A Salute to Threats of Voter Revolt

Yes, the peasants are revolting... at least, you could be forgiven for finding them so if you spend any amount of time reading the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the opponents of the bill. 

The Argument:

Ah, single-issue voters. An effective tool for legislative change, just look at the Legalise Cannabis Party!

If you vote FOR the Marriage Amendment Bill, you'll lose the support of ultra-conservatives.

Where it falls down:
What conservative votes do Labour, the Greens, Maori, Mana and Act have to lose?

The only party this threat actually threatens, is National. NZ First have shown their mettle by boldly covering their asses and shunting the responsibility onto the public, with Winston's ringing endorsement of his own irrelevance to the legal process. Consequently NZ First gets a free pass from conservatives. Labour, Mana and the Greens were never going to receive votes from conservatives. The only conservative in the token libertarian party in NZ, ACT, happens to be John Banks himself, who will lose the only support he has if he doesn't vote in favour of this legislation. This leaves National.

Now, roughly half of National are voting FOR the bill, and roughly half AGAINST. If this threat to vote-out those who support the bill has any legs, if the threat is followed through, National may well lose the next election. Contrary to Su'a William Sio's claim that supporting the bill will cost Labour the next election, the efforts of opponents of the bill to withdraw support from National on the grounds of a single issue, could end up handing the election to Labour instead. Of course it's bound to give Colin Craig's Conservative Party (CCCP) a bounce in support, so he looks set to make off like a bandit in all this. I do so hope he enjoys his time in Parliament with a Labour-led government setting the agenda.

A Winner is YOU!

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!

Of Slippery Slopes and Human Rights

An Illustrative Example of the Slippery Slope

Yesterday I dealt extensively with the Slippery Slope argument, which roughly holds that a sequence defined as "Things I Don't Like" will inevitably occur, because they're "Things I Don't Like", and we all know that "Things I Don't Like" are all the same, working together in a grand conspiracy to destroy all that is good and right in this world. It is the black-and-white binary thinking the claims that people supporting something innocuous like Same-Sex Marriage aren't actually supporting Same-Sex Marriage, oh no, they're really supporting Bestiality!

Those advocating the Slippery Slope go about it in a number of ways. They claim moral degeneracy. They believe if the definition of Marriage can be changed, then ALL conceivable changes will immediately be adopted (the burst dam principle) despite the fact that Marriage has been in a state of continuous change since its inception. They state that if the pro-SSM arguments are respected, then there's no logical reason to oppose polygamy or paedophilia. They accuse SSM-supporters of hypocrisy if they don't also support incestuous marriage, because clearly equality between two things (same-sex marriage and heterosexual marriage, for example) is not really equality unless EVERYTHING is equivalent (you can't have equality between homosexual and heterosexual couples until fish can marry bicycles!).

I'm not free until I can marry beer!

The 'Rights' issue:

As mentioned in the preceding article, one particular(ly ignorant) version of the argument is "If you make it a rights issue, then we have to respect the rights of paedophiles to marry kids!" etc. This just so happens to have a very handy parallel that we can all point to. So rather than clutter up the previous article with yet MORE words, I figured I would turn it into the addendum you are now reading. So without further ado, I present to you:

 The Slippery Slope to Suffrage

Haven't they suffraged enough?

When it comes to political rights, what could be a more central right than the participation in the democratic process? It's commonly accepted that government governs by consent, and the right to vote is how we establish that consent, so all other political rights flow from the right to vote, no?

The thing is, the definition of 'voter' has changed since its inception. Especially as regards who may be considered a 'voter', and who is deemed incapable or unworthy of voting responsibly. This gradual broadening of the 'voting public' can be seen as a lowering in quality, a general degradation of the character and requirements of eligible voters, a view that has certainly been expressed in the public discourse. In other words, a Rights-based argument leading to a Slippery Slope towards undesirable voters who do things like elect MPs that support Same-Sex Marriage, a problem we wouldn't have if we hadn't granted the vote to soft-hearted intellectual invalids such as women and itinerants!

So, let's take a look at the brief history of New Zealand voting rights! 

Firstly, from the 1853 election, the right to vote was restricted only to adult British men of means, either landowners possessed of £50 worth of land, or significant rental tenants. This would mean that men of substance, invested physically and financially in the prospects of the country, would be able to determine its future. A reasonable requirement, rather (eh wot!). As most Maori-owned land was held under communal title rather than private, independent ownership, the ability of Maori to vote in these initial elections was certain curtailed.

In 1862, the requirement that voters must own land was waived for those holding mining rights. This allowed itinerant miners to vote, despite their roaming, unsettled nature. In 1867, with the establishment of four Maori Seats in parliament, the right to some political representation was extended to the savages (good heavens!), with Maori being able to vote for their four representatives even if they did not privately own land.

When you give people rights, you have to acknowledge them as people?!

In 1879, the requirement to own land was discarded entirely, meaning any male British subject aged 21 or older could have a say in how he was governed. One of the direct consequences of this was the rise of working-class politics, which resulted in the ultimate moral degeneracy: The New Zealand Labour Party! Not convinced? Well the Labour Party introduced the bill that made homosexuality legal, and you can't have gay marriage without gay people now, can you?

Actually, let's entertain a brief tangent here a minute, shall we? The 1986 Homosexual Law Reform saw some of the most bitter and bellicose discourse in our political history, with National MP Norm Jones telling homosexuals to 'go back to the sewers where you came from'. It was a simpler time. The Homosexual Law Reform passed by the slimmest of margins, 49-44 in favour. Truly a nation divided.

1,000,000 people thinking about two dudes boning

So, a number of conservative and Christian figureheads formed the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, a lobbying group opposed to any and all homosexual law reforms in the 1980s. As you can see to your left, these stalwart defenders of Tradition and Morality decided to make themselves heard by delivering a petition to Parliament, to show the nation did NOT support any act that would allow consenting adults to do what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. A petition they claimed was signed by one million New Zealand citizens! Quite impressive in the days before the internet and social media. 

There's just one tiny little problem with this. Apparently the petition wasn't entirely kosher, and in fact contained an extensive number of fake signatures. When the Marriage Amendment Bill was drawn from the Members' Ballot last July, the ironically named Family First formed the 'ProtectMarriageNZ' advocacy group, and figuring that a discredited petition that failed to affect the political process in any way was such a good idea, they'd do the same thing again! EXACTLY the same thing, because it turns out they've managed to collect a petition with no quality control, so that it contains a myriad of prank pseudonyms (like Homer Sexual), duplicate signatures, signatures from foreigners without NZ citizenship, and the ringing endorsement of fictional characters from popular television shows and cartoons. Go look at the link and see for yourself, I don't mind waiting. The kicker? It's been running for a year and isn't even a tenth of the size of the CCC petition, despite the larger population and the ease of access afforded by the internet. They'll have to work a lot harder to be taken as the 'moral majority'. Of course petty vote-stuffing for their own vanity and self-justification isn't entirely unheard of for ProtectMarriageNZ, considering they picked up 99% of their fans on January 13th, all from Istanbul, Turkey. Totally legit, right?

So, suffrage, right?

Suffragette, and Captain of the Starship Normandy

Alright, back to the illustrative example. After abolishing the land requirements, a determined effort by the Suffragettes, spearheaded by Kate Sheppard, won women the right to vote in 1893. The final relaxation in voting requirements were age based, with eligibility set at 20 in 1969, and 18 in 1974.

So, we've seen a gradual expansion in voting rights in this nation. Or, to put it another way, extending voting rights to Miners was the first step on a slippery slope to Maori voters, poor voters, women voters, and young voters! It's a degeneracy of the sacred democratic principle of an informed and invested voting public! It worked so well to start, and it all went horribly wrong. Mark their words, this nation will surely fall to ruins over a century ago!

They expect the world, don't they!

And the argument that they use? That citizens of the nation contribute to the national economy whether they own land or not, that those affected by the law should have a say in who makes the laws and how those laws are made? Why, that could be extended to so many things! Our livestock and our trees contribute immeasurably to our economy! Our children and our automobiles are affected by the laws our government enact! Surely this means that we'll soon be extending the vote to children and sheep, rivers and bicycles, right? I mean we'd already lowered the age restriction TWICE!

It is the exact same reasoning, is it not? We relaxed standards and extended rights to different demographics already, so there's nothing stopping us relaxing standards further and broadening the aegis of human rights once more, right? It's a slippery slope to Fido deciding the next election, as much as extension of marriage rights to homosexual couples entails granting those rights to polygamists (and, by illogical extension, bestiality). Which is to say, not at all.

Just as we acknowledge and accept that children and animals and inanimate objects are incapable of granting or withdrawing informed consent regarding votes (and hence are in the custodial care of the relevant authorities, or simply completely outside of the political process), we can also acknowledge when a lack of meaningful consent (amongst other reasons), serves as a satisfactory reason to oppose the relationships Slippery Slope advocates claim will surely be legitimised by allowing Same-Sex Marriage. And in the case of the arguments raised in opposition to Same-Sex Marriage, I have yet to encounter one that cannot also be applied to people we already allow the right to marry.

A Salute to the Slippery Slope

Part 1 of my series on ambitiously stupid arguments
 
The Argument: "Gay Marriage will lead to Polygamous/Incestuous/Paedophilic/Bestial Marriage"

Why it sucks:
It's a handy rule of thumb, that if the name of your argument contains the word 'fallacy', it's time to find a new argument. However, the gormless gift that keeps on giving (and never learning), Bob McCoskrie, isn't about to let a little thing like 'logic' stand in the way of some good old-fashioned scaremongering! Simply jump on that flagship of stupidity, ProtectMarriageNZ, and you'll see roughly 50% of the articles posted assert the slippery-slope fallacy... logic-free portents of paedo-incesto-polygamy are about the only non-religious argument they have. It's a pity for them that the argument is about as valid as Fred Durst is talented.

Assumptions: Before we begin exploring why the Slippery Slope is as daft as a box of hair, it would pay to detail a few of my underlying assumptions here.

• The Marriage Amendment Bill seeks to change the LEGAL definition of Marriage. That is, it relates to the relationship between the state, and a couple in a committed relationship that is considered, to some degree, as one legal entity for certain aspects of the law.
• In order for legislation to be changed, it must either have support from the majority of the populace, OR be supported by an argument sufficient to warrant the change, in the absence of a sufficient counter-argument. In philosophy and logic this is the Principle of Sufficient Reason: For each thing that occurs, there is a sufficient reason to explain/cause its occurrence.
• It is entirely within the purview of the Government to amend legislation so as to better account for the reality of those it governs.

The Slippery Slope argument calls for legislative inertia: Don't change the status quo, because terrible things WILL INEVITABLY FOLLOW.

What it says: The Slippery Slope holds that if some state X were to occur, then state Y and Z will follow, therefore we should do everything in our power to prevent the occurrence of state X, even if state X is perfectly fine, harmless, uncontroversial, or even beneficial in and of itself. So in this specific case, we should not legally recognise same-sex couples as 'married', because then we will inevitably be recognising incestuous, paedophilic, or bestial couplings as married, too.

Where it falls down: The thing to note with the Slippery Slope fallacy, is that the argument wishes to establish a necessary link between causally-distinct states, such that if one should occur, the other must inevitably also occur. To show what this means, and why it is such a catastrophic failure of logic, contrast it with the most fundamental logical relationship known to mankind: Cause and Effect. With the cause/effect relationship, state A causes state B, state B causes state C, and state C causes state D, etc. This is not a 'Slippery Slope', because the cause of each state is sufficiently explained by the preceding state, and each causal relationship is readily identifiable and supported by sound logic and empirical evidence. For example, a lit match applied to a particular fuel with a flash point conducive of ignition from an external source causes the fuel to burn (state A causing state B), and the burning of the particular fuel is a chemical reaction that produces smoke (state B causing state C). This is a causal chain; each step in the chain is identifiable as the direct cause of each subsequent step, and each causal relationship is necessary, hence the maxim "Where there's smoke, there's fire". We never state that 'lit matches are a slippery slope to smoke!'. A Slippery Slope Argument superficially resembles Cause and Effect, but entirely lacks any causal/logical necessity between any of the predicted states: It claims each state will inevitably happen, with NO reason or justification as to why they will necessarily happen. Cause and Effect is where each step causes the next, the Slippery Slope is where unrelated events happen in sequence because I said so!

So why do they do it?  The point of the Slippery Slope argument is not to present any logical or coherent argument pertinent to the current debate. It exists solely to sideline the debate in favour of moral panic. The whole point of the Slippery Slope argument is to imbue the current debate with all the moral opprobrium of a visibly harsher and more detestable 'future state' of affairs, despite the fact that the two states are COMPLETELY UNRELATED. To reaffirm a waning social stigma by borrowing stigma from elsewhere. It's the same principle as dog-whistle politics. You'll note that the Slippery Slope takes no account of the comparative merits of the state currently being discussed (same-sex marriage), nor do the advocates of Slippery Slopes ever articulate why the pursuant states are wrong. No judgement for or against is made or given. The entire purpose, is scaremongering.

Fine-tuning Foul Arguments: "Aha!" the Blogs McConstantly's of the world will cry, "What about habitual association?". Most advocates of the Slippery Slope argument would not be so bold as to claim that same-sex marriage causes polygamy (okay I may be somewhat generous in the use of 'most', there), but will point to patterns or identifiable trends. Essentially, they will point at past examples of chronological sequencing (with the 20/20 vision of hindsight) and claim that because chronological sequencing of tangentially related states has occurred before, that is proof that the Slippery Slope has merit. Such claims are wrong. And bad. For one thing, just because you can point to a chronological sequence of thematically related events in the past, does not mean that there was any necessity inherent in that sequence. All that it means is that you are capable of looking at past events and grouping them together under a particular thematic category that you yourself are imposing upon them. To extrapolate from that to make assertive claims of what the future holds is to elevate yourself to the status of soothsayer, provided 'sooth' is Ye Olde English for compleat bulleshyte.

Nostrodumbass, if you will.

Let's take a look at an example to highlight the error here: Methamphetamines. Meth ruins lives, no argument; it is INCREDIBLY addictive and wreaks havoc on your health and mental well-being. And I guarantee you, almost without exception, people who have tried Meth have previously tried caffeine. They're both drugs, they're both stimulants, and they both cause some degree of addiction or physical dependency (much lighter in the case of coffee, but we're speaking thematically here). So, coffee is a slippery slope that leads to meth addiction. Meth is terrible, so we should ban coffee.

Think of the children!

If we're going to give any weight to this 'sequence of thematically related events' perspective, then considering the entire sequence leading through Polygamy all the way to Bestiality, we should at least be honest: The first step was heterosexual marriage. Straight marriage leads to Bestiality. And took a LOT of detours to Polygamy-Land (not Utah!) and a couple of dalliances with same-sex marriage already. Clearly, marriage should never have been legal at all. For the good of our immortal souls.

Except that it's all bunk. It is a living testament to the accuracy of Poe's Law:

So the Slippery Slope lacks any logical necessity, and the predictive powers of 'habitual association' are weaker than homeopathic lager. But Bob says that Polygamy is the natural next-step after same-sex marriage, so surely all the countries that recognise Polygamy must already recognise same-sex marriage, right? Uh, well, funny you should mention that... No state that recognises polygamous marriage extends legal recognition to same-sex marriage! In fact, in a large number of countries that support polygamy, homosexuality is illegal, or deemed non-existent within that nation's borders. In Uganda, it could well carry the death penalty! So it's actually entirely possible to have polygamy regardless of whether or not you allow same-sex marriage. So possible is it, that nowhere in the world is BOTH polygamy and same-sex marriage legal. Every extant example points at the complete OPPOSITE of the claim made by Slippery Slope advocates. But they have EVIDENCE. That evidence being statements and press-releases from polygamy advocates advocating for polygamy... because clearly people in polyamorous relationships don't want to get married until homosexuals are allowed. Yes, it seemingly never occurred to Bob and his ilk that advocates of polygamy may be advocating polygamy independently of the Same-Sex Marriage issue. It would appear that his 'smoking gun' is firing Dum-Dum bullets.

But you made it a Rights argument!

Ah yes, the capstone of this hyperventilating hyperbolic hissy-fit of an argument. The 'Rights' angle. The problem, as the Slippery Slope advocate sees it, is that in coaching the rhetoric about same-sex marriage in terms of human rights, this gives polygamists, incestuous couples, paedophiles and dog-botherers carte blanche to use the same argument and be recognised by the government in turn. There is, of course, a fundamental flaw in this reasoning:
Even if every argument made for Same-Sex Marriage could be made for Polygamy/Paedophilia/Incest/Bestiality, the arguments against them are different. 

Try this illustrative example on for size!
To make this slippery slope argument, you essentially have to admit that there is nothing specifically wrong with, say, paedophilia. Which is an uncomfortable position to have to defend, making it all the more curious that in ten months of frequent discussion, not a single soul I've confronted over the Slippery Slope has ever articulated a specific argument against any of the aforementioned states (perhaps unexpectedly cognizant of the fact that this would immediately shoot a hole in their Slippery Slope argument). It is telling that the only people that I have encountered who were advocating Polygamy, Incest, Paedophilia or Bestiality, were anti-SSM types trying to pin the social stigma of these acts on me.

Conclusion: To make the 'Slippery Slope Argument' is to admit that you do not have an argument to make.

If you had an argument for or against Same Sex Marriage, you wouldn't need the Slippery Slope, and the Slippery Slope only works if you ignore all other arguments specific to any of the states posited therein. The ONLY thing even remotely approaching validation for the Slippery Slope is the way stigma diminishes once the public becomes familiar with different people or ideas, otherwise known as the quiet death of ignorance. And if stigma is the only argument you can make against something, you have already abdicated the moral high-ground.

A Salute for all the True Believers!

Post-Script: Some may feel I'm being a little hard on ol' Bobby Boy. I assure you, it's nothing personal, I'm sure he's lovely to his friends. It's just, well, I wish he would follow the wisdom of Homer Simpson.

An Appropriate Salute to Terrible Logic

Since last July, I have been avidly following and actively, extensively participating in the national debate around 'Marriage Equality', using my insufferable Social Justice Warrior powers for good, rather than evil. I have a keen interest in the debate partly because I believe that the government should not ban participation in a core social institution and cultural practice on the grounds of sexuality, and largely because I simply love picking apart mystifyingly stupid arguments. And boy am I in luck with this debate! It is a bonanza of inept reasoning and logical fallacy! Be it apocalyptic Christians predicting homogeddon, Bob McCoskrie blathering on about the Gaystappo marching into his bedroom and slapping him every time he tries to use a gendered term like 'father' or 'wife', or Colin Craig whipping his balls out at the AUSA Marriage Bill Debate, it's a veritable Who's Who of WTF.

I, and a number of my friends, have followed the parliamentary process, watching the Readings and Committee Stage debates on Parliament TV. There have been some excellent contributions in the First and Second Readings... then again, there have been confused waffling contributions also. The Bill itself had been amended during the Select Committee phase, and passed the Parliamentary Committee reading without adopting any of the Supplementary Order Papers, and is now set for its third and final reading on the 17th of April (whereupon, if it is voted in as seems most likely, it will become law, and same-sex couples could be married by August).

Until such time, I will be infrequently updating this blog with investigations of the arguments made against this bill.
Part 1: The Lazarus of arguments, The Slippery Slope!
Part 2: The Rugby Bill - An Analogy for Abject Stupidity.
Part 3: If you respect that a minority has the same rights as everyone else, YOU'LL LOSE THE ELECTION!
Part 4: The ANZACs will feel bad if you don't discriminate against the same people the Nazis discriminated against!
Part 5: The government will make saying 'Husband' or 'Wife' a thought-crime!
Part 6: How DARE the government NOT make Gay Marriage a thought-crime?!

Consider it a 'greatest hits' of bad arguments that have amused me over the past year. I hope to give these pitiable protests the salute appropriate to them:

Gay Marriage? May as well name your boy 'Sue'!

A queer sense of persecution

Having spent some extensive time debating the merits of same-sex marriage on the PMNZ page, ground zero of Family First's campaign to valiantly protect marriage from people who want to get married, and advance family values by preventing people from forming families, I've noticed with sad bemusement that they really, really, really enjoy playing the victim. The martyrdom of Saint Me, if you will.

It crops up in a number of ways. At the top, it was displayed in Colin Craig's claim that the vote on the Marriage Equality Bill was a FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY despite the fact that support for the bill was about 65% both in parliament and in public polling. At the coal-face, it extends to opponents of same-sex marriage complaining that gay marriage is being forced on them, without realising the irony of complaining about forced tolerance of other people living their lives as they will, when all they want is the entirely reasonable right to veto the relationships of people they will never, ever meet... O.o

Well, the sense of victimhood at having to acknowledge others' right to self-assertion and self-determination has reared its ugly head again. Following John Key's Gay Red Shirt gaffe a couple weeks back, Bob McCoskrie is upset that there hasn't been public condemnation over the use of the term 'bigot' as a pejorative. This is an example of missing the point that is so audacious, it could only be achieved by ol' Bobby taking the time to carefully line-up his sights on The Point, practising controlled breathing, entering a state of zen to avoid all distractions, and then promptly pulling a 180 and firing his mouth off in a direction diametrically opposed to all recognisable fact!

As a public service, I'll walk through the reasoning behind the Green Party Aotearoa's decrying of John Key's gaffe, and why the same logic doesn't extend to the Dominion Post's political cartoon. First point of order: No, John Key's 'gay red shirt' quip does not make him a homophobe. He appears to be supportive of equality for LGBTs (give him the benefit of the doubt). However, just because he appears to be supportive of the LGBT community doesn't mean he's incapable of saying something stupid, hurtful, or wrong. The beauty of 'freedom of speech' is that it absolutely does NOT come coupled with a freedom from consequence. This means that when you're the nominal leader of a nation, and you say something very, very stupid, it's kind of a big deal. It's a big deal because it's VERY publicly visible, you're an influential figure, and it provides that most wonderful opportunity: The Teachable Moment.

Right, so you know John Key's not a homophobe, so why err'body mad? Because John still made a homophobic comment, and instead of owning it and learning from it (i.e. instead of making an effort to understand WHY it was homophobic and why people reacted to it), he made excuses and effectively blamed others for being upset. Which is something I see entirely too much of. The long-and-short of it is, he used a demographic as a pejorative. He used 'gay' as an insult, as a synonym for 'bad', which enforces the position of homosexuals in society as undesirable outsiders. He may not have been intending to insult the LGBT community, but the use of 'gay' as a pejorative is still an expression of subconscious, societally ingrained homophobia. I suspect no-one wants their sexuality used as a casual insult. I sure wouldn't want to be used as the social boogie-man that people point to in order to say "You don't wanna be like THAT!"

'Gay' is generally a reference to one of two things: being light/joyous/colourful, or being homosexual (the latter may have developed from the former). John Key claims he was using it in the sense that his kids do, to mean 'weird', but this does not reference being joyous, it references homosexuals as something weird, in a derogatory fashion. Sure, you're taking the scenic route to the negative connotation, but you're ending up there all the same. Wanda Sykes puts it more eloquently. Ironically, John Key could've used 'queer', another reference to homosexuals, but one that is a legitimate synonym for weird or peculiar. Of course, it bears mentioning, in considering the two frames of reference for 'gay', that there could well be a third way...

Now, why is the Dominion Post's cartoon different?

John Key used a minority as a pejorative. Tom Scott used pejorative terms as pejorative terms. He implied that being a bible-bashing bigot is a bad thing because being a bible-bashing bigot is a bad thing. Bible-bashers/Bible-thumpers are people who go out of their way to force their faith upon others. Bigots are people obstinately devoted to their own prejudices and often regard members of another group with hatred and intolerance, a term which developed from the original Middle French meaning of a religious hypocrite. The perfect expression of Bible-bashing bigotry in the U.S.A. currently, is the Tea Party, and this was displayed with stark clarity during the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination. At the Fox News debate, the audience of Tea Party Patriots, proud of the US' military tradition, openly booed a serving soldier for publicly admitting to being gay (this would be the bigotry-as-hatred-of-demographic example). At the debate chaired by Wolf Blitzer, the Republican audience who avow so fervently the sanctity of life, cheered at the prospect of letting people die if they could not afford health insurance (this would be the religious hypocrisy version of bigotry). It could easily be said that the Tea Party cost Mitt Romney and the Republican Party the US Presidential election: The hard turn to the extreme right that the bigoted and hypocritical Tea Party is forcing the GOP to take, costs Independent and Moderate votes.

This is not an attack on Christianity, nor does it imply that being Christian is a bad thing. It states that BIGOTRY and HYPOCRISY are bad things, and they ARE. Ignoring the message of love that your saviour graced the world with, in order to use your religion to hurt and belittle others, should be as much an insult to believers as it is to those outside the faith, if not more so.

So really, Bob McCoskrie, you should start pointing your finger at those who actually insult your religion, rather than the people holding them accountable.

Marriage Equality Submission

To the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill Select Committee.

Marriage is more than simply the legal rights and benefits associated with it. Marriage is a social institution and custom that is deeply embedded within our culture. As a cornerstone of our social landscape, marriage helps to define who we, as New Zealanders, are. From birth we are raised to see marriage as the fundamental aspiration, one of life’s most important milestones. We grow up, get educated, have our OE, start a career, get married, settle down and support the All Blacks; this is who we are, the concept of ‘kiwi’ our culture fosters.

As a central and defining element of our normative culture, marriage signifies belonging. We are told growing up that we will find a partner, and when we find the one we love, we will marry them. For those who find love within the same nominal gender, to be told that they may not marry the one they love, is to be told that they are different, that they do not belong in our culture. To be ‘othered’. Although we are all different, we should be treated as equals, deserving of the same respect and dignity, in the eyes of the law. For this reason, I find Civil Unions to be an insufficient measure to address the inequality and discrimination against homosexuals: It arbitrarily and unnecessarily differentiates, for no good reason.

It should be a guiding principle that the law respects us all equally, in our various needs and in our desire to participate fully in public life and all that that entails. Opponents of the bill rightly claim that the law discriminates, and I allow this, with the understanding that the law should only discriminate with good reason, and that there is no sufficient reason to differentiate between heterosexual and homosexual couples in the eye of the law. No good reason specific to homosexual relationships that is not already invalidated by examples of heterosexual couples whose marriages we currently respect.

The Children Argument – Some argue that the purpose of marriage is to have children and raise a family. This is invalidated by the fact that we allow the infertile and the abstinent to marry, as both of my Aunts who are well past child-bearing age have recently done. Not all who marry want children, and the law respects this for heterosexuals. Those in homosexual relationships, however, may end up raising children. Whether this be through conception (artificial, surrogate, or otherwise), or children from a prior relationship, in all cases would it not be in a child’s best interests to provide the stability of a committed and legally respected marriage and the joint adoption this allows?

Religious Freedom – As the law stands, religious celebrants may freely decline to officiate marriage ceremonies, and the bill does not in any way alter that. The bill does not curtail religious freedom, contrary to the hysterics of Family First and their ilk. Ironically, considering such protests, what the bill does is in fact address a CURRENT and EXISTING restriction on religious freedom and practice. Many Christian denominations and congregations do not hold the same anti-gay interpretation of doctrine that is commonly seen in the broader Christian community, and would happily officiate and bless wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples. Currently, they are prevented from practicing their understanding of Christianity, purely because of the traditional prejudice our society has held against homosexuality, particularly as expressed by more conservative congregations. The bill actually addresses a curtailing of religious freedom!

Further to this, marriage is not an exclusively religious act. It is, and has always been, a social institution that may or may not contain a religious element. Religion is not a necessary part of marriage, and it seems bizarre that homosexual couples are the ONLY people it is claimed require the permission of the church in order to wed. Atheists may wed, and religious sentiments are never concerned in that question. People from various religions, denominations and congregations may wed, and religious sentiments are never considered there. But if an atheistic homosexual couple wish to marry, people feel that they should not be allowed to do so because of the religious sentiments of people they’ll never meet and whose creed they do not follow? One’s religious freedom ends where it imposes on that of others’.

The Tradition of Marriage – Marriage is a tradition, but it would be a grave error to assume that traditions are static and unchanging. As society changes, its customs change with it, and the traditions that are retained are those that remain relevant. Marriage has existed in countless forms across countless cultures; it has changed as the people that practice it have changed. Traditions are, and should, be maintained only if they possess inherent values worth celebrating, and those values that are harmful should rightly be discarded. Marriage celebrates unity, fidelity, devotion and support, and these are all things that SHOULD be celebrated, and will remain to be celebrated if the bill passes. To deny marriage to homosexuals would be to perpetuate a negative tradition: that of discriminating against and excluding homosexuals from mainstream society. Why should that particular tradition ever be supported?

Extending the tradition of marriage to homosexual couples (or rather, re-extending, as there have been many examples of homosexual marriages around the world at various times in our history) would propagate the positive values of the tradition, it would foster the very things we celebrate about marriage. To oppose this extension is to ignore and curtail the noble values of this tradition in exchange for preserving the most superficial elements, and the ingrained prejudices better left in the past.

The Slippery Slope -  Some argue that allowing same-sex couples to marry would lead to polygamy, incestuous marriage, marriage to minors, and bestiality. This is argued because certain arguments in favour of same-sex marriage could be applied to these groups, but ignores the most important factor of WHY the slippery slope is a logical fallacy: There are different counter-arguments when the context is changed. There is no logical necessity between allowing same-sex marriage and allowing polygamous or incestuous marriage, none at all. They are different situations, and any rational person can differentiate because there are factors relevant to each that are absent in the other. The ‘worst’ that legally recognising same-sex marriages will do is reduce social stigma, and stigma is NOT a sufficient reason to deny marriage rights. There are valid arguments against allowing these groups to marry (that do not apply to marriage between consenting homosexual adults), and thus the slippery slope does not exist. But do please note that ‘the status quo’ is NOT an argument ;)

It is my firm belief that society should be inclusive, not exclusive. As such, where no strong opposing argument exists, we must extend the same rights and respect to all citizens of our nation.
For this reason, I support the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill.