So John August, screenwriter of some note (Go, Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) sent out a tweet about a “smart” Washington Post op-ed on “gender” equality and its impact on marriage.
In essence, the article articulated (sorry) the view that marriage has been changing from, like, forever, so more change is only logical and that allowing homosexuals to marry will not have that much effect on marriage.
I responded as follows to which, the last post is John telling me to get lost.
I don’t think he read that paper in the nine minutes it too for him to respond, do you? Yeah, something tells me he didn’t.
Anyway, I responded with the very simple notation that he has exactly the same rights as I do: he can marry a woman if he wants. I’m now, of course, blocked. However, Go was the only movie I could stomach and I’ll never forgive him for what he did to the two Charlies (the Angels and the Chocolate Factory).
22 comments:
Saying he has the same right to marry a woman as you do is like telling a left handed child they have the same right to use the right handed academic and sports equipment that the right handed majority of children use. It's a convenient way of looking at things for you, but it's telling him he's a second class citizen. In the state where Mr. August lives, Hugh Hefner can legally marry a woman 60 years his junior, but it would somehow violate the sanctity of marriage for two men in a long, stable romantic partnership to wed legally?
No, telling a man he has a right to marry a woman is NOTHING like telling a left-handed child to become right-handed. You're an idiot if you think that.
What you don't understand is that when marriage becomes redefined in the way homosexuals want, while to your addled mind doesn't mean anything, actually will lead to long-term unintended consequences.
Every social practice rests on an assumption of that the world is like—on a worldview. When a society accepts the practice, it accepts the worldview that justifies it.
Thanks for playing.
That's not what hidden actually said. He didn't say it was like telling a left-handed child to become right handed. He pointed out it was disingenuous.
If civil unions had the same legal backing as marriage (tax breaks, next of kin for death planning, shared health benefits, etc...), I suspect the gays would be ok with that.
Are you ok with that?
As long as they don't call it marriage, should be ok right?
Fred,
You didn't actually argue any of my points, other than to call me an idiot for thinking them. How about some logic?
Go ahead. The author of the post cites an anti-gay marriage argument based on bearing children being a crucial part of marriage, but we allow plenty of marriages among people above child-rearing age, not to mention the importance and prevalence of adoption in this country.
So give me a logical argument, rather than calling me an idiot with no basis.
@anonymous read it again before you comment or you're also seriously at risk for idiocy.
@sid any two people can enter into a partnership of sorts. However, when you start bringing the state into the mixture for gays, why then shouldn't the state also recognize and reward all the other types of partnerships, like say between two good friends or brothers and sisters? The state recognizes the specials status of marriage and not, say, friendships precisely because it is special.
@hiddenbeforeyou I said you would be an idiot if you thought that way. That's my (logical) basis.
By the way, before you start harping on logic and arguments, know that you didn't proffer any arguments, just assertions. If marriage is defined as a specially recognized partnership between a man and a woman, then much as you despise the idea, the marriage between Hugh Hefner (a man, last I knew) and one of his despicable "girlfriends" (a woman) is legally sanctioned.
Something tells me you're unlikely to have read the paper, but nevertheless, the fact that marriages are recognized between potentially childless couples is indicative of how government works: they license everyone able to show they're capable of driving car, for example, knowing that a portion of those who are so licensed will drink and drive, killing others or will break the law in some other way deleterious to society.
In addition, childless couples are the exception rather than the rule. These relationships can also provide a mom and dad to adopted children and some of these even have children from previous marriages. Above all, childless natural marriages still affirm what is generally a procreative relationship.
"In addition, childless couples are the exception rather than the rule."
So would you be in favor of laws stopping post-menopausal women marrying?
"@anonymous read it again before you comment or you're also seriously at risk for idiocy."
I did read it carefully - and I've heard that argument many times before. Like I said, I think it's disengenuous. It's saying that all the rights are equal in a not particularly honest way.
"He has exactly the same rights as I do: he can marry a woman if he wants."
But you know that as a gay person, that right is of now use to him. To me that sounds VERY like saying 'Well the left-handed people have exactly the same access to right-handed equipment that the rest of us do, so they should quite complaining". That would be a disingenuous claim of equality.
Before 'Virginia vs Loving' people used to claim that people in mixed race relationships had the same rights as everybody else - they had the right to marry someone of their own race. This was a bad argument. Even if you agreed that black and white people shouldn't marry, it was still a bad argument.
And all this would be true regardless of whether you think gays should marry. If you think they shouldn't, go ahead and make the argument (I know you have done elsewhere). But claiming that they have equal rights is not in itself a good argument. I'm fine with someone arguing they should NOT have equal rights, but arguing they already do does not strike me as honest.
But same-sex couples are allowed to adopt, too, and in the cases of female same-sex couples, CAN conceive children through artificial insemination, which is totally legal.
So they can legally have children, but not marry?
In some states, same-sex couples may adopt, but the surveys are unequivocal about it: children thrive better with heterosexual couples.
The same thing holds for those who obtain their children through artificial means.
The point is that it has only been in the last few decades that secular society is radically changing what has worked for millions of years and the results are as expected.
You seem to be hung up on this idea of legality. Not everything that is legal is right. For a time, Germany's laws included anti-Jewish regulations. Law of the land, didn't make it right though, did it?
"surveys are unequivocal about it: children thrive better with heterosexual couples."
What surveys are you drawing in, Fred?
At the Prop 8 trial, Cambridge University developmental psychologist Michael Lamb testified that broad research documented that children of same-sex parents are just as likely as those of heterosexual parents to be well-adjusted.
From a later study:
"University of Virginia researchers Rachel Farr and Charlotte Patterson and George Washington University researcher Stephen Forssell studied children adopted at birth by 50 heterosexual couples and 56 homosexual couples and drew information on the preschoolers from a variety of adults. They discovered that homosexual families were just as adjusted as families with heterosexual parents."
Ah yes, lies, damned lies and statistics.
Anyway, I'll gather all this information and present them. This won't, of course, suddenly persuade you will it?
I'm going to assume not, or am I wrong? 4 out of 5 dentists agree with me.
@anonymous I didn't see your earlier post. I assume this is Andy, but I'll answer those when I get into work.
"This won't, of course, suddenly persuade you will it?"
Well, likewise in reverse, right?
I present evidence, you immediately assume they're wrong, and that you can find the evidence that says the opposite.
Andy, I'm sure you're quite a logical person. That's good. However, when you say you present evidence and that evidence are the results of a survey, I hope you know that's not evidence.
That's the problem with surveys: one has to ask what is meant by well-adjusted and how the questions were framed, what the sample size was, whether these so-called researchers had a truly random sampling, and whether the research participants were anonymous to prevent self-presentation bias. Obviously surveying homosexuals to ask whether they're good parents and if their children are well-adjusted will give you what? What are the presuppositions of those conducting the surveys?
Besides all the so-called evidence, just because something is popular doesn't say anything about its objective worth. 100% of male homosexuals will tell you that anal sex is "good and natural" What does this say, exactly, about the intrinsic good of it?
Sociology professors at USC, Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz report that "contrary to earlier assertions, children of same-sex parents exhibit significant [negative] differences when compared to children raised by heterosexual couples." David Murray of the Washington-based Statistical Assessment Service agrees that most of the research on homosexual parenting is politically contaminated. "We have allowed the politicization of this issue to erode our capacity to see clearly."
Here's a "scientific" paper that asks if homosexual parents pose risks to children: http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF08L45.pdf
Dr. Tim J. Dailey unloads on homosexual parenting, complete with tons of "studies" and surveys here: http://shakinandshinin.org/HomosexualParenting.html
David Blankenhorn, a life-long, pro-gay, liberal Democrat makes a powerful case against same-sex marriage in an entire book, The Future of Marriage, writing: "“Across history and cultures . . . marriage’s single most fundamental idea is that every child needs a mother and a father. Changing marriage to accommodate same-sex couples would nullify this principle in culture and in law."
Sociology is one of the puddin' head "sciences" which means there's almost nothing empirical about it. You point to this study or that study and I can point to others also undertaken by "scientists" that "prove" something contrary. People look at the same data and draw different conclusions based on philosophical presuppositions. This is not "evidence" for one thing or the other.
This is WHY I suspect we won't be convinced by these studies. We both instinctively know it's all BS and it boils down to other things not really subject to our opinions on studies or surveys.
However, that said, we do have something we can hang our hat on: for millennia, humanity has raised children in a certain type of environment. It has worked. It is natural. It is only in the smallest slice of human history imaginable that secular society is now attempting to radically change that tried and true methodology.
Ironically, people accept homosexuality for its "natural-ness" but reject other things that are also "natural".
Andy, I'm sure you're quite a logical person. That's good. However, when you say you present evidence and that evidence are the results of a survey, I hope you know that's not evidence.
That's the problem with surveys: one has to ask what is meant by well-adjusted and how the questions were framed, what the sample size was, whether these so-called researchers had a truly random sampling, and whether the research participants were anonymous to prevent self-presentation bias. Obviously surveying homosexuals to ask whether they're good parents and if their children are well-adjusted will give you what? What are the presuppositions of those conducting the surveys?
Besides all the so-called evidence, just because something is popular doesn't say anything about its objective worth. 100% of male homosexuals will tell you that anal sex is "good and natural" What does this say, exactly, about the intrinsic good of it?
Sociology professors at USC, Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz report that "contrary to earlier assertions, children of same-sex parents exhibit significant [negative] differences when compared to children raised by heterosexual couples." David Murray of the Washington-based Statistical Assessment Service agrees that most of the research on homosexual parenting is politically contaminated. "We have allowed the politicization of this issue to erode our capacity to see clearly."
Here's a paper that asks if homosexual parents pose risks to children: http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF08L45.pdf
Tim J. Dailey unloads on homosexual parenting, complete with tons of "studies" and surveys here: http://shakinandshinin.org/HomosexualParenting.html
David Blankenhorn, a life-long, pro-gay, liberal Democrat makes a powerful case against same-sex marriage in an entire book, The Future of Marriage, writing: "“Across history and cultures . . . marriage’s single most fundamental idea is that every child needs a mother and a father. Changing marriage to accommodate same-sex couples would nullify this principle in culture and in law."
Sociology is one of the puddin' head "sciences" which means there's almost nothing empirical about it. You point to this study or that study and I can point to others also undertaken by "scientists" that "prove" something contrary. People look at the same data and draw different conclusions based on philosophical presuppositions. This is not "evidence" for one thing or the other.
This is WHY I suspect we won't be convinced by these studies. We both instinctively know it's all BS and it boils down to other things not really subject to our opinions on studies or surveys.
However, that said, we do have something we can hang our hat on: for millennia, humanity has raised children in a certain type of environment. It has worked. It is natural. It is only in the smallest slice of human history imaginable that secular society is now attempting to radically change that tried and true methodology.
Ironically, people accept homosexuality for its "natural-ness" but reject other things that are also "natural".
"In addition, childless couples are the exception rather than the rule."
So would you be in favor of laws stopping post-menopausal women marrying?
[FW] I don't see how your question follows from my statement, but I've already addressed this in another comment anyway (the answer is, of course, no by the way).
"@anonymous read it again before you comment or you're also seriously at risk for idiocy."
I did read it carefully - and I've heard that argument many times before. Like I said, I think it's disengenuous. It's saying that all the rights are equal in a not particularly honest way.
"He has exactly the same rights as I do: he can marry a woman if he wants."
But you know that as a gay person, that right is of now use to him. To me that sounds VERY like saying 'Well the left-handed people have exactly the same access to right-handed equipment that the rest of us do, so they should quite complaining". That would be a disingenuous claim of equality.
[FW] This says nothing. I choose not to use many rights I have guaranteed by law. For example, in Idaho where I live, I can if I want carry a pistol in full view of everyone. I don't use that right--although I have.
Before 'Virginia vs Loving' people used to claim that people in mixed race relationships had the same rights as everybody else - they had the right to marry someone of their own race. This was a bad argument. Even if you agreed that black and white people shouldn't marry, it was still a bad argument.
[FW] As the offspring of a mixed-race marriage myself, I deplore those kinds of laws and of course, rejoice in their downfall as I do all bad laws. However, you're conflating some things here.
The comparison of homosexuality to race is completely invalid. Skin color is benign, but sexual behavior is
not. Furthermore, sexual behavior is always a choice; race never is. You will find many former homosexuals, but you will never find a former African-American.
Second, homosexuality is not an identity or class; it’s a behavior. Homosexuals are not a class of people any more than heterosexuals are a class of people. We are males and females, not gays and straights. In other words, we are males and females by anatomy, but gays and straights by behavior.
Why not classify people by their desires as homosexual activists demand? Because if we start to classify people by what they desire to do sexually, then why not give people with all sexual desires special marriage rights? On what grounds should we say that same-sex marriage is fine but not marriage involving polygamy, incest, or bestiality?
"Furthermore, sexual behavior is always a choice; race never is."
That's not the comparison I was making. I wasn't saying that being gay is like being Asian or African.
The 'behaviour' that the law was against was not 'being black' or 'being white'. It was 'Wanting to marry someone off a different race'. Being attracted to other races WAS seen as an aberrant 'sexual behaviour', and it's opponents would quote you stats to show you that it was dangerous and that mixed race kids were 'mixed up' in more ways that one.
Lies and damned lies again. If someone showed you stats that claimed that mixed race children thrive less well that average, what would you make of it? I'm not sure I'd see it as relevant to the rights of black and white people to marry.
At any rate, I think the comparison holds: Virginia vs Loving defenders claimed they were not discriminating against black people. They claimed that black people had exactly the same rights to marry they own race as everyone else. Was this a disingenuous claim? I'd say yes, independently of all my other objections to the law.
"For millennia, humanity has raised children in a certain type of environment. It has worked. It is natural."
Sure. To be honest, although you might not believe this, I'm not dogmatic on the rights and wrongs of gays raising kids. It's possibly true that two men raising a child isn't as good for the child and as a man and a woman. I see no theoretically reason why that couldn't possibly be true.
"100% of male homosexuals will tell you that anal sex is "good and natural" "
Just as a side point, as this doesn't actually affect the point you were making, gays I've known tell me this isn't actually true - quite a sizeable percentage of gay men don't like anal and don't do it.
"Ironically, people accept homosexuality for its "natural-ness" but reject other things that are also "natural"."
To clarify, I don't offer "It is natural" as a reason to accept homosexuality. Rather, I reject "It is not natural" as a reason against it.
Obviously I'd reject peadophillia as being acceptable, even if you could prove beyond doubt that it is 'natural'.
And I'd defend your right to eat whatever animal you want, even if someone could prove that it was a) not natural for us to eat it and
b) not good for your long-term health.
You sound very calm and gracious, Andy, something I respect regardless of your (wrong, as it happens) viewpoint.
So I'll let you have the last word. Thanks for commenting.
Wait, you're comparing anti-Jewish laws in Germany to pro-gay laws here? Guess how Hitler felt about the homosexuals of Germany.
And define "what has worked for millions of years," because marriage has only existed for a few thousand years and as far as we know, there has always been homosexuality in nature (we see it elsewhere in the animal kingdom and it certainly existed in ancient Greece). That kind of hyperbole could easily apply to slavery, civil rights, or believing the sun revolves around the Earth.
@hiddenbeforeyou Buddy, you *really* gotta put on your thinking hat--if you have one.
I call attention to those laws to prove that the legality of something doesn't necessarily presuppose its objective moral good.
I'm so sick of hearing people go on about how homosexuality in the Animal Kingdom means it's somehow normal and acceptable.
Animals kill and eat their own young. Should we? Male animals impregnate their own mothers, should we? Do you really want to get your ethics from animals? Come on!
Greeks, in addition to practicing butt sex, also practiced infanticide and wide-spread subjugation of women and other, so-called inferior ethnic groups.
Drop these bad mental habits--just because it's happened and accepted somewhere doesn't mean it's good.
Hi Fred. Thanks for your last post - very kind. In return, I'll say that I admire your work ethic in producing so many blog posts, all well thought out and interesting.
However...
Fred: "For millennia, humanity has raised children in a certain type of environment. It has worked. It is natural."
Fred: "Drop these bad mental habits--just because it's happened and accepted somewhere doesn't mean it's good."
Fred, aren't you making the same argument in the first sentence that you decry in the second?
Either you can make appeals to tradition and naturalness, or you can reject arguments from tradition and naturalness. You appear to be doing both when it suits your argument.
Hidden only pointed out that homosexuality is natural in the animal kingdom and was accepted and traditional in ancient Greece because YOU made the appeal to nature and tradition. It's a bit rich to then accuse him of bad mental habits merely for pointing out the natural consequence of your own argument.
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