David Blankenhorn hasn’t changed his mind about marriage, but he has changed his stance. The best that one can say of the New York Times op-ed in which he shifts his footing is that it is clearly heartfelt.
But it raises many questions, not least being how Blankenhorn can think—in the midst of the attack on the Catholic Church via the abortifacient and contraceptive mandate—that the socially accepted definition of marriage will not be forced on the churches and other religious communities? As soon as we stop contending for the natural truth of marriage in the public square, certain people will try to strip us of the right to proclaim it anywhere.
Progressives will not be chastened by “bending the knee,” as Blankenhorn tellingly describes his acquiescence. Only by refusing to deny the truth of marriage—which we are obliged to do not just as Christian or Jews witnessing to the truth, but also as citizens concerned with the common good—is there hope.
Finally, if Blankenhorn is so concerned with the opinion of youth, I wish he’d spent some time talking to the young people I know. They are not going away. And they give me (and should give you) one reason for optimism, even as faith gives us reason for hope.
June 22nd, 2012 | 4:49 pm
Matthew, I am with you. The extreme paucity of voices opposing SSM heard by young people today is more notable than their conviction that SSM is moral. Their convictions, if one can call them that, are as flimsy as the ideas that people cobble together to defend SSM.
What is needed today is witness – people willing to put their, um, livelihood on the line to speak out against SSM. People are honestly so scared to say anything that they just keep their mouths shut. It’s not that young people won’t be receptive. It’s that people, ordinary people, aren’t talking.
June 22nd, 2012 | 6:02 pm
David Blankenhorn should read Dietrich Bonhoeffer for conviction-strengthening. The fifth paragraph of Blankenhorn’s article is mystifying in light of the fourth paragraph.
Blankenhorn’s hapless testimony in the Prop 8 case foretold this latest development. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised.
June 22nd, 2012 | 8:06 pm
David inaccurately attributes opposition to gay marriage to an underlying anti-gay animus. David more than most knows the severe harm done to children raised without a father (see Fatherless America, David Blakenhorn) and should know of the attachment and other literature on the more severe damage
done to children raised without a mother.
The rights and needs of children to a mother and a father, so well documented by social science research and recognized by every culture in the
world, should be protected by the state. The attempt to stop the redefinition of marriage is based in large part on the attempt to
protect children from the severe harm done to them by the deliberate deprivation of a mother or a father.
June 22nd, 2012 | 8:56 pm
“As soon as we stop contending for the natural truth of marriage in the public square, certain people will try to strip us of the right to proclaim it anywhere.” I couldn’t agree with you more Mr. Schmitz. As John Cardinal O’Connor once said, “politics is the handmaiden of theology.” Changes in one of those two discipline’s conception of reality will inevitably affect or attempt to affect the other’s conception of reality and truth as well. Politicians, just like theologians, must take their norms and stances from inner principles of “what is” to use Fr. James V. Schall’s phrase. Callicles, the advocate of tyranny featured in Plato’s Gorgias dialogue, admits that he only takes his norms and stances from what the people want to hear, not from what is true. Fr. Schall comments on this part of the dialogue by stating that, “The tyrant wants to use the people for his own ends. And these ends are…never those that give rise to the kind of pure and civilized pleasure that indicates a soul aware of the attraction of the highest things.” Perhaps we can keep this in mind when approaching the issue of marriage and homosexuality.
An opinion piece on Cardinal O’Connor’s view of the political: http://www.cfmpl.org/blog/2010/07/14/politics-the-handmaiden-of-theology/
Quotes of Fr. Schall taken from his book, “On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs” (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Book, 2001), P. 160.
June 23rd, 2012 | 2:44 pm
But it raises many questions, not least being how Blankenhorn can think—in the midst of the attack on the Catholic Church via the abortifacient and contraceptive mandate—that the socially accepted definition of marriage will not be forced on the churches and other religious communities?
How would this happen? Will Catholics and Catholic Churches be forbidden to speak out against same-sex marriage? How? The Supreme Court decided last year 8 to 1 that the Westboro Baptist Church was permitted to shout “God hates fags” in demonstrations against military funerals. Given such a lopsided decision by a conservative court, is it credible that churches will be silenced on the issue of same-sex marriage?
Or will Catholic Churches be forced to marry same-sex couples? What legal authority could be used to do such a thing? Do Catholic Churches have to perform marriages for divorced and remarried couples?
I can understand many of the objections to same-sex marriage, but I simply do not see a credible threat to the ability of the Catholic Church to refuse to perform same-sex marriages, to teach what it wants to about homosexuality in its schools, or to speak out in the public square against same-sex marriage, or gay-rights law, or whatever they want.
June 23rd, 2012 | 3:56 pm
Or will Catholic Churches be forced to marry same-sex couples? What legal authority could be used to do such a thing? Do Catholic Churches have to perform marriages for divorced and remarried couples?
Presumably the same authority that requires them to subsidize contraceptives and abortions against their consciences.
June 23rd, 2012 | 4:18 pm
Or will Catholic Churches be forced to marry same-sex couples? What legal authority could be used to do such a thing?
The same legal authority that has the power to make Catholic churches provide birth control will probably suffice.
Obama and Pelosi and their fellows have said that freedom of religion is really just freedom of worship – the right to be Catholic while you’re at Mass, but not after you leave. So your entire argument is based on a situation that no longer exists. We are no longer talking about an America that respects religious freedom – or for that matter the Constitution.
June 23rd, 2012 | 4:30 pm
The same legal authority that has the power to make Catholic churches provide birth control will probably suffice.
Blake,
Even under the current HHS regulations, now being revised, Catholic churches (parishes, diocese) are exempt.
Obama and Pelosi and their fellows have said that freedom of religion is really just freedom of worship – the right to be Catholic while you’re at Mass, but not after you leave.
No, they have not said that. If they have said it, please quote them to that effect. And even if they had said that, they cannot reverse 200 years of jurisprudence regarding church-state relations. If there is no compromise on the contraceptive mandate, the courts will decided the issue, and even if the Supreme Court decides in favor of the mandate, that will not undo any other established religious liberties.
June 23rd, 2012 | 4:59 pm
The attempt to stop the redefinition of marriage is based in large part on the attempt to
protect children from the severe harm done to them by the deliberate deprivation of a mother or a father.
Dr. Fitzgibbons,
I am sure you are aware that adoption agencies (including even Catholic adoption agencies) place children with single parents. About 31% of children adopted from foster care are adopted by single parents. Should this be outlawed?
I just gave these statistics in another thread, but I think they should be repeated every time we talk about every child deserving a mother and father.
US Out of Wedlock Births
Asians 17%
Whites 29%
Hispanics 53%
Native Americans 66%
Blacks 72%
All groups combined 41%
With roughly a third of adoptions to single parents and 2 out of 5 children born out of wedlock, and the fact that same-sex couples don’t need to get married to have children any more than opposite-sex couples do, how much effect should opposing same-sex marriage be expected to have on the wellbeing of children?
June 23rd, 2012 | 5:05 pm
Presumably the same authority that requires them to subsidize contraceptives and abortions against their consciences.
Jack,
That isn’t an answer. HHS has authority to make regulations about insurance coverage. Does it have authority to make regulations about who priests must marry? Of course it doesn’t.
If you want to play on people’s fears that “they” will do something outrageous, you have to say who “they” are and make a reasonable case that “they” can do it.
June 23rd, 2012 | 5:28 pm
1. Blankenhorn does not explain why, with civil partnerships largely unopposed, homosexuals MUST have the m-word.
2. Blankenhorn does not explain why, if the country as a whole is deeply divided, the consensus of “our elites” should carry the day. That seems deeply undemocratic.
June 23rd, 2012 | 6:24 pm
Catholic churches haven’t been forced to divorce anyone, and divorce has been legal for a lot longer…
June 23rd, 2012 | 7:29 pm
Having an on-again-off-again relationship with the FamilyScholars.org blog which is sponsored by Blankenhorn’s Institute for American Values, I can’t say I was surprised by this news in the least. More and more new writers for the blog have come online, and all that I took notice of are strongly pro-SSM.
Moreover, Blankenhorn was almost unique in the SSM debate by strongly affirming (as he did in the op-ed and has many times before) “the equal dignity of homosexual love”. In short, Blankenhorn thinks there is nothing wrong with homosexuality in the least. If that is your starting point and you combine it with a postmodern form of liberalism, you cannot resist SSM.
Matthew’s comments about the Church in light of Blankenhorn’s op-ed are confusing. I never thought that Blankenhorn had any position or view at all on the Church in society or on religious liberty.
Blankenhorn seems to think that he can separate marriage from all a society values regarding sexuality and family structure. This strikes me as profoundly naive and will bring his liberal project for marriage to the same end it brought his liberal project against SSM.
June 23rd, 2012 | 9:19 pm
David Blakenhorn’s statement that…”to my deep regret, much of the opposition to gay marriage seems to stem, at least in part, from an underlying anti-gay animus” needs retraction. He has created a media sensation by using the word “much.” He knows that you would need substantial scientific evidence to use the word ”much” in the context of animus regarding same-sex marriage. As it stands, that sentence might be construed as an unfair attack on those who have rational arguments against same-sex marriage.
June 23rd, 2012 | 9:56 pm
David, you say, “How much effect should opposing same-sex marriage be expected to have on the wellbeing of children?” Let us look at the statistics for the answer. According to the statistics you provide, 31% of children are adopted in such a way as to be deprived of one mother or one father.
Regarding the issue of same-sex “marriage,” what will be the percentage of children who will be raised without either a mother or a father? It will be 100%. What will be the percentage in, say, 100 years of children raised without a mother or a father in the context of same-sex marriage? It again will be 100% and will be so until the end of time.
In contrast, let us now switch to your statistics of out of wedlock births. For African Americans it currently is at 72%. What will be the percentage, in, say, 100 years? It is likely to go down because this ethnic group will not survive well if this trend continues, based on how the children in central-cities are faring relative to more advantage children. So, these percentages are fluid. In contrast, will the percentages of children of same-sex couples show a reduction in being deprived of a mother or a father? No. It will remain at 100%.
Given these odds, that it is inevitable that children raised by same-sex couples will always and everywhere be 100% deprived of a mother or a father, what is your answer now to your own question?
June 24th, 2012 | 10:09 am
“..Or will Catholic Churches be forced to marry same-sex couples? What legal authority could be used to do such a thing? Do Catholic Churches have to perform marriages for divorced and remarried couples? ”
@David Nichols,
That question may seem absurd on its face. Or perhaps it would have 20 years ago. But, the trends in civic and pop culture make this question prescient. An average person would say even asking such a question is over-the-top. The First Amendment is quite clear. Yet, so was the 2nd Amendment and the 4th Amendment. But, niether amendments stopped well funded committed activists from carving out exceptions. The Kelo Case is a great example of this. Evolving legal standards, David, make your question possible. That is why the HHS issue is important. It isn’t the particularities that need to be watched. As any person who watched the abortion issue evolve over the decades know Grunwold begat Roe, and Roe begat Carhart and Lawrence. But, first you had to have Griswold. If either the SCOTUS or a lower appeals court finds an exception to our understanding of the “free excercise of religion”, or more importantly a means that even narrowly puts the Church under governmental supervision, then Katy bar the door.
June 24th, 2012 | 11:27 am
This is going to be used as evidence that anyone who is not motivated by animus or “irrational religious views” will eventually come to see that there is no earthly reason to oppose gay marriage. In effect it will bolster the idea that “every fair minded person will have to agree that gay marriage is simple justice.”
The comparison to racial civil rights will further marginalize those “modern day equivalents of racists” who disagree. Just as it was a legitimate objective for government to eliminate, or at least dis-empower and disfavor, those who act on racist views, so those who oppose same sex marriage will be pushed out of public square. No businesses, charities, schools, or organizations with opposing views will be legally tolerated, and eventually churches with opposing views will be pushed out of the publicly acceptable circle of civic organizations.
Anything that such religions run — day care centers, health clinics, family homeless shelters, married student housing, domestic abuse shelters, schools, old people’s homes, family counseling services, marriage retreats, legal aid services — will have to actively accommodate married gay couples. Which means many will have to choose whether to stay in existence or not (whether they take governmental money or not, they will not be able to “discriminate based on marital status” under many existing statutes). But I guess they may not have to actually perform the nuptials themselves, so I guess religious freedom is safe and sound.
June 24th, 2012 | 11:38 am
Dr. Fitzgibbons:
Let’s assume arguendo that you are right that same sex couples raising children harms them by deliberately depriving them of a mother or father. What then? This is a horse/cart issue. Without “marriage” same sex couples are already raising children either through adoption, artificial insemination, or children through previous heterosexual relationships. Do you think we should or even can prevent this? I’m no fan of single parenthood; but I don’t support measures to illegalize it. (I don’t support the welfare state that subsidizes it.) I think a better question is whether children being raised by same sex couples would be better off if such couples were “married” or not.
June 24th, 2012 | 1:06 pm
I agree with Mr. Schmitz that the natural truth concerning marriage should be argued for in the public square. If not, such oppositon may eventually be seen as without a rational moral basis but merely religious eccentricity at best (like the Amish opposition to automobiles) or bigotry at worst. And so cultural pressures will grow to make, for example, school textbooks supportive of homosexual marriage or fobidding photographers to refuse their services to homosexual weddings.
June 24th, 2012 | 2:40 pm
In the case of contraceptives, ‘they’ is the Federal government, and ‘they’ already did it. In the case of gay rights, there have already been a number of cases where recognition of ga relationships have trumped religious liberties. From an NPR report:
Adoption services: Catholic Charities in Massachusetts refused to place children with same-sex couples as required by Massachusetts law. After a legislative struggle — during which the Senate president said he could not support a bill “condoning discrimination” — Catholic Charities pulled out of the adoption business in 2006.
Housing: In New York City, Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a school under Orthodox Jewish auspices, banned same-sex couples from its married dormitory. New York does not recognize same-sex marriage, but in 2001, the state’s highest court ruled Yeshiva violated New York City’s ban on sexual orientation discrimination. Yeshiva now allows all couples in the dorm.
Parochial schools: California Lutheran High School, a Protestant school in Wildomar, holds that homosexuality is a sin. After the school suspended two girls who were allegedly in a lesbian relationship, the girls’ parents sued, saying the school was violating the state’s civil rights act protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination. The case is before a state judge.
Medical services: A Christian gynecologist at North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group in Vista, Calif., refused to give his patient in vitro fertilization treatment because she is in a lesbian relationship, and he claimed that doing so would violate his religious beliefs. (The doctor referred the patient to his partner, who agreed to do the treatment.) The woman sued under the state’s civil rights act. The California Supreme Court heard oral arguments in May 2008, and legal experts believe that the woman’s right to medical treatment will trump the doctor’s religious beliefs. One justice suggested that the doctors take up a different line of business.
The primary opposition to normalizing and sanctioning homosexual lifestyles is, and will continue to be the Church – it has been attacked relentlessly by gay advocates, and if and when gay marriage is sanctioned by the state, these attacks will only increase.
June 24th, 2012 | 5:42 pm
Slats,
Can you explain why you would want a day care center to reject a child because his parents are gay? Or why a health clinic would show a gay couple the door? Why a homeless shelter would let a gay family languish on the streets?
June 24th, 2012 | 7:13 pm
In the case of contraceptives, ‘they’ is the Federal government, and ‘they’ already did it. . . .
Jack,
The question I raised is who in government (at any level) has the power to force Catholic priests to perform same-sex weddings. Give us a plausible scenario for such a thing happening.
Note that there are a great many lawsuits against the contraceptive mandate, and the courts have not ruled on any of them yet. The HHS regulations are also being rewritten, and the current ones are not being enforced until August 2013.
June 24th, 2012 | 10:37 pm
There is absolutely no reason to be secure in the belief that the Federal government, given its current intrusion into all things social and moral wouldn’t require any institution marrying people to marry people of the same sex or have the right to marry people at all revoked.
And I am certain gay marriage advocates would be fully on board with such an arrangement, just as they were in the cases I cited. Why wouldn’t they be? And given, as you youself pointed out, that the courts are still deciding how much the Feds can abuse our consciences, it would be foolish to invite further abuse by supporting the gay agenda.
June 24th, 2012 | 10:48 pm
Let’s assume arguendo that you are right that same sex couples raising children harms them by deliberately depriving them of a mother or father. What then? This is a horse/cart issue. Without “marriage” same sex couples are already raising children either through adoption, artificial insemination, or children through previous heterosexual relationships.
With or without the law’s approval, some people will still rape other people. Does that mean we should therefore legalize rape?
This is why stigma exists. We were told to tolerate sexual libertinism because we were told it was a “victimless” crime.
Now that we see that this was a lie, we are now told that we have “no choice” – people are going to prioritize their sexual pleasure over their child’s well-being whether we like it or not, so therefore we ought to simply legitimize the practice.
But you’re forgetting something: children are people too, and they have the right to “equality under the law” too.
And the right to be free from exploitation.
And the right to not be bought and sold.
They, not the gays, are the real civil rights issue here.
We’ve seen a great deal of progress in people recognizing that gays have the right to live without persecution. Now it is time to start becoming aware that children have rights, too.
I am sure you are aware that adoption agencies (including even Catholic adoption agencies) place children with single parents. About 31% of children adopted from foster care are adopted by single parents. Should this be outlawed?
I just gave these statistics in another thread, but I think they should be repeated every time we talk about every child deserving a mother and father.
There are two out of wedlock children in my family tree.
They both know both their mother and their father, and have relationships with them.
One can rightfully argue that it’s not enough (I’d be the first to argue this), but it’s worth noting that these out of wedlock kids enjoy legal rights that the children of gays are deprived of, because out of wedlock kids cannot be “gifted” to stepparents. A hetero couple could not get away with gay reproductive strategies: there are laws on the books that expressly protect children against that sort of fraud.
June 24th, 2012 | 10:52 pm
Jack,
These cases are interesting, though it’s hard to take the ones that haven’t been decided yet as evidence for your point.
It’s hard to take the Roman Church seriously on this issue when it has normalized and sanctioned adultery by accepting the divorced and remarried and even annulling 30 year old marriages complete with kids.
June 24th, 2012 | 10:58 pm
Where are the parochial schools that have rejected the children of remarried parents? Where is the gynecologist who refuses to help the remarried conceive? Where are the adoption services that refuse to place children with the remarried? Why are they willing to place children with a “single” person even when they suspect the person is gay?
Would support any of these actions?
June 25th, 2012 | 12:04 am
June 25th, 2012 | 7:27 am
Jon, you state, “I think a better question is whether children being raised by same sex couples would be better off if such couples were “married” or not.” The sentence seems to assume that same-sex couples who are not married are not raising children well. As you know from some of my posts here and elsewhere, there is some evidence to make people pause and think deeply about this very issue. If you are having doubts now, why would you want to “fix” the existing problem by giving even more sweeping legal precedent to what you seem to see as an existing social problem?
June 25th, 2012 | 8:53 am
When has it happened and how often does it work out that making a major concession to “progressives” has established a mutual intension to strengthen societal institutions? Progressives know no principled boundaries in their project to remake society. They have no “this far and no farther”. (Free speech today. Censorship to promote tolerance tomorrow.) Let us remember that it was not that long ago Progressives raised high indignation at the suggestion that “gay rights” would lead to same-sex marriage. The counter-attack made by progressives was that “gay marriage” was phony scare tactic invented by the religious right to use as a weapon to dissuade otherwise open minded folk from supporting essential civil rights for gays. No one, they protested, was even considering anything like same-sex marriage.
So, here we are.
Once same-sex marriage is established, progressives will use it as a platform to pursue some other newly discovered “justice”. Former partners in compromise be damned.
June 25th, 2012 | 9:19 am
No Rick, that sentence doesn’t assume anything. I did, however, assume a point for the sake of argument. And you didn’t answer the question.
Re Blake’s point, rape is a terrible analogy to same sex parents raising children. Or if we assume for the sake of argument the validity of the point, then society should do whatever it can to rip these children away. The police will break into your house if a rape is going on.
June 25th, 2012 | 9:32 am
[...] on David Blankenhorn Monday, June 25, 2012, 9:32 AM Matthew Schmitz On Friday, I offered a question for David Blankenhorn in response to his dropping his opposition to same-sex marriage. Today in Public Discourse, Maggie [...]
June 25th, 2012 | 11:48 am
Wolf PAUL –
Well, leaving aside religious-freedom arguments, there’s the fact that the more recent state amendments (such as Amendment 1 in North Carolina this past May) have been explicitly banning civil unions, too.
If you don’t want a fight to the death, leave your enemy a line of retreat.
June 25th, 2012 | 11:53 am
Blake –
At the risk of tedium, I repeat my question to you, which you somehow never get around to answering – Are “children of gays” necessarily “deprive[d] of” having relationships with “both their mother and their father”? What’s the proportion of gay parents who block all contact with the other biological parent?
June 25th, 2012 | 2:35 pm
Once again, we have the soft re-assuring voice telling us nothing bad will happen to us if we allow another change to the moral code. There is no “plausible scenario” wherein The Church will be threatened to participate in heinous acts. Of course, we are soothed: allowing women to choose abortion cannot possibly lead to women being forced into one. Legalizing abortion as a choice cannot lead to aborting girls because of their gender. Allowing gay marriage in a State will not lead to forcing Catholic Institutions to provide insurance coverage for “partners”. What “plausible scenario” existed to force Catholic Institutions out of caring for human trafficking victims or adoptees? WHOOPS! It is very like saying to a 23-year old recently introduced to drugs: “you are young and healthy. What plausible scenario exists that would bring you to death?” This is sophistry and if pretending to think is all we seek, it will be sufficient.
June 25th, 2012 | 2:50 pm
I actually agree with this sentiment, but the problem is that it was Judge Walker who removed that option as a retreat when he ruled that civil unions weren’t sufficient, and states must allow gays to be married. So the problem really isn’t just North Carolina.
June 25th, 2012 | 3:53 pm
Once again, we have the soft re-assuring voice telling us nothing bad will happen to us if we allow another change to the moral code.
John Hinshaw,
If it’s my soothing voice you were listening to, I never said anything about “nothing bad” ever happening. I asked how it could come to pass that Catholic priests are forced to perform marriages for same-sex couples. People who make dramatic claims of slippery slopes should be prepared to point out where the slope is.
There are slippery slopes the other way, too. For example, if Catholics successfully defeat the contraceptive mandate, what will prevent other religions from coming up with medical procedures and drugs they refuse to cover—blood transfusions, anti-depressants, and so on. What about religions who do not believe in conventional medicine and want to offer faith healing in lieu of conventional medicine? These are all far more plausible than Catholic priests being forced to perform marriages for same-sex couples.
June 25th, 2012 | 3:58 pm
Jack –
Two minor differences – the amendments banning civil unions came first (e.g. Michigan, Virginia) and his ruling affects the government, not the churches.
(I’ve consistently advocated getting government out of the marriage business entirely.)
June 25th, 2012 | 4:24 pm
Nice try, but blood transfusions have not been denied recently, while the things I have cited (read again, please) all HAVE happened. Whoops, again. Of course, Priests will not perform same-sex marriages, due to the discipline of the Church. Not because he aggressive homosexual lobby will not try to force the issue. And if the party they control is in power, the Church will suffer legal penalties for not complying. Echoes of the mandate.
June 25th, 2012 | 5:09 pm
John Hinshaw,
You are evading the question because you do not have an answer. Please come up with an even remotely plausible scenario in which a priest would be forced to perform a same-sex marriage or penalized if he refused to do so.
Now, what is remotely possible is taking away the authorization of clergy who won’t perform same-sex marriages to act as agents of the state and perform legal marriages simultaneously with religious ones. In that case, those wanting to marry in a religious ceremony would also have to go through a civil ceremony. This is the way it already is in most European countries.
June 25th, 2012 | 5:09 pm
The problem being of course that the state in which he was ruling (CA) had civil unions; not sure what Michigan and Virginia had to do with it.
And the point of this discussion is that rulings that affect the government seem invariably to affect the churches.
June 25th, 2012 | 11:21 pm
My op-ed was about marriage, but the first thing that strikes me about your question to me in response is that your question is not really about marriage — it’s about religious liberty, especially in light of the “attack” on the Catholic Church regarding the HHS health care mandate.
Therefore the implication of your question is that all these things are wrapped together into one package, such that saying or doing something about one of them is also, and obviously, saying or doing something about the others. I don’t really see things that way — although for what it’s worth I was an early signatory to the “Unacceptable” letter, drafted by Mary Ann Glendon and others, protesting the HHS mandate.
I would also observe that repeatedly describing your view as “true” or better yet, as a species of “natural truth” a) does not by definition make your view true; and b) almost never convinces others that your view is true, with the only exceptions being those who already, before you said anything at all, agree with you about what is true.
My final observation is that you saying you know some young people who think such and such — as do I, as does everyone — does not shed much light on current opinion trends among young Americans.
I appreciate your interest in my article and also the comments above about it.
June 25th, 2012 | 11:35 pm
Jack,
In only one of the four cases you cited is the government making laws that affect religious institutions. The other three cases are lawsuits in which one group of citizens are accusing other groups of citizens of violating their rights. It is the work of the courts to adjudicate such claims. When they make a bad call, decisions can be appealed, new laws can be passed, constitutions can be amended, new cases can be brought. Actions by courts can hardly be described as government intrusion on rights. They are not coordinated in the way that the executive and legislative branches are.
You dodged my point about the Church’s weak position here. When it applies its own rules to only one group, it loses its credibility. The same goes for other churches.
June 26th, 2012 | 10:24 am
Jack – Michigan and Virginia are just the most extreme examples… the actual list of states that ban civil unions is just a tad larger.
And yes, governmental decisions do often affect churches – though I wouldn’t agree with “invariably”. As I pointed out earlier in this very thread, “Catholic churches haven’t been forced to divorce anyone, and divorce has been legal for a lot longer…”
June 26th, 2012 | 10:33 am
“As soon as we stop contending for the natural truth of marriage in the public square, certain people will try to strip us of the right to proclaim it anywhere.”
Some big unsuported assumption there….
June 26th, 2012 | 1:12 pm
Which is irrelevant to the larger point, which is that gay marriage advocates have themselves removed civil unions as a viable option.
But the Catholic churches interest on marriage has been greatly impacted by the government’s decision to facilitate easy divorce laws, which is the concern with gay marriage as well.
June 26th, 2012 | 1:29 pm
Courts are part of the government. They can absolutely intrude on rights – which is why we have court of appeals. Are you telling me the Dred Scott decision wasn’t an ‘intrusion on rights’? And if you don’t think cases are coordinated by various interests to reach a certain outcome, then you simply don’t know much about legal history.
And they act on laws passed by the government. You can’t bring a lawsuit if there isn’t a law to act on. That is what this discussion is about – what laws are we going to pass that the courts can act on? If gay marriages are sanctioned by the government, it will provide a broad platform for gay rights advocates to act against the religious interests of those whose consciences don’t allow the acceptance of such relationships. I listed a few examples for the sake of space – there are many more, though I have no reason to believe now that gay rights advocates care about intrusions into religious liberties.
I didn’t ‘dodge it,’ it was a tu quoque which is a fallacious argument. The Church’s fidelity to its own doctrines is irrelevant to the importance of the principle protecting religious liberties.
June 26th, 2012 | 2:19 pm
Jack –
Um… just going out on a limb here, but I’m reasonably sure that “gay marriage advocates” didn’t sponsor those amendments.
Does the Catholic church have a legitimate legal interest in the marriages of people who aren’t members of the Catholic church?
June 26th, 2012 | 3:28 pm
David Blankenhorn (June 25/11:21 pm) is right to say that claiming your view of marriage is “true” does not make it true. But he nowhere considers the reasons and arguments for why traditional marriage is real (i.e., true) marriage. These arguments don’t depend on the findings of the social sciences, and Blankenhorn must know that. But then his support of same-sex marriage must be taken as the unrevealing sociological event that it is, even if it is regarded in certain quarters, such as the hallowed precincts of the New York Times, as an important fact about the controversy over same-sex marriage.
June 26th, 2012 | 3:36 pm
David, permitting adoptions by singles isn’t depriving a child of a parent, it is permitting a child who has already been deprived of two parents to have one parent, and perhaps eventually two, if the single parent later marries.
Permitting adoptions by same-sex couples is ensuring that a child will never have a mother AND a father.
June 26th, 2012 | 3:46 pm
I am absolutely sure gay marriage advocates sued for the right to marry in California when they had civil unions.
We all do.
June 26th, 2012 | 5:35 pm
Pentanom:
And who said a child must be raised by a woman and a man only?
Jack:
Maybe the Catholic church may have an interests in people who aren´t its members, but certainly it does not has a legitimate right to prevent them or interfer with them by the use of force.
June 27th, 2012 | 8:21 am
Jack – I think you’re missing the chain of causality I’m proposing. There have been quite a few “same-sex marriage activists” who’ve lobbied for civil unions. However, it’s true that there are fewer and fewer of them now.
Why? Because opponents of same-sex marriage seem to have adopted a scorched-earth policy. They have demonstrably made it a policy to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions.
So… why should same-sex marriage advocates bother settling for civil unions anymore? It seems perfectly clear that they’re not going to be accepted as a settlement by the same-sex marriage opponents, and efforts will be made to outlaw them anyway.
Again, if you back up an enemy against the wall, if you give them no options but complete defeat or total victory, don’t be surprised if at least some of them decide to go for the latter. Sheesh.
I, er… disagree. To use the language of the courtroom, people outside the marriage lack standing.
June 27th, 2012 | 10:06 am
Who suggested it does have such a right?
June 27th, 2012 | 10:42 am
Less than half of states have adopted laws against civil unions. This is hardly a ‘scorched earth policy’. And while there are many opponents of same-sex marriage who support the idea of civil unions (thus states which have such laws) there isn’t a single prominent gay activist who stated they would settle for civil unions as a means of compromise. The extremism is on the gay activist side, not the opponents of gay marriage.
You have confused standingwith an interest. One may not have children in school, and thus would lack standing in a lawsuit concerning a school, but one could still have a legitimate legal interest in children getting a good education.
June 27th, 2012 | 11:08 am
I’ll go slowly (and I will not do this again for reasons I’ll explain): 1) A State (government) will consider legalizing gay marriage (not happening anywhere, right?) 2) While promoting the legislation needed to impose gay marriage, someone (governor, media) will lean heavily on rhetoric about “basic human rights” and “equal treatment before the law” (see gay marriage – New york State). 3) Due to heavy pressure from wealthy gay lobby and political cowards – the law passes. 4) Gay marriage is now, not just accepted, but promoted by law as a “human right” and to oppose it is characterized as “discrimination”. 5) There are already laws on the books against “discrimination”. 6) An enterprising lawyer finds a gay couple seething with hatred toward the Catholic Church (none of them around, are there?). 7) They seek to be married in the Church, they say (and the media emphasizes), because of their great love of God and each other. 8) A Church (preferably with an elderly pastor) will be chosen and the couple will try to reserve the Church and generously offer to do any marriage preparation sessions needed (maybe a hefty donation offered, as well). 9) They will be denied, of course, and ultimately (to their great delight) the Bishop will become involved (right around the same time “Good Morning America” features their story). 10) A lawsuit is filed as well as complaints with the state and federal human rights commissions. 11) Fines are levied against the Church for its “discrimatory behavior” and the lawsuit invites others. I repeat to you now, what I’ve said before: the priests will not perform the ceremonies due to Church discipline. But we will be punished. None of this bothers some people. If one has maintained academic distance so he can deny horrors that occur daily in this culture of death, he is now going to nitpick the slope process. If one willfully denies the culture of death’s existence he has no standing to question the slippery slope process, which was played out over the last 40 years. The question being answered, he will ask it again. Which is why I will not do it again. Echoes of the mandate.
June 27th, 2012 | 11:31 am
Jack – 11 amendments addressing same-sex marriage only.
20 amendments banning both same-sex marriage and civil unions.
I believe a trend can be discerned.
(Helpful animation here.)
From the perspective of legal compulsion, though… standing is what counts. You may dislike how a neighbor decorates their house – it may even impact your property values somewhat – but you don’t have standing to dictate their tastes.
(Absent a HOA agreement, at least. Whether the “HOA” governing our country (the Constitution) allows such things with regard to marriage, or whether it’s wise to do so, are separate questions.)
June 27th, 2012 | 12:28 pm
Yes, the trend I mentioned – that less than half the states have laws against civil unions. But you avoided my other point – there are a number of gay marriage opponents who would allow for civil unions. Some of them are quite politically prominent. There are no gay marriage proponents who would settle for civil unions. The ‘compromise’ you suggest is something opposed unilaterally by gay marriage proponents.
Again, you seem to entirely miss the point. I have contended (based on recent history) that when the government sanctions homosexual marriages it will then be inclined to impose requirements or restrictions on religious organizations and individuals based on that sanction. This isn’t theoretical, it is already happening in various states.
Obviously at that point they would have standing – but standing really doesn’t have anything to do with the greater point that sanctioning such relationships isn’t particularly beneficial to our society, nor does it have anything to do with the basis for the Church’s opposition for gay marriage.
June 27th, 2012 | 2:26 pm
Jack –
…anymore. Add that word, and we can agree on that point. In light of what I’ve pointed out, can you blame them?
Well, lawsuits that haven’t been decided yet are happening, yes.
Just try to imagine how many things I think aren’t particularly beneficial to our society that I nevertheless tolerate because it’s not my business.
And I fully, 100% support the Church’s right to deny same-sex marriage, along with divorce… to people who are Catholic. I even fully support their attempt to persuade people to go along with their restrictions.
It’s when the Church wants to legally compel others to follow Catholic doctrine that they lose my support.
June 27th, 2012 | 4:35 pm
No, because there is no evidence it’s true.
No, I pointed out a number that have already happened. I could detail more if the ones I cited weren’t sufficient, though I would have to be convinced you wouldn’t simply ignore or misunderstand them as well.
How the state regards marriage is everyone’s business, as are threats against our religious liberties and conscience rights.
There is no evidence they want to do that.
June 27th, 2012 | 7:47 pm
David, thank you for your views on this blog.
I enjoyed speaking with you in April at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute Studies for Marriage and Family (Catholic University of America) conference on “Adult Children of Divorce: Recovering Origins, http://www.centerforculturalandpastoralresearch.org/news_and_events/detail/adult-children-of-divorce-recovering-origins at which your talk followed mine on the healing of divorce trauma. Had I known of your plan to change your position on marriage, I would have recommended your reading my recently published article on Same Sex Attractions in Youth and Their Right to Informed Consent, http://www.hprweb.com/2012/05/same-sex-attractions-in-youth-and-their-right-to-informed-consent/.
This article documents, among other things, the scientific research on the damage done to children who are deliberately raised without a mother or a father.
David, I have one more challenge for you. As you know, words have great power. Your use of the word “much” to describe animus toward those who support same-sex marriage, is, well, too much. You have created a false impression that those of us who study the science and try to respond carefully are doing so out of hatred. This needs swift correction and wide dissemination on your part. As it stands,
your legacy may be one of unfairly turning on those who have supported you and the needs and rights of children all these years. Surely you do not wish this and so I call upon you to address that word “much” in a public way.
June 28th, 2012 | 8:39 am
“I could detail more if the ones I cited weren’t sufficient, though I would have to be convinced you wouldn’t simply ignore or misunderstand them as well.”
:-(
There are religions today that are willing to solemnize same-sex unions. Why do they not have the religious freedom to do so?
Like I said, I’m okay with various churches imposing (almost) whatever rules they want on their own congregants. (Rules that harm minor children – e.g. refusing life-saving transfusions for children – are an exception.) Catholic doctrine can bar Catholics from getting a divorce. It can’t bar non-Catholics from getting a divorce.
And I can’t see why a particular religious understanding of marriage needs must be imposed even on the non-religious, or on those who adhere to religions that hold different tenets…
June 28th, 2012 | 9:47 am
They do.
They can’t actually bar Catholics from a getting a divorce either.
This has nothing to do with churches imposing their rules on others. The current status of marriage isn’t a product of any particular church.
June 28th, 2012 | 12:49 pm
Jack –
True, just a particular class of churches. Which was my point. If the law enforced the Catholic ban on divorce, I think you’d agree that would be an imposition on the religious liberty of those who aren’t Catholic and don’t hold to that doctrine.
So, then, why legally enforce a ban on same-sex marriages, when it’s a demonstrable fact that not all religions share that doctrine?
June 29th, 2012 | 11:34 pm
I would think in marriage and divorce we would want to promote laws that would be best for the health and wealth of our society regardless of whether or not they happened to coincide with a particular church’s teaching.
July 5th, 2012 | 9:35 am
Jack –
Well, sure. Except that you still have to balance ‘health and wealth of our society’ versus religious liberty, no? We allow people to do things that would otherwise be forbidden, precisely because it’s a matter of religious liberty.
So we need a very solid argument that same-sex marriages cannot be allowed on religious-liberty grounds, while things like circumcision can…
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