Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies: On Myths, Morons, Free Speech, Football, and Assorted Absurdities by Chris Kluwe Page A
Authors: Chris Kluwe
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assume that you’ve never been trained in classical logic, debate techniques, or basic empathy, so I will humbly offer my own meager knowledge in these fields as it relates to your literary masterpiece “Why Same-Sex Marriage Affects My Marriage.”
You start off strong, with an opening salvo ostensibly proclaiming that every group has the right to its own views (if we ignore the fearmongering subhead of the article, “The goal is to move society—in this case, away from a safe environment for children”), but then, much like a Michael Bay plot, your argument starts careening off the rails. Your first mistake is what is termed a mind-projection fallacy—the assumption that the way you see the world is the way the world really is.
You state, “As we have seen, and understandably so, people in homosexual relationships are trying to change society to more readily embrace and promote their view of their identity. This is possible largely due to the disassociation between sexual relationships and procreation.” But what you’re really saying is “Those gay people do sex things that I find icky, and we should oppress them because they can’t have babies.” You completely ignore the fact that homosexual people are trying to changesociety not just because they want to have teh butt secks (or rise and grind, for the ladies), but also because they want to avoid, oh, I don’t know, things like homosexuals being tortured and tied to a fence post until they die (Matthew Shepard), shot to death while attending school (Lawrence King), shot to death for being transgender (Moses King), committing suicide by hanging due to repeated bullying and taunting (Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover), shot to death and burned while standing military guard (Seaman August Provost), and stabbed to death after serving in the Vietnam War (James Zappalorti). Every single one of these attacks occurred because of the victim’s sexuality. Let’s not even get into the over eleven hundred federal benefits gay couples are legally unable to obtain in the state of Minnesota because they can’t get married—things like health care, survivor benefits, and legacies to pass on to their families (including children).
Deep breath.
Moving on, we come to the next little pearl of wisdom hidden in your manifesto, that hoary old chestnut of traditional marriage. In this case, you’ve made the logic error of the etymological fallacy: the assumption that the original or historical meaning of a word or phrase is necessarily similar to its current meaning.
Which version of the term
traditional marriage
would you like to use, Mr. Balling? Should we go back to ancient Israel and practice polygamy, in which the only right a woman had was the right to own her own tent? Or should we use the ancient Greek definition of
marriage,
one more concerned withinheritance than with love, one that forced a woman to divorce her current husband and marry a sibling if that was required to continue the family? Should we force a brother to marry his dead sibling’s wife? Or perhaps we should make arranged marriages with child brides; that’s certainly traditional enough. Wait, I know, let’s go with the one where you have to pay three goats and a cow in order to ensure the woman is yours to keep forever, and you can stone her to death if she cheats on you. That one sounds terrific!
You see, Mr. Balling, since you don’t actually provide a definition of the term
traditional marriage,
I think your definition of it boils down to “I want to make people who believe differently than I do miserable by taking away their free will, so I’ll cloak my hate in the guise of
tradition
and
history
without knowing what those words really mean,” and, well, I’m not really okay with that. Also, traditional marriage has traditionally been rather tough on 50 percent of the human population, what with the whole enslavement and forced-childbearing and stoning-to-death thing (I’m talking about women,
You start off strong, with an opening salvo ostensibly proclaiming that every group has the right to its own views (if we ignore the fearmongering subhead of the article, “The goal is to move society—in this case, away from a safe environment for children”), but then, much like a Michael Bay plot, your argument starts careening off the rails. Your first mistake is what is termed a mind-projection fallacy—the assumption that the way you see the world is the way the world really is.
You state, “As we have seen, and understandably so, people in homosexual relationships are trying to change society to more readily embrace and promote their view of their identity. This is possible largely due to the disassociation between sexual relationships and procreation.” But what you’re really saying is “Those gay people do sex things that I find icky, and we should oppress them because they can’t have babies.” You completely ignore the fact that homosexual people are trying to changesociety not just because they want to have teh butt secks (or rise and grind, for the ladies), but also because they want to avoid, oh, I don’t know, things like homosexuals being tortured and tied to a fence post until they die (Matthew Shepard), shot to death while attending school (Lawrence King), shot to death for being transgender (Moses King), committing suicide by hanging due to repeated bullying and taunting (Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover), shot to death and burned while standing military guard (Seaman August Provost), and stabbed to death after serving in the Vietnam War (James Zappalorti). Every single one of these attacks occurred because of the victim’s sexuality. Let’s not even get into the over eleven hundred federal benefits gay couples are legally unable to obtain in the state of Minnesota because they can’t get married—things like health care, survivor benefits, and legacies to pass on to their families (including children).
Deep breath.
Moving on, we come to the next little pearl of wisdom hidden in your manifesto, that hoary old chestnut of traditional marriage. In this case, you’ve made the logic error of the etymological fallacy: the assumption that the original or historical meaning of a word or phrase is necessarily similar to its current meaning.
Which version of the term
traditional marriage
would you like to use, Mr. Balling? Should we go back to ancient Israel and practice polygamy, in which the only right a woman had was the right to own her own tent? Or should we use the ancient Greek definition of
marriage,
one more concerned withinheritance than with love, one that forced a woman to divorce her current husband and marry a sibling if that was required to continue the family? Should we force a brother to marry his dead sibling’s wife? Or perhaps we should make arranged marriages with child brides; that’s certainly traditional enough. Wait, I know, let’s go with the one where you have to pay three goats and a cow in order to ensure the woman is yours to keep forever, and you can stone her to death if she cheats on you. That one sounds terrific!
You see, Mr. Balling, since you don’t actually provide a definition of the term
traditional marriage,
I think your definition of it boils down to “I want to make people who believe differently than I do miserable by taking away their free will, so I’ll cloak my hate in the guise of
tradition
and
history
without knowing what those words really mean,” and, well, I’m not really okay with that. Also, traditional marriage has traditionally been rather tough on 50 percent of the human population, what with the whole enslavement and forced-childbearing and stoning-to-death thing (I’m talking about women,
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