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Attacking beliefs and discrimination



I'm only going to comment on this one section because many other people seem
to be doing an admirable job of critiquing Frigg's arguments.

Frigg wrote:
>> Is saying that what the Nazis said and did is wrong a wrong thing to say?
>> THey were certainly expressing their views.  Is saying that when Ray shot
>> King he did something wrong a wrong thing to say?  He was expressing his
>> views.  Is saying that painting racist and anti-semitic symbols on the
>> homoes of blacks and Jews is wrong a wrong hing to say?  Those people are
>> expressing their views.
>
>Hey, you can disagree with them all that you want but attacking them for
>their beliefs is STILL discrimination.  I am shocked at how no one can
>seperate these two.  Is it our of hatred?  fear?  What is it?

If Frigg is shocked, then I am stunned at his ability to conflate
disagreement with an opposition to genocide.  As several others have pointed
out, no one has beaten TD, kicked him off the "L", told him he can't marry, etc.

More importantly, aren't we being a bit naive in our relativism to say that
the Nazis are being discriminated against?  The last time I checked, I
wasn't hurting anyone else in the world by sharing my life with another man.
Regardless of whether or not one's religion condones my life, I fail to see
why that religious belief has any legitimacy in crossing the boundary into
my personal space of individual rights and physically or legally restricting
what I do(so long as my actions hurt no one and do not infringe on anyone
else's rights).  The Nazis, however, went a little beyond "infringing" on
others' rights.  Of course TD has the right to his religious views, but his
rights end where mine begin, and that means his right to disapprove of my
sexuality does not entail a justification for imposing those views upon me.

Of course everyone has a right to their own beliefs.  No one has a right to
IMPOSE their beliefs on others.  I think you should perhaps be a bit more
critical in examining the implications of those beliefs that you are
defending, Mr. Frigg, instead of describing our disagreement with TD as
"discrimination."

Peace,

Kevin


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Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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