Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Not a Valid Point

A friend of mine shared a short blog post with me. Basically, it was nothing more than a picture of a sign outside a restaurant (presumably in New York) with the caption, “Valid point is valid.” My comment got way too long, so I’m putting it here.
Now this won’t make much sense if you don’t see the picture. So here it is:
Sorry, cyber buddy who sent this to me. The sign does not make a valid point. Remember I support same sex marriage. But this sign is wrong, and does not help further discussion and understanding between people of differencing viewpoints. It serves only to antagonize.
The sign is just plain wrong. As I see it, there are only two possibilities, and neither leads to the sign’s conclusion.
If, as some people claim, homosexuality is not a choice, but rather a genetic predisposition, then these heterosexual parents the writer of the signs wants us to blame had no choice. They no more chose that their baby was going to be homosexual than they chose whether she was going to be a girl or chose what color eyes she would have. It seems odd to blame parents for something clearly beyond their control.
The second possibility is, as others claim, that homosexuality is a choice. So we are blame these parents for raising a homosexual child. They raised their child to be a free thinker, explore alternative lifestyles, and their child discovered themselves in homosexuality. The writer of the sign thinks we should blame these parents for that? Or perhaps the child rebelled against their parents stogy, close minded beliefs and chose to be a homosexual. We are to blame them for that?
The sign does not make a valid point, but worse than that, it doesn't serve to help. During the same sex marriage debate, people for same sex marriage often make allusions to the civil rights battle. That would lead me to think their goal is to get a society where it doesn't matter whether you are gay or straight, as the civil rights goal was to get to a society where it doesn't matter if you were black or white. Those are laudable goals. Sadly, we aren't there yet on either front, but how exactly does this sign promote that, or get us closer to that society? I claim it doesn't. Signs like this serve only to highlight our divisions, and cause more animosity between people.
So no, valid point is not valid. It's rather counterproductive.


2 comments:

EMTWench said...

I agree with what you posted, but my initial reaction was to laugh. Then again, I am fluent in Sarcasm, so it would appeal to me on a humour level. I have no problem seeing the funny side... probably because I spend so much time laughing at myself and the dopey things I do.

Either way, I liked this post a lot.

AislĂ­nge

Unknown said...

I had not considered that the sign might be sarcastic. I don't think it was, and I'm fairly certain the person who blogged about with the caption calling it a valid point didn't take it as sarcasm.

Thanks for your comment. I love to see something in a new way.