I didn’t do the “and then decide why” part. I’m not sure why you are determined to find this to be a fallacious argument, but whether it’s right or wrong, it’s not circular. A circular argument would be “Opposition to gay marriage is bigoted because it’s bigoted to oppose gay marriage.” My view is that opposition to gay marriage is bigoted because it denies gays a basic right only for the reason that they’re gay, and that this treats gays like second-class citizens. That’s not circular reasoning.
I’m saying that I don’t think it’s a good use to time to minutely dissect the motivations of individuals who support a bigoted policy.
Says who? The opposition itself is worthwhile. This isn’t an idle discussion. We’re talking about the law and basic rights here, and you do win if you convince other people in the audience and prevent a bigoted agenda from being enacted.
This bit of self-congratulation does allow us to get to the nub of your objection, I think. You’re basically suggesting that everyone else made up their mind on the issue without thinking about it or listening to anyone else. How they made up their minds is kind of a mystery from that vantage point. So like I said, you’ve confused “pre-judges opposing opinions” with “has come to a conclusion.” The good news is that you’re wrong about people acting like bigots; the bad news is that you’re praising yourself for doing something that isn’t particularly praiseworthy. I’ve come to a conclusion about this issue. That does not mean I never listened to any other opinions. It means I heard the opinions and made up my mind, and subsequent discussion hasn’t changed my view on the issue. That’s not bigoted.
I offered you several. The best one is “opinion.” Whatever the right word is, it’s in the dictionary and it’s not “bigot.”
No. What you and others are doing is arguing in circles; playing word games trying to handwave away the fact that opposition to SSM is bigoted. Page after page of handwaving simply underlines just how one-sided the argument is, how baseless and empty of meaningful arguments the anti-SSM side is.
We haven’t “assumed from the start” that the other side is wrong; they’ve had many years to make their argument, in and out of court and failed miserably. I see no rational reason to bend over backwards to pretend that a bunch of bigots are anything other than just that; bigots.
Yes, you can, in a limited environment. I may not be able to say “There is no bigfoot,” but I can say “There is no bigfoot in my apartment.”
Nobody has presented a good argument opposing SSM…in this thread, or on the SDMB, or in any major news or opinion outlet familiar to anyone participating in this thread. Negative proven.
Nor do we need to do any such thing; you are clearly insisting on an utterly unrealistic standard of proof in order to shield bigots from being called what they are.
If there is a legitimate, rational reason to for excluding gays, then it’s not bigoted. Excluding is not bigoted unless it is for bigoted reasons.
I can think of a perfectly rational reason to exclude whites from a certain job. Before telling you what the job is, can you conclude that my reasons are bigotry?
Because you’ve already concluded they are bigotry.
I think you are more likely to win if you don’t simply declare the opposition to be bigoted from the start.
“I’m not even going to listen, you’re a bigot!” is not going to win. Even if he is definitely, positively a bigot. Let him speak first and reveal his own bigotry.
I’m saying that this is what you’re doing.
Lots of people do the former and say its the latter.
Agreed. I just don’t think anyone can say they’ve heard all the opinions yet.
No indeed, which is why the burden of proof is on the other side to prove the opposite. Which they could easily do, if it were true, by bringing out this mythical non-bigoted argument. But they haven’t.
You have agreed that there are no non-bigoted arguments known to us at this time:
I repeat what I suggested in my earlier post. When one encounters someone opposed to SSM, is it not reasonable to assume - unless proven otherwise - that their opposition is based on one of the many known bigoted arguments, and not on the unknown hypothetical non-bigoted argument?
Take the old canard: “gays shouldn’t be married because marriage is about children.”
Now, I vehemently disagree. I find it both inaccurate in its facts and illogical in its conclusions. But how is it bigoted? It’s not based on hatred of gays, simply a finding that gays aren’t qualified for what marriage is supposed to be about. One can believe it without hating gays in a bigoted way.
(Please don’t argue with the argument, I don’t need to be convinced it is wrong. Just tell me why it’s “bigoted.”)
Except that’s not what we are saying; we are asking, in fact demanding that they tell us their good reason for being against SSM. They never give us such a reason because it does not exist, not because we are refusing to listen.
And acknowledging the other side as bigoted is far more likely to result in a win, since you won’t be expecting them to act like anything other than bigots. Pretending that your enemies are nicer than they are tends to result in you getting screwed over or worse.
It’s bigoted because when you confront the person advancing the argument with the concept that there are heterosexual couples who, willingly or not, do not have and will not ever have children, they are reluctant to say those heterosexuals cannot be married, or start twisting themselves into logic pretzels to say something like the essence of their heterosexuality represents the potential for children and thus it’s okay for childless heteros to marry. They are also reluctant to agree to SSM even if the SSM couple wants to adopt.
I have yet to meet anyone advancing that argument who also holds the consistent view that heteros should not marry if they cannot or will not have kids, or that gays can marry if they adopt.
Any way you slice it, they don’t want to let gays marry with or without children, while they still want to let heteros marry, with or without children. The defining characteristic isn’t the lack of children, it’s the gayness. That’s bigoted.
It is bigoted because a person proposing that argument never has a problem with opposite-sex couples being married who are childless, whether through choice or circumstances.