latestrevision

I'm really sorry to have to be so direct about this, but it's perspectives like this that are part of the problem.

By saying that they're "next to the KKK", you're marking your opposition as not only immoral, but beyond reprieve. If you're willing to simplify the moral landscape to a single line onto which you've placed yourself squarely at the "good" end, you're taking a gravely irresponsible logical shortcut.

EDIT: I foolishly used 'retribution' in place of 'reprieve', thus making my above comment confusing and nonsensical.

Naw -- not really illegal; although it's probably politically complicated to be religious: "No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens because they do, or do not believe in religion." (Article 45 of their 1978 Constitution).

Even today -- decades after the state/social pressures against religious affiliation disappeared -- most former soviet states still have very large atheist populations.

The classic, easy, example is China.

EDIT: Apparently that's a little contentious -- only 47% self-declared atheist (http://redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RED-C-pres...), but given that 9% of those surveyed did not respond to the question, the majority of respondents to this specific survey question did self-proclaim themselves as atheists.

As an atheist, I agree, but asserting that the rationale behind prohibiting gay marriage is mostly religious isn't supported by evidence. More than a quarter of the world's population lives in countries that are majority-atheist without being any more supportive of gay marriage than those of us in western, more-religious countries.

Sure, keeping in mind that I don't disagree with any of that -- is this a stance that we've just adopted within the last ten(ish) years -- because if the issue of gay marriage were really that simple, wouldn't it have always been legal?

I'm gay (& partnered, fwiw), and I'd have to agree that there certainly aren't any good arguments against gay marriage; at least, not any arguments we'd accept in a wealthy, industrialized, western society at the beginning of this millennium, but do keep in mind that the great, great majority of the world does not agree with that assessment.

So, what makes an argument legitimate? In order for one to suggest that there is no legitimate argument against gay marriage, you'd have to rationalize what it is that we in the west know better than those living in less-wealthy, less-industrialized societies outside our corner of the globe.

For the record, I don't think the author was actually trying to defend that point, but instead to highlight how when taken out of context or in hindsight any one of our behaviors could in the future be seen as a real, unambiguously "wrong" act.

It appears that a big part of this discussion is about how we as a group are not sure if it really is a situation in which she "[did] something really f cking stupid", though.

Clearly, you do interpret her statement to be an offensive, racist remark, but by her own admission, she instead was commenting on how "[l]iving in America puts us in a bit of a bubble when it comes to what is going on in the third world. I was making fun of that bubble."

Whether or not her explanation for the off-color is truly genuine is up for debate, but scuttling somebody's life and career for something that only might have been a racist remark doesn't seem all that fair to me and (it would appear) a significant fraction of commenters here.

It looks like the title was originally the former; probably a late change by a copyeditor.