What’s with the Ender’s Game bashing? The fact that its author is a bigot does not detract from its quality (though subsequent books get way too preachy). Would you deny the greatness of Wagner’s music solely because he was a fucktard?
Sorry, I should have been clear that my opinion of Ender’s Game was formed independently of my opinion of Orson Scott Card. I was already very much underwhelmed by it when I learned of Card’s bigotry. Although, in fairness, by dislike for Card does tend to color my comments on the quality of his work. He really is a much better writer than he is a reasoner.
But not that much better.
Just about every cliched argument Card brings up is easily and quickly disposed of in Jonathan Rauch’s book “Gay Marriage.” In fact, as Rauch points out, when people like Card try to wax philosophical about the importance of marriage for society, they basically undermine their own case, accomplishing nothing less than explaining exactly why homosexuals should be allowed: heck should be encouraged to marry, for the good of civilization and family life.
But the fact is, people like Card ultimately have nothing to say to homosexuals other than that they are hedonists. Never mind that if all gay people wanted was to fuck, they could do it. Marriage is obviously about a lot more than that: wanting precisely the sort of stable unions and child-rearing environments that Card lauds. Making marriage into a universal aspiration rather than a particularlistic oddity. But Card is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Admitting that marriage IS something, is ABOUT something, means admitting that it could be ABOUT something for homosexuals as well: that they can share in it in precisely the same core ways that he does. But avoiding that conclusion basically means defining marriage as an empty shell: a negative: defined purely by what it excludes.
Card inexplicably tries pretty hard to pretend that he’s not against homosexuals per se from time to time (he apparently has the ubiquitous “friends!”). But it drips off every sentance: homosexuals = bad. Problem is, what if you don’t buy into that equation?
There is a legitimate argument here maybe: courts should not as a matter of practice make new laws or be at the forefront of altering society (they should defend long-standing rights in the tough cases, surely, but it’s hard to see homosexual marriage as anything other than a new initiative). But that’s not Card’s real purpose or goal and everyone from him down to the reader knows it full well.
I wanted to comment on this. Back in the early 1980s when I was in high school in a small town, before we even knew what homosexuality was, other than a joke and an insult, a kid pulled a knife on me. Obviously, he didn’t use it. I still remember seeing the knife pointed at my torso and being afraid, no terrified. I also felt absolutely helpless and knew I was hated so much someone wanted to kill me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. The summer before, my best friend had suffered a nervous breakdown caused, in large part, by the way she was treated at that school. I remember being fiercely angry at my peers. I remember being outraged that the school administration would do nothing to help, even after I confessed to a suicide attempt (this was before the kid pulled the knife on me). Perhaps making homosexuality less of a stigma and not giving people a reason to be ashamed of who they are will reduce the odds of a school shooting.
I’ll also point out that kids have been dying in schools for years. The difference is, instead of killing each other, they’ve been killing themselves. The school shootings at the turn of the century brought the problem of bullying and the need for intervention out in the open. At the time, from what I knew of my old school, it was a prime candidate for a school shooting and it had a quiet reputation among professional counselors for being a very bad school to go to if you were different. Back in the mid 1990s, it had even been sued because the administration refused to do anything about bullying which, while severe, was somewhat milder than what I endured.
Kids have been dying in schools for years. I was very nearly one of them. I don’t want more kids to go through the kind of hell I went through because I was different, and I will and have done what I can to change it, including teaching a class on bullying to kids who go to my former high school. I firmly believe that accepting homosexuality, rather than labelling it “sinful” will reduce that risk. Actually, I’d like to see a time when it is unacceptable to use “gay” or “virgin” as insults. As of a few years ago, my latest information, they were being used at insults at my old school.
I also believe that allowing homosexual marriage will reduce promiscuity, something which I consider morally wrong. It seems to me that if you tell a subset of people that sex outside of marriage is wrong, but provide them with no means of having sex with someone they find attractive within marriage, you’ve out them in a rather neat Catch 22.
CJ
Exactly, and of course, the woman who sued MickeyD’s was a 79-year-old grandmother. I highly doubt she grew up in a world where gay marriage was a big issue-it probably wasn’t even on her radar.
:rolleyes:
All the polysorbates in their diet. Check it out if you don’t believe me: there’s a very strong correlation between the rise of polysorbates in children’s diets to the rise of violence in schools, disrespect toward parents, and nudity on television. In fact, prior to the introduction of polysorbates into the diet, prayer was legal in schools.
Daniel
Perhaps it has more to do with the outlawing of cocaine and opium. Back when Coke really had coke in it, and you could pop down to the corner store for Mother’s Soothing Laudanum Elixir, children didn’t spend nearly as much time watching TV as they do now. In fact, if you asked a kid to list his favorite things to do, television and video games wouldn’t even have made the top 5.
prisoner: There’s more to that hot coffee case than you think. Read about it here.
He holds no prominence in the LDS church, except for being semi-famous in general.
Exactly. It’s become quite clear that this topic simply can’t be discussed rationally on this board. In this thread alone, only Polycarp and Siege have even attempted rational discussion. The vast majority of the posts have been strawman and ad-hominem arguments, with the occasional unfounded assertion thrown in.
Heads up folks, OSC’s arguments have not been “shredded”. They haven’t even been addressed.
Hardly fair emarkp. I think I dealt with his arguments quite handily, by simply pointing out that they are self-defeating. Once you brush away the “but homosexuals can’t be called “married” cus that’s, like, craziness!” part, which of course no one who doesn’t think homosexuality is immoral can take seriously, what you are left with is a case FOR marriage in general that applies just as well to homosexuals as to heterosexuals.
Only Polycarp and Siege? What about Hamlet and DanBlather and RickJay and Gorsnak and Mr2001 and Apos and Greg Charles and everyone I missed and, I’d like to think, myself? Each of these posters offered direct, minimally snarky responses to either Card’s article or prisoner’s comments.
If you don’t think OSC’s arguments have been addressed, please read this, this, and this, among other posts.
I, and I’m sure many others, would be interested in continuing the discussion over OSC’s article if only prisoner would actually address the legitimate comments made by numerous posters in this thread.
Yeah, there’s a pileon issue here. But geez, it’s not a total disaster.
This doesn’t answer anything. It just says "someone wrote a book that disagrees with him.
Ignores the difference between same-sex couples and traditional marriage, which is central to Card’s argument.
Strawman argument.
Strawman argument.
No you haven’t. You haven’t even addressed his actual arguments.
I’ve read them. Note their fallacies:
An unfounded assertion about “no right at all”.
Strawman argument with a swipe of name-calling (the overt assertion of bigotry).
More name-calling, no argument.
That’s simply WRONG!!! Yeah, really strong argument.
Strawman.
Wow. Tremendous counter-argument.
More strawman arguments.
Strawman, and unlikely considering his heritage.
Not gonna happen. Every time I’ve attempted it (or I’ve seen others attempt it) the thread has degenerated into spam responses and spittle-covered vitriol. I’d have to have an ignore list longer than a full screen in order to filter all that out.
Right. Cherrypick a line or two from several posts and conclude you’ve addressed them in some meaningful fashion. Well, that’s it. I’m convinced.
I’ve done no more cherrypicking than you have.
Spectrum, and all the rest, I sure didn’t get hate out of Prisoner’s posts. I got an attempt to explain why he (and most people in America) have voted and will continue to vote against same-sex marriage. Note: Not against gay people, not against civil unions between same-sex couples, necessarily. (Although I don’t recall Prisoner discussing civil unions in this thread.)
I would like to know why this looks like Prisoner hates, despises, and wishes you harm, instead of looking like what it looks like to me, a reasonable explanation of his feelings.
Try this: the fact that someone may be against SSM does not mean they hate gays in general, or you in particular. It could just mean they’re against same-sex marriage.
Slight hijack (as it has nothing to do with OSC’s manifesto, or whatever it was): which of the problems faced by gay couples are not addressed by civil unions? Why is that not good enough?
Gorsnak, that was a very well written and coherent refutation, as well as being witty and insightful. Just the kind of post I come to these boards to read. Thank you.
I disagree strongly with a prohibition on same sex marriage, and on the mormon church’s stance regarding homosexuals. I have the same issue with any other sect that feels obliged to discriminate against them. I used to be a mormon, was born and raised in the church, and it was the vociferous and, in my opinion, cruel actions of the mormon church in California when the ‘defense of marriage’ act was first passed there in 1998 that really gave me my first doubts about the validity of my beliefs.
Same-sex marriage, and full acceptance of gays in society is coming, though not as quickly as it ought. What I personally find interesting is the ramifications same-sex marriage might have on the formerly polygamous organization. If there exists a situation where marriage between configurations of consenting adults is legal (which I believe should exist), then will polygamy once again become ok, or required? I suspect not, knowing what I do of mormon theology, but it’s a curious question to ponder.
I stopped reading Card awhile ago, after his atrocious series that was little more than a ‘parody’ of the Book of Mormon came out. Ugh.
Because it makes a clear distinction between gay unions and straight unions, with the implication that gay couples aren’t good enough for marriage. The ultimate goal of the gay rights movement is complete equality for and acceptance of gays, lesbians, etc. Placing their relationships on a different level than those of straight couples means equality can’t be achieved (separate is never equal and all).
Actually, it’s called ‘hyperbole’. You will note that my quip here is not my argument, but that my argument follows:
The OP tells us that Card in this article provides reasons for opposing SSM. It is therefore not inappropriate to point out that the actions of the MA court are utterly irrelevant to that question. So perhaps you are agreeing with Card that the Massachusetts Supreme Court does not have the authority to determine the constitutionality of Massachusetts legislation?
Except that it’s not my argument. My argument is the following line:
The real question is that of differential impact. It is indisputable that current marriage laws in your country prevent gays and lesbians from marrying people with whom they can have meaningful romantic relationships, but allow straights to do so. Note: by the precise logic presented by Card, antimiscegenation laws do not comprise racial discrimination, because under those laws blacks and whites had exactly the same rights: the right to marry someone of their own race. But SCOTUS slapped that argument down on the grounds that there was racial discrimination because the impact of the laws on blacks was not the same as the impact on whites. I think you’ll find that not even the most dedicated Strict Constructionists on this board will disagree with the Supreme Court on that particular issue. They likewise agree that current marriage statutes discriminate against homosexuals.
Look, Card clearly argues that men are biologically inclined to sow their seed as widely as possible, and women are biologically inclined to pursue the mate with the greatest available resources, and that in order to “root civilization in reproductive security” we must repress those inclinations by means of the societal institution of monogamous heterosexual marriage. By this he apparently means that our collective reproductive rate will be higher than it would be than if we each pursued individual reproductive maximization strategies. Basically, he’s saying it’s an n-place prisoners’ dilemma. This is not a strawman characterization. This is what he says.
But this argument misunderstands the nature of whatever evolutionarily-implanted reproductive psychology humans might have on multiple levels. First, and most obviously, the reproductive strategies he asserts are optimal for men and women respectively are terribly oversimplistic. While it’s true that it makes some evolutionary sense for men to screw around, because it’s a low investment of resources in exchange for some indeterminate increased chance of reproduction, it’s not the only available reproductive strategy, nor is it even the clearly optimal strategy. In fact, given that men are only slightly less inclined to form longterm committed relationships than are women, the appropriate conclusion is that focusing resources on a few offspring is the dominant strategy, with screwing around being mostly an opportunistic secondary strategy. His theory that women will naturally pursue wealthy mates even when they’re already mating with other women (and not to steal, but to form a polygamous bond) is, so far as I know, completely unique. I’ve never heard it before, nor does it make a whole lot of sense. One of the important resources a mating partner brings to the offspring-rearing scenario is time, and that obviously is short when the guy you’re after already has three wives and 15 kids, regardless of how good a hunter he is.
Second, Card portrays these evolutionary tendencies as being opposed to or in tension with civilization, and specifically the institution of (heterosexual monogamous) marriage. This is almost entirely incorrect. Civilization is no less a result of evolution than any other aspect of humanity. Societal institutions are, by and large, expressions of biological inclinations, and would simply not survive if they ran substantially counter to biological inclinations.
Third, Card confuses individual reproductive success with inclusive fitness. In the settings where humans evolved, i.e., smallish groups of hunter-gatherers interrelated to substantial degrees, the “selfish gene” is not only interested in individual reproductive success, but also to the success of others in the tribe due to kin selection. Card sees an n-place prisoners’ dilemma, but the genes don’t, because they’re interested in seeing related tribesmembers do well, and not just individuals.
Fourth, this again isn’t an argument against gay marriage. It is, at best, an argument that if we want to maximize the population growth rate, everyone should be in a heterosexual monogamous marriage. But of course, maximizing the population growth rate is not obviously a goal we should be pursuing, to put it mildly.
Strawman, yes, that’s nice, when I specifically say that I’m being too sweeping in the next sentence. That’s not cherrypicking, that’s disengenousness. Anyways, I’m as surprised as the next guy that “given his heritage”, he’s so gung ho for monogamy. In fact, I believe I even mentioned something to that effect. But there it is. Card specifically argues that humans have a naturally tendency to polygamy, and that this must be suppressed by means of an institution of monogamous marriage.
Second, it is not at all a strawman to say that Card argues extensively that family configurations which don’t involve a male and female parent will result in antisocial behaviour in the children. That’s the entire point of his diatribe in the section entitled “America’s Anti-Family Experiment.” And it’s just wrong. All the evidence we have says that kids raised by homosexuals in stable committed relationships are indistinguishable from kids raised in conventional families. All the evidence we have says that it’s the stability of the family, not the heterosexuality of the parents, that’s the crucial ingredient. So he has no argument here. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
There you go, no vitriol.
Well that’s because there is a distinction. You have to say “straight” or “same-sex” instead of just saying “couples.” This distinction is pretty clear to everybody on this message board.
There’s another distinction. Same-sex couples are never gonna have an “oopsie” shotgun wedding, which at one point in American history constituted about one-third of all marriages.