Christian Democrats demonstrate the need for logic to be taught in schools

image1129213763OK. I try hard, in spite of myself, to keep this website on topic. But I do warn in the strap line that rants may be involved. And in this election period you may find more rants (and more sentences beginning with conjunctions).

This piece of trash from the Christian Democrat Party cannot go unremarked. Let’s deconstruct the logic:

  • Same sex couples earn more than male-female couples.
  • That’s not fair.
  • We can fix it by outlawing same-sex couples.

I’ve spent many hours over the last few months trying to teach ten-year-olds how to construct a logical argument. I’ve done that in a context, Ethics lessons, that the Christian Democrats have opposed with a vehemence that gives a lie to their own basic tenets. But let me tell you that thing there is not a logical argument. Let’s rephrase it into one presented to my class recently:

  • Successful basketball players are tall.
  • You are tall.
  • Therefore you are a successful basketball player.

My class of ten-year-olds understand when that type of argument works. And get when it does not work. Apparently the Christian Democrats could do with learning the same lesson. Or perhaps not. Secure in the knowledge that their supporters categorically do not do ethics lessons, and so have never been confronted with a logical argument, they can trot out bigoted trash, safely sure that it will be treated as an article of faith rather than a statement that ought to be be looked at, considered and then outright rejected.

Here’s an idea Christian-Democrats-who-will- never-read-this: Let’s start with an intellectual exercise and agree that the disparity between same sex couples and male-female couples is a problem. Let’s just do that for the sake of argument. And then let’s just go wildly out on a limb. Let’s just hang out there and suggest that the way to fix that is not to ban same-sex couples. No. Perhaps [insert shouty capitals here] you want to campaign to just pay women as much as men.

Or perhaps you want to really dig past the headline and look at the statistics. Perhaps you’d like to consider the fact that same-sex couples tend to be more highly educated and have better jobs? Perhaps consider that more male-female couples are dealing with the religious baggage with has one spouse staying at home while same-sex couples have both working. Perhaps just apply some actual thought to the ‘problem’. But if you did that you’d have to accept that there actually isn’t any problem in the first place. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

This sort of rubbish is why maths should be compulsory in schools. Why the teaching of logical argument and critical thinking is more important than proselytising dogma. And why the Christian Democrats should be labelled as the lunatics they so clearly are.

And why I wish the basic rules I set myself when I set up this website did not include no swearing.

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