I just read this article. The article I’m refering to is the one quoted by the piece there.  It is an article by Guy Randall Adams about AOL and the homosexual agenda.

Unfortunately, the article is a good example of what happens when people who agree with you in principal do a bad job of expressing their views, which in turn makes your position look bad as a whole.  By saying that, I do not mean to imply that there is nothing good in the article–indeed, there are some shining spots in it.  For instance, Mr. Adams does finally get around to quoting some Scripture for the Christians who read it, and some statistics for the non-Christians who might read it.

But the first part of the argument is extremely flawed.  It starts off by asking us to imagine the things that homosexuals do when they engage in sexual activities.  We are, naturally, supposed to be horrified by what we’d imagine, and thus use that as our “reason” for being mad at AOL for having Gay groups on their website.

The problem is, that means we are turning an emotional response into an argument.  If this is all we have to argue our position, the first time we meet someone who resists us our defense crumbles like a house of cards.  After all, how difficult is it for a homosexual to say, “I can’t imagine eating escargo, and yet people do it all the time without there being anything immoral about it.”  And if all you have is your emotive response (”I don’t like what I imagine homosexuals doing!”) then your argument cannot stand against that simple counter-example.

Emotive arguments are good for rousing up the base, but in the end they are bad because after meeting a knowledgeable opponent the base will suddenly realize they have nothing to back their emotional stance.  Unless we also learn facts and reasoning, all the emotion in the world is nothing but sound and fury.