Wow, you must really enjoy debating straw men, because you keep slapping down arguments I haven’t made.
In the first place, I never said that the homosexuals themselves would be convinced by a rational public debate. There’s a reason that the term “denial” exists. Yet somehow topics like eating disorders, alcoholism and other forms of substance abuse have been accepted as negatives despite the denials people suffering from them tend to engage in. I was referring to those neutral parties who, like as not, would have even had a cultural predisposition against homosexuality (as most cultures historically have), however slight.
And don’t presume me to be naive about the power and methods of advertising. I know full well their power and how they have, indeed, negatively impacted the culture. Your references to blood libels and Islamophobia don’t even come close to disproving my point. Blood libel is something ingrained in the Muslim culture against the Jews, and it is precisely because Islam is another topic on which we haven’t been able to have an objective, public debate that the tag exists, although far less effectively (so far) than “homophobia.”
Your argument about the power of homosexuals to shout down opposing views and stifle public debate is accurate, but my entire point is that we long ago missed the opportunity to have the debate, at a time when they weren’t so powerful. I wasn’t talking about the last election cycle. For too long, we were complacent, and content to simply dismiss it as sin and/or perversion, confident that it would never be more than an aberration to be conveniently ignored. Now we’re paying the price for that naivete.
And maybe your friends and family are wired differently, but I have members of those circles in my life who are sympathetic to the gay marriage arguments, and gay rights in general, solely because they’ve never been exposed to any reasoned, informed, secular counter-arguments. Had those arguments been made and mainstreamed such as those for other forms of addiction have been, there’s every likelihood that we would not have our backs against the cultural wall on this issue right now. For you to reject that out of hand flies in the face of reason.
Now, if you want to use my words as the basis to create any more straw men, have at it. But you’ll have to argue with yourself. I’m done.
So what's the next cultural non-issue we should know to debate because our complacency in thinking it's a settled matter will cause it's adherents to roar into action?
This is the entire basis of your thesis.
All the rest is pretext and compromise.