That’s not my job. I don’t oppose gay marriage.
But you are saying you think someone could oppose it and not be a bigot. That means you probably have a scenario in mind in which someone opposes it and isn’t a bigot. So what’s the scenario?
Are people who are opposed to polygamy bigoted and hateful of mormons and muslims?
Are those who want to ban cicrumcision hateful of jews and muslims?
Just like how someone who opposes polygamy isn’t bigoted against Mormons and muslims.
So polygamy should be legal for the exact same reasons, right?
And how do you make this determination, and it’s the government who should be making decisions?
Perhaps they should have criminal background checks and women should be denied marriage with guys who have history of violence/records, or do we treat people like adults and let them make their own choices?
Must we have the ‘polygamy is or isn’t exactly equal to gay marriage’ argument in every damn thread?
If the argument is “if you don’t like same sex marriage, don’t get one” then the same thing goes for polygamy. Or you a hateful bigot of polygamists, muslims and mormons?
Are you a bigoted hateful person? Are groups that oppose polygamy “hate groups” that should be designed by the SPLC?
If you’re that upset about polygamy, go and start a new thread. “How to decide which instances of opposition to polygamous marriage are hateful and bigoted.” I’m sure you’ll find plenty of people to engage you. This thread is about SSM.
I’m curious, in your world, how to you logically make arguments without using analogies?
When analogies are useful, I use good ones. Polygamy has been repeatedly shown time and again to not be a useful analogy.
I don’t see how it’s not a useful analogy.
If you don’t want to marry multiple people, then don’t marry multiple people. That’s the exact same argument people say for SS marriage. If you don’t want to marry someone of the same sex, then don’t marry someone of the same sex.
Now answer me a question about bigotry. If someone doesn’t support circumcision, and wants it banned, does that mean they are hateful bigots against Jews?
And yet, interestingly, it instead earned him a number of thoughtful and clearly sympathetic replies.
And to the extent that there’s a debate over whether he’s a bigot, it’s clearly a large semantic debate… no one is saying “ahh, the fact that he opposes gay marriage clearly means he’s an anti-gay bigot who spits on gays in the street and is lying when he says he has anything other than hatred in his heart”, or anything like that.
Actually, while few posters are saying that, it is not true that “no one” is saying that or words to that effect.
= = =
As to the issue of polygamy, my reference was strictly a hypothetical in the context of a discussion of the word bigot. A polygamy discussion is separate from and not part of a discussion of Same Sex Marriage.
Torn: First of all, thanks for posting what is clearly a controversial opinion in a somewhat hostile environment… it can’t be easy to have so many people disagree with you, and I hope you’ve found the debate enlightening. That said, I really hope you respond to what LHOD said above… it’s definitely a key issue, for me.
Another couple of comments: suppose that what seems to be your preferred outcome comes to pass, and legal civil unions become the law of the land in all 50 states, and all legal references to “marriage” become references to “civil unions”, and “marriages” become a totally non-legally-relevant thing that are performed by churches. Then you meet a gay civil-unioned-couple, become friends with them, and they refer to themselves as “married”. Do you use that term to refer to them as well? Do you refer to Adam as Steve’s “husband”? Why or why not? Would your answer be different depending on whether they’d gotten married at a church (bearing in mind that there are churches that are happy to perform gay weddings)?
thanks
People who object to polygamy and want it banned have given multiple reasons why it should be illegal(whether one agrees or not is another matter). The same is not true of SSM.
And no, people who want polygamy illegal aren’t necessarily Islamophobes and those who want circumcision banned aren’t necessarilly anti-Semites, though the latter tend to be men who are absurdly passionate about this issue soley because it involves the penis.
I don’t see how it makes any difference. You could have multiple reasons to not be in favor of SS marriage.
But if we’re talking about consenting adults here, how can one argue to legalize SS marriage while denying polygamy?
Not necessarily. The difference is that people can and do make rational, harm based arguments against all of those things. Where’s the equivalent harm in same sex marriage? Mormon polygamy for example is notorious for being bad for both the women and the “excess” males; in places that allow SSM or even just same sex civil unions, where’s the harm?
You can make arguments like that for anything, even tradiational marriage, marriage could be a bad deal for men due to the court system, how women get better treattment in divorce.
If people are consenting ADULTS, who are other people to tell them what private relationship decisions they can make?
Even with incestuous marriage, don’t forget that’s incest is a crime in most places, let alone them getting married. Same for polygamy. You don’t get jailed for trying to marry someone of the same sex in a place where SS sex isn’t legal. Polygamists get criminally charged. They have it much worse legally.
ARguments against incestuous relationships are typically a power imbalance, or birth defects. So should same sex incestuous marriage be allowed since birth defects are not an issue?
All of them either irrational, built on falsehoods, or just plain malignant. Multiple bad reasons are not better than a single bad reason. They’ve been challenged to come up with a rational, non-bigoted reason again and again and failed every time. The anti-polygamy people do have rational arguments on their side; they may or may not be right, but they can at least hold up their end of the argument.