Sorry Rick, but what I’m saying is that all the arguments he’s quoted actually are based on homophobic views. The point of my recent posts isn’t to show the fallacies of the arguments, but to show where they devolve into anti-gay sentiment.
I don’t think there is much more worth arguing about here. I’m on your side. I support gay marriage. The only thing I took exception to is the notion that everyone who opposes it is a homophobe. The claim was that there are NO arguments against gay marriage that are not rooted in homophobia. I offered up several. You’re now arguing those arguments - which I don’t support anyway. I didn’t say they were GOOD arguments. The people espousing them may believe them out of ignorance, or fear of change, or tradition, or maybe they have some very valid points, which I simply don’t believe outweigh the very good arguments on the other side.
You can disagree with people while still respecting them and even liking them. You don’t have to paint all your opponents as homophobes. My grandmother was opposed to gay marriage, and she was one of the sweetest, most tolerant people I knew. She just stuck firm to her faith and had a notion that gay marriage was not part of God’s plan. And she wasn’t schooled in the nuances of all the positions. Perhaps if she had been, her position would have changed. She also wasn’t THAT adamant about it. But she was no homophobe.
They’re not only not good arguments. They aren’t arguments at all in the absence of unstated premises based in anti-gay sentiment. Saying “We must protect the institution on which families are built” isn’t homophobic, but it’s not an argument against gay marriage either, unless you think that gays getting married will somehow harm families. And that is homophobic, and hence the argument, if it is an argument at all, is rooted in homophobia. Similarly for the others. I suppose someone might buy the argument without thinking through it, and without recognizing the underlying homophobia, and could therefore oppose gay marriage without being homophobic. Perhaps your grandmother was such a person. That doesn’t make the basis for opposing gay marriage non-homophobic.
Sure they are. As I said, many Catholics opposed the ending of the Latin mass. How many of them do you think hate English? It’s the tradition they wanted to keep. They don’t have to hold any sort of bias or hostilty towards whatever the new thing is. They just don’t want to lose the old one. Throw religion into the mix, and it becomes sacred and people are even more leery of it.
That’s all I have to say about this. If you want to reduce every argument to a ‘root cause’ of homophobia, then this whole debate beccomes unfalsifiable anyway. We’ll just have to disagree.
I’m not quite sure what Latin mass has to do with anything. I find your post extremely difficult to parse. What tradition is being lost? The tradition of men and women getting married? No, obviously not. The tradition of excluding gays? Well, yes, but presumably that’s not what you meant.
Look, you now seem to be saying “There’s some irrational opposition to gay marriage rooted in blind resistance to change that has nothing to do with homophobia”. But what you initially posted here was not that. (Moreover, there’s good reason to think that blind support of the status quo is implicitly homophobic, even in the absence of more overt homophobia - just as blind support of the status quo in the American South some decades ago was implictly racist, even if there were kindly old grandmothers who disapproved of intermarriage but had nothing but kind words for coloured folk.) What you initially posted was that there were arguments against gay marriage that aren’t rooted in homophobia.
To quote a slightly ridiculous source, “An argument is a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition. It’s not just saying ‘No it isn’t.’” In order to be an argument, even a bad argument, there must needs be some connection between the premises and the conclusion. ‘Marriage is about children’, ‘We must protect the family’, etc, all have nothing whatsoever to do with the question of gay marriage, unless additional premises are assumed, and hence are not arguments. If they are to be taken as arguments, they can only be taken as arguments with assumed homophobic premises.
“Unfalsifiable”? Hardly. It’s easy to conceive, given appropriate conditions, of an argument against same-sex marriage that was based on premises none of which were homophobic. How about this:
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To legalize same-sex marriage would require the death of a kitten.
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Causing the deaths of kittens is bad.
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Therefore, same-sex marriage is bad.
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is not only false; it is a slander against gay people. Slander against gay people is homophobic. Since the argument reposes on a slander of gay people, the argument is homophobic.
However, if 1) were true, then this would be a non-homophobic argument in favour of same-sex marriage. We have not logically excluded the possibility of any such argument: we have simply shown that all arguments so far advanced repose upon an unstated homophobic premise.
At the risk of sounding like Lib, I’ll break down one of the arguments to show how Gorsnak has done this. Here’s a typical argument:
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A marriage is essential if children are to be reared properly.
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Rearing children properly is good.
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Same-sex couples cannot rear children properly.
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Therefore, same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry.
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is arguable; I would say many children are properly reared outside of marriage. (Many children are improperly reared inside different-sex marriage too, but that’s not against the premise as stated.) Also, it’s a non-sequitur, since it does not include a premise to the effect of “No couple of a type that cannot rear children properly should be allowed to marry,” which would be necessary for the conclusion to follow.
3), however, is to us the homophobic argument. There’s been endless discussion of this; essentially, the point is that it’s homophobic because it is a falsehood prejudicial to Queer people. The point is that we are referring to the conclusion as homophobic not because “it is opposed to same-sex marriage and any argument opposed to same-sex marriage is homophobic,” which is what you are accusing us of.
Instead, we are locating a premise we regard as homophobic, and arguing out from there. An argument opposed to same-sex marriage that did not repose on any slanders against Queer people would not be homophobic. No such argument has been advanced.
That should read:
“In the universe as it exists, 1) is not only false;…”
and
“…a non-homophobic argument against same-sex marriage.”
I would also point out that, like Gorsnak, I do not believe that holding a homophobic opinion is sufficient for a person to be homophobic. Many people hold homophobic opinions through ignorance, and when that ignorance is addressed, drop not only the opinion but also the homophobic sentiment it caused.
I will preface this by saying that I support fully gay marriage.
I tried hard though to come up with an example whereby you could come with a valid non homophobic argument against gay marriages.
(slight nitpick, homophobic means contempt and/or fear towards those attracted to others of their gender, right? is it possible to be agaisnt a homosexual act without having fear or contempt for those that do? just wondering… again, I dont feel this way, but I thought it might be interesting as a debate in and of itself regarding the meaning of the term homophobe since it is used a lot. And since we are sort of arguing about the definition of marirage, maybe the definition and contextual use of the word homophobe could be subject to that same deabte? Of course, I could be way off base here, and this is nt what I came in to discuss really)
So, tangent aside, I tried to think of a parallel that might offer insight. The closest I could come up with was that males cannot play professional women’s basketball. They can still play basketball, a sport equal to women’s basketball in terms of rules, regulations, and playability to the NBA (or other pro league of your choice), but they cannot partcipate in the WNBA, nor call it such. Both games themselves are equal, but one set of players cannot play in the other’s game, though they may play the exact same game under a slightly different name amongst themselves.
I would argue that the policies excluding men from the WNBA are not in and of themselves sexist. Therefore, could such a parallel be drawn to opposing “gay marriage” as being called “marriage” in way as to not be homophobic if you argued along these lines?
Again, I fully support gay marriage. This was just for sake of the debate. So please dont attack me as being against it, cause I am on your side 
I don’t see those as linked. The exclusion of men from the WNBA is either sexist or not on its own merits, just as opposition to same-sex marriage is either homophobic or not based on its own merits.
Roy Cohn was a notable example.
Oh HELL yes! I can’t think of any other word to describe what I was in my teens and early twenties.
I’d heard plenty of times that curiosity is normal, and that people frequently “experiment” in college or high school, so I’d assumed that everyone was having the same feelings I was, but they’d just done a better job than I had of overcoming it and choosing the right team. That turned into my thinking that those who were openly gay had made the wrong choice, were too promiscuous to make the right choice, or were just weak or too socially inept to be able to deal with women. And gradually that just turned into outright contempt.
After talking to a lot of other gay people, I get the impression that my experience isn’t all that uncommon. I’ve never spoken to anyone who wanted to be gay or was fine with it as soon as they realized; it just happens and we have to find out how to get comfortable with it. (Apparently, It takes some of us longer than others.)
Of course, all this is assuming that we’re talking about the same thing. I assumed that by “someone who is gay” you just meant “homosexual” and not necessarily openly gay. Presumably, by the time someone has become comfortable enough with his orientation that he’s willing to come out of the closet and acknowledge it, he’s gotten over any lingering feelings of homophobia. But there’s still unfortunately an awful lot of self-contempt among gays, especially teenagers who are just starting to come to terms with it. And there are way too many cases of suicide or lashing out/homophobia/gay-bashing that come as a result of this.
And by “homophobic” I’m assuming we’re all talking about the dictionary definition, which is just “fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men.” There’ve been attempts to add an unfortunate connotation to the word, suggesting that people are homophobic because they’re afraid that they’re homosexuals themselves. I think that’s bullshit. Obviously, it was true in my case, but I think it’s absurd to imply that that’s the root of all of it.
And as for the question of whether there are any arguments against gay marriage that aren’t rooted in homophobia: I’d say that there are, kind of. They’re not valid at all – I’ve always imagined myself getting married and raising kids, and I don’t see why that should change now – but sometimes they’re just rooted in simple ignorance, not necessarily contempt.
A lot of people, even intelligent people, even loving people, even homosexual people, have misconceptions about what’s going on. Some of the people who’ve been the most supportive of my coming out have called me “courageous” or said that they’re happy that I’m “comfortable with my choice.” I’ve had to explain that there’s no courage or choice involved – whether it’s biological or sociological or psychological I don’t know, but this is the way things are for me, and I’ve got no control over it. The only choice was to allow myself to be comfortable with it instead of keeping it hidden, staying miserable, filled with self-hatred, and desperately lonely and/or celibate.
I had a very conservative religious upbringing, so my first reaction to a lot of the arguments against gay marriage was, “Well, I don’t agree, but I can see how they might think that.” But once you understand the key fact that being gay is not a choice and it can’t be cured or overcome, then all of those “arguments” just dissolve away.
Saying that gay marriage is a threat to the cultural or religious institution of marriage, is saying that there’s something inherently different about homosexuals that makes them incapable of maintaining a marriage. That we’re naturally promiscuous or flighty, that homosexuality is all about sex and not about emotion, that homosexuals are less capable of raising children, that gays have chosen to live the “gay lifestyle” and should be expected to forego marriage as a consequence, or that gay love isn’t as real as straight love. That’s homophobia. You might as well say that divorcees shouldn’t be allowed to remarry, since they’ve proven they can fuck up a marriage; we’re not even given the chance.
I don’t follow Canadian politics at all and knew nothing of Stephen Harper before opening this thread, but my first impulse was to say that Harper was just a politician. If he’s got a personal problem with homosexuals, then he’s homophobic. If he doesn’t, but still persists in opposing equality for homosexuals, then he’s just spineless.
(Hmm, by the looks of this long-winded post, all my talk about my not being a “gay spokesman” and just acknowledging it and going back to normal, is all for naught. And on preview, I see that matt_mcl, Gorsnak, and others have said many of the same things, a lot more succinctly than I could. Ah well.)
The Conservatives just announced their platform. When it comes to same-sex marriage, it’s curiously silent, except for an offhand remark about “letting parliament, not the courts, decide” about it.
The Globe and Mail mentioned, in passim, that Harper isn’t going to raise the issue himself:
There is no prohibition, of course, on individual Conservatives bringing in a bill. And since Harper won’t rule out the “notwithstanding clause,” and since his party’s voting record on queer issues speaks for itself – and since the Liberals have a mixed record – there’s a good chance that a significant Grit/Tory mix will likely roll back the clock on the gains our movement’s made.
:mad: This bastard is pulling the same trick out of his ass that Gordon Campbell and Jean Charest pulled out of theirs: promise change, avoid talking about what form that change will take, then gut all social and economic progress made over the last 30 years.
You know, every once in a while the Regressive Conservatives will come out with a policy statement which I agree with (such as more support for the Armed Forces), and I think that, well maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to vote Conservative, since I really think the Liberals need a good ass-kicking before I can vote for them again. Then I do something like read some of the moronic private members bills that Conservative MPs regularly bring in (check out the bils proposed by the Member for Calgary Northeast, Art Hanger), or listen to one of them talk to what they see as a sympathetic audience, and the feeling goes right away. (Still don’t think I can vote Liberal, though.)
Conservative MP calls for repeal of hate law
Surprize, surprize…
In case anyone still has any doubts to what the party really stands for…
What, no persecution of a perfectly reasonable political view?
Your wording is a little vague (and I apologize if I’m misinterpreting you), but are you really saying that fears that the term “sexual orientation” will open to the protection of paedophilia are reasonable?
I’ve been looking for the full text of Egan and Nesbitt v. Canada (Google can’t find one, and Wikipedia is down) to be certain, but I’m pretty sure that the law already has a definition of sexual orientation, and that it’s predicated on sex, not age.
The whole “‘sexual orientation’ opens the door to paedophiles” is a red herring concocted by the right. I doubt any judge would take it seriously, but it’s sure useful for scaring parents into protesting necessary laws.
I’m starting to think they’re doing it on purpose.
[ul]
[li]Tory candidate Scott Reid says he’s against official bilingualism. Harper distances himself from remarks.[/li][li]Tory candidate Tom Jackson says he’s in favour of the death penalty. Harper distances himself from remarks.[/li][li]Tory candidate Rob Merrifield says he wants women to have independent counselling before having an abortion. Harper distances himself from remarks.[/li][li]Tory candidate Cheryl Gallant says she’d repeal hate crimes laws re: sexual orientation. Harper distances himself from remarks.[/li][li]Every Tory candidate who expresses an opinion is against same-sex marriage. Harper distances himself from remarks.[/li][/ul]
…but he’d allow back-benchers to bring up the issue, and permit a free vote should that just happen to take place.
You know, if he really didn’t want these people to be saying these things, he’d send around a memo. Or he’d speak out against those points of view. Frankly, I think he’s using his candidates to do his far-right campaigning for him, while allowing him to look less threatening than he might if he were to do it himself.
All legal precedent relating to non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation has to do with gender of the partner, not age. For example, swingers who’ve won the right to have swinging parties without violating common bawdy house laws did so on the basis of privacy rights, not sexual orientation.
And even if some very loopy judge did find that sexual orientation included paedophilia, they could still rule against paedophiles since the Charter says that an overriding social interest can trump non-discrimination protection.
And even if some extremely loopy judge ruled that anti-paedophilia laws violated the Charter, Parliament could use the notwithstanding clause with the full support of the nation.
We already knew Cheryl Gallant was a twit, but this one is really a non-starter.
That is truly a remarkable statement. It seems to me that it follows therefore that one can not label a homophobe because said suspect homophobe could possibly have his phobia addressed in the future. And isn’t all homophobia a result of ingnorance?