Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Who are you to force your morality on me?

This statement generally comes up when one is giving their opinion in one fashion or another about morality. They are saying what they think is right or wrong and how that ought to play out in society. This self refuting statement comes up often when a Christian is expressing their viewpoint that goes against the grain (as it often does in our morally bankrupt society).

This challenge is self refuting. It defeats itself because it is a challenge to you that you ought not force others or ask others to live according to your moral point of view. Yet that challenge itself is a moral point of view that someone else believes in and is asking you to live by. To put it simply, they're forcing their morality on you when they say that you shouldn't force your morality on someone else.

Everybody has a moral point of view that we are seeking to have believed and acted upon in society and we are seeking to do that by some measure. Take the homosexual marriage agenda. They are advocating that their moral point of view (gay marriage) is legitimate and should be accepted. Is that a moral viewpoint that should be "forced" on everyone? How legitimate is it to force that moral viewpoint? I won't enumerate here why that viewpoint is not a legimate viewpoint to be forced on society at large, but I do take exception to how that viewpoint is being implimented on our society, which in essence, is the "rub" that opponents of gay marriage have against gay marriage inter alia.

There are two ways to force your morality. One way is to compel or encourage people to act in a way you think is right and for the common good. Generally we use the force of social approval and disapproval to effectuate this method. Another way, the way of the gay marriage activist is to strong arm society with forceful measures- namely by force of law and/or the courts. This brings up a whole new topic of judicial activism, which can be discussed at another time, but a tactic that gay marriage activists are capitalizing on currently.

But one way another, EVERYONE is forcing a moral view on someone. If you are a moralistic person, shame on you.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

This is a ridiculous argument...anyone can say their viewpoint is "moral" and shouldn't be "thrust" upon another. It used to be commonly held that BLACKS were inferior to whites and that God established this...and they justified their racism through "moral arguments". When YOUR moral arguments seek to LIMIT my civil rights...THAT is the problem.

Find a better argument, please.

Mike said...

Tony, come on, this is a great argument! Either you're missing something, don't understand something or don't want to understand it. Anyway...

And again, gay marriage isn't a civil rights issue. To make it a civil rights issue is an affront to African-Americans to say having past generations being prevented from taking a drink from a public water fountain or being sprayed down by fire hoses in a public park was on par to laws preventing a man from marrying another man. That comparison is shameful. Further, civil rights leaders strongly reject this assertion. Jesse Jackson explains, "gays were never called three-fifths of a person in the Constitution...and they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote". Marriage is a common good, not a special interest. Gay couples already have every "right" that straight couples have, except a piece of paper. I'll stop here before I start adding additional issues into the pot. But that's the strategy of the gay apologists - make it a civil rights issue and make it a crime to oppose or express opposition to it.

Unknown said...

Baloney. Your argument is disengenuous, at best...dishonest, at worst.

Martin Luther King's widow sees it as a clear civil right's issue...furthermore, women weren't sprayed down with hoses or considered "3/5th" of a person...yet their voting right's issue was clearly a civil right's one. Gays have faced at least as much discrimination and violence exacted against them as have women in their struggle.

Simply because it does not perfectly match the black civil right's movement doesn't mean it is not. Nobody has to be sprayed with hoses in order to claim their rights are being trampled. What a specious argument. I expect better from you.

Blacks do not own the copyright to "Civil Right's Movement". Nobody does...anytime anyone feels their civil rights are being trampled...it's a civil right's issue no matter who agrees.

Gay marriage is becoming a reality in our world...it's legal in various places and it is only a matter of time before it becomes a reality across our nation. Families need legal protections for their children, property and inheritence. If you can't see that...then you aren't really thinking of th echildren at all...since you would leave them legally unprotected.

Mike said...

Thanks for your comments but I still disagree.

Mike said...

Being black is inherent. Being gay is a choice (there isn't one shred of scientific evidence proving one is born gay). We're in trouble if we're going to start assigning "civil rights" to personal choices...

Unknown said...

Remembering that Jesus teaches you that lying is a sin...when did you CHOOSE to be heterosexual? If you say someone chooses to be gay...then you choose to be straight, and our choices are equally valid, your personal, subjectively chosen religious beliefs, notwithstanding.

You can no more be GAY than a gay person can be STRAIGHT. You know, as well as everyone else, that this argument of yours makes zero sense. You can have same sex relations all day long...and it will never make you gay. Just like the converse.

Please think about what you say before you say it. I realize that your chosen, subjective religion teaches you "party lines" and teaches you to shut out all opposing reasoning...but you could think for yourself if you wanted to. Really. You can.