Maggie Gallagher’s blog is called Culture War Victory Fund. But what would it mean to “win” the culture war? Her essay on David Blankenhorn shows how urgent it is for us to reexamine this question.
I owe a lot to Maggie Gallagher. I’ve only met her once, and that was brief. But I was glad that it gave me the chance to tell her that The Abolition of Marriage hit me like a bolt of lightning, not so much a book as a life-changing event. It revolutionized my thinking about this whole issue – and many others as well, because many of the key lessons she taught me on marriage were transferrable to other major public controversies.
Now I owe her again, because her essay on David Blankenhorn hit me in much the same way. (If you haven’t read it yet, drop whatever you’re doing and read it. We’ll wait.)
I come to this conversation as a topical “insider” but a relational “outsider.” I’ve spent a lot of time reading and thinking about the marriage issue, thanks to Maggie Gallagher more than anyone else. Yet I don’t know her, nor Blankenhorn, nor many of the other personalities involved in this discussion. So Gallagher’s essay on Blankenhorn, which is so highly relational, was a real window into a new world for me.
Yet the big lesson at the end of her essay is not about personalities. It sums up, better than I have yet managed to do, some of the issues I’ve been wrestling with as I struggle with the same dilemmas she and Blankenhorn have both clearly wrestled with.
Blankenhorn says “we have to live together.” Gallagher replies:
Yes we do. But here’s what I want to say to David and to you: a comity that is bought by surrendering principle is submission, not comity at all. The truth about something as important as marriage cannot be the price we pay to live with each other. The challenge of our time—and it is a deep challenge, not an easy one—is to find new ways to combine truth and love. Giving up marriage is too high a price to pay. And it is not the last good we will be asked to surrender, unless we find the courage to stand.
Yes, this is exactly right. But the other side is saying the exact same thing.
I was raised with conventional views on homosexuality – it’s exactly the same, just another way of loving, etc. It took a long time for me to change my thinking. And when I finally did, I lost one of my closest friends in the world. In her mind, I had become her enemy. She felt it would be morally wrong for her to continue to be on good terms with me if I could no longer affirm her lifestyle. So she cut me off, and we haven’t spoken since. It still breaks my heart.
Now, why did one of my closest friends in the world feel like her conscience required her to cut me off? Because a comity that is bought by surrendering principle is submission, not comity at all. The truth about something as important as marriage cannot be the price we pay to live with each other. Giving up marriage is too high a price to pay. And it is not the last good we will be asked to surrender, unless we find the courage to stand.
But, you will reply, I wasn’t trying to force her to affirm my views. True enough, but I did (and still do) support a policy that would deny her a society constructed in such a way as to give her what she thought justice demanded. And this denial was (and still is) couched always and everywhere in terms of a “war” in which each side is fighting to defeat and subjugate the other. Within that social framework, I was in fact her enemy.
Gallagher talks about the “deinstitutionalization” of marriage; that idea was what hit me like lightning back when I read The Abolition of Marriage. But there has also been an institutionalization of enmity.
If “winning” means the preferences of our cultural subgroup are enacted as policy, there is no hope for victory in the culture war – for either side. We will not submit because our consciences don’t permit it, neither will they for the same reason, and there is no serious prospect of either side eliminating the other. As long as we aim for a “victory” in terms of dominance for our cultural subgroup, the war will grind on. All we will accomplish is the fragmentation of society, the hollowing out of what used to be a real moral consensus and shared culture across religious divisions, and the ongoing destruction of the relational capital that might provide a basis for “living together.”
Gallagher says, “the challenge of our time—and it is a deep challenge, not an easy one—is to find new ways to combine truth and love.” Truer words were never spoken. If we want to rise to them, we have to rethink what counts as victory in the culture war. Victory means a truce we can all live with. We have to find a way to live together that doesn’t require either side to sacrifice its conscience.
I am not giving up the fight against gay marriage. I am with Gallagher, not Blankenhorn. Opposite-sex marriage is a permanent reality grounded in human nature, however various its legal expressions have been through the years; same-sex “marriage” is not. And we don’t do anyone any favors by helping them live in a false reality.
In fact, not knowing Blankenhorn personally and having no relational investment to restrain me, I can say something that perhaps others can’t – there is something decidedly Stalinist-show-trialish about what Blankenhorn has written. He himself admits – insists – he has not changed his mind. Yet he adopts a different position in order to please the powers that (apparently) rule him. I don’t know the man, and I don’t know how it seems to anyone else, that comes across to me as decidedly creepy. It’s like the “workers of the world unite!” sign in the Prague shop window that Vaclav Havel writes about in “The Power of the Powerless.” The real message of the sign is not that the workers of the world should unite; the real message is “I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.” Now re-read Gallagher’s final sentence with that in mind.
But I do think it’s time to stop thinking about winning a war. Distinctly conservative religious subcultures, even if they all banded together (which itself is a difficult undertaking) would probably account for no more than a third of the U.S. population. And even if we had a majority, our beliefs give us no right to rule our neighbors. “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” (Luke 12:14)
Policy needs to be based on a moral conesnsus that is shared across the religious subgroups of a society; otherwise we cease to be a free people. There is plenty of evidence that Americans beyond the conservative religious ghetto know what makes for a good life, in natural human terms: marriage, work, church and civic involvement. The objective conditions for moral consensus are there. If the social elites would just “preach what they practice,” in Charles Murray’s terms, the culture would right itself.
This outcome would not be seen to be a victory for conservative religious subgroups. Indeed, it would probably be framed in terms that were sometimes unwelcoming to us. The elites would need to reassure themselves that when they preach marriage, work, church and civics, they are not thereby agreeing to be ruled by a bunch of crazies. Yet this outcome would give us what we claim to want - a culture that affirms the basic structures of decent human life. Wouldn’t that be a victory worth having?
June 26th, 2012 | 2:18 pm
A very impressive and thought-provoking piece.
So often (it seems to me), the hallmark of what I think of as the “culture warrior” is the attitude that what he or she fighting against is an enemy who is dishonest (or at best willfully self-deluded) and whose real objective is unspoken. For example, anti-same-sex marriage culture warriors often claim that gay people don’t really want to get married. It’s all a plot toward some larger, overarching goal, such as legal control over the Catholic Church. It’s essentially a conspiracy, and gays who do actually get married are pawns. Or those who are pro-abortion culture warriors claim that what the Catholic Church and others who oppose abortion are really concerned about is the subjugation of women. If you are a Catholic opponent of same-sex marriage, and you honestly believe the real objective is to force the Church into submission, or of you are an abortion proponent who honestly believes that you are fighting the subjugation of women, nothing short of total war will do.
So people might ask themselves what it would look like if they win the culture wars, and they might also ask themselves what it would look if they lose the culture war, and then further ask themselves if their idea of what would things would be like if they lost is realistic.
June 26th, 2012 | 2:59 pm
I have yet to understand how advocates of SSM self-justify hating those who disagree when their self-declared goal is to reduce “bigotry”. Why do they not follow the example of, say, MLK or Ghandi? Why do they not persuade? Why do so many think so highly of themselves?
June 26th, 2012 | 3:06 pm
But David, what of the pro-SSM “Culture Warriors”? Not to mention, the pro-abortion “Culture Warriors”?
“.. nothing short of war will do” suggests a certain blindness on your part, even as “war” is engaged to change the national law but not the national consensus. Change the latter and the former can follow.
June 26th, 2012 | 3:25 pm
[...] for your own sake and for the sake of neighborliness, read the whole thing here. Gallagher talks about the “deinstitutionalization” of marriage; that idea was what hit me [...]
June 26th, 2012 | 3:46 pm
Not to mention, the pro-abortion “Culture Warriors”?
Mike Melendez,
Didn’t I mention the pro-abortion culture warriors? To repeat myself, I said they often claim their anti-abortion opponents are really interested in the subjugation of women. Or, even more ludicrously, the Catholic Church wants to prevent abortions because it wants more Catholics. I wrote what seems to me to be a very evenhanded and appreciative comment on Greg Forster’s piece. I often represent the minority view here, but I am well aware that there are “culture warriors” on my side who are unreasonable and whose first conclusion is that people who oppose abortion, or oppose same-sex marriage, or who are on the conservative side of all the other hot-button issues, are just basically evil. My point here, to people on all sides of issues, is not to demonize the side you disagree with. I didn’t think that would be controversial!
June 26th, 2012 | 3:51 pm
Um… Mike, David Nickol actually did specifically mention “pro-abortion culture warriors”.
June 26th, 2012 | 3:58 pm
Ah, missed it. Thanks for the correction.
June 26th, 2012 | 4:05 pm
Mr. Forster writes that:
” … there is something decidedly Stalinist-show-trialish about what Blankenhorn has written. He himself admits – insists – he has not changed his mind. Yet he adopts a different position in order to please the powers that (apparently) rule him. I don’t know the man, and I don’t know how it seems to anyone else, that comes across to me as decidedly creepy. It’s like the “workers of the world unite!” sign in the Prague shop window that Vaclav Havel writes about in “The Power of the Powerless.” The real message of the sign is not that the workers of the world should unite; the real message is ‘I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.’”
What arrogant tripe. How can Mr. Forster possibly peer into my soul with enough perspicacity to be able state publicly with such confidence that, contrary to what I actually say, I am acting out of fear, and a cowardly willingness to conform, rather than principle. How dare you say such an ugly thing, Mr. Forster?
As convenient as Mr. Forster’s thesis about me may be for his larger argument, I would like to state as clearly as I know how on this blog that I did not say what I said because I am afraid, or because I can’t take the heat anymore, or because I suddenly crave the approval of the New York Times and National Public Radio, or because I am taking funding from the left, or because I have flip-flopped on what I believe marriage is and why it matters, or because I no longer have the nerve to stand up to the gay lobby, or because of social pressure from friends and family and from the coctail circuit.
As fantastical as this may seem to Mr. Forster, and notwithstanding the fact that confronting the truth of matter would make his argument harder to make, since it would require him to confront my arguments rather than simply write me off personally as a moral coward, I said what I said because … I believe it.
June 26th, 2012 | 4:14 pm
Greg, it appears to me that you are, perhaps unwittingly, offering us a Rawlsian prescription for social life without recognizing the costs which Rawls imposes in order to secure such a society. You begin with the standard liberal premise that the most important social value is cooperation, or “comity” in the Blankenhorn-Gallagher editorials. Then you insist that this comity must be “based on a moral conesnsus that is shared across the religious subgroups of a society” which sounds an awful lot like Rawls’s insistence that we not only embrace liberalism but do so “for the right reasons”.
But what if liberalism is merely a modus vivendi and there is no getting around that? You suggest that if that is so, then “we cease to be a free people”. Well, I suggest that is already true and what we have already become. Unless you believe in the radical libertarian cum anarchist fantasy, how can a people who can’t agree on the deepest nature of the human condition and can’t participate in the same family structures — structures which constitute “the natural and fundamental group unit of society” (per the UN Declaration of Human Rights) — live together without one side compelling the other?
June 26th, 2012 | 4:21 pm
Yes .yes and yes! I have not thought about it that way-but “war” implies winners and losers. When one segment of society “wins” at the expense of another-well-we have a problem.
So lets begin a civil conversation about what constitutes winning in this context.
I will start-What do we really want our society to look like, and how do we make way for those who do not agree? Is there anything we can compromise?
By the way, I do not know the answers.
June 26th, 2012 | 4:22 pm
I have yet to understand how advocates of SSM self-justify hating those who disagree when their self-declared goal is to reduce “bigotry”.
Mike Melendez,
First of all, people are human. There have been very few MLKs or Ghandis in history, and looking around, I don’t see any of them right now, on either side of the SSM debate.
Second, anti-gay bigotry does exist, you know. Certainly not everyone who opposes SSM is an anti-gay bigot, but among anti-gay bigots, there is a lot of opposition to SSM, and those people don’t keep quiet. You may want to ignore things like the video of 4-year-olds singing “ain’t no homos gonna make it to heaven” in front of a laughing, cheering church congregation, but from the pro-SSM side, that is part of the anti-SSM side. Or what about the pastor that just made news recently saying:
What if a gay activist said he really felt like killing Catholics . . . but it would be wrong?
What I find strange, actually, is those who oppose same-sex marriage and homosexuality in general—who characterize homosexual acts as “grave depravity” and opine that if homosexuality is accepted, why not pedophilia, incest, and bestiality—who seem to be so hurt that anyone might be angry with them and call them bigots. Christians, after all, are the ones who are supposed to turn the other cheek, love their enemies, do good to those who hate them, walk the extra mile . . .
Isn’t that supposed to mean anything to Christians? If you expect gay rights activists to follow Ghandi and Martin Luther King, why don’t you follow Jesus?
June 26th, 2012 | 4:49 pm
I want to add that while I found Greg Forster’s piece thought provoking, I thought he did to David Blankenhorn exactly what I was citing as the hallmark of a culture warrior—denying the stated motives of a person and suggesting that the real motives make the person an enemy, not just someone you disagree with.
June 26th, 2012 | 5:00 pm
“I have yet to understand how advocates of SSM self-justify hating those who disagree when their self-declared goal is to reduce “bigotry”. Why do they not follow the example of, say, MLK or Ghandi? Why do they not persuade? Why do so many think so highly of themselves?”
Funny you use those examples. Weren´t racists bigots, regardless if MLK tried to “persuade them” or not? Weren´t British imperialists who treated indian as second class citizens in their own land bigots, regardless if Gandhi tried to “persuade them” or not? But anyways, neither MLK nor Gandhi tried to negociate their stance. They looked to justice to be done to blacks and indians. And so do people who defend equal rights for homosexuals.
June 26th, 2012 | 5:04 pm
Darel: I don’t want to get into a sparring match over the definition of “liberalism,” but I would have hoped that my comments about not giving up the fight against gay marriage, and my other comments generally, would have excluded any impression that I regard comity as the most important social value. It is not, and if it really comes down to a choice between betraying our consciences or violent conflict then yes, we must fight. No one hates Rawls’ ideas more than I do, I can assure you. Yet surely we ought not to jump instantly to violent conflict? I believe that by his grace God uses social processes as vehicles to accomplish his purposes in the world, so there are grounds for hope (although never a guarantee) that those who differ over religion can reach a moral consensus. It has happened before, as the history of this country attests.
June 26th, 2012 | 5:08 pm
Call it a Culture “War” if you wish (and there are reasons to do so), but it’s only a metaphor after all, and it can obscure the fact that cultural goods can change hands in various ways. A winner-take-all “war” is one avenue; a transaction between two parties is another, which has a potential to be more peaceful and mutually productive.
Blankenhorn is responding, I think, to the extraordinary fact that marriage today has never had so many friends. That’s to look at the cultural situation very optimistically, of course. But from whatever motives, a whole segment of the population (not just gays) who were generally dismissive of marriage are now committed to viewing it, at least in public, as an intrinsic good–all because of the same-sex marriage issue.
Blankenhorn is rational (whether he’s right is another question) to view this as a form of momentum that could conceivably lead to a fortification of marriage overall, in law and culture. But I think he’s wrong to give up the cultural good of traditional marriage now, without demanding anything in return as a quid pro quo.
A “transactional” strategy would permit the innovation of same-sex marriage, but only if it were to be “purchased” in exchange for policies that would benefit the institution of marriage overall–by making it harder to dissolve (eliminating no-fault, e.g.), and restoring it as the only way to receive certain public benefits.
It’s the lack of any such quid pro quo that makes Blankenhorn’s position defeatist, and even “show trialish,” as Greg suggests. I do view it as an objectively open question, whether access to marriage would actually be a stabalizing benefit to homosexuals; only time would tell, and I would share Blankenhorn’s hope for the best.
Whether such a transactional approach is even possible remains unclear. But it would certainly change the terms of the debate, alter the conception of a “war” between two irreconcilable parties, and put the ball in the court of the new-found “friends” of marriage. It would be a stand on broad pro-marriage principle, an acknowledgement of the limits of our knowledge, and a refusal to simply surrender.
June 26th, 2012 | 5:12 pm
My comments on Blankenhorn addressed only what he explicitly said. I did not attribute motives to him, I only observed the motives he attributed quite openly to himself.
He said (he actually insisted) that he had not changed his mind about any of the substantive issues. Yet he is changing his position even though he has not changed his opinions. And his reason for doing so, as he himself has said, is because he hopes thereby to gain a voice within the pro-gay-marriage power structure. He views this power structure as now predominant, and feels that he has no choice but to change his position in order to have a voice within it. He feels a sense of responsibility to have a voice within the controlling power structure, even at the expense of publicly taking positions not in alignment with his actual opinions.
So far as I can see, this is simply a restatement of what he has already said himself. And it is this that I find so disturbing.
If I have misunderstood or misread his comments, I would be very glad to hear it.
June 26th, 2012 | 5:19 pm
Darel:
“Unless you believe in the radical libertarian cum anarchist fantasy, how can a people who can’t agree on the deepest nature of the human condition and can’t participate in the same family structures — structures which constitute “the natural and fundamental group unit of society” (per the UN Declaration of Human Rights) — live together without one side compelling the other?”
Darel, since I am one of those believers in the “anarchist cum libertarian fantasy”, as you call it, I feel compeled to ask you: What do you mean by that question? Do people need to coerce – via The State- those who live with them to live in the same forms of family structures to actually coexist with each other?
June 26th, 2012 | 5:39 pm
It is not, and if it really comes down to a choice between betraying our consciences or violent conflict then yes, we must fight.
I think I misread the article. If two sides disagree and both are acting out of convictions of conscience, is there no way out other than violent conflict?
June 26th, 2012 | 5:44 pm
David: Not at all! I’m arguing that there are frequently other ways out, and we have a responsibility to look for them. In fact I’m optimistic (within reason) that other ways out can be found. However, Darel was asking whether my views rule out the possibility of ever reaching a point where there’s no choice but to fight. I don’t think they do, and in fact I think you sometimes have to fight. (For further elaboration see Independence, Declaration of.) But I’d much rather not!
June 26th, 2012 | 6:40 pm
Mr. Forster now writes:
“My comments on Blankenhorn addressed only what he explicitly said. I did not attribute motives to him, I only observed the motives he attributed quite openly to himself.”
That statement is patently false, Mr. Forster.
You DO attribute motives to me. You say explicitly in your piece that I remnd you of one of Stalin’s hapless victims at a Moscow show trial, pitifully confessing to sins never committed in a craven attempt to curry favor with the powerful. That is what you said, Mr. Foster, and it is a statement about my motives, and it comes from you, not me.
You said I reminded you of the shop keeper that Havel describes, who puts up a sign in his window saying the exact opposite of what he believes, in order to curry favor with “the powers that (apparently) rule him.” That is what you said, Mr. Foster, and it is a statement about my motives, and it comes from you, not me.
So please do not waste our time any further by claiming that you have nothing to say about my inner motivations and are only reporting, as if you were a court stenographer, what I have already said about myself.
You then write:
“He [Blankenhorn] said (he actually insisted) that he had not changed his mind about any of the substantive issues. Yet he is changing his position even though he has not changed his opinions. And his reason for doing so, as he himself has said, is because he hopes thereby to gain a voice within the pro-gay-marriage power structure.”
Another patent falsehood. I have said no such thing! Please show me, Mr. Forster, where I have said that I’ve changed my position on gay marriage because I hope thereby to gain a voice within the pro-gay-marriage power structure. I have never said such a thing, and I do not believe such a thing.
Do you realize what you are doing here? You are once again (oops! here we go again!) offering your amazing insights into my bad motives. How dare you do this?
You write that I am “publicly taking positions not in alignment with his [my] actual opinions.”
How dare you say this! Please let me repeat this for your readers: What you say about me is patently false.
For the record: My positions align with my opinions. I don’t have a secret motivation — moral cowardice, according to you — that causes me to say things that I do believe, like Havel’s shop keeper or Stalin’s show trial victim.
Can’t you see, Mr. Forster, that this style of argumentation — dismissing what someone says by way of speculating about his bad inner motives — does you and your readers a great disservice?
Oh, wait a minute! I’ve just had an epiphany! It’s like a miracle!
It’s now blindingly clear to me — based entirely on what you yourself have said, rather than on any idle speculation of my own — that you know perfectly well by now that what you are doing is journalistically wrong. But you do it anyway. Why? The reason is obvious, and comes from your own mouth. You are too afraid, too much of a personal coward, to admit your error and change your ways.
After all, you have editors who rule over you. You have a a tenuous reputation as a public intellectual to worry about. Admitting error and changing direction in these circumstances would be too risky for you, especially in light of your weak personal character.
I don’t know you personally of course, but your entire rhetorical strategy here reminds me of the guy in Antonioni’s great movie, The Conformist, who knows what is true but cannot summon the moral courage to tell the truth, due to his craven fear of the fascists. All very sad. And even kind of creepy.
June 26th, 2012 | 7:30 pm
Maggie Gallagher interprets Bankenhorn the same way I do. Here’s how she summarizes Blankenhorn over in The Corner:
It’s very difficult to respond to him intellectually because he says he has not changed his mind about the fact that gay marriage represents a step in the de-institutionalization of marriage. He stands by his Proposition 8 testimony. He’s not recanting. He has just lost hope that fighting gay marriage can be part of a strategy for strengthening marriage. He’s left with the hope that somehow if he concedes gay marriage he will be in a strong position to address his core concerns about fatherless America.
So Gallagher reads Blankenhorn as saying he is “conceding gay marriage” even though he “stands by his Proposition 8 testimony,” “is not recanting,” etc. She delicately comments that as a result of this approach, “it’s very difficult to respond to him intellectually.” I was less delicate.
June 26th, 2012 | 7:36 pm
Greg Foster writes: “It is not, and if it really comes down to a choice between betraying our consciences or violent conflict then yes, we must fight.”
Exactly what sort of violence are you threatening?
Are you going to kill homosexuals? Or judges? or legislators who don’t do your bidding?
June 26th, 2012 | 7:56 pm
Jay, in Canada and Europe people have been prosecuted as criminals for no crime other than expressing opposition to gay marriage. Signs are already emerging that America is going down the same road they did. I’m trying desperately to avoid a violent confrontation here. But we can’t avoid it if we don’t first admit that it might happen. Can’t we at least agree on this much – that we are a nation of people who prefer violence to slavery (again, see Independence, Declaration of) and that’s exactly why it’s really, really, really important to prioritize finding a peaceful solution to this problem?
June 26th, 2012 | 7:56 pm
Mr. Forster:
No, you were not less delicate. You were less truthful. What Maggie said about me is fair and basically accurate and what you said about me is unfair and patently inaccurate. That’s the difference; delicacy has nothing to do with it. I can see that further exchange with you is pointless, and that I was probably right about the coward part.
June 26th, 2012 | 8:17 pm
Greg Foster wrote: “Jay, in Canada and Europe people have been prosecuted as criminals for no crime other than expressing opposition to gay marriage. ”
That simply is not true. There have been prosecutions for hate speech, but not for simply expressing opposition to same-sex marriage.
Apparently, telling the truth is no longer a Christian virtue. Indeed, certain Christians seem to think they have a dispensation to lie for the same of some “higher truth.”
June 26th, 2012 | 8:43 pm
Greg,
I take your rejection of Rawls at face value. But what is unclear to me is the basis of the “moral consensus” which you foresee, one which can bring together pro-SSM and pro-OSM parties. It appears that you are appealing not to morality or a definition of the good life, but instead to social science findings. These, I am afraid, simply cannot do the work you hope they can do. Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions gives a suggestion as to why.
June 26th, 2012 | 10:06 pm
“Yet he is changing his position even though he has not changed his opinions. And his reason for doing so, as he himself has said, is because he hopes thereby to gain a voice within the pro-gay-marriage power structure. He views this power structure as now predominant, and feels that he has no choice but to change his position in order to have a voice within it. He feels a sense of responsibility to have a voice within the controlling power structure, even at the expense of publicly taking positions not in alignment with his actual opinions.”
I don’t think this is what he said at all. He clearly states his belief that traditional marriage and gay marriage are two “opposing goods.” From the former, the ideal environment (according to him) for raising children is somewhat preserved. From the latter, gay relationships are afforded the dignity
and respect they deserve within a culture that, for many decades now, has defined marriage as a romantic vehicle for self-determination, expression,and free association.
At best the man has hope that the very public clamor for the right to get married will spark a newfound respect for the institution by society as a whole. At worst he has just come to understand that defeating gay marriage won’t actually DO anything to significantly prevent the “de-institutionalization” of marriage as decades of pre-SSM culture has proven. He fears the possibility that the only practical effect his campaign against SSM had was to continue the stigmatization of gay people and their relationships.
June 26th, 2012 | 10:07 pm
“And his reason for doing so, as he himself has said, is because he hopes thereby to gain a voice within the pro-gay-marriage power structure.”
I don’t think this is what he said at all. He clearly states his belief that traditional marriage and gay marriage are two “opposing goods.” From the former, the ideal environment (according to him) for raising children is somewhat preserved. From the latter, gay relationships are afforded the dignity and respect they deserve within a culture that, for many decades now, has defined marriage as a romantic vehicle for self-determination, expression,and free association.
At best the man has hope that the very public clamor for the right to get married will spark a newfound respect for the institution by society as a whole. At worst he has just come to understand that defeating gay marriage won’t actually DO anything to significantly prevent the “de-institutionalization” of marriage as decades of pre-SSM culture has proven. He fears the possibility that the only practical effect his campaign against SSM had was to continue the stigmatization of gay people and their relationships.
June 26th, 2012 | 10:18 pm
Greg said: “in Canada and Europe people have been prosecuted as criminals for no crime other than expressing opposition to gay marriage. Signs are already emerging that America is going down the same road they did.”
This is a gross oversimplification and true scaremongering. Canada and Europe have well-established legal precedents for more restrictive speech rights than the U.S. The “put gays behind an electric fence” pastor could very well have been charged with a crime in some European countries, yet he walks free
here (as he should).
June 26th, 2012 | 11:46 pm
[...] If It’s a Culture “War,” What Does Winning Look Like? [...]
June 27th, 2012 | 2:01 am
David Blankenhorn doth protest too much…or too viciously. He seems to confirm what Forster only suspected: the gay hate campaign has gotten to him. It is normal for kind, decent humans, when faced with that level of vitriol, to doubt themselves rather than their attackers, because they can’t imagine assaulting another another person so aggressively without a compelling moral cause. And so they withdraw….Game, set, match to the party who throws the loudest tantrum.
Meanwhile, as a practical matter, gay adoption and both home and hetero in vitro conceptions should end. If those were off the table, it might be easier to craft dignified legal accommodation for same-sex partners.
June 27th, 2012 | 3:34 am
Greg,
Well, getting out the culture war appears to be difficult.
In terms of what you addressed to me, not David, I’m having trouble processing its cognitive content.
It seems to be addressed primarily to the name of my newsletter. Which I will tell you I don’t really like probably for some of the same reasons you don’t like it.
Even though I chose it.
Culture war is a term created by James Davison Hunter to describe a technical process: a culture war is a struggle over the nature of reality and who has the capacity to legitimately define reality.
Its used colloquially in other ways of course.
I’ve read your piece. Other than abandoning the uses of the word “war” and “victory” what are you proposing? I must be dense. I don’t really understand.
Is the thing in the womb tissues–or a human life
That’s the culture war on abortion.
Are two men who commit to each other a marriage? Or not?
That’s the culture war on marriage.
Its hard to compromise this because its about what is real and true.
June 27th, 2012 | 4:08 am
Defending David Blankenhorn
Greg,I understand why you find it difficult to distinguish between what I wrote and what your wrote but David Blankenhorn is right.
What I wrote about him respect his intellectual integrity. He has always viewed this as a conflict of goods. In choosing gay marriage, without renouncing his former views, he’s taking a difficult road.
He believes the good about marriage can be better respected by conceding the principle.
It’s a difficult view, but not what you described.
June 27th, 2012 | 4:42 am
Whatever Blankenhorn’s motives, his new position is nonsensical and naive. In the NYT piece he just sounded tired. Tired and inconsistent.
June 27th, 2012 | 6:36 am
Greg Forster wrote
“Jay, in Canada and Europe people have been prosecuted as criminals for no crime other than expressing opposition to gay marriage”
No, people have been prosecuted for disobeying the laws forbidding unlawful discrimination, in speech or conduct.
No country in Europe is seeking to restrict the religious beliefs of individuals, but, rather, to exclude their intervention in, or impact on, the relations between private individuals and the law of the land. This prohibition obliges individuals to respect common rules in their relations with others; they cannot exempt themselves from them for religious reasons – which comes down to asserting the primacy of these rules over personal beliefs.
To allow religion to be used as a cloak for evading the general laws applicable to all citizens is to turn faith into faction and to encourage a form of communitarianism, with ethnic and religious solidarities and allegiances threatening to override republican unity. If the rights of citizens are to vary in accordance with their religious affiliations, how is the republic one and indivisible?
June 27th, 2012 | 6:47 am
Jay, in Canada and Europe people have been prosecuted as criminals for no crime other than expressing opposition to gay marriage.
Greg Forster,
Documentation, please.
June 27th, 2012 | 8:01 am
Two things seems clear: David Blankenhorn’s reasons for his thinking are as he stated. Greg Forster is not a “coward”. This discussion proves, first of all, that ad hominem statements are hurtful and do not advance any hope of reasoning together. One first step would be to eliminate them.
The previous post by Douglas Farrow provides a second step, the importance of which cannot be over-emphasized: The status of men, women, and the children who are born from their marital union. Please read the section entitled, “A tool of the State”. If time permits, please read the ;entire article.
Therein, in my opinion, lies the heart of the matter. Civil rights for adults are one thing; but as Nat Hentoff teaches us, for “me” as well as “thee”. Children and their natural right to the parents of their birth, aside from unavoidable catastrophe, are another. Resolution of these issues can lead to the peace that people of good will desire.
June 27th, 2012 | 9:52 am
I got no dog in this fight, but I have to say that I don’t read Mr. Forster in the same way Mr. Blankenhorn does. He’s saying — “Mr. B’s behavior looks like this to me.” Not saying “Mr. B’s inner thoughts and motives are what I say they are.”
I read Mr. Forster as saying “It looks odd to say that you haven’t changed your opinion of X, but now you are going over to work on the side of anti-X so as to be more productive of some greater good. It looks like the behavior of those who felt pressured by others to act against their beliefs.”
Well, guess what — it does look like that. How many pro-lifers go over and start to support pro-abortion policies in order to promote a greater good of family health or something? Not many. And if they did, we would wonder about what in the heck they are doing.
Saying that someone’s behavior looks odd and hard to understand is not attributing bad motives. It is pointing out one’s impression of another’s behavior. And I have to say, having read both sides of this dispute that I honestly do not understand what Mr. Blankenhorn says he is doing. It doesn’t make sense. It looks odd and hard to understand, no matter how many times he tries to explain it. So maybe the fact that people are struggling to understand and relying on analogies to explain it should cause Mr. Blankenhorn to reflect on the way he’s expressed himself, rather than lashing out at those who point out the obvious.
June 27th, 2012 | 10:06 am
Regarding the subject of equal rights for all and religious freedom, two important points come to mind.
The first, as so many have written, “freedom of worship” is available to persons living under tyranny; John the Baptist, while in his prison cell awaiting execution, was free to worship in the depths of his soul; a Christian believer in North Korea also.
Freedom of religion, on the other hand, was eloquently described by Father John Jenkins in his announcement of the lawsuit filed by the University of Notre Dame: “This filing if about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives. For if we concede that the Government can decide which religious organizations are sufficiently religious to be awarded the freedom to follow the principles that define their mission, then we have begun to walk down a path that ultimately leads to the undermining of those institutions. … [the result will be that] these religious organizations become mere tools for the exercise of government power, morally subservient to the state and not free from its infringements. If that happens, it will be the end of genuinely religious organizations in all but name.” The full statement is available on the internet.
Again, in my opinion, two fundamental points must be addressed before people of good will can begin a civil discussion of this matter. They are the status of natural parentage versus all persons as wards of the state and freedom of religion including the freedom to give institutional form to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy versus freedom of worship.
June 27th, 2012 | 11:25 am
The question, I suppose, is whether those who are opposed to same-sex marriage are opposed because they are concerned that permitting same-sex marriage will harm “traditional marriage,” or whether they are opposed to same-sex marriage in principle, even if it will have no effect on “traditional marriage.” There are 30 states that have some kind of ban on same-sex marriage, and of those 20 also ban civil unions. One would think if one is merely trying to protect marriage, it would not be necessary to ban civil unions. So it seems to me not unreasonable for gay people to suspect that there is more going on in the campaign against same-sex marriage than just the protection of marriage.
It seems to me David Blankenhorn is saying he participated in the campaign against same-sex marriage because he thought that fighting same-sex marriage would protect and strengthen “traditional marriage.” But he now believes that the fight against same-sex marriage is not doing any good, since traditional marriage continues to deteriorate.
June 27th, 2012 | 11:40 am
Linda Wolpert Smith –
Same-sex marriage doesn’t have to mean ‘no relationship with “the parents of their birth”‘, though.
June 27th, 2012 | 12:49 pm
Re: Ray Ingles comment. A recent post (Monday, June 25) “Stomach over Nerve”, a title that is I believe unfair, provides a link to an article by Prof. Douglas Farrow of McGill University. This article provides a frame of reference for the subject that is under discussion here. It is very well worth taking the time to read in its entirety. If you cannot spare that much time, I suggest you begin with the section “Divine & Human Rights” and continue through “Unfolding the Logic”. I am in agreement with Dr. Farrow.
If your post directed to me was intended to refer to circumstances beyond the control of a mother and a father, when children are separated from their mother and father as a family unit because of abandonment, for example, or death, that of course is another matter. I do believe that every possible effort should be made to provide each child with a replacement for the mother (female) and a replacement for the father (male).
June 27th, 2012 | 1:07 pm
Wow, so many questions, comments and challenges that deserve answers. And I’m also getting some very productive responses, including challenges, from friends over private email. I think I’d better stop trying to handle the conversation in the comment thread and circle back with one, or probably more, follow-up posts.
In the interest of generating light rather than heat, I intend to take at least a few days – maybe longer – before posting further. I hope this won’t be taken as shirking my responsibilities as an interlocutor, but as a recognition of my own limitations and a good faith effort to do justice to some very difficult issues.
I don’t expect I’ll be returning to the subject of Blankenhorn; Slats Grobnik has my gratitude for saying everything that needs to be, and probably can be, said on the matter. But the other issues need responses. I expect I’ll start with Gallagher’s question: what, other than dropping the martial terminology, am I asking for? I’ve written about that before in general terms regarding the culture war, but not specifically with reference to the marriage issue, so that seems like a good place to start.
June 27th, 2012 | 1:12 pm
Linda Wolpert Smith,
I am sure I have begun to sound like a broken record on this issue, but for people allegedly concerned about the right of kids to be raised by their biological parents, gay marriage and same-sex parenting would seem to me to vanish into insignificance in comparison to what has happened among heterosexuals.
My favorite new statistics on parenting:
I have repeated this many times, but it is always relevant:
US Out of Wedlock Births
Asians 17%
Whites 29%
Hispanics 53%
Native Americans 66%
Blacks 72%
All groups combined 41%
Is it really that people want children to be raised by their biological parents, or do they just not want children to be raised by same-sex parents?
June 27th, 2012 | 1:40 pm
David Nickol & Co,
here is your asked for evidence:
“Åke Green (Swedish pronunciation: [o?k? gre?n]), born 3 June 1941, is a Swedish Pentecostal Christian pastor who was prosecuted, but acquitted, under Sweden’s law against hate speech because of critical opinions on homosexuality in his sermons. The district court found him guilty and sentenced him to one month in prison. The sentence was appealed to the court of appeals (hovrätt). On 11 February 2005 Göta hovrätt overturned the decision and acquitted Åke Green. On 9 March, the Prosecutor-General (Riksåklagaren) appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, which on 29 November also acquitted.
The Supreme Court stated that Åke Green had violated Swedish law as it currently stands regarding agitation against group, and that the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression as well as freedom of religion does not protect him. However, the Supreme Court also stated that the freedom of expression as well as freedom of religion provided by the European Convention on Human Rights, which is superior to Swedish law, gives him protection, since jurisprudence shows that a conviction would probably not be upheld by the European Court.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85ke_Green
June 27th, 2012 | 2:08 pm
here is your asked for evidence
Johan Lindahl,
A case here and there where someone was arrested and let go (and sued and won, as in the case of the British street preacher), or prosecuted and acquitted, do not count as evidence. If anything, the alarm that they cause is added protection that such things will not happen in the future. The case of the Swedish preacher should not lead anyone in the United States to fear that they will be prosecuted for speaking out against same-sex marriage.
As I repeatedly point out, the Supreme Court last year decided 8-1 that screaming “God hates fags” protesting (of all things) a military funeral is protected speech. (And it was one of the most conservative judges who dissented.) If a prosecution and acquittal in Sweden makes Americans fearful that they will lose their freedom of speech, and Catholic priests will be forced to perform same-sex marriages, I don’t know any other word for it than paranoia. I am well aware that a few gays and lesbians have won some anti-discrimination lawsuits (e.g., the wedding photographer) that people who object to homosexuality are very unhappy about. However, that does not amount to suppression of freedom of speech or coercion of priests, ministers, or rabbis to perform weddings they choose not to.
June 27th, 2012 | 2:11 pm
I grieve for children whose families have been separated through divorce and for children born to unmarried mothers. I do believe that abandonment of one’s children (unless forced by circumstances utterly and completely beyond one’s control) is unjust and an offense against the child. I am aware that circumstances can force mothers, fathers, and children into such situations but believe we should avoid these if possible and never deliberately create them.
Your statement indicates that among the many points of view regarding homosexuality, you believe that some are motivated by ill will alone and, of course, you are correct. No matter what the subject, there are always those who are against it but not for any particular solution.
My point is that good reasons exist among people of good for very serious concern regarding the natural, pre-political bond of mothers, fathers, and the children born of their marital union. Professor Douglas Farrow offers a carefully-reasoned analysis of the basis for this concern. The link is provided as described above.
June 27th, 2012 | 3:23 pm
“Isn’t that supposed to mean anything to Christians? If you expect gay rights activists to follow Ghandi and Martin Luther King, why don’t you follow Jesus?”
Yes, indeed, gays are human as are we all. No, I don’t expect all gays to follow the rational and successful strategies of a Ghandi or an MLK. (By the way, neither were without followers, many followers.) But then these are claims I never made. Changes of subject, ad hominems, and tu quoques covers most of it. Why use them if you have a solid positive argument? Are not gay rights activists just as bad using the same tactics as children singing hateful songs?
My claim is that I don’t see _any_ gay rights activists pursuing Ghandi and MLK’s approach. _Any_. Among Christian activists, I find the usual human mix from hatred to love, with everything in between, while defending a believed long term human good. Who am I missing? Where can I find a rational argument that SSM is meaningful that the offerer stays with when challenged? Those on this forum have come closest, so I argue here. One day, I hope to learn something. But even here it turns out pro-SSM posters prefer to tell us of the limitations of those who disagree with them.
For example, above you support SSM activists reading the minds of those who disagree with them. Reread Blankenhorn’s outrage above when it is done to him. Do you think him wrong to object?
Stop telling other people what they think and tell us what you think about the subject at hand. Periodically, you do so, but so rarely as to surprise when it happens. Let others speak for themselves. Provide information, by all means, but respect information provided by others as well.
As I’ve said many times before here, make your case, don’t just claim it.
June 27th, 2012 | 4:53 pm
“What I find strange, actually, is those who oppose same-sex marriage and homosexuality in general—who characterize homosexual acts as “grave depravity” and opine that if homosexuality is accepted, why not pedophilia, incest, and bestiality—who seem to be so hurt that anyone might be angry with them and call them bigots”
That’s strange.
Homosexual activists who argue that their sexual desires by themselves are self-justifying and entitle them to marriage — and then are angered by anyone else’s bringing up other sexual desires — are both bigots and hypocrites.
Either sexual desires justify themselves and entitled the persons involved to marriage, or they don’t. If they don’t, homosexual desires don’t. If they do, pedophilia, incest, and bestiality do.
June 27th, 2012 | 5:14 pm
My claim is that I don’t see _any_ gay rights activists pursuing Ghandi and MLK’s approach. _Any_.
Mike Melendez,
I am not sure what you mean. Nonviolence? Greg Forster is the only one who has brought up using violence here. Martin Luther King didn’t always mince words:
The gay community sees the gay-rights movement as a civil rights struggle, and while I think its spokespersons should take a certain amount of care not to directly offend religious sensibilities, I don’t see why the gay-rights movement should accept religious justification as a reason to forego their rights, any more than those fighting slavery or racism should have said, “We understand you believe slavery is God’s will, and we don’t want to question your religion, so we’ll give you a pass.”
But whom do you accept as “gay rights activists”? Most people who get quoted have no more claim to speak on behalf of the gay community than southern pastors who talk about how good it would feel to kill gay people . . . but it would be wrong. Have you been offended by Human Rights Campaign, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, PFLAG, the Log Cabin Republicans? If you are going to accept every gay columnist who writes something offensive, or every protestor at a demonstration who does something obnoxious as a representative of the gay rights movement, then why should the gay rights movement not hold you responsible for the Westboro Baptist Church and people who teach their children to sing homos don’t go to heaven?
I think the people who are sympathetic here to gay rights and same-sex marriage are quite patient and tolerant and make good arguments. Generally the issue at hand is not making a case for same-sex marriage from the ground up, but arguing a specific subtopic. I doubt that anyone here arguing one side is going to convince his or her opponents to convert to the other, so if you’re looking for an argument so compelling that it will make you a same-sex marriage supporter, I don’t think you’re going to find it. Speaking in general terms, my best arguments are always going to fall short in your eyes, and yours are always going to fall short in my eyes. That doesn’t mean you can’t convince me of anything, or (I hope) I can’t convince you of anything.
By the way, I don’t cite statistics about out-of-wedlock births and divorce primarily as “tu quoque” arguments. It seems to me they are a much bigger problem than same-sex marriage and its ramifications, and I think in general people don’t want to bother trying to do anything about them because it’s easier to make your cause something that doesn’t really affect you personally and is unlikely to make your taxes go up.
June 27th, 2012 | 6:25 pm
Either sexual desires justify themselves and entitled the persons involved to marriage, or they don’t.
Mary,
I don’t know what it means to claim a sexual desire (or any desire, for that matter) justifies itself, so I can’t speak for anyone who made such an argument (if indeed anyone ever did). But I would say the fact that marriage is a contract between persons who solemnly consent to give themselves to one another rules out marriages involving children or animals to humans. Children and animals can’t solemnly consent to give themselves over to another in a binding contract. In fact, given the number of annulments handed out by the Catholic Church, it is clear that even two adults aren’t always capable of giving the level of consent required. There have, of course, been some famous incestuous marriages, like Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII (and Ptolemy XIV after Ptolemy XIII was killed), and Abraham and his half-sister Sarah.
What is it that makes any sexual act moral or immoral? I think that is the very first question that needs to be answered before one makes the leap to talking about who gets to marry and who doesn’t. As I said, I don’t know what a self-justifying desire is. It doesn’t seem to me the answer lies down that path.
June 27th, 2012 | 7:52 pm
David Nickols points to statistics concerning illegitamacy as evidence that marriage supporters dont really care about marriage but “really” hate gay people.
He ignores (at least) three points.
#1. Were well on record as being against family breakdown in every form since the sexual revolution made sexual ethics a political issue. We have spent the last 40 years being against fatherlessness & divorce and easy sex and cohabitation. (to name just a few)
#2. That a new “pure relationship” theory of marriage cannot then address these issues. Same-sex “marriage” turns marriage into just an expression of love and cannot call fatherlessness (or motherlessness) intrinsicly evil…It cant care about family formation…So ergo it represents the most imidiate and philisophically dangerous movement against the family.
#3. His point could be better made by turning it around. If gays & the cultural left are (suddenly) really so concerned with marriage and children having “two parents” and the protections of marriage; Why are THEY not coming out against divorce & illigetamacy and the like.
June 27th, 2012 | 10:54 pm
“But I would say the fact that marriage is a contract between persons who solemnly consent to give themselves to one another rules out marriages involving children or animals to humans.”
I notice you skip blithely over incest. Come to think of it, you left out polygamy entirely. Surely you do not think that martial status is not a protected category?
June 28th, 2012 | 5:48 am
Discussions on matters of critical importance to our social arrangements tend toward incoherence, my own contributions among all the others.
One reason for this incoherence (beyond the fact that we have no unity regarding first principles) is that we have not acknowledged certain distinctions.
Several arguments presented here assume a type of person in need of defense, that is, a person of good will and courage who is struggling with homosexual inclinations and wants only to be left alone to live as he chooses.
Other arguments refer to a group of activists who, in the name of civil rights, are struggling in the political sphere for protections of their personal arrangements.
And, finally, others are responding to a movement to remove from the public square any and all institutional manifestations of the principles that define serious Jewish and Christian moral philosophy. In other words, a crushing sameness is to be imposed on people of historical religious faith when their activities extend beyond temple or sanctuary. And, regardless of any civil penalties that have been or may be imposed and which are tending in a dangerous direction, there exists already a climate of suspicion of motives and hostility that casts a shadow over our common life.
My list is not comprehensive. My point is that no progress can possibly be made until all those of good will who are participating define their terms.
Certainly nothing is gained by comparing a reasoned support of marriage as the union of a man and a woman with responsibilities, both spiritual and under the law, toward the children who are born from their union, with a support of slavery with its roots in a desire for dominance and power over the lives of others.
June 28th, 2012 | 7:15 am
Regarding religious freedom and “paranoia” (as referenced by David Nichols):
At thepublicdiscourse.com, Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley, Scotland, has posted an article entitled, “At the Door of the Temple: Religious Freedom and the New Orthodoxy”. He offers reasoned analysis of the question as it is playing out in England and Scotland. It is not ridiculous to think that it describes one path that may be taken here.
June 28th, 2012 | 8:22 am
David Nickols points to statistics concerning illegitamacy as evidence that marriage supporters dont really care about marriage but “really” hate gay people.
Fitzgerald,
You got everything wrong including the spelling of my name!
June 28th, 2012 | 8:41 am
Linda Wolpert Smith – I’m afraid that I need to be persuaded that ‘divine rights’ exist, so that section is of limited utility to me. At present, anyway.
But I note something interesting in the essay you point out. Farrow writes:
But then he drops the whole idea. He doesn’t try to explore the ‘balance of harm’ path in the slightest. The problem is, no right is entirely ‘inviolable’ in the sense Farrow’s going for here; even the right to life may be revoked in the case of the death penalty.
In practice, all rights are limited in practice by ‘balance of harm’ arguments – e.g. “Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.” It sure seems to me that a ‘balance of harm’ argument could make a principled distinction between pedophilia and homosexuality.
June 28th, 2012 | 9:43 am
Regarding religious freedom and “paranoia” (as referenced by David Nichols)
Linda Wolpert Smith,
Please note what I said: “If a prosecution and acquittal in Sweden makes Americans fearful that they will lose their freedom of speech, and Catholic priests will be forced to perform same-sex marriages, I don’t know any other word for it than paranoia.” Do you actually disagree with that very limited statement?
Greg Forster had said, “[I]n Canada and Europe people have been prosecuted as criminals for no crime other than expressing opposition to gay marriage.” I asked for documentation. Johan Lindahl replied, “[H]ere is your asked evidence,” and offered the case of the Swedish minister who was prosecuted but eventually acquitted. Bishop Tartaglia over at The Public Interest offers considerably more reasons for his concern than the case of an acquitted Swedish minister.
So I stick by my statement. If an acquittal in Sweden over the issue of hate speech and homosexuality makes religious Americans tremble, the only thing I can think to call it is paranoia. Once again, Greg Forster said, “[I]n Canada and Europe people have been prosecuted as criminals for no crime other than expressing opposition to gay marriage.” If this statement is to have any force at all in the current debate, something more alarming has to be produced than the prosecution of a Swede who was ultimately acquitted. His case was, in fact, a victory for free speech and religious liberty.
June 28th, 2012 | 9:47 am
To: Ray Ingles: Thank you for your response.
May I respectfully ask if the state for you is then the source of all moral standards and are these standards all subject to change, even to the extent of becoming the opposite of the original concept, should the state so desire?
As far as the question of homosexuality is concerned, I think that all people of good will make a distinction, as far as civil law is concerned, between activity involving an adult and a child and the freely chosen activities of two adults.
The subjects with which I am most deeply concerned at this time are,first, the, in my opinion, natural rights of children to their own mother and father whenever possible and, second, preservation of religious freedom for all.
Dr. Farrow’s article is, I do think, worth the time of all interested parties. It provides a clear exposition of one, carefully reasoned position on the question of marriage. Those who are in agreement with Dr. Farrow owe respectful attention to carefully developed arguments from other points of view.
June 28th, 2012 | 11:05 am
And, finally, others are responding to a movement to remove from the public square any and all institutional manifestations of the principles that define serious Jewish and Christian moral philosophy.
Linda Wolpert Smith,
I think what some of us are saying is that we do not feel such a movement exists. Since religious freedom is important but not absolute, lines have always been drawn, and there is no foreseeable future in which this will not be the case. I understand that some people feel that on the issues of same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, and the contraceptive mandate, that the line is being drawn too far into what they consider the rightful territory of religious liberty. But with 0 being no religious liberty at all, and 100 being absolute religious liberty, shifting the line from 60 to 55 does not constitute “a movement to remove from the public square any and all institutional manifestations of the principles that define serious Jewish and Christian moral philosophy.” I see no evidence of an attempt to simply abolish all religious freedoms other than the freedom to worship in church.
June 28th, 2012 | 11:33 am
David Nickols points to statistics concerning illegitamacy as evidence that marriage supporters dont really care about marriage but “really” hate gay people.
They are both the results of the same “sexual revolution”.
He wants to make it straight vs. gays, but it has never been straights vs. gays. It has always been about sexual “freedom” vs. traditional views of obligation and duty.
There was a view that evolved over centuries about what a family is, what a marriage is, and who owes what to whom. Then the left wing brought us “the sexual revolution”, which “liberated” us from these duties and obligations, enabling us to justify any act of selfishness as long as it resulted in adult sexual and emotional pleasure and fulfillment. The harm done to children, to the family unit, or to the institutions of society, are things that only “bigots” and “haters” notice.
For this reason, the entire “gay marriage is okay because marriage and family is all wrecked anyway” strikes me as extremely dishonest.
June 28th, 2012 | 11:36 am
“What I find strange, actually, is those who oppose same-sex marriage and homosexuality in general—who characterize homosexual acts as “grave depravity” and opine that if homosexuality is accepted, why not pedophilia, incest, and bestiality—who seem to be so hurt that anyone might be angry with them and call them bigots”
That’s strange.
Homosexual activists who argue that their sexual desires by themselves are self-justifying and entitle them to marriage — and then are angered by anyone else’s bringing up other sexual desires — are both bigots and hypocrites.
To be fair, we should separate “victimless” sexual deviance from pedophilia, which involves violation of the age of consent.
But certainly it is worth asking, if sexual pleasure is a basic human right, why shouldn’t everyone be entitled to it – that is, open about the sources of their sexual pleasure?
Incest is a real thing that exists, so why shouldn’t people who experience it have “incest pride” parades paid for at taxpayer expense?
And if the right to marry whatever turns you on is a basic human right, why shouldn’t everyone be entitled to it – that is, entitled to marry whatever brings them pleasure?
June 28th, 2012 | 11:47 am
Re comment by David Nichol: (With apologies for previous misspelling of your name):
Father John Jenkins in introducing the lawsuit filed by Notre Dame describes the heart of this matter. Others, John Garvey, President of Catholic University, for one has spoken at length as well. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has described exactly what is at stake in this matter. I understand that many other churchmen and women of different faiths have set forth their concerns, using appeals to reason and American tradition. Do you refuse to take any of these persons seriously?
Dark rumors from Sweden and other places do not provide the basis for my thinking or my concern. Evidence in the United States of a bias against religiously affliated reason is enough. (See the aforementioned homilies and addresses)
Understanding religious faith, as I do, as something interwoven into the fabric of one’s being, so to speak, and taking account of the fact that honesty itself demands that one integrate these beliefs into one’s actions, public and private, as far as the social demands are concerns, one must try to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, give shelter to the homeless while, at the same time, not offending against one’s deepest moral commitments. Catholics have until now, in hospitals, schools and universities, and social service organizations, had that great privilege. These entities have functioned within the concept of religious diversity we have historically honored, and have served alongside other persons of good will.
I find it difficult to believe that you consider professors of the law school at Notre Dame, its president, and many, many others to be paranoid.
June 28th, 2012 | 11:51 am
For this reason, the entire “gay marriage is okay because marriage and family is all wrecked anyway” strikes me as extremely dishonest.
Blake,
Has anyone here taken that position? Certainly I have not.
June 28th, 2012 | 11:55 am
And if the right to marry whatever turns you on is a basic human right, why shouldn’t everyone be entitled to it – that is, entitled to marry whatever brings them pleasure?
Blake,
Who says marriage is about sexual pleasure? Both gay and straight people have known since the dawn of humanity that it is not necessary to get married to have sexual pleasure. I don’t know where this idea comes from that the argument for same-sex marriage is that if you have a desire, you have a right to fulfill it. That is utter nonsense.
June 28th, 2012 | 12:43 pm
Linda Wolpert Smith –
Oh, no. I have a rather different scheme. The state is simply a tool, a framework we build to allow us to operate together as a society.
Right, which is why I was surprised to see Farrow apparently blurring that distinction. He sets up a dilemma – ‘if homosexuality is allowed, how is pedophilia to be forbidden?’ – but doesn’t explore an apparently logical response that differs from his own.
I’m not even claiming he does so deliberately; but I do think he should make a bit more of an effort to understand those he’s disagreeing with.
June 28th, 2012 | 1:46 pm
To: Ray Ingles: I do understand that rejection of absolutes exists and that any person is free to accept that particular position. So, my question did not advance this discussion and I apologize for it.
Regarding Prof. Farrow’s position on a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia: I have no particular expertise whatsoever and claim no status that would entitle me to speak for him. My opinion is he may consider marriage between a man and a woman as the linchpin of sexual ethics as they have previously been understood – and that removal of this unifying principle may cause the entire structure to collapse.
June 28th, 2012 | 1:59 pm
Creating a social/moral/legal equivalence between gay marriage and heterosexual marriage will be creating an inequality. How? When a man marries a woman, he marries a person who has an intrinsic self-interest in the man’s not having sex with other women. If you examine the research on gay civil unions, a majority of gay men engage in sex outside the union and most of those feel it’s OK. That situation will probably never duplicate with women and men in marriage. Why do children play sports? One reason is to learn how to live together by the same rules. What it appears to me that progressives want here is to have the same benefits of marriage but not to have to play by the same “heterosexist” rules, such as sexual fidelity. Secondly, where did the idea of the battle of the sexes come from? Gender conflict. When people of mixed genders marry, they bring inherent gender conflicts to the game, conflicts that same-sex couples do not. In addition to that cost, when mixed gender couples have sex, they most often have some risk of pregnancy; in contrast, same-sex couples never have that risk (without some outside assistance). Yet mixed gender couples most often provide society with a valuable benefit – a child with a DNA relation to both parents. Same-sex marriage proponents want to pretend that these differences do not matter but I argue that mixed gender couples assume greater costs and risks while providing, on average, greater benefits to society. If one equates these situations, you are punishing the mixed gender couples as their greater costs/risks and greater benefits are being disregarded as trivial. Also, if you study the research closely (see my articles for starters), same-sex couples with children tend to have relatively low stability rates. While we don’t know for sure why, that fact alone should give us pause because we do know that children that experience multiple parental transitions tend to do less well. Finally, I have numerous publications detailing the flaws in much of the research designed to prove the “no difference” approach to GLBT parenting. It is truly amazing what you will find when you dig into this material. Just as an example, when Hatzenbuehler reported on the effects of state legislation on GLB persons, did you know that he found that in more pro-gay states, drug disorders increased over time among GLB persons? Did you know that he found that 56% of GLB persons in his nationally representative sample had some type of mental disorder within the past year? My bet is that you have never heard of that, regardless of whether his research is accurate or not. My main point here is that there is much theory and research that is being overlooked in these debates.
June 28th, 2012 | 5:49 pm
Blake,
Who says marriage is about sexual pleasure? Both gay and straight people have known since the dawn of humanity that it is not necessary to get married to have sexual pleasure.
Then there is no compelling reason why gays have to marry people of the same sex.
They can marry the person they intend to make a baby with, just like everyone else, and honor that person, support that person, and in short be held to the same standards that heteros are expected to adhere to.
June 28th, 2012 | 6:00 pm
What it appears to me that progressives want here is to have the same benefits of marriage but not to have to play by the same “heterosexist” rules, such as sexual fidelity. Secondly, where did the idea of the battle of the sexes come from? Gender conflict. When people of mixed genders marry, they bring inherent gender conflicts to the game, conflicts that same-sex couples do not.
The idea that a “family” headed by two men (a father and a stepfather, in most cases) or two women (a mother and a stepmother, in most cases) is “just as good as” or “just the same as” or “equal to” a real biological family is problematic for both of these reasons.
Gays insist that gender is so important (when we are talking about what they claim they need) and yet gender doesn’t matter at all; it is spo totally irrelevant that men and women are literally interchangeable (when it’s about what they claim their kids don’t need).
In the same way, they insist that marriage is “not procreative” (when they are responding to claims that they are not appropriately procreative for marriage), yet they take offense at the idea that they should be treated differently just because they’re not procreative – surely they are entitled to acquire a child and be treated as any other couple. (Or, conversely, of course the “point” of marriage is about sexual pleasure – but how dare you say it’s about sexual pleasure?)
Gays are claiming now that their marriage will be just as monogamous as any hetero union. But privately, many are already asking why gays should have to live like heteros?
The arguments flip back and forth. They will argue one thing and then when circumstances change, they will argue its exact opposite.
June 29th, 2012 | 9:42 am
Linda Wolpert Smith – It would appear that you didn’t read the link – I don’t ‘reject absolutes’, but I do conceive them a bit differently than I gather you do.
Right, that does seem to be his position. What struck me is that he seems to be at least peripherally aware of possible counterarguments, but (deliberately or not) doesn’t pursue them.
June 29th, 2012 | 12:23 pm
Gays are claiming now that their marriage will be just as monogamous as any hetero union. But privately, many are already asking why gays should have to live like heaters?
Blake,
You write as if you had deep-cover spies feeding you information about what goes on privately in gay circles.
June 29th, 2012 | 1:34 pm
To: Ray Ingles Thank you for your comment. My question was a distraction. Perhaps the subject will come up another time on first things.
I think it likely that Prof. Farrow (McGill University, Montreal) would respond to your concerns if so requested by letter.
My guess is that there were space limitations placed on the original article.
June 29th, 2012 | 3:05 pm
Blake,
Has anyone here taken that position? Certainly I have not.
There have been appeals to high divorce and/or illegitimacy rates on this blog, which is a variation of the same argument.
June 29th, 2012 | 3:28 pm
Blake,
You write as if you had deep-cover spies feeding you information about what goes on privately in gay circles.
I don’t know where you think I am “spying” on anyone. I am referring only to things said out in the open, and rather loudly.
The public debate on gay rights – like too many left wing debates these days – relies on the sense that you can get what you want through shortcuts: through lying, through manipulating, through dirty tricks and “end justifies the means” logic. I hate that logic, and I hate the tactics produced by that logic.
If gay rights activists were to pursue their end goals fairly and ethically, I’d support them – but then they’d have to be open to the legitimacy of my concerns about what they want (for instance, they’d have to stop engaging in the tactic of switching back and forth to avoid questions they can’t answer. They’d have to take a single position on questions like “Is marriage procreative?” and “Are genders interchangeable?”
June 29th, 2012 | 3:49 pm
There have been appeals to high divorce and/or illegitimacy rates on this blog, which is a variation of the same argument.
Blake,
Why in the world should one not bring up high (and increasing) out-of-wedlock birth rates when the topic is marriage and every child being raised by his or her biological parents? If the point of opposing same-sex marriage is to save traditional marriage from destruction, then surely the state of traditional marriage is of major concern. And if there are graver threats than same-sex marriage to traditional marriage, those who are trying to save traditional marriage would be wise to focus on the graver threats. This, it seems to me, is what David Blankenhorn is saying. If the fight against same-sex marriage isn’t actually doing anything that helps traditional marriage, then it is a waste of resources.
Now, of course, if you believe that the acceptance of same-sex marriage is not merely a threat to traditional marriage, but by its very nature the end of traditional marriage, then opposing same-sex marriage is the last-ditch battle to preserve traditional marriage. But I find it difficult to believe no one can enter into a traditional marriage if same-sex marriage is accepted. This would mean that there are no longer any traditional marriages in Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Argentina, and the other countries and localities that have legalized same-sex marriage.
It is a matter of battles versus the war. It seems to me perfectly possible to win the battle against same-sex marriage and lose the war to preserve traditional marriage.
June 29th, 2012 | 5:36 pm
Re: Comment by David Nichol regarding same-sex marriage and marriage of a man and a woman.
I have repeatedly referred to the Touchstone Magazine article by Prof. Douglas Farrow of McGill University because it contains information neither widely known or understood by many people of good will on both sides of the question relating to marriage.
Prof. Farrow writes: Six years ago, when same-sex marriage became law in Canada, the new legislation quietly acknowledged this. In its consequential amendments section, Bill C-38 struck out the language of “natural parent,” “blood relationship,” etc. from all Canadian laws. Wherever they were found, these expressions were replaced with “legal parent,” “legal relationship,” and so forth.
That was strictly necessary. “Marriage” was now a legal fiction, a tool of the state, not a natural and pre-political institution recognized and in certain respects (age, consanguinity, consent, exclusivity) regulated by the state.
… same sex marriage does away with the very institution – the only institution we have – that exists precisely in order to support the natural family and to affirm its independence from the state. In doing so, it effectively makes every citizen a ward of the state, by turning his or her most fundamental human connections into legal constructs at the state’s gift and disposal.”
It is not possible to receive this new information lightly. I do not believe that most people of good will who desire fairness or civil rights for deep, exclusive friendships between two men or two women understand the possible consequences for the “most fundamental human connections” that we can share, those which descend from human mothers and fathers to their children and for which until now, have also conferred the most solemn responsibilities on the men and women from whose bodily union the children were born.
Perhaps this provides another perspective; another way of “seeing” this issue.
June 29th, 2012 | 5:48 pm
Blake,
“for instance, they’d have to stop engaging in the tactic of switching back and forth to avoid questions they can’t answer.”
Your comment here goes to the heart of what is wrong with your style of argument. It is not gays who are switching back and forth; it is you. You take arguments made by one group of people and arguments made by another group, and then, because they support the same cause, you argue that they “switch back and forth” when it is really your lack of carefulness. It’s a little like arguing against Christianity because Catholics don’t agree with Baptists about the pope.
Take, for example, your claim about monogamy. Some gays believe in it and some do not, but you sling around sentences like “Gays are claiming now that their marriage will be just as monogamous as any hetero union” as if there were only one group who represents all gays.
Your arguments will make more sense the day you stop generalizing and confusing different groups of people.
July 3rd, 2012 | 3:37 pm
[...] excellent blogs hosted by First Things magazine, Greg Forster writes that this idea of victory is unsatisfactory and unrealistic: If “winning” means the preferences of our cultural subgroup are enacted as policy, there is no [...]
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