Squaring the Culture

I just posted twice about liberal self-deception, and then Memeorandum points me to a particularly nasty slur against Mike Huckabee by TPM Election Central. TPM stands for “Talking Points Memo,” it’s a leftward opinion site. And in one of today’s posts, Greg Sargent is claiming that Huckabee has equated homosexuality with bestiality.

The only way he can say it is by a committing a logical error that we should not expect a college freshman to make, followed by a lie.

The statement he’s teeing off from appears in a Huckabee interview posted on Beliefnet. Here’s the portion Sargent finds so offensive:

Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

And here’s Sargent’s comment, immediately following:

That’s pretty clear cut. Changing the definition of marriage so it can mean “two men” or “two women” is equivalent to changing it to mean “a man and an animal.” No ambiguity here whatsoever.

Um… no. Greg gets a big, red X next to that.

This is a perfectly ordinary argument construction (A = B, A not = C, D, or E), and in that construction, you can’t infer anything about C, D, or E except that they’re not the same as A or B. The only thing — the only thing — Huckabee says homosexuality has in common with bestiality is that neither of them constitute “marriage.”

I browsed 160 comments on the site, and found only two that noticed the error. One sums it succinctly:

I wish Mr. Sargent a long, happy, and healthy life and hope he is neither murdered nor afflicted with a terminal disease.

Oops – will Mr. Sargent insist I just drew an equivalence between murder and illness?

Exactly. But it gets worse. Sargent again:

Separately, it’s worth pointing out that Huck’s quote above doesn’t even use the tried-and-true “slippery slope” argument to couch his view that homosexuality is akin to bestiality. It’s a direct equivalence.

Oops, there’s that red X again. Immediately preceding the quote Sargent posted (same as the one I posted) was this comment from Gov. Huckabee:

Marriage has historically, as long as there’s been human history, meant a man and a woman in a relationship for life. Once we change that definition, then where does it go from there?

Sounds like a “slippery slope” argument to me. And you can’t tell me that Sargent read that far into the article, but did not see the comment immediately preceding it. The quote he clipped is from the 2nd page of a 3 page article; he had to have read past it to get to the part he quoted. Unless he snatched the clip from a third source — and he doesn’t source anything but Beliefnet.

Even his characterization about the interview is wrong. Sargent claims Huckabee is arguing that “the Constitution should be amended to be brought in line with God’s will.” Actually, Huckabee is simply pointing out that the Constitution can be amended. He favors a Human Life Amendment, and a Marriage Definition Amendment, and he was disagreeing with those who say the Constitution shouldn’t be amended because it’s too sacred; Huckabee’s reply was that the Constitution was written in such a way as to make amendments possible, whereas the laws of God cannot be amended.

I understand that many liberals don’t like Evangelicals. I’ve said before that I think the topic should be aired candidly; there’s far, far too much anti-Evangelical slamming going on, and nobody’s talking about it. From my own pre-Christmas post:

Here’s the elephant in the living room that nobody will mention: where anti-Mormon bigotry is unacceptable, anti-Evangelical bigotry is fair game…You don’t like Evangelicals? Fine. Say that you don’t like Evangelicals, and let’s have the discussion. But don’t use ridiculous “concerns” about “interjecting religion into politics” to mask your bigotry.

Just ’cause Sargent don’t like them, doesn’t make it appropriate for him to tell lies about what they’ve said. And he really should learn to parse a simple argument if he’s going to write for a major outlet.