Think of the boost to the economy!
Okay, just about everyone has probably seen "Prop 8: The Musical" by now, but I wanted to post a link to it anyway, mainly because it reinforces one of my favorite points I've made about several other controversial issues (e.g., legalized marijuana, legalized prostitution): the amount of money businesses as well as the government (from tax revenue as well as the absence of enforcement expenditures) that there is to be gained from reversing course is simply staggering.
Wow, that may be one of the worst run-on sentences ever written, second only to the first sentence of Robinson Crusoe, which if memory serves is also equivalent to the first chapter. But anyway. Enjoy!
"The hardest thing that I've done is laying down with someone
And the idiots in Detroit, well, they've all gone sour
Everyone lies"
- Rogue Wave, Salesman at the Day of the Parade
Wow, that may be one of the worst run-on sentences ever written, second only to the first sentence of Robinson Crusoe, which if memory serves is also equivalent to the first chapter. But anyway. Enjoy!
"The hardest thing that I've done is laying down with someone
And the idiots in Detroit, well, they've all gone sour
Everyone lies"
- Rogue Wave, Salesman at the Day of the Parade
9 Comments:
The money thing... oh boy, the money thing. That's just really funny. I've gotta say, I'm shocked they went that way, since "but you can make money" isn't really a response to most moral objections. It might be true, but you aren't gonna convince too many people with that one. You've got to engage them on the reasons they want the ban (whether it's for same-sex marriage, or drugs or prostitution or dog fighting or whatever).
Anyway, it was funny, to be sure. But it's also one big straw-man argument, which always infuriates me, so I was torn between glee and fury. I call it "glury".
Which, strangely enough, was my word verification.
Indeed, I was surprised they went that way too. It's not an argument I had ever really considered with respect to gay marriage.
Either way, I'm not really worried about convincing the hardcore moralists - when you approach something from a "that's just immoral" perspective, you're not likely to be persuaded. I'd rather convince enough people on Capitol Hill, where money does talk. Once the laws are where they should be, most people will eventually just get used to it. (See entries for "Interracial marriage" and "Prohibition".)
I think same-sex marriage is a little different that both of those things. A reasonable argument can be made that same-sex marriage is different from opposite-sex marriage (that argument being that one of the purposes of marriage is procreation, which same-sex marriage by definition cannot accomplish). It's hard to say Interracial marriage subverts one of the primary purposes of marriage, unless you want to make the argument that keeping races "pure" is one of the purposes of marriage. That's a much harder argument to make than "marriage is [partially] for baby-making".
Alcohol, on the other hand, is almost universally view as only bad in excess. Prohibition was bad because it threw the baby out with the bathwater. Same-sex marriage bans do no such thing.
This doesn't mean people won't be persuaded to overlook the baby-making function of marriage and allow same-sex marriage, but I think that's a long time in coming. Even with the money argument. It hasn't bought Congress on the drugs issue yet, so why think that it will with regard to same-sex marriage?
Hmm... this took a quick turn for the serious... I wish I had some joke to put in here.
One inherent problem with the procreation argument is that there are plenty of heterosexual couples that marry with no intention or no capability of having children. There's an additional argument that, overpopulation being what it is, maybe we should be discouraging marriage if that's one of its primary purposes.
All that having been said, my last comment was more geared toward primarily the pot but also the prostitutes. In particular, the former will someday be legalized, it's just waiting for us to catch up.
You probably know my perspective on same-sex marriage is that the government should be out of marriage completely. But since that's clearly not going to happen, I'm completely willing to acknowledge the inevitability of legal same-sex marriages. And I'm fine with that, especially when I realize that pretty much nothing will change for me and the vast majority of Americans when it does happen. Except that we'll have one less thing to argue about :)
Yeah, there's definitely an undercurrent of inevitability about these sorts of things. I feel it too, but I don't know that it's entirely accurate.
As for the procreation argument... the response of heterosexual couples who can't/won't have kids isn't really a response at all, because the reasons for not having kids are totally different. With heterosexual couples it's some sort of external impediment(infertility usually), whereas with homosexual couples it's a definitional cause. I think the difference is pretty obvious, and it's relevant both philosophically (a homosexual relationship obviously cannot be oriented towards procreation, whereas even infertile couples can be oriented towards procreation, they just aren't successful), and practically (to allow only fertile couples to marry requires a fertility test before issuing marriage licenses. Homosexual couples require no such test. We know they can't have kids, never could, never will, no exceptions to the rule.)
I get your response, and where it comes from, and I've heard it a lot when I raise the procreation reason for opposition to same-sex marriage. In fact, I think that's usually where the procreation argument stops. But that's because people have a hard time voicing what I've tried to say above, and so usually same-sex advocates and opponents are left disagreeing over this point, when the opponents actually can flesh out their position a little more fully. I hope that's what I've done here.
Anyway, I think all this really means is that there's an easy (and I'd argue, important) distinction to be made between same-sex marriages and heterosexual marriages. We can give all the same rights while keeping that distinction (using a dual marriage/civil unions framework), and that's a reasonable goal. So even if same-sex marriage is ineviteable, I'm gonna argue for what I think is a reasonable target.
As far as overpopulation arguments go... you want to be very careful raising those with me. I'm one of 13 children... ;-)
Mike: "Except that we'll have one less thing to argue about" when same-sex marriage is made legal.
Yup. B/c, y'know, when Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, that completely ended debate on that issue.
My Word Verification is "dadso." A fatso who is a father? Whatever the meaning, it may be my favorite WV yet.
Touche, Ben.
Matt, I'm in favor of making a distinction between same-sex and heterosexual marriages. I just want the churches to be the ones doing it, as I believe it's their prerogative.
Mike -
Always great to see our disagreement comes down to nothing more than our respective libertarian/anti-libertarian leanings.
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