Ah, there we go.

BIGOT!

A word with stopping power nearly equivalent to a .45 ACP round discharged under 10 meters from its intended target.

A word with greater chilling effect on discourse than a body stuffed into a meat locker.

It seems these days that anyone who is opposed to Same Sex Marriage (SSM) is ipso facto, a bigot.

We know this, because no less a legend and intellectual titan (as anointed by the fleck-spittled, foamy-mouthed liberal media shill Keith Olbermann) than Perez Hilton, the fleck-spittled, foamy-mouthed celebrity gossip monger says so, as he delivers his resounding and devastatingly arrayed arguments, of course, filled with bone-crushing logic and a nearly inescapable singularity of reason against some beauty queen who *dared* foul the air with her noxious bleating that … *le gasp* she believed marriage was something to be held between a man and a woman only!

Guess who else thinks that way - or at the very least, has publicly stated that they believe as much:

(1) President Barack Hussein Obama
(2) God (through numerous utterances he gave His servants in both the Old and New Testaments)

I do not see how Mr. Hilton (a.k.a. Mr. Lavandeira) can take issue with some rural young woman from the back of beyond when she declares her opinion of SSM, and not deliver with equal time, or energy, his disapproval of Mr. Obama’s lack of adherence to The Agenda™.

Of course, were we to ask Mr. Lavandeira of his opinion of God, I’m reasonably certain that he would not speak to highly of his Creator, even on a good day.

But rather than spending vital bandwidth picking on poor Mr. Lavandeira’s own bigotry, let us review what the word “Bigot” actually means - aside from its Agenda™-enforced code meaning for “anyone opposed to SSM”, from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) :

Bigot
A. (n.)
1. A religious hypocrite; (also) a superstitious adherent of religion. Obs.

2. a. A person considered to adhere unreasonably or obstinately to a particular religious belief, practice, etc.

–b. In extended use: a fanatical adherent or believer; a person characterized by obstinate, intolerant, or strongly partisan beliefs.

B. adj. (attrib.). Of or characteristic of a bigot; bigoted. Also fig. Now rare.

And for good measure, an adjective form, bigoted, also from the OED:

1. Obstinately or unreasonably attached to a faction, cause, belief, etc.
2. Characterized by bigotry; obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, faction, etc.; intolerant towards others, their beliefs, practices, etc.

Two conditions seem to exist to qualify a person for bigotry - obstinacy and unreasonableness.

Therefore, in order for one to be bigoted, s/he must exhibit a certain unreasonable amount of stubbornness in their adherence to their particular belief, for example:

“The Earth is flat”. This has been proven wrong, both mathematically and empirically (ships disappearing over horizons, and later through spaceflight). For anyone to strongly hold on to this belief today in spite of evidence to the contrary, would be doing so in a manner that could be correctly characterized as “bigoted”.

“God’s Word is Truth”. This is not directly provable or disprovable, but through faith, I accept it as gospel (and it is, in John 17:17). I certainly would meet the obstinacy test, but I do not think this would make me a bigot in the most strict sense of my belief being unreasonable, since a large minority of people also believe in God’s Word and also believe it is truth. However, when “reason” no longer accepts God’s Word, then I’d gladly be bigoted for the TRUTH of God’s Words over the shameful and sick thoughts of the minds of men (including my own fleshly reasoning) for it is written:

“And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”

(1 Cor. 3:20, KJV)

“Race A is inherently better than Race B“. This would be unreasonable, since God’s Word declares that “All are sinners and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and really, as far as God is concerned, He sees us as all of one race - the Seed of Adam - but yet of one of two fathers - either Father God (through faith by grace) or of Satan (our default, depraved, sin-stained state).

“(SSM) is a right, and equal to (heterosexual) Marriage” This is very much debatable, and can really only be seen for what it is - an antic of those promoting the Agenda™ to “normalize” themselves as a very significant force in American society, when in fact they are but a very, very small minority (less than 3% of the population), not all of whom even desire to be married!

In fact, this is possibly an unreasonable statement, based upon the overwhelming preponderance of written history recording that (hetero-normative) marriage and families being the very glue of human society. That last great society that adopted The Agenda™ as a very good idea and was followed widely by all of its citizens were those of the Cities of the Plain - Sodom, Gomorrah, and a few other outlying towns that were utterly destroyed by God (they had many other issues going on than just their adherence to The Agenda™ - but one door tends to open the path to others, and there can be little doubt that given the nature of the activities that the men of Sodom wanted to embark upon with Lot’s guests, that it wasn’t a major factor in their downfall).

That said, while we may not see destruction in the same manner as the Cities of the Plain, we are dying a slow, agonizing cultural death of Western Judeo-Christian culture that started toward the post WW-1 epoch in Europe and is nearly completed, and has been doing quite a job on America over the past two generations.

Note that these definitions have nothing at all to do either with issues of race, or with sexuality (per se)… that is to say, speaking one’s belief that men should only marry women - is hardly indicative of a unreasonable attachment to that belief (when the breadth of human history and in fact, its very continued existence, declare that heterosexual marriage is the norm).

I fervently believe in the laws of gravity and thermodynamics; yet these laws are true regardless of whether or not I choose to believe in them. This would not make me a bigot based upon that.

Equally unchanging and true regardless of our willingness to believe or even acknowledge it, is the Word of God, which was made flesh in the person of God the Son, Jesus Christ.

I also fervently believe in God and the infallibility of His Eternal Word; in today’s anti-Christian climate, that is increasingly seen as unreasonable, and therefore likely makes me a bigot (based on the above OED definitions).

Yet, I have to wonder - does Mr. Lavandeira (Perez Hilton) also stand guilty of bigotry - for his unreasonable and obstinate adherence to his belief that anyone who opposes The Agenda™ or its current flagship issue of SSM is a bigot of the worst order, matching the bigotry of a David Duke, or that supposedly of a younger Robert Byrd before he ascended Capitol Hill so long ago as a Kleagle of the KKK?

Perhaps it is time for Christians (who are currently the biggest targets for being smeared with the giant word-brush of doom for “bigotedness”) to consider how we might reclaim the word “bigot” for ourselves in a positive way (principally through unwavering adherence and obedience to God’s Word, per the OED definition) much as homosexualists have reclaimed certain slurs for themselves.