The left continues to be the most intolerant political force in America.
Via Slate:
On Friday, Brandon Ambrosino penned a thoughtful essay in the Atlantic contending that opposition to gay marriage doesn’t necessarily signify homophobia. Ambrosino’s argument runs in a few different directions, but it’s essentially a riff on the old saw “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Ambrosino claims that “gayness is not the most fundamental aspect of my identity” and that opponents of gay marriage can still make a good-hearted “distinction between Brandon and Gay Brandon,” loving the former while disapproving of the latter. This is an interesting point. It is also incorrect.
The primary problem with this kind of argument is that as easily as it can be trussed up in calls for tolerance, patience, and humanism, it can also be ripped to shreds by one simple question: Can a person oppose equal rights for gay people and not be, in some fundamental way, a homophobe? The answer seems to me to be a pretty obvious no. Opposition to gay marriage isn’t just some abstract principle with little practical effect. It’s a harmful belief with real-world consequences, and it has contributed immeasurable pain, sorrow, and suffering to the lives of gay people throughout history. To oppose gay marriage is to help prevent loving couples from visiting each other in the hospital, from raising a child together, from enjoying the most basic facets of a fulfilling life. And just as perniciously, in the words of the Supreme Court, opposition to marriage equality “humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples” by telling them their parents don’t deserve the dignity and respect afforded to straight couples. Those who oppose gay marriage drive the laws that inflict this daily humiliation unto gay couples and their children. That, put simply, is homophobia.