There's been a lot of press coverage both in Canada and in the US about Gay marriage. Some support it, some oppose it, and frankly, I can't see why anybody cares. I'm straight and single, so I'm arguing, to some degree, from ignorance here, but the advantage of a Blog is that I get to put my $0.02 without anybody having a damned thing to say about it.
Don't get me wrong, I understand (I think) both sides of the argument, but I really don't get how this is necessarily a bad thing. Three separate state supreme courts have ruled that there's no reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry, so what's the problem?
So, I did a little googling to find out.
1) Homosexuals are seeking a special right. They already have the same right to marry the rest of us have-the right to marry a person of the opposite sex. Limiting marriage to one man and one woman doesn't discriminate on the basis of sex or sexual orientation.
Relativist fallacy: If such a law were passed, heterosexuals would also be allowed to enter into same-sex marriages, if they chose to do so, therefore the right is not "special" by any definition of the term. What you don't seem to be grasping is the fact that homosexuals have no more desire to enter into an opposite-sex union than heterosexuals have to enter into a same-sex union.
2) It denies the self-evident truth of nature that male and female bodies are designed for and complement each other. Opposite-sex marriage is the natural means by which the human race reproduces.
a)Appeal to belief fallacy: what makes this truth "self-evident?" Homosexuality is commonplace in the animal kingdom. Some of our very close evolutionary ancestors engage in homosexual and lesbian liaisons. The location of the prostate gland in males; the location of the clitoris in females; from a purely biological perspective, it could be argued that we're built for liaisons with both sexes.
b) so what?
3) Granting same-sex couples a license to marry will not create true marriage. Neither two men nor two women can become one flesh. Licensing the unnatural does not make it natural. It would be a state-sanctioned counterfeit, a sham and a fraud. A licensed electrician cannot produce power by taping two same-sex plugs together. Homosexual sex is dangerous and destructive to the human body and powerless for human reproduction.
Appeal to Common Practice fallacy: The only justification you give here for homosexuality being "unnatural" is that they can't make babies. I'm not sure I like where you're going with this. Are heterosexual couples who choose never to have children equally horrible in your eyes? (oh, and point of fact, taping two same-sex electrical plugs together can result in the transmission of an electrical current. I've done it, and I'm not even a licenced electrician)
4) Homosexual marriage will always be an abomination to God regardless of whether a clergyman performs the ceremony. When God calls something unholy, man cannot make it holy or bless it.
Appeal to belief fallacy: What if a clergyman is homosexual? The Anglican church just appointed its first openly gay bishop. Is this not an acknowledgement by the church (and presumably, in the eyes of God) that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle?
5) Homosexual marriage is as wrong as giving a man a license to marry his mother or daughter or sister or a group.
Appeal to belief fallacy: I hear this a lot, but nobody seems to be able to answer one simple question: Why?
6) Homosexual marriage will harm children by denying them the love and nurture of a mom and dad. The only "procreation" homosexuals can engage in requires that a third party must be brought into the relationship.
Appeal to common practice fallacy: The only "procreation" heterosexuals who, either by choice, or for medical reasons cannot bear children can engage in requires that a third party must be brought into the relationship (sometimes a third and a fourth party must be brought into the relationship: a sperm donor and a surrogate). Are they also abominations? Do you assume that a homosexual couple isn't capable of showing the same love to a child that a heterosexual couple is?
7) Granting a marriage license to homosexuals because they engage in sex is as illogical as granting a medical license to a barber because he wears a white coat or a law license to a salesman because he carries a briefcase. Real doctors, lawyers and the public would suffer as a result of licensing the unqualified and granting them rights, benefits and responsibilities as if they were qualified.
Straw man fallacy: You're assuming that the reason for granting a marriage licence to homosexuals is because they engage in sex. That's ridiculous. Homosexuals have been engaging in sex forever without having a marriage licence, and there's absolutely no reason to believe that this has now become the driving reason for homosexuals to seek a marriage licence. Ideally, you're granting them a marriage licence because they care for each other, support each other, and would like to spend the rest of their lives together; basically the same reasons that we're supposed to grant marriage licences to heterosexual couples.
8) Homosexual marriage will devalue your marriage. A license to marry is a legal document by which government will treat same-sex marriage as if it were equal to the real thing. A license speaks for the government and will tell society that government says the marriages are equal. Any time a lesser thing is made equal to a greater, the greater is devalued. For example:
If the Smithsonian Museum displays a hunk of polished blue glass next to the Hope Diamond with a sign that says, "These are of equal value," and treats them as if they were, the Hope Diamond is devalued in the public's eye. The government says it's just expensive blue glass. The history and mystery are lost too.
If an employer uses a robot as an employee and treats the robot the same way it treats human employees, human employees are devalued. By doing so, the employer says, "A robot can do your job, you're no better." What will you and the public think of your job and you?
If the government issues a license to babysitters that grants them the same rights, protections and responsibilities as a child's parents, parenthood is devalued. The government says parents are just babysitters.
If government grants professional licenses to just anybody, every profession and qualified professional is devalued. The government says an uneducated panhandler can do brain surgery.
Appeal to Belief Fallacy: that a homosexual marriage is "less valuable" than a heterosexual marriage. Nobody seems to be able to explain why.
9) The assumption by many is that marriage is just two people with a license who have sex and wear rings. Homosexuals do that?why not give them the license? Engaging in sex doesn't equal marriage. Adults involved in incest have sex too; should government call it marriage and license them? Certainly not.
Straw man fallacy: you have not established that this is the assumption made by homosexuals who wish to marry. Certainly sex is one possible reason for marriage, but it isn't the only one, or even a decisive one. Lots of people have sex these days without getting married. Considering that homosexuals have been having sex for, well, forever, I guess, without getting married, I'd have to say that it's probably unlikely that it's the driving reason behind their desire to get married.
10) The biggest problem we have in getting people, especially younger ones, to understand why marriage is devalued by the existence of a counterfeit is that much of the public does not value marriage at all. Adultery is no big deal. No- fault divorce is tolerated. Absentee fathers and mothers devalue marriage. Unmarried pregnancies are common. Fornication is "normal." When we make the case against homosexual marriage, we need to speak against these other problems that devalue marriage too. As we acknowledge these problems we can emphasize that legalizing homosexual marriage will compound the problems, not solve or lessen them.
Appeal to belief fallacy: Again, why? See, it's things like this that scare me somewhat. I'm not Gay; I'm not married, either; so whether we allow homosexuals to marry has, at the end of the day, no bearing whatsoever on me. But, I would like to get married some day, and I think I would sleep a lot better next to the spouse in question knowing that the right I enjoy has been granted to everyone; not just people like me. There was a time in the United States when African-Americans were not given the right to vote, could not use public washrooms, or had to use water fountains specifically for "colored" people (the term used at the time). Regardless of your personal beliefs, do you want to go back to that America?
No comments:
Post a Comment