Tradition Uber Alles

traditional, marriage, prop 8, atheist, religion, christian, gender, conservative, liberal homosexual, homophobia

I just read the most amusing proposal:

Tradition is an immovable force in human society and therefore, we should not even attempt to change or move past tradition, even if a tradition is outdated and strangling our society.

Of course, this was applied by the Prop 8 crowd to homosexual marriage, but I have to wonder if thejournalistachronicle really thought this one through.

First things first, the article is entitled Traditional Marriage: the Gay/Liberal Agenda is Trying to Eliminate All Tradition.

Really?

So gays are against turkey on Thanksgiving? We have shrimp at my house on Christmas Eve, will gay/liberal commandos be parachuting in to put a stop to it this year? (Oh, maybe as a member of the liberal agenda, I am exempt from this tradition elimination. I hope so, I really like shrimp. Not so much turkey. I could do without that.) Why don't gays like turkey? Do they not celebrate Thanksgiving? (Well, I guess gays outside the US don't, but that's not really the discussion here.) What about birthday party traditions, can we keep those? I'm a huge fan of cake.

When I was responding to comments from that post, I got to thinking about the whole “tradition” thing. I mean, we have only started to use that term recently, when marriage came under attack by the gay rights activists, really? no one used the word "tradition" prior to Prop 8? where do you live? and all those who mistakenly thought it was a good idea to jump on that bandwagon. oh, so i can't be for equal rights for all, i'm just a silly fool who likes to jump on bandwagons. way to frame the debate. So because of all of that ruckus, we now have to use “traditional” marriage, to distinguish between what some refer to as homosexual “marriage,” (I use that term very loosely) and then real marriage, between one man and one woman.

Nobody stole "marriage" from you. The fact of the matter is, if you want to create a nonexistent difference between hetero marriage and gay marriage, you're going to need to create language to keep everyone from being confused. Since I'm not willing to cede "marriage" to you to mean "man+woman", you need an adjective. Hey, we let you pick traditional. We could be calling "man+woman marriage only" something like "bigoted idiots who are WAY too concerned about Teh Gay marriage". I thought that was nice of us.

So I just decided to look it up, to clarify for myself exactly what we have all been referring to. you're not sure what "traditional" means? Not only are we calling it “traditional,” but marriage is a tradition in and of itself. yes, it is. it is a way of passing wealth, land and power from one family to another, or one generation to the next. this article is a fascinating look at marriage in the past. What I found was really interesting. i can only imagine what your search terms were.

I came across a paper by Dr. Mark Cooray* on Tradition. . Here’s what he has to say:
“No more tradition’s chains shall bind us.” This is one of the fundamental ideas of socialist/progressivist thinking.

this is silly. slavery, jim crow, women not having the right to vote? these are all things that were defended as "tradition", "we can't abandon tradition". Look, there's nothing wrong with traditions, per se. As I stated, I enjoy a lot of family traditions. However, when tradition becomes the excuse for denying equality, then it's a problem.

If men and women are freed from tradition, the experiences of history and the family environment, they can be manipulated and used by ideological and religious leaders more on this later, eccentrics and maniacs. If tradition declines, ideologues can mould and influence individuals. Indeed, tradition can, and is, used by ideologues on the other side to mold and influence individuals. You can watch this process live on the internet any time you want.

Basically, this guy's argument seems to be that if we allow gays to marry, there will be anarchy. USians will rampage through the streets, the rule of law will implode, cats and dogs will fornicate with abandon . . . except that none of that happened when gays were allowed to marry. Hetero marriages didn't suddenly end. Previously straight people didn't wake up unexpectedly gay. My dog, at least, continued to act as if cats look tasty. Ummm . . . so what's the problem again?

That about sums it up right there. That’s what seems to be happening, although I’m taking religious leaders out of that quote. really? so mark cooray is a freakin' genius if you can use his words to deny gays equality, but if he's picking on the religious leaders, out goes the quote. you do understand it doesn't work that way, right? oh, probably not. They are trying to remove all tradition, history and the family environment from society, show your work. you show me one shred of proof that gay marriage advocates desire to remove ALL tradition, history and family environment from society. you want to make ridiculous blanket statements, prove them. so they can then manipulate us. into what? equality? Kind of explains the gay marriage situation huh? no, no, it doesn't. Their agendas definitely fall into the socialist/progressivist way of thinking. THERE'S NO FUCKING AGENDA! (yes, yes, i know, if you're particularly uneducated, "After the Ball" might look like an agenda. It's not, it's a marketing plan. Unless you think Pepsi has an . . . oh, you do, don't you?)

Check back through my archives and the blogs of the marriage defenders on my blogroll for proof, studies, explainations and any other info you might need to convince you of this. I only included this to point out that if you are going to reference "proof", "studies" and "other info", don't make the reader check through your archives and other peoples' archives. That's lazy. Put up the links yourself. Tiresome, I know, but still.

Dr. Cooray - The basis of tradition is reason and experience.

No, this is the basis of tradition: (I heard this story somewhere, I can't remember where, and anyone who can help me out, please do) A woman is making a roast, and prior to putting it in the pan, she cuts the last 2" off the end. Her young daughter asks her why, and the woman answered, "That's how my mom always did it." Her daughter continues to pester her as to the reason behind the waste, and so the mother calls her mother to ask her why. The grandmother says, "Well, because that's how my mother always did it."

Eventually, they get around to calling the great grandmother and asking her why she always cut the last 2" of of her roast. The great grandmother, upon hearing why they wanted to know, bursts into laughter. You see, she had cut off the last 2" of roast because the largest pan she had was still too small to cook a roast in.

Experience is perhaps as important or more important than reason. Experience extends beyond reason and mental horizons and embodies factors which people only dimly perceive and cannot rationally explain but which contain elements of truth and understanding, based on accumulated experience. What does that mean? That's a collection of words that individually have meaning, but together become babble.

Let's see here . . . my oldest niece was once bitten by a dog. She was terrified of my dog for years as a result. (My dog viciously licked an intruder into submission once. Scary.) That was the voice of experience: be afraid of dogs. The voice of reason won out, though, and now she loves my dog (and vice versa.) Experience is fine, but it doesn't trump reason.

eventually, this entire post becomes "I can prove it, it's rational, the world will end", which you are more than welcome to explore on your own.

*The lack of available internet info on Dr. Mark Cooray made me suspicious. Usually, you can find a host of information on publishing PhDs, even if it tends to be in pay to view journal services. Dr. Mark Cooray almost exclusively publishes in something called PAMP:

PAMP is a private publication committed to exposing the overwhelming bias against liberal, conservative and traditional views and perspectives in the Australian public affairs media. PAMP does not hide its philosophical position. It is critical of the public affairs media who pretend to be impartial in disseminating the truth (see a nalysis of words of Chris Masters of the ABC in this issue). PAMP is particularly critical of the ABC which is funded by taxpayers' money and therefore has a duty to fairly present the competing views and perspectives (particularly those which have a significant following). The privately funded media has a right to express partisan views. However independence and commitment to truth and standards should not be claimed by partisan journalists. A popular myth about the media is that editorial content is controlled by media proprietors. It is in fact controlled by t he editors and presenters, the overwhelming majority of whom in the ABC and the national and metropolitan print and TV media are left of centre and antagonistic to liberal, conservative and traditional views and perspectives. This fo rmulation excludes from its scope radio and the regional media. The ideas expressed above have been examined and explained in more detail in previous issues of PAMP. Readers interested in receiving past issues may write to me, enclosing $3 per issue (postage inclusive)

At least they are honest about their bias. No "some of my best friends are liberals" nonsense for them.