Ranting is good for the soul.
Since the issue is on-going and personal, and the stupidity of various arguments was hurting my head, I decided to write out a comprehensive guide on the issue of gay marriage in order to avoid having a stroke. You will find it below; enjoy.
WHY PEOPLE AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE ARE TOTALLY FUCKING STUPID
ARGUMENT: Marriage is about family! The traditional family is best!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Marriage is about two people entering into a legal contract with the government so that they are afforded thousands of rights not afforded by anything else. There’s no clause stipulating you have to procreate. Haven’t you heard of married people who are childless, either by choice or lack of fertility?
Also, there is absolutely no proof whatsoever to suggest that children do not fare just as well in loving families with two dads or two moms as they do in loving families with a mom and a dad. If you’re going to say something that so preposterously begs the question, don’t even try. Logical fallacies are fallacies for a reason.
ARGUMENT: The Bible says it’s wrong!
WHY IT IS STUPID: First and foremost, we don’t live a theocracy. I don’t give a flying fuck what the Bible says, and the law shouldn’t either. Marriage is not about religion. Straight atheists, quite shockingly, get married all the damn time.
Second, well, no. The Bible says nothing about gay marriage specifically. It has a few things to say about homosexuality, but that’s either in the Old Testament or by Paul, who was also pro-slavery and anti-woman. His thoughts are limited to his time period only, I’m sorry to say. As for Jesus, well, if this is as huge an issue as you seem to think, why didn’t he mention it? At all? Not once? I find that peculiar.
ARGUMENT: They have the same right to marry someone of the opposite sex as anyone else!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Are you fucking kidding me? Does this one really need to be explained? Someone can actually say this and not immediately want to smack themselves upside the head and go, "I'm a complete moron!"? Okay, fine.
Let’s say you’re allergic to beef burgers, and want a veggie burger instead. Unfortunately, the law says that you are not allowed to have a veggie burger; the beef burger is your only option. Do you not see how monumentally stupid it is for someone to go, “Hey, you have the right to eat that beef burger like anyone else! It’s equal!” despite the fact that you have no desire to eat the beef burger because you’re allergic and if you do, you will become violently ill?
It’s just as fucking stupid to go, “Hey, you totally have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex like anyone else! It’s equal!” to a gay person. They have no desire to marry someone of the opposite sex because they’re not attracted to them, and if they do decide to go with that option, both individuals involved will be fucking miserable. How is that hard to grasp?
Trying to pretend the law doesn’t effectively prohibit gay people from marrying because it doesn’t explicitly say “no gay person can be married” is just purposely obtuse. The intent of the law is obviously meant to keep gay people from being married, and intent of the law matters.
ARGUMENT: It isn’t an issue of equality! It’s about redefining the term marriage and the restrictions that apply!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Nice red herring! You’re clever, because you know you have absolutely no chance of winning this argument if we talk about it in the context of equality and civil liberties. A+ for effort.
We do not live in a vacuum. You can go on about the term ‘marriage’ like you’re writing a term paper all you want-have fun. That doesn’t change the fact that this issue affects real people with real feelings and is very much a matter of equality. But to play your game for a second: marriage has been redefined countless times since it was created, and if you’re a true traditionalist, you’re not only anti-gay marriage but anti-miscegenation and anti-women-being-more-than-chattel. Things evolve with the times, marriage included. Get the fuck over it. Gay marriage infringes on no one’s rights. It harms no one. There is no logical reason to prevent it, like there is for pedophilia or incest. If you can’t see that, you’re not only a bigot but a giant fucking moron.
ARGUMENT: Marriage being between one man and one woman is tradition!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Dude, look up one argument. Traditions evolve with the times, marriage included. It is very well not traditionally one-man-one-woman, anyway. Besides, something just being a tradition is not a viable excuse to keep it around. Slavery was a tradition. Torture is a tradition. Beating your wife was a tradition. Tradition can really suck balls, don’t you think?
ARGUMENT: It will lead to legalized incest and pedophilia or people marrying their cats!
WHY IT IS STUPID: This, boys and girls, is called “the slippery slope fallacy.” By taking some unrelated things and pretending they are related to another thing, we can predict certain doom will occur if said unrelated thing is allowed, hoping that no one will notice that our other examples are total fucking bullshit.
Sorry, I noticed. You fail at life and logic.
For the slow ones, though: Homosexuality =/= pedophilia, bestiality, or incest. Incest leads to known health defects in children, and is in nearly every case a matter of some sort of abuse. Pedophilia is a crime because children do not have the capacity or legal authority to consent, and then there are all the known emotional, mental, and physical detriments that result from it. Animals also do not have the legal authority to consent. Since Person A’s rights (the right to marry) cannot infringe on Person B’s (the right to be free from harm), it is therefore logical to conclude that these things are illegal for a reason, and will stay that way. This is basic.
ARGUMENT: It’s not at all like the civil rights movement!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Why is that? Please don’t try to say it’s because you choose to be gay. That will just make you look like a huge dumbass.
You can’t, by the way. Sexuality is not a choice. Get over it.
This is the case of a minority group looking to establish equal rights. That's all. They want to be able to get married and adopt kids without being derided for being immoral or wrong or insane. I’d say it sounds a lot like the civil rights movement, wouldn’t you?
ARGUMENT: The courts shouldn’t decide it! It should be up to the people!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Oh, yeah, the majority deciding the rights of a minority. That always works out so well.
Also, did you just sail in from the year 1700? Did you skip every single day of history class? I can only assume that you are either a transplant in time from before the United States was established or you never made it past second grade and have lived in an underground bunker ever since.
The courts have always played a huge role in granting equality. Brown v. Board of Education, or Loving v. Virginia, anyone? I don’t think there are many people (who are taken seriously) who would begin to decry those cases as judicial activism. The courts are part of how we do things here; it’s not some new, untested phenomenon. It’s been the case since we opened for business, for fuck’s sake! What is with all this convenient amnesia every time we want to deny a group of people the rights they deserve? Seriously, that BS belongs in shitty movies, not reality.
ARGUMENT: Some other BS not addressed here.
WHY IT IS STUPID: It’s bigoted, plain and simple. You can delude yourself to that fact all you want, but it’s the truth. It’s also entirely possible that your stubborn refusal to see gays and lesbians as human beings deserving of being treated equally and not like second-class citizens is very hurtful to someone you hold dear. They’re our friends, family members, acquaintances, and neighbors. You may think you don’t know any gay people, but I’ll bet you $100 that you’re completely wrong. Moreover, I’ll bet you another $50 that at least one of those people is someone you love and care for.
Welcome to the twenty-first century. It’s a scary place, I know, but once you shake the prejudices of past generations off your shoulders, I think you’ll find it’s actually a pretty comfortable place to be.
I feel a little better now.
WHY PEOPLE AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE ARE TOTALLY FUCKING STUPID
ARGUMENT: Marriage is about family! The traditional family is best!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Marriage is about two people entering into a legal contract with the government so that they are afforded thousands of rights not afforded by anything else. There’s no clause stipulating you have to procreate. Haven’t you heard of married people who are childless, either by choice or lack of fertility?
Also, there is absolutely no proof whatsoever to suggest that children do not fare just as well in loving families with two dads or two moms as they do in loving families with a mom and a dad. If you’re going to say something that so preposterously begs the question, don’t even try. Logical fallacies are fallacies for a reason.
ARGUMENT: The Bible says it’s wrong!
WHY IT IS STUPID: First and foremost, we don’t live a theocracy. I don’t give a flying fuck what the Bible says, and the law shouldn’t either. Marriage is not about religion. Straight atheists, quite shockingly, get married all the damn time.
Second, well, no. The Bible says nothing about gay marriage specifically. It has a few things to say about homosexuality, but that’s either in the Old Testament or by Paul, who was also pro-slavery and anti-woman. His thoughts are limited to his time period only, I’m sorry to say. As for Jesus, well, if this is as huge an issue as you seem to think, why didn’t he mention it? At all? Not once? I find that peculiar.
ARGUMENT: They have the same right to marry someone of the opposite sex as anyone else!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Are you fucking kidding me? Does this one really need to be explained? Someone can actually say this and not immediately want to smack themselves upside the head and go, "I'm a complete moron!"? Okay, fine.
Let’s say you’re allergic to beef burgers, and want a veggie burger instead. Unfortunately, the law says that you are not allowed to have a veggie burger; the beef burger is your only option. Do you not see how monumentally stupid it is for someone to go, “Hey, you have the right to eat that beef burger like anyone else! It’s equal!” despite the fact that you have no desire to eat the beef burger because you’re allergic and if you do, you will become violently ill?
It’s just as fucking stupid to go, “Hey, you totally have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex like anyone else! It’s equal!” to a gay person. They have no desire to marry someone of the opposite sex because they’re not attracted to them, and if they do decide to go with that option, both individuals involved will be fucking miserable. How is that hard to grasp?
Trying to pretend the law doesn’t effectively prohibit gay people from marrying because it doesn’t explicitly say “no gay person can be married” is just purposely obtuse. The intent of the law is obviously meant to keep gay people from being married, and intent of the law matters.
ARGUMENT: It isn’t an issue of equality! It’s about redefining the term marriage and the restrictions that apply!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Nice red herring! You’re clever, because you know you have absolutely no chance of winning this argument if we talk about it in the context of equality and civil liberties. A+ for effort.
We do not live in a vacuum. You can go on about the term ‘marriage’ like you’re writing a term paper all you want-have fun. That doesn’t change the fact that this issue affects real people with real feelings and is very much a matter of equality. But to play your game for a second: marriage has been redefined countless times since it was created, and if you’re a true traditionalist, you’re not only anti-gay marriage but anti-miscegenation and anti-women-being-more-than-chattel. Things evolve with the times, marriage included. Get the fuck over it. Gay marriage infringes on no one’s rights. It harms no one. There is no logical reason to prevent it, like there is for pedophilia or incest. If you can’t see that, you’re not only a bigot but a giant fucking moron.
ARGUMENT: Marriage being between one man and one woman is tradition!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Dude, look up one argument. Traditions evolve with the times, marriage included. It is very well not traditionally one-man-one-woman, anyway. Besides, something just being a tradition is not a viable excuse to keep it around. Slavery was a tradition. Torture is a tradition. Beating your wife was a tradition. Tradition can really suck balls, don’t you think?
ARGUMENT: It will lead to legalized incest and pedophilia or people marrying their cats!
WHY IT IS STUPID: This, boys and girls, is called “the slippery slope fallacy.” By taking some unrelated things and pretending they are related to another thing, we can predict certain doom will occur if said unrelated thing is allowed, hoping that no one will notice that our other examples are total fucking bullshit.
Sorry, I noticed. You fail at life and logic.
For the slow ones, though: Homosexuality =/= pedophilia, bestiality, or incest. Incest leads to known health defects in children, and is in nearly every case a matter of some sort of abuse. Pedophilia is a crime because children do not have the capacity or legal authority to consent, and then there are all the known emotional, mental, and physical detriments that result from it. Animals also do not have the legal authority to consent. Since Person A’s rights (the right to marry) cannot infringe on Person B’s (the right to be free from harm), it is therefore logical to conclude that these things are illegal for a reason, and will stay that way. This is basic.
ARGUMENT: It’s not at all like the civil rights movement!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Why is that? Please don’t try to say it’s because you choose to be gay. That will just make you look like a huge dumbass.
You can’t, by the way. Sexuality is not a choice. Get over it.
This is the case of a minority group looking to establish equal rights. That's all. They want to be able to get married and adopt kids without being derided for being immoral or wrong or insane. I’d say it sounds a lot like the civil rights movement, wouldn’t you?
ARGUMENT: The courts shouldn’t decide it! It should be up to the people!
WHY IT IS STUPID: Oh, yeah, the majority deciding the rights of a minority. That always works out so well.
Also, did you just sail in from the year 1700? Did you skip every single day of history class? I can only assume that you are either a transplant in time from before the United States was established or you never made it past second grade and have lived in an underground bunker ever since.
The courts have always played a huge role in granting equality. Brown v. Board of Education, or Loving v. Virginia, anyone? I don’t think there are many people (who are taken seriously) who would begin to decry those cases as judicial activism. The courts are part of how we do things here; it’s not some new, untested phenomenon. It’s been the case since we opened for business, for fuck’s sake! What is with all this convenient amnesia every time we want to deny a group of people the rights they deserve? Seriously, that BS belongs in shitty movies, not reality.
ARGUMENT: Some other BS not addressed here.
WHY IT IS STUPID: It’s bigoted, plain and simple. You can delude yourself to that fact all you want, but it’s the truth. It’s also entirely possible that your stubborn refusal to see gays and lesbians as human beings deserving of being treated equally and not like second-class citizens is very hurtful to someone you hold dear. They’re our friends, family members, acquaintances, and neighbors. You may think you don’t know any gay people, but I’ll bet you $100 that you’re completely wrong. Moreover, I’ll bet you another $50 that at least one of those people is someone you love and care for.
Welcome to the twenty-first century. It’s a scary place, I know, but once you shake the prejudices of past generations off your shoulders, I think you’ll find it’s actually a pretty comfortable place to be.
I feel a little better now.