Is this hate speech? [closed]

Question

The accusation has been made that this answer contains "hate speech": https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/2769/why-do-many-christians-object-to-same-sex-civil-marriage/2776#2776

I don't actually see the answer as hateful at all, but I do see how some could draw the conclusion that it is--based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Christianity, coupled with the fact that many "Christians" are indeed hateful toward the two groups mentioned (practicing homosexuals, and murderers).

The truth is, parts (the most important parts, in fact) of the Gospel are offensive. Although I don't believe this qualifies them as hate speech, it sure can appear that way to somebody it offends--it ultimately sent Christ to his death, after all.

How can this be addressed in a way that is true to the OP's intention, without being viewed as hate speech? Or do some people need to lighten up, and accept that some views here will be offensive?

Answer 1

The accusation has been made that this answer contains "hate speech"

Boil down your issues with someone else's words to a trite label, and you're gonna have problems. I see "hate speech" and I read "censorship".

Is it not enough that we have a voting system for de-emphasizing poor answers? Is it not enough that we have a system by which blatantly offensive content can be flagged, automatically removed and the author penalized? Is it for naught that any user viewing the site can submit edits to nearly any post? Is the ability to leave comments on, and post meta discussions about a post worthless? The opportunity to post impassioned arguments against that which you find incorrect to be sneezed at?

Do we need a special sub-category of "offensive" that evaluates to "does not actually offend even a half-dozen users or moderators, cannot inspire even a short rebuttal, but is nevertheless somehow worthy of removal"?

This reminds me of the arguments over enforcing Non-Disclosure Agreements on several other sites. To the best of my knowledge, no one ever actually got into trouble, or sent the sites a take-down notice or other official complaint in response to these... But in several cases, skittish users and moderators jumped in to squelch questions in fear that someone might violate a contract they - not the site - were party to.

You link to an answer with 9 up-votes and 7 down-votes, on a question with 9 and 5 respectively. It's a controversial answer to a controversial question... Big surprise, right?

The question is currently closed, as "not constructive". I tend to agree with that assessment - there are better ways to ask similar questions even on controversial topics while encouraging far more useful responses.

But if it does get re-opened, and does stay re-opened, if the community here does decide that it wants to tackle questions like this... Then, yes,

[...] some people need to lighten up, and accept that some views here will be offensive?

...there will need to be some of that. Whether you can be hurt, offended, feel marginalized or attacked by an answer and shrug it off is debatable, but I do not think anyone should come here expecting to find every answer a soft pat on the head.

³⁴ “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
³⁶ a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

Answer 2

I think you're right, that some people simply need to lighten up. If actual harmful speech, such as advocating violence against certain people or groups of people, shows up here, the moderators will certainly take appropriate action. But up until that point, simply discussing matters of doctrine is simply discussing matters of doctrine, and I see no reason to allow certain viewpoints to be censored simply because they make some people uncomfortable.

Answer 3

Yesterday, I flagged this answer because I felt that it went across the line by comparing a minority (homosexuals in this case) to murderers and arguing that "If you can't get rid of 'em, you can at least do whatever possible to suppress their influence".

I think this qualifies as hate speech, as it "disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic."

I don't think this kind of behavior should be allowed on any StackExchange site, and I was disappointed that the Christianity.SE moderators chose to ignore taking action against this post, despite multiple downvotes and flags. They instead opted to close the question, which I can agree with, but I still feel that this answer should be deleted.

If this was some other minority, I'm sure this would have been dealt with quickly, and I fear that this sets a bad precedent that it's OK to bash on gay people on this site.

Note that I'm not opposed to answers discussing these views in an objective and factual manner, but I feel that this answer went well beyond that.

The goal of StackExchange is to make the Internet a better place, and I think allowing sites like Christianity.SE to be used as a platform for spreading hate and bigotry is in direct opposition to this goal.