Not Bigots - But Not In Charge Of The Rest Of Us, Either

At Positive Liberty, Jonathan Rowe writes a lucid and to my mind compelling answer to the problem stated by Maggie Gallagher: that passing of gay marriage (or even civil union) legislation would brand those who disapprove as bigots - just as interracial marriage made (proclaimed) those who disapprove of that into bigots.

His argument is that race is the wrong analogy: religion is the right one:

One’s belief that voluntarily chosen homosexual acts are wrong, should be viewed similar to one’s belief that voluntarily flouting Kosher norms, or eating pork is wrong. We don’t consider a Jew who believes it’s wrong to violate Kosher to be bigoted against those who don’t follow the Kosher diet. Similarly, we don’t consider Muslims who believe it’s wrong to eat pork to be bigoted against pork-eaters.

However, in a liberal pluralistic society, we do expect these devoutly held religious convictions to be consigned to the realm of individual private conviction and not written into public policy. And that, it seems to me, is the compromise: If you believe homosexual acts are wrong based on devoutly held religious convictions, you are not a bigot and those beliefs deserve respect as private convictions. But they are not a respectable basis for public policy any more than we would accept writing Kosher or Sharia into law without further public reason.

His writing and his thinking are both good (as is often the case on Positive Liberty). Read the whole thing.