“I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was going to talk about ‘man on dog’ with a United States senator, it’s sort of freaking me out.”

I just had to quote that. I love it! It’s wonderful. It deserves to go down in Bartlett’s.

Now onto the issue.

The thing about arguing with an asinine politician is that you can never tell whether that asinine politician actually believes what he’s saying or is merely saying it out of political calculation. Nevertheless:

Law and morality don’t mix well. Legal arguments are based on logic; there are two whole big sections on the LSAT, the law school entrance exam, about logic. Moral arguments, however, have nothing to do with logic.

I always used to love mathematics. I loved the fact that one could always arrive at a right answer. I particularly enjoyed geometry, with its elegant, unassailable proofs. I grew to trust logic.

Logical arguments start from a set of axioms. Merriam-Webster’s (oh, I wish I could access the OED online) defines axiom as “a maxim widely accepted on its intrinsic merit.” The origin of axiom is a Greek word meaning “something worthy.”

The problem is, widely accepted by whom? Widely accepted when? Worthy of what?

If you don’t believe in the axioms of mathematics, all the logic in the world isn’t going to convince you that an answer to a math problem is right. Sure, 2+4=4+2. But is it true that 32,547+4,981=4,981+32,547? Is it always true that a+b=b+a? How do you know? We take the commutative property of addition on faith. Mathematics is cold, pure logic, but even mathematics is based on some core ideas. We implicitly agree on those core ideas, so mathematics has some universal truth for us.

Societal issues are murkier, though.

Are anti-sodomy laws right or wrong?

You could say one of the following:

A1: Anti-sodomy laws are wrong, because sodomy is acceptable behavior.

A2: Anti-sodomy laws are right, because sodomy is unacceptable behavior.

But you could also say, for example:

A3: Anti-sodomy laws are right, because although I think sodomy is acceptable behavior, the majority, as represented by the state legislature, thinks otherwise.

A4: Anti-sodomy laws are wrong, because although I think sodomy is unacceptable behavior, it’s not my business what people do in the privacy of their homes.

But:

What if we change “anti-sodomy laws” to something else?

You could say:

B1: Laws against smiling are wrong, because smiling is acceptable behavior.

B2: Laws against murdering your child are right, because murdering your child is unacceptable behavior.

On the other hand, it’s unlikely that you’d say:

B3: Laws against smiling are right, because although I think smiling is acceptable behavior, the majority, as represented by the state legislature, thinks otherwise.

B4: Laws against murdering your child are wrong, because although I think murdering your child is unacceptable behavior, it’s not my business what people do in the privacy of their homes.

Points B3 and B4 seem ridiculous to most people. If you think something is morally right, then no amount of logic will convince you it’s wrong; if you think something is morally wrong, no amount of logic will convince you it’s right.

What some of us don’t get is that there are people out there who believe that homosexual sodomy is wrong, absolutely wrong, as wrong as murdering your child. And if someone believes so strongly that it’s immoral for me to stick my dick in someone’s ass, then no amount of logic or reasoning is going to convince the person otherwise.

That’s not my point, though.

Back to that asinine politician:

He said, “Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does… this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family.”

OK, prove it.

“You say, well, it’s my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that’s antithetical to strong, healthy families.”

Again, prove it.

“Whether it’s polygamy, whether it’s adultery, where it’s sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.”

OK, again, we get what you’re trying to say, but why is this necessarily true? Is sodomy really the same as the first two? And is “traditional” synonymous with “healthy, stable”? Is “nontraditional” inherently bad? Tell me, asinine politician. Explain to me. Why is your statement true?

Presumably, it’s true for the same reason that laws against anti-gay discrimination allegedly give gay people “special rights”: because I said so. (The “special rights” argument particularly enrages me, and it deserves its own post entirely.) No logical argument, no exposing the statements to the illumination of sunshine.

But that wouldn’t help, anyway. If you believe gay buttsex is wrong, logical arguments won’t change your position. It’s beyond issues of logic.

Which raises an interesting question.

If the asinine politician believes homosexual sodomy is morally wrong, why is he even pretending to make logical arguments in the first place?

Why doesn’t he just say, “I think homosexual sodomy is morally wrong and that’s that?”

It’s either because he doesn’t have full confidence in his own convictions, or because he’s trying to fool people who may be unsure of their own stances on the issue.

In a weird way, I find this reassuring. It means either that he doesn’t really believe what he says he believes, or that he’s afraid lots of people out there will disagree with him.

It means that these solid, unshakeable, widespread moral beliefs really aren’t as solid or as unshakeable or as widespread as he’s pretending.

In other words, it means that logic still has a chance. It might not be able to change the views of an asinine politician, but it might be able to change the views of lots of other people.

Logic still has a chance.