Don F. - Definitely there are moral imperatives. Absolutely. Unquestionably! We are mostly fairly clear on what they are too.

We all know that it's wrong to steal, wrong to commit unprovoked violence on someone, wrong to lie with the intention of deceiving innocent people for one's own personal gain, wrong to rape people, wrong to cheat people, wrong to murder people, wrong to wantonly break the civil laws just because you feel like it, wrong to slander people, wrong to blackmail people, wrong to commit fraud, etc.

We know these things. I know these things. I am not a moral relativist.

We all know NOW that slavery is wrong. That has become obvious to virtually everyone in North America, for example, since roughly about 1865, but it took a long time for it to become obvious. It took thousands of years before the great mass of humanity reached an awareness level where virtually everyone (if not everyone) could plainly see and AGREE that slavery is wrong. That was the point I was making about the Romans, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Egyptians, and other ancient peoples. They did not yet know that slavery was wrong. They thought it was totally normal, fully justifiable, and most of us would have thought so too if we'd been born back then into those societies...specially if we'd been born among the slave-owners rather than the slaves.

I was alluding to that not because I am a moral relativist, but to demonstrate how people in one society can take fully for granted a practice that is later seen as VERY wrong in other societies.

Very few people are moral relativists. I don't think I've ever met one in my life, and I am not one. Most people have very definite ideas about what is right and wrong, and I know you and I certainly do...and we probably agree on almost all points.

Nevertheless, I think it brings a discussion to a standstill when someone starts telling someone else he's a bigot or that his opinion is "bigotry". It just derails the entire discussion from that point forward.   People get lost in defending themselves or in attacking the other person, and that gets no one anywhere.

What you need for a productive discussion is to discuss the issue itself and all its various social ramifications, not to set about proving who in the discussion is or who is not a "bigot".

Everyone here has some useful ideas to offer about gay relationships, the institution of marriage itself, and other stuff like that. Let's talk about those ideas instead of fighting about whether someone else on the forum is a "bigot" or some other negative character assessment like that.

Everyone feels at heart that he or she is a good person. You do. I do. Akenaton does. GfS does. Don T does. Everyone here does. We all feel at heart that we are good people, and I think we probably all are good people. It does no good for one of us to say (in so many words) to another, "You're a bad person." It causes an angry defensive response, a counterattack, and things just get uglier from there. I see no point in it.

Instead, let's discuss the actual issues (of same sex marriage and gay relationships and etc). Present your ideas about those issues. See how they fly. Listen to other people's ideas. See if you can relate to what they mean.

There are some useful possibilities there.

There are no useful possiblities in any one of us trying to prove that someone else here is "bad"...a "bigot"...a "racist"...or some other condemnatory definition along that line.