"white leftists defending brown conservatives in ways that they never would defend white conservatives solely because of being on their own not-racist ego trip"

Bill Maher is absolutely right. And before I get the liberal hate, let me clarify: I'm Iraqi-American, I have lived in Iraq, I'm an atheist, leftist, and a feminist, I've read the Koran backwards and forwards, yes I also know the history of Christianity, no I don't think all Muslims are terrorists, yes I think Islam…

I am growing so, so so weary of the term "Islamophobia" being thrown around any time someone has the, finger quotes, 'audacity' to say "you know, maybe we should take a closer and more critical look at the things these religious books say and how they tie into the ideology and actions of people go out and do horrible…

Y'know, if the lovable dirty hippies at my alma mater had objected to Maher for the myriad other ways in which he's problematic, I wouldn't mind a bit. He's said some awful things about women and as a feminist, I wouldn't want him speaking at a commencement.

He is being neither prejudiced nor racist. He's looking at the data and drawing supportable conclusions.

This. You may or may not like the guy but he's consistent and I think it's BS (And the thing he criticize) to act as if Islam is any different from the other religions that get criticized by many in the left.

Islam is not a race.

I don't think he is a bigot, you guys are missing the point. What he is saying about the teachings of Islam is true. As a person that has spent many years in an islamic republic and read the Koran, he isn't entirely wrong. Have you read the Koran? It is a book of exceptions and vengeance. Justice should be served…

He has said things about all religions, but calling him racist because of his opinions about one is fairly extreme all itself.

When I read about white leftists defending brown conservatives in ways that they never would defend white conservatives solely because of being on their own not-racist ego trip, it makes me want to retch. Maher makes my nose wrinkle but he is criticizing theocracy because HE CAN, whereas apostates are killed every day…

Stephen, I appreciate you opening up the discussion on this. I am been a reader of the site for a while and was pretty neutral about the whole thing until it kind spun into the moral panic territory, which I didn't feel was particularly fair to the GG crowd. I don't think you can tear down stereotypes about one group…

Little personal story unrelated to GG but it's a similar end result. During the AC: Unity debate I posted a comment on an article centered around the female playable character debate about how extremists of all sides would argue without paying attention to any of the actual reasons. As a result I got abuse and…

We've just all sunk into this pit of nastiness. Everyone seems to be trolling one another then retreating to their echo-chambers for reaffirmation. It's devolved to 4th grade level nonsense. YOU'RE THE POOPY HEAD w/big words. And no one, from the GG'ers, anti-GG'ers, oppurtunists on both sides, gamers in general,…

They shore it up as even if the initial accusations are false people still start to look more closely at others as a result (the games industry is still very close knit) and stating your shoring up ethical standards helps prevent a attitude of distrust developing. Anyway here are a couple of sources in regards to the…

I know where it came from (I've mentioned this in several posts now) but the point was the initial effects were a shoring up of ethical policies on a number of games sites. Only after did it all go complete fuck-up and become about two specific instances of abuse and turn into a very polarised, uneducated argument…

Exactly. Your points are all things I agree with (I'd add 'Acceptance of Differing Views' to the list) and need to become standard treatment of others online. You can't have a serious debate if you don't follow the rules or niceties that go along with it.

Oh, I agree with you there, and I think the media and anti-GG crowd has capitalized nicely on just this aspect of the movement. Lacking a centralized voice has allowed GG to be marginalized by spin in the media narrative; they get to decide who GG is because GG doesn't have an identity besides what individuals claim.

At the start of it there was a lot of questioning over friendly relationships (not even the false romantic accusations between Grayson and Quinn) between devs and journalists which led many sites to update their ethical codes which was a victory. However as you say it got turned to into a bizarre debate over the…

That's fine, but the problem is that, unlike feminists where, with the exception of RadFem crazies, all feminists are working towards the same goal and the differences are over how to reach that goal, GamerGate has become about so many things. Even most of the rational GamerGaters I've interacted with still see the…

Not lost on me, no. I tried to recapitulate some of the recurring criticisms I've seen of Kotaku. And I also tried to grant that there are GGers who sincerely believe not just in fighting for better games journalism but that Gamergate is or can be an effective vehicle for that. It might even be most of them, for all I…