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BULLETIN NINETY

 

ASSUMING IDENTITY

WHEN DIFFERENCE IS THE CASE IN POINT,

IS SIMPLY CONFUSION

When a Law Society President opines that denying couples same sex choice to enter civil marriage fails to meet the principle of equality and non-discrimination, before the law,  it is no wonder another refers to a relevant contrary point.  Cited is a Professor who names the case of Joslin v. New Zealand  from  the UN Human Rights Commission  which "made clear" there was no right to same-sex marriage under article 23 of the Rights covenant (The Australian, September 7).

No wonder there is variation of approach. Try to gun down God, or simply fire a bullet in that direction, or waft a declamatory hand, and anything is open, for morals are then mere expressions of will and desire. Fight about it if you want to. But if we turn to reason, including the undeterrable certainty of the Creator God (cf. Bulletins 82, 83, 84 and SMR, for example, or The gods of natualism have no go!), this means that it does matter, and that the body is not a site for arbitrary desires, or capricious ignorings, as for example of the reproductive facilities provided.

Moreover, there is also a  differentiation to look at.
 

THE DIFFERENTIATION
 

If AS HUMAN BEINGS (the CLASS in view), people are to be equal before the law, so that there is no discrimination a priori, well. The issue is with what is in nature, identical in kind, human race individuals to look at, and compare in their equal legal category.

If however the issue is precisely on the DIFFERENCE between differently made human beings, then ignoring this issue is not equitable, accurate or even relevant. If that is the issue, then let that define the approach. Do those who, in the relevant regard, though equally human, are crucially diverse for such a basic feature as the continuation of the human race on its inherent base: do these yet have a right to be regarded as identical ?

If for example the issue is human beings and in what they are equal, that is one thing; but if the issue is human beings in terms of wealth, they are not equal and to pretend that they are, or that ignoring this difference in dealing with the issue is just: that is just not so. It IS the issue. So with the issue being human beings as such, on the one hand, and human beings RELATIVE to their gender and all that is involved in that dimension, we are looking at two different things in two different cases. One is the dimension of humanness, and the other is that of differentiation relative to human-reproduction.

Ignoring the topic makes all argument irrelevant and indeed, this is one of the formal categories of logical error, ignoratio elenchi. This may be defined as follows:

a logical fallacy which consists in
apparently refuting an opponent
while actually disproving something not asserted.

Confusion seems to be invading like a mist, because immensely important differentials are being swamped by a concept of what is the same. It is, in other words, important NOT

	to forget what we are talking about, in a discussion,
	or
	to assume argument fitting in one case, is still applicable when we come to another.