Saturday, 5 April 2014 08:21 pm
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deckardcanineI have some advice for activists in favor of LGBT benefits. I don’t expect many to heed my advice, as I’m nobody special to them and they’re already doing pretty well nowadays. But sticking with the same tactics all the time will take you only so far. So here goes:
Shift your analogy focus from race to religion.
Racial civil rights parallels galvanize your existing base but leave other listeners thoroughly unimpressed. The trouble is that race, despite many facetious statements to the contrary, is basically entirely involuntary. Homosexual desire and a sense of one’s own transgender identity are mostly involuntary, but the actions of people with them are not. To deny the latter clause is to claim a severe deficit in LGBT self-control, which might win pity but won’t win respect.
Race is also an artificial social construct. There are no race chromosomes or other solid biological distinctions. Different cultures have different classifications of races. Genders may have gotten similarly messy, but from an anatomical standpoint, natural-born sexes rarely have a blurred line.
Side note: Ever notice how many people will fault a Black person for wanting to be White but have nothing against a woman wanting to be a man?
Religious beliefs, while more obviously susceptible to outside influence, are about as involuntary as homosexual desire. (For simplicity, I count atheism and agnosticism as “religions.”) People can choose not to act in accordance with their beliefs but will feel bad about it. Sound familiar? Both your sexual orientation and your religion are defined in large part by what you do.
Now consider the treatment of religion in the modern First World. Practically nobody holds all religions equal in value, unless that value is zero. You probably believe that some if not most ultimately do their adherents and others more harm than good. That attitude is certainly common to opponents of, say, same-sex marriage. But the most outspoken critics of Islam I know would not assign punishment or “rehab” for Islamic rituals that comply with the present laws of the land. They do not oppose legal benefits for an Islamic wedding on American soil, and not for fear of retaliation. Some would like to see the government withdraw marital benefits altogether, but that’s no religious discrimination.
Religious tolerance also has a richer history, perhaps especially in the U.S. While the founding fathers were divided on racial issues (and never considered LGBT issues for a moment), they had uniformly strong convictions in favor of letting people practice whatever religion they wanted and not having the government endorse one over the others. Consider George Washington’s “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport. Granted, some members of the Constitutional Convention briefly entertained the idea of banning Roman Catholicism, but only out of fear that Catholics would oppress the rest.
Honestly, I think you’ll gain more recruits for the cause by likening LGBT folk to members of various religions. It’s the closest analogy to come to my mind.
That said, you may notice that it comes with further implications for what you must not do. I’m thinking now of the more aggressive side of the movement. If you declare yourself a Jew, you do not get to complain to a supervisor that a co-worker kept quiet and didn’t congratulate you on your Judaism. You do not get to encourage public school students to think about converting to Judaism. (I realize there is no LGBT equivalent of Hebrew school, but give it time.) And if you badmouth Blacks because they’re statistically less likely to have a favorable opinion of Jews, then you’re way out of line.
I know I have readers on opposite ends of the spectrum, and I try to stay on good terms with all. For those who are displeased to see me dispensing what I deem good advice to their opponents, look at it this way: Wouldn’t you feel better with a smarter class of opposition?
Shift your analogy focus from race to religion.
Racial civil rights parallels galvanize your existing base but leave other listeners thoroughly unimpressed. The trouble is that race, despite many facetious statements to the contrary, is basically entirely involuntary. Homosexual desire and a sense of one’s own transgender identity are mostly involuntary, but the actions of people with them are not. To deny the latter clause is to claim a severe deficit in LGBT self-control, which might win pity but won’t win respect.
Race is also an artificial social construct. There are no race chromosomes or other solid biological distinctions. Different cultures have different classifications of races. Genders may have gotten similarly messy, but from an anatomical standpoint, natural-born sexes rarely have a blurred line.
Side note: Ever notice how many people will fault a Black person for wanting to be White but have nothing against a woman wanting to be a man?
Religious beliefs, while more obviously susceptible to outside influence, are about as involuntary as homosexual desire. (For simplicity, I count atheism and agnosticism as “religions.”) People can choose not to act in accordance with their beliefs but will feel bad about it. Sound familiar? Both your sexual orientation and your religion are defined in large part by what you do.
Now consider the treatment of religion in the modern First World. Practically nobody holds all religions equal in value, unless that value is zero. You probably believe that some if not most ultimately do their adherents and others more harm than good. That attitude is certainly common to opponents of, say, same-sex marriage. But the most outspoken critics of Islam I know would not assign punishment or “rehab” for Islamic rituals that comply with the present laws of the land. They do not oppose legal benefits for an Islamic wedding on American soil, and not for fear of retaliation. Some would like to see the government withdraw marital benefits altogether, but that’s no religious discrimination.
Religious tolerance also has a richer history, perhaps especially in the U.S. While the founding fathers were divided on racial issues (and never considered LGBT issues for a moment), they had uniformly strong convictions in favor of letting people practice whatever religion they wanted and not having the government endorse one over the others. Consider George Washington’s “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport. Granted, some members of the Constitutional Convention briefly entertained the idea of banning Roman Catholicism, but only out of fear that Catholics would oppress the rest.
Honestly, I think you’ll gain more recruits for the cause by likening LGBT folk to members of various religions. It’s the closest analogy to come to my mind.
That said, you may notice that it comes with further implications for what you must not do. I’m thinking now of the more aggressive side of the movement. If you declare yourself a Jew, you do not get to complain to a supervisor that a co-worker kept quiet and didn’t congratulate you on your Judaism. You do not get to encourage public school students to think about converting to Judaism. (I realize there is no LGBT equivalent of Hebrew school, but give it time.) And if you badmouth Blacks because they’re statistically less likely to have a favorable opinion of Jews, then you’re way out of line.
I know I have readers on opposite ends of the spectrum, and I try to stay on good terms with all. For those who are displeased to see me dispensing what I deem good advice to their opponents, look at it this way: Wouldn’t you feel better with a smarter class of opposition?