To be commended for their intent to provide a balanced view, the Courier Mail gave two writers the chance to argue both for and against Gay Marriage. This was in “Gay marriage – the case for and against | Courier Mail.”
However, as is usually the case in these situations, those arguing against pull out the most ridiculously specious of arguments. One of the arguments I’ve been seeing more recently is the notion that people who are insisting gay marriage shouldn’t go ahead are defending the “biblical” version of marriage.
On that front I tend to ask – what “biblical” version do they mean? Do they mean:
- The bit where Adam and Eve’s kids must have got married in order to kick start society?
- The bits where polygamy was allowed?
- The bits where wives were no more than property?
Such rebuttals quickly point out the severe levels of bigoted retardation associated with that argument.
Another argument that gets trotted out from time to time is how unfair it is for children. The opponent to the gay marriage, David van Gend, hauled out this tired and stupid line, going so far as to say it would create a new “stolen generation”. This is hideously demeaning to the real stolen generation, and David should be utterly, completely ashamed of himself for making this argument in the first place. However, unashamedly, he goes on to say:
Yes, it is discrimination to prohibit the “marriage” of two men, but it is just and necessary discrimination, because the only alternative is the far worse act of discrimination against children brought artificially into the world by such men, compelled to live their whole lives without a mother. Now that approaches the abominable.
There’s a simple response to this: it’s utter, specious bullshit. Why? Point out a single government that forces the adoption of children where a parent (or specifically in this case, the mother) dies. If the mother dies in childbirth for instance, what’s the difference between a child being raised by a single father, or two fathers?
Honestly, anyone who subscribes to this point of view has a hole in their logic the size of Jupiter.
Of course, David goes on to trot out an even more inane rebuttal. The president of the Queensland branch of the state labor party had stated, quite rightly so, that:
discrimination against people on the basis of their gender or their sexual orientation is just as abominable and just as unsupportable as discrimination on the basis of race.
David however says:
His analogy with racism s false because a black person cannot stop being black, but a gay person can certainly stop being gay, as a large number of formerly gay men and women around the world have demonstrated.
This insulting argument is undoubtedly founded on the notion of “curing” centres. That’s where people have their personalities and their self worth broken down into little pieces by arseholes and taught to hate themselves and believe that constant prayer to some non-existent entity will make them better.
Citing Robert Spitzer, who supposedly showed in 2003 that “curing” homosexuality was perfectly possible, David forgets to cite the number of references on the net that go to not only dispute Spitzer, but goes on to suggest the studies are impossible to swallow. Such as this one, and this one.
In my experience, men who “repress” their homosexuality become deeply unhappy bisexuals who marry, have children, but furtively look time and time again for male/male sex. That’s Spitzer’s cure – to make people deeply unhappy and closeted.
David van Gend can push his arguments based on flawed logic and bigotry all he wants, but a simple, undeniable fact is continuing to shine with increasing intensity – gay marriage is coming, and those who don’t like it better learn to live with it, because the vast majority of Australians now support it.
Any attempt to compare children of same-sex couples to the stolen generation is not only absurd, but inherently disrespectful to all involved.
