Wednesday 6 February 2013

Same sex marriage and the counter-productive effect of reasoned argument

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There is a tremendous outpouring of arguments in the public arena, emanating mostly from real Christians, which - taken together - demonstrate that current legislation first to permit, then to enforce, then to impose same sex marriage will (with a very high degree of probability) inflict deep and permanent damage on society.

Yet the legislation proceeds apace.

Why?

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Simple: because the infliction of deep and permanent damage on society is a feature not a bug of this legislation; it is not an unintended by-product but the actual motivational core of the movement.

The more conclusively harm is proven, the more convinced SSM advocates become that the legislation is desirable.

Thus the more that real Christians argue in the public arena, the worse the consequences - because the more powerfully their arguments encourage and energize the forces of darkness.

Argument is not just futile, but counter-productive.

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The only proper response is a clear, plain, simple and uncompromizing statement of refusal - and then courage and endurance to withstand the consequences.

If courage and endurance are lacking, then there is an end of the matter.

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7 comments:

James Higham said...

Simple: because the infliction of deep and permanent damage on society is a feature not a bug of this legislation; it is not an unintended by-product but the actual motivational core of the movement.

Yes indeed - will have to quote you now on that.

Matthew C. said...


Marriage and society has already been destroyed by the complete abandonment of chastity, abandonment of marriage as the norm for adults (including YOUNG adults), abortion, no-fault divorce and the like.


ajb said...

"The more conclusively harm is proven"

Do you have any references for this?

George Goerlich said...

Yes, mainstream opinion thinks itself wise and clever for viewing marriage on a purely material basis and seeing through the illusion of love produced by brain chemicals - selfish-evolutionairy interests disguised as love, or a mutual understanding of mere pleasure and temporary benefit.

Everything falls apart with the spiritual aspect is removed.

Yet I don't understand why studying how something functions somehow proves it doesn't exist.

Daybreaker said...

Unfortunately, I think you're right about this.

From my own arguments against same-sex marriage, I only ever noticed two effects:
1. I was dignifying absurdity.
2. While I was sticking to the topic and presenting serious arguments my opponents took the rhetorically superior position of insulting me: h8er, homophobe, bigot, doomed the same as opponents of "civil rights" and so on.

I should have said to vote against it and nothing more.

Arakawa said...

@Daybreaker:

I personally would feel much more of a moral obligation to argue vehemently what I believed was the right thing if I ever noticed it having an effect on people. But the underlying assumptions that make a person accept or reject same-sex marriage just run too deep to ever come up in an actual argument on the topic and receive a solid treatment.

Take the argument of the teleology of marriage, and the common counter that there exist infertile married couples. To get the other person to soberly examine the assumptions behind the counter, you'd have to take them (just for starters) through a discussion on the nature of teleology in general, the fallen state of reality, the general function of institutions in society... even that isn't deep enough because (as Charlton keeps pointing to) the disagreement is in the end about the fundamental nature and purpose of the universe itself and everything in it.

If you can't agree on what reality is fundamentally for with a person, why would you expect to be able to agree with them on the purpose of any particular aspect of reality?

It is true that everyone encounters 'totalitarian' moments when, in an ordinary polite conversation, you are suddenly required to give some response to the issue in a conversation to demonstrate your political correctness. Will you dishonestly assent to the issue? Will you honestly argue against it and be ostracized? Either way, the tempters are arranging to turn what was a civil conversation into an occasion for anger and frustration, introducing emotion where there's really no call to have it.

It seemed stupid to me even from a secular point of view, and as such, I've always found it useful to cultivate the ability to be sure that my honest discussion of the subject well outstrips the other person's attention span. Because reactionary insights are obvious, they can be made to sound infinitely tedious when the situation demands...

... and perhaps they'll be remembered and re-examined by the listener in a different context when they're not automatically hostile to them. In the meantime the listener is too bored out of their skull to even recognize that I'm a 'h8r'.

Ben said...

Well put Bruce!