{"id":543,"date":"2004-01-18T03:47:54","date_gmt":"2004-01-18T11:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/01\/18\/ad-hom-arguments-and-the-same-sex-marriage-debate\/"},"modified":"2004-01-18T03:47:54","modified_gmt":"2004-01-18T11:47:54","slug":"ad-hom-arguments-and-the-same-sex-marriage-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=543","title":{"rendered":"Ad Hom arguments and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eve, our hostess at “MarriageDebate.com,” invites us to discuss <\/a>if the same-sex marriage (SSM) debate is about homosexuality.<\/p>\n

At the most literal level, of course, SSM is about same-sex relationships. I mean, duh. You might as well ask if a traffic light ordinance has anything to do with traffic.<\/p>\n

But of course, Eve isn’t talking about the most literal level. Rather, she’s asking whether or not opposition to gay marriage is necessarily motivated by anti-gay bigotry.<\/p>\n

My answer is, who cares? I think a marriage law that discriminates on the basis of sex (or sexual preference) is bigotry; whether or not the people who support such a law have bigotry in their hearts is irrelevant. I’m against bigotry in people’s policies; I don’t care <\/i>what’s in their hearts.<\/p>\n

By asking this question, Eve is encouraging ad hominem<\/i> debate. Isn’t that something we’d be better off trying to avoid?<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

The Koufax Awards don’t have a catagory for “most outragiously stupid anti-SSM argument.” If there was such a catagory, though, I’d vote for this post on MarriageDebate<\/a>, in which Ben Bateman explains that people who disagree with him about SSM just don’t love children or care about childrens’ future as much as Ben himself does.<\/p>\n

Aside from the usual flaws inherant in ad hominem attacks, Ben’s approach also indicates an impressive failure to comprehend opposing views. (And, I add later, a bizarre unawareness that some supporters of SSM are heterosexual). My suggestion to Ben – beyond, of course, suggesting he go fuck himself – is that he read this post <\/a>and explain to me how the writer doesn’t care about what happens to children.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

More generally, it seems to me that SSM opponants quite commonly imply that people who disagree with them don’t care about children, or care only about whatever is convenient for adults, or short-term pleasure, or whatever.<\/p>\n

Fine, whatever. If people stoop to that kind of argumentation, it’s their business. I think that any SSM opponant who makes such an argument, however, loses the right to act affronted when a SSM proponant accuses them of being a bigot. People who routinely accuse their opponants of having terrible motivations, ought not complain when they are accused of same.<\/p>\n

[Edited later to correct spelling and link errors… and fix up the prose here and there.].<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eve, our hostess at “MarriageDebate.com,” invites us to discuss if the same-sex marriage (SSM) debate is about homosexuality. At the most literal level, of course, SSM is about same-sex relationships. I mean, duh. You might as well ask if a … 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":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","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=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}