Logic

Well, that was fun. Turns out that the trains aren’t running for some reason (I don’tknow what that reason may be yet, but I’m going to watch the ABC news to find out – thephrase ‘commuter chaos’ is almost certain to be used). So I had to get a bus home.

Happily though it turned out that I could get a bus from Subiaco train station straight toMercy (that is Mercy Hospital which is just round the corner – I like to call it ‘Mercy’because it makes me feel like I’m living in an episode of ER :). And I was only 15minutes late home, not too shoddy!

Anyway, I’ve got a fair bit of stuff to blather on about tonight, so I might as well getstarted. I’m going to rant on about a somewhat controversial issue here, so anyone whomight be upset or offended should probably skip on to the bit about my referrer logs(although I would prefer people to read what I have to say, I wrote it after all).

It’s about the Prime Minister. He’s annoying me again. He pretty much annoys me on adaily basis, but from time to time he does something particularly annoying and I have norecourse but to get absolutely p’d off. Like his statement yesterday on gay marriages. Iquote…

“Traditional marriage is one of the bedrock institutions of our society and I don’t want anything to occur that further weakens it. Marriage, as we understand it in our society, is about children, having children, raising them, providing for the survival of the species.And I think if the same status is given in our society to gay unions as are given to traditional marriage we will weaken that bedrock institution.”

OK, I’m not going to mount an argument here in defence of legalising gay marriage. Forthe record I’m in favour of it. I can see no reason why committed gay and lesbian couplesshouldn’t have the same rights and protections available to heterosexual couples. Somepeople may agree with me, some may not, that’s not what this is about. What this is aboutis our Prime Minister being either terminally stupid, or blatantly deceptive.

Why do I say this? Because his so called ‘argument’ is completely and utterly flawed.

Let’s have a look at it logically. According to the PM, the purpose of marriage is theproduction of children, the perpetuation of the species – therefore since gay couples can’tproduce offspring, they shouldn’t be allowed to marry. Fair enough.

Except that if the only reason gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry is that they can’tproduce offspring, then a whole lot of other people shouldn’t be able to get married either.A whole lot of straight people.

Let’s see. Post-menopausal women for a start. Men with a low sperm count. People – ofeither sex – who’ve come down with a variety of cancers either directly affecting thereproductive organs or that have required aggressive radiation therapy. People born withcongenital defects of the reproduction system. People with other fertility problems. Peoplewho choose – for whatever reasons – not to have children. If these people can’t orwon’t reproduce, why should they be allowed to get married?

Now, you may say that that’s taking things to a ridiculous extent. But the point is that thatkind of thing has happened in the past, and it continues to happen.Typically in particularly Catholic countries in south and central America. There have beennumerous cases in recent years of couples being refused marriage licenses because one ofthe partners (nine times out of ten the woman of course) is judged physically incapable ofproducing offspring. So, they can’t get married. And what makes it worse is that the kindof societies in which this kind of thing happens are innately conservative – living togetherwithout being married is out of the question – so there’s no way for these people (peoplewho care about each other enough to want to get married) to be together. If you ask me, that’s completely monsterous, and it’s all because of precisely the line of reasoning put forth by our PM.

Would John Howard support implementation of that sort of policy here I wonder? It’s onlylogical.

The point is, that if we allow people, any people, who can’t have children to get married, then marriage cannot by reason of simple example be about about popping out kids. And indeed it’s not. It’s about two people – people who care about each other – making a commitment to each other, and having that commitment accepted, recognised and celebrated by their community. If they have kids, great. If they don’t, then that should in no way invalidate their feelings for each other or affect their status in society.

If Mr Howard has a logically defensible objection to gay marriage, I’d be willing to hearhim out (I seriously doubt he could convince me to change my mind, but it would at least be polite to listen). But I am not willing to accept such a clearly flawed, faulty and downrightridiculous argument. I mean even Peter Costello’s (the Treasurer) comment (that marriage is defined as a relationship between a man and a woman and therefore gay or lesbianrelationships cannot constitute marriages) makes more sense from a logical perspective.

There are only two reasonable conclusions from Mr Howard’s comments. The first is thatthe leader of our nation is incapable of following through the simple logical consequencesof his own arguments. The second is that he’s lying about his reasons for opposing gaymarriages. I leave it up to the reader to decide which.

(By the way, once logical arguments are exhausted, one may fall back on moral or religiousreasoning. I’m not going to argue that. If a particular religion wants to prohibit certainbehaviors or withhold certain of its services from certain groups of people, that’s its right. You can’t stop people from believing stupid things, and no one has to belong to a religion after all. But no one’s talking about making any changes to any religions. The issue is civil ceremonies.)

Now, if the PM has a religious objection, then he should come out and say it – and acceptany consequences – not hide behind a screen of blatantly false logic. But after all he’s apolitician, so why should we expect any better from him? 🙁

OK, rant over, on to my referrer logs 🙂

My favourite over the last few weeks has been “animated floating grain elevator”. Ihonestly cannot even begin to comprehend why someone might search for such a thing. Ican’t even begin to comprehend what such a thing might even be. But much moresurprising is three separate queries that seem to follow a common theme. Specifically”vigo mortenson email address”, “phone number of Liv Tyler” and “Jorja Fox’s house”.Well, quite clearly the Wyrmlog has somehow become the number one destination foronline celebrity stalking.

Now I don’t object to this, any traffic is good traffic, but c’mon people! If I had Liv Tyler’sphone number do you think I’d be posting it on my weblog? And do you think she’d bekeeping that phone number for very long? Honestly! 🙂

(And more seriously, what kind of idiot thinks they’d be able to find that kind of infoonline anyway? Sheeze!)

Hmmmm, I’m sure I had more to talk about. Just all ranted out I guess. Oh well, maybe I’llwrite something tomorrow then 🙂

Over and out!

PS: Damn ABC news – no mention of the trains at all! Useless!

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