Have a Discussion on Gay Marriage

Courts and legislators in a number of countries, including the United States, have legalized gay marriage in recent years. Despite its legal status, people disagree on whether or not gay marriage should be legal. A discussion on gay marriage, like a discussion on any other sensitive topic, can quickly become unpleasant. However, there are ways in which you can ensure that the conversations you have with people on this topic serve to educate both yourself and others and are as pleasant as possible. When having this discussion, remember that your arguments should be logical and based on facts. Also remember that on sensitive issues such as gay marriage, euthanasia, abortion, and countless others, you should expect there to be reasonable disagreement.[1] Being respectful of others’ views, even those with which you disagree, while presenting your own views with the force of facts and logic, will make your conversations with others on this topic an edifying experience.

Steps

Avoiding Logical Errors

  1. Avoid logical fallacies. Discussions on controversial topics often involve one or both sides of the debate resorting to logical errors. Knowing what the most common logical fallacies are can help you evaluate your own arguments as well as the arguments of others. An accessible discussion of logical fallacies is available at https://bookofbadarguments.com/?view=flipbook
  2. Avoid the Straw Man fallacy. This logical fallacy arises when a person distorts or caricatures someone’s argument and proceeds to refute the distortion or caricature rather than the actual argument.[2]
    • For example, attributing the belief that people “should be able to marry anyone they love” to supporters of gay marriage in order to demonstrate that, by the same logic, they should also support incestuous or bestial marriage gives rise to the straw man fallacy. That is because most people who support gay marriage do not actually believe that a person should be able to marry any person or being he loves but instead believe that the kind of love that couples in a homosexual relationship experience has much in common with the kind of love that couples experience in a heterosexual relationship and little in common with incestuous or bestial relationships.[3]
  3. Avoid the fallacy of Equivocation. This is the act of changing the meaning of a word in the middle of an argument and using that changed meaning to support a conclusion.[4]
    • For example, if you are defending your position in this debate on the basis of what the words “marriage” or “love” or “family” mean to you, then you should use their meanings consistently. These words can mean different things to different people, and changing their meaning in the middle of an argument will lead to the fallacy of equivocation.
  4. Avoid the False Dilemma fallacy. This is a fallacy that forces one to make an either/or choice between two black and white alternatives and that ignores the possibility of a third (or fourth or fifth…) option.[5]
    • For example, saying to someone that either you support gay marriage or you are a bigot gives rise to a false dilemma because there is a third option: you can find arguments in opposition to gay marriage from natural law scholars,[6] and there is no reason to believe that these scholars are bigoted towards gay people. Forcing a choice between supporting gay marriage and supporting bigotry is a false dilemma.
  5. Avoid Ad Hominem attacks. This is an argument that attacks someone’s character rather than that person’s argument. This argument is a personal attack on someone’s character that has nothing to do with the merit of that person’s argument.[7].
    • Numerous examples of ad hominem attacks can be found in everyday conversations on social media, for example, where “name-calling” a person with whom you disagree is common.
    • Avoid ad hominem attacks because they suggest to the listener that you are incapable of presenting a logical argument, and because ad hominem attacks do nothing to refute the other person’s claim. They also make you seem less tolerant of other's views.

Having a Respectful Discussion

  1. Take disagreement seriously. Avoid the tendency that many people have to assume that if someone does not share your view on sensitive issues of rights and justice, then they must be driven by irrationality.[8] If you find that people disagree with you on this subject, then still pay respect to their opinions. Doing so shows that you are not intellectually arrogant and are willing to change your mind in the face of sound arguments and factual evidence. Doing so will also lead to a respectful discussion because the other person will feel that their opinions have received a fair hearing.
  2. Know the limits of human knowledge. Understand that although you may believe that there are objectively right or objectively wrong answers in this debate, there are limits to what humans are capable of proving.
    • You may be a moral realist (someone who believes that there exists a moral reality that determines whether people’s judgments are true or false) or you may be a moral anti-realist (someone who denies moral realism).
    • Nevertheless, remember that regardless of your position on whether there exist right or wrong moral answers, humans do not have the capability to prove their rightness or wrongness.[9]
    • Accepting the limits of human knowledge will allow you to be more open minded towards views with which you disagree.
  3. Express your thoughts and feelings calmly. Losing your temper and shouting will not change anyone’s mind. You may wish to use words that soften the force of your assertions without completely negating them. Try using words such as "perhaps", "might", "in my opinion" and "I believe". Using these softening words can be helpful if you find the other person is arguing irrationally, and doing so can make you appear more open-minded. Do not overuse these techniques, however, because you may give the impression that you hold no firm opinion at all on the subject.
  4. Acknowledge opposing arguments yourself and encourage others to do the same. You will get further with someone if you acknowledge the arguments of people you are in conversation with, and it also makes you seem more knowledgeable about the subject. If you disagree, then present your own arguments for them to consider while maintaining respect for their position. "I take your point, but have you considered...." is a good way of framing your response.
  5. Humanize people. Sometimes people’s opposition to gay marriage can be linked to their fear or prejudice towards homosexuality, and such prejudices can often lead to dehumanizing words. One of the best ways to combat such prejudice is to humanize and educate others about gay people. Combat prejudice that may crop up in these conversations by using as examples people who are in successful same-sex marital relationships and do not fit common stereotypes about same-sex couples.
    • For example, you can use as an example a same-sex couple whom you know to be excellent parents to combat the common belief that same-sex marriages have a negative impact on child development.
    • It also helps to use a gay celebrity as an example, as your opposition may know more about them than a Same-Sex couple that you know.

Using Evidence Correctly

  1. Know the arguments in favor of gay marriage. Knowing these will help you respond if one of them comes up on a conversation. Some arguments in support of gay marriage are:
    • Equality under the law requires that we grant same sex couples the right to marry just as we do interracial couples. This argument draws an analogy between same-sex marriage and interracial marriage (a ban on interracial marriage was lifted by the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia in 1967).[10][11]
    • The freedom to get married is a fundamental freedom that the law has long recognized as being necessary for the pursuit of happiness. We must not deny that right to same-sex couples.[12]
    • The principle of formal legal equality is supported by the moral principle of equal dignity and personhood of every human being. These principles require that differences in treatment between people be appropriately justified, and there is no principled justification for denying same-sex couples equal dignity.[13]
    • The ability to procreate should not be a test for denying or granting the right to marry. We do not take away the right to marry from heterosexual couples incapable of conceiving, and we do not suggest that their marriage is any less of a “real” marriage.[14]
    • The argument that only two biological parents – a mother and a father—are the best combination of parents for child development demeans same-sex couples who adopt and also demeans opposite-sex couples who do not produce their own offspring.[15] Those who make this pro-gay marriage argument may also question the reliability or veracity of studies that suggest that child development is best secured in families of one biological mother and father.
  2. Know the arguments in opposition to gay marriage. Knowing these will help you respond if one of them comes up in a conversation. Some arguments in opposition to gay marriage are:
    • Equality and justice are crucial to the debate but to answer the question as to whether gay marriage should be legal requires answering the question “what is a marriage?” In answering this question, there is a case to be made that conjugal marriage has an intrinsic connection to children and is distinctively related to the norms of monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence.[16]
    • Children do better on a number of indices when reared by wedded biological parents, which indices include educational achievement, emotional health, familial and sexual development, and behavior.[17]
    • Marriages are a matter of public interest. Societies need strong families, built on strong marriages, to produce upright citizens. The idea of a strong family includes the notion that “children benefit from the love and care of both mother and father, and from the committed and exclusive love of their parents for each other.”[18]
  3. Use evidence correctly. A leading book on academic legal writing offers great advice on using evidence in your writing correctly.[19] This advice applies equally when you are having a discussion on gay marriage. Some of this advice includes:
    • Go to the original source yourself. If you are relying on a source to make a claim, go to the original source and read it yourself. Try not to rely on what you might have heard from somebody else about what that source says. Evaluate the information in that source yourself because intermediate sources may not have done justice to the original source.
    • Check the studies on which you rely. You might be relying on a study that shows that children do equally well in same-sex marriages as heterosexual marriages on a set of indices. If you do so, check the study yourself. Review the evidence it provides with a skeptical eye.
  4. Search for scholarly sources on this debate. Before having a discussion on this and other similar topics, it is best to educate yourself about the topic using reliable sources. A good way to do so is to go to a scholarly repository such as Google Scholar or Lexis Nexis and search for such terms as “gay marriage debate”. Read the articles that come up in the results and decide for yourself which sources you find most convincing and why. Doing so will prepare you for having a healthy discussion that is based on factual evidence and sound logic.

Related Articles

References

  1. ↑ Jeremy Waldron, Law and Disagreement (Oxford University Press 1999).
  2. ↑ https://bookofbadarguments.com/?view=flipbook
  3. ↑ John Corvino & Maggie Gallagher, Debating Same-Sex Marriage (Point/Counterpoint 2012) pp. 66-67.
  4. ↑ https://bookofbadarguments.com/?view=flipbook
  5. ↑ https://bookofbadarguments.com/?view=flipbook
  6. ↑ http://www.princeton.edu/~anscombe/articles/finnisorientation.pdf
  7. ↑ https://bookofbadarguments.com/?view=flipbook
  8. ↑ Jeremy Waldron, Disagreement and Response, 39 Israel Law Review 50, 55-56 (2006).
  9. ↑ Jeremy Waldron, The Irrelevance of Moral Objectivity in NATURAL LAW THEORY (Robert George ed., OUP 1994).
  10. ↑ https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/388/1
  11. ↑ William N. Eskridge, Jr., Comparative Law and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate: A Step-by-Step Approach Toward State Recognition, 31 McGeorge L. Rev. 641 (2000) p. 642.
  12. ↑ William N. Eskridge, Jr., Comparative Law and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate: A Step-by-Step Approach Toward State Recognition, 31 McGeorge L. Rev. 641 (2000) p. 643.
  13. ↑ William N. Eskridge, Jr., Comparative Law and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate: A Step-by-Step Approach Toward State Recognition, 31 McGeorge L. Rev. 641 (2000) p. 644.
  14. ↑ http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/12/the_best_argument_against_gay_marriage.html
  15. ↑ http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/12/the_best_argument_against_gay_marriage.html
  16. ↑ http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/12/2217/
  17. ↑ Sherif Girgis, Robert George, and Ryan Anderson, What is Marriage?, 34 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 245, 257-258, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155.
  18. ↑ Sherif Girgis, Robert George, and Ryan Anderson, What is Marriage?, 34 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 245, 270, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155.
  19. ↑ Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing (3rd ed., Foundation Press 2007) Chapter V.
Retrieved from "https://kipkis.com/index.php?title=Have_a_Discussion_on_Gay_Marriage&oldid=271241"