I watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's rally yesterday and enjoyed it a great deal. My favorite part was Stewart's castigating liberals for calling people bigots at every opportunity. A lot less finger-pointing and a lot more data would be helpful.
A recent case in point is gay marriage. I see that it has become a mantra among liberals that people who oppose gay marriage do so out of hate. The fact is that many Americans look to their religions for direction on moral issues, so when you call them haters, you are saying that their church is a hate factory. You are saying that their faith creates panting beasts of hate. The problem is that for religious people their churches are among the most cherished things in their lives. People love their church like they love their children, like they love their parents. Calling their religious beliefs hate is like your mother being called evil. How are you going to react if every time the subject of your mother comes up, some person goes on about what a whore she is? Chances are, you'll start to hate that person.
Are gun owners mentally ill?
Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...
Non-religious people see it like a child who throws a tantrum when they're told their imaginary friend is a meany.
ReplyDeleteThe point is that there is no rational basis for gay marriage, so the only thing left is the ad hominem attack on those who oppose it. Gay marriage serves no socially necessary function and requires that others in society underwrite it with numerous privileges that do not in turn serve the good of the community at large.
ReplyDeleteGay marriage utterly lacks the requisite utility necessary for public support. Therefore they must appeal to liberal secular religion to support it. Gay marriage is not rational or useful to society. So, they irrationally label reasonable people as "meanies" for rejecting their imaginary rights to claim access to other people's money.
Liberals are a couple eggrolls short of the combo platter on utility theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism
Ummmm....It's not just being meanies towards gays. I'm not singling out one particular group, but there's also:
ReplyDelete-Hostility against science.
-There's a positive correlation between religiosity and racism (you can check this on GSS and world values surveys)
-The belief of virtually ALL religious groups that their way is the only one true path.
"-Hostility against science."
ReplyDeleteHow about feminist hostility to science when science doesn't support their positions?
Feminism vs. Science
Liberals believe they have the one true path and all others are wrong. So, what is the difference?
"-There's a positive correlation between religiosity and racism"
Uh, huh. Is that racism as in wanting to remove other races from their countries or is it just honest acknowledgement of differences in behaviors exhibited by members of different races?
Link didn't work
ReplyDeleteFeminist reasoning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3eUVjnhs1c
All of these arguments are ad hominem.
ReplyDeleteIs someone wrong because they are ______?
Or do the actual implications of the policies they advocate matter?
We should discuss the value of the actual policy, not people's religion, lack of religion, and positions on other issues. It doesn't matter if the person is ugly, mean, poor and stupid. All that matters is whether the policy is effective and helpful. We can't vote to get rid of or require religion. We can vote on policies. So, we need to consider the policies.
"-There's a positive correlation between religiosity and racism"
ReplyDeleteUh, huh. Is that racism as in wanting to remove other races from their countries or is it just honest acknowledgement of differences in behaviors exhibited by members of different races?
Nope. Racism as in not wanting a different looking neighbor, or opposition of a relative marrying a member of a certain race or ethnicity. I never mentioned borders.
I know plenty of non church-goers, basically secularists, who believe that widening the definition of marriage is iffy-enough for society that they voted "yes" on Prop 8 in CA--ie, they voted that marriage be defined as a union between one man, one woman.
ReplyDeleteThese are people with gay friends and co-workers. They express concerns that if courts define marriage, it will extend next to polygamy. In fact, many people pointed out the possible financial benefits to society of polygamy (for example, a rich alpha male could support several women and children, reducing welfare costs to the state) but even that positive was offset with other arguments.
It's very easy for most of us to say, since we have gay friends, hey, yeah, why not? But I think many people, even those who aren't religious, realize that when you fiddle with an age-old institution that has given society much more good than bad, you are inviting
unintended consequences.
My basic point--at least here in CA, it isn't just the religious who have reservations about gay marriage. Add to that the fact that we have civil unions here in CA, and many people believed, "Why 'marriage'?"
Heterosexual marriage is in terminal decline.
ReplyDeleteExtrapolate the trend in the above link.
By the 2030s, it's possible that marriage will be solely the domain of homosexuals.
Any heterosexual marriages would then be seen as quaint aberrations, "cute" to a certain kind of sensibility -- as Gay Marriages are now.
"These are people with gay friends and co-workers. They express concerns that if courts define marriage, it will extend next to polygamy."
ReplyDeleteGee, the Mormons are the only naturally growing white group in the USA. If some creepy back woods sect of Mormons won a court case in favor of polygamy, how long would it take for regular Mormons to jump on the bandwagon?
So, the question is who really believes in selection and biological fitness? Not just some abstract lip service about believing in science and evolution.
I'd think polygamy would be attractive to many people other than Mormons.
ReplyDeleteSome kinds of women, particularly the young (and come to think of it, the very old) put a premium on being taken care of economically and wouldn't mind sharing a husband. Men like having multiple sexual partners.
With marriage being re-defined, I would expect that w/in a few decades, you'd see a rise in polygamy that would dwarf gay marriages.
we think that gay people have to be a right of marriage.
ReplyDeleteWith marriage being re-defined, I would expect that w/in a few decades, you'd see a rise in polygamy that would dwarf gay marriages.
ReplyDeletePersons of northern-European stock (outside Utah) have never had a tradition of polygamy. Not in recent times, not in ancient times. [See Tacitus].
People don't easily change tens of millennia of evolution-ingrained behavior.
So unless we are racially-replaced by Middle-Easterners or something at a much more rapid pace, it will not happen.
"So unless we are racially-replaced by Middle-Easterners or something at a much more rapid pace, it will not happen."
ReplyDeleteYou have a good point about cultural traditions--which is why the animus toward gay marriage, btw.
However, if the United States continues to have economic problems, polygamy might be looked upon differently little by little.
Surely, there is as much that can be said in its favor as there is to be said in the favor of gay marriage, although that may not be saying much.
While we are speculating:
ReplyDeleteCloning or GM-cloning are other game-changers. How would those change social order re marriage etc.?