Toribash
The common pro-gay-marriage argument is "Banning homosexuality or limiting the rights of homosexuals is basically discriminating groups of people for who they are." (to quote Redundant) Is this a logical argument?

The main assertion here is that it is wrong to discriminate between people based on who they are.

Of course, we can all agree that discrimination is fine, for example we put criminals in jail, can we apply the same argument to jailed criminals? Well, Redundant specifically says "Homosexuals do not harm others by being who they are" - that is, they aren't an intrinsic threat. Jailed criminals are assumably a threat in some way, maybe they didn't pay parking fines, maybe they abused their children, maybe they were jailed for insider trading. These are things that we have recognise as wrong. But why do criminals do these criminal things?

Modern theory indicates that biology and social factors both play a role to some degree.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/ar...anted=all&_r=0
http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/...f/tandi263.pdf
I won't bore you with spammed links, but there is a general consensus that you can have a genetic disposition to being a criminal, but that social factors (whether economic, geographic, your family, your community, etc) are important too.

So ignoring the "do not harm others" clause, we say that some people are criminals in the same way that some people are homosexuals? Is it right to limit their rights?

Currently sexuality is seen as a product of biological, hormonal and social factors. So are mental illness or genetic disorders? Are we wrong to give them drugs, treatment, maybe even isolation and special treatment?

If we are to accept the argument that "Banning homosexuality or limiting the rights of homosexuals is basically discriminating groups of people for who they are." should we accept it for all other similar situations?

Why is it OK to discriminate if someone has caused harm to others (or their property, more commonly), but not if they have not? Do homosexuals really not cause harm to others? Considering the constant unrest that has been caused in many countries as a result of their collective actions (aka not caused intrinsicly by their existence, but because of their political actions or otherwise), is it a fair assessment to say they do not cause harm?
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff



I apologise if this is seen as a pointless post, but I think this picture speaks volumes.

I think anybody who opposes gay marriage for any reason other than 'derp, I'm a bigot' will one day realise that the only reason it's 'wrong' is because they've spent their whole lives surrounded by other bigoted people who also say it's 'wrong' without any rational justification. Exactly the same as the attitude towards black people before the Civil Rights Movement.

One day we will conquer your wall of hate and it will be glorious.

Originally Posted by ImmortalPig View Post
Why is it OK to discriminate if someone has caused harm to others (or their property, more commonly), but not if they have not? Do homosexuals really not cause harm to others? Considering the constant unrest that has been caused in many countries as a result of their collective actions (aka not caused intrinsicly by their existence, but because of their political actions or otherwise), is it a fair assessment to say they do not cause harm?

I'm hoping you said that as food for discussion rather than it representing your true opinion? Do you agree with the killing of millions of Jews during the holocaust? I mean, they did not cause harm to others, but there involvement as fire-wood in the holocaust certainly caused unrest in many countries.

No? Of course not, because it was the Nazis' fault, not the Jews'. Similarly all the 'unrest' around gay marriage is the fault of crusty old men and brainwashed young people, not of the gay population.
Last edited by Moop; Feb 16, 2015 at 02:50 PM.
one time i had a hair deep in my urethra and when i pulled it out it felt kinda good ~fudgiebalz 2020


<~Skul> they're not children, they're demon midgets
<~Skul> if you kill one in front of the rest, they'll scatter and leave
Originally Posted by Ele View Post
Marriage is, however, a legal institution. Most Western countries have the church/state split codified into their constitutions. That being the case, we can force it change - it isn't a sacred Christian privilege. Originally, homosexuality wasn't morally OK when the marriage acts were written. Over time, our morals changed and now it's more socially acceptable. There's always a lag between what society deems OK and what the law deems OK, and that's where we're at right now.

I realised that this might be the case while writing my post but couldn't be bothered to check. While thinking it is unreasonable to claim the homosexuals should not have the right to marry, and now realising that marriage did not originate from the church, as I had previously believed, I do not believe that churches should be forced to carry out ceremonies for homosexual marriage since this is not the basis of such a ceremony.


And pig, I admire you courage to try to use a controversial argument on such an emotionally charged topic, but it does not look into medical practices when it comes to medicating the neurologically ill enough to be very convincing. 6/10
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If you intend to educate yourself on the matter then I will have linked a couple of articles and essays below.

Last edited by Zelda; Feb 16, 2015 at 03:24 PM. Reason: <24 hour edit/bump
Good morning sweet princess
Originally Posted by Moop View Post


I apologise if this is seen as a pointless post, but I think this picture speaks volumes.

I think anybody who opposes gay marriage for any reason other than 'derp, I'm a bigot' will one day realise that the only reason it's 'wrong' is because they've spent their whole lives surrounded by other bigoted people who also say it's 'wrong' without any rational justification. Exactly the same as the attitude towards black people before the Civil Rights Movement.

One day we will conquer your wall of hate and it will be glorious.


(Just imagine the caption to being "how stupid are you going to look in 40 years", I'm not going to photo edit)

I apologise if this is seen as a pointless post, but I think this picture speaks volumes.

I think anybody who opposes gay marriage for any reason other than 'derp, I'm a social marxist' will one day realise that the only reason it's 'right' is because they've spent their whole lives surrounded by other social marxists people who also say it's 'right' without any rational justification. Exactly the same as the attitude towards black people before the Civil Rights Movement.

One day we will conquer your wall of delusion and it will be glorious.
Originally Posted by Moop View Post
I'm hoping you said that as food for discussion rather than it representing your true opinion? Do you agree with the killing of millions of Jews during the holocaust? I mean, they did not cause harm to others, but there involvement as fire-wood in the holocaust certainly caused unrest in many countries.

No? Of course not, because it was the Nazis' fault, not the Jews'. Similarly all the 'unrest' around gay marriage is the fault of crusty old men and brainwashed young people, not of the gay population.

Right, I'm literally Hitler for disagreeing with you. You assert a lot but don't give any logic or evidence for anything, ignore the argument of other people, and are quick to flame and even enact Godwin's law. You'll make a fine lmod one day.

On a sidenote, Jewish bolsheviks are one of the factors that caused WW2. So are Jews at fault for their existence? No. But some Jews certainly were at fault. That's a discussion for another day, but if you are going to use a Nazi analogy at least know history.
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Originally Posted by protonitron View Post
And pig, I admire you courage to try to use a controversial argument on such an emotionally charged topic, but it does not look into medical practices when it comes to medicating the neurologically ill enough to be very convincing. 6/10

I don't think it's necessary to go into any more depth.

Just because someone has, for example ADD they are treated differently, sent to specialists or to a special school/class, and even given medication. Should we not just accept them for who they are?
Last edited by ImmortalPig; Feb 16, 2015 at 03:39 PM. Reason: <24 hour edit/bump
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff
I'm going to say right now that some of the American Pride Parades are kind of going overboard.
Some of them are walking up and down naked on a really popular road.
I'm fine with gay marriage and what they stand for but it's how they stand for it (in some cases) that I just don't get. Since it's not everyone that does this it's fine, there are good people that are proving their point and using simple costumes and signs whereas their are also bad ones, such as the image ImmortalPig linked.
This doesn't mean that there isn't cruel ways people have tried to say that gay marriage is wrong.
Last edited by Ele; Feb 16, 2015 at 04:02 PM. Reason: No more goddamn pictures, guys
Life's not a waste of time and time's not a waste of life so let's stop wasting time, get wasted and have the time of our lives - Mr Worldwide 3:18
Fun fact: I have ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactive disorder), it is pretty serious in my case (I need more medication than is usually required for someone my age, I take about 7-10 pills of varying strength almost every day when I don't forget). My father has ADD it is less powerful in his case but he takes no medication and doesn't mention it unless you ask him, he doesn't go to any specialists and I don't think he ever has ever since he was diagnosed. He is/was pretty successful and while being a pretentious egotistical dick to a lot of people, I doubt any of them would think his behaviour is caused by a neurological deficit. He doesn't take the medication because he says he isn't the same person when on them and I can respect that since I take the medication because I am not the same person without them. People with this sort of disorder tend to have a choice about these things as long as they don't cause too much trouble.

Now I personally think you should research stuff before talking about it with the degree of conviction you insist on smearing on anything and everything you post regardless of how much you actually know. If you read any posts from me written later than 9:00PM GMT the chances are I wrote it unmedicated. Why not try picking another disorder to shamelessly exaggerate?
Good morning sweet princess
I don't see why exactly you dislike my post protonitron.

I know you have ADHD, and your example that your father refuses medication while you take medication is a perfect example of the different way that society treats people with psychiatric disorders.

I didn't exaggerate anything, it was just an example. I'm not fond of sweeping statements, what exactly do you disagree with about my statement protronitron?

From what I gather you seem to think that the right to refuse medication is important here? I don't see how. Please clarify.
Originally Posted by RedPanda View Post
I'm going to say right now that some of the American Pride Parades are kind of going overboard.
Some of them are walking up and down naked on a really popular road.
I'm fine with gay marriage and what they stand for but it's how they stand for it (in some cases) that I just don't get. Since it's not everyone that does this it's fine, there are good people that are proving their point and using simple costumes and signs whereas their are also bad ones, such as the image ImmortalPig linked.
This doesn't mean that there isn't cruel ways people have tried to say that gay marriage is wrong.

Certainly.

I'm just challenging the assertion that homosexuality is harmless. If we were to tally up the good and bad aspects, would we really come up with a net positive impact? I find it somewhat hard to believe, there's very rarely any discussion about the positive aspects of having a society where homosexuality is normalized, but there are often very specific complaints from people about why they dislike homosexuality.
Last edited by ImmortalPig; Feb 16, 2015 at 04:18 PM.
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff
In a world where we work for something we have to believe that everything has a cause. Things dont happen randomly. And in such a world being gay is nonsense. I mean love exists because humanity would die without children. Gay people cant have children...

In my opinion being gay = needing more attention, wanting to be different. Black people didnt do weird things on parades.
I mean, why did you mention that you are gay in the starting post?

Ele Moderated Message:
User is warned for low post quality. Post bordering on extremely insulting and ignorant.
Last edited by Zelda; Feb 20, 2015 at 01:25 PM. Reason: Moderator is warned of spelling quality. ;)
"Why?"
Originally Posted by ImmortalPig View Post
I don't see why exactly you dislike my post protonitron.

I know you have ADHD, and your example that your father refuses medication while you take medication is a perfect example of the different way that society treats people with psychiatric disorders.

I didn't exaggerate anything, it was just an example. I'm not fond of sweeping statements, what exactly do you disagree with about my statement protronitron?

The fact that people with ADHD are not necessarily treated differently unless they can't handle it and end up causing trouble. To put this back on topic here is an analogy: If someone is gay then discrimination (the type you have talked about) against them is unjustified since the "disorder" to use your terminology has not caused any problems. If someone is gay and continuously hits on heterosexual guys who he knows he is making feel uncomfortable then he should probably seek some sort of specialist help because he is causing a problem. Now you might think this fits with your argument that discrimination is acceptable but I believe the same goes for heterosexual guys hitting on women, if they end up making people feel uncomfortable and don't care if a girl isn't interested then he should seek specialist help on account of causing a problem and making people feel uncomfortable.

You are right that as someone with ADHD I a) take medication and b) see specialists but you failed to mention the fact that nobody really enforces my medication, I have it as an option and I just carry packets of tablets around with me for when I need to concentrate, my dad chooses not to and is not discriminated for ADD at all. I see a specialist once a year so I can continue taking medication, it costs money to see them and it is a private company in my case. It isn't just a case of refusing or accepting medication, if I didn't want to take medication I could probably just continue with my life and nobody (except my close family and aforementioned specialists) would care until I started acting annoying.

In other words, you are comparing two things which are rather different and you don't understand one of them very well. Prejudicial discrimination is not the same as discrimination where discriminant has to ask to be discriminated beforehand. If a gay guy asks for medication to neuter them and is willing to pay for the prescription then sure, your analogy works, but I don't think that is what you were arguing.
Good morning sweet princess
Originally Posted by ImmortalPig View Post
The common pro-gay-marriage argument is "Banning homosexuality or limiting the rights of homosexuals is basically discriminating groups of people for who they are." (to quote Redundant) Is this a logical argument?

The main assertion here is that it is wrong to discriminate between people based on who they are.

Of course, we can all agree that discrimination is fine, for example we put criminals in jail, can we apply the same argument to jailed criminals? Well, Redundant specifically says "Homosexuals do not harm others by being who they are" - that is, they aren't an intrinsic threat. Jailed criminals are assumably a threat in some way, maybe they didn't pay parking fines, maybe they abused their children, maybe they were jailed for insider trading. These are things that we have recognise as wrong. But why do criminals do these criminal things?

Modern theory indicates that biology and social factors both play a role to some degree.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/ar...anted=all&_r=0
http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/...f/tandi263.pdf
I won't bore you with spammed links, but there is a general consensus that you can have a genetic disposition to being a criminal, but that social factors (whether economic, geographic, your family, your community, etc) are important too.

So ignoring the "do not harm others" clause, we say that some people are criminals in the same way that some people are homosexuals? Is it right to limit their rights?

Currently sexuality is seen as a product of biological, hormonal and social factors. So are mental illness or genetic disorders? Are we wrong to give them drugs, treatment, maybe even isolation and special treatment?

If we are to accept the argument that "Banning homosexuality or limiting the rights of homosexuals is basically discriminating groups of people for who they are." should we accept it for all other similar situations?

Why is it OK to discriminate if someone has caused harm to others (or their property, more commonly), but not if they have not? Do homosexuals really not cause harm to others? Considering the constant unrest that has been caused in many countries as a result of their collective actions (aka not caused intrinsicly by their existence, but because of their political actions or otherwise), is it a fair assessment to say they do not cause harm?

You're asking questions that you leave unanswered. Don't step abstractly around the point you're trying to make, come out and say it. If you truly believe what you're saying is correct and, as you mention later, we'll look pretty stupid in 40 years, then get the last laugh by saying explicilty what you're hinting at.


I'm going to assume you're against gay marriage, possibly trolling, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and afford a hopefully reasonable retort.

The major weakness of your implied argument is whether homosexuality causes harm. Your only example to support that it is the political unrest that the gay rights movement has caused in several countries. The problem with this assertion is that it's assuming they would be harmful by default and cause unrest anyways. Would that be true? Hard to say, as homosexuality in the modern era has existed almost solely in a hostile environment, with threat of ostracism, both socially and economically, and death. And in such an environment, discontent and unrest is not uncommon amongst any group. So it would be rather unfair, and illogical, to assume that homosexuality is harmful solely based on a revolt against the social order.

Bringing criminality into this discussion, and saying why do we punish criminality but shouldn't punish homosexuality if they are both genetically linked is a red herring at it's finest. That being said, I'll take it on briefly before never touching it again, as it's irrelevant. Criminality, by definition, is conflicting and detrimental to society. Homosexuality was once synonymous with criminality, but that was based on religious views to sodomy. In a modern take, there is nothing inherently conflicting about homosexuality with society, other than the current pursuit of rights. Criminality is still conflicting with society. There are not enough similarities between homosexuality and criminality's influence on society to use them as suitable parallels for the sake of this argument.

Lastly, another red herring that I will address only once, we treat mental disorders because, in the majority of situations, they are detrimental to and/or unwanted by the afflicted. The vast majority of people with mental disorders are those with anxiety and depression, and a near entirety do not want to have those disorders. The relatively few people with more difficult disorders like schizophrenia or dementia often lack the cognitive capabilities to realize their situation, but the disorder is actively detrimental to their well-being, often robbing them of their abilities to care for themselves. The similarities between homosexuality and mental disorders stop at genetic disposition. The only cases where homosexuality was unwanted was in response to outside pressure or rejection. And homosexuality is not detrimental to a person's well-being.
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