Posted by
Bill Gnade on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 9:03:20 AM
Yesterday marked my first day to begin blogging at Town Hall, and I have to say I was disappointed. I came here in large part because I expected a more enlightened level of dialogue; I had hoped to engage agile and informed thinkers. Instead, my first experience here was to land an extremely obtuse interlocutor who clearly did not get "the point," and yet attempted to seize control of the debate.
My inaugural essay, "
'Change' Bothers Some: The Counter-Argument Gay-Marriage Activists Don't What You To See," drew comments mostly from one visitor. That's fine; I do not expect to light the world on fire here. But what was clear is that David chose to engage in debate without first reading my essay; as a result, he (?) did not understand my argument and yet behaved as if he did. Blind to the irony, David plunged headlong. But my suspicion is that David wanted to immediately sour the comments thread; recognizing that the argument presented is essentially irrefutable, he treated it as if it was old-hat, trite, trivial, hackneyed, and just plain foolish. In so doing, David himself played the fool, and the hack.
As a result of what seemed to be David's ulterior motive -- to pollute the comments thread in order to leave the impression that he had dispensed with me -- I
re-posted the essay with comments turned off. That way people can read it without prejudice, especially the sort of forced, vandalizing prejudice David attempted to leave in his wake. (Of course, I recognize that I have now prejudiced readers myself, albeit in a different way. At least I am in control, to a degree, of the shape that prejudice will take.)
The argument I've presented is an important one, a very important one, for conservatives and all pro-traditional marriage folks. It is a game-changing argument. No wonder David did not really know how to handle it.
Peace through dissent.
Bill Gnade