How to comment and succeed at Opine Editorials (part 2: What doesn't work, and how to make it work anyway -- possibly))

So you want to post on Opine? You read my message yesterday and feel confident that you can make a difference. Good! Let me tell you what doesn't work, just to save us both some time.

So let me tell you what doesn't work...

1. Being quasi-progressive. As in, trying to tell us that what we value (responsible procreation and kin altruism for instance) is antiquated, time to move on! Is it progressive to lay aside traditions which help us value our humanity and our relationships? No. Demoting the value of responsible procreation and kin altruism is therefore regressive. As one author put it, if you want to see a society that puts loving care for each other look a society where the rights and responsibilities of the man, woman and child they potentially have together are equally valued. If you want to see a social model where sexual freedom is fully integrated with family responsibilities, look at a pack of baboons.
2. Being quasi-logical or mathematical, As in, dividing the characteristics of marriages into its component pieces, and then argues that some subset of those pieces winds up being more than the whole of them. 
1. For instance, arguing that marriage is more than just responsible procreation, as a way of convincing us that marriage should remove explicitly recognize responsible procreation (making it less then it was). If marriage is more than responsible procreation, it isn't less than responsible procreation.
2. Asking what is the difference between kin and adoption, infertility and homosexuality, or men and women. Asking questions is not an argument, but the implied argument is that if there is no difference between a component of marriage and a component of something outside of marriage then there is no difference between the whole. Besides we are fully aware of the differences, and their importance in preserving responsible procreation as an explicit purpose in the government recognition of marriage. 
1. Kinship is inherent in creating children, and is our first bond to preserve in helping adults realize their responsibility towards their children. Adoption is our way of trying to restore what may have been lost through neglect, loss, or abuse of that kinship bond. 
2. Infertility is biology's way of saying a reproductive relationship is impaired, but homosexuality is neither reproductive nor impaired. 
3. And men and women are different identities that need each other to fulfill one of their most lasting capacities, having children, to which marriage encourages responsibility in their procreation.
3. Being Semi-scientific, as any in arguments include trying to nail down causality of any claim of the harm posed by neutering marriage, accepting only quantitative means across all nine requirements of causation. Social Science is infact both qualitative and quantitative, the mixed-method approaches are used refined all the time. Social Science is perfectly capable of operating in the environment of fuzzy logic of contributions and influences more than being able to identify the deterministic mechanics of direct causation.
4. Being anti-egalitarian by trying to overly narrow our focus from the circumspect picture of humanity into just a single discrete subset. To try to treat people different politically based on their identity is a good working definition of identity politics. It is what caused slavery and segregation and apartheid, it is what caused the holocaust and genocides and cultures. I doubt we'll be convinced that it is a good thing -- just this once for homosexuality's sake.
5. Being practicing yellow journalism, trying to hold us accountable for something we didn't say, especially gross oversimplifications of what we said (usually introduced with the weasel words, "seems like", "sounds like", "what they are really saying is", etc...). We are happy to answer and clarify misconceptions, but jumping to conclusions on what we seem to say or sound like we are saying. Being intimately aware of our own beliefs and reasoning, we are unique authorities in clarifying what we really meant or said. Misstating our arguments, or finding ways to subtly change our arguments, or assuming that we have no basis in the face of the reasoning we present is not logic, it isn't even an honest discussion. I'm sure you can take a subset of what we say to justify almost any conclusion you have about our advocacy, but playing with only some of the cards only means you aren't playing with a full deck.
1. We are not against all adoption just because we guard against adoption becoming a way of re-defining parenthood and kinship, especially when it encourages someone (for a price) to abandon their relationship with a child. The latter is nothing less than human trafficking.
2. We are not against same-sex marriage, we are not out to ban same-sex marriage or make its practice illegal, if we don't actually ban that practice. recognizing these marriages as civil unions or domestic partnerships or reciprocal beneficiaries.
3. We are not against gays getting marriage licenses -- even if we expect both a man and a woman in each marriage. Gays are still men or women, they are still allowed. We realize that means their gender will be more meaningful then their homosexuality, then so be it, that is their free will and choice to explore. We are not even forcing gays or even expecting gays to be heterosexual, because no one is forced to get a marriage license, we simply acknowledge that they are free to do so if they wish to fill the purpose that marriage has in responsible procreation. It isn't about what you have to do, it is about what you want to do. When you know what you want to do, often what to do is determined along with that decision.

In short, while we are all simple people with nothing more to our claim then being primarily parents (or hopeful parents) who really value the meaning of marriage in protecting our rights in that pursuit. We have ordinary day jobs that don't focus on any particular scholarly focus but where we value and constantly are educated on reasoning skills, communication skills, empathy skills, etc... We are schooled well enough in the matters of logic, science, humanitarianism, rhetoric and journalism to know when it is being misused. And you probably know that by now also because that is the heart of what gives us our reputation, however evil or good it is caste by others talking about us.

Because, sure if we are so good at it perhaps we are subtly misusing it ourselves. Then we are evil. But I'm unaware of where we've where we've missed something to consider in coming up to our conclusion that marriage is between a man and a woman -- both.

Again, less is not more in this case. No amount of trying to have us consider only the part of what we see as factors behind marriage, and conveniently only the part that they feel can justify neutering it, will work. Because then we are constructing our own menagerie, we are constructing a world independent of what we've learned from the real world. Then we are not playing with a full deck.

So what haven't we considered? If you come in and say we don't understand "x" then it is up to you to say specifically what "x" is, and what would be different if we did understand "x" better, and how the two ends of that argument relate to each other. Come up with all of that, and we'll consider it. Even if it challenges what I already wrote on what not to do.

It isn't too much to ask, I hope.

But even if it is, here's an out for you. You don't have to be perfect, we will always accept honesty. Sincerity is something much easier to detect having seen discussions which have it and those that don't. We don't mind any manner of post if it is sincerely an attempt to communicate and understand one another better. Anyone at any level of skill in communication is welcome at that level.

But if your intention is to try the mettle of your communication jiujitsu, then by all means you better be prepared to be good at it. But realize no one has succeeded in a great many efforts over the years. Bruce Lee took on all challenges out of a notion of having to prove to himself he was the best. Us? We already have that reputation, we've taken on all challengers and even put the kids gloves on when needed in hopes to find sincerity. And to be honest, for us it isn't the communication style that wins, marriage as being between a man and a woman is just a winning argument all the way around. No matter how good our communication is, we'd never be able to defend a bad position as well as we've defended marriage.

Now we are much more interested in sincerity, and hereby give up the hope of finding it from any sycophantic activist challenger that thinks our problem is that we just haven't been dazzled enough by some cheap jiujitsu moves handed down to them by their activist network.