The Secular Argument Against Gay Marriage

1) saying it's ok to deny gay people the "right" to marry simply because other groups are also denied that "right" is a locial fallacy known as a tu quoque, and is therefore invalid.

2) saying that homosexual marriage is unacceptable because gay sex does not produce offspring is a logical fallacy known as a double standard (since other couples who cannot procreate are not similarly denied marriage "rights"), and is therefore invalid.

3) saying that gay couples can live in committed relationships without being married, and that they therefore don't need to be married is also a double standard (since the same could be said of straight couples), and is therefore invalid.

4) hypothesizing about the dissolution of "family values" - especially considering the acknowledgement that it's already an issue - is a clear example of a logical fallacy known as Reductio ad absurdum, and is therefore invalid.

5) the notion that gays can only experience "sexual love" (code word for "lust") is inflammatory - bordering on flame bait - and is therefore a good example of a logical fallacy known as an appeal to spite, and is therefore invalid

6) introducing additional apocolyptic hypotheses about possible outcomes of gay marriage is a logical fallacy known as argumentum ad consequentiam, and is therefore invalid.

 

Ooo~ a new fallacy to add to my list.

"Tu quoque /tuːˈkwoʊkwiː/,[1] (Latin for "you, too" or "you, also") or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's point of view based on criticism of the person's inconsistency and not the position presented[2] whereas a person's inconsistency should not discredit the position. Thus, it is a form of the ad hominem argument.[3] To clarify, although the person being attacked might indeed be acting inconsistently or hypocritically, this does not invalidate their argument."

I cannot tell you how much I see this fallacy used in my usual forum. lol

 

Most people making these convoluted "secular arguments against gay marriage" only do so because they know they can't say: "gay sex is icky" and "god doesn't like it" in court.

In the past they used to be able to say these things and get away with it but now they can't. Simple as that!

 

I may put this in my signature specifically to address one poster......

 

Pleased to be over service.

 

Precisely. And you can put lipstick on a pig...but it's still a pig.

 

I'm a lesbian and gave birth to two children. I guess no one told me I couldn't have children.

 

Well, now you know, so stop it!

 

LMFAO!!! OMG I can't wait for his response. Really, I sooo hope he responds. lolololololololololololol!!!!

 

Doubtful- they never respond when they're wrong.

 

The states are dropping like dominos.....this one may well be the beginning of the end for the states with constitutional bans on same sex marriage http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/2...-equality-ban/

Same-sex marriage advocates never thought that they would get Utah in the next decade,” Yoshino told Maddow. “To have it happen today is extraordinary.”

Maddow intepreted the ruling to mean that the 30 states where marriage equality bans are amendments to the state’s constitution could face stiffer legal challenges following the Supreme Court ruling since those would be measured against the federal.....

 

I've been looking for the term to call this method. Thanks. People use it all the time. I get it a lot from white nationalists. They'll tell me I don't care about a white girl getting beaten up by a black guy, but instead care when a black criminal is shot in self defense, when we weren't even talking about any white girl.

That's good. I agree. However, I said this to someone, and they used the "miracles happen" explanation. Hopefully you've heard this one and can respond better than me, because I got nuthin. The explanation is that while straight couples may be infertile, "miracles happen" and the wife conceives. As you might guess, my opponent was religious and referred to a Biblical story in the Old Testament of a woman who was thought to be "barren" until God blessed her with pregnancy. But without the Bible, I suppose they might still find a way to use that line of logic.

You'd think that would be a simple and easy thing to point out, but conservatives persist using this logic still.

This one is tricky though. A lot of pundits thrive on accusing the "applied such and such" on the "destruction of yada yada", and when you tell them that the "destruction of yada yada" is already an issue, they tell you "yeah but the 'applied such and such' makes it worse." It might not even BE worse, hell, it might even have gotten better. But if it's still an issue, the pundit finds ways - like referring to specific current events - to make the "destruction of yada yada" a huge issue directly related to the "applied such and such".

Relevant example: In relating to the topic here, the pundit will say, "well, if gays aren't making the destruction of family values worse, what about this story here in which gay fathers adopted several children and molested all of them." You could show them statistics that show that such a story represents a minority, but to the people you're trying to persuade, you look like an uncaring (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)bag.

Now I know you're playing by textbook debate rules here. And the points you made should win out. But people make a living off making the illogical seem logical and do so using the fallacies you pointed out. But rather than go, oh, that was that reduction ad absurdum. Stupid! Oh, well" they full in and make it sound so good.

It's also going back to the double standard. Can the marriage equality opponent prove that any given straight couple is capable of real love?

Is that what you call the "slippery slope" thing they use all the time? My other favorite is, "it opens the door." "Harry Potter may not be Satanism, but it opens the door to it", "Marijuana is a gateway drug", "Homosexuality is not pedophilia, but normalizing opens the doorway to pedophilia."

 

Yeah, but... Ohio. Dude... O-f-ing-hio

 

I'll offer my thoughts. Part of it depends on the context. If we are talking about the standards with which opposite-sex couples can currently marry, then the same double-standard fallacy comes into play, the possibility of miracles not withstanding.

One thing I might say is that the government hardly concerns itself with planning around the prospect of miracles. The government can't just go about planning and expending resources for any given miracle. But if we are going to go that far, may I suggest we plan for the miracle of a lesbian having an immaculate conception, or a miracle of one of the men in a gay relationship gaining a uterus. What if aliens came down and removed all the uterus's from women and put them into gay men, so that only gay men can reproduce. We should probably dissolve all opposite-sex marriages and grant marriage only to gay men for that reason, since that sounds like something aliens would do.

So that's one way I might address it. Another would be just to call bull on it, saying that in fact, "no, the high-chance or off-chance of fertility is not the only basis with which marriage is granted and protected to the population". This is a quoted from Utah's decision:

In Turner v. Safley, the Court struck down a Missouri regulation that prohibited inmates
from marrying unless the prison superintendent approved of the marriage. 482 U.S. 78, 99-100
(1987). The Court held that inmates retained their fundamental right to marry even though they
had a reduced expectation of liberty in prison. Id. at 96. The Court emphasized the many
attributes of marriage that prisoners could enjoy even if they were not able to have sexual
relations
<snip>
In any event, the State’s argument also neglects to consider the number of additional
important attributes of marriage that exist besides procreation. As noted above, the Supreme
Court has discussed those attributes in the context of marriages between inmates. Turner v.
Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 95-96 (1987). While the Supreme Court noted that some inmates might one
day be able to consummate their marriages when they were released, the Court found that
marriage was important irrespective of its relationship to procreation because it was an
expression of emotional support and public commitment, it was spiritually significant, and it
provided access to important legal and government benefits. Id. These attributes of marriage are
as applicable to same-sex couples as they are to opposite-sex couples.


We're also not just talking about young people who have fertility issues, we're talking about 80-year-olds who have 0 chance of reproduction without an act of god, and in which case, I'm pretty sure if he can make an 80-year-old pregnant, God can draft a marriage license for them as well.

Lastly, I'll point out the fact that many states have enacted laws (shortly after homosexuality was no longer a crime) that made it difficult or illegal to adopt if you were not married. Since it was no longer valid to restrict adoption simply to same-sex couples, this was instead used as a workaround, but instead restricting it to something that same-sex people could not have. The law facilitates joint-adoptions for married couples, allowing both in the couple to adopt at once, transferring full rights and responsibilities. What is the point of all of this if marriage is JUST about fertility and procreation? Marriage is not JUST about procreation, it is also about child-rearing which gay couples can do as well, among other aforementioned reasons that the Court protects regardless of procreative potential.

You might ask, what does that even mean? Are they suggesting that not allowing same-sex couples to marry and have the same kind of stability it offers for their families is a family value, or are they somehow suggesting that letting gay people marry will somehow cause straight people to not get married?

Both are equally nonsense. Laws cannot exist for the sole purpose of hurting one group without also providing an important benefit to another, so the idea of restricting marriage simply because same-sex couples don't satisfy some person's notion of "family values" is completely illegitimate. So instead, these people (assuming they are playing by the fair debating rules, as you say) have the high burden of establishing that same-sex couples marrying will somehow hurt straight couples, something they have never been able to establish. Borrowing again from the Utah case:

“[L]egislative
enactments must implicate legitimate goals, and the means chosen by the legislature must bear a
rational relationship to those goals.”). This search for a rational relationship “ensure that
classifications are not drawn for the purpose of disadvantaging the group burdened by the law.”
Romer, 517 U.S. at 633. As a result, a law must do more than disadvantage or otherwise harm a
particular group to survive rational basis review
<snip>

Indeed, it defies reason to conclude that allowing same-sex couples to marry will
diminish the example that married opposite-sex couples set for their unmarried counterparts.
Both opposite-sex and same-sex couples model the formation of committed, exclusive
relationships, and both establish families based on mutual love and support. If there is any
connection between same-sex marriage and responsible procreation, the relationship is likely to
be the opposite of what the State suggests. Because Amendment 3 does not currently permit
same-sex couples to engage in sexual activity within a marriage, the State reinforces a norm that
sexual activity may take place outside the marriage relationship.
As a result, any relationship between Amendment 3 and the State’s interest in responsible
procreation “is so attenuated as to render the distinction arbitrary or irrational.”

<snip>

Rather than protecting or supporting the families of opposite-sex couples, Amendment 3
perpetuates inequality by holding that the families and relationships of same-sex couples are not
now, nor ever will be, worthy of recognition. Amendment 3 does not thereby elevate the status
of opposite-sex marriage; it merely demeans the dignity of same-sex couples.

Oh, the slippery slope, it's lot's of fun. Here's how I address it, saying it is self-defeating.

The only way that the slippery-slope will actually happen is if there isn't a good reason for stopping incestious couples, polygamy, pedophilia, or any of the other examples they like to come up with. If there IS a good reason for restrictions on such things, then those reasons can continue to stand regardless of what happens to same-sex couples. The users of the Slippey-Slope argument are asserting that apparently there is no good reason to block these other things, which is why they will happen if same-sex couples can marry. But I'm sure that none of them are actually willing to support the premise that there is no good reason to block them, thus they defeat their own argument.

On the other hand, let's say that they accept that there may be no good reason to block such other things (which they won't do). In that case, if there is no good reason to block it, then by default it is void and can't be enforced in law.

Either which way, the conclusion is the same: restrictions on these other possibilities are irrelevant, and can continue to stand on their own merits, or will fall on the lack of their own merits, irregardless of what happens with same-sex couples.

Here's another way I've addressed the slippery slope in another of my recent posts:


Here's what this slippery slope basically comes down to:

"We can't come up with a good reason for restricting marriage for same-sex couples, so instead we need to assert the right to make arbitrary restrictions in order to avoid having to justify this restriction, and other restrictions such as those against incest and polygamy that apparently we can't justify either".

That sounds like a wonderful basis for law. Shall we go down the slippery slope of what OTHER kinds of restrictions and policies the government can make if they don't have to have the burden of justifying said restrictions? Careful what you wish for. But if this really is a legitimate basis for law, then apparently there's nothing stopping us from legalizing same-sex marriage while leaving other restrictions in place, since apparently those that are supporting this slippery-slope argument are asserting that we need not justify such restrictions in the first place.

Basically, just turn the slippery slope around on them. If the slippery slope is the only way that these people can justify maintaining the restrictions, then just imagine what else the government could put restrictions on and justify for themselves, just because the need to assert one restriction in order to assert some other restriction. Why couldn't the government restrict blonde-haired people from marrying red-haired people? I mean hell, if the government can't make restrictions like this, then what's to stop polygamy?

 

All very scholarly . Both of you. A pleasant antidote to the moronic clap trap that too often prevails here. I wrote a post just on the issue of the legal arguments used around procreation in response to someone's undocumented assertion that the vast majority of court cases support procreation as a reason to limit marriage to a man and a women. Check it out: http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=339726