Logic Has Left the Building...

Hey look! It's someone making an almost indistinguishable argument from the last guy. Before we get into this, I'd like to first revisit the doom and gloom scenarios that are always floated as reasons to deny gay people rights. First there was the claim that passing the Matthew Sheppard Act would result in pastors being arrested for preaching the bible, three years latter and not a single pastor has been arrested. Before the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell we were told that it would be disastrous for unit cohesion, troop retention and moral. Turns out it had absolutely no affect on any of that. So now we're being told, according to this article's subtitle,

Same-sex unions may not affect my marriage specifically, but it will affect my children.

So he better produce some fantastic evidence to show how this incidence is somehow different from every other example. But the conversation during the last few weeks on the subject of same-sex marriage has told a different story -- one that appears to be drawing a false connection between supporting true American values like free speech and the institution of marriage, our most fundamental and important social institution. Wait... is marriage not a "true American value?" This sentence is entirely convoluted and does not mean what Birk thinks it does.

I think it is important to set the record straight about what the marriage debate is and is not about, and to clarify that not all NFL players think redefining marriage is a good thing.

Oh, thank goodness we have Birk here to be the final arbiter of what marriage is about!

The union of a man and a woman is privileged and recognized by society as "marriage" for a reason, and it's not because the government has a vested interest in celebrating the love between two people.

No, love is entirely immaterial. At no point is love required in any aspect of the legal code, as proving love would be an impossibility. However, the government has a vested interest in providing a legal framework of rights and responsibilities for people who intend to form a mutually dependent familial connection between each other.

With good reason, government recognizes marriages and gives them certain legal benefits so they can provide a stable, nurturing environment for the next generation of citizens: our kids.

That's quite simply false on its face, from four different sides. Firstly, marriage does not, nor will it ever require procreation. Marriage does not even require sex (although lack of sex can be justification for divorce). Secondly, procreation does not require marriage. Frequently, two people procreate without becoming married. Thirdly, gay people can, and do have children via adoption, surrogacy, ect. Fourthly, anyone with even brief glace and marriage law would realize that much of it involves items that have absolutely zero to do with children, which means that marriage does not exist for procreation even just based on the law.

Children have a right to a mom and a dad, and I realize that this doesn't always happen.

Birk, Birk, Birk, you contradict yourself in the same sentence! If Children have a "right" to a mom and a dad, that would mean that they would always happen. That's what a right is. The right to free speech does not only apply to 1/4th of people, if that's the way it worked, it wouldn't be a right. Children have the right to pursuit of happiness, freedom, ect. but by the definition of what a right is, no one has a right to a mom and a dad. Parents die, which is just one example of how children do not, and can not have a right to a parent.

But recognizing the efforts of these parents and the resiliency of some (not all, unfortunately) of these kids, does not then give society the right to dismiss the potential long-term effects on a child of not knowing or being loved by his or her mother or father. Each plays a vital role in the raising of a child.

There is precisely zero science supporting this. We've actually looked at the "potential long-term effects" and found none. This has been studied multiple times at this point, and, consistently, there has been no actual negative effects found for being raised by two parents of the same sex. Traditionally the way the way around this little problem is for the right to discuss studies showing the children of single parents compared to children raised by two parents. Hence why both Birk and Riley keep bringing up single parents even though they are completely irrelevant to the topic being discussed.

Marriage is in trouble right now -- admittedly, for many reasons that have little to do with same-sex unions. In the last few years, political forces and a culture of relativism have replaced "I am my brother's keeper" and "love your neighbor as yourself" with "live and let live" and "if it feels good, go ahead and do it."

Yay! Fascism! First off we have a complete failure to understand what "cultural relativity" actually is. We also have a complete failure to understand what "love your neighbor as yourself" means. Instead all this is a kind of assholely way of saying "people have too much freedom, we need less."

The effects of no-fault divorce, adultery, and the nonchalant attitude toward marriage by some have done great harm to this sacred institution.

How? People are still getting married. In fact the sheer number of people who have serial marriages shows that we have a remarkable commitment to marriage as a concept. The people who actually are criticizing marriage as a concept are incredibly fringe in our society.

How much longer do we put the desires of adults before the needs of kids?

This has nothing to do with what is being discussed, nor is it properly supported.

Why are we not doing more to lift up and strengthen the institution of marriage?

Well then, I assume you would support the things that actually would lift up and strengthen the institution of marriage? Such as a wider, stronger social safety net?

Same-sex unions may not affect my marriage specifically, but it will affect my children -- the next generation.

How?

Ideas have consequences, and laws shape culture. Marriage redefinition will affect the broader well-being of children and the welfare of society.

How?

I am speaking out on this issue because it is far too important to remain silent.

But you haven't actually said anything. You've made some vague accusations, ones which you failed to even tie into the topic being discussed, let alone attempt to provide support for.

People who are simply acknowledging the basic reality of marriage between one man and one woman are being labeled as "bigots" and "homophobic." Aren't we past that as a society?

That does not even make sense. Objectively you are bigots and homophobes. Also, objectively, you are not acknowledging reality. Gay people are already married, which means that the basic reality of marriage is not between one man and one woman.

Don't we all have family members and friends whom we love who have same-sex attraction?

"Some of my best friends are gay..."

Attempting to silence those who may disagree with you is always un-American, but especially when it is through name-calling, it has no place in respectful conversation.

Ahh, the tone argument. When someone can't support their argument with facts, they have to go with complaining about the tone that other people use to address them. "Name-calling" is entirely irrelevant to the accuracy of someone's statements. Calling you, Birk, a mentally deficient fuckknob has nothing to do with whether I am correct in every single thing I have said before. Oh, and people who say things that are stupid, are stupid people, and should be called "stupid" so that they might make the choice to be smarter (and it is a choice, ignorance is a choice).

A defense of marriage is not meant as an offense to any person or group.

Logically false. We are discussing, specifically and particularly, excluding large number of people from thousand of rights and benefits. Which, by definition is an attack on them.

All people should be afforded their inalienable American freedoms.

Like the right to marriage? One which the supreme court has recognized as a "fundamental human right" a dozen times over the past century?

There is no opposition between providing basic human rights to everyone and preserving marriage as the sacred union of one man and one woman.

Yes, there is. What part of "fundamental human right" do you not understand, Birk?

I hope that in voicing my beliefs I encourage people on both sides to use reason and charity as they enter this debate.

Two things you have completely failed to use...

I encourage all Americans to stand up to preserve and promote a healthy, authentic promarriage culture in this upcoming election.

And the best way to be promarriage is to exclude people from marriage... wait...

Let's Talk More About Gay People Getting Married...

Here we go again. The exact same flawed premises, the exact same flawed arguments. In this case, the title of the article, "Why same-sex marriage affects my marriage," is, obviously, wrong on all counts of logic and reason. But the subtitle deserves special mention.

The goal is to move society -- in this case, away from a safe environment for children.

Really, Riley? Really? Please tell me who has that goal? Please give me specific names of people who want to use marriage equality to make unsafe environments for children. That does not even make the most basic degree of sense.

In the marriage debate, people frequently argue that how one chooses to define marriage doesn't affect other people's definitions of marriage, and because my definition is as good as yours, it should also be promoted by society.

Oh look, the Evangelical-conservative canard of "promotion." This particular phrasing only makes sense filtered through a theocratic worldview which posits that the government is the final arbiter of religious matters. It is why the religious right has a completely nonsensical and self-contradicting way of discussing religious liberty. It's why the same people who complain that the government mandating insurance companies pay for women's birth control is a violation of the religious liberty of the employees who procure the insurance policies for their employees, will also say that school-wide mandated prayer is not a violation of religious liberty. To them the state must intervene to protect and promote the religion of the citizens of that state. A state taking a neutral stance is a state violating the religious "liberty" of its citizenry, hence all the antipathy towards "secularism." It is an inherently competitive worldview, where liberty can not be extended freely, but rather it must be taken from someone else. It also explains the curious tendency to refer to secularism as a religion since this group of people, ideologically, can not even conceive of the perspective of a non-sectarian government, therefore secularism must somehow be sectarian (even if that is an unresolved paradox). Accordingly, the government does not merely distinguish between legal and illegal, but rather anything legal must be considered "promoted." If the government is supporting it, it must be right and proper. This also is the basis of claims where educating that something exists is conflated with promoting it. It's not, it never has been, it never will be.

Many times it is stated: "What I choose to do in my marriage doesn't affect your marriage." However, same-sex marriage affects all of our marriages.

Slippery rhetorical trick here. "You" can be both singular and plural, so it must be contextually determined. In this case, the "you" is singular, we are looking at one person speaking, talking to one other person about one specific marriage. That's why "marriage" is singular. However, Riley isn't going to respond to that statement. Instead he immediately contextualizes it as somehow affecting all marriages. That's because he knows, implicitly, that he can't respond in the singular. He can't actually come up with an argument about how marriage equality affected his marriage (because it didn't), so he has to jump to all marriages in order to make his case (which he still won't be able to do). It's a slippery, disgusting rhetorical trick.

This is possible largely due to the disassociation between sexual relationships and procreation.

Oh Riley, there are people living in Africa, Asia and South America who do not know there is an association between sexual relationships and procreation. Human evolution has provided us with no ability to tell when women are in estrus, with both the ability and desire to have sex outside of fertile periods. We also are one of about three species where women experience menopause which affects sexual desire precisely zero. Any reasonable person, looking at the plethora of evidence about human sexuality, would recognize that procreation is an incredibly small aspect of human sexual behavior.

In contrast, there are many who have not disassociated sex and children

This is a lie. There have been quite a few religious sects that had only sex for procreation guidelines. They've all died out.

These people have generally been trying to live up to the ideal that marriage was established millennia ago to promote the raising of children in safe environments supported by their biological parents.

Well this is an epistemological fail. The idea of "ideal" as used her is derived from Plato by way of C.S. Lewis. Plato claimed that we understand what a "tree" is because we have an idea of an ideal tree, and from that ideal we can work backwards to knowing what a tree is growing in our backyard. C.S. Lewis was philosopher, but not a theologian, so he appropriated philosophical arguments to make theological ones. And that's how we get here. The key here is that this is a system of epistemology, it is means of understanding how and why we know what we know. It is not a system of proscription, telling us what should and should not be. Anyone using this philosophical construct in this way (which C.S. Lewis never did) is utterly bastardizing it, and does not know what they are talking about. The "ideal" marriage is a way of recognizing marriages, it is nothing to live up to.

Even though some traditional families are breaking, it doesn't mean the ideal of traditional marriage is broken.

If you really want to be loose with it, "traditional" marriage dates to Ronald Reagan signing the California Family Law Act of 1969, and not a second before. And that's playing fast and loose with the idea of "traditional." If we are being strict, "traditional" marriage is probably no more than five or six years old.

Many studies show that single parents struggle to provide the safe environment provided by a two-biological-parent home. Bless the single parents who try, but there is a direct correlation between single homes and crimes of all types. If anything, the effects of broken homes indicate the importance of reestablishing the ideal of traditional marriage.

This is completely irrelevant to what is being discussed. It's only purpose here is to establish credibility for the ideological concept of "traditional marriage." It diffuses responsibility from the individual parents in question to be good parents, to all of society acting in a specific way in the vague hope that it will somehow produce better children, even though there is precisely zero evidence that if everyone was in a "traditional" marriage it would produce significantly better children.

Same-sex marriage falls short of producing safe environments for children because it, at the very least, reinforces changes to the marital definition.

Bad argument ahoy! Bad argument ahoy! Linguistically speaking, this is a complete non-starter. Word definitions change all the time, that's how you can tell a language is alive, rather than dead. Latin's definitions never change. And you would have to make some pretty strong arguments that changing a word definition produces unsafe environments.

Historically, before the sexual revolution, society's definition of marriage was focused on the raising and bearing of children.

No, it wasn't. It was focused on the exchange of goods and property. Children were a tangential produce to be worked or sold as they came into being.

Currently, as a society, we have wavered from this traditional motivation, and many, not all, view marriage as a venue for self-fulfillment.

Well first off arguing that people should accept being unfulfilled in their marriages is also a non-starter. Secondly, the idea of being marriage being a "venue for self-fulfillment" was what transformed marriage from an exchange of goods into being about love and care, the exact ideas that you were promoting earlier.

This modern view is directly culpable for the rise in broken homes and its resulting negative effects.

It is, but not for the reasons that you are implying. See, when women were no longer viewed as property, they were allowed to get out of marriages they didn't want to be in, resulting in your "broken homes."

Because same-sex marriage is made possible by this modern view of marriage, if we make same-sex marriage equivalent to traditional marriage, we only more firmly impart to future generations that marriage is about personal fulfillment.

Again with the arguing that marriage should be unfulfilling. And no, it isn't "made possible," the idea of marriage equality is several centuries old and was promoted in both Europe in the '20s and America in the '50s, quite a bit before the "sexual revolution" (which, as is typical for you, Riley, you don't understand). Your knowledge of history is horribly, horribly flawed, Riley.

The cementing of the modern view will only continue its destruction of safe environments for future generations.

Oy vey. So here's where it ends. Marriage equality is destructive because marriages should not be fulfilling. Like most homophobia, this has nothing to do with gay people, and everything to do with rampant misogyny. This argument is nothing more than that women should be kept in the kitchens. Hence why marriage should be unfulfilling, marriage is all about the kids, all that stuff about broken homes and the sexual revolution. This is all a hit piece on women, by way of the gays. There isn't a single argument in all of this about actual gay people.

For many of us who favor traditional marriage, marriage is about raising children in a healthy environment.

This isn't a statement, it is an accusation, on several different levels. The first of which is that those people who support marriage equality somehow do not support "traditional marriage." Amazingly enough in all the states and nations where marriage equality has passed, no one has acted to ban "traditional marriage." Those of us who favor allowing gay people to get married, also favor allowing straight people to as well, Riley. Secondly, there is the implication that those people who are for marriage equality want children to be raised in unhealthy environments. No one is on the other side of that particular issue, Riley. But you have not done the proper due diligence of actually showing that somehow if gay people get married, more children will magically be in these theoretical unhealthy environments. Massachusetts has had marriage equality for eight years now, that's almost half the time it takes a child to grow from conception to high school graduation. Was there an incredible upswing in children living in unhealthy environments (statistically Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the nation, one which has gone down since marriage equality passed, so there goes the "broken homes" argument).

Thus, any change to the definition of marriage affects our marriage.

No, it doesn't. You just claimed that somehow allowing gay people to marry will cause straight people to divorce which will cause their kids to become criminals. That's crazy.

Our "traditional" marriages and the children they produce are our greatest source of happiness, and we desire that our children will live in a world that will promote their ability to make the same choices that brought us happiness.

In other words, you want your children to have cult-like obedience. God forbid that your children have a little autonomy, Riley, and make their own choices in life. Nope, you want to program them like nice, little automatons. And, darling Riley, if gay people are allowed to get married, your children will still be able to get married even if they are not gay. Amazingly enough, no one is being deprived of the choice to get opposite-sex marriage.

There are many who tout the modern definition, and we are susceptible to these influences. As we listen to these influences, we change our view of marriage and our marital relationship accordingly. Same-sex marriage will only increase these influences and make it harder to promote traditional marriage.

...yes, and? The fact that you are losing the public to your misogynistic ideology, is no one's fault but your own (and that God you are). I'd be willing to bet that you do not see much of a problem with evangelism, Riley. It's the exact same principal.

Although not all are able to participate in a traditional marriage that yields children, we all benefit by its establishment in creating strong homes for the next generation with strong direction from self-sacrificing parents. The disestablishment of this ideal affects us all.

Well Riley, you didn't answer the statement you were supposed to be answering. You provided a completely ludicrous argument that has no evidentiary support, you butchered philosophy and history. Oh, and most importantly, here, in your conclusion, you failed to acknowledge that there are more children than there are "strong homes" (by your definition) which makes the entire point moot unless you are advocating killing the excess children. Epic fail.