Thread:Comments:French Senate vote in support of same-sex marriage/Redefining "marriage" silences ideas that the queer community finds inconvenient./reply (4)

Thanks for playing along. My goal is to reveal that what unites you and me is much more important than anything that we might disagree on. From your response, it looks like...

We agree on these things from my conversation opener post:

(1) We both want to promote liberty, justice, and economic empowerment for every human being, including people who identify with the queer community.

(2) We both agree with every part of "the queer agenda" other than the redefinition of the word "marriage". (I am postponing consideration of that.) We both agree that queers (as I define the term) should have the same legal rights and duties as anyone else, should not be subjected to harassment or hate crime by either government or private persons, and should not be discriminated against economically, i.e. by customers, employers, coworkers, and vendors. Queers should be treated just like everyone else in their economic lives and in their relationship with government, including their legal rights and duties.

(3) We both agree that any tax subsidy granted to married couples (as I use the term) should also be given to same sex civil unions. (I actually have a weak preference for using tax money to subsidize marriage, excluding civil unions, but am willing to set that preference aside to increase our common ground.)

(4) You would apparently define the word "queer" differently, but you understand how I am defining and using the term so no miscommunication is being caused.

We disagree only on this part of my post: You would not categorize these sexual behaviors as immoral: masturbation ; promiscuous male-female ; orgy male-female ; violent male-female (sadomasochism) ; male-male ; female-female. So we agree that some sexual behaviors are perverted or immoral. We are only disagreeing on where to draw the line. You agree with the behaviors that I view as moral, and you would add a few others.

Now, I will note where I agree with the points you make:

(1) I like the fact that you derive your answers from a principle. You base your response on the idea that a sexual behavior is moral if and only if it is consensual, and you apply that idea to the various behaviors on my list. Your reasoning seems logically correct, and it interests me. I like your logical, analytical approach.

(2) I accept your correction of my reference to sadomasochism as "violent" sexual behavior. Perhaps "sporting" or "combative" or some other adjective would have been a better differentiator.

(3) I don't have any problem with you defining the term "queer" differently, e.g. to exclude people who masturbate. We just need to remember these terminology differences when we communicate with each other.

(4) Ditto for you disagreeing about what "the marriage norm" is or whether it exists. For our purposes here, when I use the term "the marriage norm", I am just referring to a cultural meme or idea or rule that says that male-male and female-female sexual behavior is immoral. I think that we can agree that such a meme exists.

We agree on a lot of important stuff. Our list of what is moral differs because your list is based upon whether the behavior is consensual. I like that rule, since I am a libertarian. For our purposes here, I will concede that my libertarian views compel me to agree that male-male and female-female living partners should not be second class citizens.

Now, a thought experiment. Imagine that you, Tom Morris, and I are standing together on a street, with signs in our hands, and we are shouting, "Liberty and justice for male-male lovers! Liberty and justice for female-female lovers!" Some hecklers arrive, and shout back, "Male-male sexuality is immoral. Female-female sexuality is a perversion!"

Do they have a right to say such things? I think that they do. I think that you agree with me that they do. Am I right?

If you say, "yes", then we will have established the immense and important common ground that unites you, Tom Morris, with me. We will be able to proceed to the question of whether changing the definition of the word "marriage" would be a good or a bad thing. Whether or not we ultimately discover that we agree on that question, we will still be able to be friends, due to all of the important things that we agree on.

Do those heckers have a right to shout, "Immoral! Perversion!"? Do the other people on the street have a right to hear their viewpoint?