13 Bad Arguments against 13 Bad Arguments for Gay Marriage

Just found an absolutely ancient article (read: 4 years old) that serves as a refutation of "13 bad arguments for gay marriage".  Yep.  I'm sure you can tell that I've already got my Irish up.

Argument 1 is that "gay marriage is a basic human right".  

Rebuttal:  "We already recognize that not everyone has the right to enlist in the army, but that one must be of the proper age, physical condition, citizenship, and philosophy—anarchists and pacifists need not apply. We also agree that certain persons do not have the right to marriage—children, multiple partners, family members, and those already married."

Ohhh.  This little issue.  Suffice it say:  two of those are prohibitions of the same thing (polygamy), and only one of those restrictions should be a restriction (namely, age of consent) because it applies almost universally and is less arbitrary and authoritarian.

Argument 2:  "gay marriage is a civil right"

Rebuttal:  "This is based on the false assumption that homosexuality is the same sort of human difference as race. But while the difference between sexual orientations is profound (one desires the opposite sex and procreates while the other does neither), racial difference has no intrinsic bearing on love and marriage."

So it is only a "civil rights issue" when there is otherwise no difference between the people involved?  I guess that makes sense.  Not really sure how homosexual "love" can be considered to be any different than any other form of "love" though, and there should be no inherent differences in marriage, save for the inability for them to be easily decide which of them should be commanding the other to do housework, raise whatever children they have, and perform sexual favors at a whim .  That's the only kind of marriage I can't picture a homosexual couple pulling off as effectively, but I am sure it can be done. Just because you have some African Americans who want to say that it is not a civil rights issue, and that you think that the same sets of genitalia throw marriage out of balance in such a manner that two people of the same gender should never be allowed to be wed, does not make you have a point.

Argument 3:  Opposition to gay marriage is discrimination.

Rebuttal:  "Let's not mistake rational restriction for unconstitutional discrimination. Just as we rightly restrict marriage against polygamists, there is no constitutional reason why we cannot continue to restrict marriage to what all civilizations have defined for millennia: the union of a man and woman."

First off, bullshit on "rightly restrict marriage against polygamists".  Those restrictions were developed almost exclusively to discriminate against Mormons.  Of course, now we can also see how it is more practical to have monogamous relationships.  But I still hardly agree that the restriction was right to begin with.  And the argument from "things have always been this way" hardly passes muster, since you could just as easily defend slavery with the same sentiment.  Just because we always had certain discriminatory practices does not make it less discriminatory today.

Argument 4:  Marriage has changed through the centuries, so gay marriage would just be a development in its ever-changing definition.

Rebuttal: "True, our understandings of sex and the role of women in marriage have grown. While these changes are important, they are trivial when compared to the agreement across time and from East to West that the social institution of marriage is about the union of sexual opposites for, primarily, the procreation of children, as well as intimate companionship."

Well, will you look at that.  How exactly is marriage changing from what amounts to sex slavery to an equal partnership that exists independent of actual offspring (or even intent to bear offspring) less of a leap than making it so that partnership doesn't have gender requirements?  I guess this one's just a matter of interpretation, isn't it?  Ahhh, but you'd never admit that!

Argument 5:  "Opposition to gay marriage is a violation of the separation of church and state"  [WTF!?]

Rebuttal:  "But the separation of church and state (assured by constitutional law) is different from the enforced separation of religion and politics, which is forbidden by the First Amendment."

Well, they are right for once:  this was a bad argument.  If they had made it less of a strawman, and brought up churches being used to tell people how to vote on gay marriage issues, then maybe less so.  But, as is, they can have this one.  Congratulations, guys!

Argument 6:  "Marriage is necessary for gays to get important legal benefits"

Rebuttal:  "Homosexuals don't need marriage to gain most significant legal benefits. For example, hospital visitation depends on the wishes of the patient. If families disagree about medical treatment, even marriage won't solve the problem, as the Terry Schiavo case has demonstrated....Another example is Social Security benefits. Children's benefits are not dependent on the marital status of their parents, and the only certain benefit is a one-time death benefit of $255. A wife can access her deceased husband's Social Security, but if she has had her own work history, her Social Security benefit would usually be higher than the survivor's benefit—and she must choose one or the other."

And what if the patient can't express their wishes....as in the Terry Schiavo case?  These marriage rights exist so that you don't have to go through all that bureaucratic crap that you offer as alternatives.  Also, any partner that is an immigrant becomes a legal citizen, marriage partners get insurance and tax benefits, and there is also disability and Veteran's benefits that they can both benefit from.  Sure, these may not be "rights", but you also can't play it off like you aren't depriving them of anything but the magic word "married".

Argument 7:  "There is no proof that gay marriage would change the marriage of heterosexuals"

Rebuttal:  (LOL) "If marriage is all about fulfilling human desires and not parenting (as many proponents of gay marriage argue), it makes sense to dissolve marriages that don't seem fulfilling. Recent experience in Scandinavia suggests that when a society reduces marriage to this minimalist definition, families dissolve more quickly....Only where the gay marriage movement had little success has the out-of-wedlock birthrate remained low. Marriage has virtually disappeared in the most gay-friendly districts of Norway"

Ahahahaha.  Okay.  Let me summarize the hilarity briefly:  their counterargument is that the climate that fosters gay marriage acceptance is a climate where divorce rates and cohabitation are higher.  But, unfortunately, all this means is that places where people see how meaningless heterosexual marriage has become are more willing to let the gays have their fun and get marriage too!  Correlation is not causation, and the wording of the rebuttal itself emphasizes this by claiming that the collective opinion about marriage is the cause of both the acceptance of gay marriage and the "virtual disapperance" of marriage.  So, they've made their own counterargument a non-argument for me.  That was nice of them.

Argument 8:  "Social science shows that gay parenting is no different from heterosexual parenting"

Rebuttal:  "Many studies have claimed this, but, according to University of Chicago's emeritus professor of ethics and social sciences Don Browning, none of these studies was rigorous or large-scale. Stephen Nock, scholar of marriage at the University of Virginia, writes that every study on the subject of gay parenting "contained at least one fatal flaw," and "not a single one was conducted according to generally accepted standards of scientific research." Other studies show that children raised by homosexuals were more dissatisfied with their own gender, had homosexual experiences more frequently, and suffered a greater rate of molestation by members of their families"

Well...can't argue against name-drops.   It's why generalized arguments that consist entirely of mentioning authority figures that you somehow deem to be greater authority on the subject than everyone else always win!  As for the last sentence, it is nice to see that homosexual parents are bad because they might raise homosexual children.  Also:  I link here again to deal with the "gay molestor" charges.

Argument 9:  "The fact that many married couples do not have children proves that marriage is not intrinsically related to procreation"

Rebuttal:  "Yet the fact remains that most married couples either have had or will have children. The exceptions prove the rule: Being married tends to prevent a person from having a child with someone other than his or her spouse."

Had to look this seemingly significant idiom up.  I have no idea what the hell they are talking about (unless they are preposing that marriage just means "vow to not have sex with other people" and, thus, is not explicitly about procreation!)  The exceptions prove that there are exceptions, which proves that marriage isn't strictly about the offspring anymore.  The fact that marriages are no longer annulled when they fail to have children, and the fact that couples who cannot and have decided not to have children also lends credence to this.  Sure, marriage also prevents a person from having a child with someone else (except, you know, in polygamous societies).  But, the fact remains that marriage, right now, in our culture is offered without a mind for whether or not they bear any children, primarily because we don't need any more goddamn people anymore.  The government no longer has a vested interest in seeing people breed like rabbits, because we already have more than enough people in the country with lessened death rates due to the whole "industrialization" thing. 

Argument 10:  "Heterosexuals have done a terrible job at marriage.  Who are they to speak?"  (Please note that this "argument" is normally offered up jokingly.  At least in my experience...)

Rebuttal: "Yet the point is not how many are successful, but what marriage means. To accommodate gays, marriage would have to change into something it has never been: an institution for same-sex love without the biological possibility for children. It will probably not require sexual fidelity, which even the majority of unfaithful heterosexuals have conceded is the ideal"

Can't argue with the first point.  As for the second point:  it is currently an institution that is almost exclusively about heterosexual "love", and is allowed to several who have no biological possibility for children.   Just take out "heterosexual" and you've granted the gays their requests.  As for the sexual fidelity thing: that's a personal preference.  If you have an issue with that, take it up with swingers.

Argument 11:  "The resistance to gay marriage is motivated by fear and loathing for homosexuals"  [Awww...they forgot "and stubborn adherence to particular political and religious ideologies, usually poorly thought out, and itself motivated by fear and loathing in general"]

Rebuttal:  "While no large group is free of hate-mongers, the vast majority resist because they strongly believe in the positive features of traditional marriage. They have experienced the benefits of the lifelong union of two persons who are complementary in many important ways—biological, psychological, temperamental, and spiritual—and who, because of this complementarity, have a unique capacity to bear and nurture children. It is appreciation for the unparalleled success of this complementarity"

"Vast majority"?  The "vast majority" seem to still be hateful, but mask that behind the rationalization that they are "protecting traditional marriage", or, in other words, striving for the status quo.  As I mentioned above, the argument that "things have always been this way" is not the best argument in a debate about equal application of traditionally unequally applied rights.  Also...why the hell would they think that "complementarity" (i.e. "penis goes in vagina") is a good argument?  They have no idea whether gay couples are complements in every area of their existence save gender, and have yet to legislate that people must only marry their opposites, lest they take offense at seeing people not adhering to the dictum of "opposites attract".  

Argument 12:  "Those who resist gay marriage are irrational, Neanderthal, and bigoted" [Isn't this Argument 11 in ad hominem form?]

Rebuttal:  "The gay marriage movement is only a few decades old. Could it be that billions of people who for millennia upheld traditional marriage were really irrational and bigoted? On the contrary, we would argue that a common-sense understanding of life leads in the direction we have argued. Further, it seems clear that reason without religious vision misses the depth dimension of human life. It tends to dissolve basic human institutions into contracts between persons who make whatever they want of them, to the detriment of children and society."

Oh my.  I think we've just struck gold!

For one:  "traditional marriage" millenia ago is not the "traditional marriage" of today.  You may try to pretend otherwise, but...well...I guess you do that about everything else anyway, so why not?  

Anyway, they were not necessarily "irrational and bigoted" because they were not in societies that have our understanding of homosexuality, nor were they in societies where they had the privilege of marriage being an institution based on love.  They needed it for procreation, because they needed to survive.  And, they weren't as egalitarian and almost every respect in their societies as we are on our own.  So, it is comparing Bronze age apples to Information age oranges here.

"Common sense understanding" isn't necessarily right.  Especially when "common sense" just means "gut instinct" instead of obvious, intuitive logic.

As for "reason without religious vision misses the depth dimension of human life", I would looooove for him to elaborate on that.  Somehow, I foresee something about paintings and a vague sense of spirituality that religion as an institution may actually inhibit, depending on its social role and doctrines.  And, I am really sorry that reason has dissolved marriage, and society, and children, or whatever you are talking about.  But, marriage is basically just a secular contract, with an optional religion candy-coating.  Which is what makes the religious-minded whining against gay marriage all the more infuriating.

Argument 13:  "The legal issue of gay marriage ought to be left up to the states"

Rebuttal:  "Quite the opposite, we need a national definition of marriage. Without a public definition embodied in a constitutional amendment, activist judges at various levels will undo the conviction of the vast majority of Americans. Some already have, in defiance of state defense-of-marriage acts. Precedent for a national definition is ample—the federal government outlawed polygamy in the 19th century and the Supreme Court has ruled in the 20th century on many cases regarding marriage."

Agree that a definition would be helpful.  Love the "activist judges" shot (which is right-winger speak for: "judge that makes rulings that I disagree with"), and I am afraid that, when it comes to minority rights, majority rule is not a good venue.  

"In sum, there are many bad reasons for supporting gay marriage. In contrast, there are many good reasons for protecting historic understandings of marriage, a public institution whose fate will determine the future of our society."

I guess we'll have to take your word for that, because you sure didn't give us any indication that there were any in the actual post.  Unless your implied argument that "it is historic, therefore it should stay exactly the same, regardless of changing contexts" is supposed to be profound or something, I am still waiting for those "good reasons".