No, when I say bullshit pandering, I mean the people who hate homosexuality, but have to come up with other reasons why gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry. I respect someone more who flat out says "I don't like queers" then someone who tries to hide their bigotry behind bullshit like "well, it's a religious institution, and there's a long history behind it, and you'd have to start letting people marry dogs, etc." I don't agree with what either person is saying, but at least the person who tells me he hates gays is being honest about his position. Disguising bigotry doesn't make it go away, and that's all political correctness boils down to; don't say this because it will make you look bad. The words don't matter as much as the thought behind them, and that's not going to change just because the language does.
Let me share a view I have of this issue of bigotry: the bigots generally don't know they are creating bullshit reasons. It's not intentional deceit. It's just how people operate.
I've generally found bigots do not understand their own bigotry. They're blind to it - and that's why they are offended, outraged, when called bigots. Why they raise 'friends'.
If you look at how propaganda works, it's largely 'reinforcing views people are already disposed to have'. People get used to thinking of blacks as 'in a subservient role', for example. It's been said that's why so many southerners felt so passionately about defending slavery when few had slaves - they were protecting their own status in society, which was that they were 'above' the blacks.
People get used to thinking of gays in a certain role, too. Many Christians view gays as 'sinning', as choosing to do wrong; to let them marry would 'defile the institution'.
People don't easily change these views, not because they are just hateful - it's just how people operate. Cultural norms aren't casually flipped. Look at decades of gay activism.
So, I understand why you say you think better of the 'direct bigot' than one who creates rationalizations, but I disagree - I don't think the person making rationalizations is intentionally doing so, but is actually doing it because of bias they aren't aware thay is affecting them.
This is why you see these people come up with an argument such as 'gays shouldn't be allowed to marry because they can't have kids'. They're thrashing around with a feeling they have picked up as a societal norm about gays, and when challenged, they look for how to justify the feeling not to deceive, but as a natural reaction when they aren't used to being challenged on it. People don't just say 'oh hey now that you ask, I realize my views of gays are baseless. Thanks!'
Instead, they look for 'why is there a problem with gays marrying', and they quickly notice the children issue, and it 'sounds reasonable' to reinforce the view they're pre-disposed to have. Ask anyone why polygamy should be illegal - I'm not saying a position on it here - and you see a similar behavior. They just start pointing our things different about it without much consideration if it makes sense. To them it's an 'answer', it justifies their view. It's not easy for them to consider, 'what if they're really unjustifiably discriminating?'
So, I don't think they're 'worse' than the 'direct bigot' and possibly the direct bigot is 'worse', not even trying to justify wronging people, but doing so proudly.
Once a person realizes their own bigotry - not something you are likely to see much - they are often apologetic and feel bad, and critical of their previous allies. 'I didn't understand'.
An example might be a 'gay hater' who has a gay child and comes to a new view.
Besides polygamy, there's still a lot of lack of acceptance of transgender people - again, a combination of ignorance, fear of the unknown, 'not used to that'. Why, they're freaks.
You can't tell them from a pervert, a rapist, a pedophile, they're all just weird! People quickly look for things that let them keep their views.
If they get a closer understanding - again, unlikely - they can change those views. When are they going to? Look how gays had to take baby steps being 'introduced' to society on tv - first, slight implications, later characters in one episode (e.g., The Rockford Files had an episode with a mobster's son turning out to be gay - so the father had him killed) - to secondary characters to a starring role to their own show (Queer eye for the straight guy, acceptable as long as they're entertaining, remember black performers early on?)
Those were all milestones society would have found horrible and reacted terribly, if done quickly before they were 'ready', over decades. Sounds ridiculous later, doesn't it?
'Political correctness' is more useful than you appreciate.
Why is it that a politician who comes out for eliminating medicare is viewed as 'someone we disagree with', but someone who comes out for bringing back segregation is worse than that, 'not a legitimate part of the public discussion', someone who isn't 'entitled' to be on commentary shows and published in newspapers advocating for that - a sort of moral monster?
These things like bigotry are poisonous for a society and so society has stronger measures against them. That's why there's an added level of outrage - without that, the poison creeps back into society with an ever-growing minority who are affected, and bigoted things start to happen more and more, and get challenged less, creeping into the law and other places eventually. When is inter-racial marriage 'a right', and when is it 'an abominiation we have a moral obligation to outlaw'?
Ever notice how bigotry retreats, as society criticizes it, to 'jokes'? Like the ones under Obama about race, including just this year the federal judge who forwarded one about Obama's mother conceiving him at a party involving sex with black strangers and dogs? These aren't 'jokes' and they also become unacceptable for 'politically correct' and good reasons, because if they're tolerated... it opens the door to more bigotry.
You can say 'words aren't the issue' all you like, but the fact is, people re influenced by the standards we enforce.
When the President of the United States, Kennedy, did a televised national speech about race, it legitimized the civil rights movement opposing racism for people like never before.
In that speech, he said something similar to what you did - that you can't outlaw hate, the only solution is in the hearts of the people. But by speaking out against it, he helped people change their views. The hate went from 'the norm' to less and less acceptable as people talked and realized the hate for what it was.
Look in his presidency and you find mobs of average white people out seething hatred at a black being admitted to a white school - signs, hateful faces, screaming slurs, opposing the change - not for rational reasons but for the ones I described, it was not what they were used to. But look 10 or 20 years later, after the civil rights act and cultural shift, and those same cities wouldn't find such a protest anything but incredibly immoral and hateful. Hearts changed.
Political correctness, when appropriate and not excessive, is part of that cultural shift. It's when things like race jokes, gay jokes, 'go too far' when they are spreading hate. When people lose employment for it because society is making a statement against the hate and bigotry, as sportscasters, politicians and others have found out. It's important to have that - if Rush Limbaugh could call Obama the N word every day without any price, our society would be worse off in its racial views.
Of course, this new weapon - the 'politically offended' issue where the people are ostracized for bigotry - is vulnerable to abuse, when misused.
If one person is shunned for calling for the return of segregation, another can be attacked the same way wrongly for saying 'what's the problem with black crime rates being so high'.
What's the difference? That's the need for people to use good judgement - not for allowing the worst offenses to be 'ok' and attack all 'political correctness'.
I think most attacks on political correctness are really about the excesses (and I agree), but attacking all PC is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
This is why I distinguish 'good PC' and 'bad PC'. Good PC is important for our society not devolving on bigotry.
It's not any attack on 'free speech', it's defending values, so that people who might call for a return to segregation and spread hate are shunned for it.
That's not the same thing as putting them in jail. Free speech is to be encouraged, including hate speech when honest, that's how people evolve on it.
That's why it's important not to just 'shun' terrible hate speech but to discuss why it's wrong with people who don't know.
We don't need an 'official list of incorrect opinions', we need a society with values who understand right and wrong better so they don't want to speak hate.
Victory isn't the guy who yells 'lovely human' being punished, it's the guy who says 'why would I speak hatefully about gay people?' But shunning those who do is part of how you get there.
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