Thoughts in a Haystack

The ever odious Bryan Fischer is extolling the virtue of "discrimination," specifically when it comes to sexual behavior:

We need to reclaim the word "discrimination." We need to take back the word "discrimination." "Discrimination" is not a bad word. The Left has turned "discrimination" into a bad word and when it comes to sexual behavior, "discrimination" is not a bad word. "Discrimination is, in fact, a good word.

We discriminate against non-normative, sexually abnormal behavior all the time and we should. From our vantage point, we believe ... I believe ... that homosexual behavior is non-normative. It is abnormal. It is a sexually deviant form of sexual expression. By that I mean it deviates from God's plan for human sexuality.

"Discrimination" when it comes to human sexuality is not bad, it is good and it is necessary. The alternative is utter social chaos. It's time, ladies and gentlemen, to reclaim the "discrimination" word when it comes to sexual matters. It's not bad, its good. It's a virtue and it's necessary.

To a certain extent Fischer is right. Words aren't good or bad. It's the thoughts and actions that words represent that are good or bad.

Let's look at the definition of "discrimination" from Merriam-Webster:

1 a: the act of discriminating

...b: the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently

2: the quality or power of finely distinguishing

3 a: the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually

...b: prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment

I would add to definition 3 "the use of the law and/or the power of the state to enforce a prejudiced or prejudicial outlook."

I, as I'm sure most advocates for equal rights for LGBT people, couldn't give a rat's ass for any "fine distinctions" Fischer might actually be capable of making between gay and homosexual sex. We only care about his and his cohort's attempts to use the law and the power of the state to enforce their prejudice on others.

Fischer and his ilk are free to use the first two definitions of "discrimination" but not the third.

And I love the claim that, if we merely let consenting adults alone to decide what to do in their bedrooms, there will be "social chaos." No doubt the same "social chaos" George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door to prevent.