-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Michael LaBossiere, a philosophy professor at Florida A&M University, has written a short Kindle book entitled For Better or Worse Reasoning: A Philosophical Look at Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage. In this book, LaBossiere reviews the “arguments” against same-sex marriage and points out the fallacious reasoning behind them. I would like to highlight a couple of the fallacious arguments, but for a complete treatment I suggest you download his book which is only $0.99.
In one of LaBossiere’s early examples, he uses a recent blog post by Bristol Palin in which she commented on Obama’s support of same-sex marriage by saying:
While it’s great to listen to your kids’ ideas, there’s also a time when dads simply need to be dads. In this case, it would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage.
This common argument from same-sex marriage opponents is an Appeal to Tradition, a logical fallacy. The fallacy occurs when something is assumed better or correct simply because it has been around for a long time. In reality, the “tradition” of marriage has evolved since ancient times. As Jay Michaelson points out:
Abraham had two wives, … King Solomon had 700 wives, … Jacob, the patriarch who gives Israel its name, had two wives.
Rick Santorum suggested that legalizing same-sex marriage was akin to legalizing polygamy:
So, everybody has the right to be happy? So, if you’re not happy unless you’re married to five other people, is that OK?
Santorum used the fallacy known as the Slippery Slope where the legalization of polygamy inevitably follows from the legalization of same-sex marriage with no argument for the inevitability. The reasoning is fallacious because there is no reason to believe the inevitability. Ironically, polygamy has been a “traditional” form of marriage for thousands of years.
Santorum’s slippery slope could also be used to argue against opposite-sex marriages: “if we allow different-sex people to marry, the next thing you know, same-sex couples will get married and then people will be marrying flying fish.”
With regard to consenting adults, LaBossiere writes:
I regard homosexuality the same as I regard heterosexuality, namely as being morally neuter: neither good, no bad.
Correct me, but I think that I read that the “church” did not concern itself with marriage as a sacrament for the first centuries (until ca 1000CE). ????
PS RCampbell gets my nod.
Polygamy had its reasons: the low survival rate for multi-pregnancy women; the need for sons to expand the herding capability. Marriage comes in as a contract when wealth is exchanged now and post-nuptially. And the need for guarding material rights, and eventually
inheritance rights accorded women.
The social welfare and representation rights accorded modern married couples are a complication which the “equal justice” clause (there is one I hope) should solve easily.
I still like to cite the example mentioned by others, of an older woman who wishes to give her younger friend inheritance “rights” while not adopting her. One reasonalbe problem, I feel, avoids the discussion of sexual relations.
In theory, Polygamy can also encompass multiple men, multiple woman, or any combination of men and woman.
Good job David. what rcampbell said!
I agree that same sex marriage and polygamous marriages should all be legal. The Bible is not the law of the land and as we have read above, thank goodness.
The larger fallacy is that government should have the power to authorize (or ban) marriages at all.
NYT: Taking Marriage Private
Great post……
The only defense available to opponents of same-sex marriage is citing the Bible. There is no legal, logical, scientific or medical justification for such opposition and bigotry. It is purely the result on centuries of blindly accepted nonsense similar to another Biblically acceptable but modernity rejected and now illegal tradition and practice called slavery. It has been propagated by those whose primary interest was (is) the production of more adherents to their various cults. Since the Bible is neither universal nor unbiased nor the legal basis of our laws, it is irrelevant to the issue.
I personally do not condone bigamy as I see it as a backward step in women’s progression to self-empowerment, but it’s hard to argue against it as long as it’s a legal contract between consenting adults. I don’t like guns either, but sometimes you have to take the bad with the good.
“that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage.”
May I nastily state that this young woman, who is only notable for having a child out of wedlock, has as narrow an understanding of history as her narcissistic mother. Consider the Spartans, perhaps the greatest soldiers in history, who based their army on the pairing of men in loving relationships. These men had wives, who they rarely cohabited with, but were wed to due to
economic/societal considerations. A variation of this was common throughout
Hellenic Culture, that many consider among the most important cultures of history. Bristol’s conception of marriage is probably less than 150 years old and given the breadth of human history most decidedly a foolishly romantic notion.
Arthur Randolph Erb:
Feel free to provide an argument for the causal link between monogamous same-sex marriage and polygamy and how this causal link does not occur between monogamous opposite-sex marriage and polygamy.
Arthur Randolph Erb 1, May 19, 2012 at 9:37 am
I had to laugh at this one. I guess you missed Prof Turley’s post that he went out to Utah to file suit to legalize polygamy on the same basis as the argument for gay marriage. So the ACLU, Turley, Santorum ALL think that the so called fallacy you cite is NOT a fallacy at all. While I disagree with the ACLU and Prof Turley on some things, I have to admit that they are correct in saying that taking the reasoning of the proponents of gay marriage means that polygamy is ALSO a right.
Marriage is not a private matter at all. It is asking the public in the form of the state, to grant a privilege and legal sanction. So the question properly should be, why should the state grant that privilege?
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Turley did not go to Utah to “legalize polygamy”, he went there to defend several sister “wives” and their “husband” from threatened criminal charges.
He bases his argument, in relevant part, on Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), which held that states cannot govern the bedrooms of consenting adults with respect to sexual behavior.
Marriage is a concept that has as many definitions as there are states and religious denominations.
I had to laugh at this one. I guess you missed Prof Turley’s post that he went out to Utah to file suit to legalize polygamy on the same basis as the argument for gay marriage. So the ACLU, Turley, Santorum ALL think that the so called fallacy you cite is NOT a fallacy at all. While I disagree with the ACLU and Prof Turley on some things, I have to admit that they are correct in saying that taking the reasoning of the proponents of gay marriage means that polygamy is ALSO a right.
Marriage is not a private matter at all. It is asking the public in the form of the state, to grant a privilege and legal sanction. So the question properly should be, why should the state grant that privilege? I think that the proper way to get gay marriage is to do as New York state did it. The legislature has every right to determine who should get state privileges in marriage. My preference is for civil unions to help out with some problems gay couples run into.
As for the so called fallacy of tradition, even our Declaration of Independce makes mention of the FACT that most people and societies will suffer and keep traditions long after they have caused some harm, rather than change them precipitously. So while tradition is not necessarily a valid reason to keep something that made sense in the past, it does have a role and reason to play. In FACT it became a tradition because IT WORKED and was true and valid for the society at the time. The writer of this book thinks that therefore ALL traditions are necessarily bad if he does not like them. He would keep the ones he likes and has no reasoning or standards to support why he supports some traditions and not others. There should be some methodology in deciding which to keep and which to jettison.
In our country we DO have such a system, and it is called ELECTIONS. You win, you get to pass and establish your traditions. You lose, the others get to do that.
Then there are dogs and people who think that dogs should only breed with their own breed. Scotty on Scotty so to speak. Science proves that genetic diversity makes for a better four legged dog. Four legs good, two legs baaaad, and all that rot. So, keep that in mind as you mull over the merits of same sex marriage in humans.
So now I am going to have to marry a flying fish and also eat broccoli?
You can’t reason with these people! Their arguments have no substance and they don’t care about facts! This is the breakdown of the fabric of our society, a wholesale rejection of the European Rationalist tradition that gave rise to our Constitution. I’m studying it now on Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that anybody can edit, unless you cant….
I could actually use the help of a lawyer here….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Lord_Roem#Thank_God.2C_a_Lawyer.21
Logic does not develop original knowledge, it only provides derivative knowledge, assuming that the premises are correct, and the conclusion is well taken from those premises.
If we follow the logic of a guy like Santorum then we might as well go back to Italy and look up his roots and declare his family tree to be founded upon the claim that they are the oligarchs of Sainted Rum. Get it: Santo in Italian means Saint and Rum means rum.
Us dogs do not believe in marriage and divorce. We believe that with humans one follows the other and that as our favorite author says Never The Twain shall meet unless it is the Ohio and the Mississippi. And of course Twain showed us that Huck and Jim could not get there under the Fugitive Slave mentality.
Which comes round to the notion of one man, one wife. What the likes of Santorum really advocate is the notion of wife ownership. The marriage laws are there to protect His property. Now this aint gonna fly on one wing if there is some antithetical notion floating around that one man can own another man. And, it brings up the question of how one is gonna control the wife if the Fugitive Slave Law is outlawed by the 13th and 14th Amendments.
And I will go one dog farther on this track. Suppose Sarah Palin had a husband who was a bit gay. Suppose Rando or whatever his name is had a hankerin for another spouse who was a guy. Palin has a gun and is gonna gun down gay guy or both gay guys. Her kids are gonna hate new gay guy. They are gonna gun down gaypaw and it just goes on from there. There meaning, there have to be limits. So, no Mormons, meainging no flocks of wives, no gays, meaning no two Sara Palins in one bed.
I sorted this all out with TalkinDog and the rest of the dog pack this morning and we are decided to remain opposed to marriage of any kind. The only thing that we condemn with any certitude is leg humpin. We have one dissenter and his name is Leggo, so go figure.
BarkinDog
Logic is commanded by the premises:
(Premise). In areas where a premise is not conclusively true or false, i.e. controversial, the premises / conclusion structure is thereby impaired.
A premise is not axiomatically wrong or right simply because it is either traditional or new, therefore neither is “appeal to tradition” axiomatically false logic.
A premise is not axiomatically wrong or right simply because it invokes slippery slope assertions, therefore neither is “slipper slope” axiomatically false logic.
Any “premise is an assumption that something is true” (ibid).
“The proof of a conclusion depends on both the truth of the premises and the validity of the argument” (ibid).
I fully support the biblical definition of marriage – 1 man and as many women as his goat herd can support. Also he must marry his brothers widow if she has no sons to run her goat herd & must submit (sexually) to her new husband so that he might provide her with sons.
If a virgin is raped she must marry her rapist & the rapist should pay her father for the loss of value to him.
These are the rules of the OT – as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be.
“If we allow different-sex people to marry, the next thing you know, same-sex couples will get married and then people will be marrying flying fish.”
Well I think the real problem is that some of us have already married flying fish and that’s not so bad, but when you get to divorcing them, you have to wrap them in the day-old newspapers!