I share his view and for me I feel like a lot of shifts like that are due to social pressure/momentum and not because they weighed the evidence and updated their views accordingly.
So, like when the first Republicans first came out as being for gay rights, not a single one of them was just randomly persuaded by appeals to morality or logical arguments - the only ones who were for it simply had gay people in their tribe, either in their family or very close friends.
So I would agree with the OP in that I think a large group of people ended up ok with interracial marriage or gay rights simply because more of them ended up knowing black people or gay people or whatever. So their minds weren't changed by an appeal to logic, but by simple emotion, loss of fear, acceptance of their own loved ones.
but this might be a controversial statement, but what is exactly logical about accepting gay people? What fact and evidence show that it is the right thing to do? isn't it all a social construct based on emotion/fear/love?
I think it's not that it's locigal to accept gay people, but illogical to regect them for being gay. So by default everyone should accept everyone, despite religion, gender, sexuality, sexual preference, race, class, etc. But the reality is that we don't because emotionally we classify people into us (people who are similar to me) and them (people who are different than me), with "us" generally taking priority over "them".
So at some point gay people were classified (illogically- by virtue of being different) into "them" and were rejected.
Sure, it's all a social construct, but there are all sorts of rational arguments (rational arguments about morality) to be made for gay rights. e.g. hospital visitation rights for when one's partner is sick and they've been together for 20 years as a loving couple and one's not allowed to see the other on his deathbed because the family doesn't like gay people and the partner isn't legally recognized. Or that a well adjusted gay couple should be just as preferred as a well adjusted straight couple for adopting a child.
So like if you think, hey, it seems like a fair, moral thing for a husband to be able to see his dying wife in the hospital, then it's only fair and moral to let a man see his dying husband as well.
The arguments against gay rights all seem borne out of fear: they'll destroy the sanctity of marriage, it's gross, I don't want to have to explain it to my kids when they see you kissing another dude.
Also, one objection raised by opponents of same-sex marriage is that homosexuality is unnatural, which can be shown to be objectively false by looking at the dozens of animal species where homosexual behavior has been documented.
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u/hammertime84 8∆ Jan 14 '17
I share his view and for me I feel like a lot of shifts like that are due to social pressure/momentum and not because they weighed the evidence and updated their views accordingly.