Anna Williams says (in her post “Christians and LGBT Bullying“) that she was left uneasy by Austin Ruse’s post last week on the not-exactly-impoverished population of gays and lesbians in the U.S. This, I think, might have been prompted as much by a commenter’s uncharitable interpretation of what Austin said as by what he actually said. Reviewing a recent study of the relative wealth of gay individuals and couples, Austin concluded by remarking, “We should all be so discriminated against.” He was not, of course, saying anything at all about those respects in which gays and lesbians are mocked, bullied, abused, attacked, or otherwise subject to unjust treatment, be it verbal, social, or physical. He was referring primarily to their financial status, which is in many respects enviable, and secondarily to the growing and impressive cultural power of gays and lesbians in politics, the media, and the academy.
There is no question that it is an unfortunately common experience for homosexual men and women to be harassed and bullied. Those of us who are not guilty of such behavior are not obliged to atone for it. We are instead obliged to notice that it happens and to condemn it when it does. Anna is right that we have a “moral obligation to fight the mistreatment” of gays and lesbians. It is the same obligation we have to fight the mistreatment of anyone.
But Anna also pointedly added that gays and lesbians face “bigotry,” and later referred to “bullying and bigotry” as though everyone could agree on what she meant. But “bigotry” is a word that needs some serious unpacking, and I really don’t know what she meant, or what others might take her to mean. The most common use of “bigotry” lately is to describe those who oppose same-sex marriage, even if they express no further opinion whatsoever on homosexual conduct. It goes without saying, in this brave new world, that anyone who does express an opinion on homosexual conduct, expressing a negative moral judgment, even or especially a negative moral judgment founded on reasons of religious faith, is obviously a “bigot.”
To beat one’s breast about the widespread “bigotry” against gays and lesbians, in this environment, without saying more clearly just what it is that one is condemning–or “confessing” on behalf of an unjust “society”–is to surrender a great deal of the ground of moral judgment. The pressure is intense, and is applied from “above” by the elite cultural gatekeepers, to accede to the following propositions: To disapprove of same-sex marriage (or of same-sex relations generally) is to be a bigot. To be a bigot is to be a bully, or at least to approve tacitly of the bullying behavior of others, or to render altogether unbelievable one’s claims that one is opposed to bullying or harassment. Therefore there is one and only one “proof” of good intentions available to the guilty party, whose only offense has been to say “no” to same-sex marriage. And that is that one must now say “yes.” Or else, in the extreme but not uncommon charge from the gay left, one has the blood of Matthew Shepard on one’s hands, or one must “own” the suicides of complete strangers.
It is remarkable how much headway has been made with this morally and intellectually bankrupt argument. Some prominent conservative journalists, as well as various policy wonks who have opined on marriage, family, or cultural issues, have thrown in the towel, all in order, it seems, not to be called “bullying bigots” any longer. And it is amazing how rapidly some of them (thank goodness, not all) join the chorus of those who condemned them a moment ago, now in their turn condemning those who continue to hold the views they just abandoned.
By all means, let us join Anna in thinking hard about how Christians, Jews, and others can say “we love you” to our homosexual brethren, while saying “no” to the demand that we surrender all our moral judgments on the new altar of sensitivity. But let us, in the course of this important enterprise, remember that the mea culpa for sins of which one is not guilty does more harm than good.
December 17th, 2012 | 5:03 pm
Opposition to gay marriage need not be bigoted, but it can be. Opponents would do well to draw the clearest of lines, even to the point of losing some allies. If we accept the modern popular definition of marriage as merely a union of love, opposition to gay marriage is bigoted. Against the wishes of some gay marriage opponents, we should be making the case that even straight couples without procreative intent should not be allowed be allowed to partake in the institution. Make clear that it cannot possibly be bigotry.
December 17th, 2012 | 5:12 pm
It goes without saying, in this brave new world, that anyone who does express an opinion on homosexual conduct, expressing a negative moral judgment, even or especially a negative moral judgment founded on reasons of religious faith, is obviously a “bigot.”
Where does it go without saying? Among the handful of commenters who defend gay people or make a case for same-sex marriage on First Thoughts, I have never seen anyone say that a person who has moral or religious objections to homosexuality or same-sex marriage is “obviously a bigot.” We hear again and again from First Things contributors that opponents of “normalizing” homosexuality or legalizing same-sex marriage are constantly calling people bigots, but where is that happening?
We get here on First Thoughts (generally from commenters) outright hostility and incivility, stereotyping of gays, catalogs of reasons why gay people are so horrible that government funds should not be wasted to treat AIDS victims, and sweeping generalizations such as I pointed out in the previous thread:
We are told that the “real” reason for same-sex marriage is not so that gay people can get married, but so the Catholic Church or…
December 17th, 2012 | 5:16 pm
(Continued from above)
We are told that the “real” reason for same-sex marriage is not so that gay people can get married, but so the Catholic Church or Christianity can be “marginalized.” It is not too far fetched to say some people, even here on First Things, see the fight for gay rights as a battle against Western, Christian civilization.
From now on, let’s have a little more evidence from those who are making the accusations that they are being intimidated into silence by being accused of being “bigots” merely for believing homosexuality is immoral or that same-sex marriage is to be resisted. It seems to me they are doing exactly the same kind of things they are accusing others of. They are claiming victim status. They are saying, “We try to speak out, but they call us bigots! How horrible they are. If you are against being called a bigot, you must be on our side. They are the bigots, and we are the good guys.”
December 17th, 2012 | 6:06 pm
A reply to David Nickol:
Our response can begin with the prevailing opinion of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding Proposition 8 in California.
December 17th, 2012 | 6:28 pm
I’m not sure if John is serious or not when he says
Against the wishes of some gay marriage opponents, we should be making the case that even straight couples without procreative intent should not be allowed be allowed to partake in the institution.
A determined intention not to have children is grounds for a declaration of nullity under Catholic canon law. However, IMO, for the State to inquire into the couple’s intention about this is beyond its proper role and competence.
December 17th, 2012 | 7:39 pm
David, recall the Chick-fil-a dustup?
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino: “[t]here is no place for discrimination on Boston’s Freedom Trail and no place for your company alongside it.”
Chicago alderman Joe Moreno: “If you are discriminating against a segment of the community, I don’t want you in the 1st Ward,” and said Cathy made “bigoted, homophobic comments”.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel: “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values” (comment made after Ald. Moreno’s)
I believe there were others, as well.
As you’ll recall, Cathy did not say anything about homosexuals as such, but merely expressed his opinion that marriage should remain between a man and a women.
So not only do we have the “bigot” charge from a Chicago alderman who was supported by the mayor of Chicago, we also have this alderman threatening to use his zoning authority to drive a business out of the city. So there is your evidence.
I don’t believe the author of this post was arguing against the word “bigot” in all circumstances, although it is quickly losing is meaning. I don’t think it was a blanket injunction against “claiming victim status.” That is not the issue. The issue is accusing people of bigotry and homophobia when all they have done is showed a lack of willingness to change the nature of marriage from what it has always been since the dawn of civilization. Such accusations are slanderous.
December 17th, 2012 | 7:47 pm
What we need are people who are Christians first and conservatives (or liberals) second. That means arguing for the Church while respecting and assuming the good will of those who disagree with us. That means not falling into the fallacies so common to the average ideological arguments. Every time we fall short of this standard, we do nothing good for the Church and give fodder to those who do stereotype Christians as bigots.
The posts that left a bad taste in Ms. Williams mouth contained arguments and themes that were of the “conservative first, Christian second” variety. They assumed that SSM advocates were acting out of malice for the Church and not good will for homosexual people. The posts trivialized harassment that many homosexual people do indeed experience. So, I understand Ms. Williams need for mouthwash.
December 17th, 2012 | 7:56 pm
I think Matthew Frank has made an entirely too charitable interpretation of Austin Ruse’s patently offensive comments. Ruse’s argument was, in outline:
The whole argument is false. The implication is that gay people mendaciously claim to be “politically powerless.” Not so. The issue of political powerlessness is a technical one involving “suspect classes” and levels of scrutiny in judicial review. Will the issues even come up when the Supreme Court decides the constitutionality of DOMA or the fate of Proposition 8? Who knows?
It seems to me that Austin Ruse’s post can be summed up as saying, “They claim to be discriminated against, but look at how much money they have, and look how much clout they have, and look how favorably the media treats them! And look at us! We’re the real victims!” If this same argument were made against Jews, it would be transparently anti-Semitic.
December 17th, 2012 | 8:05 pm
I am reminded by this article of how it was through anti-bullying legislation that much of Canada’s gay marriage legislation was passed.
December 17th, 2012 | 8:13 pm
I should add that there was no evidence whatsoever that Cathy discriminated against homosexuals either as employees or customers. Not a single complaint. The accusations were purely based on an interview in which he said he did not support attempting to redefine marriage. If I were him, I would have sued em all for defamation.
December 17th, 2012 | 8:16 pm
David, recall the Chick-fil-a dustup?
Patrick,
I do indeed, and this is the letter I wrote to Christine Quinn, Speaker of the New York City Council, when I found she had written a letter to Chick-fil-A:
So you can add Christina Quinn to your list, but you can’t add me, or Mayor Bloomberg, or the rest of the City Council (who were critical of Quinn for using her office as Speaker). And you can’t claim the owners of Chick-fil-A were cowed into submission or lost anything at all from the whole mess. In fact, they gained support and business.
December 18th, 2012 | 12:59 am
Patrick,
Let me remind you of what Austin Ruse said:
I wouldn’t want to whitewash what happened, but who would you say came out the winner in the Chick-Fil-A brouhaha? The gay “kiss-in” was poorly attended. Menino, Emmanuel, and Quinn all had to backpedal, and the company made record sales on “Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day.” People were not driven from their jobs and from the public square. It is a good example of an attempt at the kind of thing Ruse described, but if failed rather miserably and predictably. So I am still waiting for examples not just of reprehensible rhetoric, but examples of people being [a] “vilified, [b] driven from their jobs and [c] from the public square.”
December 18th, 2012 | 2:20 am
In thruth, these homosexuals have no real power in numbers and therefore their democratic clout is negligible.
Their abnormality is not to be feared.
December 18th, 2012 | 5:27 am
David Nickol wrote
“some people, even here on First Things, see the fight for gay rights as a battle against Western, Christian civilization.”
Well, in France, we have just had the Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, in an interview with Ouest-France (7/11/2012) say of same-sex marriage that “it is a reform of society and one could even say a reform of civilization, We do not intend to act as if we were only retouching three or four commas in the Civil Code.” [My translation of « C’est une réforme de société, et on peut même dire une réforme de civilisation. Nous n’avons pas l’intention de faire comme si nous ne retouchions que trois ou quatre virgules dans le Code Civil »] If that is how the garde des Sceaux, who is responsible for producing the legislation describes it, perhaps “some people, even here on First Things” can be forgiven for taking her at her word.
December 18th, 2012 | 9:20 am
Ten days ago, First Things highlighted Christian leaders speaking out against the Ugandan ‘kill the gays’ bill.
But a few days later, Pope Benedict XVI met with and blessed the Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament.
So, uh… is that how Christians “fight the mistreatment” of gays and lesbians?
December 18th, 2012 | 9:29 am
David,
I commend you heartily for the letter to Christina Quinn, and the clarity of thought and consequences it conveys.
You asked for evidence to justify the concern voiced by many who worry about discrimination against those who disagree with homosexual marriage. I would gently remind you I’ve cited some of these to you before, when you asked for proof of a discrimination against religion.
Just a smattering of evidence for you:
1. The legislatures in Boston, Washington, DC, San Francisco, and Illinois have all passed laws requiring adoption agencies to place children with homosexual couples. This is why Catholic Charities had to stop adoption ministry in those jurisdictions.
2. “In New Mexico, a husband and wife photography business was fined over $6,600 for refusing, on religious grounds, to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony. Although New Mexico has neither same-sex marriage nor civil unions, the state’s Human Rights Commission held that the couple violated the state’s non-discrimination laws that cover sexual orientation, and refused even to consider the couple’s religious liberty claims.
3. In New Jersey, a United Methodist facility known as Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association was similarly charged with violating the state’s non-discrimination laws for refusing to host a civil union ceremony in its beachfront pavilion in 2007. That case is still ongoing, but part of a state tax exemption was also revoked from the facility for its action. Take note of the tax exemption issue. If same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land by edict of the Supreme Court next year, watch to see what happens down the road to the 501(c)(3) exemptions of those organizations whose beliefs and practices contradict the new reality.
4. In Vermont, Illinois, Hawaii and elsewhere, bed and breakfast inns run by people of faith have been targeted for discrimination complaints and lawsuits because the owners have refused to rent rooms or facilities for civil union or same-sex marriage events.”
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/10/6548/
5. In the U.K. a couple that had selflessly given of themselves as foster parents (to 15 children in the 1990s) had fostering status revoked because of their views on homosexuality. This marks the second such case in the U.K. that I’ve heard about.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-12598896
6. In Canada, Catholic priest Fr. Alphonse de Valk is being “investigated” by the “Human Rights” Commission for defending the Church’s teaching concerning homosexuality.
http://catholicexchange.com/catholicism-a-hate-crime-in-canada/
7. Elsewhere, a Canadian city councilor had his barber’s shop vandalized and he was fined $1000 after expressing his view that homosexuality was unnatural. “In June, the councillor opposed a homosexual pride proclamation, after which his barber shop was vandalized with “Homophobia Die” scrawled on the door of his business.”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive//ldn/2007/jan/07011902
Stories of bullying, intimidation, destruction of property, and threats against opponents of homosexuality are not hard to find in the press. Those with eyes to see should see…
December 18th, 2012 | 9:46 am
Ray,
The Popes bless everybody. It’s what Christ called Christians to do (“Bless [even] your enemies…do good [even] to those who hate you.”). As you’ve said elsewhere on this board that you’re an atheist, perhaps you don’t understand that about Christianity.
For you to characterize his blessing of another child of God as an endorsement of the Ugandan bill is either disingenuous or ignorant.
I do not agree with the Ugandan bill, but in the interest of honesty you might include a bit more substantive information about it, rather than resorting to an emotional shock tactic (calling it a “kill gays” bill, as though it was advocating an automatic death penalty against homosexuals, as is the case in many Muslim countries).
Under the original bill, the death penalty was reserved only for those found guilty of “aggravated homosexuality”: “Aggravated homosexuality” is defined to include homosexual acts committed by a person who is HIV-positive, is a parent or authority figure, or who administers intoxicating substances, homosexual acts committed on minors or people with disabilities, and repeat offenders.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill
In other words, it’s punishing people for things we too already punish people legally for doing (child molestation, trying to give someone HIV, etc.). It does it more harshly, to be sure, but that’s normative in other parts of the world.
Additionally, the Ugandan PM he blessed was not the writer or sponsor of the bill you cite. So you trying to associate the bill with her–and by extension with the Pope–would be like trying to blame a president for a bill he fought against in Congress.
The bill was brought forward in 2009–before she was even elected to her position (2011).
December 18th, 2012 | 11:23 am
Artaban -
The Popes bless everybody.
He doesn’t meet with everybody.
Are you, um, sure she has no particular interest in it? Read just a bit down into the Wikipedia article you cite, and you see “In November 2012, Uganda agreed to pass a new law against homosexuality by the end of 2012 as a “Christmas gift” to its advocates, according to the speaker of parliament.” Who’s the speaker of parliament again?
Oh, it goes way beyond that. See especially here.
Seriously, the lady who’s directly pushing for the bill is right there in front of him. Do you think the Pope fulfilled his “moral obligation to fight the mistreatment of gays and lesbians”?
December 18th, 2012 | 12:05 pm
Artaban,
You have made no distinction between, on the one hand, opposing same-sex marriage, speaking of the immorality of homosexual acts, stating religious positions on gay issues, and so on—basically issues of freedom of speech—and on the other hand actually discriminating against gay people (your items 1, 2, 3, and 4). Remember, I am looking for examples of people being [a] “vilified, [b] driven from their jobs and [c] from the public square.”
Most of your examples are old. Some of them are still tied up in court (the wedding photographers case is to be heard by the NM Supreme Court). Charges against Fr. Alphonse de Valk were brought under Section 13 of the Human Rights Act, which the Human Rights Commission itself has deemed inconsistent with free speech and refused to enforce. Each example you give would need to be explored individually. States have a right to set the terms of work they contract out to Catholic Charities. Public accommodations need to follow antidiscrimination laws. Nobody should be penalized for stating their opposition to same-sex marriage or expressing opinions on homosexuality, but when they actually discriminate in renting space and the like, then they are subject to the law.
December 18th, 2012 | 12:39 pm
Ray,
The pope meets with dozens, if not hundreds, of people during his weekly audiences. I know no fewer than six people who’ve shaken his hand and have pictures with him. That doesn’t mean he’s done a background check finding out everything each has done. That “the lady is right there in front of him” does not hold the significance you think it does. It is really no different, or significant, than a presidential candidate shaking hands with an American citizen.
The “meeting” you’re referring to probably lasted no more than a few minutes. If you read the article you cite, you’ll also see she wasn’t the only person at the “meeting”, but that there was an entire delegation, including a Muslim.
But I don’t see you suggesting that somehow the pope agrees with Islam because of the “meeting”. Why the double standard?
Let’s be realistic. The pope is called to be a manifestation of God’s love and forgiveness for all people. You seem to want to make him an omniscient enforcer. It’s flattering–and surprisingly common for those critical of the Church–to have such a superhuman opinion of the pope’s abilities.
December 18th, 2012 | 12:55 pm
David,
I’d be interested in knowing why you think that the four examples you cited are cases of actual discrimination.
Are you suggesting that it is acceptable to publicly state one’s beliefs, but that it is unacceptable to act upon them?
Let’s use the New Mexico photography studio as an example. I think that you could make the case that it was “discrimination”, but I fail to see how you could claim that it is unjust requiring State intervention. Should a presumably privat photography business be required by the State to provide their services to anyone who requests them? If not, what mahes a homosexual event different from another event that the business may not what to photograph?
December 18th, 2012 | 1:51 pm
Michael J,
First, let me say that this comes up in the context of a discussion of a post by Matthew J. Frank that says, “By all means, let us join Anna in thinking hard about how Christians, Jews, and others can say ‘we love you’ to our homosexual brethren, while saying ‘no’ to the demand that we surrender all our moral judgments on the new altar of sensitivity.” None of the seven cases that Artaban cited required people to surrender all their moral judgments. The struggle for gay rights is not a battle to force or seduce people into giving up all their moral judgments and abandon themselves and society to some kind of moral anarchy or total moral relativism. Opposition to discrimination is itself a moral stance. It is really depressing to read those who seem to believe that opposition to gay rights or same-sex marriage is the last stand of good against evil, and if they don’t prevail, morality, Christianity, and civilization itself are doomed.
December 18th, 2012 | 2:25 pm
Artaban –
The Ugandan delegation was in Rome specifically for “the 7th Consultative Assembly of Parliamentarians for the International Criminal Court and the World Parliamentary Conference on Human Rights”. So no one in the Church is assigned to keep an eye on such things? To maybe make it a point to convey the Church’s position to someone specifically related to it? To conceivably give the Pope a ‘heads-up’ about who he’ll be meeting with?
I agree with you that the Ugandan legislation is a low priority for the Church, but I don’t think that’s an insignificant thing…
December 18th, 2012 | 2:28 pm
Michael J,
Here’s the pertinent section of New Mexico law, which does not require photography businesses to provide services to “anyone who requests them”:
A photography business is a public accommodation under the law, not a “private business.” I have numbered in brackets from 1 to 10 protected categories. Presumably you feel items 7 and probably 8 should be removed. Which others? Or perhaps you don’t believe in anti-discrimination laws at all.
See here for the ruling of the Court of Appeals of the State of New Mexico finding against Elaine Photography. To quote just briefly:
December 18th, 2012 | 3:00 pm
Michael J –
I’d say not. So would Eugene Volokh, because photography is a form of creative expression that,by the First Amendment, can’t be compelled by the state.
It’s not clear that running a bed and breakfast or renting event space to the public is creative expression, though.
December 18th, 2012 | 4:04 pm
My wife and I spent part of our honeymoon at a lovely bed and breakfast. Half the home was the private residence of the owner-operators. That is, from what I found in choosing which bed-and-breakfast to make a reservation with, the norm.
If you want to go down the road of saying that their private residence is subject to the whims and prejudices of a potential guest to their home, and deny them liberty of expression there, that is a very dangerous precedent.
I’d venture to say that most of us, in the age of telecommuting, have done some “work from home”. That certainly doesn’t mean our employers have a compelling interest or the government has a right to dictate the slightest detail of what goes on there.
We are clearly disagreeing on where one person’s rights of property and free association end and discrimination begins. I tend to think many are crossing the line and destroying property and free association rights in the interest of eliminating “discrimination”.
Which itself is discrimination, just of a different sort.
In the summer, when school is out, I moonlight as a Security Officer at Six Flags over Mid-America. We have “morals violations” (people having sex in bushes, restrooms, or in one memorable case, on the Log Flume itself) that result in expulsion without refund of the guests involved. Why is it that I’ve never had a heterosexual couple so expelled threaten to sue the park or get me fired, but I have had homosexual guests threaten both?
David, I’ve been personally vilified by homosexuals, for enforcing a policy at a park with a children’s area (never mind I’ve held heterosexual offenders to the same standard).
December 18th, 2012 | 4:07 pm
because photography is a form of creative expression that,by the First Amendment, can’t be compelled by the state.
Ray Ingles,
Why couldn’t a barber, hairdresser, interior decorator, landscaper, architect, or any other of many professions in which a certain amount of creative expression is arguably involved exempt themselves from all anti-discrimination laws on the same grounds? Why couldn’t Elaine Photography use the “compelled speech” argument to justify photographing only the weddings of white people?
December 18th, 2012 | 4:54 pm
David, I’ve been personally vilified by homosexuals, for enforcing a policy at a park with a children’s area (never mind I’ve held heterosexual offenders to the same standard).
Artaban,
Are you saying it reflects badly on all gay people, and well on all straight people, that the gay people you kick out of Six Flags for having public sex give you grief and the straight people go quietly? I mean, is that how you judge gay people—by the way the ones you boot out of the park for doing what they shouldn’t be doing in the first place react? Do you look at Ricky Martin, Barney Frank, Ian McKellan, Neil Patrick Harris, Chris Colfer, Derek Jacobi, Nathan Lane, etc., etc., and say, “Those are the guys who threaten to sue me when I kick them out of Six Flags for having sex in the bushes?” No wonder you have a low opinion of gay people if you judge them by the guys you kick out of Six Flags!
December 18th, 2012 | 5:03 pm
David raises a good question. The other side of it is this, though…
As soon as money exchanges hands, does that mean I check my rights at the door? From my first job in high school (working at a movie theater) I’ve dealt with customers who misbehaved and expressed the view that “the customer is always right”. I’d venture all of you that’ve worked in customer service have met such people.
That just isn’t the case. Business is about a social contract, which is why we have contract law. No one has the right to force me to work for them. That’s slavery. No one has a right to make photographers take a job. No one has a right to say you MUST rent out a hall. And guess what. If I refuse to do business with enough people, I won’t be in business very long. The market works itself out.
Government doesn’t need to get involved.
You can’t tell me the homosexual couple in Arizona couldn’t find some photographer that’d provide services. That’s the beauty of FREE ENTERPRISE. If I don’t like how you do business, there is an alternative in your competitor.
December 18th, 2012 | 5:20 pm
My wife and I spent part of our honeymoon at a lovely bed and breakfast. Half the home was the private residence of the owner-operators. That is, from what I found in choosing which bed-and-breakfast to make a reservation with, the norm.
Artaban,
I would make a distinction between people who actually take guests into their home—e.g., couples who have a spare bedroom and rent it out as a bed and breakfast—and people who reside in a building that has a number of rooms they rent out. Clearly the former can be a lot more discriminating (in all the senses of the word) than the latter. This is, as I understand it, how federal housing anti-discrimination laws work (although gay people are not protected these laws).
Exactly how intrusive should people who rent rooms, even if they live in the same building, be permitted to be? Can they make married couples promise not to use contraception in one of their rented bedrooms? If they feel very strongly about contraception, why not?
December 18th, 2012 | 5:26 pm
Don’t worry, David, I don’t judge people who happen to struggle with homosexuality by those that misbehave. Sin is sin, and we’re all children of God. As in both cases, most (hetero or homo) do abide by park rules.
But it does have to do with simple, observable behavior.
The straight people don’t play the discrimination card, David. Not ONCE has one tried that. Some have objected they shouldn’t be kicked out and banned for a year and a day, but they’ve never cried “discrimination”. Of course not all homosexuals have cried discrimination either. But enough have to establish that there is a certain mentality among a significant portion of that community.
Is your low opinion of Christians really based on the likes of the 100 person Westboro Baptist Church, that “…believes that opposition to gay rights or same-sex marriage is the last stand of good against evil, and if they don’t prevail, morality, Christianity, and civilization itself are doomed.”?
Because that mentality is a minority of Christians–and a minority of those opposed to same sex marriage.
December 18th, 2012 | 5:30 pm
David, New Mexico’s court of appeals disagreement notwithstanding, I do not consider photography to be “public accommodation”, especially given that the statute you cite expressly mentions housing accomodation. Of course, we’re not discussing fine legal points, but instead the principles behind them.
With that in mind, what “right” is being violated? The “right to be photographed”? Obviously not so it seems like you are advocating a different sort of right, that is the “right” to not have your lifestyle choices questioned by anybody else.
Getting back to the list of protected classes of individuals, If I were king for a day, I would remove all of those classes that an individual may belong to by deliberate choice – and yes, this includes “religeon” and “spousal affiliation”
We can get into a long, and ultimately unproductive debate about whether an individual chooses to be a homosexual, but I think we can agree that an individual can choose whether to act upon a particular inclination, right?
December 18th, 2012 | 8:13 pm
“Those of us who are not guilty of such behavior are not obliged to atone for it. We are instead obliged to notice that it happens and to condemn it when it does.”
I’m curious to know whether it’s possible for us to agree on what constitutes bullying in these comment threads. I wonder whether we would then be so bold as to condemn it or whether we would simply defend those who share our conclusions.
“To beat one’s breast about the widespread “bigotry” against gays and lesbians, in this environment, without saying more clearly just what it is that one is condemning–or “confessing” on behalf of an unjust “society”–is to surrender a great deal of the ground of moral judgment.”
I agree with this statement. Too many liberals take opposition to gay marriage as evidence in itself of bigotry.
“Or else, in the extreme but not uncommon charge from the gay left, one has the blood of Matthew Shepard on one’s hands, or one must “own” the suicides of complete strangers. It is remarkable how much headway has been made with this morally and intellectually bankrupt argument”
I was almost with Franck on this point, but he goes over the top with extreme terms like “morally and intellectually bankrupt.” First, I hope he would admit that most opponents don’t stop at rejecting gay marriage. They believe that practicing gays are immoral and behave in unnatural and intrinsically disordered ways.
Second, I hope that he would admit that the terms of this rejection of gay behavior goes well beyond the less highly-pitched rejections of other forms of immorality. Gamblers, drunks, and adulterers are not treated anything like gays are, even in the good old days when town gossips could be relied on to heap on social disapproval.
This kind of rejection does result in vicious forms of rejection from families and friends, and it includes threats of and sometimes actual violence. It’s not something to dismiss.
“But let us, in the course of this important enterprise, remember that the mea culpa for sins of which one is not guilty does more harm than good”
As I reached the conclusion, I realized that I hadn’t heard any admission of guilt about any specific thing. Does Franck believe that he has participated in the “unfortunately common experience” of bullying or harassing gays? Does he believe that he has failed to condemn it when it happens? I’d like to know.
December 18th, 2012 | 11:06 pm
Is your low opinion of Christians really based on the likes of the 100 person Westboro Baptist Church, that . . . .
Artaban,
I didn’t say I have a low opinion of Christians. I said, “It is really depressing to read those who seem to believe that opposition to gay rights or same-sex marriage is the last stand of good against evil, and if they don’t prevail, morality, Christianity, and civilization itself are doomed.” I didn’t say how many people believe that. I think it is a vocal minority who do. I wasn’t generalizing. I was being specific, referring to “those who seem to believe that opposition to gay rights or same-sex marriage is the last stand of good against evil.” And I said “seem to believe” deliberately, leaving open the possibility that I am misunderstanding them.
December 19th, 2012 | 3:45 am
Artaban
Two acts of the Scottish parliament, the acts 1537 c 61 and 1587 c 91 oblige an advocate to plead causes whether he chooses or not if in the one case a client and in the other the court pleases to insist on it yet these statutes were never urged as inductive of slavery. It is simply the price that we advocates pay for the right to plead before the courts.
December 19th, 2012 | 3:47 am
In a previous discussion, David Nickol cited a dictionary definition of bigotry but he did not actually adhere to that definition. He chose to drop the part about whence bigotry arises.
Namely, unreasoning obstinancy.
He preferred to circle back to “intolerance” as his favored definition of bigotry.Yet whence intolerance, he did not say.
So, here in this discussion, David, would you please state your objective criteria for “bigotry” such that all of our views — including your own — may be assesed through the use of reason and moral assessment? If not unreasoning obstinancy, then, what is the source of “intolerance/bigotry” and what are the telltale signs of its manifestation?
Frankly, it is putting the cart before the horse to delve into the case-by-case study of this or that implementation of this or that law.
There is no sound moral argumentation in favor of same-sex sexual behavior nor in favor of the pro-SSM notion of marriage. I say this because the gay activists and the SSM leading voices concede it by not delivering (and typically not even bothering to make the effort to formulate) moral arguments that are sound. They usually rely on repetition of moralisms asserted rather than argued. Yet they do demand that views contrary to theirs must be justified in excrutiating detail.
But it seems to me they demand such detail as a diversion from their being ill-equipped to make their own positive moral case and their being instead overly armed with the hackneyed rhetoric of contrarianism.
Often they shrug and deeply discount the im/morality of that for which they demand we abandon our views. Moral neutrality and all that moral relativism makes them habitually bored with the very arguments and the details they supposed wish to assess in earnest. They are un such a hurry to presume their premises are sound that they leap into the quicksand of unreasoning obstinancy.
There is such a thing as pro-gay bigotry and it is the central theme of gay actisim and of the SSM campaign. Most of it is overt bigotry. The lack of sound moral argumentation has been a gaping hole in the SSM campaign’s sentimental moralism.
December 19th, 2012 | 8:24 am
David Nickol –
To the extent that the product of such endeavors could be copyrighted, I suppose they might make such a claim. But the courts have their own definition of ‘expression’, which definitely includes photography and rarely if ever included interior decoration.
December 19th, 2012 | 9:00 am
Ray Ingles: Why is the “homosexual” bill in Uganda the only interesting piece of pending legislation there? Surely there are other bills in that country requiring approval of an elite First-World thinker or two.
And thank you for going there – I won a bet that the bill would be used as a club, yet again, in light of Franck’s . . . in the extreme but not uncommon charge from the gay left, one has the blood of Matthew Shepard on one’s hands . . . Referencing Shepard is so yesterday; “you’re killing gays in Uganda,” on the other hand, can conjure untapped wells of guilt response possibly leading to capitulation.
December 19th, 2012 | 10:39 am
SteveP –
The literal witch hunts, and various blasphemy laws, across Africa and the Middle East are terrible, too… but not relevant to the topic of this thread. If you want a monograph on one or both them, I’d be happy to email one to you. Just let me know.
Accusing someone of apathy about killing is not the same thing as accusing someone of killing. Are gays in Uganda threatened, or already dying, or not? Are religious leaders in Uganda lobbying for it, or not? Should the bill be opposed, or not?
December 19th, 2012 | 1:16 pm
Ray Ingles: Thank you. Your use of the word “apathy” broke it open for me: connecting the First Thoughts blog, the content of which I have no influence, with Pope Benedict’s actions, over which I have no influence, with the Ugandan Parliament, in which I’ve no influence not even being a citizen of that country, the hope seems to be that apathy-at-a-distance becomes apathy-in-local-matters.
December 19th, 2012 | 1:40 pm
Well-grounded or not, charges of bigotry of any sort often inspire more heat than light. Our first response to the accusation that we’ve committed a bigoted act is rarely acknowledgement/apology and more often defensiveness (“I’m not a bigot! I have friends who are [insert identity category]“) or dismissal/reversal (“You’re being too sensitive. In fact YOU’RE the one who’s acting hatefully here”). These are natural and common reactions, but they tend to cloud the conversation, making it about whether *I’m* a bigot rather than whether bigotry per se exists.
In teaching college students about prejudice, I have to devote several days to distinguishing between subjective experience and sociologically generalizable data. I and other scholars find it more useful to discuss “systemic privilege” than “bigotry.” Privilege, I stress, operates systemically, not anecdotally. Individual feeling, experience, or effort may sometimes reflect the effects of privilege systems, but–say–having a lesbian friend who doesn’t object to current hetero-only marriage laws does not by itself invalidate the fact of generalized privilege deficits. I can recognize my participation in (and benefits derived from) systemic privilege without being bigoted or anti-whatever myself. Conversely, systemic privilege persists (and may benefit me) regardless of whether I personally oppose/support it.
From a sociological perspective, the fact that LGBT people generally lack access to a range of social and legal privileges granted to straight people is not seriously debated. Some privileges are material (e.g., having long-term unions recognized legally and socially); some are more ephemeral (e.g., straight people rarely have to worry about whether holding hands with their spouse in public will have negative social consequences). But a definite deficit exists. An outsider looking at our culture would never conclude that somehow it’s materially, statistically easier to be gay than straight in the US, even though it seems that way to some. That this deficit seems fuzzy to straight people is expected; the primary attribute of systemic privilege is that its beneficiaries don’t have to think about their privileges as such.
The debate here seems to be whether systemic straight privilege is desirable or defensible. (This is an open debate; some privilege systems are so preferred.) But let’s not pretend that heterosexual privilege–on a systemic, big-picture level–is not the case or that it’s the fantasy of a few overly sensitive souls.
December 19th, 2012 | 1:52 pm
But the courts have their own definition of ‘expression’, which definitely includes photography and rarely if ever included interior decoration.
Ray Ingles,
It would be true, though, wouldn’t it, that if Elaine Photography said it should not be subject to anti-discrimination laws protecting gay people on the grounds that the government can’t compel expression, they could also make the same argument that they are exempt from anti-discrimination laws protecting black people or any other group mentioned in the law I quoted above. It would be similar to the “ministerial exemption” for religious hiring and firing. At a certain level where religious reasons may come into play in matters of hiring and firing, even the most blatant discrimination based on race, age, or disability is tolerated by the government because the government does not want to get involved in sorting out what may be religious motives from other, legally prohibited motives. This may, of course, be wise on the part of the government, but nevertheless it does allow “bad actors” to use the ministerial exemption as a license to discriminate even with racist motives.
December 19th, 2012 | 2:08 pm
SteveP – When did I accuse you of apathy, though? Direct quotes would be most helpful.
I pointed out First Things claiming that Christian leaders, “including the Roman Catholic Church”, opposed the bill. Then I pointed out, just days later, the Pope meeting with the speaker of the Parliament that’s pushing for the bill that the Church opposes, and not saying boo about it.
There seems a contradiction there.
Of course, if you have nothing to do with it (and I never claimed you had anything to do with it) then… what are you worried about?
December 19th, 2012 | 2:47 pm
JFK, you used terms such as prejudice and systemic privilege. Please clarify: this is your attempt to reframe the moral issue as a political issue. The accusation of bigotry is assessed through assessment of generalizable sociological evidence. Yet bigotry is one thing and systemic privilege deficit is another thing.
Your comment concludes by insinuating an accusation against society. It is an accusation based on a false moralism that you portrayed as being beyond debate. It is also an attempt to assert the supremacy of gay identity politics.
You may not be subjectively aware of your assertion but it is right there in plain sight.
Marital status is a preferential status (not just in the law and not just a product of law). Why, that is the question that depends on what marriage is. This is a moral question that runs deeper than sociological evidence.
The SSM idea is a specious substitution of the marriage idea. There is a lack of sound moral argumentation in favor of the asserted moral equivalence of same-sex sexual behavior and the relations of husband and wife. There is a lack of sound moral argumentation in favor of the asserted moral equivalence of the type of relationship that SSM advocates have in mind (which is dressed-up with a gay emphasis but which is not actually defined by an essential gayness) and the marital type of relationship.
The pro-gay issue in sociological terms is why privilege the gay identity group? Why privilege the gay type of relationship over and above the rest of the types of relationships that populate the nonmarriage category? Why systematically impose the supremacy of gay identity politics?
That is the big picture that your comment paints. But it misses the bigger picture that begins with the moral questions that gay activists and the SSM campaign hurry to elide as beyond debate.
The asserted equivalncies of the SSM campaign are, indeed, fantastical.
Noting this is not evidence of “systemic straight privilege” even though your reframing would poison the well, perhaps unintentionally.
December 19th, 2012 | 3:33 pm
David Nickols – I linked to Volokh’s words before, and I’ll quote them now:
In the most recent discussion of Elane Photography v. Willock, a commenter asked: “Imagine if instead of a gay couple it was an interracial couple. Would you still support Huguenin’s refusal to photograph the wedding? Or what if the couple were parapalegics and she had an ‘aesthetic aversion’ to photographing the disabled?” The question (at least as to race discrimination) comes up routinely in such cases.
The answer is “of course.” It seems to me that freelancers who create expression — whether speeches, press releases, Web sites, photographs, paintings, musical compositions, or what have you — should be entitled to choose what they create, regardless of whether we find the basis for their decisions praiseworthy or contemptible. If a musician who is a member of the Nation of Islam member decides that he wants to only perform at black weddings, or non-Jewish weddings, or non-interracial weddings, he should be entirely free to do so. Likewise if an Orthodox Jewish composer decided he didn’t want to compose music commissioned for a wedding between a Jew and a non-Jew. (This may well constitute ethnicity discrimination, which the law generally treats much like race discrimination, if the composer is focusing not on the non-Jewish partner’s religious beliefs but on the non-Jewish partner’s being of non-Jewish descent.)
…The desire to prevent race or disability discrimination should no more dissolve your right to be free from being compelled to speak (here, to create an artistic work) than it should dissolve the right to express bigoted views, to choose members of a racist political organization, or to select ministers (or church members) based on any criteria a church pleases. And if that means that writers and photographers can’t be legally barred from choosing their subjects based on race, that’s just an implication of the basic First Amendment principle of the speaker’s right to choose what to say.
December 19th, 2012 | 4:30 pm
Ray, as I understand it, a “meeting with the Pope” is kind of a touristy thing, much like tourists visiting Washington D.C. will visit the White House. The article you cited seems to bear this out as the blessing was conferred “during a mass attended by thousands of pilgrims at the Vatican.”
The “gotcha game” you seem to be playing is not really working out well.
If you were in Rome to attend the “International Conference to Support Universal Abortion Rights”, requested (along with thousands of others) and were granted an audience with the Pope, presented him with a token gift and received a generic blessing, could I then conclude that the Pope now supports abortion?
I am sure you can come up with many valid criticisms. This is not one of them.
December 19th, 2012 | 4:52 pm
Society may discriminate between marriage and non-marriage.
Even SSM supporters implicitly acknowledge that much — but on condition that their SSM idea replaces the marriage idea for all purposes regarding such discrimination.
The law misleads when it obscures marriage by elevating a particular identity group’s status over and above the core meaning of this social institution of civil society. The law hinders fair treatment of those who are in authentic marital relationships.
So all the talk about discrimination laws needs to be readjusted based on truth rather than the litany of falsehoods propagated by the SSM campaign for the sake of their prioritization of gay identity politics.
The gay emphasis is unjustified. Yet it is repeated as foreordained.
December 19th, 2012 | 6:30 pm
Michael J –
Audiences with the Pope are held just about every Wednesday morning. As you can immagine, tickets need to be reserved well ahead of time… Although rarely available, you may be able to reserve a Papal Blessing.
Meeting with the Pope, not too hard to arrange. Papal Blessing, significantly harder.
In any case, glad you agree that the whole business of the bill isn’t any kind of priority for the Church.
December 19th, 2012 | 7:32 pm
Ray Ingles: The term thank you does not mean j’accuse. A perceived inconsistency does not mean bullying.
Franck’s point, how we start at “marriage is between a man and a woman” and end up arraigned with the bloodguilt of those who took their own lives, has been ably demonstrated.
December 19th, 2012 | 8:02 pm
Chairm–
I did not offer argument about the SSM debate. This conversation concerns the definition of bigotry against gays and lesbians. I have suggested that, since the term “bigotry” inspires defensiveness (few people react well to accusations of bigotry), a frame of privilege might produce a clearer conversation.
Privilege here indicates a network of interrelated cultural, legal, economic, and political structures that–on average–grant more opportunities and less difficulty to members of one group than to another. Privilege systems may be intentional or unintentional; generally they are a mix. Some privileges may be earned (pass a test, earn a license, and you may drive legally); some may be unearned (being born in the US grants you citizenship).
To describe privilege systems is not an accusation. Nor does noting a systemic privilege deficit between groups lead by itself to any moral conclusion. In other words, deciding whether a particular privilege is just or unjust constitutes a separate conversation from the acknowledgment that privilege exists. Some privilege deficits may be desirable. With others, it might be judged that the privilege in question should be universalized (e.g., voting should be for all adult citizens, not just males) or eliminated (e.g., no one should have the privilege of owning another person). Deciding if or how a privilege system may be altered constitutes yet another conversation.
Most sociologists recognize as a settled matter that US law, culture, and politics tends to privilege heterosexuality. That is, on average and all other things being equal, simply being heterosexual opens up more opportunities and frees one from having to confront as many difficulties than being gay/lesbian does. Whether this state is desirable or not (morally, legally, or otherwise) is a separate conversation. I’m not clear what is so controversial about acknowledging systemic heterosexual privilege per se.
December 20th, 2012 | 2:19 am
JFK wrote: Most sociologists recognize as a settled matter that US law, culture, and politics tends to privilege heterosexuality. That is, on average and all other things being equal, simply being heterosexual opens up more opportunities and frees one from having to confront as many difficulties than being gay/lesbian does. Whether this state is desirable or not (morally, legally, or otherwise) is a separate conversation. I’m not clear what is so controversial about acknowledging systemic heterosexual privilege per se.
==============
There is more than one problem with your statement above.
“Most sociologists recognize as a settled matter that US law, culture, and politics tends to privilege heterosexuality.”
Culture and politics tend to privilege heterosexuality? As in Hollywood, television, or Pride Parades, or pornography or most public college campuses?
This is a matter dependent on ideology. Liberals push for normalizing homosexuality and a variety of other dysfunctional sexuality and relationships issues. I would say there is no single dominant sexuality ideology in the US at the moment; you have to look at an individual’s specific context to see what the dominant ideology is (more liberal or more socially conservative).
Social conservatives are routinely discriminated against, demeaned, and vilified by liberals, wherever the latter are dominant.
You also stated that “on average and all other things being equal,”
But when are “all other things being equal” for comparing individuals? Almost never, since we don’t have clones in society, nor perfectly equal situations. Thus your generalization is also misleading.
December 20th, 2012 | 2:23 am
JFK wrote: “being heterosexual opens up more opportunities and frees one from having to confront as many difficulties than being gay/lesbian does. ”
This is outright wrong.
Liberals don’t want to confront the underlying problems that produce a homosexuality dynamics in a person’s minds. So they don’t want anyone taking responsibility for their psycho-sexuality problems.
In many liberal-dominated environments, it’s being socially conservative that will entail difficulties. The issue is not comparing a psychologically healthy individual with one who has a homosexuality problem as you put it, and then claiming there is a problem if we don’t equate the two.
The axis that needs to be compared today is sexuality ideology.
For example, Julea Ward and Jennifer Keeton had their most fundamental education rights violated because they questioned a harmful liberal agenda regarding homosexuality. They were not vilified and persecuted because they are heterosexuals, but because they are affirming the truth about homosexuality.
And this is something that people with a homosexuality agenda cannot tolerate. On the other hand, had Frank Lombard or Kevin Clash or Eve Ensler applied to the same university, they would have been allowed to study as they please. No matter how dysfunctional, abusive, or harmful people with a homosexuality problem are, liberals judge them first by asking if they normalize or not homosexuality. The first are considered decent human beings, the others they believe should be vilified and discriminated against.
December 20th, 2012 | 6:28 am
JFK, in your previous comment you did refer to “straight privilege” in terms of relationships. If you did not mean to invoke the SSM issue, and the asserted moral equivalencies, then, what did you mean? The nonsexual relationships of people in the gay identity group?
Simply being heterosexual? I think what you claim to be beyond debate is actually far from settled even in sociological terms.
December 20th, 2012 | 8:26 pm
This column has raised the important question of how to identify when one is being a bigot.
To be a bigot, you have to have two characteristics: you have to be both unreasonable and partisan about your religion, race, country, or sex.
The key to identifying bigotry is distinguishing reasonable from unreasonable partisanship.
There is no objective measure, but there is a test. Do others not especially passionate one way or another find themselves moving away from one party and toward another?
Most Americans were casually racist until Bull Connor became the image of white bigotry, and then most Americans began to disavow notions of racial superiority and embrace at least the notion that blacks could be as equally gifted as whites.
The movement of the broadly unaligned middle defined what came to seem reasonable and unreasonable. It wasn’t arguments that took the day and shifted opinion; it was some change in the popular imagination. Amos and Andy were replaced by Martin Luther King.
Some have argued that the shift in thinking about gays came with the triumph of Will and Grace, and perhaps something like that happened. Will replaced the flaming gay man. He was as ordinary as Sidney Poitier arriving at dinner.
But I would say that both of these image shifts were preceded by actual demographic shifts. As blacks moved North, more whites got to know them. Something similar happened as gays moved out of Christopher Street and into suburbia. It’s hard to feel hostile toward the lesbian who keeps her lawn mowed and participates in the PTA.
And so the mark of the bigot is that he argues against what everyone else is experiencing. Even (and perhaps especially) when his arguments are logically and reasonably put forward, they come off as especially unreasonable if they don’t match the experience of non-partisans.
The more gays you get to know in your neighborhood, workplace, and church, the harder it is to believe stories about their supposed lies, dysfunctions, and abnormalities.
December 21st, 2012 | 1:09 am
Briefly–
When I note that US legal and social structures privilege heterosexuality, I’m not suggesting that opponents of LGBT movements enjoy an uncontested political/cultural monopoly.
Systemic privilege concerns the material and ideological rule in a society. Privilege is a matter of enjoying “default” or “normal” status in society in general.
In most everyday social contexts, heterosexuality is privileged in that it is unremarkable. Social and legal processes, by and large, are constructed around the assumption of straightness.
By contrast, being identified as homosexual opens one to the possibility of being treated as a special case, an exception to the rule, a problem to be managed, a threat to be fought, etc.
That straight people rarely have to think about whether they might be treated differently simply because of the gender of their attractions–*that’s* part of what heterosexual privilege means. Gays and lesbians–on average–have to perceive and deal with particular challenges that straight people do not.
To be sure, there are times and places where this order of things gets contested or reversed. But life isn’t a gay pride parade. Again, privilege concerns the rule, not the exception. To put it another way, if you have to “fight” to normalize something or some group, that thing/group is by definition *not* privileged.
I’m stressing this to address a curious dynamic I’ve noticed in these conversations, namely two contradictory cases being advanced simultaneously:
1) gay and lesbian people in the US do not lack any significant privilege (alternately: gays and lesbians enjoy *more* privilege than straight people do; straight people, not homosexuals, are the real underdogs in US society); and
2) gays and lesbians should be denied the array of privileges they currently lack.
How do these arguments work together?
December 21st, 2012 | 2:01 am
I suspect the use-by date for this thread has passed. I wish I had been able to reply to comments in a more consistent/timely manner. Ah, well. Christmas shopping.
One last try:
Chairm–
I referenced legal recognition of unions as one example of the material manifestations of heterosexual privilege. That is, the legal/social codes in most of the US define heterosexual unions as the only legitimate ones.
Consider: heterosexual couples rarely have to concern themselves with the possibility that, should one of them be hospitalized, the other would be denied visitation on the grounds that they are not “real family.” Heterosexual couples rarely have to ask whether their husband/wife would “count” as a spouse in an insurance plan that provides spousal benefits. Heterosexual couples don’t have to worry, generally, about “flouting” their sexuality (or acting as “heterosexualists”) if they choose to publish a wedding announcement in the local paper. A single adult woman can go on a romantic date with a single adult man and, most of the time, not have to even consider the possibility that such an act might indicate deep, dark psycho-sexual disorders on her part.
Now, to note that all this is the case does not in and of itself register a stance for or against the status quo. Recognizing that a privilege system exists does not equal criticizing that system.
You might affirm heterosexual privilege, believing that (for instance) legal marriage properly is and should continue to be restricted to heterosexual couples. Alternatively, you might wish to alter systemic heterosexual privilege, expanding the scope of civil marriage to include same-sex couples.
Either of these stances and many more in between could proceed from the recognition that, currently and in most contexts, heterosexuality enjoys systemic privilege.
December 21st, 2012 | 2:45 pm
JFK,
I could be convinced that at one time the “systemic priveledge” you note existed. I do not think it does any longer .
I think you’d be hard pressed to find any Hospital that would deny visitors to one of their patients.
Most insurance plans offer spousal benefits to “domestic partners” (and are sued out of existence if they do not)
Homosexual couples are generally praised and honored for their “bravery” if they publish a wedding anouncement.
Again, I do not disagree that these examples of “discrimination” existed at one time and continue to exist today, but by your own definition they are not “systemic”
December 21st, 2012 | 4:58 pm
Michael J:
It’s tricky to declare a systemic privilege system defunct. We can say, for example, that the once-common, once widely debated issue of suffrage is well and truly past in this country. No one seriously argues for–no laws anywhere allow–restricting the privilege of voting to males. It’s not an open question.
The same is not the case for a range of issues about homosexuality/heterosexuality.
For same-sex partner benefits, see this article:
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2012/may/14/businesses-move-to-offer-health-benefits-to-same-sex-couples.aspx
The article notes that 52% of businesses provide same-sex domestic partner benefits. A majority, right? So where’s the lack of privilege? Heterosexual privilege consists of the fact that whether to provide such benefits for same-sex couples is an open question in the first place, one companies may answer negatively in many regions. Many (48%) do so refuse. Indeed, government employers are specially protected from having to provide such benefits thanks to DOMA.
Heterosexual spouses, by contrast, enjoy the privilege of not even having to ask whether spousal benefits cover them. They don’t have to be thankful if their employer does or resentful (or litigious) if it does not. It’s assumed. Barring some extraordinary circumstance, it’s a non-issue for them.
For examples of same-sex partners being denied hospital visitation, just google it. See here, for instance: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/08/20/713251/nevada-same-sex-couple-denied-hospital-visitation-despite-domestic-partnership/?mobile=nc
Again, systemic heterosexual privilege manifests in the fact that same-sex couples must worry whether or not X hospital would or would not allow visitation (especially in cases where the patient’s immediate family disapproves of the same-sex partner). That’s just not on most heterosexual couples’ list of worries.
Same thing with wedding/ceremony announcements. As you note, it’s often a remarkable thing for same-sex couples to publish such announcements. The remark might be “how brave!” or “what a shame!”–it’s the remark-worthiness that’s the indicator of privilege or its lack. (No one considers heterosexual couples especially brave/audacious just for publishing wedding announcements).
December 21st, 2012 | 5:54 pm
JFK wrote: “To be sure, there are times and places where this order of things gets contested or reversed. But life isn’t a gay pride parade. ”
It shouldn’t be. There is no good reason to normalize dysfunctional sexualities.
JFK wrote: “To put it another way, if you have to “fight” to normalize something or some group, that thing/group is by definition *not* privileged.”
So when we examine how many students were kicked out of their public university programs because they questioned the dominant ideology on sexuality, what do we find?
The dominant ideology normalizes homosexuality and persecutes those who question it. No student has been denied their fundamental right to education because they stated that homosexuality is normal.
That is privilege.
However, those who state the truth about homosexuality are having their rights trampled on, they are being expelled from universities, they are being vilified in public. It is a concerted form of bullying.
Obviously you need considerable privilege to trample on other people’s rights like this.
December 21st, 2012 | 9:07 pm
@ Heather–
Systemic privilege applies to the “system” of society as a whole. The situations you discuss involve two individual cases in two particular schools; parsing the complexities of those cases would be a separate conversation.
But, for the sake of argument, suppose you could prove that “normalized homosexuality” is the rule in the departments involved–or even in those particular universities.
This by itself would still not invalidate the fact that the majority of legal structures, mores, civic procedures, media representations, etc. that shape life in the US as a whole all tend to assume heterosexuality as the default.
Heterosexual privilege isn’t about whether it’s easier to be for or against homosexuality in a given context. It’s about whether it’s easier–on average, in general–to live as heterosexual or homosexual in everyday US life.
No culture war battle can undo systemic privilege just like that. Privilege is a combination of ideology and material structures. This combination changes only very gradually and isn’t determined by any one person/group’s attitudes or efforts.
The most ardent straight advocate of pro-gay causes benefits from heterosexual privilege just as much as the most vehement opponent of such causes does. They differ very much regarding whether this privilege is only right and proper–a thing to be preserved–or whether it’s something to be challenged.
Just labeling something as a privilege, btw, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad. I imagine we’re both for keeping the privilege of driving restricted to adults who pass a driving test. Ditto the systemic privilege that flows from being a non-felon.
December 21st, 2012 | 11:05 pm
JFK, thanks for finding time to respond.
Reframining the discussion of bigotry into an examination of what you have labelled as “systemic privilege” is an attempt to supply objective criteria for the discussion of accusations of bigotry.
Thank you, also, for making that effort briefly.
On marriage, there is no heterosexual rule. Two men are ineligible whether or not one or both announce to the world that their relationship is not homosexed. Man-woman relationships are not automatically eligible and,indeed, some types of two-sexed relationships are ineligible because these are two-sexed. and not because of heterosexual or whateversexual privilege.
So marriage is not a criterion for making an objective case for systemic privilege.
On the other hand, SSM is promoted with a gay emphasis rather than a sexual emphasis. Gay is a socio-political identity. That identity, and not same-sex sexual attraction or same-sex sexual behavior, is the emphasis of the SSM campaign.
For instance, there is no homosexed requirement for those who’d SSM in an all-male or in an all-female scenario. But gay identity would be privileged with the SSM imposition. And that is the practical purpose of the SSM campaign.
So the SSM advocates read into the marriage law what is not there. As did you. And they read into the propose SSM imposition what is not in SSM law. As did you.
Nonmarriage is a broad category that is populated by many two-sexed type relationships and kinds of living arrangements. That category and those types are not defined by a privilege deficit based on heterosexuality. Nor, as you injected, based on a socio-political ‘straight’ identity. Most of this broad category is not sexualized and much of it is heterosexed. That removes the homosexed criterion as a basis for constructing a narrative about heterosexed privilege.
On the other hand, again,the SSM campaign overtly presses for special treatment based on the gay identity. This is conflated with homosexed relationship types. But even that is highly subjective and not a basis for this privilege deficit you proposed. Quite the opposite. Where SSM has been imposed there is an entrenchment of privilege based on gay identity with the accompanied conflation with homosexed relationship types.
Maybe there are other criteria for the reframing you discussed, however, marriage is not one of them.
December 21st, 2012 | 11:27 pm
Michael, thank you responding to the query about the criteria for bigotry.
You would rely on the ‘non-partisans’ as the belle-weathers of unreasonable and reasonable partisianship.
That is a poor test: when racisim is favored by a vacillating nonpartisanism it is reasonable but when racisim is disfavored it becomes unreasonable. But racism is racism, favored or disfavored.
Unreasoning obstinancy is not a symptom but the source of bigotry. The test is in the substance of racism not in the superficialarity of its popularity or unpopularity. Racism does not pass that test whether or not it is favored by upposed non-partisans.
The supremacy if white identity politics is closely analogous with the asserted supremacy of gay identity politics. Popularity is not the measure of the reasonableness of either form of supremacy.
Suppose the non-partisans shifted and moved in favor of white supremacy. That does not change the substance of it. That does not make it more reasonable. The lack of obstinancy among non-partisans does mean that to which they are drawn is reasonable (or unreasonable). When they shift they no longer are non-partisan.
December 22nd, 2012 | 4:22 am
JFK wrote: Systemic privilege applies to the “system” of society as a whole. The situations you discuss involve two individual cases in two particular schools; parsing the complexities of those cases would be a separate conversation.
=========
If, as you claim, people with a homosexuality problem were being persecuted and having a difficult life in public universities, we would have cases of them being expelled. But there aren’t any – in all the universities in all “the system as a whole.”
The only cases that exist are of students who question your homosexuality agenda. Isn’t that curious? This means that people with a homosexuality agenda enjoy tremendous privilege compared to those who question that agenda. Who’s life and education is more difficult here? Who is being denied their most fundamental right to education?
Do you claim to be unacquainted with the ideology reigning in the social sciences? I don’t believe that you are. The hostility and the animus (with varied degrees of persecution) against people who question your homosexuality ideology is systemic and it is steep. These two cases are only the tip of the iceberg.
Furthermore, is it any surprise that we have only two cases in the media – when the systemic problem is much worse? How many students who question your ideology think they should be persecuted by the state and be denied an education – since this is what the system is like now?
For the sake of understanding reality, we need to describe what the reigning ideology in the social sciences of the public university system is like. It is liberal and it normalizes homosexuality.
This is far from the rule only in the two departments involved – it is the rule handed down in various declarations by the APA and various other medical and psychiatric organizations, which are dominated by people with a homosexuality agenda such as yours.
And a very large number of programs are accredited by the APA – therefore the problem is widespread and it’s systemic.
December 22nd, 2012 | 4:41 am
JFK wrote: “This by itself would still not invalidate the fact that the majority of legal structures, mores, civic procedures, media representations, etc. that shape life in the US as a whole all tend to assume heterosexuality as the default.”
All human beings are born heterosexual, because the human species is a heterosexual species. In that sense, heterosexuality is the default. So is the fact, for example, that humans are designed to have sex with adults and not with kids. It is the default and it is reflected in legal structures, mores, etc. Societies should be constructed on the basis of heterosexuality, on adult sex, etc. There is no good reason to do it differently.
Your ideology, however, contends that individuals should never take responsibility for any psycho-sexual dysfunction they develop and, not only that, they should never resolve their sexuality problems. Moreover, it currently sustains impunity for an enormous amount of harm that LGBT individuals do in society.
What we need to examine is how much harm people with a homosexuality agenda do in society with impunity, because it is very much part of the current “system,” especially in contexts where liberal ideology and its partisans are dominant.
December 22nd, 2012 | 10:42 am
Chairm,
I’m happy to explain what I mean by bigotry, but it’s only going to make sense to you if you think about the issue objectively.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
We had a long conversation on another thread about whether one could describe the human body as heterosexual. In that conversation, you kept asserting that my adherence to standard biological terminology that describes the human body as sexed, not heterosexual, was somehow an attempt to push a “homosexual agenda.” You kept insisting that an objective description of biology was somehow ideological. If we can’t agree on basic terms, the debate will go nowhere.
The same thing is happening in your conversation with JFK. He’s presenting the standard sociological definition of privilege, but you keep arguing against it because you suspect that this standard definition has some “homosexual agenda.” Once again, conversation can’t go forward if suspicion undercuts standard terminology.
In this thread, I’m trying to offer an objective description of how a larger population comes to view some viewpoints as “mainstream” and others as “bigoted.”
You make the point, “racism is racism, favored or disfavored.”
This point misunderstands what I’m trying to do. I’m not trying to argue what is really morally true but how societies shift their definitions of what they think is morally true. In other words, I agree that racism has always been wrong, but nonetheless, American society once believed that racism was morally right. Now, however, we call racists “bigots,” and I’m trying to explain how that shift happened.
You ask a good question: “Suppose the non-partisans shifted and moved in favor of white supremacy.”
I’ll answer that question by backing up to an earlier time when racism was mainstream. During that period, there were people who argued for racial equality. They were not called “bigots.” They were instead called “radicals” or “anarchists.”
I think this terminological difference means that the mainstream applies the term “bigot” to positions that the mainstream once held as true and that it applies the term “radical” to positions that would overturn current arrangements.
I think we see this difference in the current debate over gay marriage. Conservatives believe that gay marriage is a “radical” idea that will destroy society and lead to “anarchy.” Liberals, however, believe that the opposition to gay marriage is “bigoted.”
No one can tell at this moment which way the mainstream will turn. It certainly seems to be turning in the direction of accepting gay marriage, which means that the once common belief that homosexuality was unnatural and intrinsically disordered will come to be seen as merely bigoted. That mainstream opinion won’t change the real truth about homosexuality, but from my perspective, mainstream opinion will at last conform to the real truth.
December 22nd, 2012 | 11:40 am
Heather wrote
“All human beings are born heterosexual…”
Psychoanalytical theory, from Freud to Lacan holds that humans are born with unfocused sexual libidinal drives, what Freud famously labelled “polymorphous perversity.” It then goes on to distinguish three stages of development, the oral, the anal and the phallic.
December 22nd, 2012 | 12:34 pm
Sorry JFK. I remain unconvinced. You correctly note that a single instance (when responding to Heather) does not invalidate a “systemic” condition and yet cite a single instance to support your assertion that a “systemic privilege” exists.
Additionally, your apparent definition of “systemic privilege” seems laking in objective criteria. You repeatedly note that a homosexual must “worry ” about this or that where a heterosexual does not. This indicates that individual perception can determine objective reality. In other words, “systemic privilege” exists if a sufficient number of individuals think it does.
December 22nd, 2012 | 4:40 pm
Michael PS: “Psychoanalytical theory, from Freud to Lacan holds that …”
I do hope someday that you will read critiques to psychoanalytical theories, because so many of them are rubbish, or substantially rubbish, and, not only that, profoundly misguided and misleading…
I wasn’t saying a baby is born an adult (you don’t say!), but that it will develop into a heterosexual adult if nothing deforms or perverts its psycho-sexual development, that is, if it’s allowed to develop naturally and in a healthy way.
December 22nd, 2012 | 7:47 pm
Michael, I have taken at face vale JFK’s proposed reframing of the discussion of bigotry. I have not disputed JFK’s use of the term, systemic privilege, but I have disagreed with his invoking marriage as an objective criterion in that regard.
…
In that other discussion you conceded that the dictionary definition of heterosexual is as I had described. You had cited the dictionary definition as prescriptive. There was and is no actual conflict between the definition you relied on for claims of standard usage and the ways in which it was used to describe reproduction and used in expressly biological and physiological context. In the dictionary entry the word was not restricted to a psychological context, contrary to your argument, and this you also conceded. You had dropped two-thirds of that definition. Also you had insisted that hetero required a homo bookened in standard usage but you were shown to be mistaken — even in the biological context you had relied upon. On each major point you were in error.
Sure you tried to dismiss all of this with a backhanded compliment (“clever” you said) but that demonstrated your departure from objectivity.
It is dissappointing that you now reiterate your disagreement even after those concessions and errors were thoroughly presented to you and our fellow readers.
…
Now here you proposed an inapt definition of bigotry. Both David Nickol and yourself have previously relied on a dictionary definition to which neither of you adhered in your usage.
Also you proposed that the shift of non-partisans is decisive in what is bigotry but now switch to proposing that the mainstream decides what is bigotry. This indicates that you understand the weakness of deciding bigotry based on popularity or unpopularity, yet would recast popularity as the subjectivity of “the mainstream”.
I think your main error is in presuming that this is a game of Capture The Flag.
The truth about homosexuality is not decided by popularity nor by “the mainstream” nor by relativism. All of that can provide cover for bigotry. None of that is immune from the emotional diversions stemming from unreasoning obstinancy.
But the truth is pursued because it does exist regardless of all of that. Hence the antidote is sound moral reasoning as our guide to seeking the truth and to responding to the truth.
Not popularity and not so-called non-partianship.
As I said, unreasoning obstinancy is the source of bigotry and not merely a sympton of bigotry.
The discussion of systemic privilege may be a discussion of symptons and of objective criteria. That does not contradict my responses to JFK.
..
December 23rd, 2012 | 12:32 am
Chairm,
I’ll be interested in hearing how JFK characterizes your comprehension of his argument.
As for our discussion of heterosexual, I don’t want to get back into the many details you’ve gotten confused about, including my many so-called “concessions” and “errors.” Language is elastic enough that you or anybody else can make a word mean what you want it to mean. So if you and a few others want to talk about “heterosexual reproduction” and the “heterosexual body,” have at it. Enjoy yourselves.
Just don’t be surprised if your educated readers think that you don’t understand biology very well because they know that “sexual reproduction” and “sexed bodies” are the more precise, common, and accepted terms. And don’t be surprised if your non-standard usage misleads uneducated readers into thinking that gays can have children through “homosexual reproduction” and that some people have a “homosexual body.”
It’s your choice if you want to use nonstandard and confusing terminology to make points that you could make clearly and without confusion by using standard terminology.
I think your understanding of my description of how bigotry is used is also hopelessly confused. I’ll try to explain it again:
“Now here you proposed an inapt definition of bigotry.”
I’m not trying to “define” bigotry. I’m trying to understand how people use it. Specifically, I’m trying to understand why people start using it to describe behaviors that had only recently been seen as mainstream attitudes.
“Also you proposed that the shift of non-partisans is decisive in what is bigotry but now switch to proposing that the mainstream decides what is bigotry.”
I haven’t changed anything. I’m only using synonyms. Mainstream thought is non-partisan. It’s what “everybody” accepts as true. Of course, there are always people who think the older truth was better or who want people to accept a new truth, but the mainstream thinks these two partisan groups are, in the first case, “bigots” and, in the second case, “radicals.”
“The truth about homosexuality is not decided by popularity nor by “the mainstream” nor by relativism.”
I agree, and I already said so in my last post. Racism has always been wrong and so has homophobia, but I wouldn’t call slaveholders “bigots.” In their era, most people thought blacks were inferior and believed it was “reasonable” to think so. It took special insight, experience, or grace for people to see past everything their culture taught them and to comprehend that blacks were fully human.
I would thus call the slaveholder “unenlightened” rather than “bigoted.” The difference between “unenlightened” and “bigoted” is that “unenlightened” suggests that they couldn’t see clearly the truth of the humanity of black people. “Bigoted,” on the other hand, suggests that evidence of the truth is all around you, but you are too obstinate to admit the truth.
Perhaps this illustration will clarify my point. The difference between Archie Bunker and Edith was that, even though they were both racists, Edith’s racism was “unenlightened” and thus whenever her racism was pointed out, she was able to overcome it. Archie’s racism was “bigoted” because he denied the evidence that was right in front of him.
“Hence the antidote is sound moral reasoning as our guide to seeking the truth and to responding to the truth. As I said, unreasoning obstinancy is the source of bigotry and not merely a sympton of bigotry”
Here, we get to the crux of the difference in the way you and I understand this issue. The bigot, by definition, is obstinate even though he has evidence that his position is wrong. For you, evidence comes through “moral reasoning.” You would argue, I presume, that the slaveholder’s bigotry prevented him from seeing the truth of the slave’s humanity.
I, on the other hand, would say that the slaveholder couldn’t see clearly the evidence of the slave’s humanity because that humanity was shrouded in darkness. The slaveholder could be rigorously practicing moral reasoning but still be fumbling because there just isn’t enough evidence yet for him to grasp. He is unenlightened but not a bigot.
December 24th, 2012 | 8:41 am
Readers may recognize when a dictionary definition is proposed (by you and David) as prescriptive even though the publishers state, routinely, that the definitions are descriptive.
Readers may nonetheless hold you to the definition you prescribed. But you dropped two-thirds of that definition. And you insisted on limiting the context to psychology even though no such limitation was in the dictionary entry you has insisted we adhere to. You hid behind a supposed “standard usage” even though the descriptive definition in the cited dictionary supplied standard meanings you rejected.
Now you deliberately ellide the definition of bigotry that you had cited previously. And hide behind some notion of popularity. In both of these cases you use mainstreaming as a shield behind which you dodge the meaning of words you invoked.
Earlier, in this discussion, you defined a bigot as an unreasonable partisan. It is an inapt definition.
You demonstrated that by embellishing your definition by invoking popularity and mainstreaming. You eschewed moral reasoning as the touchstone for what is and is not bigotry. Yet you also spoke of truth and reason in relativistic terms.
What do you think are the objective criteria for what you call homophobia?
Gay identity politics is partisan. It rarely exhibits sound moral reasoning when it is asserted as supreme over most other legitimate considerations. As such is it not unreasonable partisanship? Maybe but we must await the decisive judgement of mainstreaming, we might suppose.
December 24th, 2012 | 9:06 am
Michael, slavery and racisim are two distinct moral issues.
For example, racisim can thrive where slavery is nonexistent. And slavery can bE a scurge in a population of slavemasters and slaves of the same “race”.
I would expect that you understand this but mispoke in your earlier comment.
The antidote to racism is the truth that there is one human race.
What do you think is the antidote to “homophobia”, if not familiarity? Or popularity/ nonpartisanship/ mainstreaming? I think you have used these as synomyns. Perhaps familiarity breeds truth?
The truth of human sexuality is the antidote to progay bigotry, I think. This truth is not relative to popularity. But for one to become familiar with the truth one needs to use sound moral reasoning rather than rely on unreasonable partisanship.
The former pursues the truth and matches truth with moral feeling. As creatures of reason we guide our emotions with reason.
The latter obscures truth with half-truths that misleadingly invoke the feelings of morality. It is the latter that is prone to obstinancy and a lack of sound reasoning. As such it obscures the truth about the one human race; it obscures the truth about human sexuality; it sets moral feeling against sound moral reasoning.
What, Michael, do you think is the truth about same-sex sexual behavior?
December 24th, 2012 | 9:19 am
Sound moral reasoning is not averse to evidence that is all around us. Quite the contrary.
You offered a false dichotomy, Michael.
December 26th, 2012 | 7:33 am
Chairm,
“Readers may recognize when a dictionary definition is proposed (by you and David) as prescriptive even though the publishers state, routinely, that the definitions are descriptive”
But my definition IS descriptive. Explain to me what is prescriptive about saying that ““sexual reproduction” and “sexed bodies” are the more precise, common, and accepted terms.”
“But you dropped two-thirds of that definition.”
The dictionary you used offered three definitions. Only one of those definitions will apply in any context. So I didn’t “drop two-thirds” of a definition. I only explained which of the three definitions is most commonly used.
I tried another Google test that might help you finally see my point. Type “define sexual reproduction” into the search bar, a definition appears. Now type “define heterosexual reproduction” and hits will appear but no definition. Your use of the term is not unknown and so it appears in hits, but it is idiosyncratic enough that it is not defined.
“You hid behind a supposed “standard usage” even though the descriptive definition in the cited dictionary supplied standard meanings you rejected”
I have no idea what you think I am hiding, and I have no idea why you prefer non-standard terms. If I were thinking in a purely partisan, cynical way, I’d encourage you to continue using terms that make you sound uneducated.
December 26th, 2012 | 8:15 am
Chairm,
My speculations on what “bigotry” means and when people invoke the term are independent of my views about homosexuality. I’m simply thinking out loud. There’s been a lot of conversation on First Things recently about how unfair the charge of bigotry is when directed against opponents of gay marriage, and on this thread, I’ve been trying to understand where that charge comes from. At what point do people start feeling its use is justified?
To answer that question, I’ve been thinking about what I call in my second post the opinions of the “broad unaligned middle” and what I call in my third post “mainstream” opinion. I think these terms are synonymous, but you seem to think my shift from one term to the next is somehow deceptive. You say, “Now you deliberately ellide the definition of bigotry that you had cited previously. And hide behind some notion of popularity.” But I have no idea what you think I’m hiding from.
“Yet you also spoke of truth and reason in relativistic terms”
What I in fact said is, “Racism has always been wrong and so has homophobia.” Can you explain what is relativistic about claiming that racism and homophobia have always been wrong? Aren’t I in fact making an absolute truth claim?
“Gay identity politics is partisan. It rarely exhibits sound moral reasoning when it is asserted as supreme over most other legitimate considerations.”
I’m surprised to hear you say that gay identity politics is capable of exhibiting sound moral reasoning. When have you heard it do so?
“Maybe but we must await the decisive judgement of mainstreaming, we might suppose”
You’re not understanding my point yet. The mainstream doesn’t decide the truth; it only decides what will be accepted as truth.
“slavery and racisim are two distinct moral issues”
Oh, please. I’m trying to use common examples from American history. Don’t try to get all clever. My patience is coming to an end.
December 27th, 2012 | 1:36 am
Michael, your reference to American history does not fix what is wrong with your example regarding racism/slavery. You are aware of ‘same-race’ slavery in the context of that slave trading period, I’d expect. The truth about slavery and the truth about racism, however, begins with the fact of the one human race. We agree that favored or disfavored a moral wrong stands against truth.
My pointing this out ought not to try patience but rather encourage it.
You first referred to non-partisans who become partisans. Then you talked of the mainstream and popularity of the embrace of this or that partisan view. You speculated (thinking outloud) about how people use the word, bigotry, rather than the reason about the objective truth. Then you claimed a truth about racism in the context of slavery. Then you made a distinction between bigotry and unenlightened and again relied on popularity of this or that partisan view. And you spoke of old truths and new truths.
In this way you have ellided the definition of bigotry that you and David had cited earlier in a recent discussion of bigotry. What objective criteria (or criterion) have you for assessing the truth such that this or that partisan view is deemed bigotry?
Popularity-cum-familiarity is what you offered. This is relativistic, surely. It does appear in your comments as a vague synomyn for popularity and mainstreaming. I think you recognize my point.
As for gay identity politics, it can be backed by sound moral reasoning as per the dignity of the human being. However such reasoning constrains it with the truth about human sexuality.
A truth that is rejected by most claims made for the sake of gay identity politics. In this the gay version is little different, if at all, from other versions of identity politics such as the various forms of racism.
In the meanwhile, I referred to the asserted supremacy of gay identity politics which has not been backed by sound moral reasoning. It stands against the truth.
Look, if the mainstream accepts a falsehood as truth, how can you discern truth from falsehood via familiarity? As I said, the key is familiarity with the objective truth.
And, as asked, what do you think is the truth about same-sex sexual behavior?
December 27th, 2012 | 2:03 am
Michael, David cited the dictionary definition and you and he prescribed how we must use the word heterosexual. You both relied on a psychological context and not “any context”. You pressed into other contexts your prescribed usage.
If human reproduction is not heterosexual, then, what is it? You agreed it was not homosexual nor asexual. You agreed it was sexual nonetheless. Of the different types of reproduction in all of creation, human procreation is two-sexed or different-sexed or complementarily-sexed and not just in the bio-mechanics of the generative act. It is heterosexual reproduction. There is no confusion in its usage.
You would prescribe the psychological context as the constraint on standard usage and yet, even at that, you cannot put aside the notion of sexual attraction as distinctly heterosexual as per your own remarks in the context of human procreation.
Human beings drawn together for the generative act are drawn together by a heterosexual truth about humankind. This is so regardless of what you might speculate about psychology of same-sex sexual attraction. As you said yourself, human reproduction is not homosexual and so no such thing is implied by heterosexual reproduction.
Likewise our sexual embodiment is two-sexed or different-sexed or complementarily-sexed. Human physiology is heterosexual. The psychological context you prescribe does not alter the truth of sexual embodiment. It cannot actually split the mind from the body.
Enough of that, I suppose, because your concessions and errors do not appear to have brought home to you the lesson offered. It knocks at the door but you would need to answer that knock from within your political or philosophic sensibilities.
December 27th, 2012 | 6:16 pm
Chairm,
I’m typing this out on a smartphone, stoop I’ll have to be brief, and I’m about to disappear into the woods for a few days for our annual family new year hike, so I won’t be reading or responding.
My thoughts about the tipping point at which old social truths become seen as bigotry is just a bit of armchair sociology. You seen to want to see something more malevolent in it.
Your idiosyncratic use of “heterosexual”strikes me as armchair biology. You can make the terms work for you, but I don’t know why you don’t simply use the good, old fashioned terms we all learned in high school biology.
December 27th, 2012 | 10:04 pm
Not malevolent. Just inapt, as I said earlier.
You and I most likely agree that a moral wrong is not redeemed by popularity, mainstreaming, the shift of non-partisans, nor by relative degree of old and new.
The moral truth is not old and is not new. It is not manufactured by reason. It is discerned through sound reasoning. This directly challenges obstinancy that is unreasoning. Familiarity with the truth is the key.
On that much we’d agree, surely. Your comments strongly suggest you understand this clearly.
And so I asked about criteria for bigotry. I asked for your take on the moral truth about same-sex sexual behavior. I asked for objective criteria for what you called homophobia. This is in keeeping with the title of the blogpost at the top: Bullying, bigotry, and moral judgement. It is unclear (to me at least) how either the sociological narrative or the sociological reframing gets at the moral judgement under discussion.
The narrative you proposed has been your response. JFK proposed a reframing of the discussion. Neither of you alighted on a clear explanation for citing marriage as a criterion of bigotry or of systemic privilege. And so a more direct approach might serve you better.
The usage of heterosexual with which you disagree is both good and old (in its essence) and in accord with high school biology and basi physiology. Given the constraints you imagine must apply to standard usage, I think it odd that you’d depart from the dicionary definition that David Nickol and yourself prescribed. I think you tried to make a molehill out of a mountain (irony intended).
PS: A family hike! My best wishes on an enjoyable ramble. Don’t get lost in the woods. I hope you return refreshed. and ready to read and respond. Cheerio.
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