Logical Fallacies Underlying the Arguments Against Gay Marriage

Or as I like to call it, marriage.

If you’d like to know more about what so-called “biblical marriage” actually is, read this.  And if you’ve heard the arguments that allowing gay couples to adopt is tantamount to child abuse, read this.  And if you’re planning, this Fourth of July weekend, to get into a political argument with your brother in law, then please read the following explanation of why his arguments are all wrong.  I’ve outlined them for you in a convenient list format, for easy reading.  Or, if you so desire, printing out, folding up, and tucking into your pocket.  So you can pull them out, Batman-like, at your family’s barbecue.

“Gay marriage is an attack on traditional marriage.”  No it isn’t; people aren’t “attacking” an institution by trying to join it, nor are they devaluing it by pouring their time and energy into being allowed to participate in it.  That’s right; some people value the sacrament of marriage so much that they’re devoting their entire lives to the goal of some day being able to participate in it.  Whereas Britney Spears was once married for 58 hours, and Kim Kardashian for 72 days.  The fight for marriage equality has lasted far longer than either of those experiments.
“The purpose of marriage is procreation.”  Great.  So I guess that means anyone who’s past childbearing age should be forcibly divorced?  Or that infertile couples shouldn’t be allowed to get married in the first place?  Moreover, whether gay couples are allowed to get married will have no effect whatsoever on whether straight couples continue to have sex–for the purposes of procreation or otherwise.
“But they can adopt.”  Lots of gay couples want to adopt, too.  There are three times the number of gay couples looking to adopt from the foster care system, in America, as there are children waiting to be adopted.
“Legalizing gay marriage forces me to support that ‘lifestyle,’ regardless of my beliefs.”  Well, if you consider allowing people who have nothing to do with you, and who you’ve never met and probably never will meet, the same freedom to make their own decisions as you have, then I suppose so.  Constitutional freedom isn’t “support”–quite the opposite.  It’s freedom from the need to have anyone support you; freedom from the need to gain any one church’s, or other religious or social institution’s, stamp of approval.  To help me prove my point, let’s look at a few logical extensions of this same (illogical) argument.  I’m a Mormon.  That means I don’t drink.  Now, what would you think if I told you that beer must therefore be outlawed in all fifty states, because the fact of knowing that beer is for sale forces me to support the idea of alcohol consumption?  You’d probably tell me to quit being crazy and just not buy beer.  Or how about the fact that there are unmarried couples, living on my street?  I don’t agree with that choice.  Which, again, you’d probably tell me to mind my own business.  And you know what?  You’d be right.
“But this is about liberty!”  Well then, sorry bubballoo…that ship has sailed.  In 1964.  The landmark case Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States held that Congress could use the power granted to it by the Constitution’s commerce clause to force private businesses to abide by the non-discrimination provisions in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Meaning that your “liberty” does not, in fact, extend to refusing people service on the sole basis of their skin color, nationality or–you guessed it–sexual orientation.  Back in the day, an awful lot of people felt that their liberty was being threatened by the idea of having to sit next to a–gasp–darkly complected person at the lunch counter.  Or have “those people” in their stores.  And, well, they got over it.  So will you.
“But marriage is between one man and one woman!”  If that’s how you define it, great.  That’s not how the Bible defines it, but whatever.  The good news is that, either way, nothing is stopping you from entering into a state-sanctioned, heterosexual marriage.  The number of gay people who do or do not get married has no bearing whatsoever on the choices of straight people the world over.  The fact of a gay who lives down the street getting married has no impact on my, or your, or anyone’s marriage, same as my next door neighbor getting divorced doesn’t suddenly mean that I have to file for divorce or that my marriage is any less legitimate.  If your belief in the sanctity of your own marriage, and your beliefs about what marriage does and should mean to you, are dependent on the actions of others then you have way bigger problems to address.
“It will turn people gay.”  Guess what: if seeing a man marrying another man gives you the uncontrollable urge to go out and do the same, you were already gay to begin with.  People aren’t straight (or gay, or whatever else) because they haven’t yet discovered that there are other options.

Well, that’s it, folks.  I hope this little primer on something I like to call “common sense” has been helpful.  And remember: common sense is for people of all political persuasions, as is Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that “an equal application of the law to every condition of man is fundamental.”