Hate Speech

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

My agenda is to raise my family and bring others unto Christ. When its not eating sugary snacks with no adverse side effects. Still having trouble with that one.

Well said...should be a part of canon.

[thesometimesaint]

Pahoran:

Agreed. It would be far more likely to be "job ending" if he had tried to make a reasoned argument in favour of the sanctity of marriage.

Regards,

Pahoran

I've certainly put my foot in my own mouth more than a couple of times. So I'll cut the such an author some slack. The best cure for bad speech is not censorship, but more good speech.

[DH]

[sorry, having problems with the computer--didn't mean to double post!]

[DH]

Yes, it is wrong to accuse others of hate speech when they have not engaged in hate speech. I think a large part of the problem is people don't pay attention to what's actually being said, or think it through. They don't listen or read carefully, take phrases out of context, only hear certain "key words" that set them off without paying attention to what the speaker/writer actually said. It's stupid, and it's wrong.

I don't doubt there are lots of examples of speech that people call "hate speech" but really aren't, but I do think there is also plenty of real hate speech going around these days. I think of hate speech as speech that expresses or encourages hatred of a person or group of people based on a characteristic of theirs, rather than their actions. If someone says "John is a creep because he beat up my little brother," that expresses dislike or hatred, but it's because of the action, rather than a personal characteristic of John like his color or religion. But if they say "John is evil and should be locked up because he's from Idaho," that would fit my definition of hate speech.

In my opinion, that kind of hate speech should not be illegal. It's not nice, it's not Christ-like, and it should not be encouraged, but it should not be prohibited. However, speech that incites riot or violence is different.

As far as traditional marriage goes, you can be "for" traditional marrige in more than one way. You can be "for" it by wanting to practice only traditional marriage yourself. You can be "for" it by teaching/preaching it to others. Or you can be "for" traditional marriage by prohibiting others from practicing non-traditional marriage. In the first two cases you are right that someone who is for traditional marriage is not necessarily against marriage equality. In the third case, however, you cannot be for both traditional marriage and marriage equality because you would deny others the opportunity to marry if their marriage does not fit your definition of "traditional."

[Zeta-Flux]

Another poster has asked that I define what I mean by "hate speech." I guess my definition is speech which is hateful, crass, calling for acts of violence against others, condemning of others, etc...