CONCEDING THE NARRATIVE
What exactly is hate speech? It’s really quite simple. Hate speech is whatever Elizabeth Drescher decides is hate speech:
I say the Warren quote “seems to nod” because there’s much more going on in the quote as it’s deployed than an appeal for civility, tolerance, and thoughtful speech. Rather, the quote manipulates the sentiments with which my mother would have agreed in the service of a huge lie of which she certainly wouldn’t have approved: That the people who lined up in droves at Chick-fil-A restaurants last Wednesday and then crowed about their support for “family values,” “biblical convictions,” and the poor, beleaguered Cathys all over Facebook and Twitter, do not, in fact, hate LGBTQ people orfear the ways in which they see the increasing acceptance of LGBTQ people changing an American culture that bends less and less to their prooftexting, biblically illiterate, historically and politically ignorant wills. Because they do hate. They do fear.
Rather, when people say certain kinds of speech are “hateful,” or that some sort of fear or “phobia” is evidenced by the hate speech, they’re pointing to the participation of that language in a rhetorical system that the people to whom the language is directed experience as having the emotional and often material effect of being hated. If you say hateful things to or about me, I’m going to experience you as a hater, whether or not you’ve ever personally said anything even vaguely unkind to me directly.
You can think you “love” me personally all you want, and you may enjoy my winning personality endlessly. We can disagree all day long about whether taxing the wealthy is the best way to heal the economy or which direction the toilet paper roll should go and still be the best of friends. But when you speak and act in ways that seek to limit the civil liberties, increase the risk of discrimination and violence, and damage the psychological and spiritual well-being of me and people like me as a group, you are not being loving. You are not being compassionate. And, for what it’s worth, you don’t come off as particularly Christian, either—at least not the kind of Christian that anyone would recognize through a cursory scan of Jesus’ teachings.
Furthermore, when you call me “unbiblical,” “unnatural,” and say I’m bent on destroying society with my “sinful lifestyle” and then complain that you’re being judged unfairly because I call that “hate” and I call that “phobic”; when you want to lean on the First Amendment for your own opinions then try to call up Miss Manners when I object—well, that’s just nonsense, too.
Ms. Drescher? Would you like to know why so many of us have become such enthusiastic Chick-fil-A customers lately? It’s not because of the chicken or the fries, although both are outstanding. It’s not even because of Dan Cathy’s views on homosexual marriage.
I can’t speak for anyone else but for my part, I strongly object whenever anyone has the titanic arrogance and effrontery to take it upon themselves to decide that my opinions are “hateful” or “un-Christian” simply because they happen to disagree with them. You finished up your screed with a quote from Amos? Try this one from 1 Samuel 16:7:
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Deciding in advance that opinions which offend you are “un-Christian” or constitute “hate” has three results. It means that you consider these views to be sinful and that whoever holds them needs to repent. It means that those views have no rational basis since they are motivated solely by “hatred” or “fear.” And it is morally and intellectually lazy since it attempts to pass off opinion as fact.
If my opinions are held hostage by how you claim to feel, then I’m going to quickly stop caring how you feel about anything at all. So I’ll be hitting Chick-fil-A again as soon as I can, probably Friday evening. And if that offends anyone, I have a two-word reply.
Kiss off.
I say the Warren quote “seems to nod” because there’s much more going on in the quote as it’s deployed than an appeal for civility, tolerance, and thoughtful speech. Rather, the quote manipulates the sentiments with which my mother would have agreed in the service of a huge lie of which she certainly wouldn’t have approved: That the people who lined up in droves at Chick-fil-A restaurants last Wednesday and then crowed about their support for “family values,” “biblical convictions,” and the poor, beleaguered Cathys all over Facebook and Twitter, do not, in fact, hate LGBTQ people orfear the ways in which they see the increasing acceptance of LGBTQ people changing an American culture that bends less and less to their prooftexting, biblically illiterate, historically and politically ignorant wills. Because they do hate. They do fear.
Rather, when people say certain kinds of speech are “hateful,” or that some sort of fear or “phobia” is evidenced by the hate speech, they’re pointing to the participation of that language in a rhetorical system that the people to whom the language is directed experience as having the emotional and often material effect of being hated. If you say hateful things to or about me, I’m going to experience you as a hater, whether or not you’ve ever personally said anything even vaguely unkind to me directly.
You can think you “love” me personally all you want, and you may enjoy my winning personality endlessly. We can disagree all day long about whether taxing the wealthy is the best way to heal the economy or which direction the toilet paper roll should go and still be the best of friends. But when you speak and act in ways that seek to limit the civil liberties, increase the risk of discrimination and violence, and damage the psychological and spiritual well-being of me and people like me as a group, you are not being loving. You are not being compassionate. And, for what it’s worth, you don’t come off as particularly Christian, either—at least not the kind of Christian that anyone would recognize through a cursory scan of Jesus’ teachings.
Furthermore, when you call me “unbiblical,” “unnatural,” and say I’m bent on destroying society with my “sinful lifestyle” and then complain that you’re being judged unfairly because I call that “hate” and I call that “phobic”; when you want to lean on the First Amendment for your own opinions then try to call up Miss Manners when I object—well, that’s just nonsense, too.
Ms. Drescher? Would you like to know why so many of us have become such enthusiastic Chick-fil-A customers lately? It’s not because of the chicken or the fries, although both are outstanding. It’s not even because of Dan Cathy’s views on homosexual marriage.
I can’t speak for anyone else but for my part, I strongly object whenever anyone has the titanic arrogance and effrontery to take it upon themselves to decide that my opinions are “hateful” or “un-Christian” simply because they happen to disagree with them. You finished up your screed with a quote from Amos? Try this one from 1 Samuel 16:7:
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Deciding in advance that opinions which offend you are “un-Christian” or constitute “hate” has three results. It means that you consider these views to be sinful and that whoever holds them needs to repent. It means that those views have no rational basis since they are motivated solely by “hatred” or “fear.” And it is morally and intellectually lazy since it attempts to pass off opinion as fact.
If my opinions are held hostage by how you claim to feel, then I’m going to quickly stop caring how you feel about anything at all. So I’ll be hitting Chick-fil-A again as soon as I can, probably Friday evening. And if that offends anyone, I have a two-word reply.
Kiss off.
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