Idiot.

(This piece contains a LOT of swearing, mostly due to my complete quaking fury. If swearing bugs you, don't read this. The link referred to is here.)

The essay I tear apart here originally appeared on the website of a place called Menzies House, where a bunch of conservatives sit around and pat each other on the back about how awesome they are. It concerns the supposed 'flaws' in the arguments of the pro-same-sex marriage camp, and instead succeeds in exposing many more flaws in the arguments of the anti-camp.

The first (or near to) person to comment on the original essay was MP Bill Shorten. Unless he's got plenty of time to just doodle about on the internet in parliament, I have a suspicion he knew the young man who wrote this piece of drivel. I also have a suspicion he wouldn't recognise a cogent argument if he tripped over one.





The linked article below turned up in my FB feed today. Go ahead and read it if you like, because I'm about to tear it a new one. This is a long one, so if you've only got 30 seconds to browse your feed, best skip this.

A young prick explains why he's against gay marriage, and succeeds in exposing that he couldn't structure an argument if his life depended on it.

"I'm 19, I'm a university student, I use social media, I play video games...and I oppose gay marriage. According to the polls and the stereotypes, I'm an anomaly."

No you're not sunshine, you're maybe atypical. An insterstitial wormhole is an anomaly, a 2-headed goat is an anomaly, you're just a conservative young man.

"[the 'gay lobby'] has very effective talking points: that marriage currently discriminates against gays, denying them their individual rights to express their love, and that two people of the same sex marrying each other doesn't affect anyone else.

"These are emotionally compelling for my generation because of its infatuation with equality. Broad notions of egalitarianism are drummed into school students: we learn extensively about civil rights movements and are told countless times to respect all fellow students. "Equality is good." "Discrimination is bad."

What crack are you smoking? These points should be emotionally compelling. To talk about having these notions 'drummed' into you, and being told 'countless times' to show respect suggests that you have no emotions or compassion and you find the notion of being taught how to express them mildly annoying. Well, stiff bickies.

Yes little one, equality is 'good', discrimination is 'bad'. How old did you say you were? 19? F##k me. Apartheid, Nazis, Jim Crow = bad, Stonewall march, civil rights marches, universal suffrage = good. Do us all a favour and crack a book huh?

"Proponents of gay marriage exploit this by framing the debate in terms of gay rights, causing youth to instinctively fall back on platitudes of parity and ignore all other issues in the debate."

It is about gay rights you nong. All youth falling back on platitudes? I guess you haven't seen a lot of the pages taken down by WHOF on Facebook have you? A lot of those are bigoted young men who seem strangely immune to the magnetism of platitudes. Equality is not just an intellectual debate. Where it has been achieved, it must be guarded, where it hasn't it must be fought for.

"In addition, the constant mantra that gay marriage is "inevitable" and that younger generations are all in favour of it, as perpetuated by the gay marriage lobby and the media, peer pressures many young people into supporting it. They succumb to the group think mentality. As a result, they miss the logical fallacies in the case for gay marriage."

Dear sweet holy Jesus... If anything pea-brain, the greatest peer pressures are to succumb to homophobia. 'Group think mentality'? Sunshine, you're 19, it wasn't so long ago you were smoking Winnie Blues in your private school uniform and agreeing with your mates that Justin Bieber is 'so ghey'. Does this group think mentality of which you dribble happen to include, oh jeez I dunno MAYBE YOUNG FUCKING GAY PEOPLE WHO ARE SICK OF BEING TREATED LIKE SHIT AND MIGHT ACTUALLY BE INCLINED TO SUPPORT THIS BECAUSE IT MIGHT MAKE THEIR LIVES 1 PERCENT FUCKING HAPPIER!! Fekking cheezus...

"Firstly, there is far more to marriage than love and expression of love. If love was the only criteria for a marriage, then we would allow almost every conceivable type of relationship to be recognised as a marriage."

There is usually more to marriage than just love, I'll agree. A lot of it is a recognised legal agreement between a couple and the law. Some of it is cake. Often there's champagne. Afterwards, there is bills and divided housework.

"Also, the idea that the legal definition of marriage, meaning the social significance Australia attaches to marriage, doesn't affect society is an oxymoron. Marriage laws are fundamentally a question of what's best for society rather than a question of individual rights."

Better brush your teeth sweetheart you're talking shit again. The legal definition of marriage is not about its social significance, it's largely about a raft of taxation and inheritance laws. The laws do not address what's best for society. This is why the law does not stop an abusive heroin junkie from marrying a hooker with nine kinds of clap.

"Furthermore, marriage must discriminate to have meaning. Defining marriage itself is an act of discrimination because it is saying what marriage is and what it isn't, by definition."

I believe it was Slim Pickens in the film Blazing Saddles who said something like 'You use your mouth purtier n' a 20 dollar whore'. This is an attempt to turn the use of the word 'discrimination' in its sense of 'to treat unfairly because of prejudice' into the definition 'to be able to discern one thing from another'. Marriage should not discriminate. Discerning the difference between Shiraz Mourvedre and Shiraz Grenache requires discrimination, but marriage? Say what?

"It isn't "homophobic" to answer that heterosexual relationships make a unique contribution to society and marriage is a recognition of this."

Boy, you sure like throwing all your eggs in one basket don't you? First of all heterosexual relationships make contributions to society, good and bad, but not unique. Marriage cannot be a recognition of that. It is not an award for saying well done, thou faithful intended breeder. Marriage is not more or less than an affirmation in law, of the very real commitment between one partner and another. And what contribution are you talking about? If you assert a point, you need to back it up. Definition of terms laddie buck, try studying a first year philosophy unit.

"Heterosexual relationships are unique in that they are orientated to procreation. They involve organic bodily union, through coitus, as part of the natural cycle of life and fundamental to the survival of humanity. The communal significance of this is acknowledged by society through marriage. Changing the legal definition of marriage to accommodate gay couples would mean the institution losing its significance."

I'll let the knob waffle a bit more.

"Now, the standard rebuttal of this argument is that some marriages don't produce children for various reasons, such as infertility, and therefore procreation is unrelated to marriage. This misses the point: heterosexual relationships as a whole, not any given one relationship, are an essential part of society by their very physical nature. Individual married heterosexual couples who don't or can't produce children at a given point in time doesn't change the nature of the relationship – children not being produced is only incidental. With relationships between two people of the same sex, however, procreation isn't just impossible incidentally, it's impossible in principle – the very nature of the relationship means it isn't possible. The current definition of marriage recognises that heterosexual relationships are naturally orientated to procreation, and most marriages fulfil this."

Did you proofread this you fool? You assert that heterosexual relationships must be regarded as essential because they are characterised by childbirth. Then you say that actual childbirth isn't necessary for individual couples, as actual procreation by an actual couple is incidental. So on the one hand you assert that a couple can be too old or sterile, making childbirth impossible, and that's okay, but for a same-sex couple who cannot procreate (I guess leaving out gray-area wrinkles like adoption, surrogacy or IVF), that's proof-positive why they can't marry. The 'definition' you refer to is not a legal one I'm guessing. Also just because a 'current' definition infers one thing, does not preclude that the definition was different in the past or will change in the future. Logic's just another funny word for you eh?

"The newly released study For Kids' Sake, by Professor Patrick Parkinson AM from the University of Sydney, concluded that: [quote followed]"

Professor Parkinson did in fact say that the biological children of a married, heterosexual couple who loved their kids, and provided a good life, turned out to be loved, well-adjusted kids. Well, so the fuck what? He also said that loving, financially secure same-sex parents raised well-adjusted kids. He also said that parents of whatever gender and orientation who fight like cat and dog, and are cruel to their kids raise unhappy, angsty, depressed kids. It's not an on/off switch kid, it's a spectrum. Quoting selectively from Professor Parkinson doesn't make heterosexual relationships automatically perfect. The conclusion was in fact that love and security are the most important, gender and orientation or the presence of only a single parent are less important. (Update: It turns out I was thinking of a different study - there were a good few out at the time, and I was reading a couple at the same time. In the end I don't give a toss what one study among many says. The majority relate the gist of my argument above.)

"Of course, some gay couples are better parents than some married heterosexual couples, but the principle remains that a child being raised by its biological parents is the ideal. It makes sense, therefore, for the government to recognise and encourage this, as it does currently by the institution of marriage."

Oh my ever-lovin brain. I can't stand much more of this nonsense. Listen snowflake, if you concede that parenting is an important factor of marriage, and then concede that some gay couples make better parents than some hetero couples, then YOU HAVE JUST SHOT YOUR OWN ARGUMENT IN THE FOOT!! EVEN if the ideal is a perfect, happy loving hetero parenting couple who are caring, loving, nurturing and they have good jobs and live in a good area MOST HETERO COUPLES HAVE NO CHANCE IN HELL OF EVER ACHIEVING THIS. If the Government is to encourage a good parenting model, and as you say some gay couples make better parents, then everything you have just said is a complete load of HORSECRAP!! I tellya, you should argue against this cause more often, if everyone argued like you, we would have won already.

"The practical consequences of gay marriage for children and society would be long-term but still very concerning. It would change the institution of marriage from being centred around the production and well-being of children to being based on the self-fulfilment of adults."

It's not an either/or dickhead, some couples are already well-keen on the self-fulfilment. Your error is in picking one facet of marriage, narrowing its definition (badly) then asserting that as the desired norm, with all other forms an act of subversion.

"It would obscure the value of opposite-sex parenting as an ideal, taking away the special status marriage gives to the best arrangement for the upbringing of children. Society departing from the favourable norm in this way would adversely impact children, forcing the state to have a larger role in their welfare, such as in education and health."

HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!! I don't know how you can say with a straight face that a caring, lesbian couple would damage their kids more than a pair of chain-smoking violent hetero alcoholics. Where is your damned EV-I-DENCE! This is the most noxious thing I've heard in days, and I read comments from Andrew Bolt and Rick Perry mind you. Society already, quite sadly often, deviates from this precious norm of yours. Every time a hetero parent skips out, shouts at their kid, neglects them, hits them, this golden norm is violated. And you say that a caring gay couple is still worse than a shithouse straight couple? You, sir, can go right royally FUCK yourself.

"The current definition of marriage acts as a bedrock of our society by recognising the intact, natural family for what we know to be the ideal. My generation may continue to be part of the gay marriage campaign well into the future, but thankfully Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, at least, are capable of standing up to the group think."

No sunshine, if anything, they're a bedrock of the groupthink of bigotry that can't tell up from down or right from wrong. After all it's easier to hate and fear, than it is to love and care. I'm proof positive, I could have been caring and compassionate and tried to explain the flaws in your argument patiently, but I found it much easier, and in fact quite a lot more satisfying to decry and declaim you as the ignorant, simple minded, hate filled fuckface you are.

Now go and grow up you fucking simpleton.