Hey - you're selling yourself short.
I agree. I would miss your posts weren't available to me.
This one of the things I found interesting. Talking about the most recent polling that has shown a drop in support was this exception:
<<People with post-grad degrees became 2 percentage points more favorable towards legalizing gay sex since May.>>
Of course I was interested because that's my demographic and I'm one of those whose view has just recently become more favorable. Basically the change in my thinking was that the institution of marriage is so far afield already that this last step hardly matters and it's only fair to let everybody participate.
Then I read this:
<<BEYOND THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
Some interesting comments on Kurtz from Noah Millman who writes Gideon's Blog. He was until recently an advocate of gay marriage, but no longer. Excerpts below, full post here.
Kurtz relies almost entirely on the slippery slope to make his case. But there is a simple answer to all slippery-slope arguments: stop sliding. If polyamory is bad, oppose polyamory. [If slippery slope arguments are to have any effect], t is necessary to articulate the deep structure, in logic, law and culture, that will *force* us down the slope.
My own thinking on this topic has gotten, if anything, more conservative over time, and this disturbs me. I have a number of close gay friends; I know gay parents whose kids are wonderful, extremely well-adjusted people. I have no reason to believe that gay couples would be unable to form stable families. I'm convinced that for an irreducible core of individuals, homosexuality is not a choice but a destiny, and I think it is cruel to say to such people that they must hide who they are from shame. Believing all this, I should be an advocate of gay marriage. And I was, until fairly recently.
What changed my thinking had nothing to do with the nature of gay people or my sense of what was fair and just. What changed my view was thinking hard about the meaning of marriage, how that meaning has been debased, and how the case for gay marriage as currently articulated makes it extraordinarily difficult to restore what is essential about marriage; how it will, in fact, close the door on the possibility of restoration of what has been lost.>>
I had posted earlier about the barn door being open and the horse being already in the next county. I recognized, but did not explicitly state, what this guy said, which is that the legalization of gay unions would pretty much obviate the possibility of ever getting the horse back into the barn, assuming one could catch him. In that sense it would be the final nail in the coffin, to mix metaphors horribly. I would be concerned about that if there were any hint of interest out there in getting the horse back in the barn. I've brought it up several times here and there was no response. If someone somewhere would propose something to restore marriage I could be persuaded to shift sides again. But nothing. I am not prepared to leave things where they are. Either we go one way or the other, IMO. |
