I don’t agree that the difference between ideology and vaguely-defined personal preferences is nit-picking. An ideology includes a program for material action and in the case of ideologies based on hatred strongly implies malevolent intention and often realized actions – examples being the Holocaust and Jim Crow. ‘Irrational’ preferences may add up to an oppressive social context, but until they become ideologized they usually don’t materialize as death camps.
One of the reasons I dislike seeing the term ‘racism’ thrown around so freely is that it is often simply a case of ‘any stick will do to beat a dog.’ It is permissible to hate racists, however they are defined, so those who feel an urge to abuse someone or something are fond of picking it up and putting it to use. Thus we have Republicans saying Affirmative Action is racist, and we have numerous politicians, media people, and academics who construe any disagreement with them as ‘racist’ because they claim to be members of a minority or speak for them. This practice, which has become very widespread, obscures the very real problems of invidious tribalism which we supposedly want to mitigate or do away with.
Speaking of which, in matters of sex and marriage, besides race, I have observed differences of age, religion, political philosophy, party, ethnicity, family history, language, dialect, class, educational level, disability, illness, weight, geographical location, cultural group, aesthetic taste, manners, dress, and so on, to occasion the most vigorous and stringent sanctions against boundary violators even among highly intelligent, supposedly liberal people. I knew of one person whose friends dropped him because he took up with a Jehovah’s Witness, for instance. And it is completely permissible to deride and exclude the young who date the old and vice versa – this is quite overt. I’m sure I don’t need to go on. I doubt if many of the enlightened people here are completely innocent of this sort of thing given its popularity and ubiquity.
