Reply #1: This was my reply... [View All]

[meatloaf]

I strongly disagree.

There are gaping holes in your logic which defeat your attempt at rationalism.

The statement in no way implies that single people are second class citizens. It is not implying that if persona A is not married they are a second class citizen. It is stating that if person A is not allowed to marry for some arbitrary reason, in this case sexual orientation, then they are being relegated to second-class status. It implies that denying an individual the right to marry based on sex, race, or sexual orientation, would make them second-class, not that the unmarried themselves are second-class.

What standard of marriage? You're making a straw man argument here. You're trying to argue that broadening the spectrum of marriage is actually inhibiting it? That is illogical on the face of it. Accepting gay marriage in no way places it above Hetero marriage. Why is it so hard to see them side by side as equal?

You state that accepting gay marriage will make things ass-backwards. In what way? Your simply stating it does not make it so.

Why is it you folks always go to the sex/marriage with animals argument, and you say the Homosexuals are weird? The obvious flaw in that argument is gay marriage, like hetero marriage is still among two consenting adults.

Logically speaking there may be a valid argument to be made for various forms of poly marriage, once again as long as it is among consenting adults, but that's a different discussion for a different time.

Because a decision reveals logical inconsistency does not make the decision wrong. In fact if it makes someone or a group review a whole trend of inconsistent thinking and logic then I would argue it's for the better of said individual/group. In that context denying gay-marriage because it makes us confront other logical fallacies/hypocrisies is not a valid reason for denying it.

The third argument is wholly dependent on accepting only one definition/description of what a family is. As is becoming increasingly clear in this day and age one definition/description of family simply won't do. Families come in all shapes and sizes these days. You have the traditional nuclear family of Mom, Dad, and 2.3 kids. You have extended families where one or more grandparent lives with the family. You have single parent families of both sexes, most born of divorce but some from untimely death. Occasionally you have families without any parents, usually with and elder sibling filling the parental role. And of course, you have families with two female parents or two male parents. To deny the existence of these types of families is to simply live in denial.

Your description of some of the more obscure and unusual practices of different cultures that accept some form of same sex coupling strikes me as an obvious attempt to further demonize and unflatteringly color these types of relationships. If you must provide examples, try providing examples of same sex relationships in Western civilization.

Adopting children or having children via surrogacy or artificial insemination is not "pretending" and I'm sure such parents would rightfully take offense at having it described as such. You may offer yourself an out and state that you are not "saying" that their families aren't real but you sure as hell are implying it. The responsibilities/requirements/duties, and indeed the families of gay parents, in and of themselves, are no less real than those of hetero parents. Because they cannot achieve their families through traditional biological means does not make them any less so. Furthermore, their inability to produce children through traditional means should not and does not have any bearing on the legitimacy of their ability to marry one another. They are not asking for the right to reproduce.

The fourth argument is fraught with false analogies, and may well be the weakest argument.

I don't know if it was a typo or not, but it is not marriage that makes them second class citizens, but the denial of marriage that does so. In that same vein a woman could only consider herself a second-class citizen if men were getting rights that they were denied solely on the basis of their gender. Which indeed they were in regards to voting early in the last century. And no, a woman's choice, should she feel like a second-class citizen, is not limited to a sex-change operation. As in the case of the vote they can go through the courts and the legislature and get the rights they so obviously are due. In fact the suffrage movement puts the lie to the entirety of your fourth argument and soundly defeats it. Women did not give the right to vote a sex change, they merely broadened the spectrum of who that right covered. Gays ask the same of marriage. They are not trying to restrict anyone else's access, merely insure their own. How is it some sort of special right to grant them what everybody else already has?

How is it even remotely irrational to want what they are denied by a societal construct? Once again your getting the argument backwards. It isn't access to marriage that makes them second-class but the lack thereof. A woman or a gay person does not have to become a man to have their rights. The rights can simply be granted by the powers that be ala the vote. According you your logic women should have settled for something short of the right to vote, what then, every two women count as one vote?

Are you kidding me? You're now equating marriage to bathrooms? This just might be the worst false analogy yet. According to this logic men and women shouldn't marry to begin with or if they do they should have separate ceremonies and only come together for conjugal visits.

Marriage is not effected in any way shape or form by the sex of the individuals engaging in the ritual. It is not as if there's a particular marriage for men, another for women, and now a third for gays. Your attempt to paint it as such is the worst fallacy and only further proves that your analogy makes absolutely no sense.

If I didn't know better I'd say this entire piece was intentionally poorly written/thought out to mock those that oppose gay marriage.



What could I or should I change to make a better argument?