Economic or market liberalism and social liberalism both privilege the strong over the weak. Over the last one hundred years we’ve developed a system of checks and balances empower the weak and limit the strong: progressive taxation, labor laws, environmental regulation, and more. We can argue about whether we have the right policies, but aside from Randian libertarians, most agree that we need to protect the weak.
Over the last fifty years things have gone the other way when it comes to culture. The strong make war on the weak.
My friend Jim Rogers gave me an example. The old constitutional test for obscenity was to define it as material that tends “to deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences.” The idea was to protect the morally vulnerable. That changed in Miller (1973). The Supreme Court substituted “average person” for “minds open to such immoral influences.” The test is less rigorous because, well, because we don’t want the weak to limit our freedom. We’re not going to let the moral vulnerability of the few to be a burden to the many.
Drug legalization is another obvious case of the socially liberal war on the weak. Gay marriage is a less obvious instance, but a significant one. The strong have the resources to sustain a post-traditional culture of marriage. Everybody else? Data of declining marriage among the poor and middle class suggest not. The deconstruction of what’s left of the tattered traditional culture of marriage is very likely to make things worse, unless of course the social liberals crusade for the revival of marriage as a social norms, which they show no signs of doing.
It’s an odd situation today. Progressivism today is mostly focused on social questions, not economic ones, and in doing so they’re prosecuting a war on the weak. Political correctness, LGBT rights, elaborate therapies of inclusion: these are luxury goods for the rich paid for by the poor.
January 25th, 2013 | 8:40 am
“The whole principle is wrong; it’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t eat steak.” – Robert A. Heinlein on censorship.
Should we ban alcohol because some people have a predisposition to alcoholism? If not, why not?
January 25th, 2013 | 11:09 am
The most obvious fact of the last 20 years has been that drug prohibition hurts the poor. It breaks up their families and gives petty criminals records for life.
Perhaps the greatest failure of the social conservatism has been the inability to accept that the criminal justice system isn’t a black hole where you dump all your social ills. It’s a revolving door of actual human beings that the rich often have the luxury of avoiding but the poor do not.
January 25th, 2013 | 11:34 am
The idea was to protect the morally vulnerable. That changed in Miller (1973). The Supreme Court substituted “average person” for “minds open to such immoral influences.”
That seems a very mistaken interpretation of Miller to me. The Miller test is as follows:
It is not about protecting the “average person.” It is about judging what is pornographic by “community standards.”
January 25th, 2013 | 12:16 pm
I don’t share R.R. Reno’s conclusions – but I gotta say, he offers the most challenging critique of contemporary liberalism I know.
Hypothesis: Collectivism favors the poor/weak; libertarianism favors the strong/rich. As the US grows richer, we can afford to accommodate greater diversity, and so greater libertarianism.
But of course, people vary in their capacities to tolerate lack of structure – and the poor/weak tend to have less capacity than others. Segregation provided structure. Desegregation (and Affirmative Action, arguably) opened huge opportunities for blacks in America. It also led to collapse of black businesses and neighborhoods, as the most upwardly-mobile blacks began doing business with, and living with, the upwardly-mobile whites. In short, desegregation/Affirmative Action has had some regressive consequences. Do we therefore say these policies were a mistake, that we should return to the good ol’ days of the Harlem Renaissance?
Similarly, people allege that liberalized laws related to trade, welfare, pornography, marriage, divorce, pot, etc., really cause the social changes we observe. I question the causation: Do legal changes cause social upheaval? Or do dynamics triggering social upheaval also trigger legal changes?
Yet it seems clear that less restrictive laws let people follow a broader range of paths and arrive at a broader range of outcomes – both better and worse. Ideally, we’d structure society to 1) permit greater freedom, 2) acknowledge that freedom will result in some benefiting and others losing, and 3) tax the winners to compensate the losers. But I admit, when losing means that you grow up in a dysfunctional household, that’s a hard thing to compensate for.
January 25th, 2013 | 1:41 pm
“Gay marriage is a less obvious instance, but a significant one. The strong have the resources to sustain a post-traditional culture of marriage. Everybody else? Data of declining marriage among the poor and middle class suggest not.”
—-
I’m trying to figure out what this means. Gay marriage is still illegal in most places. Marriage rates among the middle class and poor have been declining for years. Does this mean that the poor and middle class anticipated that someday gay marriage would be acceptable and so they decided even before that day came not to get married?
January 25th, 2013 | 2:05 pm
The very idea that increased rights for others somehow constitutes a war on the weak is simply bizarre. Not to mention the lack of any rational argument for how exactly letting gay people marry will weaken the institution for heterosexuals.
*Crossing fingers this on gets through the arbitrary moderation on this site*
January 25th, 2013 | 2:16 pm
Both Ran Ingles’ point and this one:
“Do legal changes cause social upheaval? Or do dynamics triggering social upheaval also trigger legal changes?”
can be addressed by observing that the author notes: “Over the last fifty years things have gone the other way when it comes to culture.” It likely is the culture that determines the laws, and the culture that makes the difference.
I think very few Americans seriously want a return to prohibition, or making contraception and sodomy illegal again. But just because it may be the case that making something illegal isn’t the best way to manage it, it does’t follow that we necessarily should encourage it.
The perversity of today’s American liberal is that they are largely unable to argue that self-destructive behavior should be legal without also at least admitting that it shouldn’t be encouraged. So it’s not enough to make contraception, divorce, and sodomy legal.
Decades after these things were legalized, liberals are increasingly neurotically fixated on the total destruction of any traditionally ordered social system or set of values that might have once influenced their criminalization. They seem largely, and increasingly, unwilling to recognize the distinction between a moral judgment and a desire to criminalize, rather often envisioning in the former a conspiracy or coded endorsement of the latter.
Strong families, for example, have generally been accepted by all human societies throughout history as the basis of a stability and success. You can compare the trajectories of the black American communities, where the family has been co-opted by the state, with, say, South Korea, which has strong Confucian traditions and is today one of the world’s wealthiest nations. Both started the 1950′s as relatively poor.
So it may be that people deserve to make choices for themselves, that is,…
January 25th, 2013 | 2:25 pm
All sophisticated, educated, eloquent, sophistic, earnest, well-meaning, and not well-meaning comments notwithstanding, what R. R. Reno has described is what I and many, many others have seen happen.
Before our very eyes, so to speak, we have seen the price paid by those who do not (for various and sundry reasons) possess the resources necessary to recover from certain “transformative” ideas and the actions that follow from those ideas.
January 25th, 2013 | 2:37 pm
@John: Maybe the US didn’t have strict drug laws… I wonder if things would be better if we used a Singapore model.
January 25th, 2013 | 2:44 pm
“The perversity of today’s American liberal is that they are largely unable to argue that self-destructive behavior should be legal without also at least admitting that it shouldn’t be encouraged. So it’s not enough to make contraception, divorce, and sodomy legal.”
The perversity of today’s American conservative is that they are largely unable to make a coherent argument against the rights of others and so fall back on religious assertions which are devoid of substance. If you have an actual argument as to why, precisely, the things you mentioned should be discouraged, then by all means make it.
“Decades after these things were legalized, liberals are increasingly neurotically fixated on the total destruction of any traditionally ordered social system or set of values that might have once influenced their criminalization. They seem largely, and increasingly, unwilling to recognize the distinction between a moral judgment and a desire to criminalize, rather often envisioning in the former a conspiracy or coded endorsement of the latter.”
Or maybe, just maybe, not everyone agrees with your particular moral system. You face today a generation that has grown up knowing gay people in their everyday lives, and for whom the right’s demonization of gay people as disease ridden monsters simply doesn’t ring true. Likewise, you face people who see women being able to control their reproduction as morally good, and who realize that while divorce is extremely unfortunate, it is often less destructive both to adults and children than forcing people to remain in a bad marriage.
You also might want to consider the role that the manufacturing economy has had in the contrast between South Korea and the American black community.
January 25th, 2013 | 3:01 pm
Nekliw, two objections to adopting the Singapore model:
1. Is it really just to execute someone for possessing marijuana?
2. Americans aren’t Singaporeans. Prohibition of alcohol works better in Saudi Arabia than it did in the US. To RR’s point, Singapore is a wealthy city-state. Its drug laws might work on Manhattan’s upper east side but not elsewhere.
January 25th, 2013 | 3:33 pm
Reno’s argument about gay marriage favoring the strong over the weak strikes me as bizarre. Gay people remain a particularly vulnerable class in our society. Gay youths are disproportionately likely to end up homeless or in poverty. They are disproportionately at risk for depression, drugs and alcoholism due to parental or societal rejection. They can be fired for their orientation. Gay couples cannot currently marry in most states, leaving them and whatever children they may be raising together in a more vulnerable situation, without access to the 1,138 federal benefits that most married couples take for granted.
I might have more sympathy for Reno’s point–that gay marriage will further destablize the institution as a whole among the poor–if he showed awareness of any of these concerns that make gays a vulnerable class. But instead he characterizes LGBT rights as “goods for the rich,” essentially erasing the experiences of all gay people who don’t live the privileged suburban lives seen on shows such as “Modern Family.”
However, even if he acknowledged these concerns and still argued that the poor as a whole will be hurt by legalizing gay marriage, I still would not be convinced. The decline of marriage has been happening for a long time, and I see no evidence of it happening more in nations or states which allow gay marriage. I agree that liberals as a group have not done enough to strengthen marriage as an institution, but recognizing gay marriage would certainly strengthen many individual marriages (and that’s what they are, even if they are not recognized by the state) and give them a stronger safety net to raise the children they are already raising. I find it odd that many people seem to think that stopping people from marrying will somehow strengthen marriage.
I also think Reno ignores the fact that people who have been targeted with…
January 25th, 2013 | 3:34 pm
Briefly, why do you care if I get married? If you’re taxes pay for the social safety net, you have an interest in reducing the number of people who must rely on the net. Thus, you want me to join a mutual aid society – such as AAA or a marriage. Or both.
Plus, kids do better in stable home environments. You want my kids well-socialized; someday they’ll be your nurse – or your mugger. So you want me to create a stable home environment.
So, that’s why *YOU* care if I get married. Why do *I* care? Sure, there are legal advantages (and disadvantages). But mostly, it’s cultural. I get married because that’s what the people I identify with do.
How does same-sex marriage alter that? It’s a brand thing.
Even with all the warm, wholesome associations marriage evokes, the marriage brand doesn’t appeal to everyone. Now, if we dilute that brand further by associating it with same-sex couples and controversy, this may be enough to tip the choice for that on-the-fence couple to skip that whole marriage thing.
And a disproportionate share of those on-the-fence couples are working class.
It seems odd to think that we’d burden same-sex couples as a means of catering to working-class couples – but that’s how branding works. (“If we boost Romney’s appeal to immigrants, it’ll offend whites in the border states!”) Yup, rough justice for gays. But if you give gay people the choice between having marriage and growing up surrounded by muggers, or not having marriage and growing up surrounded by well-socialized kids, I think they might skip marriage. EVERYONE – including gays – has an interest in how kids grow up.
But don’t gays raise kids? Yup, but not that many.
Anyway, that’s how *I*…
January 25th, 2013 | 3:40 pm
“The perversity of today’s American liberal is that they are largely unable to argue that self-destructive behavior should be legal without also at least admitting that it shouldn’t be encouraged. So it’s not enough to make contraception, divorce, and sodomy legal.”
It’s not enough because contraception *should* be encouraged. It greatly reduces the rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion. And this position is hardly an indictment of “liberals;” 99% of Catholic women have used contraception. I don’t think that makes them “perverse.”
I don’t believe divorce is widely encouraged in the abstract. In certain situations, it should be.
“Sodomy” should be encouraged for people who like sodomy (which includes gay and straight people). There is no coherent moral, non-religious argument against it.
January 25th, 2013 | 3:43 pm
Should we adopt the Singapore model? Absolutely.
Judging from the Singapore models I’ve known, I’d adopt them in a heartbeat. Or several heartbeats in rapid succession.
January 25th, 2013 | 4:20 pm
Who, beginning in 2001, took projected budget surpluses as far as the eye could see—with the national debt projected to be paid off by 2011—and began to run up huge deficits? George W. Bush and the Republicans. Who started not one, but two wars—always good for the poor and the weak? Who cut taxes for the rich? Who groused that 47% of Americans don’t pay income taxes (forgetting that Ronald Reagan arranged that deliberately)? On whose watch did the economy crash, putting millions of homeowners “under water”? Who is insisting on cuts to Medicare and Social Security? Who consistently opposes minimum wage hikes? Who opposed “Obamacare” in principle although, aside from provisions on abortion, it was overwhelmingly favored by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops? Who feels the best way to help the poor is trickle-down economics?
January 25th, 2013 | 5:03 pm
Who started not one, but two wars—always good for the poor and the weak?
And let’s not forget the Iraquis, the Afghans, and various others in those regions. Many of the weakest and poorest there were displaced or killed.
January 25th, 2013 | 5:12 pm
Boo:
I was born in the early 1960s, and I grew up around Muslim people, atheist people, and even Amish people, all of whom I believe are, in differing degrees, theologically mistaken. My knowing, respecting, and understanding them never came close to changing that judgment.
So, when you say that a generation that has gotten to know gay people is the basis on which they changed their judgment on the nature of our sexual powers, I immediately think: the change can’t be the consequence of reasoned reflection, since the author doesn’t actually offer the reasons for the change. He offers an historical narrative–full of interesting causal facts–but nothing that amounts to a moral argument.
What is interesting is that my Muslim, atheist, and Amish friends, knowing my theological disagreement, never once called me “bigoted” and mean. They understood that rational persons–fully informed of all the facts–could disagree on matters of ultimate concern.
Why can’t you extend the same reasoning to the issue of human sexuality?
January 25th, 2013 | 5:21 pm
nobody.really- your argument rests on the premise that substantial numbers of the working class possess both a shaky attachment to the idea of marriage and such an overwhelming contempt for gay people that they won’t want to do anything they see gay people doing too. I don’t think you can really make a very strong case for this. Gay couples buy homes together, that hasn’t stopped even the most homophobic straight couple from buying a home. Anti-gay attitudes are strongly correlated with fundamentalist religion, and religious fundamentalists would seem to me to be one of the least likely groups to abandon the concept of marriage. So again, I don’t think your bare assertion falls under the category of rational argument. Especially not when compared to the actual children of actual gay couples who suffer actual negative consequences from having their parent be denied access to marriage.
January 25th, 2013 | 7:49 pm
A Singapore model in America is totally out of the question. For one, Singapore is a tiny city state, America is not. Also, given that America has one of the highest drug consumption rates in the world (higher than liberalized Holland by the way) to adopt the Singapore model fairly and uniformly would require executions and incarcerations at a rate equivalent to Stalin’s Great Terror. I would hope that would be unacceptable.
By the way, I wonder how American conservatives would react if liberals proposed a Singapore model for gun control (hint: its similar to the their drug laws).
January 25th, 2013 | 9:02 pm
“The most obvious fact of the last 20 years has been that drug prohibition hurts the poor.”
That might be more how we do drug prohibition than prohibition itself. Sweden has fairly strict drug laws as does Japan. I haven’t heard their drug laws doing much damage to their poor.
January 25th, 2013 | 10:26 pm
The old constitutional test for obscenity was to define it as material that tends “to deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences.” The idea was to protect the morally vulnerable.
Perhaps we should treat guns the way pornography used to be treated. Ban them altogether—their manufacture, sale, and ownership—so that the morally vulnerable are not tempted to use them.
January 25th, 2013 | 11:03 pm
Thomas Aquinas- your comparison doesn’t really work. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume some things about you. I am going to assume that you never campaigned to outlaw atheism or the Muslim or Amish religions. I am going to assume that you never voiced support for laws forbidding Muslims, atheists, or the Amish to marry. I am going to assume you never claimed that your Muslim, atheist, or Amish friends were a greater threat to the United States than Al Quaeda. I am going to assume that you never called your Muslim, atheist, or Amish friends termites. I am going to assume you never claimed that Muslims, atheists, and Amish people are all pedophiles. The religious right has said all that and much, much worse about gay people. And as long as gay people were largely in the closet and the only time anyone ever heard anything about them was when some were being hauled off to jail, it was easy to accept the demonization. But, as I said, now you have a generation that hears the demonization on one hand but is able to look at actual gay people in their lives on the other, and they can see that we are not termite pedophiles who skulk in the sewers waiting to corrupt everything we touch.
A theological disagreement does not make someone a bigot. A desire to deny equal rights under the law to a group of people does, even if that desire stems from sincere religious belief. As a Christian, I believe the Muslim religion is wrong. But I would never, ever support the government enforcing Christianity on the US population and outlawing other religions.
Every argument against gay rights comes down to demonization of gay people, false claims about gay people being a danger to children, and/or the desire to force one’s religious beliefs on others. If anti-gay people don’t want to be called bigots, then they should stop acting like bigots.
January 25th, 2013 | 11:57 pm
“So, when you say that a generation that has gotten to know gay people is the basis on which they changed their judgment on the nature of our sexual powers, I immediately think: the change can’t be the consequence of reasoned reflection, since the author doesn’t actually offer the reasons for the change. He offers an historical narrative–full of interesting causal facts–but nothing that amounts to a moral argument.”
The moral argument you offer, Thomas Aquinas, is one that most vocational celibates have a hard time keeping … and, statistically, at any given time, 50% are not following.
The moral argument you offer is one that 95% fertile Catholics don’t follow, all the time: using contraception, watching porn.
The moral argument you offer is one that most single Catholics don’t follow: fornicating, masturbating, and watching porn.
The moral argument you offer is one that the Church miraculously happened to find a convenient way to divorce, by calling it annulment … rarely, rarely used pre-Vatican II.
Cut-to-the-chase, you’re morality exists mainly in illusion, not in-fact.
So, yes, Thomas Aquinas, the liberals are so totally to blame for the state of the world. Perhaps, one of Our Lord’s 7 woes applies to the conservatives:
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness. So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
January 26th, 2013 | 3:35 pm
David, you say that the United States started “two wars” under President Bush. You may recall an event that occurred in September 2001 that killed close to 3000 of your fellow citizens. Al Qaeda was sheltered and supplied by the government of Afghanistan who refused to shut down their camps and turn over the masterminds behind that massacre of your fellow citizens. Who started that war again?
January 26th, 2013 | 5:30 pm
Birth data shows that people in all socioeconomic groups are growing more likely to have kids out of wedlock — but the further down the economic spectrum you go, the greater the likelihood becomes.
Now, how does state recognition of same-sex marriage affect these trends? Don’t know. But many people find the birth trends so alarming that it provokes a defensive/conservative view: “We’re already in a catastrophe! We don’t dare risk social innovations now!” And yes, perhaps this view is especially pronounced among people who disfavor homosexuality anyway.
Fascinating thought!
I sense poorer people are disproportionately likely to 1) embrace fundamentalist religions and 2) have kids out of wedlock. All else being equal, I’d expect these trends to overlap, and find that people with fundamentalist religions are also likely to have kids out of wedlock. But all else may NOT be equal; I’d like to see data disaggregated on this basis.
January 26th, 2013 | 5:50 pm
Again, all of the learned and ignorant, respectful and disrespectful, relevant and irrelevant comments notwithstanding, the situation described by R. R. Reno is as he states.
People whose lives are fragile for many and diverse reasons have been demonstrably harmed by certain ideas. These ideas may have in some cases been well-intentioned; they may have in some cases seemed theoretically attractive. Certain sophisticated people with resources seem delighted with their new arrangements. Their privacy should be respected.
But on the dark side many, many lives – lives of people who are neither sophisticated nor materially affluent – have been negatively affected by the breakdown of traditional norms in our culture.
Yes, yes. Abuses, injustices did exist. Many, many corrections were needed. Tolerance, caritas, neighborliness, kindliness, courtesy – cultural encouragement of these qualities was needed. But they are now precisely what we do not have.
January 26th, 2013 | 8:44 pm
The SSM idea will not promote marriage among the segments of the population where nonmarital trends are very high.
The marriage idea, on the other hand, has all the ingredients for promoting greater integration of the sexes and stronger support for the practice of responsible procreation.
Apart from that, no one-sexed scenario is marital — except by the most tenuous reliance on the relatively modern tradition of romance. Romance is a very fickle misteress and master.
So if the core meaning of marriage becomes obscure, as it has increasingly become, the canaries in the mine are those least resourced to sustain the preferential status of marriage in culture. Those who are better equipped, to speak of marriage in contradictory terms, are able to buffer themselves to a greater degree. But no one and no family is an island. The nonmarital trends reach us all.
This has already played out with the contraceptive mentality, the abortion mentality, and the over all hedonism that has been popular since the wrecklessness of the Sexual Revolution.
January 26th, 2013 | 8:49 pm
Teresa, you might be aware that your statistical argument is superficial at best.
Nonetheless, your argument, such as it is, does not rebut the substance of Thomas Aquinas said in the comment to which you offered your retort.
If 100 people acted immorally, would that make the 1 moral person wrong?
If someone believes in marriage but acts on adultery, that makes that person a hypocrite; however, if someone does not believe in marriage — perhaps he believes in SSM instead — and, in his actions, disregards sexual monogamy, does that make that person a hypocrite?
I think not, for he acts on his beliefs. The question becomes, are his actions for the good, nonetheless?
January 26th, 2013 | 11:38 pm
Publius- Iraq certainly did not start that war, and did not possess the WMDs the war against them was allegedly fought over. And after decimating Al Qaueda in Afghanistan, we have been flailing around like an extremely angry drunken sailor in that country for over ten years now. What is it accomplishing? Perhaps large scale conventional warfare has proven to not be the best way to respond to unconventional warfare waged by non-state actors.
January 26th, 2013 | 11:45 pm
nobody.really- and you are simply assuming that consideration of marriage equality for gay people must have a negative impact on those trends without any evidence whatsoever. If anything, the tenacity with which gay people are pursuing marriage equality stands as a testament to how important the institution is. And binding another segment of the population into matrimony does, in fact, increase the overall number of married people in society, thus strengthening marriage. Against that statistical fact, you have vague fears based on no data that somewhere, somehow, through means which no one has ever been able to articulate, some harm may occur. If we took that atitude and applied it to other areas of life, no one would ever get out of bed in the morning.
January 27th, 2013 | 8:32 am
Paul,
You write:
While marriage has not been legally redefined in most states, the cultural impact of redefinition has had a much wider impact. I can’t think of a better quick example than this story.
January 27th, 2013 | 9:03 am
A scholarly, informed, respectful reply to the questions posed by Boo, paul, Teresa, and others is provided by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George. It is entitled “Marriage and Politics: Why the debate matters …”. This piece argues for marriage as a life-giving union of one man and one woman.
A google search will yield at least two sites at which the entire article can be read.
January 27th, 2013 | 11:17 am
Boo, those are all reasonable points. I was simply contesting the statement that Bush “started” the war in Afghanistan. We responded to an attack on our country that was planned and directed from Afghanistan and killed 3000 Americans. There are a lot of myths out there about the warlike nature of the Bush administration, and this myth is one of the most egregious.
Re Iraq: I have no issue with what you say, other than to simply point out the Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Tom Daschle, etc. all voted for the invasion of Iraq. It was Bush’s war, and theirs too….
January 27th, 2013 | 11:42 am
Douglas Johnson- the best example you can think of is Maggie Gallagher writing of an anecdote involving a child of divorce? And you wonder why your side is losing the argument?
January 27th, 2013 | 11:43 am
Chairm- “The SSM idea will not promote marriage among the segments of the population where nonmarital trends are very high.”
Gay people are part of the population, so your statement is illogical on its face.
January 27th, 2013 | 11:47 am
A reader- can you provide a link that is not behind a pay wall?
January 27th, 2013 | 1:32 pm
Participation in marriage means forming the union of husband and wife.
Participation in nonmarital types of relationships, such as the type that SSMers have in mind, is a choice for something other than forming the union of husband and wife.
The SSM idea is in conflict with the marriage idea. This is a conflict of ideas that matters.
When the core meaning of marriage is regarded by society, the special status of this type of relationship is sustained and eligibility is justly drawn around that core meaning.
When societal regard is hindered, when the marriage law, for instance, moves away from the core meaning of marriage, then the Government obscures marriage and the purpose of the social institution — and it also obscures the just role of Government in recognizing the union of husband and wife.
That is the explicit goal of the SSM campaign: to obscure the marriage idea and to impose a Specious Substitution for Marriage (aka SSM). Obscuring the core meaning of marriage, and much else, cannot provide the basis for promoting the core meaning of marriage.
Thus, imposition of the SSM idea in place of the marriage idea cannot improve the nonmarital trends. Rather, it would tie the arms of Government to protect the marriage institution; it would have Government coerce society to become blind, or to act as blind, in regard of the core meaning of marriage. That is a decidedly non-marriage project.
Boo said:
“And binding another segment of the population into matrimony does, in fact, increase the overall number of married people in society, thus strengthening marriage.”
Perhaps, however, SSM does not bind any segment of the population to matrimony. SSM is not marital. Your own commentary shows this to be true. Your mislabeling non-marriage as marriage does not transform this truth into a falsehood.
And Boo said:
“Gay people are part of…
January 27th, 2013 | 1:44 pm
Boo: A google search for “Marriage and politics: why the debate matters” will bring up various links. Click on the ruthblog.org link. It is not behind a paywall. Thank you for asking.
January 27th, 2013 | 2:19 pm
Douglas Johnson, A Reader: The arguments of Robert George et al. and Maggie Ghallager go something like this:
1) Marriage exists because babies
2) Only opposite-sex couples can have babies
3) Therefore, only opposite-sex couples should get married.
If the world were as tidy as this, their argument would be unassailable. Unfortunately for them, there are many, many opposite-sex couples who will not, and even cannot, have babies. Introduce that fact to the argument, and it starts to look like this:
1) Marriage exists because babies
2) Only opposite-sex couples can have babies
3) Therefore, only opposite-sex couples should get married
4) But some opposite-sex couples cannot have babies
5) But they should still be able to marry because they are opposite-sex couples
The argument has no choice but to resort to circular logic in support of arbitrary discrimination.
It requires much less contortion of logic to simply accept the fact that marriage, under U.S. laws, is not about babies. There is no procreation requirement in marriage, or even a procreation capability requitement. Marriage does provide tangible benefits to children–which is one reason the refusal to extend recognition to same-sex couples raising children is so harmful–but marriage also provides many other benefits to society that same-sex couples also meet.
A same-sex couple raising an adopted child or a step-child is, legally speaking, similarly situated to an opposite-sex couple raising an adopted child or a step-child. A childless same-sex couple is similarly situated to a childless opposite-sex couple. An elderly same-sex couple is similarly situated to an elderly opposite-sex couple. The only difference is that we give marriage licenses to the opposite-sex couples and not the same-sex couples. This is simply arbitrary gender discrimination, plain and simple.
January 27th, 2013 | 7:32 pm
Re: comment by Chris S. directed to me:
I respect adults rights to privacy and to legal protection as to rights of visitation, inheritance and freedom from interference.
My primary concern is children’s human rights to their natural mothers and fathers except in cases of dire crisis.
January 27th, 2013 | 8:28 pm
A Reader: “My primary concern is children’s human rights to their natural mothers and fathers except in cases of dire crisis.”
I share that concern, but I am at a loss as to how fighting gay marriage accomplishes that goal. Gay couples don’t get a free kid upon signing a marriage contract. Marriage =/= children. Gays can already adopt or use artificial inseminiation, just like straights can. Many gays will get married and never have children, just like straights can.
This whole child welfare business is a red herring. Gay marriage does not, in any way, deprive children of their biological mother and father. Those who imply that it does are either being dishonest, or extremely lazy in their thinking.
January 27th, 2013 | 8:48 pm
Chairm- “Participation in marriage means forming the union of husband and wife.”
No, the definition of marriage is the issue under discussion. You are attempting to assume the conclusion and win by fiat. This is no different than a sgregationist asserting that participaiton in marriage means forming a union of husband and wife of the same race, and trying to claim that interracial unions cannot by definition be marriage. That argument didn’t work back then and it won’t work now.
“When the core meaning of marriage is regarded by society, the special status of this type of relationship is sustained and eligibility is justly drawn around that core meaning.”
Again, to segregationists the core meaning of marriage was to produce racially pure offspring who would maintain the separation of the races. What you and every other advocate against marriage equality for same gender couples have completely failed to do is make a case for why the government should enforce your own opinion about the “core meaning” of marriage.
“When societal regard is hindered, when the marriage law, for instance, moves away from the core meaning of marriage, then the Government obscures marriage and the purpose of the social institution — and it also obscures the just role of Government in recognizing the union of husband and wife.”
We know objectively that this is not true. In jurisdictions where same sex marriage is legal, the government has no trouble whatsoever in recognizing the union of husband and wife.
“That is the explicit goal of the SSM campaign: to obscure the marriage idea and to impose a Specious Substitution for Marriage (aka SSM). Obscuring the core meaning of marriage, and much else, cannot provide the basis for promoting the core meaning of marriage.”
Please cite from the writing or speeches of same sex marriage advocates where they are…
January 27th, 2013 | 8:56 pm
A Reader- the Ruth Blog entry contains only the first few paragraphs of the piece and then directs on to the National Review where the remained of the article is behind a paywall requiring registraiton. Perhaps you could sum up the arguments from the piece?
January 27th, 2013 | 10:22 pm
A reminder for commenters (I’m one of the moderators): As recently mentioned on the blog, we have a limit of approximately 300 words (1,900 characters) on comments and do not allow multi-part comments. That is why several comments on this thread have not been posted. Please adjust your comments and replies to fit within a single comment; otherwise we will not be able to post your intended comment in its entirety.
January 27th, 2013 | 11:56 pm
Chris S, I don’t think the summary of Robert George, etc.’s position really does justice at all to their argument. They address the objection of infertile couples as well.
Out of curiosity, let me ask you if you think that that laws which did not recognize a marriage as legally binding unless it was consummated in coitus and not in some other sexual contact were designed so in order to discriminate against homosexuals?
“…for two individuals to unite organically, their bodies must coordinate toward a common biological end of the whole that they form together. When they do so, they do not just touch or interlock. Their union is not just felt, or metaphorical…Though limited, it is as real as the union of a single body’s parts…it is a remarkable fact that there is one respect in which the highest kind of bodily unity is possible between two individuals, one function for which a mate really does complete us: sexual reproduction…But bodily coordination is possible even when its end is not realized; so for a couple, bodily union occurs in coitus even when conception does not. It is coordination toward a single end that makes that union; achieving the end would deepen the union but it is not necessary for it…In other words, the marital act involves the most distinctively marital behavior (bodily union in coitus), chosen for distinctively marital reasons: to make spousal love concrete, to unite as spouses do, to extend their union of hearts and minds onto the bodily plane.
All interpersonal unions are, so far as they go, valuable in themselves: not just as a means to other ends. So a husband and wife’s loving bodily union in coitus and the special kind of relationship that it seals are valuable, even when conception is neither sought nor achieved. But two men, two women, and larger groups cannot achieve organic bodily union: there is no bodily good or…
January 28th, 2013 | 1:54 am
No, Boo, I did not assume my conclusion.
There is afoot a campaign to revise the marriage law. Moving the law away from the marriage idea does not promote marriage. Having government distant itself from the good of marriage only hinders and obscures the good of marriage. Moving the law closer to the the marriage idea can help promote rather than obscure. Surely you can see the logic in this.
Now, you object that SSM is marital and so more SSM would mean a gain for marital trends. That is you, Boo, assuming your conclusion.
But why would you take issue with the obvious: that when the law or government gets marriage wrong, this hinders and obscures rather than promotes marriage? Contarianism, perhaps.
The example of the anti-miscegenation law serves as an example that is closely analogous with the SSM idea.
The idealized type of relationship of SSM rhetoric, the prototypical SSM, would be gay-only, either male-only or female-only, and defined by either male-sexual attraction or female sexual attraction. It would be segregative on all three points because the goal is to revise the law for the sake of these three points. Not to be inclusive but to be exclusive by sex, by group identity, and by sexual attraction. SSMers often refer to the purity of gay identity (sometimes softened to exclusivity or, again, segregative by identity).
Meanwhile, according to the pro-SSM complaint, the prototypical union of husband and wife is integrative on all three of these definitive points. You object to the preferential treatment of the integrative and wish to equate it with the segregative. Indeed, if gay is a race-like identity, then, the SSM idea is racist-like.
What might be your back-up for that? Well, you would insist that there can be no gay requirement for those who’d SSM. But no requirement means it is not a legitimate basis for lawmaking on eligibility,…
January 28th, 2013 | 2:27 am
Chris S, did you mean that the lack of a legal requirement for something (say, for procreation) is decisive against that something being a legitimate basis for making laws on eligibility to marry?
Please confirm, correct, or clarify.
If you confirm, then, what would you make of the legal requirement for bride-plus-groom?
Or the legal requirement for consent to marital status, which entails the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity?
Or, where SSM has been imposed, the lack of a gay requirement, a same-sex sexual attraction requirement, or a same-sex sexual behavior requirement for those who’d SSM?
Please do not retort that there is no straight requirement for the union of husband and wife. I agree, there is no such requirement. Likewise for the sexual attraction and sexual behavior stuff. Yet is that not the basis for your demand that the law be revised. You would rewrite the law on the basis of a non-requirement or a set of non-requirements.
Today under the man-woman criterion of marriage law, that stuff is not required. Under the imposition of SSM, also not required. So that knocks the legs out from under the pro-SSM complaint and the pro-SSM proposed remedy.
Really, what do you make of that, given the certitude of your less contorted thinking on the law and marriage?
January 28th, 2013 | 5:38 am
“Perhaps, however, SSM does not bind any segment of the population to matrimony. SSM is not marital. Your own commentary shows this to be true. Your mislabeling non-marriage as marriage does not transform this truth into a falsehood.”
Same sex marriage is matrimony, by definition. Whether you like it or not, same sex marriage exists in multiple jurisdictions and gay people are, in fact, married in those jurisdictions. Whether or not they happen to measure up to your personal beliefs about marriage is neither here nor there.
January 28th, 2013 | 7:53 am
Reply to Chris S. Do I understand you to mean that artificial insemination does not deprive a child of his/her natural father or mother?
If a woman becomes pregnant by a donor and raises the child with another woman, the child is deprived of family life with the man who is his/her father.
If two men engage a woman to be inseminated and she then conceives a child of whom one of them is the father, the child is deprived of family life with the woman who is his/her mother.
My concern is that redefining marriage as an emotional-romantic bond – (the fact that noble, commited friendship exists between two persons of the same sex who have every right to privacy is not in question) negates protections in law for children; that it does indeed make marriage a political construct that can be changed by the state. The unique standing and the solemn responsibilities of parents, natural fathers and mothers, become subject to the caprice of the state.
January 28th, 2013 | 8:14 am
Reply to Boo: I apologize for sending you in the wrong direction.
The article is a piece of architecture; its argument as “living stones, fitted together” so to speak. The authors are qualified through background, education, and passionate commitment to make their case. Their work deserves to be read in full. I am not qualified (although I am willing to try) to summarize. Any effort of mine will be an extremely pale reflection of the whole.
I will try one more site – mirrorofjustice. Prof. George often re-posts his pieces at that site. If that fails, I will attempt to contact someone who has authority to negate the paywall and will post any new information at this comment blog.
January 28th, 2013 | 9:23 am
Chris: “Do I understand you to mean that artificial insemination does not deprive a child of his/her natural father or mother?”
Sure it does, but a) straight people do this too, and b) it is already legal for both gay and straight couples. In fact, the majority of people who use aritificial insemination are straight. So once again, your concern has nothing to do with gay marriage. Stopping gay marriage won’t stop one single child from being artificially inseminated. It will stop those children from benefitting from the legal protections of married parents.
“My concern is that redefining marriage as an emotional-romantic bond – (the fact that noble, commited friendship exists between two persons of the same sex who have every right to privacy is not in question) negates protections in law for children…”
But again, I don’t see how gay marriage does this.
January 28th, 2013 | 9:55 am
Do I understand you to mean that artificial insemination does not deprive a child of his/her natural father or mother?
There is a logical problem with this question rendering it almost meaningless. It is true that if a woman conceives a child by an anonymous sperm donor, that child will not know his or her father. However, if the woman doesn’t conceive by an anonymous sperm donor, then there will be no child. So the argument seems to be that it is better for children not to come into existence if they will not be raised by their biological parents.
Suppose a child says to his or her mother, “By conceiving me through artificial insemination, you deprived me of a father!” The obvious response for the mother is, “If I hadn’t conceived you through artificial insemination, you wouldn’t exist to complain about it!”
January 28th, 2013 | 10:03 am
Reply to Chris S.
In this – “your concern has nothing to do with gay marriage” – you are I believe incorrect.
Two wrongs (or more) do not make a right. I hope we agree on that. Otherwise our discussion is at a dead end.
The fact that motherhood and fatherhood are legally exploited by heterosexual couples and single mothers does not affect our agreement that children are entitled to their mothers and their fathers as a matter of basic human rights. Or am I incorrectly thinking that we agree on this?
The reason that marriage between two persons of the same sex is one and only one of the factors which are undermining legal protections for children (I would underline if I could) is that it will establish in law that the state can re-define marriage. Once that is done, all unique and particular protections for the natural family (blood relationships) which have historically existed and were over-ridden only in matters of extreme urgency will be erased from the legal codes. This has already happened in Canada.
January 28th, 2013 | 11:09 am
This is a fascinating discussion of same-sex marriage. For what it’s worth, Blankenhorn cited Reno to kick off a lively chat over at Family Scholars.
That said, Reno’s post addressed a larger social dynamic, of which SSM was only one manifestation (and, as Reno remarked, “Gay marriage is a less obvious instance” of the dynamic). Perhaps Reno or others would like to start a new discussion to focus on the larger dynamic EXCLUDING consideration of same-sex marriage.
Reno argues that laws/social mores constrain people’s behavior. We relax those laws/mores, with the consequence that some people flourish in the new-found freedoms, some suffer — and it’s not clear that the benefits outweigh the harms for society overall.
Under Reno’s view, Downton Abbey-type mores existed not merely as stuffy cultural artifacts, but as an adaptive social trait. Even wealthy people who had the means to live the libertine life – especially these people – would instead live a life of prudence and sobriety, and tolerate nothing less from others, in order to keep society prudent and sober.
To my contemporary sensibilities, this seems constricting and harsh. But which is harsher: A system that ostracizes the woman who has a child out of wedlock? Or a system that doesn’t, and has 25+% of kids raised in single-parent households (and expected to pass 33% by 2030)?
I suspect Reno’s critique is illusory, nostalgia dressed up in academic robes. Once you hear Pat Robertson saying that homosexuality caused Hurricane Katrina, you grow suspicious of “just so” stories designed to rationalize whatever viewpoint a speaker happened to favor.
Yet I’m haunted by the idea that social mores emerged to serve a social purpose, a purpose we may not fully understand. And I don’t know what to do…
January 28th, 2013 | 11:29 am
I share the view it makes little sense to bar artificial reproductive technologies (ART) as a means of promoting the welfare of the child, if the result is the child never exists.
That said, it may make sense to control ART to promote the welfare of society. If research shows that ART results in a society with an unhealthy percentage of people living in existential angst – say, prone to stress disorders, violence, or suicide – then society might have an interest that transcends the interests of the individuals involved.
Now, I’m not aware of any research supporting the idea that people born via ART are more prone to problems than anyone else. I merely want to emphasize that the interest of specific individuals are not the only interest at stake in these (and other) discussions.
January 28th, 2013 | 12:25 pm
Chair,- “There is afoot a campaign to revise the marriage law. Moving the law away from the marriage idea does not promote marriage. Having government distant itself from the good of marriage only hinders and obscures the good of marriage. Moving the law closer to the the marriage idea can help promote rather than obscure. Surely you can see the logic in this.”
I hate to break it to you but, once again, you are assuming the conclusion. As with every other anti equality advocate, you have failed to make a coherent argument for how legalizing marriage between same sex spouses will “distance from the good of marriage” or “hinders and obscures the good of marriage.” One could have made the exact same argument against interracial marriage, and like those who did, you are basing your argument only on your own subjective beliefs about what “the good” of marriage is. Why, precisely, would adding same sex couples to the institution of marriage not be “to the good” of marriage? You kind of skipped that step. Why, precisely, do opposite sex couples need same sex couples not to have access to marriage in order to enjoy “the good” of marriage? When my five year old nephew gets a cookie, he is able to enjoy it even if his sisters each get one too.
“Now, you object that SSM is marital and so more SSM would mean a gain for marital trends. That is you, Boo, assuming your conclusion.”
No, that is me recognizing facts. Same sex marriages do, in fact, exist. Whether or not they uphold your subjective opinions on the “core” of marriage or “the good” of marriage is irrelevant. Same sex marriage exists. That is a fact. The fact that you may not like that fact does not mean that that fact is not, in fact, a fact. Governments caused this to happen by simply decreeing that it would. And so it did. This battle is about equal treatment under the law, not about…
January 28th, 2013 | 12:32 pm
“The idealized type of relationship of SSM rhetoric, the prototypical SSM, would be gay-only, either male-only or female-only, and defined by either male-sexual attraction or female sexual attraction. It would be segregative on all three points because the goal is to revise the law for the sake of these three points. Not to be inclusive but to be exclusive by sex, by group identity, and by sexual attraction. SSMers often refer to the purity of gay identity (sometimes softened to exclusivity or, again, segregative by identity).
Meanwhile, according to the pro-SSM complaint, the prototypical union of husband and wife is integrative on all three of these definitive points. You object to the preferential treatment of the integrative and wish to equate it with the segregative. Indeed, if gay is a race-like identity, then, the SSM idea is racist-like.”
I’m sorry, but this argument is ridiculous. Gay people are not attempting to create a separate institution of marriage. The goal is only to remove a single requirement from the institution of marriage as it exists. In jurisdictions where same sex marriage is legal, a straight man is as free to marry a man he is not sexually attracted to as he is to marry a woman he happens to not be sexually attracted to. If a gay man wants to go out and marry a woman, that is between the two of them. It doesn’t strike me as the healthiest thing to do, but it’s their right under the law, as it should be.
January 28th, 2013 | 12:38 pm
“My concern is that redefining marriage as an emotional-romantic bond – (the fact that noble, commited friendship exists between two persons of the same sex who have every right to privacy is not in question) negates protections in law for children; that it does indeed make marriage a political construct that can be changed by the state. The unique standing and the solemn responsibilities of parents, natural fathers and mothers, become subject to the caprice of the state.”
But we know this isn’t true. Children conceived by artificial insemination exist, as do children who have been adopted or have parents other than their “natural” ones, and they do, in fact, have protections under the law. My oldest brother was adopted, and my parents had just as much of a “solemn” legal responsibility for him as they did for my other brother and I. And he is just as much a part of our family. I really couldn’t care less that we share no genetic kinship, and neither does the law.
January 28th, 2013 | 12:59 pm
To David Nickol:
A better question in my opinion would be: Should adults be free to “create” children, fashioning them in laboratories as products to fulfill adult desires?
Perhaps you are a consequentialist.
January 28th, 2013 | 2:49 pm
Boo, earlier you said that “the definition of marriage is the issue under discussion.” But now you declare that whether I like it or not: “Same sex marriage is matrimony, by definition.”
Oh, well, nevermind. Heads you win and tails I lose.
Marriage law sometimes gets marriage right and sometimes it gets marriage wrong. Your complaint against the law is based on this point. So you need to justify the special status and eligibility for it rather than merely decree it arbitrarily. Your complaint depend son this point.
You asked: “Why, precisely, would adding same sex couples to the institution of marriage not be ‘to the good’ of marriage? You kind of skipped that step.”
No, I have not skipped, but my comments did not make it out of the que. So, in short, whether or not your nephew and niece both enjoy a real cookie depends on whether one gets a cookie and the other gets a metaphorical or symbolic cookie.
Treating a subset of non-marriage as superior to the rest of non-marriage would be unjust. Unjust because it is unfair to treat people differently arbitrarily. Treating people the same, arbitrarily, is also unfair and unjust. Yet that has been the pro-SSM demand on both scores. It also happens to hinder society, via Government, in treating marriage as marriage rather than as a metaphorical or symbolic cookie.
January 28th, 2013 | 3:25 pm
A better question in my opinion would be: Should adults be free to “create” children, fashioning them in laboratories as products to fulfill adult desires?
A Reader,
I would answer no to this, but I don’t see how it is related to what I said. I would not say, “A child has a right not to be created in a lab.” That makes no sense, because there isn’t a child created in a lab until one is created, and a nonexistent child can’t have rights, including the right not to come into existence.
Perhaps you are a consequentialist.
To this, I would say there is a lot to be said for consequentialism, but I don’t know if I would call myself a consequentialist.
January 28th, 2013 | 4:13 pm
Reply to Boo: I have not been able to find a way to open the article to which I referred.
If you post a google search for Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George, links will be provided to their other articles and their book, which cover much or all of the same arguments.
I hope you find the material helpful and that it will aid in establishing respectful dialogue on this subject.
January 28th, 2013 | 4:31 pm
A lot of catching up to do. David Alexander writes:
“Chris S, I don’t think the summary of Robert George, etc.’s position really does justice at all to their argument. They address the objection of infertile couples as well.”
They do address it, but in a totally nonsensical fashion. Quoting your quotation of George et. al:
“But bodily coordination is possible even when its end is not realized; so for a couple, bodily union occurs in coitus even when conception does not. It is coordination toward a single end that makes that union”
Let’s try and follow the logic here: The “end” they are describing is procreation, which is why they are arguing that we should exclude same-sex couples from marriage. But they also argue that opposite-sex couples who are incapable of procreating are still united in “coordination toward [the] single end” of procreation. Why? Because they are having PIV sex. This is arbitrary logic. An opposite-sex infertile couple is no more acting in “coordination toward” the end of procreation than a same-sex couple. One cannot act toward an end if that end is simply not possible. George et al. are drawing an arbitrary difference in order to arrive at their previously established (and, let’s face it, religiously motivated) conclusions.
I can’t remember if George et al. address the existence of opposite-sex couples who cannot perform the “marital act,” but I am sure if they do, they provide a similar hand-wavy justification for why we should recognize their union as marital despite their lack of coitus.
“Out of curiosity, let me ask you if you think that that laws which did not recognize a marriage as legally binding unless it was consummated in coitus and not in some other sexual contact were designed so in order to discriminate against homosexuals?”
That would be a mighty strange assumption. I don’t believe marriage…
January 28th, 2013 | 5:01 pm
“Meanwhile, according to the pro-SSM complaint, the prototypical union of husband and wife is integrative on all three of these definitive points. You object to the preferential treatment of the integrative and wish to equate it with the segregative. Indeed, if gay is a race-like identity, then, the SSM idea is racist-like.”
Chairm was roundly mocked for making this absurd, offensive argument at Family Scholars once, but apparently learned nothing from the experience. By his own logic, we should also ban same-race marriage, since that is “segregative” in the exact same way which he claims same-sex marriage is.
But Chairm would never propose that we allow only opposite-race marriage, because he knows the voluntary institution of marriage is nothing like the forced system of segregated schools, etc. The selective logic of bigotry strikes again.
It’s so strange to me to see so many people arguing that granting people more rights is somehow oppressive, but that seems to be the point of the original article.
January 28th, 2013 | 6:57 pm
Reply to Boo: The point I attempted to make was not that no children are born from artificial insemination, nor was it an attempt to deny the seriousness with which adoptive parents assume their responsibilities, much less deny the love between siblings, both natural and adoptive.
The point is that the life-giving union between a man and a woman who accept responsibility for the children born of their union will be (and already has been in Canada) deprived of the unique status that it has historically possessed. This unique status provided an incentive not to abuse this life-giving privilege. Remember that the law is a teacher as well as a regulator. Surely the consequences of viewing marriage as an emotional/romantic bond are already very much upon us. The number of fatherless children increases; the number of women raising children also does so as well.
Your post states, “But we know that isn’t true.” I am not certain which part of my comment this refers to. My statement about marriage being redefined by the state is true in Canada (the legal codes were changed) and it is in danger of happening here.
January 28th, 2013 | 6:59 pm
To David Nickol: My point is that your question would be rendered pointless if, as we agree, children were not produced by artificial insemination.
I hope that you are not recommending that we act first and then adjust the law to suit our preferences.
January 28th, 2013 | 11:14 pm
A Reader,
I thought you were talking about genetic engineering and human cloning. I don’t see the American people permitting a ban on artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization. They have become routine medical procedures.
January 29th, 2013 | 7:30 am
To David Nickol:
As Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, “You have spoken the truth.” Yes, what you say is true: “They have become routine medical procedures.”
And if we were to adhere to Jewish teaching, these procedures would be used only in the case of a married couple – one embryo one father and mother overseen by a physician, one child welcomed with joy – no further discussion needed.
Alas we do not adhere to that which was good and true from ancient moral thought, refusing to sift through and separate the good wheat from the chaff.
January 29th, 2013 | 9:52 am
A Reader,
If we were adhere to what you say are Jewish teachings, our policies would be very different from those of Israel:
January 29th, 2013 | 12:10 pm
“The point is that the life-giving union between a man and a woman who accept responsibility for the children born of their union will be (and already has been in Canada) deprived of the unique status that it has historically possessed.”
It already has happened, and it happened long ago. Children who are adopted or conceived via artificial insemination already have the same status under the law as children being raised by their biological parents. And that is a good thing. We know it is not true that children who are raised by nonbiological parents having the same rights as children being raised by biological parents somehow diminishes the rights of children being raised by biological parents.
“Surely the consequences of viewing marriage as an emotional/romantic bond are already very much upon us. The number of fatherless children increases; the number of women raising children also does so as well.”
And marriage equality will cause this number to diminish by ensuring that gay couples who are raising children are both legally bound to them.
January 29th, 2013 | 2:35 pm
To repeat my reminder in light of recent accusations of censorship:
As recently mentioned on the blog, we have a limit of approximately 300 words (1,900 characters) on comments and do not allow multi-part comments. That is why several comments on this thread have not been posted. Please adjust your comments and replies to fit within a single comment; otherwise we will not be able to post your intended comment in its entirety.
January 29th, 2013 | 3:55 pm
To David Nickol: My reference was to the teaching of orthodox Jewish rabbis and not to secular practice in Israel.
January 29th, 2013 | 4:09 pm
A Reader:
“In this – “your concern has nothing to do with gay marriage” – you are I believe incorrect.
Two wrongs (or more) do not make a right. I hope we agree on that…
The fact that motherhood and fatherhood are legally exploited by heterosexual couples and single mothers does not affect our agreement that children are entitled to their mothers and their fathers as a matter of basic human rights. Or am I incorrectly thinking that we agree on this?”
We do agree on this. However, you still have not explained what this has to do with same-sex marriage. You are conflating same-sex marriage with artificial insemination, even though they are two different things, and the legality of one has no effect on the legality of another.
I pointed out that straights use ART in greater numbers than gays, not to show that “two wrongs make a right,” but to show that banning gay marriage will not stop people from using ART. Your policy proposal doesn’t address the problem you say you are concerned with.
“The reason that marriage between two persons of the same sex is one and only one of the factors which are undermining legal protections for children…is that it will establish in law that the state can re-define marriage.”
It depends on what you mean by “re-define.” Certainly some viewed allowing interracial marriage as a “redefinition” of marriage. A better example would be laws that gave women greater freedom within a marriage, such as laws banning marital rape. Many argued against women’s equality by claiming that a husband’s dominion over his wife was a crucial part of the institution. Definitional, even.
“Once that is done, all unique and particular protections for the natural family (blood relationships) which have historically existed and were over-ridden only in matters of extreme urgency will be erased from the legal codes. This has…
January 29th, 2013 | 4:13 pm
Reply to Boo: My comment did not refer to any such odious idea as an inferior status for children born from artificial insemination. As I mentioned above, although I am not Jewish, I respect the teaching of orthodox rabbis – that artificial insemination involving a husband and wife and one embryo is right and good for those who have not made a commitment to the teaching of the Church. The child is received into the home by his or her mother and father.
My objection is to artificial insemination used to produce a child who will be denied a basic human right. A child is entitled to his or her parents except in cases of death or incapacity of the parents. Any other “use” of a child treats him or her as a consumer good; a means to satisfy an adult end.
Again, if a mother is able to conceive a child with her husband through medical assistance, that is consistent with human dignity and children’s human rights. Multiple conceptions resulting in discarding several as “extras” are a profound offense against human dignity.
The question of marriage between two people of the same sex as it applies to children deprives the child of his or her origins – one man, the father, one woman, the mother. There is no other way for a child to be born. A laboratory produced child must after all have a father and a mother – grandparents too – although he or she can be deprived of them. Legal does not mean right.
January 29th, 2013 | 6:06 pm
“Once that is done, all unique and particular protections for the natural family (blood relationships) which have historically existed and were over-ridden only in matters of extreme urgency will be erased from the legal codes. This has already happened in Canada.”
A Reader, the bottom of my last comment didn’t make it. Let me try again. You said:
“Once that is done, all unique and particular protections for the natural family (blood relationships) which have historically existed and were over-ridden only in matters of extreme urgency will be erased from the legal codes. This has already happened in Canada.”
I’m sorry, but this is absurd. Are there no inheritence laws in Canada? No child custody laws? No child abuse laws? No spousal abuse laws? No divorce laws? No federal marriage benefits? If these things exist in Canada, can you understand how your statement that “all unique and particular protections for the natural family” have been “erased from the legal codes” there is false?
January 30th, 2013 | 11:31 am
“The question of marriage between two people of the same sex as it applies to children deprives the child of his or her origins – one man, the father, one woman, the mother. There is no other way for a child to be born. A laboratory produced child must after all have a father and a mother – grandparents too – although he or she can be deprived of them.”
A Reader, this still doesn’t make any sense. Marriage, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, doesn’t make babies. Same-sex marriage does not make a “laboratory produced child.” You are, once again, describing ART, a practice which is legal for both gay and straight people in this country. If you don’t like this, you should focus your efforts on banning or at least further regulating ART. I might even join you! But once again, this has nothing to do with same-sex marriage.
Many, if not most, same-sex couples will never use ART. They will either adopt, have children from previous relationships, or just not have children at all. How is it just to deny these people a civil right because of a small minority of them might take advantage of a legal procedure? It makes just as much sense to ban straight marriage to stop ART, since straight marriages are the largets customer base.
Again, same-sex marriage does not deprive children of anything. Most of the children raised by same-sex marriages will have already been deprived the right to be raised by their bio- mother and father. A gay couple taking them in at that point is just as good as a straight couple taking them in. You are arguing that we should deprive these children further by refusing to allow their adoptive parents the benefits of marriage simply because of their genders. This does no good and a lot of harm.
January 30th, 2013 | 2:29 pm
A Reader- “My objection is to artificial insemination used to produce a child who will be denied a basic human right. A child is entitled to his or her parents except in cases of death or incapacity of the parents. Any other “use” of a child treats him or her as a consumer good; a means to satisfy an adult end.”
I apologize if i misconstrued your previous comments, I have been extraordinarily tired the last few days. Artificial insemination often uses sperm from another male than the one who will be the father, as was the case for my grad school chaplain and his wife when they discovered he could not father children biologically. The law already condones this, so legalizing same sex marriage will have no effect here. I’m not sure I agree with you on knowing one’s biological forebears to be a basic human right, since I view raising a child as what makes a parent, not contributing genetic material. The law also agrees with me on this, as parents who give their children up for adoption are not required to develop a relationship with those children, and they can make no legal demands on their biological parents if they decide to seek them out.
January 31st, 2013 | 10:09 pm
Anna Williams- I have had more than one comment get censored even though it was on topic, not multi part, and within the word limit. Perhaps you could make the guidelines clearer?
January 31st, 2013 | 11:58 pm
Boo, sure, but I’d prefer to email you so as not to derail this thread into a discussion of comment policies. I tried to use the email address you entered when you commented, but it bounced. If you’d like to hear more details about commenting policies, please send an email directly to our main email account (ft@firstthings.com) and I can reply from there.
February 4th, 2013 | 8:43 am
Chris S., you have not followed the logic regarding bodily union. You actually relied on a misrepresentation probably born of your misunderstanding.
The lack of the other sex is decisive. Even the proponents of SSM say that the lack of the other sex is both a desirable and a definitive feature of the type of relationship they have in mind for those who’d SSM. That lack means that there can be no bodily union, not aimed at nor achieved.
This decisive distinction means that both the unitive and the procreative aspects of marriage are purposefully set aside. If these are not the ends of SSM, then, what might be its ends and how might that distinguish SSM from the rest of the types of relationships that are not marital? Zilch.
Note that bodily union is not the superficial notion of PIV that you referred to. The man is not just his penis and the woman is not just her vagina. Also, bodily union is necessary but on its own it is insufficient to form the marital type of relationship.
As for the racist analogue, mockery is not a rebuttal of the argument. There is one human race and its nature is two-sexed. Marriage integrates both sexes of the human race. If you would rely on racist criteria to define “interracial” marriage and insist that gay is a race-like identity, then, you confirm that the SSMer is the racist analogue. Deal.
February 4th, 2013 | 8:52 am
Also Chris S., in your catching up you might answer my query to you @ January 28th.
February 4th, 2013 | 9:18 am
The use of IVF and ARTs by married couples usually does not mean the use of ova or sperm from someone other than the wife and husband. So that is a significant distinction that Chris S and Boo and David Nickol have glossed over.
Most married couples during childbearing years do not experience infertility. Of the subset who do, most already have children and most will resolve their fertility problems through changes in behavior. Of those relatively few who make use of medical assistance, most do not use IVF or ARTs. But even the small subset who do partake of such methods, most (better than 93% according to CDC data) do not use ova and/or sperm from outside their marital relationship. Te tiny subset who use 3rd party procreation have thus engaged in extramarital procreation. Their example points outside of marriage and not at its core.
The lack of the other sex is not infertility. Rather, that lack precludes both fertility and infertility of the relationship. Fertility is an ability that is two-sexed. Infertility is the disability. But the lack of the other sex denotes an intrinsic inability. That inability is an inherent feature of the lone individual acting alone, of the same-sex twosome regardless of sexual attractions, of the same-sex threesome or moresome regardless of group identity, of a parade of persons of the same-sex regardless of age or consent or political priorities. No such inability is an actual disability. Surely no gay advocate wuld claim gay is a disability.
SSMers swat an infertility strawman argument manufactured to mislead. It is no mere misunderstanding. It merits debunking as well as mockery.
February 4th, 2013 | 10:34 am
“Chris S., you have not followed the logic regarding bodily union.”
Bodily union is not a logical concept, but a mystical one. It’s magical thinking. “Organic biological union” is not a scientific thing. And frankly, the only people I’ve met who have ever used this term have been Christian conservatives. Like most anti-gay arguments, it’s a religious argument that you are attempting to dress up in secular clothes in order to make it seem more legitimate. Try as he might, Robert George can’t hide his desire to impose his version of Christian dogma on the rest of us.
Barry Deutsch has perhaps written the definitive rebuttal to the “bodily union” argument here:
http://familyscholars.org/2010/12/21/what-is-bodily-union-a-response-to-what-is-marriage/
February 5th, 2013 | 11:35 pm
Chairm:
“Also Chris S., in your catching up you might answer my query to you @ January 28th.”
Do you mean this awkwardly phrased question?
“Chris S, did you mean that the lack of a legal requirement for something (say, for procreation) is decisive against that something being a legitimate basis for making laws on eligibility to marry?”
If I understand you right, my answer is “Yes, obviously.” If the ability to procreate is not a legal requirement of marriage, then it is illegitimate for the government to deny people the right to marry based on their lack of ability to procreate. Especially when you are only using lack of procreation ability as an excuse to deny that right to same-sex couples–you would not deny that right to opposite-sex couples who cannot procreate.
Your argument is that we should only allow opposite-sex couples to marry because only they can procreate, but we should still allow opposite-sex couples who can not procreate to marry because they are of the opposite sex. You can try as hard as you want, but this will never be anything but circular reasoning.
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