DCP: Homophobia is "a nonsense word."

[_Doctor Scratch]

So let’s get this straight.

1. BYU changes policy and HCO allows homosocial behavior. BYU students and many faculty rejoice in progress toward becoming more Christlike. And... Peterson and cohorts are utterly silent on the matter for two long weeks.

2. BYU has that policy reversed back to original form by CES leadership. BYU student body fractures and protests ensue. More than $30k is raised in 3 days to help traumatized LGBTQ students offset transfer fees to apply to other schools. Faculty and senior administrators are in tears in closed door meetings (source: confidential), themselves feeling betrayed by church leadership. Queer students and their families and friends are apoplectic all over social media. Steve Young, who bears the school’s namesake tweets support for BYU’s marginalized LGBTQ students. And... Peterson claims he hasn’t hardly noticed a damn thing, labels homophobia a nonsense word and offers two extremely lame treatises explaining why he’s right.

Someone needs to get off their phone or laptop and go outside and give some students a hug. For God’s sake man, take a break from the pharisaical blogging and go do something helpful.

Very well said, Dr. Moore. It seems to me that there are some important unanswered questions here. As you helpfully point out, "And... Peterson and cohorts are utterly silent on the matter for two long weeks." Yes. So what were they doing during that period? Remember, both DCP and Midgley have openly boasted of having fairly regular--and quite intimate--contact with the Brethren. Think of all the times Peterson reassured everyone that he'd heard from "the highest authority possible" about the "real" truth surrounding his ejection from the Maxwell Institute. Think of all the revelations that Midgley gifted to us last year--all the material about the SCMC and what have you.

I would be willing to bet that Peterson and Midgley both personally wrote to the Brethren in an effort to get the policy reversed. Just imagine: deliberately going out of your way just so that old, toxic harm can be inflicted on all those students.

[_Doctor Scratch]

I'm pretty sure Peterson was carping about the pseudo-Greek etymology of a word that would literally mean "fear of sameness" or something. I'm afraid I have to confess that for a few years I often bridled inside, in a similar way, at discussions of privilege, because I thought that "privilege" ought to mean having a "private law" and that didn't really fit the situation. Thankfully I never actually wrote or posted that brilliant analysis anywhere that I can recall.

It was a stupid approach to semantics. Words mean what most people intend them to mean, not what some learned wiseass thinks they should mean. English is full of firmly accepted words with bizarre etymologies.

More importantly, of course, in a discussion of something that harms a lot of people it's vicious to deflect the discussion with pedantic quibbles over terminology. It would still be vicious even if the pedantic quibbles were right.

At the far end of this spectrum are the morally brain-dead idiots chiding people for using the term "Holocaust" for an event in which not literally the whole Jewish people was burnt. I feel that I once took a few wretched steps along the start of that road, in my thinking. I've run back and don't want to go there again. It's sad to see Peterson a little farther along. He should hurry back, too.

You called it, Physics Guy. An easy way of boiling down Peterson's bloated etymological explanation is to simply say that words have meaning when they are useful/usable. He doesn't like the way that "homophobia" is useful (since it means demonizing him because he is intolerant), so of course he objects to it. But take another word that we all know he's fond of: "anti-Mormon." In the most literal sense, that means, "Opposed to the character in the Book of Mormon." Though, of course, I think all of us realize that it actually means, "Someone who criticizes any aspect whatsoever of the LDS Church."

So, there are all kinds of problems with his latest response:

Those who have objected to homosexuals being branded as “perverse” and “sick” should think long and hard before they turn that same strategy against everybody who disagrees with their legal and cultural agenda. It disrespects opponents. It dehumanizes and demeans them. It is, in that respect, merely yet another example of the terribly divisive discourse of our time. Those who disagree aren’t mere opponents with whom we disagree; they are evil, depraved, sick, even subhuman.

Wow! I mean, this is just stunning, right? He just doesn't seem to get how he comes across. Read this again: "Those who have objected to homosexuals being branded as “perverse” and “sick” should think long and hard before they turn that same strategy against everybody who disagrees with their legal and cultural agenda." This basically means that *he* understands that "homosexuals [have been] branded as 'perverse' and 'sick,'" and yet, this is the arrangement he prefers. Right? This is really little more than him saying, "Hey, you all have objected to how badly you've been treated! How dare you try to teach me a lesson by showing me how you've been treated all these years!" The lack of compassions is.... Well, I would say "shocking," but all you can do is shrug your shoulders at this point.

And notice how he mentions the word "strategy." And then look at this:

In fact, my objection to the word homophobia isn’t really about homosexuality as such. It’s about civil, respectful discourse. To the extent that there really are anti-gay bigots — and I accept that they still exist — the proper term for them isn’t homophobe. It’s bigot. And to the extent that a person really hates gay people, his attitude should be termed hatred, not homophobia. But such terms should be used accurately, not sprayed about indiscriminately in order to gain unearned rhetorical advantage. They should not be deployed in order to dehumanize opponents.

So, I guess he'll be trading the term "anti-Mormon" for "bigot"? Except that he's already done that. How many times has he referred to MormonDiscussions.com as a "bigotry" or "hate" site? "[S]uch terms should be used accurately, not sprayed about indiscriminately in order to gain unearned rhetorical advantage."

LOL.

[_Philo Sofee]

So let’s get this straight.

1. BYU changes policy and HCO allows homosocial behavior. BYU students and many faculty rejoice in progress toward becoming more Christlike. And... Peterson and cohorts are utterly silent on the matter for two long weeks.

2. BYU has that policy reversed back to original form by CES leadership. BYU student body fractures and protests ensue. More than $30k is raised in 3 days to help traumatized LGBTQ students offset transfer fees to apply to other schools. Faculty and senior administrators are in tears in closed door meetings (source: confidential), themselves feeling betrayed by church leadership. Queer students and their families and friends are apoplectic all over social media. Steve Young, who bears the school’s namesake tweets support for BYU’s marginalized LGBTQ students. And... Peterson claims he hasn’t hardly noticed a damn thing, labels homophobia a nonsense word and offers two extremely lame treatises explaining why he’s right.

Someone needs to get off their phone or laptop and go outside and give some students a hug. For God’s sake man, take a break from the pharisaical blogging and go do something helpful.

You bring up excellent points, but expect too much from the brethren loving employees of the same. They literally can never be authentic since the brethren own their butts. Through the years, no matter how asinine the brethren talk or change policy or act, there has always been one area from which unflagging support has come from.... the mopologists. When things the church does are good, they are out in front dancing like lolly pop winning kids. When things go bad, the brethren are always protected with their words, ridiculous convolutions occur and they nary bat an eye at it. They are Sophists plain and simple. They have become what their hero Hugh Nibley always preached against and warned about. They have become the managers of the brethren, not leaders one can look up to.

[_Dr Exiled]

DCP wrote in the last part of his second installment:

On the other hand, in fact, I strongly favored civil partnerships that would have granted homosexual couples the legal rights (e.g., hospital visitation and inheritance) typically associated with marriage.  Other than my deep sadness when homosexuals forsake the Church, I’m quite uninterested in their private sexual arrangements; I’ve been working harmoniously and respectfully with gay people for decades and will continue to do so.

So he supports Jim Crow laws for same sex marriage and wants The Gays to remain in the closet if they go to BYU. Yet, he supposedly works harmoniously with The Gays, probably with a hymn in his heart too. Right. Got it.

[_moksha]

There is a new blog entry and thread at Sic et Non on this topic of homophobia being a nonsense word:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/03/why-i-object-to-the-word-homophobia-conclusion.html#disqus_thread

[_Dr. Shades]

[MODERATOR NOTE: Smokey, it's been brought to my attention that your habit of putting names of some people and groups into blue text is a white supremacist / anti-semitic tactic to target them for persecution.

Giving you the utmost benefit of the doubt, what's the reason you put some text in blue?]

[_I have a question]

A BYU Professor (Peterson) is publicly telling BYU Students (some of who are gay and currently protesting about the homophobic policies and homophobic treatment just handed out by BYU) that homophobia is just made up nonsense? Do I have that right?

The man has a voracious and insatiable appetite for notoriety and will stop at nothing to get it. Sadly, this board enables him.

[_moksha]

Moksha • 5 hours ago
Isn't a denigration of the word Homophobia simply support for the LDS stance on LGBTQ people? Sort of like if you supported racial segregation you might object to the word "prejudice".

"Defense of religious freedom at the expense of some gays is not a vice."
-- Barry Golden McConkie, Unconsciousness of a Tea Partier, 1964


DanielPeterson Mod Moksha • 4 hours ago
Moksha: " Isn't a denigration of the word Homophobia simply support for the LDS stance on LGBTQ people?"

I support the standards of the Church, but my "denigration" of the term "homophobia" has nothing to do with that fact.

I set out my reasons. You've ignored them.

Moksha: "Sort of like if you supported racial segregation you might object to the word "prejudice"."

That's a contemptible insinuation, Moksha.

I laid my reasoning out. You're ignoring it and, instead, substituting baseless insult.

And you have the nerve to illustrate and support your insulting insinuations with a fake quotation?

Moksha: " "Defense of religious freedom at the expense of some gays is not a vice."-- Barry Golden McConkie, Unconsciousness of a Tea Partier, 1964"

That sort of thing convinces minds and sways hearts over at your home message board, but this is obviously not your home.


Fourfingeredjake DanielPeterson • 2 hours ago
Moksha is contemptuous, so one should expect contemptible nonsense to spew forth from him/her.

[_Philo Sofee]

They misread and misunderstand everyone who cannot and does not think like them and agree with them. Civil discourse is just not possible.

[_Dr Exiled]

They misread and misunderstand everyone who cannot and does not think like them and agree with them. Civil discourse is just not possible.

Yes. My short sojourn over at Dr. P's board underlines your point. Dr. Midgley purposefully imposes his righteous, non-stalking of course, spin on almost everything said by any commenter not of his team, accusing them of evil motives. Kiwi57 and Ideeho are the same and Dr. P is unwilling to engage when he sees a potential weakness in what he says. It isn't a deposition in a legal proceeding, yet that's how they view it.