Critique my [gay marriage] blurb

[Darth Wong]

I recently posted a little "blurbs about everything" page which I've had sitting around for, well, more than a year (yes, I take my time). It's here. Among other little one-paragraph blurbs about various subjects, I tried to condense every gay-marriage argument I could think of into a single paragraph. Here it is:

On "The Sanctity of Marriage"

If marriage really is a "sacred institution", why is it not only possible but actually convenient to get a divorce? Hell, you can even get married with a pre-nuptial agreement that nullifies most of the conditions of the marriage! It's like signing a contract with an addendum that says "Oh, and by the way, I didn't mean any of that. Gotcha!" So much for "till death do us part", eh? More like "till I get a promotion at work". So don't sell me some song and dance about how you laid there, oblivious to all these assaults on this so-called "sacred institution", until the gays started doing it and woke you up out of your beer-induced coma. If you really thought marriage was "sacred", you would have been out there trying to outlaw pre-nups (and for the record, I didn't sign one; I'm really married). Oh but wait, there's Rick Santorum saying that you can't let gays marry because they're not "ideal parents". That's another angle, right? Really clever, right? OK smart-ass, then why don't you explain to me why the fuck you let alcoholics, smokers, and even actors get married? Hell, you can be a fucking convicted murderer and still get married. "Ideal parents" my ass. And then there's the idiotic argument about how gay marriage leads to pedophilia, as if all the pedophiles out there are currently being held back by the fact that gays can't marry. "Oh no, the gays can't get married, I guess I'll stop being a pedophile!" Meanwhile, it's legal for convicted pedophiles to get married, and nobody has a problem with that! Never in my life have I seen people so utterly fullof shit as the anti-gay marriage crowd. Every reason they make up is such an obvious smokescreen that my fire alarm goes off whenever I read their bullshit.

Does this encapsulate the entire argument effectively? Are there any other arguments which I left out, keeping in mind that I want it to be short and sweet? If there's one subject of argument on the page that runs into truly intractable resistance wherever you go, this is the one.

EDIT: Title clarified

[Gaidin]

You sparked a thought about the pedo marriage line. What do they do if someone on a pedo list tries to have a child with his wife?

I'll have to look into that later tonight...

[Velthuijsen]

What about that this is about government marriage and not religious marriage. That if they want a gay free marriage they should go to their religion and not to a government which recognizes marriages for different reasons (tax for example).

[Darth Wong]

The real point is that they're outright liars, whether they're talking about religious marriage or secular marriage. Every reason they put up for opposing gay marriage is a sham: a lie designed to mask the real reason, which is simply that they despise gays and want to do everything in their power to make them feel unwelcome in society. Hence the "smokescreen" comment.

If they were honest about the sacred nature of marriage, they would never have allowed any of the modern convenient forms of marriage to exist. If they were honest about the "ideal parent" nature of marriage, they would never allow smokers, alcoholics, or convicted criminals to marry. If they were honest about fearing pedophilia, they would not allow anyone with a history of sexual offenses to marry. But they allow all of these things, and in fact they usually allow them even in religious marriage, which proves that their stated reasons for opposing gay marriage are just lies.

[Frank Hipper]

I'd mention there's many, many more heterosexual pedophiles than there are homosexual, and they're facilitated by M/F marriages with female children.

I, personally, would also lay particular emphasis on what the word "sanctity" actually means, "inviolate", seeing as how no one in this country seems to have a clue.

[Darth Wong]

Hmm, here's a slightly reworked version:

On "The Sanctity of Marriage"

If marriage really is a "sacred institution", why is it so easy to get a divorce? Does that really sound "sacred" to you? And what about pre-nuptial agreements? A marriage with a pre-nup is like signing a contract with a footnote that says "Oh, by the way, I didn't mean any of that." So much for "till death do us part" ... more like "till I get a promotion at work". So don't sell me some song and dance about the sanctity of marriage; if you really thought it was so sacred, you would have been out there protesting divorce and pre-nups (and for the record, I don't have a pre-nup; I'm really married). Oh but wait, there's Rick Santorum saying that you can't let gays marry because they're not "ideal parents". That's a clever new angle, right? OK smart-ass, then why don't you explain to me why the fuck you let alcoholics, smokers, people with serious genetic conditions, drug addicts, rapists, child abusers, and even convicted murderers get married? "Ideal parents" my ass. And then there's the argument that gay marriage leads to pedophilia, but guess what: a straight pedophile is allowed to get married! Yes, that's right, a convicted child molester is still allowed to marry, as long as he's straight! Where are the protests against that? I guess that's part of the sacred tradition of marriage, right? Never in my life have I seen people so utterly full of shit as the anti-gay marriage crowd. Every reason they make up is such an obvious smokescreen that my fire alarm goes off whenever I read their bullshit.

[Nova Andromeda]

The real point is that they're outright liars, whether they're talking about religious marriage or secular marriage. Every reason they put up for opposing gay marriage is a sham: a lie designed to mask the real reason, which is simply that they despise gays and want to do everything in their power to make them feel unwelcome in society. Hence the "smokescreen" comment.

If they were honest about the sacred nature of marriage, they would never have allowed any of the modern convenient forms of marriage to exist. If they were honest about the "ideal parent" nature of marriage, they would never allow smokers, alcoholics, or convicted criminals to marry. If they were honest about fearing pedophilia, they would not allow anyone with a history of sexual offenses to marry. But they allow all of these things, and in fact they usually allow them even in religious marriage, which proves that their stated reasons for opposing gay marriage are just lies.

-I've noticed a number of times you call people liars for saying things that are not true and inconsitant with their other stated positions. Is this still the correct lable if it turns out that they are simply irrational bigots who don't think about whether their statements are rational or not, but who nevertheless believe all their inconsistant idiocy? Is there a more specific term for false statements made by someone who is irrational and driven by hate, bigotry, etc.?

[Nova Andromeda]

-Did you intentionally leave out the whole arguement about marriage being owned by religion? For instance, you will tend to see people quoting the bible to justify their position on what form marriage should take. Let us also not forget that many americans think this is christian country and should be run by christian rules. Is their objective really all that differnect from enforced religious marriage laws in some islamic countries?

[Dillon]

I would have included a rebuttal to that bullshit segregationist middle ground argument, about how heteros should have marriage, and gays can have "civil unions".

I've always liked refuting that argument by asking if we should have different marital ceremonies for people of different ethnicities. That usually shuts them up pretty quickly. It also serves to demonstrate the similarities between homophobia and racism.

[Darth Wong]

I can't address every conceivable marriage argument in one paragraph and keep it within a reasonable length, but to me, if you puncture the myth of the sanctity of marriage, then all of the other arguments are weakened at the same time. If you can show what a tattered institution it really is, then all of the other arguments are weakened by virtue of relying at least in part upon the assumption of sanctity.

And to my knowledge, it is almost never pointed out that we will let a straight pedophile marry. That fact right there blows a gaping hole in a lot of the anti-gay marriage arguments.

[Nova Andromeda]

I can't address every conceivable marriage argument in one paragraph and keep it within a reasonable length, but to me, if you puncture the myth of the sanctity of marriage, then all of the other arguments are weakened at the same time. If you can show what a tattered institution it really is, then all of the other arguments are weakened by virtue of relying at least in part upon the assumption of sanctity.

And to my knowledge, it is almost never pointed out that we will let a straight pedophile marry. That fact right there blows a gaping hole in a lot of the anti-gay marriage arguments.

-Perhaps just one line about how marriage is found in nearly all cultures and is not owned solely by one set of beliefs and that public marriage needs to work for everyone?

[Darth Wong]

-I've noticed a number of times you call people liars for saying things that are not true and inconsitant with their other stated positions.

Yes, I've given up trying to be diplomatic about it.

Is this still the correct lable if it turns out that they are simply irrational bigots who don't think about whether their statements are rational or not, but who nevertheless believe all their inconsistant idiocy? Is there a more specific term for false statements made by someone who is irrational and driven by hate, bigotry, etc.?

This is like asking whether we should call IDers liars for pretending that they are motivated by science rather than religion, when everyone knows the truth. I suppose it sounds cynical, but I simply don't buy their innocent act. I think they all know on some level that they can't state the real reasons they believe what they do, so they make up whatever reason they think will work.

[Nova Andromeda]

-I've noticed a number of times you call people liars for saying things that are not true and inconsitant with their other stated positions.

Yes, I've given up trying to be diplomatic about it.

Is this still the correct lable if it turns out that they are simply irrational bigots who don't think about whether their statements are rational or not, but who nevertheless believe all their inconsistant idiocy? Is there a more specific term for false statements made by someone who is irrational and driven by hate, bigotry, etc.?

This is like asking whether we should call IDers liars for pretending that they are motivated by science rather than religion, when everyone knows the truth. I suppose it sounds cynical, but I simply don't buy their innocent act. I think they all know on some level that they can't state the real reasons they believe what they do, so they make up whatever reason they think will work.

-I'm not entirely convinced that a large part of them aren't simply suffering from self delusion. That includes the IDers. Many people simply don't think in a rational fashion and constantly rationalize their positions (which is often the same as their particular group). In many ways this makes them far worse than simple liars because they don't think for themselves and can be manipulated so easily.
-Then again, they are at least guilty of lying to themselves....
-Nevertheless, it strikes me as a bit harder to defend when the apologists come calling....

[Darth Servo]

IMO, I probably would have put more emphasis on the fact that Christians hardly have a monopoly on marriage and the institution has been around longer than the Bible has.

[Haruko]

IMO, I probably would have put more emphasis on the fact that Christians hardly have a monopoly on marriage and the institution has been around longer than the Bible has.

So I was thinking. I remember at my forum in a topic about gay marriage, one of my members posted the following:

I got bored and decided to play. I want to go ahead and say in advance that I do not intend to discuss gay couples raising children in this thread. As I see it, this is a discussion, mainly, on same-sex marriages. If a topic comes up discussiong children being raised by gay couples, I will discuss it there. Nor do I intend to discuss the "cause" of homosexuality, as that is another topic on its own as well.

Marriage was created by religion for religion. Laws were formed to help married couples because producing families is good for society. Society and the general corruption of the public is and has taken much of what religion was out of Marriage, but the fact remains, that it was created by and for Religion exclusivly.

No. No it wasn't. Up until the ninth century (AD) the church was not involved with marriages at all. Before then we had mainly common law marriages, during the Roman Empire. Even then, it wasn't until the fourteenth century that blessings and prayers were a part of the ceremony. In 1563 the Council of Trent made mandatory that Catholic marriages be performed at Catholic churches with two eye witnesses. It wasn't until about the eighteenth century that the wedding ceremony became a religious event in all of Europe. At the end of this same century [18th] both religious and civil marriages became recognized legally in America.

How can you say the marriage was created for religion and by religion, when it wasn't even a part of the Church until the 800s AD? Common law marriage and civil unions came before the religious marriages--and love wasn't even a necessary or even commonly used reason for marriage until about the twelfth century--introduced by the troubadours. It wasn't until this time that romance became an idea and thing of society and marriage.

Obviously marriage has evolved a great deal since the first people got together--beginning as simple a thing where the father gives the daughter away to the man who does the best job of catching his eye, becoming a part of law and gradually becoming what it is today in the Church. If marriage wasn't created by religion and for religion, and if marriage has changed so drastically over the course of human history, who's to say that a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, can not take part in this change? If not on a religious note then on a legal on. It is understandable that a church would not allow homosexual marriages, as it would go directly against their teachings. But the state, the government, can give them their marriage as it was done in the past. Play the part of today's Justinian lawyers and give them the marriage without the religion--as marriage did not begin as a part of religion by any means, religion merely jumped on the band wagon. The family unit was here before religion, and it will be here after religion. Nowadays marriage is something done out of love first, family second. It isn't something created by religion--so the legal form of marriage need not follow the religious intent. The argument of continuing the species is only a religious one, not a secular one.

As stated before me, the civil unions we find ourselves are hardly equal legally to those of regular unions--be they done in a church or a court house. For a short list of the many rights granted married couples of different sexes click here.

If I'm missing something in your argument, please clarify, as all I see is a misunderstanding that religion created marriage.

'Rouge

http://www.brad-johnson.com/forum/viewt ... =9832#9832

[Johonebesus]

There's the argument that marriage is the foundation of our society, and that allowing gay marriage somehow weakens the institution, which will destabilize our entire civilization. You kind of touched on that when you talked about easy divorce, but I more often hear people talk about importance of marriage as a social institution than it's sacredness. I think it's a bit more than ID folks using pseudo-science jargon. Many conservatives are more neocons than Christian fundamentalists, like many of the folks on Fox. Focus on Family might talk more about marriage as a sacrament, and they have fought to pass laws either proscribing divorce or making it harder, but other conservative think tanks and political groups see gay marriage not as a sin so much as a destabilizing element. Neocons gladly use religion to control the masses, but they don't necessarily buy into it all.

I've also heard people say that the "traditional" definition of marriage shouldn't be changed because, well, it's tradition! It wouldn't take too long to point out that traditional marriage makes the wife chattel of the man, that even Ward Cleaver would laugh at the idea that June should be his best friend, and that gay marriage is just the logical extension to the idea that you choose a spouse based on friendship, intimacy, and psychological compatibility rather than social and economic class and parental potential.

Oh, and you didn't really point out that the fears of pedophilia, based on the association that homosexuality and pedophilia are interchangeable, are fundamentally flawed.

[sketerpot]

About another blurb:

On American Politics: I have a question for our friendly but eccentric Yankee friends: why do you revere your Founding Fathers so much? The way you talk about them, you'd think they were modern-day messiahs. You quote the bastards the same way you quote your Bible. Tricky ethical dilemma? Let's see what the Founding Fathers had to say! Trying to chart social policy? Let's see what the Founding Fathers had to say! I'm starting to wonder if you consult the Founding Fathers for dating advice. "Dear Benjamin Franklin, I met this girl today, and she's really hot, but she's kind of dumb. What should I do?" Get a grip, people. They had some good ideas, and I'm not saying you need to tear down everything they created, but you need to stop quoting those guys like Holy Scripture. They're not gods, they're not infallible ... hell, they didn't even think slavery was a bad idea. Oh, and by the way, you need to take your President off that pedestal too. You guys could elect Homer Simpson and you would still expect the world to respect him. Actually, come to think of it, you did.

Benjamin Franklin actually did give dating advice to a young man looking for a mistress.

Summary of his advice: go for older women. They're generally more pleasant and discrete, better in bed, and "regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one".

I don't know about most of the founding fathers, but Franklin was actually a pretty cool guy.

[Molyneux]

I don't know about most of the founding fathers, but Franklin was actually a pretty cool guy.

I'll second that. Inventive, horny as a goat and forthright...he's my favorite historical figure after Tesla.

[Justforfun000]

All in all Mike, I think it's excellent. Like you said, it's too difficult to cover every angle in a short summation. Sometimes it's better to have sharp, concise skewers that you can draw an extended argument from. You quite clearly showed that there is NO major protest force out there against any of those very real and completely undesirable attitudes and actions that demostrate a very different truth of the 'sanctity' of marriage.
Hypocrisy exposed, bullshit showed, have a nice day.

[Velthuijsen]

Not the blurb you asked about but.

The blurb On Christianity.
Not everyone can get their hands legally on Mein Kampf (I know I can't, neither people in Belgium and Germany).

[Darth Raptor]

Not the blurb you asked about but.

The blurb On Christianity.
Not everyone can get their hands legally on Mein Kampf (I know I can't, neither people in Belgium and Germany).

Europe's taken its denazification a bit too far, I think. There are sources online that dissect that piece of trash point by point. IIRC, the jist is that Jesus was an Aryan, not a Jew, and came to save the Aryans, not the Jews. Adam and Eve were Aryans, created by God, while the black, yellow and brown monkies evolved naturally from the furry kind. He claimed to have recieved his inspiration from the Viennese Christian Socialist Movement, and considered his childhood priest the perfect model of morality or something. Also, he was on a divine crusade from that sorry son-of-a-bitch YHWH the whole time.

[Ted C]

I always have to wonder how a gay couple's marriage diminishes mine. Are Christian loonies so insecure about their marriages that they can be threatened by the mere existence of gay marriages? Sad, really.

[Darth Wong]

I always have to wonder how a gay couple's marriage diminishes mine. Are Christian loonies so insecure about their marriages that they can be threatened by the mere existence of gay marriages? Sad, really.

I don't think they feel their own marriages are threatened at all. That's just another example of rhetoric that they know isn't true, because they don't want to admit the real reason is just a desire to make gays feel as unwelcome as possible.

It's like asking why white people thought their drinking fountains were somehow diminished if black people were allowed to use them in the 1950s. They couldn't have sincerely thought that; the reason was a simple desire to "keep them in their place", which is to say that they must not be allowed to think of themselves as equals.

[Ted C]

Never in my life have I seen people so utterly full of shit as the anti-gay marriage crowd.

Shouldn't you just call them the anti-gay crowd? That's what it gets down to. Marriage is just one of areas in which they like to discriminate. Adoption is another big one.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

I always have to wonder how a gay couple's marriage diminishes mine. Are Christian loonies so insecure about their marriages that they can be threatened by the mere existence of gay marriages? Sad, really.

I don't think they feel their own marriages are threatened at all. That's just another example of rhetoric that they know isn't true, because they don't want to admit the real reason is just a desire to make gays feel as unwelcome as possible.

But they do think that the sanctity of their own marriages are threatened. Or at least that's an argument that I'm hearing more and more of late. Your blurb deals with the corporate sense of the sanctity of marriage, but there is a personal sense too. Maybe this is less common in areas other than redneck Alberta. How insecure most someone be to think that allowing gays to marry will somehow affect one's own marriage?