¤ milky moon ¤

Ok, question for all you guys:

My sister is a sophomore in high school. I live in a somewhat conservative (at least compared to generally liberal Washington) small town. In my sister's English class, they were doing debates. Today, the debate was on gay marriage. The side against gay marriage ended up winning the debate. My sister shared with me some of the arguments used: the all-too-common slippery slope argument (next we'll have bestiality and pedophilia), that we can't let homosexuality become normal because it'll affect the children (?!), it's against tradition, and other arguments, which my sister pointed out, were against homosexuality, not gay marriage, and not even well thought out. Apparently the pro side couldn't come up with good responses. And either side didn't understand marriage. One of the cons was: you can't force churches to marry couples they don't want to marry. Pro said: Nobody would force them to. Con replied: Then no gay people could get married because no church would allow it! (Not understanding that marriage is a legal act, a religious one only by choice/tradition, and also that there very clearly would be at least some churches who would be OK with it.) What bothered me a lot was that this issue is very deeply personal and I'm sure there are people of all sexualities at the school. It seems weird to invite kids to go up and hate on them. But whatever, I love debates. What really, really bothered me was that this debate was held between apparently incompetent debaters, and then the con side won by a vote from the class. Never, at any point, were the abundant and obvious fallacies in their arguments pointed out. I hate the thought that kids in that class may go on thinking there's all these inarguable points against gay marriage because the pro side wasn't aware enough of all the clear and obvious arguments!

I dislike that this happened. Am I overreacting? I have a strong desire to contact the teacher and explain why I think this was inappropriate, but I also don't want to be someone who goes around trying to limit discussions. I just think the discussion/debate should have been better mediated by someone who understands the debate a bit better and can provide points that are skipped over, so the audience isn't entirely misled. But then I worry, is it just because I'm clearly on the pro side that this debate (in which con won) enrages me so thoroughly? What do you think? Should I formally complain about this, or just let it go?

No you are not overreacting. It pisses me off just reading about it. I would draft a good email, have someone read it over for you, and send it to the teacher. Or better yet, snail mail the complaint with your signature. It will at least make you feel better.

What I think is probably irrelevant, but...

Think about all of the things that are debated in classrooms around the world. Debates can be about gay marriage, teen-pregnancy, premarital sex, women in the military, women in combat, women in the clergy, gays in the military, gays in the clergy, the relevance of perceived character flaws in politicians, and on and on and on. How many of those debates will be conducted by participants and moderators with the kind of knowledge needed to fit the criteria you want? If, as I suspect, almost none would qualify, would you have them debate nothing, or only the things they are "qualified" to debate? Choose your battles wisely, ann. Don't let your personal passions do the choosing for you.

Ah ^ that's true.

polliwog wrote:What I think is probably irrelevant, but...

Think about all of the things that are debated in classrooms around the world. Debates can be about gay marriage, teen-pregnancy, premarital sex, women in the military, women in combat, women in the clergy, gays in the military, gays in the clergy, the relevance of perceived character flaws in politicians, and on and on and on. How many of those debates will be conducted by participants and moderators with the kind of knowledge needed to fit the criteria you want? If, as I suspect, almost none would qualify, would you have them debate nothing, or only the things they are "qualified" to debate? Choose your battles wisely, ann. Don't let your personal passions do the choosing for you.

I wrote a much longer response, but I think it helped me sort out my thoughts, so I'm going to reply in a more concise way.

I'm not sure why you think your thoughts would be irrelevant, I asked for opinions so I would get opinions. Thank you for sharing yours. I wasn't expecting full-fledged support here, or I would have just written an email right away.

Maybe I didn't make my thoughts entirely clear in the first post. Though it makes me feel sort of "icky" to allow people to openly hate on homosexuality in the classroom, during a debate, I think people should be allowed to partake in debates and should not be limited. That made me feel gross, but that was not the main problem I had. The main problem was that never, at any point, were the obvious missing arguments presented, or clarifications made. This leads to a group of kids thinking they've participating in an actual debate, which I think gives an air of authority, and won, which suggests that even when their opinions are wholly challenged, they hold up. But they weren't wholly challenged.

What would satisfy me would be, after the debate has taken place, for the teacher to talk a little bit about it and within that, present the most common debates on both side. Whether they're silly, or smart, if they're what's generally talked about during this topic, they should be presented. In this way, regardless of how the students presented it, both sides would get coverage that wasn't explained by high-schoolers with prejudices, and rather by someone consciously attempting to present an issue fairly. Having does this, there is no way the abundant pro arguments for gay marriage would go unsaid. I also don't think it'd be out-of-line for the teacher to step in and point out that marriages aren't required to be in churches, and many aren't. That's an issue of fact, not a controversial differing opinion. But none of the kids in the debate were corrected. I can only assume they still don't know that one of their points was moot based on an misunderstanding of how marriage works.

So, all those topics you listed do qualify for debate. I didn't think I was suggesting they wouldn't, but I must have in some way. What bothered me was the complete lack of clarification leading to: not a debate, but a group of kids reaffirming their opinions about deeply personal and pertinent issues, without any contradiction whatsoever, in a public classroom.

I think it's good to open up discussion, I would just be concerned that the inevitable kids struggling with their sexuality could go away from that class thinking they were amoral just because of who they were. The last thing a class should teach is intolerance. I think the teacher should have had a clearer knowledge of the debate if she was going to start one up; gay marriage is a difficult issue but the morality of homosexuality, to intelligent liberal people (maybe thats the problem), is not.

Oh, I just thought of another "argument": gay people might start engaging in acts of PDA in the streets and everyone else shouldn't have be subjected to that because it might disgust them. Again, my sister pointed out: this is just about sexuality, not marriage; anyone is quite allowed to engage in mild PDA, so this isn't even relevant to the debate. But people generally don't make out in the streets anyway, and a small kiss, or hand-holding, should not disgust anyone.

Yeah, I kept thinking, wow, some struggling kid in that classroom is going to be listening to these kids suggest that his/her sexuality is disgusting, have the opposing side shrug it off with no response, and then have the majority of the classroom vote for the con side, with nobody, at any time, suggesting a rebuttal (like the obvious one my sister pointed out: that can occur right now, gay marriage need not be legalized for it to happen). What a horrible thing to have to listen to. I'm so glad my sister is intelligent, and not like most of her peers, though I wish she cared a bit more about this so she would've said something.

The more I think about this, and having to better sort my thoughts in my response to Polliwog, I think I've settled that I think it'd be fine, and not overreacting, to approach the teacher and say if she's going to do debates like this, she needs to be able to present, as fairly and equally as possible, all commonly used arguments for either side that the students did not use in their debate. That way, if a debate is so obviously one-sided (as it was here), no one goes away thinking the issue is actually that one-sided. And also, if an obvious factual error is made in the debate, and the other side does not correct it, I think it's important to interject and point out the error: otherwise the debate is resting on falsities. I think I'll write her an email tomorrow.

We had a philosophy and religious studies teacher at my school who was sort of the perfect teacher for that sort of thing. Regardless of what was being discussed, he'd argue for the opposite of whatever was winning so that its arguments weren't ignored but had to be challenged. It probably helped that he had a class that represented every side of every debate in the first place - it was never the whole class arguing against him, it was always him weighing in on one side of the argument. We didn't have formal debates - that was the place of the debating society - just classroom discussions, but classroom discussions were about 90% of the teaching.
Unless I'm mistaken, debates aren't usually settled by a vote but by judgment anyway - I've been to a few debating 'matches' in competitions, and there's usually four or five debating judges who decide which side made its case best, rather than opening it up to the audience to decide which side was correct. Being correct isn't really what debating is about, it's about arguing well regardless of what you're arguing for - debating teams are told what side of the debate they're going to be on, they don't get to pick. Which is why I never joined one. I used to go along to debating society meetings to offer points of information when the team were practicing.
I think in that debate if I'd had to argue against gay marriage being legalised I'd have made the case for all marriage being removed from the legal sphere and being left as a wholly personal contract like friendship, not recognised by the state. It's an anachronism stemming from property laws that have since been changed so that a woman no longer needs to be attached to a man to inherit from her parents' estate. The institution of marriage as a legal contract is inherently misogynistic, in western society at least. That's beside the point, though.
I think you would be right to insist on a better standard of teaching. A good teacher should interject with points of information on either side when they see a false argument being made - I don't know exactly how the debate was conducted, but usually the moderator or a member of either team can offer a point to address a flaw in an argument being made. If the structure of the debate didn't allow for that, she could at least have brought up the problems in both teams' arguments after the debate was over.

I was very active in the GSA when I went to school. People who say that gay marriage shouldn't be legal because it goes against the church seem to have forgotten the whole SEPARATION OF CHUCH AND STATE that america was founded upon.

Interesting and thought-provoking topic.

It seems to me that Ann's main gripe is not so much with the outcome of the debate, but with the way in which this outcome was arrived at - the airing of views that were incomplete at best, and in some cases downright false, followed by a vote among a consequently ill-informed group of young people. However, Ann and other posters have also got into some of the arguments for and against same-sex marriage, so I'll stick mt oar in here, too, if I may.

This raises several issues, both in terms of the original premise (when I debated at school, it would always be on the basis that "This house believes that..." followed by a proposition in the positive, which I think in this case should be "... gay marriage should be permitted" since "... gay marriage should be prohibited" would be in the negative) and in the process.

PREMISE

Same-sex marriage is not legally recognised in any part of the UK (even when conducted abroad between participants who then come to the UK), whereas I believe it is recognised in certain areas of the USA, so I am coming from a different environment to that in which the original question was posed. One could ask why same-sex marriage is not recognised in the UK, and I suspect that the official answer would be that it is not for the purposes of procreation. This however can be countered by citing several other examples of non-procreative marriage (where one or both partner(s) is known to be infertile through age, illness, accident, or other medical condition, incarcerated, terminally ill, or incapable of delivering a live birth perhaps through some genetic incompatibility, or simply where a desire has been expressed that the couple will NOT produce children). Another counter-argument to this would be that couples who are not naturally fertile can utilise other methods to start a family, whether this is IVF, surrogacy, adoption, or fostering. Each of these counter-arguments could, of course, be the subject of a debate in its own right.

In the UK, however, it is possible for multiple marriages to be recognised, although they are illegal if undertaken here. That is to say, a person who migrates to the UK with more than one spouse can have them all recognised as his wives (or, I suppose, as her husbands, although I am not aware of any cases of the latter), and may in fact be eligible to claim state benefits for each of them, whereas a 'normal' monogamistic married couple in the same circumstances would be entitled only to a single set of benefits.

What is recognised in the UK is same-sex civil partnerships. This has the great advantage of side-stepping the vexed question of what the participants get up to in the privacy of their own home: after all, why should our law-makers interfere with that, so long as no-one is getting harmed, threatened, abused, or taken advantage of when vulnerable?) The purpose of a civil partnership is to harmonise the treatment of such a couple with regards to taxation, benefits, inheritance, etc with those of a 'traditionally' married couple consisting of a male husband and female wife. This allows same sex couple to enjoy these same basic rights, and - I believe - also makes it simpler to deal with cases where the sex of one or both partners is ambiguous, whether through gender reassignment, physiological ambiguity, deliberate obscurity, or even simply an error on a birth certificate (which has caused some people inordinate and lifelong problems).

Where the UK system is controversial is that it does not recognise other forms of civil partnership. There was a well-publicised case recently of two elderley sisters living in their family home. They knew that when one of them died, the other would not be able to inherit without incurring inheritance tax, which would mean her spending her remaining time on earth in unfamiliar surroundings. They were not allowed to form a civil partnership because of their blood-relationship, whereas had a pair of unrelated women (or a pair of unrelated women) this hurdle could have been overcome by a same-sex civil partnership; had they been unrelated male and female, they would have wed, even though the union would naturally have been childless.

But relaxing the law on close relatives forming a civil partnership (whether same-sex or opposite sex) could be seen to be, to use Ann's words, 'a slippery slope'. Would it condone incestuous marriage? Counter to this, one could argue that there is nothing wrong with familial affection, and that (as stated above) civil partnership has nothing to say on the subject of intimate relations, but that sex between close relatives would naturally remain against the law. On another face of the same mountain could be "partnerships" between more than two persons: suppose there were three elderly sisters, or two elderly sisters and their male cousin ...

This is probably the place to throw in the fact that there are many 'traditional' marriages where the couple have come to hate each other, and a lot of partnerships of other sorts where the partners love each other greatly. By the latter, I don't just mean homosexual lovers, but also brother-sister pairings, mother-daughter, as well as heterosexual couples who have never actually married for whatever reason (and I can think of many). And by 'love' I don't mean 'have sexual relations'.

I had intended to scoot quickly over the "premise" question, because as I said I think Ann would have been less unhappy ( won't say 'happier, though) if the same result had been arrived at by a debate which did not include the obvious elements of bias and/or incompleteness that she describes. (One assumes that if those failings were put right, the debate may well have come to a better-informed conclusion - in all likelihood, the opposite one to that reached). However, once I got in the flow, I seemed to go on & on!

PROCESS

Firstly, given what you have said about Washington being a rather conservative area, I'm guessing that the proposition would have been put in the negative - to do otherwise would have been inviting apoplectic headlines in the local press! One can just imagine conservative parents at other local schools saying 'I'm glad I didn't sent my son/daughter to that school - they supports gay marriage there, you know". Attitudes are changing - just rather slowly in many cases.

I'm not exactly sure what age a high-school sophomore is, being in a different country, but I am guessing maybe 12? In that case, the people involved in the debate either as speakers or simply as voters at the end, are likely to be influenced by peer-pressure: 'What will they think of me if I vote yes (or no)?' There would be a natural assumption (not necessarily true, but certainly the intuitive one) that someone who considered themself gay would be more likely to be in favour of same-sex marriage, and someone who considered themself straight would be less likely to do so. Following this reasoning, there would be class members who would jump to the conclusion that a vote or a speech in favour of permitting same-sex marriage would be tantamount to a statement that that voter or speaker was a homosexual him/herself. One would hope that each class member would arrive at a decision in the debate based on logic and common sense, rather than personal feeling, but that would be unlikely to be the case in a 'mature' adult populace, let alone in a class of 12 year-olds, who would be unable to escape jibes from classmates. Although it would not aid the speakers to be as forceful as they might wish, I suggest that - if a vote was to be taken - that it should have been a secret one. As Jordan~ says, however, a better way to determine which side had 'won' the debate would be through a panel of experienced debate judges. It's not democratic (but who says democracy is a good thing anyway ... new thread perhaps?) and I suppose it depends upon whether the point of the debate was the hone debating skills, or to reach a consensus on the question of same-sex marriage.

Following on from the above, I am sure that 12 years of age (if that's the age we're discussing) would be rather young for people to have finalised their opinions, both of their own sexuality and of the 'answer' to this debating question. People may suppress ideas about themself because they are uneasy with them, or they think others will be - and I don't just mean that people will be scared to 'come out' as gay (which is certainly the case), but also that many people - especially in conservative environments - may well be uncomfortable in seeing themseves as sexual beings of any hue. Both of these scenarios are likely to lead to uneasy young people taking 'the line of least resistance' and fitting in with the perceived 'norm'.

If it's of any consolation to Ann, I think that the outcome of this debate has little or no relevance to the opinions that these same people will hold in a few years' time. I recall that a mock 'election' was held at school once (complete with debating and flyers etc) when it was General Election time in the nation, and the outcome was something like 97% in favour of one of the main parties, and 3% to the other. Even in a fairly politically polarised part of the country, the results of the actual election was never anything like as one-sided as that! I read of a similar 'school election' taking place last year, to coincide with the 2011 election, but candidates were restricted to standing for one of the main half-dozen parties. The reason for that was obvious: without such a stipulation, there can be little doubt that the MRLP* would have won by a landslide!

OK - I've said way too much. Back to the musical pages, and thanks for reading to anyone whose made it down this far.

* for our transatlantic friends ... that's the Monster Raving Loony Party.
Answers on a postcard as to which of the American parties this most closely corresponds!

Steve wrote:(or, I suppose, as her husbands, although I am not aware of any cases of the latter)

I was asked to determine what was happening in a photograph during one of my Cambridge interviews. There was a girl, about 11 or 12, a boy a little older, and a man in his early 20s. I worked out that it was a wedding where the girl was marrying two brothers - fraternal polyandry. It's the predominant form of marriage in some parts of the world, where it's undertaken to ensure that the family's herd isn't split up by inheritance.

I object to civil partnerships as a 'solution' to the 'problem' of gay marriage on the grounds that, regardless of the legal status either of civil partnership or marriage, it writes a distinction between homosexual and heterosexual relationships into the legal code. It's a legal apartheid between heterosexuals and homosexuals. A heterosexual couple can have a civil partnership or a marriage; a homosexual couple can only have a civil partnership. Homosexual couples are still being told their relationships aren't as legitimate as heterosexual relationships as surely as if Hammurabi's scribes had chiselled it into his law codes.

Not, as I say, that I'd be in favour primarily of opening legal marriage up to gay couples, but rather of scrapping all marriage laws altogether. I don't think that the fact that you have an intimate, committed relationship with another person merits tax breaks, inheritance law should take account of the situation in which the parties concerned live in any case, and I don't think the state has any business keeping a list of lovers. People could still get their relationship blessed in the temple of their choosing, the temple could issue its own certificates if it wanted to, humanist weddings could still go on and civil ceremonies wouldn't be tarnished by the fact that there wasn't a legally binding contract signed at the end. If people really missed writing their signatures on something they could buy a joint deed to a house or, if they can't afford that, an accordion or a spoon or a comb or something. The idea of legally recognising marriages is as absurd to me as the idea of legally recognising best-friendships.

But maybe there should be another thread for this. There's already a politics thread, we could move it there.

Steve wrote:Interesting and thought-provoking topic.

The age might be important here. My sister is 16. Her classmates are, by this point, almost certainly all 16 too, but I'd say the age range could be said to be 15 - 17. Washington (the state I live in) is actually pretty liberal, in that the state will pay for abortions (something a state like, say, Alabama, probably weeps over daily). I watched a state stereotype video thing recently, and Washington was described as, "Richer hippies than Oregon." It's Enumclaw, my little town, which leans towards conservatism. I feel 16 is old enough, at least compared to 12, that they should've been able to present a better debate. I do think that probably some of them, once they off to college will change their views. But at the same time, I'm still bothered that a public school allowed such a poorly constructed debate about something that feels to me very important.

I once had a teacher call a student in my class a \'towel-head\' because he was Egyptian. This same teacher once said \'fag\' in reference to a specific person.

From what you\'ve said, her school hasn\'t done a very good job in teaching the students about separation of church and state.

We had debates like this in my history class when I was in Middle School. I had a weird teacher who was very interesting, but entirely incompetent as far as teaching goes. She said that she had a problem calling it \'marriage\' because the bible and Merriam Webster define marriage differently. As far as I am concerned, marriage is a union between two people who love each other.

I took a U.S. history course, and they had an entire chapter devoted to black people and the civil rights movement. The had one paragraph about LGBT rights. I wrote to the school board imploring them to feature a larger section on Civil Rights.

Eh, I wouldn't really worry, it's dumb high-school kids. Pretty much everyone here is an incompetent debater, too (except for the geniuses in Debate club or whatever.)
I mean, they have to learn their organization and public speaking skills and I guess the teacher chose that topic because it's a hot news item nowadays and people can relate more to it.

We don't learn organisation and public speaking skills, here! Or if we did, I didn't go to those classes. I think I made two speeches in thirteen years. And they weren't graded.
Maybe that's why most people in this country dread the prospect of having to speak in front of a group of people. Or to another human being they don't already know.

I don't think you're overreacting at all, Ann. I'm 16 as well (and gay) and would probably feel hugely uncomfortable in a situation like that. I think it's the teacher's job to present a topic in an unbiased and educational way, and from what you've said, the teacher did nothing of the sort. I don't think it would be out of place for you to contact the school/teacher and suggest that they approach the topic in a more well-rounded manner the next time, or that they do a follow-up class to discuss the other side of the debate. I've found that teachers tend to really watch what they say in class after a student has made a complaint, so if your sister was willing, maybe she could email/meet with her teacher?

rainbowdash wrote:Eh, I wouldn't really worry, it's dumb high-school kids. Pretty much everyone here is an incompetent debater, too (except for the geniuses in Debate club or whatever.)
I mean, they have to learn their organization and public speaking skills and I guess the teacher chose that topic because it's a hot news item nowadays and people can relate more to it.

But dumb high school kids, though irritating, isn't what I would be contacting the school about, it's that the teacher didn't think it was important to educate them on the actual arguments used in this debate at any point. Maybe the class would've voted con regardless, but I would've been a lot more comfortable with it knowing it's just because they're dumb high school kids, not because nobody's ever suggested a reasonable reason why gay marriage isn't absolutely appalling. I know when I was younger I held a lot of dumb views for a while because nobody ever challenged them. And I would always think, "Clearly there's no good reason not to think that, at least no one's ever given me one." And I was very outspoken! People had plenty of chances... Sometimes I think it's too often adults just roll their eyes and say it's just because they're young and they'll get over it. I know if more of my opinions had been challenged as soon as I started spouting them, I would've reconsidered, albeit after some grumpiness and embarrassment, and been far more educated.

Riv wrote:I've found that teachers tend to really watch what they say in class after a student has made a complaint, so if your sister was willing, maybe she could email/meet with her teacher?

My poor sister is far too timid. She's so smart but sometimes I think she hides that at school. I asked her to give me the name of the girl's who argued con (I may have initially wanted to send off a Facebook message...) and she looked terrified and said no way hahaha. I don't think she wants to be in any way involved in my complaining. I'm not even sure I'm going to mention I'm her sister. I don't want this to fall back on her.

Also, she won her debate today.

As the parent of a teen and middle schooler, that has heard of this situation in classes, I would never interject myself in the learning process and life experience that builds who the kids are in that classroom.

If as a parent, or sibling, family member - I was asked my opinion on such a topic, then perhaps I would take part is such a discussion - as has been the case. But more often than not, I have debates and discuss such issues with my kids directly and help them find their own perspective rather than forcing mine or anyone else's on them. Healthy debate, being informed and challenging opinions is key to growth

My kids go to a very diverse school, where cultures are respected and diversity is celebrated.

Now the issue of the teacher not being a good debate teacher is separate- I would build that case with a series of debates that happen the same way or bad instruction and not even mention the subjects being debated.

Hm, it certainly sounds like you're suggesting contacting the teacher would not be your course of action, and yet I feel like, "being informed and challenged opinions," (what you think is important) is exactly what was neglected here. There was a lack of information, so that students stating flat-out falsities wasn't approached in any sense, and the con opinion went essentially unchallenged, given that the pro was halfhearted and didn't care/know how to challenge. So though it sounds like you're saying you wouldn't interfere, you present a situation in which interference wouldn't be necessary (with all the key factors to growth there). All I wanted here was for the kids to be informed on an issue they clearly didn't understand. This would not require opinions to be forced on them, but a summary of the arguments (on both sides, in every debate, not just the ones I support) which are commonly used in a debate such as this -- arguments which didn't appear in the debate -- so that the students actually were informed, instead of walking out of a very poor debate potentially not understanding just how poor it was.

You're right, of course, Ann, in that the debate was poorly conducted, and ended with a decision taken on the basis of seriously deficient information. And you're probably right in suggesting that some members of the class may go away from the debate believing that they'd discussed the issue fully and that the decision reached was therefore 100% valid.

But I'm guessing that Wanbli's advice was offered only in that you don't create problems for your sister, by having a member of her family criticising the school or one of its teachers. We wouldn't want the school to be malicious and make her life difficult as a retaliation for your comments, although I know you'd make them constructively and amicably, no matter how forcefully you put them.