The argument by Prof. John Araujo, SJ, Loyola University School of Law, posted at
Mirror of Justice, comes via Rob Tisinai at
Box Turtle Bulletin:
Let us assume that two planets which have not yet been inhabited by humans are to be colonized by them; on Planet Alpha, heterosexual couples only are assigned; on Planet Beta, only homosexual couples. In one hundred years, will both islands be populated assuming that reproductive technologies are not available to either group? I suggest that Planet Alpha will be; but Planet Beta will not. Why? The basic answer is to be found in the biological complementarity of the heterosexual couple necessary for procreation that is absent in same-sex couple.
Rob calls the professor's argument 'The Stoner Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage' because it reminds him of stoner conversations back in his college days.
Stoner: Dude, I just blew my mind.
Rob: I’m trying to study.
Stoner: Dude, I figured out why gay marriage is, like, a no-go!
Rob: I don’t have time –
Stoner: DUDE!
Rob: Fine. Tell me.
Stoner: Suppose we dump a bunch of gays on an empty planet.
Rob: Why would we do that?
Stoner: Dude…
Rob: Never mind. Go on.
Stoner: And we dump a bunch of straights on an empty planet.
Rob: Okay.
Stoner: So if we come back to Planet Straight in, like, a hundred years, we’d find a bunch of new people. BUT! If we go back to Planet Gay, there’d be like no people at all.
Rob: Why not?
Stoner: Because – dude! – they’re gay.
Rob: So?
Stoner: They’re gaaay.
Rob: They can still –
Stoner: Gaaaaaaaaaay.
Rob: What’s your point?
Stoner: Um…
Rob: Right.
Stoner: I remember! Don’t let gays marry.
Rob: Why?
Stoner: Dude, one of the planets is empty.
Rob: So your point is…we shouldn’t colonize planets with lesbians and gays?
Stoner: YES! Wait. No. Don’t let gays marry.
Rob: On other planets?
Stoner: No, dude, here, now, today!
Rob: Why not?
Stoner: Because of the planets, dude! The planets!
Rob: I don’t get it.
Stoner: Dude, you need to smoke more weed.
As I read the conversation, I was rolling on the floor, and I can tell you that it's hard to read while rolling on the floor. I hope Rob doesn't mind that I stole his very clever satire in its entirety. I couldn't resist. If he asks me to take it down, I will.
The illogic of this argument always amazes me. Do they think straight people will somehow cease to exist?
ReplyDeleteDo they think that preventing gays from marrying means that we will all go marry heterosexuals?
Or if we do marry, we will somehow (gasp!) corrupt the straights into our dark and dismal world of Fabulous Gay Sex?
head poundingly numbing.
IT, the point is you have to be stoned for the argument to make sense. Go smoke some weed. :-)
ReplyDeleteNot rolling on floor but snorting which is not a polite response at all.
ReplyDeleteAlso worried about the water heading to your part of the world. Stay safe and dry.
susankay, for some reason, the satire really struck my funnybone.
ReplyDeleteYes, we're going to get more rain and wind than I'd like to see. Tom is pooh-poohing the reports, saying it won't be bad around here. I hope he's right.
Remember when Jesuits used to be brilliant?
JCF, my thought exactly.
When will the insanity end?
The "logic" is lodged in the idea that the prime purpose of marriage is procreation.
ReplyDeleteWhich was really, REALLY important when land ownership was the most important part of public life, and children to secure that ownership into the future were necessary since life was nasty, brutish, and short (well, short, anyway).
It was actually quite a bit less important for the peasants than for the landed gentry. Marriage, I mean.
So the "argument" makes an assumption most people don't make anymore. It also just doesn't make sense.
Dude.
Rmj, I guess you're not smoking today. I'm not stoned either, and you're making sense to me.
ReplyDeleteDude.
Let's see..what if we colonize one of the planets with celibate priests? Hmm...
ReplyDeleteBill, your comment is nothing less than brilliant!
ReplyDeleteMental masturbation.
ReplyDeleteI stole from Bill and left a comment at the NOM blog, which is also linked at Box Turtle Bulletin, saying, 'What if Planet Gamma was colonized by celibate priests?' I'll wait to see if the comment gets moderated through.
ReplyDeleteLove it.
ReplyDeleteMy comment didn't go through yet, but someone beat me to the punch. A comment was just moderated through about a planet populated by celibate priests.
ReplyDeletesemi celibate priests. they don't all prey on boys by any means. true of all pedophiles.
ReplyDeleteRight, susankay. Some have boyfriends, and some have girlfriends, and I'm fine with that so long as the friends are consenting adults.
ReplyDeleteBut you see, "God calls priests to the celibate manner-of-life. Whereas NO ONE is called to the Icky Gay sinful lifestyle!"
ReplyDelete...said w/ the sophisticated tone of a Jesuit.
That was the stupidest stringing-together-of-words-in-a-sequence (can't call it a thesis) I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteTo have "Professor" attached to the name that strung those words together makes me fearful for the future of literacy. That he would allow it to be published is . . . beyond comprehension.
Did he think it would be some sort of philosophical breakthrough? Watch out Schroedinger's Cat, here comes Araujo's Queer Planet!
I don't want to make personal comments(*), but maybe some of your excellent commenters wasted too little of their youth smoking dope.
ReplyDeleteDr. Johnson turned upside-down: Not laughing helplessly at stoner jokes is the sure sign of a too-well-spent youth.
(*) Slacktivist just did an excellent posting on "The Disingenuous Qualifier". Excerpt:
# I don’t want to trouble you, but …
# No offense, but …
# Far be it from me to tell you what to do, but …
# Far be it from me to criticize, but …
# Not to be pedantic, but …
You get the idea. Now I can't start a paragraph without one of these.
I suppose staffing a planet with celibate priests and celibate nuns would STILL not populate it.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should send all the Jesuits to an unpopulated planet.
Or have I not been smoking enough weed?
My comment never made it through at NOM, but this one is there, and it says what I wanted to say:
ReplyDeleteAnd if we were to populate a planet entirely with priests or nuns (of the celibate variety), they would also be gone in a generation. Should we not allow people to take vows of celibacy?
The same would apply to heterosexual couples where one or both individuals is infertile -- should we not allow them to marry?
Araujo's argument is silly.
Yes.
And there is this:
If there is a genetic component to homosexuality,it is appalling that anyone would transmit it to future generations.Celibacy is to be preferred for "carriers".
Or laws might be passed for mandatory sterilization for "carriers".
Gay sex on other planets. Pass me that bong.
ReplyDeleteOur detractors would love to send us all to another planet. And after so many years of women's fashions and hair designed by straight men, after decades of armies lost in the wilderness because the straight soldiers were too macho to ask for directions or look at the damn map, tumultuous crowds lost, badly dressed, with awful hair would demand our speedy return.
Also there's that small matter that so many of us make the medical profession work despite itself, and without our talents, no one's computer would work. And would any sane person want to live in a world where all the entertainers were straight, white, and gentile?
And would any sane person want to live in a world where all the entertainers were straight, white, and gentile?
ReplyDeleteOh nooo!
The problem with Straight Planet is that it will still have the same proportion of gay people our World has now.
ReplyDeleteIt's a connundrum, isn't it....
If a Straight Planet brings forth gays and lesbians and celibate nuns and priests and monks and infertile couples, maybe we'd be safer forbidding a Straight Planet and opt for Gay Planet where none of this can happen.
It's a connundrum, isn't it....
ReplyDeleteErika, it is. The priest is a Jesuit! With JCF, I remember when Jesuits were brilliant.
And how does the Jesuit father completely miss the fact that the folks on Gay Planet could reproduce?