From some remarks to a bisexual correspondent

[fpb]

They don't try to reverse or re-engineer anything or anyone, they want to be happy with their partners, to be able to be open about their relationships, and to be respected - which I do believe is their right, no quotation marks...

That sort of talk makes me wonder on what planet you live. I lived in the same house with an openly gay couple for years. There may be some place in the Muslim world where to " want to be happy with their partners, to be able to be open about their relationships, and to be respected" is an issue, but it is not anywhere in the West. I respectfully submit that respect is not what you are talking about. Respect is something that someone gains; I have great respect for you as a highly civilized person and as [an exceptionally talented person in a particular field]. Does that matter to you less than that I should genuflect to your tastes in sex? Frankly, that is the sort of demand that would make me think less of you; because it shows that you find what is between your legs more important than what is in your head. And then there is the issue of satisfaction - which, as the song says, you can't get. You are free to do anything you please, and to practice any trade (except Catholic priest). I am old enough to remember - and I am not very old - the time when homosexual advocates insisted that the notion of "gay marriage" was a smokescreen invented by the opponents of gay rightists to defame them. That, my dear, was less than a generation ago. And no sooner you have got everything you agitated for, than the agitation for "gay marriage" began in earnest. Now history has been rewritten to the extent that you lot speak not only as though this had always been your demand, without which nothing else is worth a thing, but also as though anyone who does anything to withhold it from you is denying something so obvious that only a complete moron could imagine otherwise. Someone had been lying; whether to the public, or to themselves, does not even matter. What you are saying is that unless you are allowed to destroy the very notion of marriage, by applying it to something it simply is not, you will not be happy. And what that tells me is that you will not be happy anyway, because anything you are granted will only generate another request. You really have to consider your own attitudes.

Comments

[thefish30.livejournal.com]

<3<3<3

[affablestranger.livejournal.com]

Very, very well put.

[notebuyer.livejournal.com]

Just reporting back to you the effect of your own words. I read them once with pleasure, and again with concentration, until finally they helped me arrange my own thinking better. (As you are quite aware, I could do with that kind of help in many other areas, but I'm pleased to acknowledge it when I can.)

Thanks.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

There may be some place in the Muslim world where to " want to be happy with their partners, to be able to be open about their relationships, and to be respected" is an issue, but it is not anywhere in the West.

Gays get murdered for being gay in the US. Not systematically, but it still happens; Google News has articles from the past week. Gays run into problems with family and churches. Of course, it varies: acceptance in NYC or SF is a lot better than in Alabama. Being an openly gay schoolteacher is probably not a good idea in any places. And so on.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Have you even understood what I was talking about?

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

You said that being able to be happy and open in their relationships was not an issue anywhere in the West. This is not true in the US (as a matter of social reactions, including murder; the *law* is ok), though it is becoming increasingly true.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I also said that prejudice is universal. And that if you try to spend any time as an Italian in many places in Scandinavia you will feel it. The point is not to have what you would regard as a perfect society, the point is not to waste your time transfiguring what really exists into a monstrous worldwide version of Auschwitz and then improbably use that nightmare to subject the rest of us to moral blackmail. And that is not even touching your implication that the churches should bow to the homosexual agenda.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

What you are saying is that unless you are allowed to destroy the very notion of marriage, by applying it to something it simply is not, you will not be happy.

You will not find agreement with the person you claim to respect while you describe their views in a way that is repugnant to them. Advocates of gay marriage (and I am one, albeit one without any real investment in the topic) regard marriage as "An expression of love and commitment between two people." And they wish to have society acknowledge love and commitment between gay people in the same way that it acknowledges love and commitment between straight people.

You do not define marriage in that way, and therefore you believe that to define it in their way is a destructive (perhaps even evil) act.

Sexuality is a tender area - if you kick someone in their private parts (for example, by denying their concept of marriage), then this is cause for grave offence. Both of you have said to each other "If you are not able to tolerate my views on marriage, then you have no business in my company." The difference is that you have used the force of your personality to keep them out, while they have used the force of LJ's technology to keep you out.

Your lack of faith in your argument is betrayed when you use terms like 'moron' and devolve the other party's argument into absurdities and extremes. Your accusation that the other is a moron suggests that you were lying when you claimed to admire their intelligence.

I do not deny that your opponents have also made the mistakes I describe. But if you wish to secure your claim to the moral high ground, I suggest you should do better than they do.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It does not matter what you think something means, what matters is what it has historically meant. If you define a car as having two wheels, you are only fooling yourself. If several million people do so, they are at best fooling each other. Marriage as an expression of love? Do let us be serious. That is so unspecific that it might as well apply to friending on someone's LJ; does that mean that I now am to regard myself as being married to you?

Besides, who says that I am trying to make anyone agree with me? I am not quite so stupid as all that. You should have read what I said about the purpose of argument in the past: http://fpb.livejournal.com/372959.html

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

It does not matter what you think something means, what matters is what it has historically meant.

So, I should not claim to have 'given someone the sack' unless I literally give them a sack, and ask them to take their tools from the workplace as they leave? To claim that language does not evolve (or, specifically that the term 'marriage' has had a fixed meaning historically that must not be reconsidered now) is no more rational than asserting two-wheeled cars.

Historically, of course, a 'car' was a component of a train, which was pulled by the engine. Shall we restore the proper meaning of the term, since contemporary and popular usage is irrelevant?

I'm aware that the concept of marriage as an expression of love is only a few hundred years old, but it's a concept that is taken very seriously by a great many people, and this is worth considering when evaluating what the word means in contemporary usage. If you wish only to consider historical usage of the term, I suggest you do so in a historical context, rather than claiming to comment on current events.

I do not regard myself as married to you, and I would be astounded if you regarded yourself as married to me. Let me elaborate on the definition of marriage that I regard as contemporary and true:

"An expression of love and commitment between persons who choose to bind themselves to each other with the sincere intention that they will care for each other until separated by death. This expression takes the form of a formal and legally sanctioned ceremony, in which the state recognizes their union and affords them rights in relation to each other; for example, the right to make medical decisions on behalf of the other when their partner is unable to do so."

Please forgive me for using an abbreviated form of this definition earlier. While I'm at it, I have taken the liberty of removing the restriction on the number of persons from the definition - after all, in historical usage, there have been a great many marriages that involved more than two partners, and there are institutions that recognize such marriages.

I believe that this is a legitimate definition of marriage, although I have no doubt that you will disagree.

Besides, who says that I am trying to make anyone agree with me?

Not me! ;)

It is reasonable to infer from my statement that you were seeking an agreement, and yet this does not require forcing the other party to agree with your views. I projected that you experienced an amount of frustration that you could not arrive at an 'agreement to disagree' with the person you were debating with - that you would have preferred to be able to say "We are both fine and good people, and should have been able to disagree amicably about this topic." That is the agreement that I hoped you were hoping for.

However, since your means are not well suited to arriving at that destination, it is good that your objective is elsewhere.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The redefinition of marriage you describe is not a few centuries, but a few decades old. It did not exist when I was a child, except in the savage satires of Juvenal, who would have been most astonished that anyone, however far in the future, would take them seriously. And it is most unfortunate that you should attempt to pre-date it to the last few centuries, as that tends to associate it far too closely with all the other notorious attempts to redefine human nature in the same period, most of which have ended in slaughter.

My comparison with a car (incidentally, the railway usage is not in the least primary; the word comes originally from Latin terms for an individual wheeled vehicle) was unfortunate; I should have compared it with some feature of the human being and person. For instance, if you redefine sight, or sociability, or sinuses, you are only fooling yourself; sight remains the sense of perception by light, sinuses a part of the nose, and sociability a basic feature of the "political animal" Man.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

'The concept of marriage as an expression of love' dates back at least as far as 1813.

As for the rest of it, to my sincere regret, other commitments call, and I need to attend to the rest of my life. It's been nice seeing you again, and I hope to continue this discussion later.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, your excessive faith in your cleverness is betrayed by the fact that you see fit to charge me with lack of faith in my arguments. Nobody, my dear man, is paying me to say anything. I say it because I think it right; and that should be enough for you not to try and advance such a sorry claim. A claim, incidentally, that comes close to demanding the definition of moronic. And that falls under the same definition. If I say that an argument is moronic, is because I think it is. End of story. Incidentally, a person who is not a moron can say a moronic thing - like you just have.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

If a man says 'The purpose of engaging in argument is to strengthen your arguments' it seems reasonable to believe that he wishes his arguments were stronger. Were they already strong enough, why attempt to strengthen them?

Had I claimed someone was paying you, your denial of being paid would be relevant.

Incidentally, a person who is not a moron can say a moronic thing - like you just have.

An interesting assertion. However, I'm a strong believer in the Zen saying, "It takes a certain kind of person to do a certain kind of thing." Therefore, people who say moron-like (moronic) things are acting like morons, and if it looks like a moron and talks like a moron, then we might as well say "It's a moron," instead of saying "They seem to be linguistically challenged."

However, it's a moot point. I will not deny any charge of moron-hood that you may make, and if my statements are foolish, all I can hope is that I will learn from having my foolishness exposed.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

If I have no faith in what I am saying - which, as it happens, I knew would be unpopular - then what on Earth reason can you postulate for me posting it? The only sane one would be that I am paid; but I am not. So you are postulating that I am saying something | do not believe in, for no reason. Well, if I ever did anything like that, I would deserve to be called a moron.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

Faith can be lacking without being entirely absent. It is quite common for people to say something that they don't entirely believe in order to find support for their view - that support either coming from agreement from those they respect, or from a lack of respectable disagreement.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

None of the possible reasons for saying something I do not believe apply here. This is my blog. I do not have to flatter anyone, lie to anyone, conciliate anyone, or defend myself from anyone. And anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not very good at doing any of those things anyway.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

If a man says 'The purpose of engaging in argument is to strengthen your arguments' it seems reasonable to believe that he wishes his arguments were stronger.

If the Dodgers engage in training to improve their sporting skills, it seems reasonable believe that they did not have them.

The mistake in your reasoning here is in arguing that because a man may want to improve something of his, therefore he has it not. Only what is already functional can be improved.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

If the Dodgers engage in training to improve their sporting skills, it follows that they are not completely confident that they'll win unless they improve their sporting skills.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

But that is not what you started out by saying. You spoke of a "lack of faith in [my] argument", which supposedly led me to what you regarded as underhanded shifts.

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

Please forgive the delay (and I accept that I did the wrong thing regarding the comment you deleted).

I do regard the tactics I was commenting on as underhanded, yes. And I continue to say that "Doing X implies a belief that not doing X will result in a bad outcome." Specifically, I believe that employing an underhanded tactic implies a belief that one might not win if the underhanded tactic is not used. Otherwise, the sacrifice of the moral high ground seems counterproductive.

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

There may be some place in the Muslim world where to " want to be happy with their partners, to be able to be open about their relationships, and to be respected" is an issue, but it is not anywhere in the West.

You are overstating your case. U.S. law affords no guarantees of anyone being happy and respected, even as it curtails state interference in mutually agreed upon choices of sexual practices, which are protected under the rubric of equality in the pursuit of happiness. I do not approve of the way my gay neighbor deploys his private parts, but my disapproval gives me no right to interfere with his deployment. By the same token, our Constitution forbids the state to interfere in my right of free association and protects my rights to speak my mind and to shun those I regard as morally deficient. These rights runs counter to my neighbor’s entitlement to complacency and respect in such matters.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Which is as it should be.

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

But not the way it is in Europe.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I just saw this. I don't know what you mean by "Europe", but the Italian Constitution protects the freedoms of thought, expression, belief, and association, with no reservation except for matters of outright criminality as defined by law. Italian law knows no "right" to self-respect.