over time, conservatives will always lose. women's rights. civil rights. gay rights. society becomes more progressive as time passes, as each generation rebels, however slightly, against the last. there may be short periods of backsliding (e.g. the reagan era, post 9/11), but change is inevitable.

so suck it, conservatives. suck it long, and suck it hard.

HotWingConspiracy: There aren't any fence sitters in this debate.

No heterosexual person is sitting around saying "Well I would have supported gay marriage, but some guy on the internet said "breeders", so fark all that."

I'll give you that; I'm just a little curious about the tactic. I'm not sure that saying "civil discourse has gone out the window so fark it" is a course of action that turns the tide.

Mavent: If you're insulted by the word "breeder", you need to have your head examined. Personally, I've always felt that the main advantage of being a straight white male in America is that there's no way for anyone to insult you unless you are, in fact, exactly the what they're accusing you of being. If someone called me a "cracker", I'd just laugh, because it's such a stupid-sounding insult. If they called me a redneck, I'd just be befuddled, because I'm obviously more of a tech geek, and only an idiot could confuse the two. As for "breeder", well, yes. I have bred. I don't really consider it an insult. And frankly, given the level of overpopulation in the world, maybe people SHOULD be reminded to think before they breed.

Forest for the trees, I guess. It's more the tone? When you want to be accepted by the majority, is insulting the majority the best way to do so? I'm not personally insulted because yeah, it's as bad as being called cracker or whatever - hell if I care! If the goal is to gain acceptance and work toward becoming a more civil society that is fully inclusive, it isn't helpful to give your opponents "both sides are bad" types of ammunition though. Especially in a country where so much time is devoted to idiotic media spin for people who can't think for themselves.

Aurric: Let me know the next time a group of angry gay people drags a heterosexual person behind a truck for being straight while screaming "breeder!" and I'll worry about the so-called offensive implications of the term.

Until then, I'm really sorry if your delicate sensibilities are injured through the use of not-really-insulting designations for straight people.

Did I say my delicate sensibilities were injured? When the opposition is using tactics to generalize and dehumanize a group of people, then using those same tactics aren't going to result in a rush of goodwill and understanding. I'm saying, don't use the kind of tactics bigots use, because it only muddies the waters of the entire process. I would like to see the homosexual community keep standing strong with the actual right to claim the moral high ground as has largely been the case, and not give their opponents a chance to seize on a word which can be put in campaign commercials that is almost certain to evoke increasingly stupid movements from a reactionary public. Time and understanding is on the side of equality and inclusiveness and the fight is increasingly becoming a non-issue in that it gonna happen and ain't nothing that can stop it. (Not a non-issue in general though, this is a crucially important fight.) I can't wait until this whole thing is dead and gone, but I would hope that until that actually happens only one side of the argument exposes themselves as jackasses.