Last week, I wrote a post, and used the word, “bigot” which I rarely ever do, and today, I stand behind my editorial decision. Then, I saw this post by Andrew Sullivan, where a reader takes him to task for his refusal to use the word, “bigot.” Yes, the term is charged, and all in all, I agree more with Sullivan’s reasoning than that of the reader. He writes:

But even then, for purely strategic reasons, I prefer not to cast out heretics with that word, and work on persuading them to be converts. I once described the goal of Virtually Normal – written at a time when marriage equality was still a joke to many – as getting past the dynamic of one side yelling perverts and the other side yelling bigots. That has some emotional satisfaction for both sides, but it achieves nothing, and closes dialogue, rather than opening it. And dialogue is what supporters of marriage equality should always want – because our arguments are so much better.

His reader suggests it is a matter of purpose:

If your goal is advocacy or politics or politeness, then I can understand avoiding the word, “bigot” to describe them. But if your goal is truth, then I think it is unavoidable.

I can’t buy into that at all. None of us own truth, and one person’s truth may differ from another’s. Meaning is constructed. All of that.

That said, I do think there are folks who are bigots, and calling them out is as essential as dialogue which Sullivan champions.

Definition of BIGOT: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance

I think the issue is this: a bigot isn’t someone who is opposed to marriage equality or LGBT equal rights. A bigot is someone, regardless of the facts, or the truth, or what they learn about others, refuses to abandon old, archaic defenseless ideas and use the perpetuation of hatred, lies, misinformation, and intolerance to justify their devotion to inequity.

When members of the LGBTQ community use “bigots” to derogatorily dismiss anyone they perceive as against them, they are as guilty of a patriarchal or  “power-over” mentality as those who use bigotry against us.

So, the other day when I named Phyllis Schlafly as a bigot, I meant it, and still do. Another prime example of a bigot is Bryan Fischer:

 As Joe.My.God points out, the terms “gay” and “homosexual” never appear in the NYT article! This is what the article says:

The military has a problem with embedded, serial sexual predators. According to a 2011 report from the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault and Prevention Office, 90 percent of military rapes are committed by men with previous histories of assault.

To believe Fischer, one has to accept that 100% of the sexual assaults in the military are performed by men victimizing other men, but this isn’t the case at all. Note this real breakdown of assault by gender:

While women comprise 14 percent of the Army ranks, they account for 95 percent of all sex crime victims.

Does Fischer want to get it right? I think not. He wants to use a statistic in an article to promote his own agenda which is an attack on gays in the military, and he raises it now, as the Far Religious Right is fighting back against the recent change in the Boy Scouts of America  policy to accept gay youth. Because that’s what bigots do.

As bloggers, writers, journalists, and commentators, we must, as Sullivan stresses, seek to generate dialogue. Dialogue that may be read and considered as well as that engages many folks who are small-c conservative and may not understand the issues well. These folks, who may come off as anti-gay are most likely not bigots, just the product of a systemic bigotry, and who evolve to different perspectives because of that dialogue. But way out there on the fringes, and often too close towards the center, are real bigots who do work tirelessly to treat those they see as Other with hatred, lies, and misinformation, as the Bryan Fischer example above shows. And these folks need to be named for what they are.

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