The Death of Reason

rea·son [ree-zuhn] noun

1. a basis or cause, as for some belief, action, fact, event,etc.: the reason for declaring war.

2. a statement presented in justification or explanation of abelief or action.

3. the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions,judgments, or inferences.

4. sound judgment; good sense.

5. normal or sound powers of mind; sanity.

Rick Santorum recently claimed to a friendly crowd at Oral Roberts University that ‘..the Left is really about the death of Reason’.   This is yet another claim among a growing list from Santorum that has shocked me for its lack of, well, reasoning.

As we can see in the above definition, Reason is defined as a basis or cause for some belief, action, fact, event, etc.: the reason for declaring war.   That’s the first definition anyway and pretty good, all in all; so let’s use that one.

Specifically he was talking about Prop 8 whose ‘.. only practical effect was to “single out a certain class of citizens for disfavored legal status.”.   So, what exactly IS the reasoning here?   Is he claiming that by giving same-sex couples the same legal treatment of life-partnership (marriage), as heterosexual couples already enjoy, where the result would expand the previous definition of marriage as being defined as that of [only] a male and female to include same-sex couples as well, that heterosexual couples are being ‘disfavored’ legally?   Well, yes actually, that appears to be exactly what he is reasoning.

Is that reasonable?   Are hetero-couples really being disfavored?   Have they lost anything?   Besides the right to define things the way they want, no.. they haven’t lost anything.   Prop 8 does not cheapen marriage in any way, but enriches it.

It cannot be claimed as reasonable to believe something for which you have no evidence.   It is necessarily unreasonable to then build a moralistic world-view founded upon such a baseless claim of a divine moral law-giver.   I don’t really care what your imaginary god-person says when no credible reason exists to believe.. it exists.   I’m not going to take your word for it.   You won’t cow me into belief by threats, shouting and gesticulating.   You will not play on my universal human weakness for wishful thinking to hood-wink me.   It is petty, thuggish and wholly unreasonable!