Sunday, January 27, 2013

Gay marriage opponents get desperate

You can't make this stuff up.  Opponents of gay marriage are now arguing that marriage should be limited to unions of a man and a woman because they alone can "produce unplanned and unintended offspring."

This sounds like good news to me because it makes it clear that gay marriage opponents have completely run out of even remotely plausible sounding arguments and are starting to get desperate.

Here are a few more choice quotes from the article:
Conservative attorneys did not argue that gays or lesbians engaged in "immoral" behavior or lifestyles. Instead they emphasized what they called the "very real threat" to society posed by opposite-sex couples when they are not bound by the strictures of marriage.
The traditional marriage laws "reflect a unique social difficulty with opposite-sex couples that is not present with same-sex couples — namely, the undeniable and distinct tendency of opposite-sex relationships to produce unplanned and unintended pregnancies," wrote [Paul D.] Clement, a solicitor general under President George W. Bush. "Unintended children produced by opposite-sex relationships and raised out-of-wedlock would pose a burden on society."
"It is plainly reasonable for California to maintain a unique institution [referring to marriage] to address the unique challenges posed by the unique procreative potential of sexual relationships between men and women," argued Washington attorney Charles J. Cooper, representing the defenders of Proposition 8. Same-sex couples need not be included in the definition of marriage, he said, because they "don't present a threat of irresponsible procreation." 
Like I said, you can't make this shit up.

I feel as if I'd be insulting your intelligence by pointing out what is wrong with this argument, but just in case it's not obvious, this argument runs afoul of the same logical flaw that affect all arguments against gay marriage based on procreation, namely, that any such argument necessarily applies equally well to sterile heterosexual couples.  If I've had a vasectomy then I too, even as a heterosexual male, cannot produce an unplanned pregnancy.  Does that mean that I should not be allowed to get married?

If marriage has anything to do with procreation at all, it is not about making children, it's about raising them.  That's the part that requires a long-term commitment (duh!), and gay couples are every bit as capable of raising a child as straight ones (and based on my personal experience, maybe more so).

I just hope that the Justices see this argument for the farce that it is.  I am not optimistic.

2 comments:

Jayden Hutchinson said...

Why don't they just leave them alone? Everybody has the chance to be happy. They are just ranting, they would make irrelevant statements just to stop the legal process. Desperate is the appropriate term to describe them.

Unknown said...

Marriage Equality Is a Conservative Cause