Giving someone the benefit of the doubt takes courage dismissing him before considering his argument-well, that seems a bit phobic. It isn’t homophobic of me to try to understand why someone might be opposed to marriage equality. What exactly do we mean when we say “anti-gay,” or “homophobic”? Often when I try to understand where my conservative opponents are coming from, my gay friends accuse me of being homophobic. To be sure, most gay people, myself included, won’t be satisfied until our loving, monogamous relationships are graced with the word “marriage.” But it’s important to recall that many religious individuals do support strong civil rights for the gay members of their communities.ĭear Therapist: Is It Wrong to Divorce My Sick Wife? Lori Gottlieb
#That means that you are gay meme full
That’s despite the fact that while some religious people don’t support gay marriage in a sacramental sense, many of them are in favor of same-sex civil unions and full rights for the parties involved. If Raushenbush is right, then that means my parents are anti-gay, many of my religious friends (of all faiths) are anti-gay, the Pope is anti-gay, and-yes, we’ll go here-first-century, Jewish theologian Jesus is anti-gay. Done.”Īs a gay man, I found myself disappointed with this definition-that anyone with any sort of moral reservations about gay marriage is by definition anti-gay. Then Raushenbush hauled out a familiar argument: “Let's just be very clear here -if you are against marriage equality you are anti-gay. The Huffington Post’s Paul Raushenbush quickly wrote up a response, saying that “The hard reality that Cardinal Dolan and all Christians need to face up to is that the Catholic Church along with every other church whether Orthodox, Protestant or Catholic has been horrifically, persistently and vehemently anti-gay for almost all of its history.”
The question resurfaced last week when Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, claimed on Meet the Press that the Catholic Church is unfairly “caricatured” as anti-gay. What to make of Cardinal Timothy Dolan's claim that the Catholic Church has been unfairly caricatured as anti-gay? (Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)ĭoes being against gay marriage make someone anti-gay?