Posted by
Juwar74 on Monday, May 04, 2009 12:10:35 PM
Conservatives are horrible at debating this issue. If only they would use their heads. Many times, they believe same-sex marriage is a religious/traditional issue rather than a civil rights issue, and therefore, argue from that prism. First of all, seeing same-sex marriage as a religious issue only weakens their position because religion in itself, agree or disagree, is not based in any scientific or universal acceptance or truth. I mean Christianity, Islam, and Judaism is not practiced by everyone, so as soon as someone starts spouting Bible, Koran or whatever, they have already allowed their opponent to dismiss their point of view as lunacy or demagoguery.
So how can they win this debate. Well, first of all, they are not paying attention to what gays and lesbians are doing to gain support for the issue. It seems to me that the reason why gays and lesbians are winning the debate in the public forum is because they use what has been used before--by painting themselves as victims or a group that is so egregiously oppressed. Now, I for one don't think they have been oppressed in the truest sense. Maybe repressed, not oppressed. There has never been written law that explicitly denied gays/lesbians from basic rights like minorities or women, even though they try to align their struggle of marriage with something like say, the voting rights of the aforementioned groups. Besides, other than the same-sex marriage issue, what else do gays/lesbians really have to complain about? I guess they feel that if same-sex marriage was legal then that it would imply that people would have to live with the idea that homosexual behavior is acceptable. I don't know about this. And I don't think so.
There will be some who will accept homosexual behavior, some that don't and some who don't give a rat's behind as long as it isn't around them or anyone they know. That is democracy.
Gays and lesbians want the public to ultimately perceive their behavior as a natural occurrence. I believe homosexuality is a natural occurrence. I have read the science and believe it is a result of a chemical imbalance in the hypothalamus area of the brain during fetal development in the womb. I think the science is convincing. I mean, during fetal development, some kids are born blind, deaf, with many types of diseases, genetic or otherwise. Any biologists will tell you that biology is never 100%. There are all kinds of defects. (Don't misinterpret the last line as me saying homosexuality is a defect.) Biology is a science of evolution, which means that everything sometimes comes out alright and sometimes they don't.
So the way to win the same-sex marriage debate in the public-sphere is to first find a segment of the populace and make them a victim in some way. I noticed that gays/lesbians usually get their support from women. They are always being flaunted on women-friendly shows, mainly because women are generally more sympathetic to their causes. And, secretly, they are protective of gays/lesbians (particular gay men) because it is a possibility that they may have a gay son. Whatever their reasons are, it doesn't really matter though. So, the strategy to attack same-sex marriage must be shaped in order to get sympathy from women without demonizing gays or lesbians.
Therefore, opponents should use the current cultural trends and turn it on its head. One way is to create the victim group. One group is of course children. Then, the opponent would need to show that children are being victimized in the current cultural trends. And if the victimization is repeated over and over again, it will eventually receive sympathy and therefore support. One group that I see as being victimized in the past 15 years or so are young boys without fathers. Many of these boys are growing up around single mothers, some irresponsible, but all overworked. Statistics are constantly showing boys with single mothers are more likely to go to jail, use drugs, experiment with sex, are overly attracted to violence, etc, etc... We all know the stats. So I'm not going to repeat them.