Name that logical fallacy (gay marriage)

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/126615p-113368c.html

Explain to someone who served in the armed services that the veterans' benefits he justly earned are now going to be extended to those who never served.

Explain to senior citizens who get discounts in many different venues that their benefits are going to be made available to everyone, regardless of age.

And then tell veterans and seniors that the new policy has no effect on them.

On Monday senior goes to the store and gets 20% off shampoo on a "seniors" discount. On Tuesday the same senior goes to the same store and the same shampoo is now a "manager's special" 20% available to everybody. How is the senior affected?

Marriage is not a zero-sum game.

1. appeal to prejudice - one group (traditional spouses) is automatically encoded as deserving whereas another group is automatically encoded as not deserving (same-sex spouses)

2. non-sequitur - the prior act of earning benefits cannot be used to discover the merits of covering same-sex partners

Maybe there are others, but we all know what's really going on. A lot of people don't like gays and lesbians, and they will argue to fit their biases.

...the benefits afforded to seniors and veterans are, at least partially, merit-based. Seniors are our elders, and society feels they are owed a debt. Same with veterans, for obvious reasons.
But, it's not as if married people have defended their country with a rifle or raised four children and put them through college. Marriage isn't an "accomplishment," and isn't something that is "rewarded."

That is, it's in society's interest, the argument would go, that we support and prop up marriages cuz then you have stable families who raise good kids who then become good and productive citizens.

But since lots o'gays have kids, I say that would SUPPORT gay marriage legality.

...but then again, what do you expect from the people who equate repealing tax cuts that we never got to raising taxes??? :shrug:

non sequitor, red herring, appeal to consequences, false analogy .... to name just a few. Many other fallacies are included in the rest of the article. It makes for an interesting game to see how many types of fallacy one can identify within it. I would guess at least a dozen.

I sat through one of the gay-marriage debates in Canada. The "against" side couldn't open their mouth without trotting out yet another fallacy or just plain downright lie.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

from the standpoint of the older person, a 'prestige' or 'special benefit' change. There is no budget impact on the older person--they pay the same price they did before.

The paper is correct in saying it's not a zero-sum game, but they're trying to paint it as one anyway.

in that both would see an eventual dilution of their benefits due to the fact that they are economic and thus have limits. But it is totally absurd to make that claim with non economic benefits. There is no limit to hospital visitation rights. It isn't like if I get them you have to lose them. The vast majority of rights conferred by marriage are actually non economic.

The second problem with his analogy is that seniors and vets are not the majority of the population while people who can currently marry are. Thus the dilution problem is not a severe in the case of the economic benefits of marriage. In other words there is way more cost in giving currently married couples their tax breaks than there is in adding the relatively minute number of people who can't marry in to the mix. Conversly it would cost a company way more to give everyone a discount than to just give elderly people one.