Alright I admit that the title is link bait but hear me out. I have been quite ill getting over a cold that I suspect I'm not quite done with yet. My head is swimming in medications. Yet somehow I managed to get sucked in yet again in a "discussion" about gay fantasy, otherwise know as gay marriage.
Now I will reiterate my disclaimer about this topic yet again. I find gay "marriage" as an issue to be appallingly dull. I see it simply as the latest degradation of marriage in this culture. Why I wind up getting sucked into such debates is that appalling bad arguments are routinely brought forth in support of this fantasy. And since I am drawn to bad arguments like a moth to a flame, once again the subject took up far more of my time than I'd care to admit.
Particularly striking about this encounter was my opponent's insistence on having to justify "banning gay marriage" from a legal basis. Never mind that my entire argument was that gay marriage is an oxymoron and so "banning" it is a non-starter. Never mind that I pointed out that having the discussion in purely legal terms was also a non-starter as I was maintaining it was a moral issue. The counters to my points ranged from "You are wrong! Period!" to "You are a liar for disagreeing with me still!"
Now wiser people would have realized by now that trying to conduct a civilized discussion during what was quickly becoming a pissing contest would have recognized the situation and backed out. But no, oblivious to the signs I soldiered on.
Coincidentally this exercise has demonstrated to me another hazard of online apologetics. Given that I've been insulted so much I've more or less become completely immune to it. While good for my health and psyche I realized I no longer recognize when the discussion has simply broken down and nothing further can be accomplished. When your opponent is outright calling you a liar and a hypocrite, the only thing one can accomplish is looking like a particularly savvy liar and hypocrite.
Anyway, what I was stuck by was this blind insistence that I must come up with a legal reason to ban gay marriage. Given that the entire framing of the issue was based on principles that I was directly challenging, I refused, and stated why. This was taken as a sign of surrender, and the tap dance in the endzone of this absurd game was conducted.
It was this discussion that finally led me to realize why gay marriage is so dangerous. Understand up till now I understood the danger purely at a theoretical level. I understand that morality is important and a society that drifts from the true nature of man will collapse under its own dead weight. But this discussion has finally allowed me to break through the intellectual barrier so to speak.
A society that allows for gay fantasy to be enshrined in law is completely vulnerable to a tyrannical takeover. When our thinking is reduced to "can we come up with a legal argument for it" regardless of the moral soundness of or even common sense, to the point of forbidding discussing from any standpoint other than a legal one, we are in trouble.
Think about it for a minute. The exclusion of a moral discussion about our laws allows for a state to usurp total control so long as the law can be tortured to justify it in some sense. This is why the state claims the right to torture terrorists. This is why it has executed a citizen of the U.S. without trial. So long as the state can exclude the moral component from the legal one, genocide is perfectly fine so long as a legal justification can be made.
When one pretends that the moral and the legal exist in separate worlds the state no longer recognizes any boundaries. As long as it can rip bleeding from the text what they want, there is no way to stop it. We live in a country of lawyers and judges that redefine life to suit the whims of those in power. And we as a people have surrendered the weapons of justice and integrity to avoid conflict.
As I reflected on this last night I could not help but admire the cunning of the Enemy. Had it gotten as bad as it is I would never have seen the connection. Well played, Satan. Well played.
No comments:
Post a Comment