Editorial Journal #2
Claim – Gay Marriage threatens military readiness
Support – By allowing gay marriage, eventually openly gay people will be allowed in the military, threatening the security of our nation and the effectiveness of our military.
Warrant – allowing gays in the military will destroy the military and the ability for this country to protect itself
This time, I’m not going to be arguing about how well the article was written, but about the logic of the author’s argument. The author believes that by legalizing same-sex marriage, it would threaten homeland security and the stability of our military system by allowing openly gay people into the military.
Most conservatives and other people who argue against legalizing gay marriage or civil unions rarely ever use concrete evidence that allowing same-sex marriage would be harmful. Instead, many anti-gay marriage pundits use fallacies that claim that by allowing same-sex marriage, not only would traditional marriage be destroyed (not taking into account things like affairs and divorce), and other things like beastality or poligamy would become legal as well, but society as we know it would collapse and we would be thrust back into the middle ages. However, there is no evidence at all this will happen. This is known as a slippery slope fallacy, that by doing one thing, something worse will happen, even though there’s no evidence that the second event will occur.
Concerning this article, the first complaint about it is over the term “traditional marriage”. Now, traditional marriage is defined as marriage between a man and a woman. Often the argument is that traditional marriage is one of the foundations of a democratic society, and by changing it, it would make society unstable. However, looking over history, not all societies had a “traditional marriage” between a man and a woman, and many of them remained stable for quite a while. In Greek culture, men often had wives, yet also had male apprentices that they had sexual contact with. Islamic societies such as the Ottoman Empire practiced polygamy, and didn’t collapse because of it.
The author, Chad Groening, claims in paragraphs 4 and 5 that by allowing gays to marry, that it would be a “blow to national security” by threatening the 1993 decision that gays aren’t allowed in the military. Not only is the argument as slippery as a waxed floor, with no hard evidence to support it, but from what I know, the military has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Perhaps the policy of not coming out of the closet is because of that decision, that as long as you don’t reveal your homosexual nature, the military won’t expel you.
In paragraph 6, it is written: "The prohibition against homosexual conduct is a long-standing element of military law that continues to be necessary in the unique circumstances of military service." First off, the people who wrote this law assume that military service is unique enough that homosexual behavior (such as kissing or sex, or even just having a relationship while in service) would undermine the military. There is also the long standing assumption, not directly mentioned in the above sentence, that by allowing gays in the military, they’ll automatically engage in sexual behavior which will be destructive to the military environment. Not only is there no proof that all gays would have sex while in the military, but last time I checked, sex of any form between officers in the military is frowned upon, whether it’s between a man and a woman, or two members of the same sex. I would reasonably believe that most gays would behave themselves and not engage in any sexual behavior much like most straight officers keep their pants on and behave themselves.
In conclusion, I believe the author of this article has not presented enough concrete evidence to convince me of anything. I believe that homosexuals can fight for our country just as well as straight people, and should be allowed to fight if they want to. I believe that gay marriage should be allowed, and that it will not destroy our country or society. And, although there is a chance that by allowing same-sex marriage, the military’s policy on gays might be brought into question, I don’t think that same-sex unions will destroy our military. Unless someone shows me conclusive proof of something bad happening, besides the tired “Sodom and Gomorrah” argument (the residents of those two cities were sinners and hostile, not gay), I will shrug off their argument as baseless bullshit.
Critique of:
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/2/252004b.asp~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I got the article from
www.townhall.com, a collection of online conservative articles. Just reading through half the website makes my head bleed. From the front page: "Aberrant San Francisco judge strikes marriage law
FRC president: 'For the second time in the last month, an aberrant judge has launched an assault on the bedrock of our society.' "
I'm deciding what I should assault for my next essay. More gay marriage supposedly destroying society and everything good in the world? Perhaps I can tackle this article about how Planned Parenthood is satanic for supporting abortion.
