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09/27/2010
No, Heck: We won't say 'I do' to your silly straw men
Conservative columnist Peter Heck on what gays would supposedly do are supposedly already doing to civil marriage:
The moment homosexual activists define marriage (in other words, place parameters defining what constitutes marriage and what does not), they would be guilty of the very act of moral exclusion they condemn in others.
For instance, if they seek to redefine marriage to mean the union of two human beings (regardless of gender), they have excluded from their definition those whose preferred sexual expression is polyamory or polygamy. At that point, the very arguments they have leveled against proponents of "traditional marriage" get turned around on them. They become the bigots, the haters, the narrow-minded. Therefore, they will offer no new definition for marriage...thus "un-defining" it.
But un-defining the nucleus of the family is tantamount to saying the family is insignificant and unimportant in the preservation of society. Reason and experience both tell us otherwise.
Glenn Beck's marriage mistake [ONN]
Comments that are only in the ballpark of reasonable debate for those who reject the reality of homosexuality or bisexuality: Orientations that exist along the same spectrum of normalcy as heterosexuality. Because if one does see sexuality the way that, oh, say, all of credible science does, then he or she will realize that removing the barriers that limit the two-person marriage system that our civil government confers upon citizens simply opens up that system -- the SAME system -- to the full set of qualified duos! No change needed: The current marriage system will "I do" quite nicely, thank you very much!
This is what makes the conservatives' polygamy, incest, bestiality, pedophilia, or toaster-snogging arguments all the more annoying. Because in truth, all of these ideas have the theoretical potential to apply to marriage not because all LGB citizens might someday qualify for the two-person civil system without hesitation or qualifiers, but rather because *ANY* person of *ANY* sexual orientation qualifies for it! More than two people? One party that's not human? A marital partner that can warm one's ring finger and bread? As long as the system exists, and as long as there are human ideas that include any of the "slippery slope" notions that the conservatives love so much, then there is the potential for someone to plead his or her truly marriage-redefining case before courts of law and/or public opinion. But same-sex marriage will not embolden these arguments in any way beyond points about legislating morality (which again, are points that would come up even if Bob and Steve never even considered invitation patterns). The slope exists because MARRIAGE ITSELF exists -- and it is only as slick or compelling as the interested parties' individual cases!
The major problem of the current "culture war" marriage conversation (and the primary reason why it is still a conversation at all) is because of the socially conservative movement's constant, selfish desire to throw mud into the waters of discourse. Gays are asked to answer for things that they've never desired, respond to charges that have nothing to do with their lives, counter challenges that have zero relevancy, and slay bogeymen that the "pro-family" crowd purposely and indefatigably placed in same-sex couples' bedrooms for the purposes of scaring the public. It doesn't make any LGBT activist a narrow-minded bigot to refuse to take on these wholly separate fights, as Mr. Heck asserts. But it does make the "pro-traditional marriage" crowd incredibly childish to ask their opposition to do so.
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