Great article in The Atlantic by Brandon Ambrosino, a young gay man who supports same-sex marriage but rejects the idea that to oppose gay marriage makes a person anti-gay (i.e., a homophobe). An excerpt:
Disagreement is not the same thing as discrimination. Our language ought to reflect that distinction.
I would argue that an essential feature of the term “homophobia” must include personal animus or malice toward the gay community. Simply having reservations about gay marriage might be anti-gay marriage, but if the reservations are articulated in a respectful way, I see no reason to dismiss the person holding those reservations as anti-gay people. In other words, I think it’s quite possible for marriage-equality opponents to have flawed reasoning without necessarily having flawed character. When we hastily label our opposition with terms like “anti-gay,” we make an unwarranted leap from the first description to the second.
This kind of distinction is important for preserving civil conversation among those who disagree on a topic as important as the essence of marriage.
Read the whole thing.
(Photo credit: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)