The problem with Catholicism is Catholics

I came across a website recently (today if I'm honest) which I regret I didn't know about before the Civil Partnership Bill debate. It's called Catholic Voice and right there you know there's something wrong because if there's one thing that Catholics (especially in this country) are not short of it's a voice. The website is well worth a look because it contains the best argument against gay marriage that I've seen to date. Well not the best argument logically obviously, the fact that it's on a Catholic website kinda rules that out, but it's certainly the funniest.

The primary focus of the site is a six-point analysis of gay marriage and the move to legislate it. So here they are.

Natural marriage is the foundation of a civilised society.

"Natural" marriage ... really? I'm sure we've all heard the 'homosexuality is unnatural' argument before and in the words of Oolon Colluphid, it's all a load of dingo's kidneys. Natural marriage, however is an exceptionally stupid idea. Since marriage is a social construct, one cannot define marriage as natural. In any case, since marriages have taken every form imaginable throughout human history, the idea of a stereotypical marriage let alone a natural one is laughable.

Same-sex unions, as pseudo-marriages, involve gravely sinful acts that are never defensible, and the very assimilation to marriage damages marriage itself.

There are so many problems with this sentence that it's hard to know how they squeezed them all in. First of all, how is a gay marriage a pseudo-marriage. As far as I can tell the only difference between a homosexual and heterosexual marriage is the prospect of having children. I know lots of straight couples who, through either choice or unfortunate consequences of biology, don't have children. Does that mean that their marriages should be considered pseudo-marriages? As for the gravely sinful acts, a civilised society, which Catholics always seem intent on protecting should not use any one religion as a basis for creating laws. We certainly shouldn't use the Bible at least, lest we end up with people being stoned to death for working on Sunday or laws that say slavery is acceptable. Finally, since when does allowing gay marriage damage the concept of marriage. Surely it's all the same except in the little rat maze known as a Catholic's brain.

The law is a great teacher, and it encourages or discourages behaviour.

 It's true that the law is a great teacher, it's just a pity that it can't teach these ignorant fucktards something about human rights. As for encouraging behaviour, well that's true too, but not in the way the author intended. Laws can often encourage illegal behaviour and create black markets for items through their prohibition, we've all seen The Untouchables after all. Passing a law which allows something rather than forbids, however, has the effect of legitimising that behaviour which is why the Catholics have a problem with the Civil Partnership Bill. The problem is though that legitimising gay marriage is kinda the point, we want to get across a message that it's OK to be gay and that gay people should have the rights to engage in a loving relationship and have that relationship sanctioned by the state just as straight people have had for thousands of years.


Government-backed same sex civil unions would encourage and normalise homosexual behaviour, and it would harm natural marriage, children, adults, and homosexuals themselves.

You know, I really hate it when people use technical terms in a non-technical sense, especially when they get it wrong. (Actually that's given me an idea for a new post) Normalise means to reduce the variation in a population by reducing irrelevant aspects. I suspect that the author means legitimise, in which case I suggest he/she buy a dictionary next time, but I've already dealt with that so let's move on. This point does clarify the last point to some extent, showing that the author means encouraging homosexual behaviour. The idea that someone would turn gay just because they can get married now is ridiculous, but the change does mean that more gay people will have the confidence to speak out without fear of bigotry and prejudice of the kind that Catholics are so eager to peddle. Gay marriage harms children, adults and the couples themselves, ... right. Harming children is a hard one to answer because it's hard to see how children come into a debate on marriage rights. If these people are worried about gay couples seeking adoption rights then, a) that's a different argument altogether and b) gay parents could hardly do any worse than the straight parents of all the teenage criminals getting banged up day in, day out, could they? Harming adults is even more curious since the only thing that gay marriage could harm in adults is the absurdly inflated sense of ego of religious people who consider themselves and their marriages superior to gay marriage. As for harming themselves, at least here the author is being truthful. A lot of marriages do involve some considerable degree of misery and unhappiness and the divorce rate is quite high, but then why would that be a reason to deny gay couples the right to marry.


The law should promote behaviours that are beneficial and prohibit (or at least not endorse) those that are destructive.

This point needs some translation into English (from bullshit) in order to understand it better. What this point actually says is that the government should do what I think is right because of some religion where ordaining women is a crime as serious as child molestation and homosexuals are evil. Furthermore, I and my religious cohorts should have our worldview promoted so that we can continue to cause misery and suffering to thousands of people worldwide. Seriously though, the argument actually calls for the prohibition of "destructive behaviours" without, of course, definining such a behaviour so that future laws should prohibit anything that Catholics don't agree with. Gee, there's a rational idea for you.

Therefore, the law should promote natural marriage, and it should provide no option for government-backed same-sex marriage or civil unions.

I can't believe that this dipshit uses the word "therefore" at the start of this point. The word "therefore" implies that you are drawing a conclusion but not even this raving lunatic could possibly think that the five points which preceded it formed any kind of body of evidence or coherent argument. As well as being complete bullshit, they don't follow any line of thought from one to the next. This argument reminds me of Scott Adams' book 'The Joy of Work' which I first read about ten years ago but keep going back to every now and again. One of the chapters (I can't remember which one) contains a brilliant section called "You Are Wrong Because..." which details 32 different logical fallacies and some examples. You can read the full list here. In this case, I could choose any number of logical fallacies but the most appropriate one is:

32. PROOF BY LACK OF EVIDENCE

Example: I've never seen you drunk, so you must be one of those
Amish people.

Anyone who thinks that this argument makes sense should have their head examined, but then again anyone who has a website like Catholic Voice in their favourites probably already qualifies. If you're going to argue against human rights don't use a textbook of prejudice and hatred as your source material and definitely pick some points that can't be torn apart in under, say, a minute.