Poor chap didn’t understand that being globally meaningless wasn’t something which I considered to be a problem, nor did it stop me caring about it an awful lot myself.

C&B – maybe not growing out of it at any pace, but we’ll get there. I often think that the rise in any number of looney alternative medicinal fads or alternatively the crazy anti-vaccine/other middle class angst phobias are simply replacing religious belief with something else nonsensical, because most of us seem to need something fantastical to believe in.

Ben, I don’t think you speak just for Americans there. Remember our Grandma? She would call anyone brown skinned a dirty Arab, whilst simultaneously being charm personified to any dirty Arabs she herself knew and defending any of them to the hilt against racist abuse. But whilst it’s nice to know that a lot of racists/homophobes don’t actually mean it that seriously, it still isn’t much of an excuse.

I really do think that out in the open gay people is the only way this will go away though. Hating gays really does evaporate quickly when you know a few and realise just how normal and boring they are – like most people in general. A bit like Grandma and her dirty Arabs – she’d say terrible things, but when faced with actual discriminatory behaviour, there’d be no chance.

Does that really excuse calling someone a dirty Arab though? I don’t know. She’s not really the enemy of course, for someone fighting racism, but that doesn’t mean that she didn’t need to be challenged. Same for people who are only casually or superficially against gay marriage or homosexuality in general. No, they aren’t the enemy, but yes they still have to be poked with pointed sticks.

Here’s a fun statistic. Did you know that most Americans are actually pro choice on the topic of abortion. Nationwide that is. You’ll never find it used because the press wouldn’t want to face the shit storm. When asked if they think abortion is wrong, the majority of Americans say ‘yes’. When asked if they believe a woman has the right to chose for herself, most American’s say ‘yes’. Americans natural distrust of regulation makes these two opposing views totally compatible.

Amazingly the actual complexities of people views are never discussed. For instance, I work with a very large number of rampant homophobes. However, every single one of them is pro-gay marriage, which is how it became legalized here. Yet polled you will only ever hear ‘American’s are anti-abortion’, and ‘American’s are against gay marriage’.

This may seem off the point but basically what pisses me off most about these fellas quoted above, and their opposite numbers, is that they try to narrow the debate down to as simplistic a term as they can and then apply the lessons of that debate to a wide a stroke as possible. Hence in the eyes of MIM the question of whether should two men or two women be allowed to marry is argued in the same breath as ’should three women and one man be allowed to marry?’, ’should three men and one woman be allowed to marry?’, ’should one man and one sheep be allowed to marry?’, ’should one man and one little girl be allowed to marry?’. Each question throws up a very different moral question, and yet each is argued in the same way.*

People who aren’t smart don’t seem to be able to handle complexity, and yet they are very very influential.

*the answers to these questions are of course:
yes, yes (but why would you?), no and, only if she looks 18 and is really fit.

maybe im hedging but i cant really disagree with you about many in the us and dont necessarily want to defend them but i still believe that when pushed to the wall (and maybe thats what it takes sometimes) most americans are pretty tolerent – i think underlying it is a stubborn indepence; an attitude that doesnt like being told what to think and what to do. i think most americans dont mind gay marriage (i cant understand marriage to begin with), they just dont want to be forced into accepting it.

Don’t we all, Tarticles, don’t we all.

I don’t know about power, Tart. I’d agree with you 99% of the way, but mystical ‘ways of knowing’ are also an important part of it, and that is something which we are in the process of growing out of as a species. However it was necessary back in the day, or sort of necessary, in order to make sense of the world. It’s redundant and pointless now, of course, which makes the kicking and screaming even worse. Now they have to face not just losing a monopoly on political power, but any control over knowledge of the world as well, which is a very, very good thing.

There, my reasons for being an atheist, which have little or nothing to do with my love of hot girl on girl action.

As far as stats are concerned, go to the large research unis, and the Pew organization for data, the standards are quite amazing once you see them. They literallly speak to hundreds of thousands of people representing a cross section of the population. Apologies for typos I’m throwing all this off in a rage from my phone, haha xoxox