- Nov 26, 2011
- 123,518
- 54,552
- 2,290
Since many of the arguments against gay marriage are repeated over and over and over, I thought we should collect them all together and number them. Then, when you hear someone make a particular anti-gay argument, you can just point to this topic and say, "Number 3" and save everyone some time explaining why they are wrong.
Here are the arguments made against gay marriage, followed by an explanation of why they do not meet the “rational foundation for the discriminations” requirement which will eventually issue from the Supreme Court.
1. By far the most popular argument against gay marriage is that if we allow homosexual to marry, then we will have to allow brothers to marry sisters, humans to marry animals, and adults to marry children. I have never seen a topic involving homosexuality in which someone did not bring up either incest, or bestiality, or pedophilia, or two or more of these.
This is the slippery slope fallacy. And the reason it fails is because you cannot use the legalization of a harmless behavior as justification for the legalization of a harmful behavior.
Since pedophilia and the myriad other attempted equivalencies to homosexuality are all harmful behaviors, they cannot be justified by gay marriage any more than they can be justified by a heterosexual marriage.
The underlying irrational foundation behind this argument is nothing more than an intense dislike of man-on-man sex, even though one is not even participating in that act!
2. “Show me where the right to marry is in the Constitution”. This is probably the second most common argument. It is actually a one-size-fits-all argument used in many debates, not just the gay marriage debate. “Show me were (fill in the blank) is in the Constitution.” Its users believe it is a debate ender, but it really only exposes their ignorance of the Constitution.
State and federal governments have created benefits and privileges specific to married couples in their laws. The benefits and privileges therefore have the protection of the law. If you file a married federal income tax return, for example, you are exercising one of those privileges.
The 14th amendment specifically states that one must provide “equal protection of the laws”. Therefore, if you extend the married tax return benefit to one married couple, you must extend it to all married couples. Be they a white/white marriage, or a black/white marriage, or an opposite gender marriage, or a same gender marriage.
So the “show me where the right to marry” Constitutional question is a logical fallacy known as a false premise, and not a very clever one at that.
3. The third argument has many variations, but perhaps the best illustration is the one that says people who favor gay marriage got their acceptance of gay marriage from the likes of the sex expert Kinsey. Then follows a long ad hominem attack on Kinsey, with the added element that Kinsey apparently was okay with pedophilia, and therefore people who like gay marriage are okay with pedophilia.
Something like that.
Once again, an amazing amount of energy is expended trying to associate homosexuality with all manner of heinous activities.
This argument is chock full of fallacies, but it is easily turned on its head by using an identical fallacy which goes like this: Hitler hated fags. Hitler killed six million Jews. Therefore, if people are allowed to hate fags, it is just a matter of time before they start tossing Jews into gas ovens.
4. AIDS. Homos are sick bastards who screw like rabbits and spread AIDS and boy won’t it be great once they have wiped themselves out. Heteros are not as depraved as homos, because AIDS is killing more homos than straight people. QED.
There are two answers to this. First, on a worldwide level, heteros are greatly outpacing homos in the AIDS category, hands-down. But we ignore this because, hey, we’re talking about jungle bunnies in Africa, right? And you really don’t want to go there, gay-lover!
Second, syphilis. It seems some people are ignorant of the fact that syphilis was the AIDS of its time, until very recently. And syphilis killed many, many millions of people. There is a long list of famous people taken down by syphilis. And syphilis is still with us today, and it has experienced a recent resurgence amongst heteros. Lucky for them there is a cure!
(Edited to add: Not only that, married people actually have a decreased rate of STD transmission. So the "AIDS" argument is actually a good reason to allow gays to participate in marriage.)
So this idea that AIDS is some kind of vindication of the purity of heteros compared to the depravity of homos is ridiculously out of whack.
These illogical arguments are used to support an anti-homosexual position is how we know that at the base of all their objections, opponents really just hate homos. Very few are honest enough to just admit it.
If the anti-gay lobby has a “rational foundation for the discriminations” currently in our state and federal laws, they better start articulating them real soon. Because sooner or later, this will be coming up in the Supreme Court.
So far, all opposition has been irrational.
I say this as a person who voted against gay marriage when it came up for a vote in my state a few years ago. If my state held a re-vote today, I would jump at the opportunity to support it.
As the saying goes, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
Here are the arguments made against gay marriage, followed by an explanation of why they do not meet the “rational foundation for the discriminations” requirement which will eventually issue from the Supreme Court.
1. By far the most popular argument against gay marriage is that if we allow homosexual to marry, then we will have to allow brothers to marry sisters, humans to marry animals, and adults to marry children. I have never seen a topic involving homosexuality in which someone did not bring up either incest, or bestiality, or pedophilia, or two or more of these.
This is the slippery slope fallacy. And the reason it fails is because you cannot use the legalization of a harmless behavior as justification for the legalization of a harmful behavior.
Since pedophilia and the myriad other attempted equivalencies to homosexuality are all harmful behaviors, they cannot be justified by gay marriage any more than they can be justified by a heterosexual marriage.
The underlying irrational foundation behind this argument is nothing more than an intense dislike of man-on-man sex, even though one is not even participating in that act!
2. “Show me where the right to marry is in the Constitution”. This is probably the second most common argument. It is actually a one-size-fits-all argument used in many debates, not just the gay marriage debate. “Show me were (fill in the blank) is in the Constitution.” Its users believe it is a debate ender, but it really only exposes their ignorance of the Constitution.
State and federal governments have created benefits and privileges specific to married couples in their laws. The benefits and privileges therefore have the protection of the law. If you file a married federal income tax return, for example, you are exercising one of those privileges.
The 14th amendment specifically states that one must provide “equal protection of the laws”. Therefore, if you extend the married tax return benefit to one married couple, you must extend it to all married couples. Be they a white/white marriage, or a black/white marriage, or an opposite gender marriage, or a same gender marriage.
So the “show me where the right to marry” Constitutional question is a logical fallacy known as a false premise, and not a very clever one at that.
3. The third argument has many variations, but perhaps the best illustration is the one that says people who favor gay marriage got their acceptance of gay marriage from the likes of the sex expert Kinsey. Then follows a long ad hominem attack on Kinsey, with the added element that Kinsey apparently was okay with pedophilia, and therefore people who like gay marriage are okay with pedophilia.
Something like that.
Once again, an amazing amount of energy is expended trying to associate homosexuality with all manner of heinous activities.
This argument is chock full of fallacies, but it is easily turned on its head by using an identical fallacy which goes like this: Hitler hated fags. Hitler killed six million Jews. Therefore, if people are allowed to hate fags, it is just a matter of time before they start tossing Jews into gas ovens.
4. AIDS. Homos are sick bastards who screw like rabbits and spread AIDS and boy won’t it be great once they have wiped themselves out. Heteros are not as depraved as homos, because AIDS is killing more homos than straight people. QED.
There are two answers to this. First, on a worldwide level, heteros are greatly outpacing homos in the AIDS category, hands-down. But we ignore this because, hey, we’re talking about jungle bunnies in Africa, right? And you really don’t want to go there, gay-lover!
Second, syphilis. It seems some people are ignorant of the fact that syphilis was the AIDS of its time, until very recently. And syphilis killed many, many millions of people. There is a long list of famous people taken down by syphilis. And syphilis is still with us today, and it has experienced a recent resurgence amongst heteros. Lucky for them there is a cure!
(Edited to add: Not only that, married people actually have a decreased rate of STD transmission. So the "AIDS" argument is actually a good reason to allow gays to participate in marriage.)
So this idea that AIDS is some kind of vindication of the purity of heteros compared to the depravity of homos is ridiculously out of whack.
These illogical arguments are used to support an anti-homosexual position is how we know that at the base of all their objections, opponents really just hate homos. Very few are honest enough to just admit it.
If the anti-gay lobby has a “rational foundation for the discriminations” currently in our state and federal laws, they better start articulating them real soon. Because sooner or later, this will be coming up in the Supreme Court.
So far, all opposition has been irrational.
I say this as a person who voted against gay marriage when it came up for a vote in my state a few years ago. If my state held a re-vote today, I would jump at the opportunity to support it.
As the saying goes, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
Last edited:
(shrug)… I guess they are not married…” Man he really though that one through...
