17.11.08

new column: are the gay rights protests mob justice?

A few thoughts about the tyranny of culture and Mormon hypocrisy....
Although I’m not convinced that the protests serve a strategically useful purpose – and I wonder where the heck everybody was before Nov. 4 – I don’t buy accusations that these are mob justice or disrespectful of “the people’s will.” Insofar as the mob justice canard is concerned, Prop. 8 not only revoked a legal right, it did so on the basis of portraying gay marriage as harmful to children and a threat to social stability. When somebody calls you a threat, immoral and the like, then pulls a stunt like Prop. 8 to interfere in your life, getting upset and exercising free speech rights strikes me as a natural human response. Prop. 8 supporters may not like being the object of anger, they may not like being called intolerant and bigots, they may not like these protests and boycotts, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. People don’t like to be insulted and treated like second-class citizens, and it was, after all, the Prop. 8 people – who don’t seem to understand or care about the pain they are causing – who started it. They could have left well enough alone, living their lives according to their beliefs and leaving others to theirs, but no. Read the rest of Are the Gay Rights Protests Mob Justice?

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