"The Hardest Argument in the World to Refute"
I had an email exchange earlier today with a fellow blogger who was curious how I might respond to a critique of the blockbuster Newsweek cover story debunking the fallacy of a Biblical basis for banning gay marriage (which, if you follow me on Twitter, you already knew about).
The anti-equality critique excerpted (favorably — “a masterpiece of an article” to be exact) an older screed thusly:
A society could abolish “funerals” as heretofore understood and simply call them “parties,” or allow individuals to define them as they wish. Were the “liberationist” exaltation of individual choice pushed to its logical conclusion, would not a public definition of “funeral” as a rite in honor of the dead appear just as invidious as a public definition of “marriage” as an enduring sexual partnership between a man and woman? If it is discriminatory to deny gay couples the right to “marry,” is it not equally unfair to deny living individuals the right to attend their own “funerals”? If it makes individuals happy, some would reply, what is the harm?
My blogger friend suggested, “You may have refutations in abundance for this type of stuff, but I haven’t worked through the arguments.”
To which I responded:
One cannot attend a gay marriage in the same sense that one cannot attend one’s own funeral?
No, I don’t have an “abundance” of anything in response to that.
The hardest argument in the world to refute is that 1+1=3. You’re absolutely powerless except to say, “no it isn’t, you jackass” — at which point you are accused of being “intolerant.”
It’s all circular: Since marriage is procreative, anything that is not procreative is not marriage.
As George Will would say: Well.
What I find hilarious is that the professional bigots are racing to call the Newsweek piece a straw man attack. Yet these are precisely the self-appointed representatives of the illiterate Jesusland rednecks who love to chant, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
Decrepit hypocrites, the lot of them.
Sure, I could fire broadsides about the nature of equal protection, the counter-majoritarian difficulty and the simultaneous overinclusiveness and underinclusiveness of gay marriage bans. I have done so in the past and I will likely do so in the future.
I could point out (yet again) the Supreme Court precedents and show how they do and do not apply to gay marriage.
I could point out (yet again) the hypocrisy of insisting that the bigots only want to “defend traditional marriage” while often pushing for “no nothing never” amendments that also ban civil unions and any other form of legal recognition for gay couples.
I could point out (yet again) the sheer vileness of using children as pawns in the anti-gay culture wars — preferring, when push comes to shove, to condemn children to foster care rather than to a youth spent in a loving, stable family.
But would any of that register, even in the slightest, with someone so retarded as to analogize wanting to marry someone of the same gender with wanting to attend one’s own funeral? (Or, vicariously, someone so retarded as to call that argument a “masterpiece”?)
Honestly — what’s the point?
Filed under: Gay Rights and Issues, Law, Society, Religion, Culture Wars
The confusion is when religion gets mixed up into the whole process.
A civil union, if that's what the government decides to call it is just fine with me. That is as long as everyone has the same status, under the law. Whereas, the government would only acknowledge civil unions whether they be between heterosexual or homosexual couples.
If a couple wanted a marriage, they're more than welcome to pursue that through their house of worship or religion.
Call an organization of the living for the dead a party, a shindig or a funeral. It makes not the least bit of difference.
The larger picture is for rights of those that still breathe, after all.
Oh yeah, I forgot one thing, if all unions were civil, that would fall nicely under equal protection.
Kip,
When people make incorrect analogies, I think it's best to correct the analogy.
The funeral analogy is this:
* funerals have always been Catholic or Jewish
* Protestants have memorial services
To protect traditional funerals:
* only Catholics or Jews may use the term.
* Protestants may only have their own traditional memorial services.
* atheists & agnostics can't have funerals or memorial services
* atheists & agnostics can have "civil burials" — but anyone buried civilly cannot:
* pass on property
* cannot be listed in the obituaries in newspapers
* cannot have a service presided over by clergy
Protecting traditional funerals is really, really dumb. So is protecting traditional marriage.
Yeah, the 1+1=3 arguments get me all the time. My first reaction is that they're crazy. Then I start to wonder if maybe I just don't understand their point, so I'll ask them "But why do you say 1+1=3?" and they'll explain that it's "Because 1=1 and 1>0 and therefore 1+1=3" and I'll realize that they're crazy. Then I start to wonder if maybe I just don't understand their point…
I was reminded of a Golden Girls episode while reading that article. It was the one where Sophia staged her own "wake" and Rose neglected to tell the attendees that Sophia was actually alive and in attendance. The argument is almost as ridiculous as that Golden Girls episode.