Rational, fallacy-free case for Prop 8?

In My Humble Opinion
61

[quote=“raspberry_hunter, post:57, topic:502134”]

Why? I am very clear that I am referring to a legal concept, more than a concept, the actual law regarding civil marriage. I don’t know how far back in English Common law this dates, but we all know the current model: it is the one where the happy couple goes to a courthouse and a justice of the peace or other secular official performs a marriage ceremony and then it is recorded in state records.

There is nothing religious about this. When religion gets involved even an iota, that is not the marriage I am referring to.

Is there anyone old enough to get married that does not know this method for getting married?

If they insist on using a different definition, then they are willfully ignoring the topic of the actual discussion.

I know full well we could expand on this definition to include religious variations, but that is emphatically not what I am talking about. Are you suggesting your friends are not equally capable of contracting their religious marriage viewpoint to the civil aspect at its core that can stand alone? Can they really not discuss just that?

I live among a very diverse group of people. I have long known many people of Asian and Indian descent that have arranged marriages. Our civil laws do not proclude this, they don’t ask how people came to be standing there to be married, only that they both assent. We also have laws for getting out of marriages, and what cultural traditions that caused the marriage to occur in the first place are not cause for concern.

Now, in a Church, a religious leader may want more information, but again, if the religion is involved, that is not the marriage we are talking about. I don’t care one whit if this church or that won’t marry this couple or that for religious reasons.

Such people are unlikely to understand, much less agree with the view that marriage is a right which ought to be available to all people.

What specific laws are you referring to, and what case law is there that makes your point? because I don’t have a clue what you mean, are you being overly grandiose again?

Yawn, people of different cultural backgrounds have different practices for choosing a mate. If anything, this proves that in our heterogeneous society, marriage is not as traditional as some people claim.

And yes, as any immigrant group arrives, and generations pass, they become assimilated, they have some internal conflicts about younger generations adopting broader American values, including mating rituals. This is just part of the American experience, it comes along with making a life here, there is no secret about that. Our laws already accommodate it.

You have posited that in some cultures presentation the US, some feelings might get strained between relatives as the younger ones are more “Americanized”. BFD. Frankly, my GF is 1.5 generation immigrant, and when we first started going togetehr I predicted this kind of thing would happen in her family. She doubted it, but now years later she sees it with her nieces and nephews who were born here pushing up against the cultural expectations of the parents.

None of this is a reason to explicitly take rights away from people, which is, make no mistake, what has happened in California. It is an interesting sociological phenomenon, I grant that, and I have discussed it years ago in my work regarding evolution of Japanese cinematic plots, and again it came up just a few days ago regarding the similar evolution of plots of Bollywood films, but it has absolutely zero to do with US laws surrounding marriage.

No need to shut up, I have to say this arranged marriage point of view is a new one to me. I don’t know if it is commonly held, but at least now it is in my bag of quivers should I ever hear it again.

Go ahead and keep it coming!

62

The irrational part is that there is something wrong or immoral with homosexual relationships. The rational part is that allowing SSM will legitimize these relationships. I suspect you’d agree with this last point even if we both don’t agree with the first.

63

I’d consider agreeing or disagreeing if I knew what the heck you meant by “legitimizing” and why a relationship regardless of gender wouldn’t reach that level until marriage occurred. because I think a lot of unmarried couples might object to a concept I think you have in mind about “living in sin” which goes right back to the religion again. But I am guessing - what do you mean really?

64

Actually, anyone that performs a legal marriage has a civil credential. Most states extend that credential to anyone certified by a recognized religious organization as well as certain government officials. The big difference between the two is that those that are certified due to religious positions are allowed to discriminate on who they marry, while civil officials are not. Which brings me to the closest thing to a rational basis that I have every heard:

If SSM was legal county clerks and other government officials who may object to homosexuality on religious or moral grounds would still have to provide marriage services for same sex couples. It is not a convincing argument, but it is rational.

I think what Voyager means by legitimizing is that it gives long term same sex relationships the same legal standing. It take a step that brings same sex couples more into main stream society.

Jonathan

65

They think that same sex romantic relation - married or unmarried - is inherently bad. They want as many people as possible to agree with them. We as a society are pretty well conditioned that a sexual relationship after marriage is fine. They are afraid that a society which allows SSMs will have fewer and fewer people thinking the basic sexual relationship within them is immoral.

I think they are correct as far as it goes, but they are going to lose within 20 years anyhow. As none of the dreadful things they predict happen in the states that allow SSM, their other arguments are going to be tougher to make. It is going to be harder for people to buy the argument about the evils of same sex relationship in the abstract when there is a nice same sex couple living across the street who have done absolutely nothing to try to recruit your child or your dog. I think they are worried that the reaction of the majority to their screeds is not that they are bigoted, but rather wonder at whatever they’re babbling about.

66

True, but even more than this, we’ll have data on the duration of same sex legal relationships. I’ll laugh like hell when the divorce rate for SSMs goes below that for OSMs.

67

That might sound rational, but it is not when examined closely. Lets call it “pseudo-rational” instead of “irrational” because, well, because I am hopped up on pepsi max right now, and so just because :slight_smile:

This argument was made by some county clerks in California last year. In particular, IIRC, in Kern County (where Bakersfield is), the county clerk refused to do the marriages, and was forced out or over so others could and did. No one is obligated to do their job, but then they don’t have to be allowed to have the job either.

68

I totally didn’t follow the antecedents of your pronouns there, so I don’t follow the rest. Sorry, maybe the pespi max caffeine again, but maybe not…

69

OK, but what is the objection to “bringing couples into mainstream society” that is so rational? That is not the argument, that is the position :slight_smile:

And I bet divorce rates for married SSMs are already far under OSMs, although I would expect them to even out in the long run…

70

How is it not rational? Party X wants to do both actions A and B, but measure M means that they cannot do both. It is rational for party X and any that think party X should have the right to do both A and B to oppose measure M. Is this less than rational when:
[ol]
[li]A=Be romantically and sexually attracted to the same sex and B=Marry the person they are in love with[/li][li]A=Be county clerk and B=Refuse to take part in a SSM.[/li][/ol]

If one is less than rational, so is the other. Party X’s motives for wanting both A and B may not be rational (neither love nor homophobia is usually rational) but their opposition to measure M is rational given their desires.

Jonathan

71

Too busy to decipher unnecessary algebra. Can you simply state it in plain English and give me some indication that you checked it thoroughly against as many logical fallacies as you can? There is a good solid list with descriptions and examples on wikipedia (and elsewhere) if you need reminders.

72

If you happen to think eating apple pie is an offense against Og (an irrational position) fighting to keep it from being served at restaurants is a rational way of advancing your irrational position - especially if you are worried that those with the opportunity to eat it will like it, or at least those who see others eat it will note that the eaters don’t break out in bright purple splotches as you claim.

Strategies to advance an irrational goal might be perfectly rational.

73

If you have a goal, and the strategies you use to pursue your goal are well thought out and effective, you can say these strategies are rational. That your goal is nuts has no impact on the rationality of the strategies you use to advance it.

74

I am too tired to think that one through right now, I am initially skeptical. Can you work through the proof please?

Even if you are wrong, I see potential value in identifying a two part position here, for my purposes of creating persuasive tactics, so please…

75

So, you are saying (not to Godwinize my own thread) for example?:

  • Hitler’s goal of racial purity: irrational
  • Germany’s political and military strategy and tactics to achieve it: rational

Hence a claim that the whole shebang is irrational is able to be fairly dismissed out of hand?

If so, then just how little of the overall endeavor need be rational in isolation for it to override the larger irrationality part of it and immunize against claims of irrationality?

76

I understand logical fallacies. Let me give you another concrete example:
I do not like chocolate ice cream.
I like to eat Dairy Queen Blizzards.

Those are premises. They are neither logical or illogical. They are either true or false. No logical fallacies can be attributed to them, they are simply one persons preferences.

If Dairy Queen was considering eliminating their vanilla soft serve and only offering chocolate, one logical argument against it would be that I, and others like me, would no longer be able to eat Blizzards (something I want) without eating chocolate ice cream (something I don’t want). This may not be a persuasive argument. There is no constitutional or statutory right to enjoying a Blizzard, and if there are very few like me, or the cost of the vanilla was much higher, then other arguments may carry the day, but my argument is still fallacy free.
Fallacies from here:
Ad Hominem No
Ad Hominem Tu Quoque No
Appeal to Authority No
Appeal to Belief No
Appeal to Common Practice No
Appeal to Consequences of a Belief No
Appeal to Emotion No
Appeal to Fear No
Appeal to Flattery No
Appeal to Novelty No
Appeal to Pity No
Appeal to Popularity No
Appeal to Ridicule No
Appeal to Spite No
Appeal to Tradition No
Bandwagon No
Begging the Question No
Biased Sample No
Burden of Proof No
Circumstantial Ad Hominem No
Composition No
Confusing Cause and Effect No
Division No
False Dilemma No
Gambler’s Fallacy No
Genetic Fallacy No
Guilt By Association No
Hasty Generalization No
Ignoring A Common Cause No
Middle Ground No
Misleading Vividness No
Personal Attack No
Poisoning the Well No
Post Hoc No
Questionable Cause No
Red Herring No
Relativist Fallacy No
Slippery Slope No
Special Pleading No
Spotlight No
Straw Man No
Two Wrongs Make A Right No
Jonathan

77

The problem with Hitler was his premise was false, not that it was irrational. His premise was “the Jews cause all of Germany’s problems.” If that were true, then his strategy could have been logical. Since it was demonstrably not true, then his actions were not logical. The goal of the final solution was to improve Germany, not to eliminate Hitler’s discomfort. The Holocaust was a logical (if horrifying) response to an irrational hatred. It was not a logical or rational policy to make Germany a more prosperous country.

Jonathan

78

Maybe, maybe not. What if I took the approach that you are arguing by appeal to authority and the authority is yourself? In fact, you could demonstrate your claims by evidence of your actions when given a choice of actions on what and where to eat, rather than by simply asserting it, if you wanted to. You could treat what you call “premises” as “hypotheses” and convince me by experiment they are true.

Otherwise you might as well say:
God exists.
The Bible is God’s word
The Bible says gays shouldn’t marry.

Just that you have only asserted them as fact because you are an Authority on what you like. They may in fact be true, but I don’t have to accept it just because you say so. You are not my mother :slight_smile:

Actually I don’t necessarily agree with that either. I do like to eat steamed crabs, but they are a local delicacy to my hometown and I haven’t been there in 5 years and may not go back for a long time indeed if ever. So I won;t be eating them anytime soon because they are not available to me, as in your example.

But I have had them in the past, and I could demonstrate that I like them based on how I choose to have them when they were available, so I can still say “I like them”. If that depended on immediate availability or my actually consuming them in the present, no matter when the present is as it arrives from the future, then I could not like anything unless I ate it continuously. Which is nonsense of course.

So I would say even if Dairy Queen drops vanilla, you could still say (and show) that you do in fact like vanilla Blizzards, especially since you could NOT show that they will never be available to you again at some future time, regardless of their present availability. That would require a crystal ball.

I am not beating you up here of course, but just presenting how underlying arguments might not be as airtight and fallacy free as they appear on the surface.

And on re-reading before posting, I would say that because Blizzards come in multiple flavors and you actually enjoy only vanilla ones but not chocolate ones, your second claim is fallacious in that it is incompletely stated and does not take into account that your “liking” varies over the set of flavors available.

Aside from the experimental aspect I mentioned above, you might be better off saying something like:

I do not like chocolate ice cream.
I like to eat Dairy Queen Blizzards when they don’t contain chocolate ice cream (which they sometimes do).

79

Under that definition, every single argument would be an appeal to authority. You may, and you certainly have the right to, disagree with both of those premises. It doesn’t make the argument irrational; just one that you disagree with.

I always thought that an appeal to authority fallacy would be something like this:

President Obama says that gay marriage is wrong, therefore gay marriage is wrong.
That argument is illogical because it doesn’t establish or attempt to establish how President Obama’s view = what is right. It only appeals to authority

80

I actually thought of that very example. The danger of lumping an entire endeavor into the irrational category is that you can underestimate the effectiveness of the tactics used to get to an irrational goal by calling them irrational. To deGodwinize it, all James Bond villains had irrational goals, but he didn’t make the mistake of discounting the effectiveness of their strategies for world domination.

I think therefore you have to split the goal from the tactics. Being for Prop 8 to protect our children from the gay plague, or whatever, is irrational. Soliciting money from the religious and running ads for it which have been made effective by focus groups isn’t. Similarly opposition to Prop 8 is definitely rational, but running a campaign against it calling everyone for it bigots probably isn’t very rational.