Michael Braun's Blog

Last night, I had the non-pleasure of watching the often inept John Stewart debate the complete moron Mike Huckabee. It was more than painful. Specifically, hearing John Stewart tell Huckabee that he understood why the Religious Right wanted to ban abortion and saying that he agreed that we should try to end the practice. John – if it’s a human right and should be legal, then why are you trying to stick your nose into other people’s business? As Dan Savage pointed out in this week’s Savage Love, abortion is a better option than being born with rotten parents.

But aside from that debate, they also went back and forth (with less agreement) about gay marriage – John for, Huckabee against. Yet John failed to ask the right questions, meaning the debate was often about things that are completely irrelevant. They weren’t fighting the same fight. Here are questions you must ask if you are to debate anyone on gay marriage.

1. Are people born homosexuals or do they choose their preference?
Let’s say that there are some people who choose to have sex with horses in order to undermine and destroy society and now they want to be able to marry horses. Should we grant them that right? Very few people would support that. Well, Mike “I’m Dumber Than A Box Of Toads” Huckabee thinks the same thing about same-sex couples. He thinks they have a “homosexual agenda,” that they are trying to destroy and corrupt America’s youth, and that they purposefully subvert society. If you believed that nonsense, you wouldn’t be for gay marriage either. Yet John never asked that question.

2. Is marriage something to do with a mythical higher power or is it a legal contract signed between two consenting, unrelated, unmarried adults?
If this is about god, how will a debate change anyone’s mind? Huckabee isn’t about to convince me that there’s a god telling all humankind how to form partnerships. And I’m not about to convince him that he’s a psycho Christian nutjob. So what’s the debate? John Stewart seemed to be saying that marriage has been different through the ages, so what’s wrong with expanding the definition now? Huckabee said that if we legalize gay marriage, we have to make it legal for any two beings to get married. These non sequiturs are only possible when two people aren’t talking about the same thing.

3. Is the debate about voter preference or about human rights?
Huckabee cited all the states who have explicitly banned same-sex marriage. He said this was proof that people don’t want to redefine marriage and change traditional marriage. But what if it had gone the other way? There’s no way he would switch his preference just because the voters had spoken out in favor of gay marriage. And what about human rights? Just decades ago, it took verdicts in courts to legalize marriage of two consenting, unrelated adults of different races. It took the courts to end segregation. Is legalization of same-sex marriage in the courts similar to these cases? Or should we let the ignorance, bigotry, and homophobia of voters carry the day? Is this about rights or about whims?

If you don’t ask these questions, you cannot debate gay marriage on equal terms. So if you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of having to debate Mike Huckabee, or another psycho Christian bigot, do yourself a favor: make sure you are having the same debate.