A Lesson for Rick Santorum
Via Salon:
What would you do, the female student asked Santorum, if you found out that your child was gay? “I got that question the other night at the debate,” Santorum replied. “And it’s funny — I think I get that question more than most candidates. I haven’t heard anybody getting that."No, it's not a bit funny. The reason Santorum is asked that question so much and other candidates aren't is obviously because he is more vocal with his discrimination against homosexuals. And yes, it is discrimination whether he wants to admit it or not. Dictionary.com lists this definition of the word discrimination, from the Random House Dictionary:
treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
I challenge Rick Santorum and anyone else who opposes same-sex marriage to explain how their position is not discrimination according to the definition above. That definition describes their position quite accurately, I think. As well as opposition to homosexuals in the military, opposition to child adoption by same-sex couples, and other anti-homosexual positions commonly seen among conservatives.
The fact that Santorum is getting confronted so often about this issue is a good thing. It shows that, at least in New Hampshire, a number young people are not going to tolerate discrimination from their elected officials. Of course, that attitude, to Santorum, is discrimination. From the article linked above:
“Now, I get a kick out of this,” he said, “because I’m told all the time: ‘Santorum, quit trying to impose your ideas on everybody else. Quit trying to impose your morality on everybody else.’ But what’s that? Is that not trying to impose their morality on everybody else?”
People like Santorum seem incapable of understanding what "imposing morality" really means. Time and again, when conservatives are confronted over their will to institute discriminatory laws, they turn the tables and cry that they are the ones being discriminated against. The thing that frustrates me the most is that it's so simple, a child should be able to figure it out.
Allowing same-sex couples to marry harms no one. I mean it. No one! There are homosexuals all over the world living together, sleeping together, loving together and doing everything that same-sex couples do. Allowing those couples to marry does not, in any way, affect the lives of those who oppose same-sex marriage. They will still be just as ignorant of those couples, and as ignorant of reality, as they have always been.
On the other hand, a law that prohibits same-sex couples from marrying does harm someone. It harms every same-sex couple who only want to have the same rights that heterosexual couples have. It denies them the legal benefits that accompany marriage. It denies them the right to sit in a hospital, at the bedside of the one they love, in situations when only immediate family members are allowed in the room. Need I go on? Because there is actual harm, because someone's rights are actually restricted, any kind of vote to prohibit same-sex marriage is an imposition of morality.
Rick Santorum is free to hate homosexuality for any reason he wants, be they religious or otherwise. But he, and people like him, should never be allowed to deny any segment of the population the same rights the rest of the population enjoy. Working to prevent them from doing so is not an imposition of morality. It is a defense of human rights.
“I challenge Rick Santorum and anyone else who opposes same-sex marriage to explain how their position is not discrimination according to the definition above.”
Well I would, except your mind is concluded, so no matter what I said, you’d just sa–
“WRONG!!!”
–yeah, that. Very thoughtful, Lex Luthor.
The rest of your entry backs up my statement. Apparently, it’s only discrimination when Republicans do it, or when white people do it, or when straight or religious people do it.
I do have a very thorough explanation for why current views on sexuality are foolish. I would tend to argue that trying to force your opinions on someone else, regardless of what they are, is an imposition of morality, and I can give a perfectly valid explanation as to why laws prohibiting same-sex marriage are not discriminatory, but laws allowing them are. I won’t waste my time, however, as you wouldn’t listen.
If I am wrong, and you are willing to listen to my opinions, openly and attempting not to discriminate due to their source, please ask and I will happily outline them for you. I’m going to discriminate against you a bit, however, and sincerely doubt that you have an open-enough mind.
You probably won’t change my mind. But I’m always open to new arguments. When I disagree, I’ll do more that just say you’re wrong. I’ll explain why, just as I did in this post.
Conservatives frequently try to implement laws that inhibit other people’s rights. My position is that when one group actively suppresses the rights of another, that is discrimination. Legalized same-sex marriage in no way, shape or form suppresses the rights of those who oppose it, so is not discrimination.
Believing a viewpoint is foolish is no justification for discriminating against any particular group.
Expressing opinions and implementing laws are two very different things. It’s impossible to “force an opinion” on anyone or impose morality just by speaking. You are free to express an opinion, but everyone else is free to ignore it or disagree. However, once that opinion is codified as law it leaves the realm of mere speech. And if that law prohibits the rights of a group of people based on the morality of another group of people, then it becomes an imposition of morality.
Rick Santorum can talk all he likes about how same-sex marriage is evil. It’s his right. But by working to implement laws prohibiting it, he is practicing discrimination.
Please, do go ahead and tell me. I’m curious. I’m always ready to hear any arguments against my positions. I don’t promise that you’ll convince me of anything, but I’m always ready to listen and tell you why I disagree.
And for the record, it’s impossible for you to discriminate against me. You can insult me, or say things I might not like, but you can’t suppress my rights by posting a comment on the blog. Let’s make sure we are at least working from the same definition of discrimination.
Interesting. I checked the “Notify me of follow-up comments” box, but never got a notification.
Legalizing same-sex marriage may or may not harm those who oppose it, but it does discriminate against several other demographics, including pedophiles, necrophiles, and furries. I don’t see any way to support gay marriage without also supporting marriage between a man and a young girl(or boy), a man and a corpse, or a man and his dog. Furthermore, supporters of gay marriage claim that you should be able to marry who you love. If that’s the case, I have a thing or two to object to myself. The person you love may be already married to another person, may be of an age that society frowns upon, or they may, as is the most common case, simply be uninterested. If you want to support my ability to marry someone just because I’m in love with them, then you should support my right to marry a girl even if she loathes my very existence. You want equality? Homosexuals have always been allowed to marry someone of the opposite sex, just like anyone else. Whether they like each other or not. Go ahead and have sex with whoever you want, regardless. People always have.
As for sexuality, the idea that humans are “straight” or “homosexual” is an outmoded perspective which is, ultimately, the the root cause of nearly all disagreements and misunderstandings of gay rights. There is no “sexuality,” no “sexual orientation.” They’re fetishes, pure and simple.
Some men are attracted to women with large breasts. Some men are attracted to women with small breasts. Some men are attracted to women who are married to other men, some men are attracted to blondes, redheads, women who haven’t begun the pubescent stage of their lifecycle, some men are attracted to women who are deceased and rotting, some men are attracted to women who have paws and a tail and are covered in fur. Some men are attracted to other men.
Somehow it’s still considered “acceptable” to say that all furries should die in a fire, but if you think homosexuality is anything less than the wave of the future, you’re automatically labeled the worst kind of evil bigot. I find this laughable when the two are basically the same thing.
Historically, marriage has been a religious construct, and used to arrange political alliances. The two people getting married rarely had a say in it until the excesses of the modern era. In many places in the world, the woman still has no say in which man becomes her husband, and they have sex when he wants to, whether she’s interested or not. She can be killed for refusing. In short, marriage has never been about “who you love.”
Marriage is one man and one woman. It is a construct which the modern US government pays entirely too much attention to, particularly given it is, as before, a religious construct, meaning the government trying to regulate it is a gross violation of separation of church and state.
My proposal: eradicate any sort of governmental recognition of marriage, leave it as the religious ceremony it was always supposed to be, and if two men are in love with each other, let them fornicate all they want. Straight people do it all the time.
This is the classic slippery slope fallacy. It’s a kind of argument that can be applied to any debate position you could take, which makes it utterly pointless. For example:
Allowing people to own guns will lead to people owning tanks!
Because alcohol is legal, it will eventually be legal to snort cocaine!
It can go the other way, too:
Prohibiting same-sex marriage will lead to the prohibition of interracial marriage!
Prohibiting same-sex marriage will lead to the prohibition of international marriage!
How about this one: We should make marriage illegal because now people want to legalize same-sex marriage!
And on and on. The particular scenarios you cite are commonly argued from the right in debates on gay marriage. All across the internet, the reasons why those arguments are nonsense have been laid out by countless bloggers and columnists. One reason is the fallacy I mention above (applicable to any argument). But I’ll relate a couple of additional points here.
First, we are talking about adults who the law determines meet the criteria for legal consent. Children, dead people and animals (and though you do not mention them, certain classes of the handicapped) are not qualified for legal consent. The debate about same-sex marriage is not about allowing one person to marry another without their legal consent, but allowing legally consenting adults to marry regardless of their sex. Very, very different issues.
Second, what may or may not tangentially arise in the future is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. Pedophiliac, necrophiliac and bestial marriage have absolutely no relation at all to same-sex marriage. They are completely separate issues that do not rely on the legality of same-sex marriage. One can quite easily advocate for any of them right now (and I’m sure that people are). Legal issues should be debated on their own merits.
The slippery slope argument is an easy one to make. It’s also an indicator that there aren’t any good reasons for opposition. Same-sex marriage is about the legal rights of two consenting adults. What are valid reasons for opposing that?
A fetish is not a fundamental characteristic of sexual behavior — it’s an enhancement of sexual pleasure. A man who has a fetish for big breasts will derive more pleasure when having intercourse with big-breasted women, but that doesn’t mean he will exclude sex with small-breasted women. The same can be said of any fetish. Heterosexuals, however, are not generally attracted to the same sex. Homosexuals are not generally attracted to the opposite sex. Both groups have intercourse with the sex they are attracted to at the exclusion of the other. That is very, very different from a fetish.
If homosexuality really were a fetish, I think that would be an argument for same-sex marriage. After all, we don’t currently prohibit men from marrying large-breasted women.
I don’t know where you’re from, but where I’m from it is most certainly not acceptable to say a group of people should “die in a fire.”
So the freedom to choose your own partner is a modern excess? Are you advocating that we revert to the days when women were forced into marriage? Should we emulate those societies in the world where it is still common practice?
Be careful about that word “never.” In modern Western society, marriage is very much about love for a large number of people. Sure, there are marriages of convenience, but the days of arranged political or religious marriages as a common practice are long behind us.
Marriage ceased to be exclusively a religious institution the moment the government began issuing marriage licenses and offering legal benefits to married couples. But it is certainly not a violation of the separation of church and state. The idea of marriage as a government institution is solely about legal status and benefits. If you want to have a marriage ceremony based on the tenets of your religion without the government getting involved, go right ahead. You can call yourself married according to your religion. There’s nothing illegal about that. And, assuming you live together, in many (if not all) states, you’ll eventually be granted all the rights of a legally married couple under common law marriage rules.
I have no problem with the abolition of marriage. I think it’s an outdated, artificial construct anyway. But if it did happen, you’d better be prepared to give up the legal benefits associated with marriage. But wait… if we make marriage exclusively a religious institution, that will ultimately lead to a Christian theocracy in the United States!