Knowing the enemy

[kengr]

From a comment on tumblr:

A lot of people are saying that Gays being aloud to marry will cause people to marry animals and objects. Well they already do that !

No, it's not that they think allowing gay marriage (actually, allowing legal recognition of such, I first attended a gay marriage ceremony in the 70s!) will *cause* people to marry animals/objects/etc.

It's that they think gays marrying is *morally equivalent* to those other things. And thus, if we give legal recognition of same sex marriages, we'd not be able to deny legal recognition to the others.

It's an important point, because it makes a *huge* difference in the arguments that you can *try* to change their minds with. It also avoids you looking "stupid" to these folks by arguing against a stand they don't have.

Comments

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I can think of a simple phrase that would put paid to that lunacy.

"Mutual consent."

If it isn't part of the legal definition of marriage, it should be. Heck, let's go crazy and add "uncoerced" just to make sure.

The idea being that since animals and objects can not consent to marriage, nobody can marry them. "Uncoerced" means that I can't force somebody to marry me with a shotgun. All that would be necessary to finish it off is something that makes it clear that parents can't marry their child off, although I'd allow for something that translated as, "you get first chance when he turns eighteen."

[kengr]

Well another argument you hear (which the commenter either was unaware of or didn't bring up) is polygamy.

Of course, I'm one of the folks who thinks forcing the Mormons to give it up was wrong (not that there weren't problems with the way they did (and some still *do*) do it, but the basic concept isn't wrong.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Again, it's a consent problem. I'm not sure the word "mutual" covers more than two people in a legal sense, but there has to be some word that does cover it.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that many anti-gay-marriage folks really don't want biblical style marriages made legal here; for whatever their reasons they don't want to see legal polygamy in the modern world.

Which is fine with me; they're entitled to their own opinions. But I think people using the phrase 'biblical marriage' should read the Bible and find out what it actually says about marriage.

[kengr]

I'm pretty sure that you are at least as well inforemed as I am regarding the Reformation and the things Martin Luther and others were objecting to in the Catholic Church's practices.

One was that people were discouraged (strongly) from reading the Bible on their own and drawing their own conclusions from it. That was something that only "trained professionals were supposed to do. Because you might get "confused" (and start thinking you knew better than your priest).

Well, guess what a major "tenet" of most of the bad kind of fundie churches is...

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

"Mutual, un-coerced consent." I like that.