Gay Marriage Ridiculousness

Very recently I engaged in a political “altercation” with a staunch conservative, uh, “friend” of mine. His argument against gay marriage seemed to reflect not a logical basis of thought, rather a genuine detest for homosexuality, masked in a modicum of quasi-coherent rambling. His argument went as follows: by permitting gay marriage, his rights as an individual were restricted because he would be forced to “socially validate” something which deviates from the societal norm (not to mention something which he adamantly opposes).

There are two clear logical fallacies in this argument. The first, obviously, is the ludicrous belief that somehow by granting one faction a right which does not explicitly affect the wellbeing of another group, you are restricting the rights of the majority. The idea of social validation does not infringe on rights because social validation is a relative measure based around predispositions, not legal precedent. If you don’t support gay marriage, then you have the right not to marry a gay person. Simple.

The second problem with this argument reflects America’s proclivity to accept the mandate of the majority as infallible. This means: just because, in a democracy, a plurality of people express one belief, this belief is not inherently correct—tyranny of the majority as James Madison might have said. The abolition of slavery and the womens' suffrage movements diverged from the social norms dictated by the masses (if put to a vote, both would have lost to the wishes of the majority), yet by allowing women to vote or blacks to be free, white men weren’t by any means loosing any rights, just forced to accept something which is by principle correct. The womens' suffrage movement is clearly analogous to the crusade for gay rights: one dealt with redefining the vote, and the other deals with redefining marriage, and both deal with social validation.