And I still don’t know more than I did before you posted this. You registered your disapproval though.
Gee. I’m glad I’m relevant again.
To the anti-SSM folks:
How do you reconcile your anti-SSM position with the equal protection clause?
Do you think same sex couples are not deserving of equal protection?
Does equal protection not apply?
Does your desire to impose your personal sense of morality on others override the morality involved in providing equal protection of the law?
How do you reconcile your position with Brown v. Board?
Also to the anti-SSM folks, would you vote in favor of various propositions criminalizing various sins?
Prop. 1: Taking the Lord’s name in vain shall be a misdemeanor.
Prop. 2: Gluttony shall be punishable by fine.
Etc.
I honestly don’t know how this was supposed to be a response to what I said. It seems completely disconnected both to what I said, and what I’ve been saying in general. Was it a misquote or copy-paste error?
Hmm. You may have a point. I suppose I’ll just have to fall back on equal protection to put a bullet in the idea of enforcing this particular bit of religious tyranny. On the other hand stopping the religious from reinstating blue laws (for example) may be a little tougher since it doesn’t violate that part of the constitution.
I’m curious as to what you think I said that you’re responding to. I have not opined particularly hard about the precise mix of feelings the anti-SSMers have towards gays, perhaps because (since I define the term based on actions, not opinions) I could actually call them bigots without bothering to discern intent, were I inclined to call them that sort of thing*. 
- Which I’m not.
Given this opportunity I will note that banning gay marriage because you wish to deter the sin of gay sex is three different flavors of stupid - because it will literally be completely ineffective at stopping or reducing the amount of same-sex shagging that will be occurring! Whether married, civilly unified, or merely legally vulnerable roommates, these people will still be shagging exactly as much. So opposing gay marriage because you dislike gay sex is like banning bicycles to stop people from eating chicken - completely irrational.
Which does sort of suggest that these people have other motivations besides the irrelevent “same sex shagging is sin” one and that, perhaps, those reasons may just maybe be shameful enough to encourage them to substitute less ignoble reasons in their argument. Alternatively, they might be so passionate about a reason that they consider compelling and nobody else does that they’re desperately grabbing at anything that seems vaguely compelling to buttress their argument. Or maybe they just haven’t thought this thing through very well. (Or some/all of the above.)
It’s not obvious what you’re even trying to argue - you’re the one who claimed that “democracy is a crock and that we should all be subjects of a theocratic dictatorship” is a ‘paraphrase’ of an argument used by the anti-SSM side. I don’t see how trying to nitpick the hell out of the statement is going to make it equivalent to something it’s extremely dissimilar to.
Also, when a conjunction (something that uses the word “and”) is given, that it’s true if either side applies. Incidentally.
…or, alternatively, you may just only be interested in being declared right (or at least never admitting that you’re wrong) - just as I’ve said is typical of the uses of the word ‘bigot’ around here.
Well, I think this proves it (especially your last sentence) - you not only don’t realize that ad-hominems torpedo the validity of your argument, you also don’t realize that they also torpedo any shred of hope you had of swaying people to your own side. It is both informative and jucily ironic that you felt that insulting me would convince me that your argument that insulting people was effective argument is correct.
And you are, to coin a phrase, “also dead wrong.” Calling somebody a bigot doesn’t tell them that their views may not be founded in religious doctrine after all, because there’s nothing about the word “bigot” that excludes the possiblity that the religion is bigoted. (This goes double if you explicitly call the religion itself bigoted.) So, as usual, the word doesn’t convey anything or advance argument - other than to people who’d rather “win” than convince.
And they already know you hate them, thanks. They don’t care, because they think you’re wrong - and when the person in the wrong tells you you’re vile, it just means that you’re great, because they’re wrong.
True this. The nearest I got to being persuaded that it would be okay to oppose SSM is when I heard about the decline of marriage in Scandinavian countries after the institution of civil unions. For me, the arguments presented by those quoting the decline of marriage in Scandinavian countries were rational and compelling. i.e. Civil Unions eroded the concept of family so much that it endangered it as the primary social unit. Marriage is not a right but a privilege given to people who will promote the family as the primary social unit. Insofar as SSM endangers this, it would be okay to oppose it. Only later did I find out that the statistics they used were utter crapola.
I don’t know that telling someone they are wrong because their belief is baseless is going to have any better result than saying that it is irrational. But there is a difference. Someone not stepping on cracks because they believe in the superstition is acting irrationally, but not baselessly (to leave religion out of it for the moment.)
To get back to SSM, someone opposed to it because he was told to be opposed to it by a preacher (and who hasn’t bothered to consider it on his own) is acting irrationally but not baselessly. Same is true if he is for SSM for the same reason. My question is whether opposition due to some early prejudice, no matter how obtained, is baseless or not? Is visceral hatred of a group a valid basis for any position? It is clearly an irrational reason, just to be clear.
If the latter, it’s remarkable how that hypothetical reason never seems even to get expressed, isn’t it? We can dismiss that explanation of yours, and stick with the first one.
Ho hum. *Your *words there. Improvidently agreed to, considering your tendency toward caricature and middle exclusion, yes, but your words nonetheless.
Not only your words, but your own projection.
YOU don’t realize that claiming “ad hominem” when confronted with the bullshittiness of your own argument torpedos your *own *credibility. What’s left of it by that point, anyway.
So? There’s no contradiction there. Religions are made of groups of people with similar outlooks, after all, and people looking for the same sort of acceptable excuse for feeling the way they do will naturally come together to do it. The fact that they have embraced a religion whose doctrines, either express or implied, are bigoted in no way makes them themselves not bigoted as well. There is no need to let the claim of religious doctrine go unchallenged or unexplored; exactly the reverse is the honest course.
Perhaps you need to reread the most recent posts, a little more slowly and thoughtfully this time. You’ll find that point addressed already.
Please. :rolleyes:
Okay, the difference between religion and superstition is a different debate.
Take sides? Moi? I assure you that I find Biblical justification for SSM just as silly as Biblical justification to oppose SSM. My point was that in both cases the Bible is being used to justify an already arrived at point of view.
I think that this is because the only justifications people have come up with opposing it are a personal view of immorality and a desire to preserve the sanctity of the dictionary. Given that, people have wandered off into all sorts of blind alleys.
No? If you knew you had been programmed to hate Brad Pitt, would you still try to convince your friends to avoid Brad Pitt movies? We all have irrational likes and dislikes, but if we realize that we can try to let these irrationalities drive only our behavior, and not try to make others follow our quirks.
Those who think their quirks are a direct mapping of God’s will aren’t so polite.
Well, my position is that there’s no such thing as a baseless reason, so I agree with you about much of this. Reasons for things can (and often are) irrational to small and large degrees, but the reasons do exist.
It seems pretty strange to ask if opposition due to some early prejudice is baseless or not, because you just said it was based in some early prejudice. And that prejudice is certainly based in something too - people either learned to fear/hate specific things by being taught to by authority figures, or they learned to fear that which is foreign to them (probably due to an insular education with limited exposure to the wider set of things).
Arguably it’s not even irrational to believe what you’re told or even to fear the unknown - we’re told lots of things which we believe (who actually tests each scientific principle personally?), and being cautious with unknown properties is often the safest approach. These things only become irrational when additional information or evidence is wilfully disregarded in order to maintain the beliefs/fears/predjudices, or when additional irrational thinking is incorporated in a flimsy attempt to justify them.
I just said it’s not expressed. That’s kind of the whole point - that people have reasons they are reluctant to express so they instead argue other arguments with vehemence the arguments don’t themselves merit. Keep up.
And do you seriously believe that no religious people want their church to assume authoritian control over the country? I thought that in some sects it was doctrine that this was going to in fact happen, with Christ coming down to run the world personally.
You know, you keep asserting that I’m excluding middles, but I don’t recall you ever explaining how it’s happening. You seem to be just flinging it around like those other ad-hominems you seem to think make you look all manly and virile.
Similarly, accusations of caricature tend to be more effective if applied to actual instances of caricature. Though I do admit I don’t mind pointing out when people’s own arguments are silly.
No, you’re not getting it. I’m openly and explicitly stating that argument by ad-hominem is nothing more than an attempt to sabotage the debate in favor of a quick (and logically and rhetorically unsound) “victory”. This isn’t a projection - it’s an accusation.
Oh, I’m sure I have no more credibility with you. But like I said, criticism from somebody who’s totally wrong isn’t an insult, it’s expected and practically a compliment in the way that it validates the position.
Heck, that’s part of why persons use ad-hominems in the first place: to make the other side lose their cool and rant back, simultaneously making the other side look bad and the original ad-hominemer look good.
Mmhmm. I suppose that you’ve found this to be effective argumentation in practice, huh?
AdHominemer: “You! Christian! Your christ is a jerk and your church is nothing but stupid bigotry!”
Christian: <blinks> “Why, you’re right! I never realized! I shall immediately abandon my belief system and the culture of my youth and peers!”
Hmm, caricature or not? I guess the only way to tell is to try to figure out what you really expect to happen - which could be tricky to guess, since none of the outcomes I can think of seem likely to work out well.
Ah, yes, the old “Everybody who doesn’t agree with me is too dim to understand me!” routine! It was fun when mswas did it, and it’s fun when you did it. (Fallacious as hell, mind you - it serves the identical argumentive purpose as shouting ‘bigot’ at the top of your lungs, in that it is meant to demean your opponent and stop debate.)
I will note that doing it right after rebutting my response to you doesn’t work nearly as well as the approach of just calling me a moron and blowing me off - if I really didn’t understand you, why did you feel required to try and rebut my rebuttal of your position?
Hey, you’re the guy who tried to justify shouting insults in order to “help them see what those views appear to be to those not under that spell”.
Do you seriously think that by insulting them you’re telling them anything new about the way the angry frothing faction of their opposition thinks? Please. :rolleyes:
None of whom are actually posting to this thread, so any response you get to this call is going to be an effort by someone who does not oppose SSM to explain someone else’s position.
Of course, equal protection applies. Everyone is entitled to get married. However, in the opinion of those folks, (and the clear tradition of Western culture extending back through approximately 4700 years of written history), marriage indicates a societally sanctioned union between persons of different sexes. If you want to know why they do not support equal rights, they will respond that they do support equal rights. If you insist that same sex couples deserve the right to marry, they will simply be mystified that you would change the subject from marriage to some other relationship.
It may be fun to make this into a debate of “morality”–there are both enthusiasts of various religions and bashers of religion who are more than happy to jump into that brawl–but far more people are simply nonplussed at the very idea of same sex marriage than oppose it on religious grounds. As for Brown, it addressed the issue of kids getting different educations based on race, not the issue of changing the meaning of a social function that has never previously included that new meaning.
New Hampshire became the sixth state to legalize gay marriage. It takes effect in January.
The acceptance of the negative consequences of gay marriage (SSM, whatever) is slowly eroding, at least to the extent that they outweigh the human rights issue.
Everybody start your stopwatches - we can now expect New Hampshire to implode in 40 years due to amorphous undefined badness (which functions kind of like dryrot) and a marginal alteration of culture that the a few of the aged will still be mourning, maybe.
Oh, now I get it, SSM will cause individual states to catastrophically and suddenly shrink after 40 years of festering. Duh, I don’t know how I missed that, with the recent proof of state-sized black holes and all…
OK, for real this time, what is the problem??
I will make it easy, if you are against SSM, please complete one of the following sentences:
“I think that People who have romantic relationships with others of the same gender should have fewer rights than otherwise equal people who are romantic with the opposite gender, because…”
OR…
“I think that the right to marry is a privilege, not a basic human right, I think that the government of these united states has a valid interest in not extending this privilege to SSMs ,because…”
OR…
“Despite the constitutional separation of church and state, which is there to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority in religious matters, I think that the US government should embed my religious opinions in the laws that all people, including those that are not part of my religion, must follow, because…”
OR,
“The reason that SSMs should not happen is that it will destroy “marriage” in these ways, aside from my personal distaste for same sex relations, and/or the official stance of my religious affiliation, allowing SSMs would damage me or other US citizens in the following concrete or measurable ways…”
OR,
“I think the separation of church and state is overrated, and should be removed from the constitution, because it is causing problems in the following ways…”
OR…
All the rights of Marriage should be extended to SSMs, but I am uncomfortable with the use of the word “marriage” with SSM. I think it is reasonable to make an exception to the doctrine that “separate but equal is not equal” in this case because the traditional meaning of the word marriage is more important than equality of terms for this reason…”
Yes I am grasping at straws, but I am not building a straw man, all of those are the possibly reasonable things I can think of for apposing SSM, If there is another one, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let us know, so we can shut up the name callers!
Please give me a reason to change my opinion of those that appose SSM, because so far everything I have heard boils down to some level of homophobia and/or some level of belief that they have the right to make other people follow their religious rules.
If you are not against SSM, please find a friend or relative that is against it and ask them. I tried, but all I got was my grandma’s mild homophobia and religious issues related to Hetero marriage – we are working on the homophobia, and getting pretty far (as long as we ignore the part about sex outside of marriage), but I am not about to try to talk her out of her religious beliefs.
Curious Dag
I can accept that some of those opposed to SSM are so because their religion tells them to be. I just don’t see why this should be given any more weight than those who were opposed to interracial marriage because their religions told them to be, and yet to see any reason to make the distinction.
Well that strikes exactly what irritates me in these threads. People ask what motivates people, what they think will occur, what the damage will be, but then think that it’s about convincing them to change their mind. I came into this thread certain that no one’s mind would be changed about SSM, but many people really really really seemed to synonymize “tell you your reasons.”, with, “Convince me to change my mind.”
The reasons are not sufficient to me either. We are and have always been in agreement upon that.
I have no illusions I can change your mind (or the mind of magellan and those who share his anti-SSM views) about anything. Ideally, I might have helped influence someone who was undecided, who’d heard some anti-SSM rhetoric but is now seeing that the anti-side is empty and irrational and could never explain its reasons despite repeated requests. Even that is overstating my impact, I’m sure.
In any case, if the holders of a particular position cannot explain their reasons for holding that position, I have to figure they’re indistinguishable from anyone else who holds a position they can’t rationally defend. If that lumps them in with those who opposed interracial marriage or universal suffrage, so be it.
Then maybe you should avoid great debates and only discuss gay marriage in my humble opinion.
There’s a difference between “convince me that this argument is compelling on a sound, rational, and argumentive basis” and “convince me to change my mind”. For an example note that many people in the abortion debate will admit that there are reasonable arguments to be made on both sides, despite not having been convinced to change sides.
One thing that is fairly unique about the SSM discussion is that the anti-SSM side seems to have a marked tendency to hold the beliefs for one set of reasons (religious preferences and/or homophobia) and argue for it with entirely different reasons (devaluation of existing marriages, affection for dictionaries, fear of societal collapse, what have you). The reason for this of course is that their real reasons are personal and do not make for compelling arguments in a society that embraces civil rights and avoids codifying religion, and they know that - so they cobble together other arguments to reach their desired goals by back roads. (If you don’t agree that this is an accurate characterization, feel free to protest and state where I’m wrong.)
The thing that’s interesting about this is that the arguments they present haven’t necessarily even passed their own standard of what is compelling; they’re just things they have picked up and are throwing onto the table. So it is definitely valid to ask whether the arguments that are being presented are valid, sound, or argumentively compelling - they want vetting!
For an example, your moderately recent “harmed culture” argument seems fallaciously weak when detached from the “I wish I was ruling a theocracy” argument (due, as has been noted, the impossiblity of defining change as harmful without a reasonably objective standard of what is good). It’s all well and good to point out that the argument can be made, but it’s certainly fair game for us to point out if it’s full of holes.