Bigotry Combines Cowardice with Aggressively Defended Ignorance — take Senator Rob Portman’s Reversal into Favoring Gay Marriage, only after His Son Revealed that He Was Gay — a Comment on Ideology as Stupidity’s Refuge

© 2013 Peter Free

 

15 March 2013

 

 

The phrase — “That’s my belief” — camouflages ignorance’s arrogance

 

Throughout my life, I have noticed that my conversations with bigoted and evidence-denying people always end with them telling me, “That’s my belief.”  Usually tethering that statement to some purported authority outside themselves.

 

Once the source of authority is announced, they end the discussion — being unwilling to consider the question of the source’s legitimacy in regard to the narrow question under consideration.

 

For example, in instances in which medical or scientific knowledge clearly contradicts the authority’s position on the subject, my “believing” friend will evidence no interest in learning about these facts.  Their brains have shut down.

 

Thus, I have tentatively concluded that most of us are too cowardly, ignorant, or stupid to consider Reality in its full face — at least until “What Is True” grabs us by the throat and rubs our heads and hearts in the mess that we have created for ourselves.

 

Enter “conservative” Senator Rob Portman, as an illustration of this phenomenon.

 

 

Senator Portman’s conversion on the gay marriage issue

 

Senator Rob Portman used to oppose gay marriage.  Now he supports it — because he recently discovered that his son is homosexual:

 

 

"I've come to the conclusion that for me, personally, I think this is something that we should allow people to do, to get married, and to have the joy and stability of marriage that I've had for over 26 years. That I want all of my children to have, including our son, who is gay," said Portman.

 

Will Portman told his father and mother he is gay two years ago, when he was a freshman at Yale University.

 

"My son came to Jane, my wife, and I, told us that he was gay, and that it was not a choice, and that it's just part of who he is, and that's who he'd been that way for as long as he could remember," said Portman.

 

© 2013 Dana Bash, CNN Exclusive: One conservative's dramatic reversal on gay marriage, CNN (15 March 2013)

 

 

The question, for thoughtful people, is — “Why can’t narrow minded people recognize the validity of other people’s experience before Life rolls them through their own bit of directly related emotional turmoil?”

 

The answer is — Self-involved ignorance’s colossal arrogance.

 

Bigotry’s favorite defense in the gay marriage issue that homosexuality is a “choice.”  And the people who “believe” this are apparently too little self-aware to recognize that most of us wouldn’t have even a prayer of changing our own sexual orientations.

 

Insight and accurate self-awareness are often necessary companions.  Lose realistic self-awareness, and we lose insight.

 

Given that a highly noticeable proportion of the human population is apparently born gay, one would think that rational people might suspect that there is an embryological and physiological cause for the phenomenon.

 

But no.  Instead it is apparently intellectually easier (and presumably more emotionally satisfying) to blame homosexuals for sexual orientations that almost all of “them” certainly cannot control.

 

Even superficially analyzed, we might conclude that our heterosexual bias against homosexuality might stem from our “selfish” genes’ need to preserve an interest in their genetic propagation (into the future) via sexual congress.  If we all became fervently homosexual, the species would die out in the absence of “artificial” alternative means of genetic mixing and propagation.

 

Seen in that evidentiary light, we might be better able to discount our initially hostile impulses toward gays and lesbians.  It’s just our heterosexual genes talking.  And what the heck do they know about love and compassion?

 

I doubt that most of us would consider our genes’ desires and impulsive wits to be synonymous with the voice of God.

 

What would an omniscient and omnipotent Being think about humanity's pretty obviously self-prescribed narrow mindednesses?

 

 

Grace comes down to the ability to tolerate, support, and even to love others

 

Love and bigotry are antithetical.

 

Ideology is usually based on rejection and exclusiveness, rather than on acceptance and inclusiveness.  That’s the clan-preserving nature of our genes talking, too.

 

Given history’s display of meaningless and horrifically unproductive wars and conflicts, we should (arguably) conclude that our genetically based clan-preserving orientation isn’t doing anyone much good.

 

 

The moral? — Bigotry is ignorance’s rejection of love’s wiser ability to connect us

 

Occasionally, an unwarrantedly biased person will learn from personal experience.  Like Senator Portman.

 

We can be thankful for that.  And for the Senator Portman’s admirable willingness to publically announce that he was wrong.