A Salute to Self-Defeating Analogies: The Rugby Argument

Using analogy to illustrate or explain your position is extremely popular in almost all human interaction. It was good enough for Plato, therefore we can conclude it is good enough for me! It allows us to map the familiar to the unfamiliar, to make new ideas more accessible to people. All conversation carries an element of ambiguity, and use of analogy can reduce this ambiguity, by using the similarities between the context being discussed and the analogous context to signpost your intended points. In this way, use of analogy could be considered a crude differential diagnosis of communicable ideas...

The problem with an argument from analogy is that, well, it's not precise. You're using an analogue to talk about something else. Not only could the valid points of reference between the two be limited, it's left entirely to interpretation precisely what the analogy means. It's entirely possible to supply an argument that does not relate at all, or isn't clear in how it relates to the original context. Worse, you could end up supplying an analogy that works AGAINST your argument, shooting yourself in the foot as it were.

Which is EXACTLY what's happened with Colin Craig and Bob McCoskrie's endeavours into the wonderful world of analogous arguments! Last August, Bob faithfully reproduced the Rugby Equality Bill on his blog, and thankfully a week later after I (and several others) had bugged him sufficiently to make him realise how bad it made him look, he decided to remove the callous and flippant reference to youth suicide. Baby steps. Not to be outdone, in October, Colin Craig decided to whip his balls out at the AUSA Marriage Equality Debate.

The Argument... such as it is.

The 'Rugby analogy' runs pretty much like this. Heterosexual unions and Homosexual unions are similar, but different, and it would be silly to give them the same name. Just as Rugby and Soccer are similar, but different, and it would be silly to give them the same name. The reason homosexuals want this bill to pass is because their union lacks the prestige and cultural significance of marriage, just as soccer lacks the prestige and cultural significance that rugby has in New Zealand.

Where it goes wrong...
Oh dear, where do I even start? Oh I know, the own-goal:
Both Rugby and Soccer are already referred to by the same name: FOOTBALL! 

Even though Rugby and Soccer are different, they're BOTH called 'football'. As is Australian Rules Football, and gridiron, and a number of others. Colin and Bob have managed to supply an analogy that SUPPORTS the Marriage Amendment Bill. You see, just as rugby union and rugby league and soccer and gridiron etc. are all 'football', so too are Catholic Marriage and Anglican Marriage and Jewish Marriage and Secular Marriage and 'Gay Marriage' all 'Marriage'. The addition of a tradition does not change the existing traditions, any more than a gridiron team starting up at the same field as an existing rugby club suddenly turn rugby into gridiron by association.

And this isn't the only example of their spectacular own-goal. I've already encountered people posting screeds of Copy-Pasta from PMNZ, including a new Food Equality Bill analogy. In this case meat is the stand-in for heterosexual unions, and vegetables are the stand-in for homosexual unions, and vegetarians are the stand-in for 'libruls!' (which I guess makes opponents of the bill 'meatheads' ;-). Problem there, although slightly more obscure, is that the word 'meat' derived from the Old English 'mete', which means 'food'. This definition can also be found in the book of Genesis:

  29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

They don't seem to be having much luck with this, do they?

Setting aside the fact that advocates of the Rugby Analogy are presenting a self-defeating argument, even the argument they actually intend is a deeply, deeply flawed analogy. This is evident by virtue of the fact that NOBODY IS DENYING SOCCER PLAYERS THE OPTION OF ALSO PLAYING RUGBY. Homosexual couples presently cannot have their union solemnised under the auspices of marriage, whereas heterosexual couples are free to choose between marriage and civil unions (and a number of my friends are in civil unions until such time as same-sex couples are allowed to marry, kia kaha!). This doesn't even work for the analogy, because the analogy is so tortuously fucking stupid. Unless you add a layer of demographic abstraction (Pakeha can play Rugby or Soccer, but New Zealanders from Brazil are only allowed to play Soccer), then the real case becomes impossible to represent in the analogy. The fact remains, the analogy does not represent the restriction present in real life. Soccer players can play rugby, rugby players can play soccer. I believe it's on Sonny Bill Williams' 'To-Do List'.

Salute!