{"id":14568,"date":"2011-11-30T08:38:29","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T16:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=14568"},"modified":"2011-11-30T08:48:53","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T16:48:53","slug":"the-split-among-people-who-oppose-same-sex-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=14568","title":{"rendered":"The Split Among People Who Oppose Same-Sex Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Crossposted at Family Scholars Blog<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

In comments at Family Scholars Blog<\/a>, responding to Christopher, Elizabeth wrote a very concise summary of the heart of her own (anti-Same Sex Marriage) stance, and also the heart of Christopher’s (pro-SSM) stance. <\/p>\n

there are reasons to hear the concerns of those who wish to have equal rights to marry someone of the same sex, and there are reasons to hear the concerns of those who believe redefining marriage will weaken even more the social and legal idea that kids, the vast majority of whom are born to heterosexuals, need whenever possible to know and be known by their mothers and fathers, which is most likely to happen with their mother and father are married to each other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s a curious thing I’ve realized about the gay marriage debate: There’s a big split between the intellectuals and non-intellectuals on the anti-equality side of the debate, but not so much on the pro-equality side.<\/p>\n

Both Elizabeth and Christopher are, obviously, far more well-read and articulate when discussing marriage equality than most Americans are. (Practice does that for ya.)<\/p>\n

But the core of Christopher’s argument — “equal rights” — is the core of the arguments you can commonly hear from practically anyone who supports same-sex marriage. It’s easy to explain, and it’s an argument that has a lot of salience among Americans (particularly younger Americans).<\/p>\n

But as far as I can tell — both from personal encounters and from polls <\/a>— the same can’t be said about the argument against equality. Most ordinary people who oppose same-sex marriage say they’re against it because of their religion, or because they just don’t think being gay is moral.<\/p>\n

Intellectuals who articulate a secular case against marriage equality, such as Elizabeth and David, are making an argument that has very little to do with why ordinary people oppose it. <\/p>\n

(Let me emphasize that this is merely an observation. The rightness or wrongness of the secular anti-equality arguments are not determined by how popular they are; an argument can be entirely correct and nonetheless be unpopular.)<\/p>\n

Does this matter? Well, I think it has a great deal to do with why the pro-equality side is winning this argument. The core argument against marriage equality isn’t the secular argument skillfully articulated by David and Elizabeth; it’s that God doesn’t want gay people getting married. That’s an argument that has less and less salience with each new generation of Americans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Crossposted at Family Scholars Blog] In comments at Family Scholars Blog, responding to Christopher, Elizabeth wrote a very concise summary of the heart of her own (anti-Same Sex Marriage) stance, and also the heart of Christopher’s (pro-SSM) stance. there are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crossposted-on-tada","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14568"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14571,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14568\/revisions\/14571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}