With all due respect, it is absolutely clear that you don’t have an intellectual understanding of what Bricker is saying.
It would appear that in many (most…?) movements theres a radicalized faction whose “passion” (a word used far too kindly in this context) dulls them to the capacity to understand the issue in any context but they’re own. They become blind. I don’t think you et al can conceptualize a non-SSM supporter any more than Al Queda can conceptualize an Islam that doesn’t involve violence, and driving the infidels out of the middle east.
Time and again you revert to arguing the merits of SSM, but that’s not what Bricker is talking about [directly]. You just don’t get it.
Arguing with you is like debating air traffic safety with Muhammad Atta.
I’m unclear as to why bringing up other concerns somehow justifies the rationality of an irrational argument. {If that’s what you’re saying} It seems to me that by looking at several perspectives on the same issue we can see that a single perspective is irrational although without other perspectives it may seem perfectly reasonable.
The statement above about what kind of relationship the government should encourage is perfectly reasonable standing alone as a statement unrelated to SSM. It is when it is used as an argument against SSM that it becomes irrational. The government can easily encourage hetero families and also grant equal rights to gays through SSM. The argument that you can’t do both is the irrational bit and IMO reveals the subtle homophobia.
I don’t mean to sound cryptic, but it’s kind annoying that you took my answer to a specific point raised about how my hypothetical method was an affront to the voting process and generalized it. I offered the above to show that there are plenty of good reasons why you would not “vote your beliefs” – that the comment assumes our voting system is somehow optimal and my method undercuts it. In other words, demonstrating our voting system is suboptimal DOES prove something – not for the larger discussion, but for that point.
I agree with begbert’s comment that it’s not irrational to accept an aregument that seems valid to you. And I would go further: even if you believe you have analyzed it fully, you can’t KNOW that until you have submitted it to strong argument from its opponents.
In other words, only with vigorous advocates on each side can an argument’s true strengths emerge.
Frankly, I didn’t believe my own opposition to SSM was irrational, and I had thought about the issue for a long time. But until I got into a detailed, point-by-point defense in an eight-page thread here, those arguments had not been tested. When they were, they were lacking.
Was I irrational before? Knowing what I know now… yes. But now we’re entering a game-theory sort of “perfect knowledge” requirement. And I suppose, by the way, that logic compels us to acknowledge that some future argument, unimagined by any of us, would cause us to believe differently. If that happens, does that mean we are all irrational now?
And more to the point: if a person adopts arguments with only a cursory evaluation of them, I say he is not irrational. If he holds on to those arguments in the face of contradiction, then he becomes irrational.
Our “vote for the majority” person here may well become irrational if he reads this thread and continues to hold his position. But he is NOT irrational for holding it without exposure to these arguments.
And this is not merely logical pretzel-bending: it has an effect on the real world. Countering anti-SSM arguments is important. And countering them with being insulting is also important, because someone who’s just been called a hateful bigot may not stay to listen to the incisive logical arguments that follow.
I think in order to weigh whether an argument is rational or born of homophobia , subtle or otherwise, you have to consider how the argument applies to the issue at hand. IOW people may be of the perfectly rational opinion about marriage you list above. The question they have to ask when they decide they oppose SSM is how will SSM affect the classic family image? If they decide on the negative side then “why” is an appropriate question. It’s the why that determines whether it’s rational or not. Not that one argument has to be better. IMO it needs to be based on something more than a gut feeling. If it isn’t, and you’re willing to deny your fellow citizens their rights over that feeling, then I submit it fits the criteria for homophobia.
So, the argument that SSM will somehow demean marriage in general and create a lack of incentive for heteros to marry and raise children has no basis in fact whatsoever. If it’s based on only a feeling that somehow they {gays} are so different that granting them equal rights may somehow harm us, {straights} that’s prejudice in a classic form along with irrational fear and aversion. Which is , homophobia, in this case.
Same thing, apply this reasonable fact to reality and the specific issue and see if it remains rational in that application. It doesn’t and reduces down to the same feelings I just described.
Since many variables of the classic family already exist and are accepted then why oppose another and claim it will harm the classic image. Any factual reasons?
None. Applied as an argument against SSM it comes down to the same feelings I just described and sadly, prejudice and homophobia.
This is an argument I may be willing to admit is not homophobia but not quite yet. I can understand opposing those marriages being held as religious ceremonies in the church but I can’t understand opposing the government recognizing it as a legal status for equal rights. I’d argue that holding blindly to tradition in light of a history of changing tradition is in itself irrational and a subtle expression of fear, and in this case…you know.
It’s not their sincerity that is in question. You can be perfectly sincere and still be moved by homophobia.
Or, we can “conceptualize” them all too well. Once again; this is nothing new. The segregationists were completely wrong, their arguments had no merit, and they were motivated by their racism and nothing else. Just as the anti-SSM crowd are completely wrong, their arguments have no merit, and are motivated by their homophobia and nothing else.
However much it offends some people, there ARE disputes where one side is simply in the wrong; this is one. And no amount of stamping your feet and saying that there must be reasonable, non-homophobic people on the other side will make them materialize. Just as no amount of insistence they must exist would have produced rational, non-racist segregationists.
It would be laughable were this not a serious topic that you are the embodiment of what you are decrying (albeit pointed back at anti-SSMers even if you claim to be pro-SSM).
If one has to hold the position that any old rationalization anyone can dream up is not only “rational” but “reasonable”, that’s the very definition of complete intellectual and moral bankruptcy. I should be amazed to see actual adults asserting that, but after enough time on this board I sadly am not.
A “rational basis” constituting a legitimate government interest in limiting marriage could even be that other people are afraid of velociraptor attacks. Really. :rolleyes: All I can say to that is “Sham-WOW”.
There IS no context but my own. This isn’t a game. Anti-SSM people aren’t my opponents, with whom I’ll share a warm handshake and a beer at the end of the day. This is far beyond anything so civilized as that.
Anti-SSM people are my enemies. They are trying to ruin my life and make sure it NEVER comes close to being equal to theirs in societal value or justice. I don’t personally give a flying fuck if they’re coming at it from a religious, political, or societal viewpoint…they’re working to fuck me and my people over, to keep us down, to make sure we “know our place”. And frankly, I don’t trust them to stop at keeping us from claiming the word “marriage”. I don’t trust these people to decide that not allowing us to marry is enough…I fully expect that if they succeed in this, they’ll keep trying to roll things back to the days before Stonewall. And that’s why I fight them now. That’s why I eye them with suspicion, no matter how sweetly they try to wrap their hatred in a pretty drapery.
This is no game. It’s war. And we’re done rolling over on our backs for the “army of God”. Fuck God.
jayjay We’ve rarely crossed paths, but you’re familiar enough with me that I can say I know and respect your posts.
And, with sincere respect, you’ve crystallized this quite well. Neither, passion-----or even well placed rage------ are an excuse to practice what amounts to name calling. Your [valid] indignation has made you----and many others here—lose a sense of clarity. (and I suspect many never had it in the first place)
Nobody----certainly not me----is saying that you don’t have a right to be passionate, uncompromising, and even very angry. But the moment you start name calling----and making reckless, unfounded and speculative accusations-----you become a little more like the people you say are your enemies.
I do not see the [direct] correlation between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement, but I think the example of MLK is apropos; he was passionate, strident, uncompromising and angry.
And yet he didn’t demonize his “enemies.”
And so I don’t buy the notion that passion or anger is a license for the kind of behavior I see here.
I often have a sense that on the outer fringes of this global debate are those yelling “faggot!” and those yelling back-------to everyone on the anti-SSM side; not just the Bubbas------ “Homophobe!”
OK, Sam. How about, just as a thought exercise, can you select one or two of the anti-SSM arguments you listed earlier and point out the “real concern” in each – then offer some way of addressing that “real concern”?
I, for one, would find it helpful if you could go through the exercise. I don’t mean this in a snarky way. I really, truly want to see how you think these anti-SSM ideas add up. (This thread has taken a nice turn toward dispassionate discussion, that I’m finding much more rewarding than the usual result on this topic!) Because when I look at each of the anti-SSM arguments and try to find the “real concern” – when I really look at each one closely and think it through – I can’t find a logical concern. It disappears in a cloud of irrational, fear or prejudiced-based concepts.
are words that King could have said. And part of what makes King so important was that he showed us how one can passionately, angrily, eloquently fight for a cause, without backing down or compromising one’s ideals, but while preaching and practicing love for one’s enemies.
Still, the success came because his “enemies” *did *come to realize they’d been acting immorally and hatefully. Wasn’t that the basic problem, not the process of getting them to realize it?
Isn’t complaining about presentation rather than content effectively ceding the content?
First, that’s tautological. To take your standard slippery slope, if we define marriage as a man married to his dog, then the definition of marriage is one man and one dog. If your point is that traditionally, heterosexual monogamy has been the only form of marriage recognized, the only one meant by the term outside specialized contexts like “Among the Arabs, a man may marry four women at once” [hypothetical quote from an old kds’ social studies textbook], then you can make that case. But that’s not what you’re doing here.
And it’s not “a vow between any two people”, as anyone with compassion or common sense recognizes.
Then you will be quickly able to pull up a peer-reviewed objective study proving this, right? Except, Sam, they don’t exist. Not outside the realm of NARTH, the Family Research Institute, and similar institutions with ‘cooked’ staistics.
Here’s the conclusions from most studies: 1. There is no significant difference to healthy upbringing of children between opposite-sex and same-sex two-parent units. 2. Children do need role models of both sexes, but if raised by a oarent or parents of one sex will find that missing role model in extended family members, family friends, etc. 3. On the whole, two-parent households are better at raising children than one-parent ones. (Before good single parents take offense, it’s a generalization, taking into account the stresses on a single parent and the bad single parents out there, as well as you and your competence. That’s why it begins with “on the whole”.) With some effort, I can locate a twenty-cite summary prepared by a Christian Forums member who works in the social sciences when this question came up over there a week or two ago, and repost it here. Frankly, unless pressed for it, I’m just going to state it exists and can be retrieved at need/
Well, on this side of the border, we have this thing called the First Amendment,. You may have heard of it? And “to religious people,” there are arguments on both sides of the issue. My denominational church, for example, and the President’s, have both come down on the pro-SSM side of the argument. Admittedly, more and mouthier church leaders are anti-gay – but don’t be playing that game. If Italy and Spain feel free to disregard the teachings of the Catholic Church in determining what should be legal or illegal, why do you think America ought to be kowtowing to them?
To which, I can only reply, “It’s taking longer than we thought.”
Perhaps the better argument against this point–against its fundamental reasonableness, is that Marriage, as defined by the catholic church does not equal civil marriage. So, while “protecting catholic marriage” would be a good argument to, for example, prohibit divorce without the consent of the Pope, or remarriage absent anullment, it is not a particularly relevant argument as regards civil marriage. It’s an argument to “protect” something that the pro-SSM side is not proposing to change.
I can, right now, marry a divorcee, or a cute jewish girl, or, (heaven forbid), I can get married in the county courthouse even if I am a catholic priest. Catholic doctrine, and the Catholic church, would not recognize any of those marriages as valid. Every single state in the union does recognize those marriages as perfectly valid. So,
(1) I don’t see those people arguing to “protect” catholic conceptions of marriage suggesting that civil marriage should also be subject to those restrictions. They’re picking and choosing what parts of “religious marriage,” in their mind need to be enshrined in civil law. Is there any justification, other than the obvious one, as to why the only part of the definition of “catholic marriage” such arguments are fighting to “protect” by enshrining it in the legal definition of civil marriage is that it can’t be entered into by two dudes?
Further, if SSM is permitted, how is religious marriage harmed? I say not at all.
As I’ve pointed out, right now, there are plenty of fully legal civil marriages that are, not recognized as valid under catholic doctrine, including some that would require automatic excommunication. (In fact, that category probably is a substantial majority of civil marriages). Where’s the harm in adding a few more?
Further, what part of catholic doctrine will have to change if SSM is allowed?
(1) will the church have to recognize Same-sex marriage? Nope–or if it did, why does it now have no obligation to recognize all the other doctrinally invalid civil marriages? (or if it must recognize civil marriages for legal purposes, how is it hurt more than it is now by having to recognize all the other kinds of doctrinally invalid marriages?)
(2) Will churches suddenly have to celebrate same-sex marriages? Nope. You can’t get married in a catholic church now if you’re a catholic priest, if you’re an unbaptized noncatholic, or if you’re a divorcee (without dispensation). Churches already have no obligation to celebrate marriages that are, to them, doctrinally invalid. Same-sex marriage doesn’t change that.
The point is that arguing “catholic/religious marriage” is defending something SSM just doesn’t change. Further, I would argue it’s awfully suspicious for someone to decide that, damn it, the way catholic marriage views gender is essential, and should be enshrined in civil law, but doesn’t make the same argument about all the other doctrinal requirements of catholic marriage. It almost looks like there is some extraneous reason for picking gender as the only criteria worth fighting for.
Finally, and more basically, if you argue religious marriage is important, what justification does the argument present for imposing that definition on those who don’t share that religion?
Or, even beyond that, why the catholic definition of marriage? I find it hard to believe even the most devout catholic doesn’t realise that there are protestants, jews, muslims, buddhists, nonbelievers, and adherents of many other religions in the world. Why should we pick catholicism as the “god-driven” religious definition?
Note that none of these are arguments for changing religious marriage. They are, instead, questions about the consistency and legitimacy of imposing a religious definition on civil marriage, as it now exists. That is the thing SSM advocates are trying to change.
Finally, to return to my first, and most powerful point, you just can’t argue both for defending civil marriage, as it now exists, and for imposing catholic doctrine on civil marriage. To use Catholic doctrine to define civil marriage is in itself a redefinition of civil marriage just as dramatic, if not more so, as is permitting same sex-couples to enter into civil marriage. Arguments for catholic marriage are simply not arguments about civil marriage.
