t in the biz just how normal our daily lives are amid all this “out-ness”.

Thanks for putting me straight on that.

I’m sure there’s a nice theater career awaiting him at Mountain Meadows, U-taw.

If you keep equating people who have an issue with Gay marriage with “Gay haters” like so much of this here “liberal” crowd, don’t then go on to talk about tolerance.

Try tolerating something you don’t like, for a change, that’ll help you understand what it means.

the above was mostly in response to ArmadilloJoe @ 61

Changing the text of a state constitution to prohibit a practice that is explicitly sanctioned in the body of that text, because your religious practices inform you that those who choose to exercise it are to be scorned and driven from the public square…

Your suggestion that this should be tolerated, and is in itself an act of tolerance…

I’m looking for the joke. I can’t find it. I am hopelessly snark-impaired, though.

I wish most of you were able to understand that calling someone who has an issue with Gay marriage a “Gay hater” (repeatedly done here unchallenged) is precisely the same as calling someone with an issue with the Patriot Act a terrorist or an anti-american.

There is no difference.

Tolerance, which most of you seem to proclaim to be a core value, is about accepting the variety of the human experience, and refraining from ramming down the throats of people who hold a view you don’t understand, or that goes against your own vested interests, that they are despicable and deserve all the hurt they can get.

When I read some of the stuff here, I’m ashamed at the defense of the american left and liberals that I repeatedly undertake over here in France when people call Americans a bigoted and bellicose people.

Thank god also for Larue and SomeGuy who bring a bit of human(e) balance to this sorry thread.

Please re-read comment 45 by SomeGuy.

And you saying that having an issue with Gay marriage is wanting Gays “to be scorned and driven from the public square” plays right into my previous comment (in which there is no joke, I’m sorry to say) : it’s a mindless caricature that blithely refuses to look earnestly at an opinion you don’t understand and stigmatises it as only possibly emanating from an enemy of democracy or freedom or something like that. Actually I think there would be nothing wrong with that as long as you kept it on an argumentative level. When you use this to justify that it’s right that this guy should lose his job because he holds that view, that’s when it becomes scary.

What’s your limit? Would you have agreed with the war in Irak if the purpose had been to defend gay rights over there? What’s the line where you stop harming others because they disagree with you?

To clarify about tolerance: being tolerant about something means that you are not damning someone to oblivion just because they hold a view you don’t like or understand. It doesn’t mean that you can’t oppose what they do or say through normal political means, such as voting, talking, arguing, campaigning and the like. But you are still recognising the right of that person to hold this view without losing their job and being blacklisted from their industry.

I can’t believe how something so obvious has to be said here, on FDL of all places. The mind boggles.

Please cite where I said I was glad this guy lost his job.

Please describe why an action taken by anyone in furtherance of stripping enumerated rights from someone else because the church told you to, isn’t hate.

I forgot…
Youtube will show you the vicious, false, derogatory, hate-filled ads that ran in the Yes on 8 campaign. Have a look.

You didn’t, that’s true. I simply assumed that since you intervened in a thread where this is the main topic and questioned the point of tolerance that I make precisely to say that I don’t see why this guy should lose his job, that this meant you considered right that this guy should lose his job.

If you think that it’s not right that this guy should lose his job over it, why don’t you respond also to the hordes of people who say it is? It felt like a semiotically reasonable assumption, sorry if I mischaracterized your view.

I’ll take a look at the Youtube vids, I didn’t follow the campaign ads.

As for the hate thing, that’s a good question: I indeed don’t think that questioning the accessibility of certain categories of citizens to a special kind of voluntary administrative status (marriage) that has no bearing whatsoever on any civil liberties qualifies as hate. I don’t think either that believing that marriage is a by nature traditional and religious (read anthropological) institution designed to foster procreation (whether under the auspices of God or not) qualifies as hateful.

If that’s your definition of hate, then how do you distinguish the above from burning ******* on a cross, or bludgeoning ******** with a baseball bat that you subsequently rape them with?

Equating the trivial with the fundamental is not going to help further any cause. Like SomeGuy@45 says: “This kind of thing confuses people about who the bad guy is”.

Just to be clear again: I don’t think that people who believe that marriage is and should be a right for Gays are idiots, or hateful, or that they’re wrong. All I’m saying is that it’s dangerous to start thinking that it’s right for someone who doesn’t to lose their job over it.

~~~ModNote: Edited for content.~~~

So I’ve aken a look at YouTube on Prop 8 and this is what I found in support of Prop 8:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5qdOQ-yzFU
I don’t see anything hateful there, simply understandable (albeit conceivably misguided) concern. The thing is I don’t have a clue whether how it characterizes prop 8 is accurate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..&NR=1
This one is clearly framing the issue in fairly classical religious terms, basically gays are sinners but we love them as such. The main problem with this from my point of view is the question of whether religion is proper grounds for policy-making. Well, if the huge majority of citizens are religious llike they are in the U.S., there’s no way to avoid religious sentiment driving policy. Separation of Church and State is about removing institutional power from the hands of Churches, not removing the vote from religious people.
So there is in this one a clear disaproving of Gays as not being good Christians according to what they think being Christian means, but no hate that I can see. Just bigotry.
As a side note, you’ll see also that all this “Gay-haters” language being use by adversaries of Prop 8 (like it is here) is playing right into their hands, as half of the ad is them presenting themselves as victims of unfair labelling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..&NR=1
This one is mostly making the point that it’s about religious freedom. It’s a completely stupid argument, but I don’t see any hateful rhetoric in there.
A good point made in this one though, is that this is not about rights, it’s about how marriage is defined in society. That rings pretty true and this is what the debate should be about. To pretend that this is about Gay-hating is missing the point, and, ultimately, losing the argument.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko2-EQss0V4
This one is actually pretty funny. The end is completely counter-climactic, as it negates the point that the fiction makes (that you can’t use Bride and Groom – it’s in fact optional).
So these people want to keep the tradition of marriage. No Gay-bashing here that I can see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Q4V8WNF6k
This one is Newt Gingrich reminding people that same-sex marriage is not an established right until the people actually vote for it. What’s wrong with that?

Ok, I’ll do only one more, if you can point me to a few that actually are what you call vicious or hate-filled, that would help. So far I’ve only found stupid, bigoted, traditionalist or constitutionalist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17au_6mBM_8
This one is weird, plays on pretty vile things in some of the imagery, but I can’t even tell the point it’s making – is it for or against prop 8?

I couldn’t help but continue the seach for the vicious and hateful scum that you say is flooding the campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gDze9YBVxU
I stumbled upon this one, but it’s actually against prop8. It’s the only one I found so far that is actually playing on stereotypes and is rather insulting on its adversaries. It’s funny though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdH1ZEbnIms
This one seems also to be a spoof of pro-prop8 people. It’s pretty damn stupid and spiteful, it seems to me. The only two examples of prop8 adversaries campainging I’ve found so far are a far cry from anything that would convince people who are not already convinced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4oGKm8Upp8
This one is the best I’ve found against prop8.

What springs to mind looking at all this, is that surely, just as it’s pretty fair to blame Democrats for Bush’s re-election in 2004 at least, or McCain’s choices of VP and campaigning style and themes for his defeat, it would probably not go amiss for the “no on Prop 8″ campaigners to wonder about what THEY did wrong in that campaign to fail to convince voters. They had more money, and from what I’ve seen (admittedly extremely limited and not necessarily representative), they seemed to campaign more negatively on caricaturing prop 8 advocates rather than making their points and creating positive empathy in Californian voters. Just a thought.

Regardless, I’m saying this also because of the behavior of many people on this thread who think it’s OK for a guy to lose his job because he supported a ballot (the fact that his view actually won the vote makes this even weirder, especially reading people here who talk about civil rights or constitutionality).

newtonusr: can you point me to hateful clips for prop 8?

Hours later — I’m not sure anyone is even following this thread anymore, but a couple of final things about this guy stepping down.

Anyone remember Jimmy The Greek? His departure from public life was about his publicly revealed bigotry affecting the ability of the institution employing him to continue to perform effectively. Exactly the same thing.

If a Jewish-owned company with a largely Jewish customer-base discovered they were employing a committed skinhead, would they be expected to continue employing him, even if his continued presence impacted employee morale and customer traffic? If this is different, then how & why? And remember, they didn’t fire him, he quit.

Your administrative characterization of gay marriage deliberately fails to understand the problem with Prop 8 & this guy’s support of it. You say this has no bearing on civil liberties and I assert exactly the opposite. State recognition of gay marriage is about extending the protection of law to those commitments. Anyone who would advocate against it is a hater (whether they think they are or not) because that position is explicitly that gay people don’t have a right to the same legal protections as straight people. The point is not to force religions to recognize gay marriages, just that the state will do so. Again, if you say this shouldn’t happen — why?

So, again, this guy didn’t lose his job. He left his job. He left his job because public knowledge of his socio-political views rendered him ineffective.

Funny how people who aren’t tolerant like to get high-and-mighty about someone else who is intolerant OF INTOLERANCE.

I guess what I don’t understand is precisely what protection the law affords these commitments between two people that other legal or administrative statuses (stati?) don’t. That’s what part of it hinges on.

The other part that he debate hinges on is this: what is marriage? Why has society decided to establish this institution? After all, relationships are private things, why has society decided to legislate on them? What’s the rationale behind it originally? How has that changed or should it change if at all?

I tend to think that marriage has an anthropological origin in making sure that the social order is structured around the ability for societies to protect and foster children and to regulate wealth distribution somehow. Or something like that. Provide a nucleus to these fundamental anthropological bases that are production of goods and production of new human beings to keep the whole thing up. You have, I think, to accept that the notion of Gay marriage is a radical departure from this, which many people are still attached to.

The idea that marriage is about love between two people is a very recent view. Frankly, if that’s what it is, then I don’t see what society, through its government, has to do with it, but that’s just me.

However, as I think I made clear somewhere in this thread, I’m not against nor for Gay marriage. I don’t really care one way or another myself, but I do find the issue itself interesting for the above reasons, which I think should frame the debate.

So I’d say that beyond claiming an abstract ‘equality’ principle, it would be a good idea for the pro-Gay-marriage thinkers to envangelise on what they think the role of marriage in society should be. It’s only by defining that point that the rest can be vindicated.

However, and again for the sake of clarity, I do think that if it is the case that marriage affords demonstrable protection or civil rights of some kind that is not available by other means, and that this protection is not related to things that concern procreation, then I agree, that it’s a case of discrimination. Also, I’d say that it’s pretty hard and unfair on the people who are already married. I would also have voted against prop 8 simply on the grounds that it’s a constitutional amendment that will remove something from people who already have it de facto, and that it definitely advocates issues that are playing to an anti-progressive agenda an represent forces in society that I don’t like.

But regardless, it’s a constitutional right that these people have to propose it, and people will vote on it. So at some point, you have to make the effort, if you don’t want to be voted down, to understand your opponent’s grounds for voting against what you think is right. You have to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not all Gay-haters, that they have legitimate concerns about this problem, and you have to elaborate some kind of argument that makes them want to support your cause.

If you keep calling everybody who disagrees with you like this a Gay-hater, then they will end up voting against you. Oh, that’s what actually happened. Is California filled with 52% of people who hate Gays? I don’t think so. If the opponents to prop 8 had convinced only 3% more people, these people who don’t hate gays, but well, on balance, they are sensitive to this traditional marriage thing, and if they hear that just because of that they are called gay-haters and caricatured as morons, well, they’ll get pissed off and ignore the side of them that would be glad to be empathetic, then prop 8 would have been defeated.

Contrary to popular belief, democracy is not about what’s right, it’s about what people care about. If the other side is better than you at making people care about them, then you lose. Ask McCain.

Calling the opponents (52% of the voters) ‘haters’, implying they are the same as pro-slavery people, and that it’s legitimate that one of them should be outed as a bigot and forced to renounce their job and life-long dedication to the arts, well, frankly, if you don’t realize how this completely defeats your argument for tolerance and empathy, you are completely deluded and entrenched in a self-righteous view of the world.

To deride me as ‘the intolerant who calls other people intolerant’, also, well…