Since I have right-side views, I don’t consider failure to fund government programs re STD to be “hurting people”. We can agree to disagree about this, as friends who each understand each other’s opinion.

I do think, in the late 80s + early 90s, Jesse Helms should’ve supported government funding for AIDS research. We were facing a crisis, and government funding would’ve helped jump start research for a cure. I think he was constitutionally justified, yet stingy of spirit.

Sen. Helms might’ve been plainly bigoted against gay people, yet I’m uncomfortable leveling that accusation based on the facts I know at this time. I do think Jesse Helms was demonized in order to raise money for the Dem Party, and his “bigotry” was possibly an unfair accusation. I cry no tears for him. He was a big boy and a mean political player. But I won’t say “bigot” about him, at least at this time. Thanks to your explanation today, I think I fully understand your disagreement with me regarding Sen Helms. Thanks for that.

Not necessarily. It depends what the person does with that view. Beliefs are not the problem, unless you are incapable of recognizing that they ARE beliefs, not facts or scientific truth. If you do suffer from that kind of incapacity, then you are likely to go out into the world and treat people about whom you have those beliefs like crap.

Here’s one example. Say I believe that men and women who like to swap sexual partners are sick, disgusting, and perverted. Now there’s an example of something that really IS behavior, and not inheritance or innate nature. Partner-swappers are choosing to do what they do, and I actually do find it revolting. That’s okay, but what’s not okay is to refuse as a matter of public policy to fund STD education and prevention programs for partner-swappers simply because I disapprove of their lifestyle. If I do that, then I am taking my personal beliefs and using those personal beliefs to harm others, simply because I don’t like what they do.

So, it really doesn’t matter to me if Jesse Helms’ homophobia was rooted in genuine, sincere religious belief. What matters to me is the way he used his private religious beliefs to hurt people, physically, emotionally, and politically.

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Kathy,
I’m trying to fully understand one of your assertions in a previous conversation.

Are you saying:
1. if a person reasons his or her way to believing homosexuality is a choice and/or a sin, then
2. rather than this person having engaged in dumb or idiotic reasoning in order to reach this erroneous concusion
3. this person’s reasoning and conclusion, in and of theirselves, constitutes bigotry?

Thanks. I ask b/c, at points in our Jesse Helms conversation, you were saying it was possible or likely that Jesse Helms opposed homosexuality for religious reasons, yet those religious reasons were so extreme and wrong as to constitute bigotry in and of themselves.

I think, if you said people had idiotic opinions about various things, I could agree or disagree, yet you and I would not use up so many words in understanding each other’s views. What lengthens our attempts to understand each other are your assertions of a bigotry which goes beyond mere idiotic reasoning.

Maybe this can better explain the distinction I am trying to draw: If I think you have some idiotic ideas, then: so what? Who cares? You and I can still be friends. Everyone has some reasoning and some ideas I disagree with. However, if I think you are a bigot, or a racist, et al, then you and I cannot be friends. It’s that extra jump from an idiotic idea to a bigoted, um, foundational philosophy, I guess, which is perplexing and animating me.