by crispybits on Sun Apr 21, 2013 4:28 am
OK firstly the second video is not at all balanced, and if you honestly believe it is then I have to wonder. One conservative delivering a monologue for nearly 25 minutes, followed by an example of the opposition for 2-3 minutes that's not someone who is arguing in the same way or indeed is maybe even capable of debating at that level, is not balanced. It would be the same as me getting Joe Biden in for a 25 minute monologue, followed by some average North Carolinan giving 2-3 minutes of whatever comes off the top of their head about the subject.
My responses to the first video:
The anti-gay marriage guy argues that gay people should have all the same rights as straight people, but these should be provided through separate institutions. If this isn't the very definition of "separate but equal" then I don't know what is. And as we've already established, "separate but equal" is an unconstitutional philosophy. If you have separate institutions, then even if all the tangible benefits and costs are the same, there are many intangible benefits and costs that can never be the same. Therefore separate but equal cannot be used as lip service for real equality of treatment, it is still discrimination.
The anti-gay marriage guy argues that the definition of marriage has never changed from this fundamental "one man and one woman" standard. This is false, and either he hasn't done his research properly, or he's flat out lying. The second biggest religion in the world doesn't forbid polygamy for a start, and indeed it wasn't until St Augustine that the biggest religion in the world started turning against it. There are many countries and cultures around the world right now where it's allowed, and some where it's positively encouraged. This "one man and one woman" is a definition of marriage that itself is a change from a previous definition, which itself was also a change from a definition before that. To cry sanctity when this mutable thing looks like changing again to try and prevent any further movement is just factually incorrect. As a societal and cultural institution, by definition marriage will change in it's nature as society changes.
Lastly, there is the argument that men and women are fundamentally different, in a way that black people and white people are not. Now, obviously we have different genitalia, but personally I can't think of any task, emotional, intellectual or physical, that could be completed by one gender and not the other (with the caveat of things inherent in the physical difference such as a man could not point to his own womb or a woman could not produce a cup of her own semen). Can you? The difference between the sexes is the result of culture and stereotyping more than it is to do with biological differences, girls are trained from an early age with dolls and kitchen type toys etc etc to be the homemakers, and boys are trained with toy guns and cars etc etc to be the aggressive provider types. And this is just one, very basic aspect of this social conditioning. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it's what women's equality groups are constantly fighting against because it has been demonstrated when they do get into high corporate positions that women are just as capable as men, and indeed on the flipside that men can be just as good stay at home parents as women. The fundamental difference only exists in our culture, not in our essence or our capabilities.
My response to the second video (I might have got arguments mixed up between the two here but I'm trying to deal with them all so if I've put one against the wrong video then I'm sure you won't hold it against me):
There is the argument that the "ideal" family unit is husband, wife and kids. That kids do not get the same upbringing from straight and gay parents. That's absolutely true - kids don't get the same upbringing from straight and gay parents. Kids also don't get the same upbringing from straight and straight parents. My upbringing will have been very different to yours PS. I will have gained advantages, and suffered disadvantages, very different to the advantages and disadvantages you gained or suffered. Is that bad too? Should we advocate that only certain types of people should be allowed to be parents? I mean, addicts (of any description) generally make qualitatively worse (not just different, worse) parents than non-addicts. Does that mean that anyone with an addiction should be precluded from being a parent?
Add into this that apart from children who are home schooled and never left with daycare nurseries or similar, all children have a multitude of role models to look up to and emulate. Yes parents are very important role models for a child, but so are teachers, so are friends and siblings, so are people like youth workers that run kids sports clubs, so are religious authority figures, so are TV personalities or characters from books. I could go on and on with that list. A well rounded childhood means that you get exposed to the world, and the parents help guide you, but you also take influences from many other sources to help define who you become as you develop your own identity. A good parent will encourage this kind of healthy identity formation, and a bad parent won't (and a truly bad parent will force their own identity characteristics onto you against your will). That behaviour has nothing to do with the sexuality of the parent, a gay parent is just as capable of that as a straight parent is.
There seems to be a huge section of society stuck in that 1950s model of "mother, father, son, daughter, dog, cat, white picket fence" ideal. Yes that is a brilliant model if the relationships are all healthy within the group, but it's not the only model that works, and if the relationships are not healthy within that model then it's not especially immune to the problems inherent in any other model. To prescribe that this is the ONLY acceptable form of family unit, and by doing so to deny everyone who cannot live an emotionally healthy life inside a unit of that type a family life at all, is discrimination, and it's wrong. It would be like saying baseball is the only acceptable sport, and denying football fans sporting pleasure entirely just because they like something different to the norm.
This post is already an essay, so I'll stop there, but if I've missed a particular argument you wanted me to answer then bring it back up. In the meantime I haven't seen an answer from you to one of the key questions I asked. I'll rephrase it as I asked it several times in slightly different words in my last post:
"If you are not allowed to discriminate based on gender, as is established in the principles of law, how do you decide if Person X is legally allowed to marry the woman standing in front of you? Assume person X is deeply in love and totally committed to the woman, is above the age of legal consent, is fully mentally competent, is not related to the woman, and has never been married before."
(serious though)
