There is a strange rhetorical asymmetry in the so-called culture wars. (I don’t much like that term, but it’s the one that’s current.) It’s most salient in the marriage question, and it goes like this. Compare I’m for same-sex marriage with the opposing, I’m for man-woman marriage. Or if you prefer, I’m for traditional, true, or biblical marriage. There really isn’t any one short word or phrase that fits that slot in the sentence as neatly as same-sex does. One effect of that is that to be for same-sex “marriage” seems somehow to be more of a “for” position than to be “for” strictly man-woman marriage.
This calls for analysis, some of which I’ll do here. First, to say one is for “traditional” marriage is to take a terribly weak position. Other than Chesterton’s wisdom of the fence, tradition alone is a weak reason to support anything, especially in the context of current debates. Yes, it promotes social stability, but if that’s the point, then let’s say so: “I value stability of society and culture, and I believe a certain kind of marriage supports it,” not, “I support traditional marriage,” where “traditional” is left hanging by itself without defense or explanation. Even stability is not by itself the summum bonum: the antebellum South had a certain stability in race relations. It desperately needed de-stabilizing.
Second, the alternative terms true or biblical marriage have their own asymmetry in this debate. Everyone knows and agrees what same-sex means. Not everyone knows or agrees what true or biblical mean in this context. We can’t use those terms without explaining and defending them. As shorthand they are next to useless, except where everyone agrees on what they mean.
The terminology of man-woman marriage requires less explanation or defense, for, like same-sex, everyone knows and everyone agrees what man-woman means (set aside some extreme gender warriors’ disagreement). Nevertheless—and this is my third point—to support a strictly defined man-woman view of marriage is to take an obvious limiting stand. It is to give a clear yes to some things but an obvious no to others; it is automatically to be against that which does not fit the definition. Yes to same-sex “marriage” seems therefore to be a more inclusive yes than yes to strictly defined man-woman marriage.
This is an illusion, however, supported by conceptual proximity. Same-sex “marriage” proponents focus just on marriage and the various ways they want to say yes to it. More conceptually distant, but just as real and relevant, are the things to which they are saying no: no to God and his clear instructions, no to the clear witness of history that genuine marriage strengthens a culture, no to raising one’s own children in a biologically-connected family.
I could extend that list; it would be a worthwhile study to do so. But that’s not my purpose in this blog post. My point is that to say yes to one thing is always to say no to another; but that saying yes to man-woman marriage leads to a conceptually accessible “no,” which opponents can easily capitalize on rhetorically. I admit it: it’s easy to posture my position as an against position. Saying yes to same-sex “marriage,” on the other hand, leads to no’s that take more work to bring to the surface of discussion. That makes them more difficult to manage for rhetorical purposes. It does not make them less significant in reality.
Adapted from Thinking Christian
June 14th, 2010 | 9:54 am | #1
[...] Tom Gilson explains why he thinks that people who are arguing in favor of a traditional view of marriage are at a rhetorical disadvantage. [...]
June 14th, 2010 | 4:56 pm | #2
“I’m for traditional, true, or biblical marriage.”
Unfortunately, that’s not what opponents of same-sex marriage really support. If they did, they’d demand that divorce be illegal in all cases except for the sexual infidelity of one’s partner. (Luke 16:18)
Proof? Someone tried to push for that here and no Christian group took them seriously.
No. What people often are saying when they say they oppose same-sex marriage is that they want Biblical morality to be applied at the civil government level when it applies to gays, but not in cases where it may prove an inconvenience to their own life now or in the future.
June 14th, 2010 | 5:05 pm | #3
Frank – john fb,
Are you aware of the biblical history of divorce law? If you’re going to show a parallel between divorce and SSM law, it behooves you to treat the whole subject, not just that which supports your own view. Otherwise you run the risk of being guilty of the same thing you accuse us of here.
June 14th, 2010 | 5:14 pm | #4
Tom, divorce was apparently permitted due to the peoples’ “hardness of heart” throughout the Old Covenant (as was polygamy).
The standard set by Christ in the New Covenant was one man, one woman, no divorce for any other reason than sexual infidelity. I’m not saying I find this an easy standard (drug/alcohol/emotional abuse apparently don’t count), but that’s what it is, and it’s the standard referred to by those who oppose SSM.
Are you saying you think we should implement Old Testament marriage laws? If so, on what grounds would you oppose polygamy?
June 14th, 2010 | 5:45 pm | #5
The question, Frank – john fb, was whether you could defend your attempted parallelism between divorce law and SSM law. That’s what I had hoped you would answer, because that’s the issue you had raised. (Note, by the way, that there really is no such thing as SSM law where there is no such thing as SSM.)
June 15th, 2010 | 12:48 am | #6
Tom Gilson,
Isn’t there something to Frank’s suggestion? If someone justifies their support of marriage legislation by saying, “I’m for traditional, true, or biblical marriage,” is it really so odd to suppose that such a person ought also support legislation that would place stricter limitations on divorce (or at least divorce among Christians)? Doesn’t the New Testament place rather strict limitations upon divorce? Isn’t it plausible to think of “biblical marriage” in terms of the marriage teachings of the NT?
Secondly, you write something that I find unusual:
It seems false to say: “there really is no such thing as laws against human cloning where there is no such thing as human cloning.” We should rather say the reverse: there is no such thing as human cloning (partly) because there are laws against it.
June 15th, 2010 | 1:09 am | #7
“is it really so odd to suppose that such a person ought also support legislation that would place stricter limitations on divorce (or at least divorce among Christians)?”
If you’re daring anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ to be “consistent” on this particular matter,
you found one…. me!
Furthermore, I’ll go you one better. If you want to stipulate that you’ll agree (along with all pro-SSMers) to a ban on Same-Sex Marriage throughout all the United States on the condition that there’s stricter limitations on divorce among Christians…
I’ll say, … “It’s a Deal!”
June 15th, 2010 | 4:48 am | #8
Janice,
I do favor strengthening marriage from a legal perspective. I would certainly support eliminating so-called “no-fault divorce.”
If you or Frank want to press an argument that there’s a strong parallel between divorce and SSM, then by all means go ahead and do so. But to point to the two and glibly say, “They’re both about marriage, you ought to treat them the same,” is not the same as pressing an argument. Yes, they’re both about marriage, but they’re also both about other considerations besides. When the argument is presented so unidimensionally, it’s not substantial enough even to take time refuting. So I’m inviting you both to set forth a real case, and when you do I’ll be glad to engage with it.
Speaking of parallels, your human cloning parallel with SSM is far from apt. There are no laws against SSM in most of the world. The situation is pretty much the same as it is with married-bachelor law. SSM is ruled out not by law but by definition.
June 15th, 2010 | 5:25 am | #9
Tom Gilson,
If a Christian says, “it is because I support “biblical marriage” that I support laws opposing the legalization of SSM,” isn’t it natural to assume (until given reasons for the contrary) that such a person will also support laws that prohibit divorce (except, perhaps, in cases of adultery)? After all, isn’t it appropriate to assume that, for the Christian, the NT teachings will define “biblical marriage”?
I guess I’m just a little baffled by your insistence that anyone must demonstrate any stronger of a parallel.
Also, how serious are in your claim, “SSM is ruled out not by law but by definition”? Would you say that SSM is as conceptually impossible as a four-cornered triangle? If so, how would you go about arguing for this conceptual impossibility? If not, what exactly do you mean by your claim?
June 15th, 2010 | 7:01 am | #10
Janice, the NT teachings do define biblical marriage, and they include a provision for divorce, but no provision for SSM, indeed a prohibition against the sexual acts that would be part of it.
What’s fundamentally wrong with the parallelism is that it selects one aspect of biblical teaching on marriage and tries to make it the whole. It suggests that because we support certain biblical principles concerning marriage, we should extend them without qualification to the unbiblical position that divorce should be completely outlawed. Does that make sense?
I’ve already said I would strongly support changes in the law to make eliminate no-fault divorce. That would bring the law more nearly in line with biblical principles. But what shall I do about that? If I were going to accept your parallel between divorce law and SSM law, then I would have to consider the following implication:
Christians oppose political efforts being mounted by a special interest group to impose fundamental alterations in marriage law upon society. Thus to be consistent with their position with respect to those efforts, Christians should mount political efforts to impose fundamental alterations in marriage law upon society.
Do you see how Frank and you have failed to take into account the full range of the supposed parallelism?
What Christians are doing, in churches and related organizations all over the country, is to work with couples to strengthen relationships. We’re approaching the issue relationally and spiritually. And it works, despite some careless research you may have seen to the contrary. Bradford Wilcox parses out additional relevant information from the General Social Survey and the National Survey of Families and Households and concludes,
(See also here.)
So we’re doing something — a lot, actually — in defense of marriage with respect to divorce. We’re just not mounting a legal campaign. And (fully consistent with that) we’re also not mounting one with respect to SSM. You’ve seen what I’ve already written on that.
June 15th, 2010 | 12:00 pm | #11
TUAD,
I have the perfect solution: We institute tighter limitations on divorce among Christians and ban SSM among Christians. That should make everyone happy.
June 15th, 2010 | 1:31 pm | #12
Tom Gilson,
I would like to clarify what seems to be an inadequacy in your responses. But first, I wonder if we can agree on the following statement:
June 15th, 2010 | 2:08 pm | #13
Nick,
Who said anything about banning SSM? I’m no more in favor of that than banning married bachelorhood.
June 15th, 2010 | 2:10 pm | #14
Janice, the NT term is not adultery but unfaithfulness. Otherwise so far so good.
June 15th, 2010 | 6:42 pm | #15
Tom Gilson,
I wonder if you could clarify what you see as the biblical distinction between adultery and marital unfaithfulness.
Second, in your reply to Nick, are you suggesting that SSM is a definitional impossibility in the same sense that a married bachelor is? (This is similar to the question I posed to you earlier, in terms of conceptual impossibility and four-sided triangles.) If so, then I guess one might say something like this:
June 15th, 2010 | 9:09 pm | #16
As I hinted above, I think “unfaithfulness” may mean more than just adultery. It seems to me that abuse is also unfaithfulness, for example.
When I wrote what I did about definitions, my point was really to show that Christians and other social conservatives aren’t seeking to ban SSM. That would be falsely treating it as if we had mounted some legal campaign to do away with it, which as I have said, clearly we have not done.
I suppose we could talk more about definitions, but for the current discussion it would be taking us off track.
June 15th, 2010 | 9:55 pm | #17
Tom Gilson,
O.k., but what exactly is your definitional claim–and how does this definitional claim support your further claim that “social conservatives aren’t seeking to ban SSM”?
Fair enough, but just how far beyond sexual infidelity to one’s spouse are you willing to extend “marital unfaithfulness”? Breaking a promise to be home in time for dinner is, I suppose, a type of unfaithfulness.
June 15th, 2010 | 10:48 pm | #18
Hi Tom
I think “same sex marriage” is an oxymoron. Even the Greeks, with their well established habits never considered marriage as anything other than a man and a woman.
June 16th, 2010 | 5:35 am | #19
Janice, my definitional claim is nicely summed up in the answer Dave already gave. I recognize there’s a difference between this and married-bachelor, which is that it has (for some people) become conceivable to think of SSM, whereas pretty much everyone considers married bachelorhood to be analytically impossible. SSM is still a contradiction in terms, in my view. But that’s by-the-by, not the main point of our conversation, and I don’t intend to get embroiled in it now.
Your second question invites me to casuistic legalism such as the Pharisees practiced. I can’t provide a Iist of what is/is not unfaithfulness that could make divorce justifiable (still tragic, but justifiable). Obviously there’s a continuum. Obviously an extra-marital affair is on one end of it and failing to keep a dinner-time promise is at the other end. I consider physical abuse to be a kind of unfaithfulness.
If you tell me why you ask I might be able to give you a more helpful answer. I’m not at all sure how this relates to the overarching discussion; I think we’ve already seen that attempts to draw a parallel between divorce and SSM do not succeed, so I’m wondering what the point is.
June 16th, 2010 | 1:50 pm | #20
Well that’s a bit quick, Mr. Gilson. Why would you think this?
Let’s say define “adultery+” as that narrow range of marital unfaithfulness offenses that we can accept as biblically sound justifications for divorce–so that divorce done upon other grounds would degrade to the institution of marriage, as understood biblically.
Now, suppose that a person’s stated reason for endorsing marriage-related legislation is this: “I support biblical marriage.” Until we have reasons for her doing otherwise, why wouldn’t we expect this person to support legislation limiting divorce to only those occasions involving adultery+?
If you want to make the argument “then by all means go ahead and do so.” But to glibly say, “SSM is still a contradiction in terms,” is not the same as pressing an argument.
In other words, I don’t see how you can responsibly use this glib claim as a premise to support the other controversial claims you were trying to make in this thread.
June 16th, 2010 | 3:24 pm | #21
Janice, in case you haven’t noticed, I expressly removed that “glib claim” from the flow of my argument. Twice.
And your rejoinder to my argument on the failed parallel misses at least half my argument.
I’m posting this from my mobile phone, so a longer statement will have to wait. But I suggest you take a look back again at what has gone before.
June 16th, 2010 | 7:42 pm | #22
Okay, back on an actual computer. On my mobile phone earlier I was unable to read the full exchange very easily. I don’t think it was accurate when I said I had pulled that definitional claim out of the flow of my argument twice. I expressly did it just once. In comment #16 I wrote,
In other words, my remark in comment #13 was not directed primarily at the definitions but at the point, “I’m not about banning SSM.” You know what my position is on that from my prior post on this.
Now, I only expressly pulled it out of the argument once, but even that was more than strictly necessary, for it was never really in the flow. That is, I did not use it as a premise for any further argument. So for you to glibly say I ought not to glibly make it a premise for my arguments is to fail to notice I was never doing that.
Now, with respect to this (my words and then your response):
You go on to suggest that Christians’ attitudes toward divorce ought to be parallel to their attitudes toward SSM, and then,
This parallelism fails to do the work you want it to do. It’s one thing to support legislation limiting the application of existing and well-established practice like divorce, and quite another to resist a campaign mounted to complete alter a centuries-old social practice. Support ≠ resist; the parallel doesn’t work.
See also my italicized response to Frank in #10. You seem to suppose that because Christians oppose efforts by another special interest group to legislate a serious change in marriage law, consistency demands that they ought to support efforts to legislate a change in marriage law. That’s not consistency at all, as I hope you will recognize this time through.
Note also, though, that I actually would support legislation restricting divorce somewhat more tightly than it is in most states now. It’s not because I buy your premise that consistency with my SSM position demands that I take that position with respect to divorce. I take that position because I think it is biblical. I take my position regarding SSM because I think it is biblical. My consistency in this issue consists in my commitment to biblical principles in both cases.
June 16th, 2010 | 8:36 pm | #23
Tom Gilson,
I accept your retraction of all definitional claims about marriage. That said, I’d still like to hear a clearer defense of your distinction between banning SSM and, for example, (merely?) re-writing the constitution so as to prevent SSM. Is this, moreover, a normatively substantive distinction?
Rather, this is what I suggest:
That is, my claim is clearly not about what the attitudes of all Christians should be relative to their attitudes towards SSM. Rahter, I’m talking only about folks whose stated reason for endorsing marriage-related legislation is this: “I support biblical marriage.” And, among these folks, I’m talking about those who haven’t yet articulated any (good) reasons for refusing to supporting legislation limiting divorce to only those occasions involving adultery+.
Well, it’s one thing to state as one’s reason for supporting marriage legislation: “I support biblical marriage.” It’s quite another to state as one’s reason: “I support preserving centuries-old social practices.”
Again, I accept that there’s a distinction in words here. But why think that this a normatively substantive distinction?
June 17th, 2010 | 4:50 am | #24
I may have miscommunicated, Janice, though I thought I was clear. I did not retract my definitional claims about marriage. I have just chosen not to build an argument on them at this time. I expressly said I was removing them from the flow of the argument; I did not say I was retracting them.
Recognize that this post is about the rhetorical side of the issue. My previous post on the topic here at Evangel was too. I think I can make my points concerning rhetoric without developing a full-scale argument for my position favoring man-woman marriage; and I think it helps us stay on topic if I, well, stay on topic—if I don’t try, that is, to say everything I believe about this large issue all in one blog post. So while I could argue for my position on the basis of definitions, I’m not doing that here.
The distinction between banning and re-writing the constitution to prevent SSM is this: that to ban a practice a requires two things: an existing practice a, and a legal initiative toward ending that practice. There is no existing practice of SSM in most of the country and there has been virtually none in all the world through all of history. Where there does exist such a practice in America, it is because of legal initiatives brought by homosexual rights advocates. Our response has been just that–a response.
Homosexual rights activists have been playing the rhetoric as if they have been attacked by some legal onslaught (“they’re taking away our rights, they’re banning our marriages!”). They are taking an intentionally strategized victim stance to make us appear the nasty aggressors (see here; for more see Kirk and Madsen, 1990, After The Ball). There has been no such attack. The aggression (as I have written previously) was conducted by SSM activists. We have defended. We have not banned existing practice, we have protected existing practice.
You wrote,
I knew that, Janice, and if I did not specify it as tightly as that, it is because it seemed the context implied it. Perhaps now you could respond to what I wrote there with that clarification in mind.
Janice, earlier you claimed I used definitions as premises for arguments, which I was not doing. Now you are claiming that I am arguing for man-woman marriage on the basis of its being centuries-old practice; which I am also not doing. Please watch the distinctions more carefully. I could make such an argument, but if I were to do that, then I would do that, and I would place it in context of my other arguments.
What I was doing here instead was describing the difference between two types of legal stances: supporting legislation of one sort, and resisting legislation of another sort. The purpose for stating this distinction was not to show that SSM is wrong, but to show that your analogy did not fit the case. To reiterate from before: you had suggested that because we resist x we ought for consistency’s sake to support y, which is itself a failure of analogy; and you had failed to note the historic difference between x and y, another failure of analogy.
Why not? Sure, taken bare and without context, the words support and resist might well be two sides of a coin. But taking into account what I have written about what is being supported and resisted, their historical context, and the way the debate is being played out rhetorically, surely you can see the distinction?
June 17th, 2010 | 2:36 pm | #25
Tom Gilson,
Is this a definitional claim? If not, what kind of claim is it?
According to you, there are no bans against human cloning. According to your premises, there apparently couldn’t be a ban against human cloning. But why on earth should anyone accept your premises?
Re-read this bit Mr. Gilson. You’ll see that I am not claiming that you are arguing for man-woman marriage on the basis of its being centuries-old practice. You’ll see that I’m merely trying to get you to “watch the distinctions more carefully.”
June 17th, 2010 | 8:01 pm | #26
Janice,
There is a ban on spending money for research into human cloning. There had been research into human cloning, funded by various governmental sources, and now it has been ended. This is another failed parallel.
Aside from that I don’t see the point of your question whether that’s a definitional claim or not. If you disagree with it, please feel free to try again to explain your disagreement.
As for your final paragraph, in support of my statement I will merely quote once again what you said:
That is a claim that I am arguing for man-woman marriage on the basis of its being centuries-old practice.
June 17th, 2010 | 8:36 pm | #27
Look, your basic problem is this. You’ve created ad hoc criteria for the application of the perfectly ordinary English word “ban”. Appealing to these ad hoc criteria, you now say that it makes no sense to ban SSM. Your criteria, however, also mean that there can’t be a ban against human cloning–even though it’s perfectly ordinary and appropriate to say, in English, that there’s a ban against human cloning.
So it’s Mr. Gilson against ordinary English, stipulating–apparently by definitional fiat–when a term can and cannot be used, and doing so for rhetorical purposes. It an absurdly silly strategy.
June 18th, 2010 | 6:02 am | #28
This is degenerating, Janice, and I don’t know quite what to say about the attitude you’re expressing, especially since I have just finished explaining how the word “ban” applies to human cloning without contradicting my prior argument.
“Ban” is not a neutral term. It serves a definite rhetorical purpose. There is a reason SSM advocates use it rather than the more neutral “prohibit” or “disallow.” It connotes an authoritative cutting off of some existing or otherwise normally expected practice or right. This connotation is by no means ad hoc; it is the way we use the word in normal practice. Human cloning research was banned: there was existing research under way, and it was banned in the U.S. by (IIRC) executive order. Embryo cloning was also under way, and it too was banned by executive order. Those are both perfectly appropriate uses of “ban,” and consistent with all that I’ve been saying.
Let’s consider a different kind of situation: a book banned before publication. In that case there is not some existing thing that is prohibited, but there is some normally expected thing that is: we normally expect books to be allowed to be published. “Ban” fits there, too.
Thus the word “ban” applied to SSM implies by connotation that SSM is either an existing practice or right, or that it is in the category of what is and has been generally expected. The very use of the word assigns SSM a false and prejudicial status. It implies that something is being taken away.
If you think normal usage of “ban” excludes the connotation I have just said it includes, then by all means show why we should think so. Your human cloning example does not accomplish that for you, however.
Speaking of false and prejudicial, I have in no wise stipulated (and certainly not by “definitional fiat”!) when a term can and cannot be used. Have I banned using the term “ban”?! Where do you find me doing that? No, what I have been doing instead has been a rhetorical analysis of what it means when the term is used in a certain way. I have argued, and I openly hope to persuade readers, that it is misleading to use that term in a certain context. I hope that if readers accept my analysis, their own honesty would lead them to quit using the term that way; that for the sake of integrity they would ban themselves (so to speak) from that usage of the term.
I also hope to help other readers be more aware of what’s going on below the surface when others use the term in that context, so they don’t allow themselves to be misled.
Is there a rhetorical reason for my having done this? Of course! But the purpose has been to clarify rhetoric, to promote careful thinking; not to introduce prejudicial thinking, but to take a close analytical look at rhetoric in the context of dialogue.
I would appreciate it if you would refrain from using heavily loaded language like “Look, your basic problem is this,” and “absurdly silly,” especially when (for example in the most recent case), you left the latter half of my previous comment completely without response or rejoinder, and you completely ignored what I wrote about human cloning research in the first part of the comment. I think you failed to show that my approach has been absurd or silly, and I think that to speak that way about someone on a forum like this is ill-fitting regardless.
June 18th, 2010 | 2:28 pm | #29
If your explanation is an attempt to reconcile your #24 criteria with the statement “human cloning is banned” or the statement “there’s a ban against human cloning,” then a similar extension could be used to reconcile those criteria with any statements about banning SSM.
Look, are you, or are you not, trying to say that “to ban a practice a requires two things: an existing practice a, and a legal initiative toward ending that practice.” It’s one thing to say that the we can ban previously existing practice; it’s another thing to say that we can only ban previously existing practices. I’m showing you why it is absurd to insist upon the latter. Likewise, it is one thing to insist that we typically ban previously existing practices; it’s quite another thing to insist that we can only ban previously existing practices. Again, I’m showing you why it is absurd to insist upon the latter.
Umm…maybe here: “to ban a practice a requires two things: an existing practice a, and a legal initiative toward ending that practice.”
The way I see it, if I can’t get someone to acknowledge the simple stuff, there’s no way I’m get him to acknowledge the relatively subtle point that the follow locution does not mean that Tom Gilson is “arguing for man-woman marriage on the basis of its being centuries-old practice”:
June 18th, 2010 | 4:06 pm | #30
Janice,
I will concede your point on “centuries-old marriage practice.” The original was ambiguous, and could be taken either way, so to say it means just one way is to say too much. As for this, however,
You have again failed to explain how such an extension could be used as you say. It’s a bare assertion, in the face of my actual argument. If you don’t like my argument, please counter-argue. Or better yet, see below…
As I see, it, you are making repeated assertions of that absurdity without engaging my arguments in answer to your assertions. But see below…
The whole point of this exercise is to expose and to analyze the rhetorical undercurrents of the debate and the terms used in it. Suppose you are right and the usage is only typical rather than exclusive. In rhetorical terms, the typical usage would have exactly the same result: it focuses attention on a certain way of looking at the matter; a way that I have been saying is false and misleading.
That was (as I have already indicated) an analytical rather than a prescriptive statement.
Now for the “below” material I mentioned.
All of this caviling about the word “ban” has diverted focus from the actual points I’ve been making about the rhetorical situation. Why not pay attention to the actual point of the discussion?
If you have anything substantial to say about the major topic here, I’d be more than willing to talk further with you about it. But if you want to quibble over “ban,” I’m telling you in advance that if what I’ve said so far doesn’t satisfy you, then I am sure nothing will. If you think I’m wrong on that, then you will continue to think I’m wrong, and I’m sure that will remain true no matter what arguments I provide. Anyone else reading this is welcome to draw their own conclusions based on what I’ve already written, and unless something substantial comes up that’s worth responding to, they and you will have to be content with what I’ve written about the word “ban.” I’m content with it.
I suppose, however, that if you were to answer with an argument rather than just an assertion next time, and if there was some substance to that argument, I might change my mind. I can’t predict whether you would do that or not.
June 18th, 2010 | 5:59 pm | #31
Well, are you or are you not continuing to endorse your previous “analytical” claim:
And are you or are you not conceding that human cloning is banned, and that there is a ban against human cloning?
If your answer is “no”, then you’ve not really explained “how the word ‘ban’ applies to human cloning” (you’ve only explained how the word “ban” applies to something else–maybe something that’s related to human cloning.
If, however, your answer is “yes,” then you have contradicted your “analytical” claim. That is, you concede that human cloning is banned, even though (you must acknowledge) human cloning has never been an existing practice. That is, you’ve conceded that something can be banned which isn’t, and has never been, an existing practice.
If you can’t see how this is in direct contradiction to your “analytical” claim, then there’s no helping you.
As I’ve said, if I can’t get someone to acknowledge such simple stuff, there’s no way I’m get him to acknowledge the relatively subtle points.
June 18th, 2010 | 7:20 pm | #32
Janice, until you take seriously what I’ve said about what actually was existing with respect to human cloning before it was banned, there’s no point proceeding on that issue.
I have answered your questions. More than once. You have continued to ask the same questions. If you think there is something wrong with my answers, then the appropriate thing to do would be to (1) acknowledge that I have answered (that’s the polite thing to do) and (2) let me know what you think is lacking in my response. What do you disagree with in my claim? Please do me the courtesy of considering the full answer I have provided over the course of responding to your repeated questions; bearing in mind that human cloning research was underway (isn’t that the first step in the process of human cloning?), that human embryo cloning actually was being done (which I do tend to think is equivalent to human cloning don’t you?), that for rhetorical purposes (the point of this whole exercise) “typical” use of a word functions virtually equivalent to exclusive usage of a word.
It’s your turn, not mine, now.
June 18th, 2010 | 7:27 pm | #33
And by the way, it would be really refreshing if we could get this discussion on track with something more substantive, if it’s going to proceed any further.
June 18th, 2010 | 7:34 pm | #34
This is, sadly, comical.
June 18th, 2010 | 8:07 pm | #35
For once we agree. Emphasis on “sadly.”
This is also, sadly, over.
June 19th, 2010 | 9:20 am | #36
Sometimes I stop and watch people riding the carousel and having fun.
They go up and down and all around, laughing and waving. It’s such good fun. They laugh, I laugh, it’s all so grand.
Play it again, Sam.
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