Glenden BrownSwimming With the Gays
In our society, almost all minority groups face a complicated choice between being fully integrated and between self-segregation. At one time, women’s colleges were the only avenue for women to pursue higher education, same for the historically black colleges. Catholic schools were organized since many public schools openly indoctrinated students into protestantism. Some groups - for instance the Amish - have chosen to deliberately and intentionally remain “separate” within the culture. There is value for some groups to self-select and self-identify. Predominantly black colleges provide African-American students opportunities for leadership and personal development that they might not find in other institutions; same goes for women’s colleges. Conversely, in my experience, better schools produce better leaders.
Conservative Christians have long had a subculture with Christian book stores, schools, bands, TV stations, programs, movies, and even their own list of celebrities. There are Bible based diets, perfumes, action figures and the whole schlemiel. FWIW, the Christian subculture has a pervasive and well-deserved sense of inferiority to mainstream culture which is by almost ever standard more creative and more interesting. Christian subculture often comes across as a homogenized and sanitized version of mainstream culture - complete with swear free comedians and rappers.
Minority groups face an ongoing struggle between establishing and maintaining a subculture or integrating within the mainstream, a struggle made doubly difficult when group members are increasingly instrumental in creating mainstream culture. Why should we be separate when we’re being represented in the mainstream?
I believe the gay community has reached a crossroads and the choice will be difficult. Huge chunks of American culture are the creation of glbt people. More importantly, the debate about gay marriage has, paradoxically, resulted in legal defeats but cultural victories. The more conservative bitch, moan whine and carry about gay marriage, the more it appears in the awareness of Americans who are growing more and more accepting. The self-aware separateness of glbt people is, as more and more establish long term relationships and lead “normal” lives is becoming less and less viable. Quite frankly, gay marriage - win or lose the short term electoral fights - is a long term victory in which the very ordinariness of being gay is simply being accepted.
Andrew Sullivan - three years ago - wrote:
week after week this summer, couple after couple got married–well over a thousand in the year and a half since gay marriage has been legal in Massachusetts . . . .The heterosexuals in the crowd knew exactly what to do. They waved and cheered and smiled. Then, suddenly, as if learning the habits of a new era, gay bystanders joined in. In an instant, the difference between gay and straight receded again a little.
But here’s the strange thing: These changes did not feel like a revolution. They felt merely like small, if critical, steps in an inexorable evolution toward the end of a distinctive gay culture. For what has happened to Provincetown this past decade, as with gay America as a whole, has been less like a political revolution from above than a social transformation from below. There is no single gay identity anymore, let alone a single look or style or culture. Memorial Day sees the younger generation of lesbians, looking like lost members of a boy band, with their baseball caps, preppy shirts, short hair, and earrings. Independence Day brings the partiers: the “circuit boys,” with perfect torsos, a thirst for nightlife, designer drugs, and countless bottles of water. For a week in mid-July, the town is dominated by “bears”–chubby, hairy, unkempt men with an affinity for beer and pizza. Family Week heralds an influx of children and harried gay parents. Film Festival Week brings in the artsy crowd. Women’s Week brings the more familiar images of older lesbians: a landlocked flotilla of windbreakers and sensible shoes. East Village bohemians drift in throughout the summer; quiet male couples spend more time browsing gourmet groceries and realtors than cruising nightspots; the predictable population of artists and writers–Michael Cunningham and John Waters are fixtures–mix with openly gay lawyers and cops and teachers and shrinks.Slowly but unmistakably, gay culture is ending. You see it beyond the poignant transformation of P-town: on the streets of the big cities, on university campuses, in the suburbs where gay couples have settled, and in the entrails of the Internet. In fact, it is beginning to dawn on many that the very concept of gay culture may one day disappear altogether. By that, I do not mean that homosexual men and lesbians will not exist–or that they won’t create a community of sorts and a culture that sets them in some ways apart. I mean simply that what encompasses gay culture itself will expand into such a diverse set of subcultures that “gayness” alone will cease to tell you very much about any individual. The distinction between gay and straight culture will become so blurred, so fractured, and so intermingled that it may become more helpful not to examine them separately at all.
For many in the gay world, this is both a triumph and a threat. It is a triumph because it is what we always dreamed of: a world in which being gay is a non issue among our families, friends, and neighbors. But it is a threat in the way that all loss is a threat. For many of us who grew up fighting a world of now-inconceivable silence and shame, distinctive gayness became an integral part of who we are. It helped define us not only to the world but also to ourselves. Letting that go is as hard as it is liberating, as saddening as it is invigorating. And, while social advance allows many of us to contemplate this gift of a problem, we are also aware that in other parts of the country and the world, the reverse may be happening. With the growth of fundamentalism across the religious world–from Pope Benedict XVI’s Vatican to Islamic fatwas and American evangelicalism–gayness is under attack in many places, even as it wrests free from repression in others. In fact, the two phenomena are related. The new anti-gay fervor is a response to the growing probability that the world will one day treat gay and straight as interchangeable humans and citizens rather than as estranged others. It is the end of gay culture–not its endurance–that threatens the old order. It is the fact that, across the state of Massachusetts, “gay marriage” has just been abolished. The marriage licenses gay couples receive are indistinguishable from those given to straight couples. On paper, the difference is now history. In the real world, the consequences of that are still unfolding.
Sullivan, probably one of the worst commentator on American politics, is perhaps the most insightful around on issues of orientation. The differences between Salt Lake City circa 1985 and Salt Lake City 2005 is almost unimaginable. The shock of gayness in Salt Lake in the grimness of the Reagan era has been replaced by a boring normalcy. Gay Pride is just another summer festival.
Sullivan again:
So, as one generation literally disappeared and one generation found itself shocked to still be alive, a far larger and more empowered one emerged on the scene. This new generation knew very little about the gay culture of the ’70s, and its members were oblivious to the psychically formative experience of plague that had shaped their elders. Most came from the heart of straight America and were more in tune with its new, mellower attitude toward gayness than the embattled, defensive urban gay culture of the pre-aids era. Even in evangelical circles, gay kids willing to acknowledge and struggle publicly with their own homosexuality represented a new form of openness. The speed of the change is still shocking. I’m only 42, and I grew up in a world where I literally never heard the word “homosexual” until I went to college. It is now not uncommon to meet gay men in their early twenties who took a boy as their date to the high school prom. When I figured out I was gay, there were no role models to speak of; and, in the popular culture, homosexuality was either a punch line or an embarrassed silence. Today’s cultural climate could not be more different. And the psychological impact on the younger generation cannot be overstated.
and
. . . Black children come into society both uplifted and burdened by the weight of their communal past–a weight that is transferred within families or communities or cultural institutions, such as the church, that provide a context for self-understanding, even in rebellion. Gay children have no such support or burden. And so, in their most formative years, their self-consciousness is utterly different than that of their gay elders. That’s why it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between gay and straight teens today–or even young gay and straight adults. Less psychologically wounded, more self-confident, less isolated, young gay kids look and sound increasingly like young straight kids. On the dozens of college campuses I have visited over the past decade, the shift in just a few years has been astounding. At a Catholic institution like Boston College, for example, a generation ago there would have been no discussion of homosexuality. When I visited recently to talk about that very subject, the preppy, conservative student president was openly gay.
Sullivan muses that gay culture in the US will remain in the more conservative places where the screaming hostility of fundamentalist religion makes it necessary but even that will dissolve as more and more places make gay marriage legal and real, as the media treats being gay as just a way of being no different than being straight.
The raving lunacy of a Gayle Ruzicka or Chris Buttars exists precisely because gay folks dare to live openly as themselves in Utah. Ironically, that ancien regime of gay life, The Sun, was destroyed by nature at about the time the gay community matured. The separate and unequal world of the gay community is dissolving as more and more gay people expect to be treated equally and lead their lives that way. The Gay Men’s Health Summit - not so many years ago a four day event packed with workshops and with hundreds of participants - is down to one day of programming, a friday evening social and sunday morning breakfast.
Even the reliably conservative readership of the D-News is showing an increasing tolerance for glbt people. A letter opposing gay marriage appeared this week and drew over 200 comments, a huge number of them attacking the letter and defending glbt people using the common sense argument that it is bigotry not being gay that causes problems. It’s just becoming a non-issue.
Opposition to glbt people will, I suspect, grow increasingly strident and venomous over the next few years, its viciousness in direct proportion to its irrelevancy. Even young evangelicals - who could be reasonably expected to be anti-gay - are increasingly adopting a live and let live attitude. Again and again, Christian pollster the Barna Group finds that young fundagelicals are all but indistinguishable in their attitudes and values from their peers. These young believers look at raging hypocrites like Ted Haggard and want nothing to do him and his ilk. They’d rather accept gay people than force themto become liars who destroy their families and damage their churches. The deaths of several notorious homophobes in recent years - including the vile Jesse Helms - feels like the end of an era in more ways than one.
At the end of the day, where gay folks and issues are concerned, it’s difficult not to look around and realize it’s all over but the shouting. The stridency, the bitterness, the venom of Gayle Ruzicka her ilk are the death rattle of worldview that is increasingly incapable of offering and effective means of organizing society.
July 17th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Okay, trying again.
You might find this dialogue between me and gay attorney Stephen Clark interesting…
http://www.sutherlandinstitute.org/uploads/gayrightsdialoguepartI.pdf
http://www.sutherlandinstitute.org/uploads/gayrightsdialoguepartII.pdf
http://www.sutherlandinstitute.org/uploads/gayrightsdialoguepartIII.pdf
July 17th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Paul,
I got stuck at the very beginning of the first conversation.
Can o’ worms my friend.
What builds society (LDS code for pumping out babies) are healthy communities which has almost nothing to do with having children but rather RAISING THEM!
You know the old adage “it takes a village?”
..and a village divided by bigotry in no place to raise a gay child.
btw: There is nothing “right” about traditional marriage anymore than waterboarding. :)
July 17th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Paul,
I read through your links a couple of weeks ago when you posted them on The Utah Amicus. I’m not sure why you keep pimping them though; Stephen pretty much owned you throughout.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
First of all, the whole idea of the dialogue is to take the reader through a myriad of topics within the broader theme and use the parts to build the whole…so read on!!
“Healthy communities” is certainly a subjective term, granted. But if we are speaking about the best way to promote freedom and prosperity, that is done through stable, autonomous (traditional) families. (My book, The Natural Family, is available at Amazon.com for all of the arguments and evidences!!)
Two questions: 1) are you serious in comparing man/woman marriage with waterboarding? and 2) what is a “gay” child?
July 17th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Paul,
I all seriousness, just what do stable families have to do with freedom and prosperity? And to the extent these concepts are related, why is it that traditional families better promote freedom and prosperity than do non-traditional families?
July 17th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Paul to Albert O.
“Buy the book.” ;)
July 17th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Don:
I’ll purchase Paul’s book if he can crystallize, in a sentence or two or three, the answers to my questions. And if I don’t like the book, then I can always pass it off to jd and Bob - they can use it for target practice!
July 17th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Keep your shorts on is all we ask.
July 17th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Touche Albert, touche!
July 17th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Albert, dude, read the dialogue (or my book…I’ll even give each of you a free copy if you say pretty please).
I realize we live on not only different philosophical planets but even on different historical planets…but the history of the sickest forms of human slavery have occured by despots (especially the ones you guys join with me in hating…18th and 19th century American slave owners) who knew the key to enslaving a people was to destroy that intermediate layer of society (i.e. civil society) which lies between the individual and the state, especially the family (the other pillars of civil society being religion, small group neighborhoods, voluntary associations, and the free market).
Stable, autonomous families created the pluralism (the real kind, not the fake “diversity” kind you guys worship) necessary to buffer individuals and ward off the state. When despots such as Hitler or Stalin were at the height of their powers they had successfully established the state as the arbiter of public and personal morality…that is, they destroyed the intermediate layer of society that, up until then in those countries, set the morality and then set themselves up as the authors of what was right and what was wrong. Which, of course, allowed an otherwise “decent” German husband and father to spend his waking days gassing Jews only to return home to his loving family and sleep well at night. That sort of perverion of morality only occurs when the state “creates” morality.
Now, I know what you’re thinking…and that’s why you guys love to call people like me Nazis…because you claim we want the state to set morality (as with marriage, abortion, pornography, etc.). The reality is quite different…and I understand that you don’t believe what I will say here. But here is your dilemma: to get your gay rights and other oddities, you need the state to create what civil society refuses to create…and yet, as the state creates these new oddities and establishes new moralities, the very fiber of your freedom (i.e. civil society that otherwise sets moral standards freely) diminishes until it will disappear.
Traditional marriage is a reflection of an existing morality established freely through the processes of civil society. Gay marriage is necessarily a creature of the state…something created by government that does not naturally occur in civil society or has it been ordained as a social good by civil society. Your non-traditional family is a product of the state…it is only a “legitimate” entity if the state permits and recognizes its existence. The natural family is prior to the state; we recognize it only as a reflection of what exists naturally.
I openly admit that we need government to help recover freedoms lost, but they are freedoms that didn’t need creating, they just needed enforcing…like “all men are created equal.”
Albert, is that enough for you to ask me pretty please for a copy of my book?
July 18th, 2008 at 7:06 am
The idea that the “natural” family is somehow the avenue by which freedom and prosperity are perpetuated is nothing more than a recycled version of the 19th century cult of Republican Motherhood (not referring to the Republican party which didn’t exist yet) - the notion that the American Republic required a particular family in which men took to the public sphere and women to the private sphere and women were tasked with raising children suitable for becoming good citizens of a democracy. It’s not a new idea. Arguments about the “natural” family are based on an interpretation of natural law that is, to put it politely, deterministic and narrow (in essence saying penis goes into vagina, babies come out of vagina, therefore that is the only acceptable sexual relationship and hence should be the only acceptable form of adult bonding).
The argument that autocratic societies somehow destroy the family to achieve their ends is ahistorical and inaccurate. Germany under Hitler had a thriving pro-family ideology, they defined the acceptable family as Aryan and large, going so far as to remove Aryan looking children from their birth families in conquered countries and relocate them to German households to be raised as good Aryans. Paul, your argument is fatally flawed by both its historical inaccuracy and its lack of analytical rigor. The functioning of German state under Hitler cannot be so easily explained as you suggest; the dynamic was far more complex, depending on a wide variety of variables, but the “family” was not one of them. German families remained intact, remained engaged in exactly the model behavior that you seem to suggest they failed at. In fact, the undermining of German education, the replacement of science with ideology and the long era of economic chaos in the 1920s is more responsible for Hitler than anything to do with the family. (FWIW, it’s rare to see Godwin’s Law in action so quickly in a discussion these days.)
Some autocratic societies (for instance the Khmer Rouge) have deliberately destroyed the family unit. Others have idealized it as an expression of nationalism. It’s not honest to declare a one size fits all version of the relationship between dictatorship and family structure, or for that matter, between democracy and family structure. Many people have argued that European democracy is healthier than American democracy right now and marriage rates in Europe are far below what they are here. In Sweden, for instance, the majority of children are born out of wedlock - yet are raised in intact families and turn out to be healthy, functioning adults.
Legal marriages is a creature of the state, created by the state to meet the demands of the citizens. Legal marriage was for centuries denied to anyone but the nobility. Until the mid 19th century most people simply declared they were married, moved in together and that was that. We have common law marriage because of that history. Throughout its history, the Christian church has variously refused to perform marriages (at first because they were deemed solely legal formulations), then as western society collapsed into the dark ages, the church performed weddings but there was no legal apparatus for most of us, then slowly, marriage as our society has experienced it began to evolve - an institution seen as the bond between two people, who love each other, support each other, care for each other. Procreation was for a long time seen as intrinsic to marriage, but was not required. Non-procreative marriages are still performed, honored, and legally sustained. Divorce rates climbed gradually but steadily in the US (yes, even in the 50s). As more and more people came to see marriage as an institution for lovers and equals, as divorce became more accepted, the logic of heterosexual marriage led inevitably to where we are now - that marriage confers rights and protections on a relationship, that children are not required, that marriages can be ended with relative ease, and the expectation that marriage should be emotionally fulfilling and if not, it should be ended. The reforms demanded by heterosexual to make their marriages better are the arguments in favor of granting same sex couples marriage rights.
The idea of the “traditional family” is misleading. Traditionally, there is not traditional family. People have been constantly arranging and rearranging family relationships throughout history. At one time, not loving in a household with the extended family would have been considered downright scandalous. For most history, polygamy was a widely accepted practice - one need read no further than the book of Genesis to see that; pre-Revolutionary China, less than a hundred years ago, concubinage was a common and accepted practice. In Colonial America, there were households in which children were being raised by people to whom they were not related because marriage, death, and remarriage had left them in households with a step parent who was married to a step parent who was married to a step parent. Well into the 20th century, the average American lived in a household which was made up of a variety of combinations of parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, new spouses and so forth. The autonomous nuclear family is both an historical oddity and an extremely new thing. Humans have almost never lived in autonomous nuclear families and as a method organizing human life, they have proved incredibly unstable and unreliable - one might even go so far as to say bad for the children. It makes me wonder why you’d argue so fervently for what has proven to be an inferior family structure.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Paul - It reads like a throwaway line, but your line about American Slaveholders is a gross generalization. Many slaveholders deliberately separated families, deliberately sold children away from mothers and vice versa, but many did not. Some slaveholders made the argument that happy slaves were better workers; other slaveholders just didn’t care one way or the other and saw their human chattel as strictly property which could be forced to work. I’ve read arguments that slavery was an economically rational institution and different slave owners used different methods to maximize their profits.
I would, however, argue that the main avenue by which slave owners exercised their authority was in denying their human property access to education and what little teaching they received was deliberately distorted (i.e. a favorite writer of ante-bellum whites was St. Paul who wrote that slaves should obey their masters). For Frederick Douglass, learning to read was perhaps the most crucial aspect of his opposition to slavery.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Glen…one by one…
The natural family term certainly is part and parcel of natural law thinking…and the reason it is…is because it is so valuable in explaining human nature and the human experience. I can understand if you don’t beleive in natural law (I did say we’re on many different planets), but you cannot say my thinking is made up out of whole cloth without saying the same thing about natural law.
We simply disagree about the history lesson. Hitler used rhetoric of “family” but it was in terms of the “fatherhood” of the nation…exactly my point. He ripped families apart, as did the communists in every regime. Men to war, women to work, children to state schools for indoctrination (children we taught to turn in there parents to the state for misconduct in every one of those regimes).
A great book on this point is The Quest for Community by sociologist Robert Nisbet.
Legal marriage is NOT a creature of the state. Be very careful here to understand what I have said. That the state recognizes “traditional” marriage is not the measure of whether or not the state created it. The measure is did civil society and nature create it. For gay marriage to attain the same standing as “traditional” marriage, it would require the state to invent it out of whole cloth because neither civil society or nature has. This point is exactly why you can correctly give your history lesson about marriage…it existed long before the state got into it.
Lastly, the male/female marriage relationship is as old as time. That variations on the theme exist does not disprove it…it simply reinforces the fact. The key components have always been 1) man and woman, 2) make babies (have families), 3) stay together until death. Lefty and feminist scholars have tried to re-write this history but they only look foolish…they can never get around those three facts of “marriage.”
And I might as well address your second comment while I am at it. Glen, slave owners were the parents, period. No doubt some (like Jefferson, who evidently was both literal parent and benevolent master) were exceptions. But the point of slavery, like communism, was a matter of efficiencies on the plantation…and familial love and loyalty were not efficiency-promoting.
Again, as I said, your historical orbit is not mine which can make these sorts of back-and-forth frustrating for both of us.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Yet.
Societal mores evolve, Paul.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Paul:
I would agree that the male/female relationship is as old as time but, on the other hand, have to question whether the male/female “marriage” relationship is as old as time. At some point, various forms of “marriage” materialized and, through time, evolved to what we generally recognize today, but to state that male/female marriage is as old as time stretches things a bit and appears rather conclusory - i.e., you assume what you set out to prove.
But I have to question one other point: if the key components to the male/female marriage relationship are as set forth in your comment, why not tweak those components to read 1) male and male (or woman and woman), 2) adopt babies (have families), 3) stay together until death? Such would seem equally capable of promoting your main concerns - freedom and prosperity.
Stated otherwise, just what is it about non-traditional families that prevents them from promoting freedom and prosperity?
PS. Yes, I will gladly read your book were a copy to suddenly appear at Cliff’s house.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Paul - I get what you’re saying. Your interpretive frame is far too narrow, focuses on the wrong issues, sees outcomes as causes, and edits out a great many relevant issues. Marriage is only one of many measures of social health and to argue it is the central one is a stunningly narrow view. Economic factors, for instance, have far more impact on marriage than does marriage on economic factors.
Natural law - which dates back to the early Christian fathers - argued morals based on observation of nature (hence the term itself). It says, for instance, that when men and women engage in intercourse, they can produce babies, therefore sex is only for making babies, and hence, any sex that does not result in babies is immoral. The flaw of natural law was its movement from what is observed to declaring what must be. Natural law of course is influenced by what we believe before we observe (a great point made in Franz De Waal’s Our Inner Ape - primatologists long missed primate behaviors that are obvious to us because those behaviors were at odd with their expectations). Your argument is that many humans tend to mate with a person of the other gender and often for life, that is how it should be and that is “natural marriage.” All you’ve done is edit out the parts of the human experience with which you disagree. A great many humans aren’t monogamous. A great many humans don’t marry. Evolutionary psychologists theorize that our ancestors generally mated for long enough to raise a to the age of about 4 years old and then mated with someone else. The gaping hole in natural law has been its long refusal to update itself. You wouldn’t go to a doctor who refused to use modern methods, why go to a philosopher who refuses to integrate new data into his thinking?
However, natural law does provide space for arguing for same sex marriage. Historically, there has always been a portion of the population that has consistently preferred members of their own gender for romantic and sexual partnership. By your own argument, that portion of the population should have access to legal marriage - because they occur naturally and have always been part of civil society, though forced to the margins by their minority status.
Marriage, at least in our society today, is primarily a legal contract, formalized by the state, which grants a specific set of rights, protections and responsibilities on the parties involved. Marriage as a legal construct has evolved and continues to evolve. At one time, wives were the legal property of husbands, children the property of parents. That has changed - and we are all better for it.
Marriage as a legal and social institution has changed radically over the centuries. John Boswell found evidence that the early church blessed same sex unions. Polygamy and concubinage, once widely accepted, have largely fallen out of favor. In many times and places, there were no formal marriages. In some cultures, men and women marry but live separately. Marriage has changed. It will continue to change and evolve.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Glen, a very good argument over the past few decades among economists has to do with this question of family structure (marriage) versus economic viability as the most beneficial “asset” to human prosperity. We even gave a look at it at Sutherland:
http://www.sutherlandinstitute.org/uploads/morethanmoney.pdf
Your simpler thesis, that money has more impact on family formation than family formation has on money is, well, not true. Poor people get married all of the time. Money simply doesn’t stop anyone from getting married or having children. Period.
I am not sure you fully grasp natural law. Your words insinuate that natural law is simply man observing nature and then extrapolating human laws from the birds, the bees, and the monkeys. Not true. Natural law, at least the natural law that informed our Foundign Fathers and western civilization was more than mere oberservations. Iow, our Founding Fathers wouldn’t have observed the Bonobo chimps having frenzied promicuous sex (even “gay” sex) and said to one another, “So, Thomas, I guess we humans should live promiscuous sexual lifestyles.”
Natural law for our forebearers, here and on the other side of the pond, was steeped in higher law, God’s law, and “Nature’s God.” Iow, that man has a nature that, while a part of the natural world, is above the animal kingdom.
So your analogies to weird natural things like homepathic medicine or Luddite proscriptions against progress are not descriptive of what most people would call natural law.
And your characterization of marriage as primarily a legal contract is misplaced, and in fact is simply a projection of how YOU (and the entire gay movement) see marriage. For most of the world, ancient and modern, marriage and family has been (still is) the lifeblood of a healthy society and any sense of real and lasting community. When the gays speak of marriage they usually focus on the legal aspects that they say they are denied (of course, that is non-sense given that private contracts can be created) because that is how they view it…or at least how they end up making US view it because that’s all they have to complain about.
Like I said previously, that variations on the theme of marriage between a man and a woman have existed doesn’t prove that gay marriage (not between a man and a woman) should be welcomed as just one more variation on the theme. That becomes a slippery slope I don’t think you would want to venture down.
Btw, John Boswell is a gay historian who has spent much of his career trying to soothe his conscience about how his lifestyle conflicts with his Christianity. He sees a glimmer of evidence of something “gay” and then waxes on and on about how that glimmer of evidence was the norm. It’s like Michael Quinn seeing LDS men hug each other and determining as fact that the LDS priesthood is homoerotic. Nonsense.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Paul:
I am reading a lot of hand-waving from you about how great natural marriage is, but you still fail to state (or better yet analyze) why gay marriage is bad.
As I asked above: just what is it about non-traditional families that prevents them from promoting freedom and prosperity?
July 18th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Economic factors play a huge role in family dissolution and the raising of healthy children. Poor families are frequently less stable than more affluent ones; children raised in poverty are less healthy than their more affluent peers. That impacts family life. Researchers consistently find connections between women’s economic autonomy and well being and the wellbeing of their children. There is also an inverse relationship between birth rates and women’s economic freedom (the connection is as women have more economic opportunities, they are able to maintain their own health, and hence can have fewer births but have the same number of children).
Your whole passage about natural law argues my point - these people brought a perspective that informed their observations, a perspective that in some sense blinded them to what they were seeing. Natural law attempted to discern from observing the natural world God’s will for the world. But, they were also steeped in their culture and its worldview. It’s an old saw that you get what measure - you see what you expect to see and in some sense what you want to see. It’s the challenge of observation.
I think one of the central insights of evolutionary biology is that we humans are in fact part of the animal kingdom - we are not separate from it. We are intimately connected to the natural world, we are products of that world and behavior, for instance, of bonobos and chimps is educational for us. Chimps are patriarchal, bonobos matriarchal. These examples can teach us something. In observing primate behavior we can see examples caring, mutuality, affection. De Waal wrote that chimps resolve sexual struggles with violence, bonoboes resolve violent struggles with sex. There are lessons for us - we Janus faced primates - in those differences.
Same sex marriage is not a major innovation, however. It is just another variation on a theme - two people forming a committed relationship with one another. The characteristics of a healthy relationship are not gender based - it is nonexploitive, consensual, age and developmentally appropriate. Those qualities do not depend on the gender of the participants.
Usually at this point, I expect the issue of polygamy to come up. As it is currently practiced, especially in the US, polygamy is morally abhorrent and involves consistent exploitation of adolescent females by adult males (I have yet to meet a teenage girl who wants to marry a 40 year old). It is coercive. However, the current practice does not necessarily imply that polygamy is automatically inherently immoral. That’s not to say I think it’s a great idea but I’ve met people in what appear to be successful, polyamorous relationships so I’m not willing to write it off as a valid way of organizing relationships.
It’s not nonsense to say same sex couples are denied the legal rights of marriage. The contracts (and there are multiple and can cost up to $10,000 to get many of the same rights of marriage, but not all) you refer to are expensive and difficult to enforce. Even if I have power of attorney, my (hypothetical) partner’s family can kick me out of the hospital room and I would have to get a court order enforcing the contract - something which is far from guaranteed. If my partner and I have a house together, even if we have rights of survivorship or ownership in common and joint tenancy, if my partner dies I could likely have to engage an expensive legal fight to keep our house. If I’m married and my spouse dies, I get the house tax free; if we’re not married I have to pay inheritance taxes. If my partner is ill and I nurse him and he dies, I don’t get his social security benefits, and there are complications getting his retirement benefits; if it’s my wife, I get both without difficulty. What possible public policy good is served by such outcomes?
You also seem to imply that allowing same sex couples to marry that marriage itself will be harmed. That is not true. The real world experience of nations that allow same sex marriage has not born out that fear. Massachussetts has the lowest divorce rate in the US (I may be mistaken, it may be second lowest). Same sex marriage benefits same sex couples without harming heterosexual couples. There is no risk to heterosexual marriage and families by allowing same sex couples to marry.
Your argument about Boswell is a tired one. Gay and lesbian Christians aren’t trying to soothe their consciences, they are bringing a unique witness of God’s work to the Christian church, one that has long been denied and/or actively squashed.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Albert, because they are a creation of the state. Let’s take this to its fullest meaning: what if every relationship were created and governed by the state? Would we be more free or less free? “No-fault” divorce is a perfect example of a state creation (as is divorce generally)…for many Americans, divorce is the first time that the state (a judge typically) is into everything that family does. Does divorce, especially “no-fault,” make that family freer or more of a slave to the state?
Now take gay marriage…where issues such as “orientation,” “gender,” dinstinctions between behaviors and “attractions,” and all sorts of other psychological penumbras exist. So we willy-nilly grant marriage licenses to…I’ll say this as politley as I can…”emotionally-driven” relationships and what do you think would be the result? Long-lasting, stable “families”? Or more dysfunction added to existing and growing dysfunctions from hetero marriages…all of which cost society (taxpayers) a fortune.
The state interest, society’s interest, is to enable families that are committed to stability, autonomy, the rising generation who can continue to perpetuate civilization…AND relationships that will not burden or add to the burden of the state.
There is a very fine balance that society has struck between encouraging healthy families and preventing government intrusions into those families. Society has chosen to say, at minimum, you have to be adult, unrelated, men and women…we want you to have children (incentives through tax code), and we want you to stay married (divorce sucks for everyone, even no-fault divorces are still a pain and require the state to allow them). For that, we won’t get into the “quality” of your relationship…iow, we’ll make sure government stays as far away as possible from the minutia of your private lives.
If we follow the logic of gay marriage, we must necessarily follow the logic that it will lead to more and more government involvement in the private lives of American citizens. Far from simply being an innocent mirror image of hetero marriage (”we just want what you have”), it would lead inevitably to greater government intrusions into the private lives of ALL Americans. ALL? Yes, because of the egailtarian nature of gay thinking (and leftist and feminist thinking that gave rise to it). That is, assuming gay marriage was universal, egailtarian legal and political views would not allow a separation between the fall out from all marriages (which is why “no-fault” divorce is so antithetical to freedom ultimately…the gays and non-marrieds pay through the nose for the misdeeds of failed hetero marriages)…we would only be expanding government into more of our lives.
You civil libertarians, of all people, should hate that idea of expanding government into private lives. This is why the gays who actually cherish freedom should just continue in their private lives and not ask the government for approbation for their lives.
And Glen…clearly, you see money as the panacea for everything. And so poor people are miserable because they have no money. Of course, that theory is shot to hell when you consider that rich people can be miserable too. You read too many feminist books about…well, everything. Feminism is a sick world view of selfishness and lack of identity. Surely you are aware of, although I wouldn’t be surprised if you ignored, the many books by former feminists who admit that the whole philosophy is bullcrap…especially the parts about economic freedom and prosperity for women apart from traditional male/female relationships.
Here is a fact of social science (as much as any social science is factual!): men, women, and children are all better off in what you would call a traditional family. They are all healthier, better educated, wealthier, more prosperous, and safer in families. Only the most harden feminist or leftist denies this.
I am not implying that same-sex relationships hurt hetero ones. That is a self-righteous opinion of the gay community who simply cannot see, let alone understand conservative arguments as I have expressed them. That is, because the gays refuse to accept the wolrdview I express the only logical response for them is to say…um, then these conservatives must be irrational and what is more irrational than to believe that gays will destroy hetero families.
Gay relationships don’t hurt my marriage or family. But, as I contend, they will hurt society and ultimately civilization because they inherently invite government into private lives…and not just their own, through egalitarian legal and political thinking (this is why gay attorneys rely so heavily on “equal protection” violations in their court cases).
Btw, MA has low divorce rates because they have low marriages rates…along with many other social and cultural factors I am sure.
And, Glen, the Boswell argument is only a tired one for you because it’s true and it keeps haunting gay research. Why do you think there has been such a push for the “gay gene”? Same thing. If you’re born that way…if Jesus was gay…if gays were allowed to marry…if gays were allowed to have everything that everyone else has…if people like me didn’t exist…the gay world would be at peace. It’s simply all false. Gays would still be at inner-war with themselves.
And, in conclusion, this is another large reason why gay marriage is a bad thing: people in turmoil, always looking outside themselves for solutions to their problems (like a state license) will invite anything…including heavy-handed government…into their lives to find that elusive peace they never will find.
Then again, if gays are at peace…then why all the fuss?
July 18th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Paul,
It’s a little hypocritical of you to claim that gay people are selfish for wanting what you already get . . . from the state!
Gay people create partnerships and families naturally just as you do Paul. Your claim that heterosexual families are of nature and therefore precede sanction by the state, while gay families need to be created by the state, is a non-starter, unless of course you have an agenda to push.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Don, et. al. … here is the extent of your argument: gay stuff is natural because people do it…hetero stuff is natural because people do it. So what’s the difference, Paul?
And I have described that difference in detail here. But let me summarize quickly: gay stuff isn’t hetero stuff…gay stuff=more government…gay stuff=less than ideal without the hope of ideal child-bearing and child-raising…gay stuff=not in society’s best interest…gay stuff=better off private, for everyone. Hetero stuff=oppositse of everything just equated to gay stuff.
So, question (and I am truly sorry for going here, but you guys don’t seem to want to see the point): bestiality stuff happens so it must be natural too? If not, why not?
July 18th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Hmmmm
July 18th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
That’s an easy one. A contemporary moral theology about sexuality says that moral sexual relationships are characterized by being non-exploitive, consensual, mutual, and age and developmentally appropriate. This requires both partners possess full moral agency - i.e. the ability to make informed decisions. Just as a child cannot give meaningful consent to sex with an adult, an animal cannot consent to sex with a human.
To put it another way: Bestiality is a paraphilia, not a valid sexual orientation (same with pedophilia so don’t go there). To answer another question you asked, the reason for all the fuss is that gay people spend a lot of time hearing people ask how their relationships with consenting adults differ from pedophilia and bestiality.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Paul:
I guess I am having trouble with your apparent definition of “freedom” as used in your thesis on gay marriage. You almost seem to be arguing that gays should not be permitted to marry because gays themselves would be inconvenienced through government intrusion. Indeed, you almost appear to be looking out for the best interests of the gay population in your argument. Why not take the argument full circle and argue keeping the government out of the very personal family decision of the right to choose an abortion?
With all due respect, your argument still appears rather conclusory - traditional marriage is a good thing and gay marriage is a bad thing so, therefore, traditional marriage should be permitted and gay marriage should not be permitted.
July 18th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
“gay stuff=more government”
How so? How does gay marriage create any more “government” than we currently have with straight marriage?
“gay stuff=less than ideal without the hope of ideal child-bearing and child-raising”
“Ideal” seems to be something that marriage isn’t too concerned with, considering those who are currently allowed to marry. I’m willing to draw the line at “not inherently harmful” seeing as it is freedom and equality we are talking about restricting.
“gay stuff=not in society’s best interest”
Could you please be more specific? Gay marriage seems that it would be in society’s best interest, in that it would promote long-term, stable, monogamous relationships. I could see where some other “gay stuff” may not be in society’s best interest (Larry Craig and Ted Haggard come to mind) but why should that “stuff” preclude gay marriage?
“gay stuff=better off private, for everyone.”
What does this mean? “Gay stuff” is already not private. It’s everywhere. Are you saying we’d all be better off, gays included, if gay people just got back in the closet? I think, seeing as how being gay is already generally acceptable out in the open (i.e. not private), that legalizing gay marriage will be of no negative consequence to those who are not gay.
Now, would you care to address the point I made earlier about gay people creating families naturally? Or maybe you’d care to address the fact that it seems a bit selfish of you to say that gay people should not desire the great government intrusion into their lives that we straight people are apparently all too willing to avail of ourselves?
July 18th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Glenden,
That’s a great comment about contemporary sexual morality, but I’m curious why you choose to refer to it as a “moral theology”? Morality and religion are not the same things. What you’ve spoken is more a moral truth for a society disencumbered of religious irrationality masquerading as morality.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Don - good observation. I learned it as moral theology and I keep using the term. It could easily be thought of sexual morality - which is probably a better term.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Good conversation, huh?
Glen, you actually make my point for me. I, evidently like Don, wonder why you are so quick to invoke “moral theology,” “moral sexual relationships, and (horror of horrors) “moral agency”? (Btw, if we are “moral agents,” for whom are we agents?) The gods of Rocky Anderson must be deeply disturbed by your intonations! :)
But then you move ever so smoothly to APA-style formulations about paraphilia as opposed to (very fluid and politically-driven) now-accepted norms in the science-as-emotion communities. (Really Glen, you must settle on a logical framework. :))
And, Glen, you know very well that all the “fuss” isn’t because gays are compared to pedophiles (not that those comparisons don’t happen, I admit)…the “fuss” I pose to you has to do with the constant seeking by the gay community for public approbation. It’s not like gays are a “discrete minority” not able to assimilate well into society because of overt (or even subtle) discrimination…they tend to be well up the SES realtively speaking.
Albert, we can’t extend the freedom logic to abortion because that act takes a human life…it isn’t just a matter of unilateral consent. And, yes, I am drawing conclusions…I have been in this debate a very long time and I allow myself to do so with some confidence. I am no longer simply learning on the substantive aspects of the issue…although I like to think I am open and honest (and listening not just to argue) in these conversations.
And Don, I thought I had been specific, but then decided to sum it up in a way that (excuse me) was simplistic just to make my points clear. In the dialogue I had with Stephen Clark, we addressed this issue of gay marriage helping gays be good (i.e. productive and healthy in their relationships). Certainly Stephen answered for himself there, but I remain unconvinced by his argument. My response is that laws don’t make people good…laws do two things: 1) help people negotiate the intersections of life, and 2) affirm already held societal standards (which I beleive are necessary for ordered liberty to exist).
My point, again, is that gay marriage will not make promicuous gays any less so, especially if gay culture remains at odds with bourgeious (sp?) values…which, interestingly, is expressed by Glen in the initial posting as he derides Andrew Sullivan whose opinions, like those of my friend Stephen Clark, represent a very “traditional” wing of the gay movement.
So I do find it curious that Glen would invoke moral pleadings as a defense of, well, anything, frankly (although I truly know he must invoke some sense of morality otherwise his vision of the world on all sorts of lefty things…like the war in Iraq…would be meaningless).
So let me ask my previous question this way: absent moral intoning (like we would hear from ME), what is your argument to separate gay marriage from, say, polygamy? Marriages between family members (and assume they would agree to be sterilized)? And a boy and his dog? Or Crazy Aunt Betty and her 12 cats? I am truly interested in how you draw the lines of acceptability if, scientifically/medically/biologically, we could assure no direct physical unintended consequences.
I think once you can address this point, we can move this conversation along. Otherwise, you will invoke your worldview and I mine and the convo will be over.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Paul:
One thing I learned early on in my career as a research scientist is this: if you cannot explain it to a ten-year old, then you really don’t know what you are talking about.
I have asked several times now a for an answer to what should be a fairly simple question: just what is it about non-traditional families that prevents them from promoting freedom and prosperity?
In response, I (we) have received long and eloquently drafted responses that seem to address everything but the very simple question that I pose; which, btw, is an overriding theme to your thesis, that you yourself have stated you have been debating for a very long time. You should be able to explain this to a ten-year old by now!
In all seriousness, I ask yet again the same question. Perhaps this time, however, you’ll consider explaining the response in crystallized fashion that a ten (or even 16) year old can comprehend, without all the fancy jargon and theoretical gobbledygook!
PS. My mind is not made up, and I remain unconvinced one way or the other!!!
July 19th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Actually Paul I was quoting Sullivan approvingly. I agree with him. I reread my post and that was the point I made. I have no problem using the terminology moral theology or the concept of paraphilias because they are not contradictory. I think Don was questioning why call it theology which automatically suggests that it applies to a specific religious community rather than speak in a more universal way.
It may be ancillary to this conversation, but I have long been taught that good theology, good philosophy cannot function without integrating the learnings of the sciences. The moral theologian I have studied with regard to sexuality is James Nelson, the author of Between Two Gardens and he has done his best in his writing to integrate the learnings of science into his theology. Almost 15 years ago, the UCC published a sexuality education curriculum called Created in God’s Image that had a great passage that said gay people aren’t asking the church to abandon sexual morality, they asking the church to consider that it has gotten it wrong - that sexual morality isn’t about your orientation, it is about how you live it out; that being gay is who you are, just as being straight is who you are, and how you live that out is what makes it moral or immoral. I also remain at heart a nice catholic schoolboy.
I don’t know why you would find it odd that I would invoke a morality as part of a worldview. One of the false dichotomy often preached by conservative commentators is the idea that conservatism is moral and liberalism is not. One of the cornerstones of modern progressive/liberal thought is a system of moral philosophy and moral thinking - asking what is right and what is wrong, and what is just and what is unjust.
Glbt people confront discrimination and prejudice all the time. Anti-gay violence is a daily occurrence in a great many schools. People are fired for simply being gay. The military will kick you out just for being gay. The “fuss” really is about gay people wanting to live their lives without fear and secrecy, to be able to just go to dinner with their partner and not have it be some issue. Gay people want to be treated like their straight siblings and they’re being denied that - they watch their straight siblings get married and instantly have more protections for their relationships than a gay couples has after living together for 20 years - even with all the contracts their lawyers can draw up. So the fuss is about being treated equally before the law.
The whole point of my post was that as gay marriage becomes more widely accepted, the gay subculture becomes less viable. There will always be gay bars but a discrete gay subculture will wither and that’s not a bad thing. Like Andrew Sullivan, I’m a bit agog at the speed of the change and I think it’s a good thing. Hence, the subculture at odds with bourgeois values you refer to is becoming less rather than more relevant for glbt people.
The question of promiscuity is a red-herring. Marriage has not done a thing to make promiscuous straight people stop being promiscuous. Promiscuity or its lack is not a condition for marriage. Open promiscuity may get your cleric to refuse to marry you but you can still get legally married and you can still be promiscuous after the wedding.
I’ve already talked the fact that polygamy isn’t inherently wrong and abusive. From a legal standpoint it could get complicated but lots of complicated things are covered by the law.
As far as the whole person and animal thing, what is the conservative obsession with that? Seriously, Paul. Why does that come up constantly? It’s downright bizarre that when you think of two people of the same gender getting married your next thought is of someone marrying their dog or cat. It’s downright odd. As I said before, the animal cannot possibly give consent. It defies the value of mutuality. There’s also the problem of exploitation - a human can refuse to be exploited not so with an animal.
The cousin thing? I think it was Marc Hauser’s book Moral Minds he posits that we are born with a moral sense of right and wrong. I suspect that strictures against marrying close relatives is such a sense. I think marriage implies a sexual connection between the partners. Current law (I don’t remember if its in Utah or not but I think so) in some states allows cousins past childbearing age to marry so obviously somewhere that’s been discussed and settled. (FWIW, I can’t imagine marrying my cousins - I’ve been close to them my whole live and their wonderful people. But I’ve never thought of them as potential mates.)
Last but not least, the issue of moral agency speaks to our ability to make our own choices. In the simplest sense, we are moral agents of ourselves.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Fair enough Albert…and I apologize for thinking I answered your question.
There are at least three reasons why “non-traditional” families cannot promote freedom and prosperity (and both question and answer are in the context of public policy…what is good for society…or what I have referred to here as the state interest):
1) their “social momentum” is negative…hetero non-traditional families rely very much on the state for direction, support, and control. They tend to burden society rather than lift it. Think fallout from divorce or single-parents.
In terms of recognizing gay relationships, they would be a creature of the state…invented by government…and not naturally occuring. Invented by government means more government. “Gay marriages” would not have any natural recourse to ward off further government intervention…their recourse would only come through the master that created them.
For instance, there is a fundamental liberty interest in our US Constitution that protects the rights of natural parents (now including legal adoption) in the upbringing and education of their children…because the natural family is prior to the state. This same fundamental liberty interest does not (and would not) exist for creatures of the state.
2) The underlying legal and political fabric of gay rights is egalitarianism which naturally leads to bigger, more intrusive government. Think public school system…same governing philosophy. I mentioned previously that at the heart of every gay rights legal challenge is a reliance on “equal protection,” certainly a valid constitutional protection but curiously used by gays as if (in their minds) they are to be treated like a true “discrete minority,” such as African Americans.
3) Its family structure is not ideal nor can it attain the ideal. Empirically, there is an ideal family structure…what I and a few others have termed the “natural family.” (This is why I recommend my book by the same title…I also have a speech I gave in Warsaw, Poland, last year titled, “The Physics of the Family: Why Families Don’t Fall Down” on our sutherland web site.)
We define an ideal family structure as one that maximizes healthy benefits to all its members. A key component of this ideal is complementarity between man and woman…something not found naturally or that can be fabricated in gay relationships. The state interest is to encourage this ideal…which is why the state will recognize man/woman relationships, even if the couples are sterile or beyond child-bearing years, because that complementary structure is the starting point down the road toward the ideal.
Okay, Albert, that’s my best shot. Perhaps there are too many big words for a 10 year old, but that must suffice.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Okay, Glen, now on to you. You have a lot going on!!
First, forgive me for mischaracterizing your thoughts about Sullivan. I think I high-centered on you writing that he is “probably one of the worst commentators on American politics” and ignored your praise of his work regarding “orientation.”
I love how you write…”gay people aren’t asking the church to abandon sexual morality, they are asking the church to consider that it has gotten it wrong .” Which is much like me saying to you, “I’m not asking you to give up on liberalism, I am just asking you to admit that liberalism is wrong.”
I mention those lines not to poke fun at you, but to simply say that I see much of these logical contradictions in your writings…and so I succumb (admittedly) to confusion in attempting to reply accurately to your points.
I also apologize for mischaracterizing your liberal philosophy as, basically, godless…which is my only reason for sounding puzzeled over your use of religious/moral intonations. My bad.
But having apologized for that, I remain puzzeled that you go on to draw all sorts of moral distinctions, in answer to my last question (thank you), but fail to see how I and other conservatives might do so about gay marriage.
You are SO moral, in fact, that you refuse to even address the bestiality analogy. (Btw, to answer your question about why conservatives go there is precisely because of this lingering puzzlement with supporters of gay marriage as to where they would draw moral lines and why.)
So for all of the alternative scenarios I raised, you have moral answers. For gay marriage, you scratch your head as to why I would oppose it on any ground. Fair enough, everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion. But, my frustration with you is that when I do so it’s okay to call my views narrow-minded (not that you have done that here), but not question in the least how narrow your views are about those alternative scenarios or even why you draw your views about those things so narrowly. So…I still question the consistency of your logical processes.
So let me try again with another scenario. Let’s assume Aunt Betty has just lost her husband of 50 years to cancer. Aunt Betty is lonely. Her only real friend…the only creature that gives her joy, that responds reciprocally with the love Aunt Betty so desperately needs, is her cat. Aunt Betty wants to have her very real, and very loving, but non-sexual and non-abusive, relationship with her cat recognized by the state. If you have an objection to creating a “cat-marriage,” what would be your reasons for denying Aunt Betty such an innocent and loving request?
July 19th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Paul,
I believe you just used an unforgivably bad syllogism. It is by any measure, a desperate argument.
How may I politely remind you that a cat is not a human being.
We’ve been hearing that one from only the more sophomoric right-wing parrots for some time now.
But I didn’t expect it from you.
I will happily withdraw that “cat-marriage” portion of that comment upon your request, though I much prefer a top-posted retraction for the spectacle value it would bring on this fine weekend.
Not that it would satisfy the insatiable hankering I have had of late to witness a the real live hanging (for Treason) of Bush on down the ranks of every person in a visible leadership role who has made it OK to compare our gay friends and family members to animals. Notwithstanding the fact that we really do not want to start hanging people for comparing gays and cats or F-150s. But we should, I think, consider some sort of public humiliation for people who make that argument AND expect to be taken seriously.
I know you don’t mean it that way, but that is nevertheless EXACTLY what you’ve done.
Its almost as ridiculous as equating the life of an adult human to a multi-cell zygote.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Cliff, don’t be so quick to judge my question. So, by your response, I will take it that you don’t think a human should be able to marry an animal?
Why not?
July 19th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Paul,
Underlying (help me out here Leo) US, International, and common law, is a strict premise that laws apply to human beings.
Pets like trucks, are treated as property. By contrast, humans CANNOT be property.
So the answer to your question is the same as the answer to the question, can you throw a cat in jail for failure to pay child support?
I know where you are trying to go here Paul. I do not think you will get away with it with this crowd.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I am only seeking clarity, Cliff. And I realize how intelligent this crowd is.
I’m not sure about the cat thing. If Aunt Betty left millions of dollars to the cat…is that the same as leaving millions of dollars to a truck? And if the cat inherits millions and Aunt Betty has children…maybe the cat could be pressed for child support?? I don’t know.
But my bigger point is in trying to establish a moral ground (or any kind of subjective ground or opinion) for preventing a marriage between a human and an animal. Do you have a moral (not an existing legal) ground for preventing such a public recognition?
And, if you know where I am headed with this (no mystery for sure), then let me ask these questions:
Do you have a moral objection if a grandmother and her adult grandson want to be legally married?
How about adult brothers and sisters?
How about a man and a corporation (legally a person)?
Let me change pace…(but only after you have given me your moral reasons why the other relationships should or should not be recognized)…how about a black man and a white woman? And why?
How about a Christian man and a Jewish woman? And why?
How about a poor man and a rich woman? And why?
Now, how about two men? And why?
Last question, promise, what is your definition of “marriage”?
July 19th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Paul,
I believe that morality is a social construct that evolves naturally out of societies and is expressed in the other naturally occuring constructs of man, like religion, politics, economics, family and community.
I believe it is fluid and ever-changing.
My morality comes from me. I know right from wrong, moral from immoral. Its a feeling, and a very clear easy one. You might say, I have moral clarity.
So here’s my answer (moral not legal). If the scenarios in your questions involve love and good intentions, I don’t care who marries what. The happier other people are, the better the village and me.
PS: You can’t exactly leave a cat a million bucks. You have to leave it to a guardian. And so yes, I suppose you could collect alimony or child support (from adoption) from a cat if you divorced it or if it were the property of the childs father who left all the money to the cat. But if I were the cat, I’d counter sue your ass for marrying me in the first place. I’m sure its against cat law.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Ah, yes Cliff, love and good intentions. There we have it! The reasons to wake up in the morning, work hard, play harder, and go to bed (with whomever) at night with clear consciences.
And it is clearly where we disagree at its core.
Your world of social constructs…fluid and ever-changing moralities…self-policing morality…etc….is a fine fairy land (no pun intended).
I find it fascinating to argue with you and, say, Stephen Clark on these issues. Arguments with your vision of the life and the world inevitably end up with this stand-off between the views you just expressed versus the view that there is a God who has a Plan for mankind…sort of a hippie-Darwinism versus a conditional-love Christianity. Whereas, when I debate “conservative” gays, such as Stephen or Andrew Sullivan or Bruce Bawer, our worlds are much closer. As they might say, they want want we have, plain and simple. They see the value of stability and structure…an ordered liberty, if you will.
So I guess this train of thought ends here. I cannot argue moral things with someone who can self-define an ever-changing moral universe to meet his instantaneous moral clarity.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Hey Paul, hold up there cowboy.
If she heard you say that, you’d be in the dog house.
Personally, I don’t ‘do’ “whomever.” And IF WHO is OK ‘doing’ WHOMEVER, and if WHOMEVER doesn’t mind being a WHOMEVER…I don’t think you are advocating putting Matlock on that one.
Seriously. You’ve prematurely seized upon the “ever-changing” part and then thrown me on the hippie pile.
No fair. I was referring to the ever-changing social norms across time and cultures. Not unlike ever-changing scriptural interpretation.
What you’d like to say, I believe is, “If you can’t show me your book, you have no moral code.” Well, show me YOUR book and I’ll show it right back to you with all its infidelity, sexual deviance, violence and cruelty.
Then you’ll say, “well WE read it this way. ” And I’ll ask, “WHO reads it that way?”
And there we’ll be. Back to regular Joe’s claiming some divine authority ala “just trust me.”
If “self-evident” and the social contract is insufficient basis for law, than you must try to make an argument for conducting social engineering under the guise of law, and THAT my friend breeds the worse kind of society.
…Or are you wanting to hitch a New And Improved 10 Commandments to the Constitution?
July 19th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Anonymous…behave
July 19th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Morality comes in all shapes and sizes.
One’s morality is shaped by familial, tribal and societal influences. The extent to which one practices good morality is subject to and measured against the same things.
Therefore, behavior that conforms to social norms is a function of the same societal pressures.
Thats why on the one hand, you see unabashed, in-the-open bad moral behavior in certain parts of society, and you DON’T see bad moral behavior in segments of the society which require not getting caught.
Some societies actually help people hide or cover up there immoral behavior through well-developed institutional tactics. :)
Love
Cliff
July 19th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Paul - I get that you and other conservatives have moral objections to same sex marriage, I just don’t think those objections make sense - I think they are based on a set of assumptions about the nature of both moral philosophy/theology and an outright rejection of the view of mainstream contemporary science on the nature of human sexuality (and an embrace of fringe elements of the scientific community such as Paul Cameron and Charles Socarides).
I go back to what I’ve said about the whole animal issue before: the animal cannot possibly given consent and absent that consent it cannot enter into a marriage. It’s as simple as that. Aunt Betty may love her cat but I question the actual ability of the cat to love her. I base that not so much on science (I’ve been too lazy to read the various books on the emotional life of animals) as on my own life long experience in a family of animal lovers and owners - dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs, goats, etc. I have a cat beast living with me now and I certainly love her and in her own feline way she reciprocates. But there’s no way she can give “consent” to any kind of meaningful relationship. She’s simply does not possess the brain power.
I think you are being disingenuous with the question. Our pets are ultimately property - as Cliff rightly observed. Why should a discussion about two consenting adults lead conservative to wonder about bestiality? You really haven’t answered that. If I had to offer my explanation I would say it speaks to a perspective on sexuality that lumps same sex relationships in with a variety of sexual paraphilias - that at a minimum sees it as a fetish (like some men’s shoe fetish) all the way up to bestiality etc. The consensus within the medical and mental health community doesn’t support that view. A wide variety of theologians don’t support that view.
Consent is to my way of thinking one of the deal breakers with regard to relationships - the ability to give consent (or not) is a cornerstone.
I also ask you to read my whole statement about the issue of sexual morality - maybe the church has asked the wrong questions about it in the past and has focused on the wrong things - let’s not abandon moral theology, let’s reform it so it speaks to us today, informed by what science is telling us. It’s a fair critique. For instance, contemporary conservatism is all but obsessed with questions of sexuality and morality but seems blithely unconcerned with questions of economic justice. It’s equally fair to argue that contemporary liberalism was far too concerned with economics for far too long and ignored questions of morality. In both cases, we have very probably gotten things wrong, got our priorities out of order. At times it seems conservatives are far more concerned with making sure women don’t abortions than making sure every child born has access to adequate food, shelter, education, health care and in a nutshell a life with dignity. Yes, I’m advocate of economic justice - the European model has been to create a largely middle class society through high taxes and a broad social safety net and has resulted in societies in which the measures of social pathology indicate a far healthier society than we have created - and one in which there is far less economic disparity. It’s worth asking if the US has made the wrong choices in the past and if we need to make different ones now. Well that was kind of a detour. Anyway.
July 19th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
als0 - I know you wrote this to Albert but your argument about same sex relationships is flawed. Same sex relationships already exist, have existed for a very long time. Those couples however have been in legally precarious circumstances that create pressures on them that make them less stable. Same sex couples face social opprobrium for merely existing; many glbt people must keep their relationships secret to maintain their livelihood. Legalizing same sex marriage removes those pressures which will help those existing relationships be stronger and contribute to the overall health of the community.
Expectations of the future do shape actions today. I also believe that at least some of the instability in the gay community arises from not having the expectation of forming a loving, long term relationship. A young straight person sees a variety of marriages around him/her and sees a future for his/her relationships that is fulfilling and good. I believe providing glbt people with the same type of models will serve a strong social good. If gay kids know they can grow up to be just like mom and dad - you know a loving home, a caring spouse, I believe they will think of their lives into those terms and behave accordingly. One night stands are less attractive if you think you have a future stable spouse somewhere out there - dating becomes about vetting spouses not getting orgasms.
I think there is a connection between low self esteem and promiscuity -the most promiscuous people I know are the ones who least believe they deserve to be loved and valued; glbt people get a lot of attacks on their self worth. I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m contradicting what I said before because I don’t believe it does. Promiscuity by itself is not an impediment to marriage (though it can certainly be an impediment to a happy one). I think if marriage is a viable romantic goal, individuals make different sexual choices. If you take marriage off the table as an option, it sends the message that sex is an end unto itself - not something which happens in the larger context of a healthy and thriving relationship.
July 19th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I am not going anywhere.
The difficulty in this conversation, for me anyway, is that you invoke a personal moral code that you define only vaguely, or only broadly at most.
If I argue empirically that the natural family is best for soceity AND for men, women, and children individually, you either ignore the claim or resort to your personal morality to argue that some things (love and good intentions) trump human experience.
If I argue morality you weave and dodge with psuedo-scientific ramblings of gay researchers, feminist theories, and politicized pop psychology.
If I try to construct moral scenarios that allow you to fully express your moral parameters, you high-center on the minutia of the scenarios to avoid telling me exactly where you draw your moral lines and, more importantly, why.
I still do not know what your brand of morality is. It’s seems as flaky as those gays who simply say that “love makes a family.” Fine and well until love flies out the window. Actually, solid family structures make a lasting family in the real world where love exists but fluctuates along with the everyday human experience. Families are more than love, just as nations are more than borders.
If all you are ultimately saying is that morality changes in time…and it’s about time for people to accept gay marriage based on the reading of your social tea leaves…then that is hardly an argument for change (that things change).
Lastly, I will reiterate, homosexuality is not about, nor ever has been about, traditional relationships…it is about sex. To think marriage will change that reality is intellectually immature. All of the accommodations from the APA community hasn’t done one thing to change gay culture, and broader public accomodations, like mariage, won’t make a difference either. The Gay Left is honest in this regard…meaning that the Gay Right, who make the case for marriage, seek something they already have (the ability to live and love in gay monogamy) or economic benefits they can have through private contract.
Most of all, you seem to miss the simple point that the society you count on to change in its morality, is the current and same society that demands the gay community first show the social benefits of gay marriage…which are isolated at best and typically myths wrapped in psuedo-scientific gay research.
You are right about one thing: time will tell whose right.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Paul - you’re ranting again. Not that that’s a bad thing, but be mindful of it.
Here’s the thing: The empirical evidence about families and children identifies correlation not causation. Researchers who have compared children raised by same sex parents and those raised by heterosexual parents find that the children of same sex couples are as well adjusted, healthy etc. as their peers from straight households but they suffer because they encounter prejudice against their families. Single parent households are often cited as inferior but the evidence doesn’t address the question of causation - is it simply being a single parent that is problematic or are there other factors (such as bias against single parents or lack of economic resources) that contribute to the outcomes. Simply citing “is” and arguing “ought” from that misuses the data.
You seem to have missed both my point and Andrew Sullivan’s point - the gay sub-culture is becoming less important to gay people as gay people become more integrated into the mainstream of American life. As for your argument that gay people can already live in committed relationships without getting married, the same thing can be said for straight people, are you ready to make that case? As I said before the economic benefits of marriage are not wholly achievable through private contracts - certainly things like social security and retirement benefits are not, as are inheritance rights. And even those rights available through private contracts are legally tenuous. So, the contract route isn’t comparable to the legal rights granted by marriage.
I’ve got more to say but it’s time for me to head to church.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:55 am
[...] Note: The post below is a numbered re-print of this comment to advantage clarity in readers’ [...]
July 20th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Paul,
Let me first say how appreciative I am for you tireless participation in the on-going conversation. You attention to the subject, and your patience with us is truly valuable, at least for me in my own life ambition to understand the conservative mind.
Your last comment lays out clearly the issues within the issue with such that I think it appropriate to number them, top post them, and discuss them one at a time.
So which that, I re-direct you there.