Since the passage of Proposition 8 in California, the gay rights movement has taken on a new militancy in promoting its objectives. As someone who favors granting equal marriage rights to same sex couples, I am concerned that the current methods being employed by the most militant wing of the gay rights movement risk setting the movement back decades through alienating vast segments of the society who might otherwise be won over to our view over time.
I have spoken with many people who have been appalled by reports of gay rights activists disrupting religious worship services, threatening physical harm against supporters of Proposition 8, and vandalizing the property of businesses and religious groups that oppose equal marriage rights. While these most extreme examples clearly are not representative of the movement as a whole, they nevertheless generate a great deal of press because of their sensational nature. One more pervasive practice that is more representative of the broader movement is the increasing tendency to simply dismiss anyone who opposes gay marriage as a bigot. I believe that this practice may have the potential to cause more harm in the long term than some of the more radical acts being performed on the fringes of the movement.
Calling someone who disagrees with oneself a bigot is perhaps the fastest way to reach an impasse in a debate. While the conversation may have been over the relative merit of differing ideas up to this point, once the ad hominem method is employed, the person being attacked as a bigot is no longer interested in hearing the other person’s ideas. The person being attacked will immediately recoil into a defensive position and will close oneself off to anything else the attacker might have to say. People being labeled as bigots are far more inclined to adapt a reactionary stance against their perceived attackers than they are to be bullied into accepting the opposing viewpoint. This is basic human psychology, and gay rights supporters ignore this at their own peril.
Instead of simply dismissing those who disagree with us as bigots, perhaps it would be more productive to attempt to actually understand the opposing viewpoints. The fact is, there are many people in this country who are not homophobic, but they do value the place which traditional marriage as an institution has held for many centuries. For these people, the institution of marriage as it has traditionally been understood is a cornerstone of society which promotes healthy and functioning families. They are worried that changing the traditional components of a marriage (one man and one woman) would open the door to further changes which could potentially deteriorate the role of marriage in society. I find these arguments to be lacking in merit, but I believe it would be much more productive to debate these people on the merit of their ideas than to call them bigots and thus permanently close them off from our cause.
Also, I think it is important to have some perspective as to exactly what one is saying when one makes a blanket charge against those who oppose gay marriage as being bigots. We must recognize the fact that the movement to legalize same sex marriage has really only existed in substantial numbers in the post-sexual revolution West. For the vast majority of human history, there was never any serious discussion about expanding marriage to include same sex couples. In most of the non-Western world today, the possibility of allowing gay marriage remains unthinkable. In the United States itself, it is only in recent years that a sizable minority of the population has come to support equal marriage rights for same sex couples, and it remains a minority viewpoint to this day. This is all to say that by labeling opponents of gay marriage as bigots, one is labeling the vast majority of humans who have ever lived as bigots. By doing this, one is claiming that almost the entire continent of Africa, as well as most of South America and Asia, is populated to this day by raging bigots. I implore my fellow multiculturalist liberals to attempt to swallow that notion, because this is the unavoidable implication of the charges of bigotry being made today by many gay rights activists.
We need to recognize that those of us who support gay marriage represent a tiny sliver of humans throughout history. While truth and rightness are not determined by opinion polls, the fact that we are so outnumbered should cause us to proceed with caution and humility as we attempt to win over others to our position. Let us drop the practice of labeling those we disagree with as bigots and start engaging them in conversations. Part of what these people need to be convinced is simply to see gay marriage as something that is not threatening to them personally. Sadly, many of the tactics of the gay rights movement right now are promoting exactly the opposite perception. Many people are becoming increasingly inclined to view gay marriage as something menacing and disruptive. This is counterproductive to the extreme, and it needs to stop if we are to win this debate.