Eccentric Flower:200911/Not Bitter No

There was an editorial the other day from the Globe's resident defender of right-wing lunacy, Jeff Jacoby, which called out the left, essentially, for a lack of civility.

Please, hold your laughter until after the pullquotes ....

Thing is, Jacoby, Barney Frank is a very good politician and he knows when not to burn bridges. And I would not normally call someone a bigot or a fool just because I disagree with them either. I will, however, call them bigots and fools when they are being bigots and fools. And no matter how rational you attempt to make the bigoted position in this matter sound:

it is no less bigoted for all that. I read sentence one of that quote as "I'm scared that this will lead to the fall of my very small status quo comfort zone, therefore I will defend ridiculous standards created by religious leaders attempting to maintain their stranglehold over society many hundreds of years ago." I place sentence two in the same sort of hysteria fever dream as the famous "box turtle" remark - in other words, barefaced fearmongering. If that paragraph isn't bigotry, what is?

Jacoby, while I will be the first to admit there is wretched excess on all sides, in general, when the people on my side call the people on your side names, it is because the people on your side are being bigoted and/or evil. When the people on your side call the people on my side names, it is also, eighty percent of the time, because the people on your side are being bigoted and/or evil. (The other 20% of the time it's a fair cop. The left has plenty of stupidities of its own. Some days I wish a pox on both their houses.)

I'm not saying the left is not capable of evil; I'm saying that right now, the record is showing pretty clearly who is wearing the black hats most of the time. The portion of the right which has control of the microphone on our national stage right now is so actively evil that everyone who has any good in them whatsoever is deserting that group, and fleeing either to the uncomfortable arms of the left or to independent-limbo. The Republicans who are Republicans for sound reasons - the fiscal Republicans, the small-government Republicans, the lower-taxes Republicans - they don't fit anymore. The core has mutated into something very different, a black frothing engine of fear and hate and stupidity, and they have been stranded. If, as a member of the left, I failed to point this out at every opportunity, it wouldn't be a matter of civility - it would be a matter of me pretending something wasn't happening when it clearly was.

You're a smart man, Jacoby, and I don't think you are intrinsically evil. One of these days you're going to have to decide whether you want to embrace what remaining sanity is in you or whether you want to remain doctrinal at all costs. (If you choose the latter, be aware that the lunatics whose line you're valiantly hewing to will throw you to the wolves at the first opportunity. There is no loyalty in the bunker, and you think for yourself a little too often for their tastes.)

Meanwhile, I simply do not buy that anyone who takes a position against gay marriage does so for any reason other than bigotry. I will concede that it may be honest and/or unintentional bigotry. It may be bigotry motivated by fear and uncertainty instead of outright hate. It may be bigotry caused by people who try good-naturedly to do what their church tells them to do, without questioning the motivations of their church. But it's always bigotry, no matter what inspires it.

And bigotry deserves name-calling, especially when the name-calling is this clever. This isn't bitterness. This is telling it like it is.