Something that's cost me no small number of friends has been my position on bigotry.
I just can't abide it.
When I indulge in it, I take steps to stop and to correct the problem. I've done so several times (dammit) already and will doubtlessly have to do so in the future. Prejudice is a hard-wired thing in our monkey brains and we've got to use the sentience override to fight it.
But the position on bigotry that costs me friends is the people who're bigots and cannot see they are because their bigotry is popular.
The recent shooting in Orlando has not generated a single article from pro-gun writers (that I've seen) condemning the victims because they were in a gay bar. The worst I've seen on the event is a blogger calling the patrons of the bar "sodomites". Even that blogger, who clearly dislikes homosexuals, didn't take the position that they deserved to die for it!
Yet, if you'd listened to my bigoted former friends, the pro-gun and right-wing reaction should have been whole-hearted support of these murders because "we be hatin' some fags!"
The thing is, for the most part, I've not encountered much homophobia out there in the pro-gun blogs. I don't even encounter much prejudice against the lefties and SJW in that we'd happily leave them alone to think anything they want as long as they returned the favor.
It's postjudice, not prejudice in action here.
I just can't abide it.
When I indulge in it, I take steps to stop and to correct the problem. I've done so several times (dammit) already and will doubtlessly have to do so in the future. Prejudice is a hard-wired thing in our monkey brains and we've got to use the sentience override to fight it.
But the position on bigotry that costs me friends is the people who're bigots and cannot see they are because their bigotry is popular.
The recent shooting in Orlando has not generated a single article from pro-gun writers (that I've seen) condemning the victims because they were in a gay bar. The worst I've seen on the event is a blogger calling the patrons of the bar "sodomites". Even that blogger, who clearly dislikes homosexuals, didn't take the position that they deserved to die for it!
Yet, if you'd listened to my bigoted former friends, the pro-gun and right-wing reaction should have been whole-hearted support of these murders because "we be hatin' some fags!"
The thing is, for the most part, I've not encountered much homophobia out there in the pro-gun blogs. I don't even encounter much prejudice against the lefties and SJW in that we'd happily leave them alone to think anything they want as long as they returned the favor.
It's postjudice, not prejudice in action here.