Things that make you go..."WTF--?"

[autographedcat]

Listening to NPR's Morning Edition this morning, I heard a report on the President's video address to the National Association of Evangelicals in Colorado, which predictably focused on efforts to make gay marriage illegal.

Now, there are certainly some legitimate arguments against gay marriage. By legitimate, I don't mean that I agree with them (as I don't), but in the sense that they are founded on an actual thought process that one can use to support a rational argument.

Then there are people like Pam Flannery, interviewed in the segment, who said

There will be problems in, you know, in the western world, because then we've broken down the family, we're no longer producing children, and yet in other countries, where there's an agenda to affect America, they are going to be producing children with a agenda to hurt the United States, and so there's a concern, there's a fear there.

To which I went...."Whaaaa---?"

What barren intellectual wasteland produces people like this? What sort of low grade paranoia allows people to think that if we allow same-sex couples to get married, that we as a society will stop producing children, allowing our enemies to outbreed us? I admit that as arguments go, it's hard to refute, if only because the sheer ludicrousness of the approach tends to leave anyone with an above-room-temperature IQ speechless and unable to defend themselves.

Someone isn't making a lot of sense here. And I don't think it's me.

Comments

[shannachie.livejournal.com]

The fear that enemies might outbreed a nation is not new. Seventy years ago in Germany it was part of the propaganda. Maybe P. Flannery confused the bible with "Mein Kampf"?

[telynor.livejournal.com]

You know, I could say something really snarky here. I could. But there'd be no point. The fact is, there are more idiots than there are smart people, largely because smart people know how not to have babies every 18 months.

[tnatj.livejournal.com]

It may not make sense; but this is the fear. I could explicate the fear further, and perhaps I will in my own LJ eventually. I think (at root) it is a fear of loss of power at very basic tribal-societal sense, so it is very basic, perhaps as primal to humans as it is primal for humans to be a social animal.

This fear is an objective fact. There's no question of reason or perception here. As such, it needs to be understood in detail and addressed directly.

If it isn't, I think the polarization of this country will continue and deepen.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Refutation: When the children of those countries immigrate to America, don't they become, well, Americans? (Just like everyone else living in America right now? (Including the Native Americans if you go way back.)

Personally, I'm more worried about the population of the world outstripping sustainability by a huge margin than nationalism.

clawfoot's point: "That argument also presumes that unmarried gay people, right now, are producing children. Which by and large they aren't. And those who are would probably also choose to do so even if they were married." (The last sentence was my addendum, I think.)

[plaid-dragon.livejournal.com]

Does this mean that gay couples who don't get married *are* able to procreate? Because that would open up a whole wonderful research area.

[plaid-dragon.livejournal.com]

Without outside intervention or relying on a third party, I meant, obviously.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

This is what I think of as "You Will Be Assimilated" line of (*cough*) reasoning.

Evidently, some people believe that the allure of homosexuality is so doggoned irresistable that if we legitimize it then everybody in America will turn queer and stop having babies and those Dreadful, Icky Furriners (who, as everyone knows, breed like rats) will take over the world!!!

We could play Spot The Fallacies with this one, but it's hardly worth the effort.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Well, in point of fact our enemies *are* outbreeding us, no matter how fundamentalist our society gets. Of course so are most of our friends. Except for western Europe, the world in general is outbreeding us at a fairly impressive rate. Since it already outnumbers us by rather a lot, I fail to see the point in worrying.

[poltr1]

The thinking that Ms. Flannery espouses would also damn any married couples who choose to have no children, or are infertile.

It gets weirder. As you know, Cincinnati is one of the most conservative cities in the country. And thanks to the local media, I've heard of a group of bluenoses in the area who call themselves "Citizens for Community Values". Their position is that homosexuality is a behavior, and if we tolerate and accept gay marriage, we will also have to accept and tolerate other deviant sexual behaviors and formalize their relationships as well. Read their position paper, and weep.

How the 3@#$% can I logically argue with these people?