I would like to take this opportunity to urge everyone to vote “Yes” in the same sex marriage survey. I can’t think of any valid reason why same sex couples should be refused the right to have their marriages recognised by the government. The “No” camp, are trying to confuse the issue, by bringing up misinformation and arguments that have nothing to do with the topic, but let me address here some of the misinformation and irrelevant arguments made by the no camp.
Here are some of the reasons I have heard people use to justify a “No” vote, and why I believe it is not a valid reason.
1. “I think it will expose children to paedophiles” - this argument is wrong for several reasons, a) being gay doesn’t make you more likely to be a paedophile, b) most child molestation cases are straight men abusing young females c) The question is about marriage rights, not parenting rights, same sex couples already have parenting rights, so this isn’t a parenting question.
2. “I think children need both a mother and a father” - This argument again is irreverent, because as pointed out above, this isn’t a question about parenting, its about marriage. As I said above same sex couples already have the right to parent anyway.
3. “It’s not natural or normal” - firstly same sex couplings are found in nature in many other species, and just under 5% of human populations consistently turn out to be gay or bisexual so it is normal for a certain percentage of the population to be interested in same sex coupling, actually being LGBT is more common than having red hair. But it’s not “natural” to fly around in planes or use mobile phones but we do that, so banning some thing because it’s not “natural” is silly.
4. “Its against my religion” - Well thats your issue, if its against your religion, then don’t have a same sex marriage, no one will force you to have one. Would you accept a ban on pork because its against Muslim law, of course not you would just expect the muslims to avoid pork, its the same here, banning same sex marriage because of your religion isn’t you exercising your religious freedom, its you trying to force your religious rules on others.
5. “I find it yucky” - Again thats your issue, if you are invited to a gay wedding, just don’t go, but you don’t get to stop others doing things just because you find it ewwwy.
6. “If we allow gay marriage people will want to marry their dogs next” - Well if you don’t want people to marry dogs, then vote no when the survey is asking about that, for now the question is about same sex marriage, stick to that topic, other wise you are committing the “slippery slope logical fallacy”, just stick to the question.
7. “Allowing gays to marry takes away something from straight marriages” - No it doesn’t, it won’t take anything away from straight couples, its simply going to mean that same sex couples have their marriages recognised by the government, thats it.
8. “Its a lifestyle choice I don’t want to support” - Firstly its not a choice they are born that way, but even if it were a choice, why should it be banned, the law should allow for maximum freedom, and only ban things that cause harm, allowing same sex couples to have their marriages recognised is harmless, none of the No arguments show where genuine harm would exist, if you want it banned you need to be able to show how marriage alone would cause harm that doesn’t currently exist, without appealing to logical fallacies.
Think about how you would want your children or grandchildren treated if they were gay, or how you would want society to treat you if you just happened to be the same sex as your current partner, Marriage is meant to be about unconditional love, so why have conditions put on it?choose to be on the right side of history, sooner or later gay marriage will happen.
I think this is an important vote, and you need to seriously look at the actual issue, not the red herring and confused arguments put forward by the no camp.