INvidiA

That is very true. Also when societies/individuals don't have a long history they haven't had a chance to accumulate modes of thinking from the past that are no longer deemed appropriate but are difficult to shake off once acquired.

If you believe God's law is paramount and have convinced yourself that God's law does not allow for gay marriage, then your opposition is not based on hate, but rather based on your conception of what's proper and what's not.

This urge to thrust "hate" on people is dangerous because is dehumanizes them. If someone is hateful, then they are evil, and evil people deserve punishment.

So the thinking goes, but it is regressive thinking.

The disagreement about gay marriage stems for many from religious doctrine and what is traditional social practice, not hate.

But that's the issue. If someone simply sees homosexuality as a something that isn't "approved by God" or something of that nature, and they in their minds are just going along with God's law, are they really hating something? I've heard many anti-gay marriage people say that they have no problem with gay people but that they just oppose gay marriage.

Is that cognitive dissonance? Almost certainly, but is it hate? I don't think so.

We throw around the word "hate" too much and doing so loses a lot of the nuance bound up in human attitudes.

Is it really hate though? Or just people accepting certain social standards and living their lives in accordance.

Sure it's soul crushing for those who are oppressed, but the oppressors would probably be well adjusted people in other societies.

These sort of class distinctions are much less pronounced in America, which is why so many oppressed or impoverished people from elsewhere yearn to travel here and make a new life. It's nice to hear about someone who was able to realize the American Dream and escape the class prejudice of their home country.