SSMers limit the questions asked

When SSMers ask if each marriage is forced to procreate, they mean that the lack of a legal requirement that makes procreation compulsory makes it a slam-dunk that procreation has nothing to do with marriage.

Of course, as we've discussed here at Opine, SSMers do not insist on a legal requirement that would make same-sex sexual attraction and romance compulsory for those who show-up for a license for a same-sex union. So they are misled by asking the wrong question.

They pursue other self-defeating quests such as deconstructing tradition even as they depend on the relatively recent tradition of romance; or decrying the supposed arbitariness of the man-woman criterion while they arbitarily demand government favoritism for a subset of the nonmarriage category; or disparaging the marital presumption of paternity and insisting that DNA testing is the modern solution (i.e. society now presumes that, until proven otherwise, all married mothers have been impregnated by men other than their husbands) even though the marital presumption and DNA testing both depend on the same sexual basis which is extrinsic to same-sex union; and so forth. They miss what is right in front of their noses because they are not paying attention to the actual disagreement.

Keep that in mind as you read the following blogpost from The Corner at the National Review Online website. It serves as an analogy for how SSMers ask questions that baffle themselves blank.

Benny Hill and the Theory of Evolution:

I was just reading Richard Dawkins’s forthcoming book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution and found something quite inspiring. Dawkins describes an experiment conducted by Professor Daniel J. Simons at the University of Illinois:

Half a dozen young people standing in a circle were filmed for 25 seconds tossing a pair of basketballs to each other. . . . Before being shown the film, we are told that we have a task to perform, to test our powers of observation. We have to count the total number of times balls are passed from person to person. . . . After showing the film and collecting the counts, the experimenter drops his bombshell. “And how many of you saw the gorilla?" The majority of the audience looks baffled: blank. The experimenter then replays the film, but this time tells the audience to watch in a relaxed fashion without trying to count anything. Amazingly, nine seconds into the film a man in a gorilla suit strolls nonchalantly to the centre of the circle of players, pauses to face the camera, thumps his chest . . . and then strolls off. . . . He is there in full view for nine whole seconds – more than one third of the film — and yet the majority of the witnesses never see him.

There is an important epistemological point to be made here, to the effect that crude empiricism can, by limiting the questions we ask, dull our overall intellectual perceptiveness. (This is not, of course, the immediate lesson Dawkins draws.) But that’s not what delighted me about this experiment. No: It’s that as someone who is terribly math-shy, I am thrilled to know that one can advance the cause of science even by running around in a gorilla suit and thumping one’s chest. Milton was right: “They also serve who only stand and thump.”

SSMers count basketballs passes and imagine making slamdunks.

Responsible procreation is the 800-pound gorilla whose presence is neglected because the wrong questions are asked by SSMers whose focus is on elevating gay idenity politics and whose means to that end is to smear as bigoted the societal signifiance of the special reason that marital status is a special status at law and in our customs and traditons.

They ought to relax and see marriage for what it actually is. They need to learn more about what they really think same-sex union can be. Then they might distinguish each -- marriage and same-sex union -- from the nonmarriage category. With that done, comparisons could be made and more apt questions asked.

Such as, is there a special reason for special status for same-sex union? Is there a public sexual aspect to same-sex union or is sex irrelevant? What is the societal significance of the core meaning of same-sex union (i.e. the essential and universal features that make same-sex union, same-sex union) or is there none that distinguishes it from nonmarriage? If it is indistinguishable, then, how could it merit special treatment over and above the rest of the nonmarriage category?

These are questions about same-sex union. SSMers ought not to be distracted by asking self-defeating questions about marriage. They really should show some courage and do the work that would make it possible for same-sex union to stand on its own two feet and holding high its independant claim for special status, if such exists.

Meanwhile marriage has a core meaning and its societal significance is readily discernible if one is paying attention. It is not unjust for society to discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage. Quite the opposite.

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Also see:

The 800lb gorilla in the room.

The Target of Gay Union?.

Responsible Procreation in Iowa.

Stating the Obvious.

"Why I can't support same-sex marriage" by J. David Velleman.

The Six Dimensions of Marriage.

And there is more available in our archives. Just take a stroll through the blogposts labelled "800lb gorilla" or "Responsible Procreation".