Why do some people hate Dan Savage?

I think his diatribes are despicable—the perfect example of “free speech” run amok.

In my experience, liberal pro-gay people who hate Dan Savage have not actually read him. Instead, they have allowed someone else’s outrage to act as a substitute for their own personal judgment. This isn’t to say that Savage doesn’t put some people off. He can be brusque, he doesn’t just roll over at the first sign of criticism, and he is a capable speaker and writer. When people criticize him, he is able to give smart and snappy responses almost every time—a quality that most people hate in others. He is also willing to admit when he is wrong and change his ways, which particularly pisses people off who want their intellectual opponents to be blatantly unreasonable.

Essentially, I think part of the reason for this is that Dan Savage, despite the fact that part of his opinion is “properly liberal”, does not believe in turning the other cheek with people who take an opposing view.

In other words, if you agree with him, as I do, that marriage equality is a goal to be sought in this country – and in the world – then you’re copacetic. But if you happen to believe otherwise, as some people do for various reasons, some of whom are bigots and some of whom truly believe that Biblical injunctions against homosexuality, if ignored, will bring ruin on the country and all its people for wickedness, then you’re a troglodyte, a troll, a vicious, evil homophobe, etc. He makes no allowance, it seems, for why people might disagree with him on this topic. I don’t think that’s acceptable, but… I don’t hate him, I just hate the way he argues his points.

@CWOTUS I’m curious about what you mean about making allowances for why people disagree. If someone is wrong, in what way does it matter why they are wrong beyond the fact that different reasons require different responses? Savage does make those sorts of allowances, after all. He has different responses to Biblical arguments, to definitional arguments, and to practical arguments, for instance. But since all of the arguments against same-sex marriage are, in fact, bigoted, why should he call only some of its opponents bigots?

@SavoirFaire I don’t believe Christians against SSM are bigoted at all. Most simply believe and are taught that God/ the Bible have made it clear that one man and one woman define marriage, that ends the conversation with some. There is no hatred or negative emotion associated in a lot of cases, and I’ve seen many fellow Christians really torn up over this issue.

“Bigotry is the state of mind of a bigot: someone who, as a result of their prejudices, treats other people with fear, distrust, hatred, contempt, or intolerance on the basis of a person’s ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, or other characteristics.”

You may call it bigotry, @SavoirFaire, because someone’s mind is made up on the topic, but as @KNOWITALL has pointed out, most of those people aren’t making up their own minds on the issue because they believe that “the judgment” has already been made for them.

Whether that’s actually “bigotry” or not is a different semantic argument than I want to engage in right now. In general I would agree that one doesn’t get to argue national policy on the basis of “this is what my Holy Book says, so it should govern all of us”. I can appreciate the fact that some of these people – whose conscience I cannot judge – seem to honestly believe that if we relax “moral standards” by allowing / condoning homosexuality and SSM, then we will all go to hell.

@KNOWITALL That is still a case of bigotry. To think that something is immoral is not a sufficient reason to make it illegal. There are all sorts of things that I imagine you and I could agree are immoral that we do not think should be against the law. So why do those Christians who oppose same-sex marriage think that this case is special? Why do they get to suspend the separation of church and state to impose their religious beliefs on others here but not elsewhere? And why their religion rather than anyone else’s? There are no answers to these questions that do not ultimately involve prejudice causing people to act intolerantly on the basis of sexual orientation—which fits your definition perfectly.

@CWOTUS Bigotry isn’t about one’s mind being made up, but how it is made up. On @KNOWITALL‘s own definition, the opposition to same-sex marriage is still bigoted. This is because the leap from moral disapproval to illegality can only be made on prejudicial grounds. Nor does it matter whether or not one genuinely believes their bigoted ideas. The important point is that they are bigoted.

@SavoirFaire I think that since there’s not a negative emotion attached towards homosexuals, there is no bigotry. It is what God said and nothing anyone else says can change that.

I’m all for SSM even though I’m a Christian for several reasons, and I’ve argued until I’m blue in the face over this with other Christians who are, shall we say, more devout. They will listen and acknowledge some point, but most refuse to change their minds in direct opposition to God’s will.

I didn’t know people hated him. Recently listened to an interview with him on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. Seems like a reasonable, decent guy.

Good question. Especially the repubs should love him. After all it was a repub who said that “extremism in defence of liberty is no vice”

@SavoirFaire

Wow, you seem to throw around the Bigot accusation easily. Based on what you’re saying, infidelity, polygamy, and even pedophelia, would only be opposed by bigots. As a society we make moral judgements all the time. bigotry runs rampant.

@KNOWITALL Bigotry isn’t about emotion, it’s about prejudice. One can be coldly prejudiced. Just look at generations of slaveholders. In any case, I don’t think you should call yourself less devout for being in favor of same-sex marriage. For one thing, there is no clear case to be made that the Bible forbids it. For another thing, Jesus himself called for the separation of church and state. And in the end, Christians are supposed to believe that God is love and that we are not to judge. Thus it seems to me that in this regard, you are a better Christian than those you label “devout.”

@Jaxk Read my answer more carefully, then try again. I did not say that making moral judgments entails bigotry. I said that moral judgments are insufficient to determine that something should be illegal. Those are different issues, so your response makes no sense.

In any case, I do not throw around the term “bigot” easily. I do throw it around when it fits, though. There are no non-bigoted arguments against legalized same-sex marriage. Ergo, opponents of legalized same-sex marriage are bigots. It’s pretty straightforward. There are non-bigoted arguments against legalizing pedophilia, however, so it is not necessarily the case that outlawing it is bigoted.

Seriously, you’re better than this.

@SavoirFaire I think the definition I posted above adds an emotional element to the act. Most Christians I know are opposed to SSM because they feel God made the decision for them and said it was not okay with Him.

Being raised Christian, it was very difficult for me until I decided (at the risk of my eternal soul), as you state, that Jesus is all about the love and non-judgement, but a lot of people feel differently. I don’t feel that makes them bad people, they are only doing what they feel their Deity expects from them. They won’t use their vote to go against what God supposedly wants for any reason on earth unless we change their minds with discussion.

Also, some Christians in my area also feel like being homosexual itself is not bad, only acting on those urges, which would be a sin. Unfortunately, that’s why ‘pray the gay away’ churches are so popular. It’s scary.

@KNOWITALL I suppose it depends on what we think of fear, distrust, hatred, contempt, and intolerance. With the possible exception of fear, I would call them attitudes. As they often come along with certain characteristic feelings, however, I do understand why you would call them emotions. And since attitudes and emotions seem to belong to the same general category of mental states (often called “sentiments” in moral psychology), the difference between us here may be largely semantic.

In any case, it seems to me that one can be fearful, distrustful, hateful, contemptuous, and intolerant without it being a powerful feeling. That was why I mentioned cold prejudice. Certain actions are hateful or intolerant even if they are not the result of being riled up. Perhaps the people you know have no powerful negative emotion attached to their judgment, but I would deny that they have no negative sentiment whatsoever attached. Insofar as their actions can be properly described as hateful or intolerant, then, it seems to me they could still be described as bigots. And intolerance is just as much a matter of what one does and thinks as it is a matter of what one feels.

Are bigots bad people? Yes, I think they are. Their badness may be explicable by certain factors—they haven’t been convinced that they are mistaken yet, they think they are doing the right thing—but I don’t see how those explanations are excuses. “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” as the saying goes. And indeed, more evil has been done in the name of moral principles than just about anything else. We surely have some responsibility to help others get right, but that does not mean they are not doing bad in the meantime. Genuine belief does not dissolve moral guilt.

@SavoirFaire Okay, we can agree to disagree. To me, that would be like a parent telling a child not to touch something hot or they’ll go to the doctor, and there is no negative emotion involved, it’s ‘do’ or ‘do not’, like the ten commandments.

If God came to all His believers in their dreams tonight and said “My son/ daughter, gay people are not bad and them loving each other is not bad. Remember my son taught love and non-judgement for all.” -it would be a non-issue for most.

@KNOWITALL Well, my point has been that I think their negative sentiment is getting in the way of their reason. It is blinding them to the fact that the definition of marriage is not what they think it is, that the Bible doesn’t say what they think it does, that it wouldn’t be a good reason to actively oppose (rather than merely not support) legalized same-sex marriage even if it did, etc. This is the evidence of negative sentiments: that they could come to such false ideas despite there being no rational support for them. The only arguments they have exhibit bigotry in their premises. Ergo, they are bigoted. Otherwise, they would not find the premises plausible nor the arguments persuasive.

@SavoirFaire I understand, but try to understand in your heart, that there is really no negative sentiment in most Christians I know. The only thing we have to go by is the Bible for the most part, which is rife with misinterpretations and contradictions.

If my family hadn’t been such loving hippies and world-travelling military, I probably would have believed the same, but I was always taught to love. Some Christians are not as lucky as I am, and they live in a bubble of unchanging strict adherence to the biblical teachings.

Truly, try to feel sorry for them instead of anger or hurt if you can. It’s hard to live such a rigid life when you know better in your heart. If you think denying others is hard, try denying yourself any pleasure in the name of religion. Some are trapped in loveless marriages, attending to church duties and children all day and submitting to unwelcome physical attention at night from a man their family wanted them to marry. It’s the ultimate submission for your Deity in some cases. It may not make their feelings okay, but at least you can understand.

@KNOWITALL I do not have anger for bigots, or at least not for all bigots. What I have is moral disapproval. This part of them is bad, even if not all parts of them are. And I do feel sorry for people who live that way. Ignorance in moral matters hurts not only others, but also oneself. It prevents one from living well, and that is truly a misfortune. I just don’t think that my pity should stop me from expressing my moral disapproval.

As for whether or not the people you know have negative sentiments, I don’t think this is something we can determine by whether they are nice people or express their bigotry in “nice” ways. They are bigots. We know this from their beliefs and actions. And since you insist that bigotry involves some sort of negative emotion, we can infer from the fact that they are bigoted that they must therefore have some sort of negative emotion. Alternatively, we could agree that bigotry does not require negative emotions. In that case, however, the main point—the original point—would still stand: that they, whatever they feel, are bigots (and thus there is no mistake in referring to them as such).

@SavoirFaire It’s so much easier for both sides to name call and think mean thoughts that put any effort into changing the hearts and minds through understanding and communication.

@SavoirFaire

Sorry I don’t want to hijack this thread with a discussion of gay marriage but I grow weary of these ‘if you don’t agree with me you’re a bigot’ statements that I can’t resist. I assume since you didn’t mention polygamy, you would agree that it is a bigoted law. Put in placve and defended by bigots.

As for gay marriage, I don’t agree. Marriage has nothing to do with finding your soul mate, never has. Government has no interest in whether or not, you have found your soul mate. The institution of marriage has changed so as to make it almost unrecognizable and the laws concerning it ineffective. Marriage was intended to encourage the family unit. When you broke away from your parents and got married, you would create a new family unit. that was the purpose of the common last name. Inheritance, alimony, retirement benfits, etc. were all designed to provide the non-working spouse with a means of support in the event of the bread winner’s demise. The joint tax return was created to allow a single working parent to support the family. I know this is all old fashioned stuff but it is why the laws are in place. The breakdown of the family has rendered this obsolete. Very few single income families and more kids living with unmarried parents than with married parents. It is interesting to note that 40% of Americans believe that marriage is obsolete. So in fact we are taking a disfunctional institution, deemed obsolete by a large part of America and expanding it to cover more people for tax benefits (as if there were any). And according to you, only a bigot would think this is a bad idea.

marriage was originally a transfer of ownership, the object to be sold being the woman.

@KNOWITALL It’s easier to just name call, sure. But that’s not what Dan Savage does. He calls people bigots when they are bigots, but he doesn’t say “neener neener, you’re a bigot, just shut up.” He presents an argument for why a certain view is bigoted. Since people generally agree that bigotry is a bad thing, showing someone that their views are bigoted should be a way of changing their mind. In any case, Savage has given plenty of milder responses to people as well. How he responds typically depends at least in part on how much moral indignation one brings to bear against him in their original argument. Angry, hateful people get sharper replies than calmer, kinder people. That seems appropriate, doesn’t it?

@Jaxk Woo hoo, free love baby! :)

Seriously though, it’s more progressive to not be married at all. Especially since Christianity is the main religion in the US and the Christians apparently don’t appreciate the LGBT community. If it wasn’t for the legal issues, I’d say it’s a better act of rebellion to shun the whole marriage thing anyway.

@SavoirFaire Every time you say ‘bigot’, I hear a bigot saying ‘faggot’, they both are ugly to me and undeserving of my attention. Neither is appropriate in civilized conversation imo. I truly wish you the best, but you can’t combat ugliness with more ugliness and be effective with a subject like this.
*Remember, anyone in media, gay or not, needs ratings to stay on-air.

@ragingloli

That’s not entirely true. Even back in the old days it was about family. If the woman turned out to be barren, you could give her back. But you had to return the wedding gifts.

@Jaxk It has nothing to do with disagreement. There are many issues on which two rational people can disagree without either one being a bigot. Not all issues are like that, though. I’m not sure why you think this is controversial. If I were arguing with someone who thinks that blacks deserved to be enslaved simply in virtue of being black, that person would undoubtedly be bigoted. He would be a bigot in virtue of his beliefs, however, not in virtue of his disagreement with me.

Regarding polygamy, I didn’t mention it because (a) I take pedophilia to be a clearer example, and (b) I do not take myself to be familiar enough with all the arguments for and against polygamy to make a judgment on the matter. “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” as Wittgenstein said. I am familiar with the variety of arguments offered against same-sex marriage, however, including yours. Thus I am comfortable commenting on them.

And as for your argument regarding same-sex marriage, we have been over its deficiencies many times (and you have continued to lack any cogent response to my criticisms). You want to focus on the government’s interest in marriage, which makes sense given that we are talking about civil marriage. But same-sex couples are just as capable of forming family units as opposite-sex couples are. For one thing, the couple itself is a family unit. My wife and I have no children, but we are still a family. Even if one thought children were necessary, though, there is always adoption. Just as sterile opposite-sex couples can adopt and raise children as a family, so too can same-sex couples. Both can also engage in surrogacy. Moreover, the progression of science is such that it may soon be possible for same-sex couples to have biological children (just not always with a womb). As there are no legitimate and non-bigoted grounds for allowing opposite-sex couples to form family units but not same-sex couples, your argument gives us no non-bigoted reason to oppose same-sex marriage.

As for the breakdown of the family, that is all a non sequitur because it is a separate issue from same-sex marriage. Same-sex couples can form families, including single-income families of the sort you think are breaking down. I personally know same-sex couples in which one parent stays home, raises the children, and does other tasks that were done by traditional homemakers. That is not where the charge of bigotry originates, then, and as such your final line—punchy as I’m sure you thought it was—is nothing more than a nonsensical bit of rhetorical flourish.

@KNOWITALL Progressiveness is not defined in terms of rebellion or distance from majority behaviors. And I’m sure you know that plenty of Christians appreciate the LGBT community. It’s just the one’s who don’t that are the problem, along with all the non-Christians who are opposed to same-sex marriage and other LGBT concerns.

And as for “bigot,” the word is not a slur. If you are interpreting it that way, the problem is yours. It is a descriptive term the same way that “racist” or “sexist” is, just one that can be applied more generally (e.g., when there is not a specialized term for the sort of prejudicial behavior at issue). That you do not like the word in no way makes it uncivilized, inappropriate, or ugly.

@SavoirFaire Okay, we’ll disagree. Peace out.

Dan Savage is the best! The people who call him transphobic are being oversensitive. Their evidence is that he has used the word “tranny” and that he has said that trans parents owe their children adjustment periods. But he used the word “tranny” during the time when trans people were trying to reclaim the word. And his reason for thinking parents owe their children adjustment periods is that parents often have special responsibilities to their children. Maybe he’s wrong about that, I don’t know. But if he is, that doesn’t mean he’s transphobic.

He gets accused of being anti-bisexuality a lot, too. I don’t get that, though. I’m bisexual, and I’ve never been offended by his comments about bisexuals. It’s statistically true that most of us settle down with members of the opposite sex. He’s not biphobic for saying so. Yet that’s the first thing most people bring up when they say he is. I guess that’s what he gets for speaking some hard truths to the community.

Ah, well that makes things clearer, @SavoirFaire. (I had a whole question prepared to try to clarify how you used the word “bigot”, which I have now been able to overwrite.)

But this makes @Jaxk‘s objection even stronger, I think. Your sliding definition of bigotry means that those opposed to pedophilia, polygamy, euthanasia, contract marriage, marriage-for-rent and other practices that most people abhor (and most governments strongly outlaw) are bigots because they haven’t caught up with the few who may support such practices.

It seems to me that bigotry – which is and should be an ugly appellation – is a fairly significant and strong deviation “from accepted norms”. And that’s the key, I think. The norms have to be established before we can determine who is and who is not a bigot, and then, furthermore, I think it is perfectly germane to examine motive for bigotry.

The louts who unthinkingly recoil and sneer at the very idea of same-sex couples (and couplings) are in today’s Western society surely bigots. I think there can also be thoughtful people who have genuine, even if often incorrect, reasons for objecting to those unions and who are not bigots. (@Jaxk enumerated some cogent reasons for why marriage laws are what they are now. Some are still applicable.) By the same token, I don’t agree that slaveowners in America’s antebellum period were “bigots” just because they owned black slaves. I do agree that people who blindly argue the inferiority of any human race to any other these days would be a bigot – save for those who point out specific, credible and defensible (and repeatable) observations of race-based differences.

As an example of that, I’ve been reading lately about gender-based differences in education in primary schooling. Is it bigoted to notice that the way US public schools are run now highly disfavors boys?

Thanks @Uberwench for actually answering my question, as well as the first few others. I returned to my account to see a huge list of debates that really have nothing to do with what I asked. All of that is great and all, but I just want to know why people seem pissed off at him even though their views seem to be in line with his.

@CWOTUS No, bigotry has nothing to do with norms. Racists were bigots in the 18th century just as they are now. One could perhaps argue that the moral blameworthiness of their bigotry varies based on how reasonable it is to have expected them not to be bigots, but the fact of their bigotry remains unchanged. There is no sliding here, so your objection is baseless.

Well, baseless in your eyes, perhaps, @SavoirFaire. My objection remains that if at some point in the future pedophilia becomes an accepted practice – as it has been in some forms and some places in the past – then those of us who object to it now are all bigots. I don’t buy it.

It’s easy to cast all slave owners as bigots as we look back on them from 150+ years in their future, just like the Spanish conquistadores looked at all of the Native American people as “ignorant savages” and “heathens” for not worshipping Christ – or even knowing about the Bible – when the two cultures first met in the fifteenth century. Does that mean that both the Spanish and the Native Americans were bigoted in their refusal to accept each other’s religions?

@SavoirFaire

I remain unconvinced. My arguement is neither a moral nor religious one. You seem to feel that if I can’t convince of it’s merit that makes me a bigot. Not by your opinion but an indisputable fact. That seems a bit egocentric. And your argument about whather gays can adopt or even have babies doesn’t work either. Just because I can cut off my leg doesn’t mean I’m entitled to a disability sticker for my car.

We’ll have to disagree on this. and I will sign off so as not to coninue hijcking this thread.

@Mr_Saturn512 You’re welcome! I can talk about the “rape apologist” accusation, too. That stems from two letters that were answered in succession. The first came from a guy who wanted to have sex with his wife while she was asleep. He had already secured consent for this, but found the execution to be difficult. Dan gave a short answer (short answers ending with “next!” being the theme of the column that week), and a rape survivor found it offensive. She said that Dan was condoning rape because consent has to be in the moment, so you can’t consent to sleep sex. I’m with Dan on this one. A long-term partner is the best person to work out complicated fantasies like this one with, and it’s not like his wife couldn’t put an end to it if she woke up and no longer wanted to do it.

I think Dan would have gotten away with this one, but he raised questions about the letter writer’s sincerity in claiming to be a victim of rape. His point was that if she thinks this counts as rape, then maybe she thinks other things that aren’t rape are as well. This was around the time of the Duke lacrosse team case, so the issue of false accusations was a real live wire at the time.

@CWOTUS I called your objection baseless because it was predicated on a misunderstanding of my position. You said I had a sliding definition of bigotry. I do not. Therefore, no objection to my claims based on that assumption could be properly grounded. If you think that bigotry should be defined on some sliding scale, then you will have to present your own argument for it. My point was that you can’t act like it’s something to which I am already committed.

As for whether or not we are bigots at present, that depends entirely on whether or not we hold particular views for prejudicial reasons. The people of the future can only recognize (or, if they are wrong, misidentify) us as such. They cannot retroactively change what we were. There is no such thing, after all, as backwards causation. If you think otherwise, then it seems you are confusing “being an x” with “treating something as an x.”

edited by me. Backing away slowly

@SavoirFaire
All the qualities you cite as good are not necessarily good, they are just defense lawyer qualities, useful even to the most reprehensible.
Even this defense lawyer who said he would burn his daugther if she was out with a boy

Added: all the qualities you cited in your first post. Added: I know you didn’t use the word good.

@Jaxk It is not necessary to use a moral or a religious argument to be bigoted, and nor have I claimed otherwise. This seems to be one of the major misunderstandings you are having with regard to my position. Moreover, it is not simply because you cannot convince me that your argument has merit that the argument is bigoted. That seems to be another one of your misunderstandings. My claim is that the argument is bigoted regardless of who agrees or disagrees with it, the same way that arguments for the inferiority of certain races were bigoted back when all (or most) people were willing to agree with them. The problem is that your argument does not have merit, and that the reason you think it does is because prejudice is blinding you to its deficiencies. If the argument were merely without merit, then you would merely be mistaken. It is the bit about prejudice that makes the argument bigoted.

As for the bit about disability, I have no idea what you think your point is. You seem to be saying this: just because same-sex couples can form family units doesn’t mean they have the right to do so. But this makes no sense, not least because your own argument uses the simple ability of opposite-sex couples to form family units as the basis of why they should be granted this right. My response says only that there is no legitimate argument for granting marriage rights to opposite-sex couples while also refusing to grant them to same-sex couples. This is because there is no relevant difference between the two groups. To answer this, you must point to a relevant difference. You have not done so. Therefore, your argument does not work.

@flo I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, not least because I’m not sure what set of qualities you think I have cited as good. In any case, I don’t think I’ve ever claimed anything to be necessarily good. It is an old chestnut in moral philosophy that just about anything can be used for both good and evil, and I agree. So you’ll have to show me where I said otherwise. My guess, though, is that you have misunderstood me somewhere.

@SavoirFaire
doesn’t just roll over at the first sign of criticism,”
“capable speaker and writer.”
“able to give smart and snappy responses almost every time”
Those are the qualities I was referring to in your first post.

@flo And I didn’t say they were good. I said they were reasons why some people dislike Dan Savage.

@SavoirFaire How about because he is just not a good guy, period?

@flo Well, I disagree with that. Therefore, I’m not going to say it in any of my answers. If you think he’s not a good guy, I would suggest presenting an argument to that effect so as to answer @Mr_Saturn512‘s question instead of just spamming the link that seems to have currently put a bee in your bonnet.

Dan Savage isn’t perfect, of course. Nobody is. But I have no reason at present to think he’s “not a good guy, period.”

@SavoirFaire So, that is just something that “put a bee” in someone’s “bonnet”. It is that tiny, minor? See some things are just too obvious.

@flo The term “bee in your bonnet” does not imply that the issue is minor. It’s just that the link you posted has nothing to do with the question and your responses to my posts have had nothing to do with what I actually wrote. Thus I suggested that you consider answering the question that was asked.

My link shows even lawyers for reprehensible ones, have those qualities.

Your first post seemed to me to give him a good image on his side and that people who dislike him probably are just ignorant, jealous, etc.

@flo To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To someone who has a bee in their bonnet, everything looks like an opportunity to discuss it. This is a common habit of yours. Regardless, I have already pointed out that you misinterpreted the post to which you were responding, so I hope we’ve cleared that up.

@SavoirFaire You wish that that story got wouldn’t get the exposure?

@flo I have said nothing to that effect. You’ll notice, for instance, that I have raised no objection to the question you posted for the purpose of bringing it to people’s attention and discussing it. I just think it would be nice if you made an attempt at answering this question while you’re making comments in this thread. It would also be nice if you’d stop responding to comments you’re only pretending I’ve made.

@SavoirFaire Of course you never said that.

We don’t have to be limited to answering the question directly. Correcting a factual error in an answer/s is a good example of helping the OP getting answered.

Maybe someone else can post this OP:
“Why are some people whose views seem to be in line with Dan Savage pissed off at him?”

@flo This question is in General. Responses are supposed to be helpful and on-topic. And since you misinterpreted the answer to which you were responding, you were not correcting any factual error. Finally, the details are part of the question. If you read them, you’ll see that this question already asks what you suggest someone should post.

But I didn’t misinterpret it though.

As to the fact that the detail has in it “he’s a liberal pro-gay guy and yet most of my liberal pro-gay friends still hate him”.
Yes but I meant if the title OP said that, instead of just “some people” the people in question would be able to answer it directly.

@flo Yes, you did misinterpret my post. This is a straightforward fact. You thought I was calling certain qualities necessarily good. I was not. Even if your error was understandable, my clarification should be more than enough to show that you misinterpreted.

As for asking a new question, it would be removed as a duplicate since this one already asks what you have suggested. It just doesn’t do it in the title (which is supposed to be short according to the guidelines).

In any case, this is getting us nowhere. It seems all you want to do is naysay without adding anything to the discussion. I don’t plan on responding any further unless you manage to contribute something substantive.