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Freedom of speech and living among diverse sets of people

I am a confirmed heterosexual. That condition does not prevent me from being tolerant of homosexuality, bisexuality or anything else. Not being black does not prevent me from being sympathetic to the conditions that are suffered by that population simply as a result of birth with higher concentrations of melanin.

Sympathy is a level higher than empathy.
You can only have empathy for someone if you have gone through a similar experience.

I fully agree that we need laws that ensure everyone has an equal opportunity to get the job. I don't agree with special laws that give special privileges to people based on some exclusive trait.

If someone else has better job skills than I do good for them. If I am being excluded from jobs because I am a straight white Male then no it is not ok.
It is in fact discriminatory to do that.

Just like it is not ok for anyone to be excluded for that.
 
You understand that there are millions of people that believe homosexuality is a sin and yet still support same sex marriage or decriminalization of gay sex.

What percent of the millions of people who thought homosexuality is a sin voted for gay marriage or decriminalization of gay sex? Under 10%? So what's your point bringing them up, I didn't say it was zero. Your argument seems to be, 'a very few people did, so it's like they all did. Not an issue.'
 
You understand that there are millions of people that believe homosexuality is a sin and yet still support same sex marriage or decriminalization of gay sex.

Adultery is widely considered to be a sin, however I have never heard of anyone that wishes to criminalize it.
That neatly encapsulates the distinction I've made between bigotry/prejudice and discrimination. Adultery, by the way, is still a crime on the books in many jurisdictions. It, like sodomy laws, are just rarely enforced. (But the advocates want to keep it in their back pockets in case we get a shift in the Supreme Court that will allow them to dust them off without having to re-legislate it, like abortion laws. I'm from the Midwest, I've seen it in action.)
 
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If candice Owen's was a black democrat you would be calling everyone that attacked her the way you attack her racist and bigots.

The fact she is a strong black conservative female though changes that narrative for you and you now want to excuse those attacks simply because she is a strong black conservative.

Sorry but it doesn't work that way. The liberals that attack her and other minorities like shapiro are just as racist and bigoted as they would argue if they were liberal.

Sorry you don't to change the narrative simply because she is conservative. So why do you support racism and bigotry against minority people?

I mean you compared Shapiro an orthodox jew to a nazi. Shapiro was the number one target of alt-right and white supremacists in 2018. You have no clue what you are talking about.

If you believe your claim is true then is every criticism of Bernie Sanders an example of antisemitism?
 
(But the advocates want to keep it in their back pockets in case we get a shift in the Supreme Court that will allow them to dust them off without having to re-legislate it, like abortion laws. I'm from the Midwest, I've seen it in action.
State-level adultery provisions are rarely if ever enforced, but they’re on the books for a reason; in many cases, they’ve stayed in existence due to the efforts of social-conservative activist groups and legislators. That includes folks like former Pennsylvania senator and current presidential candidate Rick Santorum. Santorum has said Americans don’t have a constitutional right to sexual freedom and, taking it step further, singled out adultery, polygamy, bestiality, and homosexuality as immoral acts that should be regulated by the federal government. In 2009, when Minnesota lawmakers sought to repeal the state’s prohibition on adultery (which, among other things, punished women more severely than men), the conservative Minnesota Family Council fought back, calling for the laws to be strengthened. (The MFC once counted Rep. Michele Bachmann as one of its education experts, and both Bachmann and Gingrich have raised money for the organization.)
(Mother Jones).)
 
I am. Without delving too much into the religious aspects of it, there are faults to this logic.

I have a problem with your use of the word "prejudice" in that case. It is not a description of the quality of the answer given; it concerns entirely the process used. The "pre" conveys the idea that judgement is provided before thinking things through.

Even though I disagree deeply with many religious people on the morality of homosexuality, it should be clear that I have virtually nothing to say on the subject. It is true that someone people will fit what is likely a caricature of religiosity, namely that it is an exercise in trained gullibility, that they just say it's bad because the book says it is bad. Those people I would call bigots because it is truly is the case that they dug their heels in the ground without bothering to even ask what others might think about it. In that case, it is truly a prejudice: they respond to things they poorly understand, taking positions against people they do not know and without the need to check in with people who hold opposing views. On the other hand, there are also people who reference the Bible at least in part because they believe the stories it contains can illuminate human experience for everyone, including people who do not hold the authorship to be divine. These people can expand for hours on a handful of lines, relate them to events they lived or to events other people live. They can raise questions, ponder opinions that people such as ourselves (who think homosexuality is a perfectly legitimate way to live your sexuality) hold and might even have debated the issue with homosexuals, sometimes even homosexuals they consider to be friends or even family.

If I apply the definition of prejudice properly, I am more of a bigot than they are because I know far less, have though far less about it, before taking a position. The only salient difference is that I provide a secular argument and that my judgment comes down on the side of homosexuals -- clearly, neither of these things is ground for defining prejudice, unless prejudice has come to mean "not leftwing" in which case a large swath of the left today must be considered at least uncharitable, if not entirely dishonest and outright bigoted (in the proper sense of the word). Again, I ask: why I am not bigotted for being accepting for homosexuals on clearly poorly justified grounds while Denis Prager and Ben Shapiro must be bigots in spite of the fact they have worked a lot more than me and many others to explore this issue?

Conservatives will be quick to point out the "not leftwing" as the determining aspect -- that we make a dishonest use of words to attack conservatives instead of attacking their ideas. The game I am trying to ask you to play is whether you could make a plausible argument to reply to my question that could potentially satisfy at least some conservatives you're not just being blinded by your politics. I think it is a serious problem because it gives some people an excuse to overlook your arguments. They can just label it a leftwing diatribe. Clearly, some religious conservatives are bigots, but not all religious conservatives can be said to be bigots and until you draw that line somewhere else than the impossible "just become a social liberal," you will deny yourself the capacity to influence millions of people who might change their mind, find new reasons to push for similar policy, or soften their opinions because that friend who is a liberal of theirs isn't so unfair to conservatives.

If you're as tolerant you claim, find a way to draw a bigger circle.

The most compelling, I think, is the idea that "because it has survived so long" gives it gravitas. Slavery existed for millennia. There are some that still believe that it should be given deference because of this.

It was possibly the weakest claim I have made and I will readily concede it is too naively stated and too simplistic as it stands to be a good argument. Many bad things do survive, as you pointed correctly.

I am a confirmed heterosexual. That condition does not prevent me from being tolerant of homosexuality, bisexuality or anything else. Not being black does not prevent me from being sympathetic to the conditions that are suffered by that population simply as a result of birth with higher concentrations of melanin.

On that much, we can agree, as far as we all understand tolerance says something about what you do not do. Tolerating homosexuality isn't a great feat of morality. It just means "live and let live."
 
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