this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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This is known as a Tu Quoque fallacy.
I'm not speaking to the in/validity of her underlying whatever. I'm speaking to this form of logical fallacy.
If we're being pedantic, you're approaching the fallacy fallacy, which is when you dismiss a point for being argued with a fallacy instead of addressing the point, and this isn't saying anything about the argument she's making. It's just pointing out hypocrisy. So no fallacy fallacy and no ad hominem.
No one has said gay marriage should be legal because this woman's a hypocrite, or that she's wrong because of that.
At best this is an insult. It's not even libel because it's just the truth.
Further, questioning the character of the person making the argument isn't always invalid. It's not a solid argument in it's entirety but "I find her argument uncompelling because her behavior is inconsistent with a belief in her own argument, and furthermore her behavior casts doubt as to her credibility and reliability as a good faith participant in this discussion".
It's not that her argument is wrong because of her past, it's that it's not worth consideration.
This would have been a fine place to say oh okay I didn't know that and just shut up.
I don't know how much more clear I could have made it that I was trying to inform people about this type of fallacy, and I'm not commenting on her position or how anybody feels about it.
Honestly, your comment is just another fallacy because it's attacking what you believe to be the motivations for my comment, which were not the motivations.
No, it looked like you were bringing up a fallacy for no good reason. First, no one asked you to teach them about fallacies. Second, if you're past middle school and found yourself on a niche platform you probably already know. Third, if you actually read what I wrote or what the image says: this isn't that fallacy.
Criticizing someone for hypocrisy isn't invalid. Bringing up unrelated fallacies when someone criticizes someone is at best pointless noise.
There's something funny about you assuming you know why I made my reply in the very sentence you get upset with me for supposedly doing that.
For clarity, I understood why you made your comment. I just thought it was silly, so I took it upon myself to inform you of a fallacy you weren't making, as well as some nuance to the one you seemed to be so keen to talk about.
You're a dullard & I'm blocking you