Nuance in a gay marriage debate?!? Is that even allowed?
Friedersdorf is one of those writers I agree with once in every twelfth blue moon or so, and I found myself nodding in agreement with much of this article.
He takes apart the fallacious comparison of religious opposition to same sex marriage to white supremacists’ opposition to interracial marriage (emphasis mine):
A narrow point we disagree on is the comparison of opposing interracial marriage to opposing gay marriage. Opposition to interracial marriage was all but synonymous with a belief in the superiority of one race and the inferiority of another. (In fact, it was inextricably tied to a singularly insidious ideology of white supremacy and black subjugation that has done more damage to America and its people than anything else, and that ranks among the most obscene crimes in history.)
Opposition to gay marriage can be rooted in the insidious belief that gays are inferior, but it’s also commonly rooted in the much-less-problematic belief that marriage is a procreative institution, not one meant to join couples for love and companionship alone.
This is largely because most leftists don’t get outside of the hive mind much, something that is sort of alluded to in a footnote at the end of the piece.
It is important to keep countering the reflexive leftist “BIGOT!” tactic with nuance, facts and whatever other interjections of reality apply. Their stranglehold on social narratives won’t disappear overnight, but they can be undermined over time.
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