//1.57 billion Muslims, 1.2 billion Catholics and the 14 million Jews, and the majority of the 1 billion Hindus believe very strongly that marriage is between man and woman//

How many of those Muslims, Catholics, Jews and Hindus are Australian citizens? Because last time I checked the ones who aren't don't get to vote in our elections or plebiscites which renders their opinions completely irrelevant.

Or maybe you think we should surrender to our sovereignty to some sort of world government. I can see that going down well with the conspiracy theorists :)

Is this the 'appeal to the polls' fallacy? The vast majority agree with something so therefore it must be right?

If it is so done and dusted then why bother entering into arguments about it? It only serves to show that you are not secure in your opinions.

Toni,

Very few but the vast majority influence those of our citizens who are of the same faith, and Islam, for one, actively promotes the death sentence for both parties in a homosexual act.

Muslims are one section of our society who are not going to accept the outcome of the plebiscite/referendum, nor is the Catholic Church likely to back down etc.

Is Mise,

Clearly I was talking about Australia. What people in other countries think is of far less importance. Either way, there has been a massive shift of opinion, internationally as well, that doesn’t appear to be slowing. I wouldn’t be too quick to hold religions as bastions for bigotry either. Opinions within Christian churches are slowly changing. Churches in the US were once against interracial marriage too.

Phanto,

Yes, there is such a fallacy.

<<Is this the 'appeal to the polls' fallacy? The vast majority agree with something so therefore it must be right?>>

It's known as the argumentum ad populum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum).

Of course, I wasn’t saying that same-sex marriage was right or good because of what the majority think, so I have committed no fallacy. Nice try though.

<<If it is so done and dusted then why bother entering into arguments about it? It only serves to show that you are not secure in your opinions.>>

Yeah, I already addressed this ad hominem (there’s another one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)) a couple of weeks ago. But since you’ve apparently already forgotten, here’s what I said again:

“Or that I enjoy debating, or that I want to discredit bad arguments so that others don’t use them and understand why they are bad, or that I like challenging my own views, or that I’d like to change the minds of others. Or maybe I just want to slap down views that I perceive as destructive?” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17607#311627)

There are many reasons why I might want to shoot down bad arguments. But you try to make it about me to distract from the weakness of your own position.

“Of course, ... I have committed no fallacy. Nice try though.”
So what were you saying? Why bother telling us what the polls are saying if you had no purpose in doing so?

“Or that I enjoy debating, ...“

But there is no point in debating an issue that you think is already resolved. Wouldn’t you get more enjoyment from debating something that has not been resolved if the enjoyment is actually in the process of debating?

Why do you need to discredit bad arguments if such arguments are in fact pointless since the debate is already won? What does it matter if others use them since the point of the argument has already been achieved or as you have declared will soon be achieved based on the polls?

You are not challenging your own views – you are challenging the views of others and why do that where the point of the argument is already achieved? All arguments have a point to them don’t they?

Why do you need to change the minds of others when enough people are already of the mind that same-sex marriage should be legislated for? Is that not the purpose of your arguing?

Why do you want to slap down views that have already been ‘slapped down’? Maybe the word ‘slap’ is a clue to why.

“There are many reasons why I might want to shoot down bad arguments”. There are none they relate to this particular argument.

“But you try to make it about me to distract from the weakness of your own position.”

Well it is about you when you behave in such a hypocritical fashion. Do you expect to come on to the forum and not have such hypocrisy exposed for what it is which makes many people question exactly how serious you really are about your position.

Phanto,

C’mon, do I really have to explain that?

<<So what were you saying?>>

I was responding to Is Mise’s claim that “the vast majority of people will continue to understand marriage to be between man and woman”. Why was that so hard to understand?

<<Wouldn’t you get more enjoyment from debating something that has not been resolved if the enjoyment is actually in the process of debating?>>

Believe it or not, there are still some out there who are against same-sex marriage, and their flawed reasoning for this position has the potential to influence others if there is no-one to point out the errors in it.

<<You are not challenging your own views...>>

I was listing possibilities. They weren’t necessarily all my personal motives in this instance. In other instances, the above is a motivation, but I think we’ve seen enough on OLO for one to be comfortable that they naysayers haven’t got a case in this particular debate.

<<Why do you need to change the minds of others when enough people are already of the mind that same-sex marriage should be legislated for?>>

Well there’s the point I made earlier about the possibility of bad ideas being passed around. We don’t live in a vacuum. Our beliefs inform our actions and our actions have consequences.

Further to that, I would think that most people would want to know if an argument they are using is a bad argument. I used to be against same-sex marriage even after I left the church. I changed my mind after I questioned whether or not I actually had a rational reason for my position. I would’ve liked someone to have pointed out to me that my opinion was not based on any sound reasoning so that I could have spent less of my life believing something without a good reason.

<<Why do you want to slap down views that have already been ‘slapped down’?>>

Well, clearly not every is aware that they have been.

<<Well it is about you when you behave in such a hypocritical fashion.>>

How have I been hypocritical?