Sunday, November 2, 2008

Intolerance and Same-Sex Marriage

According to Jenifer DeLemont, in the October 26 East Valley Tribune:
Discrimination should be judged[...] by rewriting the statement with a different group's name. [A statement by supporters of Proposition 102] says; “Marriage is between one man and one woman. To allow marriages to be confused by allowing a man and a man to wed will destroy the meaning of marriage.”

But let’s try that same statement with a slight change: “Marriage is between one Christian and one Christian. To allow marriages to be confused by allowing a Christian to wed a Jew will destroy the meaning of marriage.” If that’s not bad enough for you, then try it with race. “Marriage is between one white person and one white person. To allow marriage to be confused by allowing a white person to marry a black person will destroy the meaning of marriage.”

So you see, discrimination all depends on the group we are talking about.
I found this argument quite humorous. If only she wasn't serious. The problem is that she arbitrarily decides what would be a "slight change." Apparently she thinks that a person's sex is roughly as important as their skin color. I may have missed whatever biology class she took, but I'm pretty sure a black man's body functions pretty much the same as a white man's body, even being able to produce children with a white woman. While I don't recall the lesson where two men could make a child.

In fact, using her formula, I'm sure we can find all kinds of intolerance. We'll just take a statement she would agree with, "Not allowing a man to marry a man is intolerant." then see if we can make it sound bad by using a different group's name: "Not allowing a 9-year old to marry a 49-year old is intolerant." Ooh let's do that again: "Not allowing a live man to marry a dead man is intolerant." Hmm... weird how different groups of people evoke different feelings. If that's not bad enough for you, let's take it a step further, "Not allowing a man to marry a herd of wildebeests is intolerant."

3 comments:

Daniel said...

Amen brother. As I've told you before If they say it is discrimination to now allow anyone to marry then that opens up a door i don't (or at least didn't) think anyone would want open. Saying that a live man and a dead man is a bit outrageous of a statement. However the point is still there. What's to say that not allowing a brother and sister to marry is intolerant or cousins or kids to parents and so forth? If, by the claim that all you need is love, everyone is allowed to marry any person, then those types of things could rise. If you think that's sick then YOU'RE intolerant and support discrimination, and in the words of Diane Fienstien "you should ALWAYS say no to discrimination"

Nathan Cushman said...

Well, I figure the argument against a live man marrying a dead man would be based around consent, because that's the difference between gay marriage and a man marrying a dog; the dog can't give legal consent (at least not by today's laws). But a man could theoretically give consent in his will, so that he would only marry the other person after his death.

Still, I was mostly just poking fun at the idea that all groups of people are interchangeable. The dead are a group of people too.

Unknown said...

nthan: Shouldn't that be "the dead WERE a group of people too" unless you're just counting the buried ones!