Bigotry is Bigotry and all Bigotry Needs to Be Confronted

[Donald Ian Rankin]

67. I think that you're at least close to a sufficient condition.

I think that if membership of a group is involuntary, then dislike or hatred of people based on membership of that group can probably pretty much always be termed bigotry.

So that's a reasonable starting point.

But it's still fairly far short of being a necessary condition for an opinion to be bigoted, because it excludes almost all forms of hatred on grounds of religion or opinion, and it's there that things get really tricky and controversial. There are certain opinions on, for example, women's rights or gay rights, that I think it's entirely reasonable to hold against people, and that are strongly promoted by certain religions, but there are also situations where I think it clearly is reasonable to describe holding someone's religion against them as bigoted.

One possible distinction is to say that it's reasonable to hold someone's opinions against them, but not their identity - it's bigoted to condemn someone simply for calling themselves Catholic, say, but there are certain points of the teachings of the catholic church (and all other religions) that it's not bigoted to condemn someone for holding.

But that ends up in a situation of "the only good X is a bad X" - it's fine to belong to a given religion, provided you're somewhat heterodox - which is still slightly awkward.


Obviously, you don't have to have a definition which covers every possible edge case. But I worry at such a blanket condemnation of something without a fairly clear explanation of what it is and isn't.