QUOTE (Ferris Wiel @ Mar 10 2004, 01:38 PM)
To say that gay marriage wouldn't affect anybody is silly and to say it wouldn't have a negative affect is an exercise in sophistry.
The word is "effect," not "affect." Also, stylistically, you should say "x is sophistry" rather than "x is an exercise in sophistry." Like how "Sunflowers is an oil painting" sounds better than "Sunflowers is an exercise in oil painting." You come across here as someone who wants to sound intelligent, like it's a strategy to throw off your opponent, rather than someone who actually has any good points to make. And literally, the reiteration of the opposing argument that you make is itself "sophism," if we are to take the word right out of the dictionary. That is, your claim is subtly fallacious. See, you're right that it would be incorrect to claim, "nobody would be affected by the legalization of gay marriage" (that is, that such a thing would have no "effect"). But NOBODY is making that claim. In fact, the proponents of gay marriage are all for it, mainly on the grounds that it would affect them very much, thank you. Your strategy here is what is called a "straw man" argument, whereby you invent an imaginary opponent and then you show your position to be smarter than his. Don't do that.
I'll address your points in order, with my own assessment of Hecubuss's rebuttal and of your claim to victory.
This will be a long post, but with me, what else is new?
QUOTE
1. Gay "marriage" will weaken the term marriage. ...
This is the weakest argument on your list, and yet you chose to open with it. It presupposes all sorts of things about the craftiness and moral fibre of marriage-seeking women, and as that it is an insult to women in general. Do you think you actually know anyone who would openly lie to the government to gain a tax break? And what is it about gay marriage that would open this door? Don't the people still have to live together? Isn't this something straight people could already be doing? Seems to me that if your argument is sound, then it's marriage that's broken, not the idea of gay marriage.
Heccubus addresses your point directly, and leaves for you an (as yet unanswered) hypothetical. For your argument to work, you have to be able to answer his question.
heccubus: 1; you: 0
QUOTE
2. Gay "marriage" will have a negative effect economically.
Cite your source. There are numerous huge corporartions out there that already recognize the "marriages" of their gay employees. Disney, Sony, Chrysler, GM, Coca-Cola ... I mean, what are you trying to prove? That bay recatgeorizing 5-8% of the population, our economy will collapse? And this about STDs ... will gay marriage have the effect of producing more gay people? Because the gay people have already affected the medicare system. Not that your argument about STDs actually means anything. Even if gay people have more STDs than straight people, people who drive get into more accidents than people who don't. So what? Either we let people drive or we don't. It's a question of human rights, not one of economy.
Anyway, again, cite your source. The appeal to authority only works if you actually *are* an authority.
Heccubus focused on a different part of your argument, but he makes a strong case. Not too long ago people worried about the economic ramifications of a ban on slavery. The argument is laughable. Economics just don't enter into it.
Heccubus: 1; you: 0
QUOTE
3. Homosexuality was seen 50 years ago in the same light as pedophilia, bestiality and incest are today - a mental disorder.
Hmm. And miscegenation was once "unnatural." The "scientific" argument usually began with a quote from Genesis. Your argument, I understand, is that people once associated homosexuality with mental disorders. Okay. They did. Then if I got this right, we don't think it's a mental disorder now, so that means ... that ... we have to declare all those other activities "natural" and sanction them legally? This is the "Slippery Slope" argument, most commonly used to declare that marijuanna use leads to heroin use (ignoring alcohol altogether). It is a false association, since the conclusion has nothing to do with what you pretend to argue. You say that because of the slippery slope, legalizing gay marriage will open the door to these other terrible things. You say that this is the reason that we should not make gay marriage legal. QED.
Unfortunately, this only works if you can prove that the slippery slope exists, and the flimsy hyperlink provided does nothing of the sort. I can show you pages and pages of debate for the legalization of all manner of outrageous stuff, but it has nothing to do with the argument. What you need to prove is not that gay marriage would be some sort of "gateway event" to the legalization of (and these are always the same bogus examples) bestiality, pedophilia, necrophilia, and the several other coercise acts. You need to prove that the one law will unavoidabley cause the creation of the other. That is, you need to prove that they are in fact the same law. You don't so this, but since you try, your argument stands for what it really is: you think gay marriage should be illegal because you think homosexuality STILL IS a mental disorder on the lines of those other things, and that the very thing, homosexuality, ought still to be as prohibited as the various crimes with which you associate it. This would imply that you would still like homosexuals to be incarcerated for their "crime", with all manner of awful conclusions I just won't entertain.
Heccubus went another way. I agree that sometimes a good horse-laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms, but arguably he avoided your question.
Heccubus: 0; you: 0
QUOTE
4. The argument that homosexuality is "natural" is an unfounded one, there is no compelling evidence to suggest that homosexuality is occurs from birth.
Not only is this a run-on sentence, it's really a stupid point. We exist in nature, yes, but we are not natural beings. What's so natural about heart transplants and flying around in jet aircraft? On topic, what is so "natural" about life-partnering? Marriage is entirely unnatural to begin with. The goal of society is to create laws for the people who contribute to it. For example, there were no internet-environment intellectual property laws until well after there was an internet environment. Now we have these laws, to protect imaginary properties in an imaginary world. The laws that we have typically serve three purposes: to protect people from harm; 2) to protect people's proprty, and 3) "to enforce the values of the community," that is to say, Christian values, on everyone. It's laws of this third type that we need to examine. If we have marriage at all (a religious institution), and we recognize it civil court, then why shuld we only allow it to some people and not others? We didn't used to allow blacks and whites to marry, and lots of people felt very strongly about it.
Is your argument that nature made us as we are? If so, then you fail to present it. We are promiscuous, but we believe in marriage. We have homosexuals among us. You are NOT about to tell me that these people all just DECIDED to be gay! that these people have been making this sort of decision for thousands of years! And if you are trying to say that, then you need not only to prove it; you need also to show a direct connection between every purpose of our society and the laws of nature. You need to show me that by acting in contravention of of these "natural laws," we would weaken our free society. You need to prove that this is the basis of our entire legal system. You have a lot to do before your argument (which you still need to prove) means anything at all in this context.
Heccubus chose the sarcastic mud sling. Again, the horse-laugh, but not fair.
Heccubus: 0; you: 0
QUOTE
5. Even if homosexuality were argued to be "natural," the obvious response would be, "So, what?"
I agree! So what, indeed. We shouldn't be at all concerned about "Nature;" we're running a society! Well done!
Oh wait. What's all that other stuff you said? I see. Homosexuality is like Cystic Fibrosis (a recessive genetic disorder that CANNOT BE CORRECTED).... Hmm. And then Down's Syndrome. Hmm.... I don't know what you're after here. Is this argument ramping up to eugenics? Because right now we allow people with Down's Syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis to marry, but the implication seems to be that we shouldn't. So therefore we shouldn't let gays marry, since they are ... degenerate? Is this really where you're going? Good God, man; how did you get out of that bunker?
Ok... I went too far there. I disqualified myself from judging this category.
Heccubus: - ; you: -
QUOTE
6. Homosexuality should not be a "protected" minority status any more than preferring to run around in bright green wigs while screaming, "HOOBAJAH!" It is a matter of choice to engage in and the behavior itself is offensive to certain people.
Ah, finally. The reductio ad absurdum, or the effort to prove your opponent is wrong because his argument can be made ridiculous. Yup. You got me there. Were there actually a large class of people out there doing the thing you describe, then I would be arguing here for their right to marry. Since there actually isn't such a class of people, you come across sounding a bit desperate. ("Look, if we give this one set of people these rights, then we'd have to give EVERYONE these rights, including any type of people I can make up off the top of my head! Including the ridiculous fiction I came up with in point 1! Where would it END?") To answer my own parenthetic rephrasing of what I THINK is your position, it would not end. Our laws are a living document that we alter to reflect our society. So long as they are founded on common principles, then our society remains unchanged. Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness. God Damn, that's a pithy trio of notions. When I hear it I wish it were Canadian.
Later on in your argment, you say something about Christianity, which is a dead give-away. I still hold out my challenge to find a single person who strongly opposes gay marriage and who is not religious. To paraphrase your unfounded claim from point 4, all of your logic is based on a desire to show that homosexuality is wrong. Your claims are biased so as to favour the conclusion that homosexuality is "unnatural (misplaced emphasis)," "dangerous (false paternalism)," and "economically unsound (just completely made up)." You leap from these "points" to the declaration that homosexual marriage would hurt society, sopmething you've never actually tried to argue seriously. This is called "Begging the Question."
You forfeit this point by the mere mention of Christianity. Sorry; it's got nothing to do with your religion, but with the practice of using religion in a civil argument. You'd have failed, also, had you used Islam, Judaism, or any religion for that matter.
Heccubus agrees with you that people have a right to be homophobic. I say he didn't address the main point, which is that to have an opinion does not mean that you have a right to state it in public. Some speech is harmful, and the law protects people from harm. So no, you don't have a right to gather for the purpose of hate. This is covered by all sorts of laws; I'm surprised Hecc decided to let that one go. all the same, I imagine Heccubis might have been allowing you Freedom of Religion, which is a potential deciding fator for him. I'll have to leave off judging him until I know more what he meant.
Heccubus: undecided; you: 0.
A good postcript to note is that "slander" implies untruth, and it is different from "fair comment." Legal distinctions have been made. A post-postscript is that nobody is attacking Christianity here, in this forum. It's Christians who carry the signs that say "God said to kill fags. Leviticus 20:13" To mention this is not slander.
QUOTE
7. The true objective of those allegedly seeking "gay marriage" is not truly what they say. They are overreaching intentionally along the lines of the old Marxist "two steps forward, one step back." They are seeking legitimacy and will settle for "unions" rather than "marriage" in their struggle to achieve the status of normalcy in the face of reason, history, science and psychology.
And the true objective of those seeking to stop gay marriage is what, exactly?
Here in BC they made gay marriage legal. Every lesbian couple I know raced to the altar. Some couples had to put off their ceremonies so they could attend others'. they all seemed terribly happy about it, like their childhood wishes had come true. that is, they looked like any other couples getting married. I don't know whether they were all at some dyke "secret agenda" meeting, but they actually seemed very much to want the ceremony, and the legal status, and the social recognition. I don't know what Karl Mark would say about that, but your conclusion about "reason, history, science and psychology" is baffling. You've used bvery little reason here, only a series of parlour tricks that work ok in high school but don't belong anywhere outside of it. "History" serves as a weak standard of behaviour, since we a history of wars and discrimination. Add to which we can see by looking at history that we have always had gay peple among us, and so far they have not been the focus of any wars or social upheavals, while every century has a holy war or two. So what is it that you want to tell us about history? As for "science" and "psychology," you arely touch on the two, except to tell us that science shows that homosexuality is entirely "unnatural" and that psychology tells us that it is "wrong." And you say this while declaring that liberal arguments are "biased!"
Heccubus decided to ignore this statement of yours, but in a break with my marking key I have to give him the point here. You really made no argument, and only showed a terrible terrible bias. I probably should have ignored the comment as well, but I just don't have it in me to do that sort of thing. I suppose I am lacking in moral fibre.
Heccubus: 1; you:0
Conclusion: Heccubus wins. We can't come up with a final tally, but he's ahead by at least three points. You should really rethink the bases of your arguments. Because so far, every single one has all the hallmarks of an argument that began with the conclusion and then worked backward to try to make a point. there's something missing in your daily self-assessment, my friend. You need to ask yourself "What is my agenda?" and "do I live and dream to serve the opinions that have been handed down to me, or do I reason for myself from what I have seen, heard, and felt?"
I mean, that's what *I* would do in your place. I guess you'll do as you please.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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