[Dylflon]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Dyflon, the correct response to ridicule or hateful/ignorant speech is not more hateful/ignorant speech. When we "respond in kind" we simply keep the cycle of unreasoning attacks going instead of talking to each other like human beings. Also, arguments based on ridicule do more damage because they attract the ignorant and emphasize ignorance, rather than promoting learned responses and socratic methodology.

Also, there are a lot of arguments aginst gay marriage that are not religious based, but socially based. Basically they view traditional (one man/one woman) marriage/family as the foundation of civilization, and are concerned that to alter the traditional form of marriage may undermine that foundation. While there is hostory of success with oneman/one woman, thats an argument FOR traditional marriage, not against gay marriage. Their concerns are mainly based on conjecture based on "what might happen" and "society acceptance vs. governmental acceptance". It's an interesting and I think considerable argument when it comes to public policy, much more so than a biblical one that is ruled out because of theocratic implications, but in the end not the correct one, IMO.

I feel like you're confusing satire with hateful and ignorant speech. And I don't mean this as a dig at you, but you've never seemed all that down with satire in my opinion. I agree with your points about the proper way to argue things but I feel that an absurdist approach to an absurd argument is sometimes necessary if only to make you laugh at the absurdity of it all. In essence, if people can gay-bash, light-hearted biblical fun-poking should also exist within our realm of discourse. I wouldn't use that video in any serious argument, and I don't think it's the serious argument that they're going for. And I feel like you're a wise enough person to not see it as a threat to reasoned argument.

The one man/one woman family societal stability argument can be seen as equally ludicrous as the biblical argument. The nuclear family is an invention of the 50's and 60's and it wasn't until then that this was talked about as "the traditional family unit".

Now, don't think I'm arguing that this model hasn't been the norm for centuries, because it has.

However, it hasn't been until recent centuries that polygamy has been outlawed and historically, polygamist marriages have been present all over the place (including the Bible). So it hasn't always been just one man/one woman.


The insecurity that a union between two members of the same sex could undermine the foundation of society just plain sounds silly. Think about it for a moment. Let's take our current society for example:

Now, imagine we live in a world exactly how it is. Except: gays can now marry. Let's follow the subsequent sequence of events.

1. Two dudes get married.
2. They continue living their lives as normal, having as much homosex as they please within the confines of their own private domestic life.
3. They open a bank account together and pool their incomes (not saying that they can't do this already)
4. They buy a house together and both get their names on the mortgage.
5. They live in their home together, enjoying the governmental advantages that hetero couples enjoy.
6. When one of them gets sick, the other visits their spouse in the hospital because they are family: which is the only thing they've even wished to be and thank God for gay marriage allowing that.

Alternate course: they have marriage troubles like everyone else at one point get divorced and look for love elsewhere.

So what here has toppled society?

I am going to sum up that foundation argument in three steps:

Step 1: Gays get married
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Society crumbles

Nothing in gay marriage inherently challenges societal stability.

While there is hostory of success with oneman/one woman, thats an argument FOR traditional marriage, not against gay marriage.

You're wrong here. In any argument that argues there is only one way things should be done, it's both an argument for that thing and an argument against the other.

Ex: Only white people should be allowed to exist because historically white people have the best civilization and it's been proven that they are the best kind of people.

Not only is that an argument based on no factual evidence (much like there is no evidence that gay marriage could not work) but it is discriminatory against other races.

But! It's okay. It's only an argument for why white people are better, not against any other type of people.

It doesn't matter that the one man/one woman marriage works historically. That's not the issue. Who cares if it works? It will keep going. Nothing is challenging that institution. The issue is about letting people who aren't fortunate enough to be born straight (irony), enjoy the same basic benefits as their heterosexual counterparts.

I don't feel like that is a valid argument to discount gay marriage.