Category talk:Opposition to same-sex marriage

Discrimination against LGBT people category

User:VladJ92, the category is verifiable, neutral, and defining. Whether or not you believe that this discrimination is good or necessary, the word is clearly descriptive and helps readers and editors find articles on the topic. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:08, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Roscelese, placement of this category within "Discrimination against LGBT people" category is not objective. The word discrimination connotes an opinion regarding the subject, rather than a fact. RightWingWatch is a project of People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy group, and thus not an objective source. VladJ92 (talk) 05:59, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

RWW's affiliation is irrelevant; they're not being used as a source, I'm just trying to illustrate the point I'm making on the talk page. I'm not seeing your argument that differing legal treatment of LGBT people vis-à-vis straight people does not constitute discrimination; even if you think such differing treatment is correct, that's clearly what's happening, and it conforms with our categorization policies. Do you have any policy-based arguments to offer? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:15, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Roscelese "1. An encyclopedic article should not argue that corporations are criminals, even if the author believes it to be so. It should instead present the fact that _some people_ believe it, and what their reasons are, and then as well it should present what the other side says." -Jimbo Wales, 12 April 2001 (http://web.archive.org/web/20010416035757/http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/NeutralPointOfView). Placement of the article in the category "Discrimination against LGBT people" argues that opposition to same-sex marriage is discrimination against LGBT people. Whilst some people believe this, if we are to use Wales' statement and apply it to the situation at hand, the category "Opposition to same-sex marriage" does not belong in category "Discrimination against LGBT people." VladJ92 (talk) 07:39, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

This isn't a criminal matter, and you still haven't made any policy-related arguments. Would you like to take your proposed change to WP:NPOVN and see if you can get consensus for it there? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:57, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

User:VladJ92, have you decided to seek consensus for your proposed change, or not? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:03, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I think that the existence of Category:LGBT opposition to same-sex marriage suggests that "opposition to same-sex marriage" does not fall within the Category:Discrimination against LGBT people. Some gay people and organizations do oppose same-sex marriage, and the motive presumably isn't to promote discrimination against themselves but rather opposition to marriage per se. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 04:35, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

By contrast, I think that the necessity of creating a special subcategory for the ones that aren't just anti-gay demonstrates that that's the main organizational function of the category. (I'm sure there are examples to compare to, but it's late here and I'm not thinking of anything.) So would your proposed solution be to store all of these organizations in Discrimination against LGBT people directly? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:32, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, it seems to be you who is proposing that. I wasn't proposing anything necessarily. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:52, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Okay, so would you support that? I think the neatest solution would be to keep the category in the category tree, as it obviously fits our categorization rules, but you expressed a concern and I'm trying to address it. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:19, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure. It seems to me that category:opposition to same sex marriage does serve a useful purpose, and I am not convinced it would be a good idea to do away with it and replace it with category:Discrimination against LGBT people, if that is what you were suggesting. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:30, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Do you have other proposals for achieving productive categorization of these organizations, if you still oppose the inclusion of this subcategory in the upper category? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:39, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

No, not really. I think the issue needs wider community discussion. You could ask the relevant Wikiproject for help. I should add that, by the same logic that Category:Discrimination against LGBT people needs to stay out, Category:Conservatism by issue should also be removed. I refrain from removing it myself without discussion, however. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:06, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, the fact that there are some LGBT opponents of same-sex marriage does not, in and of itself, prove that opposition to same-sex marriage is non-discriminatory — it is possible, indeed quite common, to internalize social messaging about your "inferiority" to other people. Internalized homophobia is a real thing, in exactly the same way as it is possible to find women who believe that a woman's place is in the home being subservient to a man, or people of ethnic or racial minority groups who believe that their own group should have less social or political rights than the majority. There are a few people on the radical fringe who argue against same-sex marriage on the grounds that all marriage should be eliminated entirely, thereby making us equal to heterosexuals by virtue of tearing the institution down entirely instead of letting us into it, or the grounds that LGBT people should revel in and celebrate being "outlaws" who defy conventional values and are therefore a "superior" class of humanity — but very few people even in the LGBT communities actually take either of those positions seriously, and by far the majority of such critics are arguing from a place of internalized inferiority — of "we don't deserve to be equal" — instead.

For example, the person who comes immediately to mind as the most visibly vocal LGBT critic of same-sex marriage in contemporary discourse is Robert Oscar Lopez — but his pronouncements on LGBT issues, right across the board, make very clear that he believes that LGBT people are fundamentally inferior and flawed specimens of humanity who should not just be denied access to marriage, but should have many more of their rights curtailed besides that. (IIRC, he's even argued for the restoration of laws that would make gay sex illegal.) So the mere fact that he identifies himself as LGBT does not, in and of itself, make his opposition to same-sex marriage "non-discriminatory" — his arguments are fundamentally based on the principle that LGBT people should be discriminated against.

Similarly, I'm extremely hard-pressed to name even one heterosexual opponent of same-sex marriage who has ever convinced me that he or she fundamentally believes in the equality and dignity of LGBT people other than that one issue alone — for instance, not one such person has ever presented any serious proposal for how our fundamental human rights can be protected without marriage. They don't, for instance, typically argue that "you can't have marriage, but civil unions are okay" — by and large it's "you can't have marriage or any alternative structure that even remotely resembles marriage either". Rather, our fundamental human rights are simply something they aren't concerned about at all — we're okay only so long as we're celibate (and not necessarily even then), and if we want to be in a relationship we're not entitled to any kind of protection or recognition for it whatsoever. While I recognize that many (but not all) such opponents try much harder in 2015 to come up with new rhetorical arguments that don't sound as obviously anti-gay as the things the same people were saying about us ten years ago, the base principle that virtually all such people work from is still that discriminating against us, treating us as less than fully equal citizens, is a necessary principle of civil society that has to be upheld above our right not to be the victims of discrimination. And I'm also not aware of any major opponent of same-sex marriage who has actually tried to argue that the position isn't discriminatory — their argument is that it's justifiable discrimination that upholds an overarching social or political objective, not that it fails to be discrimination in the first place. Bearcat (talk) 17:18, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Bearcat, your comments take you deep into tendentious territory. You are suggesting that gay opponents of same-sex marriage are suffering from internalized homophobia. You have a perfect right to your opinions, but they are only your personal opinions, and they're hardly relevant to whether the category is appropriate. I think you have weakened, rather than strengthened, the case for including the category with your comments. You cannot reasonably expect others to accept your personal views on gay critics of same-sex marriage. Remember that Wikipedia is not a forum for trying to convince others of our personal moral and political views. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:11, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, I did not assert that all LGBT-identified opponents of same sex marriage are motivated by internalized homophobia — I offered two alternative possibilities right in my introduction. (For a third alternative, there are certainly some LGBT people whose statements about same-sex marriage can best be summarized as "marriage isn't that important to me personally, so it's not the fight in which I choose to invest my energy and I don't really care how it resolves". But there's a big difference between actively opposing something and just not being all that interested in it either way.)

And further, I kept my comments on the level of addressing one particular person, whose views — specifically, the fact that his basic position is that LGBT people should have our rights heavily curtailed, not just on SSM alone but in many other areas of life besides that — simply cannot be credibly explained in any other way. It's not just an "opinion" as it pertains to Robert Oscar Lopez — it's a simple statement of fact about his own words, and his own explanations for them. And when it comes to "LGBT opponents of same-sex marriage", Lopez is the primary spokesman of any organized or active movement of opposition. For all intents and purposes, he is the "movement" — he is the only self-identified LGBT person out there right now who's actively fighting same-sex marriage, rather than offering one "I don't really care about that issue" comment to the media and then staying out of it otherwise.

And secondly, the whole point of debate and discussion is to provide opinions — so to simply characterize a person's opinion as "tendentious" just because you disagree with it is not appropriate. "Tendentious" would be if I had tried to dictate a "because I said so" resolution to this discussion — the simple provision of a comment is in no way "tendentious". Bearcat (talk) 16:04, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

FKC, if no other users join this discussion, I think it's time to recognize that Vlad's edit has not succeeded in gaining consensus and that the previous version should be restored. Unless you've had some time to think about other ways to make sure these organizations are still properly and usefully categorized? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:31, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Bearcat's extremely long comment above is not a useful contribution to this discussion. He now claims that it really concerns one person in particular; his claims about the person in question are not cited and do not seem to me relevant. The case for keeping the category out remains what it was before: it unacceptably attributes an intent to discriminate against "LGBT" people to gay opponents of same-sex marriage. There appears to be no consensus either for keeping the category out or including it so respectfully, Roscelese, I do not believe that you or Bearcat are in a strong position to restore it. Placing a request for comment would be an appropriate next step. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:27, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

FKC, if you believe that the existence of a tiny minority of gay opponents of marriage invalidates the use of a category that is verifiable, neutral, and defining, it really is incumbent upon you to suggest alternatives that preserve that useful and encyclopedic categorization structure. Again - moving all of the organizations to the Discrimination category without their container category? Adding a category description of some kind? Repeatedly attempting to push through an edit that has failed to gain consensus, without reference to policy or attempt to compromise, is a fairly textbook example of disruptive editing, and I'm surprised at your tendentious behavior here. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:57, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

As I said, at present neither version has consensus, so I am surprised that you would attribute "tendentious behavior" to me in particular, Roscelese. I do not think that my behavior in general has been worse than yours; the revision history of the category reveals that I have in fact made far fewer reverts (one compared to your eight). I do not encourage you or anyone to revert me, however, if you did so, I would not revert back. Does this surprise you? You might want to reconsider your accusation of "disruptive editing." I will consider the issue again, and will probably have more to say in the near future. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:05, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Please do. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:51, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I'll consider it, and maybe I will. Then again, maybe I'll drop this issue like a stone, and never look back. The revision history of the category is there to show that you care about it a great deal more than I do, Roscelese. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:02, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I’m coming to this discussion via link on NPOV noticeboard [1]. Category:opposition to same sex marriage seems to be an appropriate and useful category, but I agree it probably shouldn't be a sub-category of “Category:discrimination against LGBT” because some sources present it as discrimination while some sources present it as religious viewpoint. It seems a more neutral location for this category would be as a subcategory of the "Category:Same-sex marriage".--BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:28, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

It's discrimination whether or not it is religiously motivated. Rhoark (talk) 23:53, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, but all sources don't seems to describe it that way. The argument typically seems to be that marriage is religiously defined as between one man and one woman, and as long as everyone has the legal ability to marry someone of the opposite gender, it's not discrimination. I'm not saying that I personally agree with this argument, but I do think for neutrality, it seems better to not categorize it under discrimination and instead leave it as a sub-category of same-sex marriage. WP doesn't need to (and probably shouldn't) support one side or the other on this argument. Think of it this way, should we allow "opposition to same sex marriage" to be a sub-category of "religious freedom"? There are sources that describe opposition to same-sex marriage as something that should be protected under freedom of religion but similarly WP should not take a side on that by putting it into such a sub-category. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 01:07, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Removing it from the category is also taking a position. If technically feasible, it should be a category both of gender discrimination and religious freedom. Rhoark (talk) 12:01, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's technically feasible to be a subcat of multiple different categories, but I notice that currently Category:Opposition to same-sex marriage is a sub-category of Category:Same-sex marriage. Seems to me that the most neutral approach would be to just leave it there.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 13:56, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• Don't include the category per Jimbo, et al. Juno (talk) 03:56, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
• Comment Came here by way of a link on the NPOV noticeboard. I oppose moving the category under discrimination. The lodic behind the move is flawed. Its wrong to group all articles that have information on those that oppose SSM as being involved in discrimination when there are varied reasons that dont involve it. That is an awful wide brush to paint the different reasons of opposition to SSM that exist. Leaving it where its at is neutral and it fits the category its under. AlbinoFerret 14:08, 11 April 2015 (UTC)