I am politically on the left, and have been for all my adult life. As a student, now many years ago, I worked in the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign in Wisconsin, went to the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev years as a citizen diplomat, and was active in rallies and student actions pushing for divestment from Apartheid South Africa. If I didn't continue with direct involvement in American politics over the following years, it was because I left the States soon after and have been living in Asia as an expat. Since moving here, however, I've continued to do what I can through donations and political writing, much of it onionesque satire, much of it in support of the Democratic campaigns, some of it at Daily Kos. To repeat: I am politically on the left. At least two people at Daily Kos last week told me that I'm not. Which is presumptuous, to say the least.
On the political left, I am also Catholic, and a great admirer of Pope Francis. For many people in this community such religious facts mean little, and that's fine, but I think they're gravely mistaken to claim that religion is simply irrelevant--that it cannot become an element in discussion of social issues. Pope Francis, in any case, would be bitterly disappointed to learn that this were true. After all, he's one of the few world leaders who has dared speak directly to the threat unregulated capitalism poses to all of us. This threat, especially in its ongoing environmental impact, dwarfs the petty domestic sexual politics many on the American left have devoted their time to since the 1980s.
Last Saturday evening I decided to post a diary at Daily Kos inviting Kossacks to weigh in at a debate/discussion of same-sex marriage. In fact, yes, I am against same-sex marriage. But my thinking on issues of sexual orientation is rather eccentric for a Christian, since I've never been convinced that homosexuality should be viewed as a sin. I know, of course, that people are born with their sexual orientation; I believe further that sexual expression is a right. Still, regardless of these stances, untypical for a Christian, I am against recognizing same-sex marriage. I've laid out my reasons at length and over time in the course of the debate I was inviting folks to join.
So: My diary last Saturday was an invite to come and debate. I foresaw that some Kossacks may dismiss me out of hand because they couldn't believe they had anything to gain from such a debate. But since the Kos community is full of smart people, a few basic things, I thought, would be recognized. 1) That I was someone on the left with a different perspective on this particular issue. 2) That I was someone capable of debate and not just a lunatic, spammer or troll.
No such luck.
[But before I continue, I should make a couple caveats: This diary, the one you are now reading, is VERY LONG. I knew any reply to your challenges and attacks would have to be lengthy even before I began writing it. I'd already argued in comments last week that the issue of same-sex marriage was a complex one, and I needed space to explain my position. So here I will follow the advice of one Kossack who said that I needn't fear being "expansive" in my arguments--all I needed to do was actually post them at Daily Kos. Since my arguments cover a wide range of issues, my diary today is more like the chapter of a book. Also, I know that in these comments I will sometimes rile people--you will mutter "bigot", "nutjob", "right-wing scumbag", etc.--but at other times you will see that I agree with you (which should be no surprise, since I'm not actually on the right). In short, it will be a very mixed bag here, and if you were honest when you said you were willing to discuss this issue (and I believe a few of you were honest), you'll have to take the time to sort through this mixed bag before you make conclusions about where I'm coming from. I'm actually very interested to hear your judgments, as long as you make those judgments after you've at least gotten a grip on what I'm saying. I'll be very attentive to what you think, as long as you do think. Who knows, you may show me where I'm wrong. Further, do not expect to get some kind of homily on Catholic teaching here, because there will be none of that. I will raise only practical and anthropological issues. I've tried to keep this diary to the point, but again: This post is long. And: Though I will never, anywhere, suggest that LGBT people are second-class citizens, nonetheless, some of what follows will not be pretty in your eyes. Don't say I didn't warn you.]
After posting my diary (which included ZERO insults to LGBT people and even invited LGBT Kossacks to weigh in; which included, besides, ZERO Bible quotes or heavy-handed religious arguments) my diary was blocked and I was unable to respond to comments. Fine. I went to mediation, and the diary was unblocked. I started replying to comments.
But the comment thread quickly degenerated into little more than a community exercise in insulting me and my motives. Kossacks kept repeating that my religion was no grounds for denying same-sex couples marriage rights and claimed that, since I'd invited people to the discussion at my blog, I was "trolling" or simply "spamming". I was, obviously, just a "blog whore". Since I was deemed an idiot from the get-go (anyone who doesn't support changing our ancient cultural institution of marriage just IS an idiot, right?) it was assumed that I must by definition have no valid arguments and must, in fact, just be looking for attention. "You just want hits to your blog."
If you were to check, you'd see that nowhere in the lengthy debate at my blog have I used Catholic doctrine as a basis for arguing my points. I have tried to keep the discussion secular and, in the main, grounded in anthropology. But of course almost no one at Daily Kos had a chance to find that out, since I was dismissed as a bigot and a troll.
The general Kossack response went something like: "We're willing to debate you, we believe in open discussion, but you have to post your argument here at Daily Kos. We can't be expected to click onto another site to look at anything. And besides, we already know ahead of time that you don't even have an argument and are just a bigoted spammer."
I was called a "bigot" at least a dozen times, and one of the last commenters punctuated the whole thread with "You're a fuckin' bigot!"
Now, after getting lectured a bit on Kos norms, it's obvious that I mishandled that first comment thread. I didn't realize how truly shrill and dogmatic the taboo against inviting people offsite actually was. But again, this misunderstanding on my part didn't justify the thrashing I was given. I am, after all, on the left. And not homophobic. I am, besides, someone who's posted to Kos a couple dozen times (though not in recent years) and made rec list once or twice. Yes, the people abusing me last Saturday were not obliged to check these facts before joining discussion, but that doesn't mean they should start off with the assumption I'd come out of nowhere to troll up a storm. Not interested in storms in the least, what I wanted to hear intelligent fellow leftists try to show me where I was wrong.
Please consider, for background, the following, which are quotes from posts at that unvisited blog discussion I naively invited you to. In the first two I am in fact arguing that modern Christians are wrong to perpetuate the traditional argument that homosexuality is a grave sin:
As sexual orientation is to a large degree hardwired, we cannot think of gays and lesbians as people who might be "cured". Their sexual desires are as strong and as intimate a part of their makeup as heterosexual desires are an intimate part of other people's makeup. To condemn gays and lesbians to a life without sexual expression is thus a cruel and unusual punishment for something that is not inherently sinful.
Most of the biblical passages condemning homosexuality do so on the understanding that it is a kind of willful flouting of God or a chosen perversion of nature. We now know that this is not an accurate description of how homosexuals come to be the way they are. If, then, the biblical understanding of the causes of homosexuality are in error, is it not possible that the ascription of sinfulness is also in error?
To be gay does not stop one from being a genius. Or from being a hero. Or from being a model of ethical action. It does not stop one from being brave.
Doesn't quite sound like a Westboro Baptist brochure, does it? If I were engaged in hate speech, you folks might be right to try and ban me from Daily Kos. But I'm not so engaged, and you folks are not so right either.
And here I'd like to ask you for this first time: Why can't you treat the Christians around you with a little civility? There are over a hundred million of us in your country you know. Are you so sure you know how all of these people think? If the answer is Yes, that's a pretty big presumption you're making, wouldn't you say?
A couple of the more valuable comments on my diary, comments that provoked me to think, were posted by LGBT Kossacks. I appreciated these for their level-headedness.
After taking in the repeated "spammer" and "troll" accusations I tried to respond by explaining that I'd just intended my diary as an invite. People could check out the debate if they chose to, otherwise they could just ignore me, no problem. I didn't want to hit the Daily Kos site with the whole of the debate posts as that would be overbearing.
I was laughed at for this explanation. "Blog whore." "Troll." "Bigot." "I'm laughing out loud." Etc.
Of course for you smart folks my stated reasons for posting just an invite simply couldn't be true. Since I didn't agree with you on the marriage issue, any insult was fair game.
Finally my comment function was disabled and I learned I was being put in a five-day "time out" because three of my comments were marked by fellow commenters as not "conforming to site standards". Though I was insulted repeatedly by commenters, though my Catholicism was mocked, though my motives were intentionally skewed--I was the one who had to go into time out?
I challenge anyone to show me a single comment in which I insulted someone by calling him or her names. Was I the one mocking people's religion, calling people "fuckin' bigot" or "clueless"? Putting me in time out, in this case, was simply censorship. Or what was it? I can imagine how it more or less went:
Why is this guy still here? [hyperventilate] I mean, who cares how he responds? [hyperventilate] Just shut him up. Pleeeaaaase shut him up. The guy doesn't believe in same-sex marriage! Ergo he's a monster! SHUT HIM UP!
So sorry to make you folks feel so bad for not agreeing with you on EVERYTHING 100%.
Before you start to accuse me again of "whining" ("Awww, poor wittle blogger. Nobody go to your blog? Call the W - a - a - a - ambulance!"), please understand that I'm not complaining here today because my feelings were hurt (hardly) or because I'm afraid of being called names (I don't really give a damn). What I'm upset about is seeing firsthand how childish people on the left can be in the US of A. Previously I thought it was largely a right-wing thing, this throwing tantrums and refusing to debate, this cutting off discussion and quickly changing subject, yelling "Shut up" a la Bill O'Reilly, etc. But no--most of the Kossacks who commented in that thread last week played exactly these kinds of infantile games. I got a kind of Faux News feeling in my gut while it was going down, as if O'Reilly himself were bulldozing a guest: "Where's your argument? Oh, you didn't tell me yet? Look, everyone! He doesn't have an argument! He doesn't even have an argument! Shut him down! Spammer here! Spammer! Help!"
Maybe since I've moved to Taiwan my country really has devolved into two huge Soundbite Echo Chambers. One for the right and one for the left. Don't enter either unless you're willing to sing all the same soundbites in harmony. La la la! Wee all agree! La la la! . . .
The "hide comment" function people pulled on me was just juvenile censorship. My comment can be hidden if I say someone is "lying"? It's pretty silly stuff you folks get into. Comments should be hidden or removed in the case of serious insults or threats. But for saying someone is lying for chrissakes?
I much appreciated one comment by Wee Mama and wish she'd elaborated more on it, either in the comments thread or by sending me something that might help me add this perspective to the discussion at my blog. Her remarks were these:
I actually did go to your blog ([not what is] expected by people here, btw - giving at least a brief summary would have helped). You point to the anthropological grounding in reproduction and the family, and yes, it's true that throughout history that has been the broad basis for marriage.
But it's not the only one. Couples have married and not raised children throughout history (there are a number in the bible, even). One theological way to express this view of marriage is that marriage images the divine love first by its procreation mirroring God's creation, and secondly by its love mirroring God's unitive love within the trinity.
Most folks who defend marriage equality invert the importance of those two things. First and foremost, marriage images the divine love by being unitive, and secondly and as a consequence it images the divine creativity through procreation.
We can see that this is theologically sounder because it offers a way to view marriage for other couples than same sex couples. This perspective on marriage honors the marriages of the two senior citizens who marry after widowhood, the brave woman who marries a paraplegic, the couple who yearn for children but turn their desire to build community outward when no children are borne to them.
I'd be very interested to hear an elaboration of these points. But I know, it's
streng verboten to invite people on Daily Kos to get involved in other non-kos sites. Daily Kos must only breed with Daily Kos.
I do appreciate that Wee Mama took the time after that dismal thread to write me a few words on Kos community norms. I'll try to conform to these norms in future, if we have any future here, but do think they're rather too extremely enforced.
* * *
In what follows I'm going to try to focus my remarks on debating the issues. But frankly, after last Saturday, I'm not confident some of you can even handle discussing same-sex marriage with people who don't already share your own position. And think: This means you have zero chance of convincing people you're right. You start calling them names and throwing soundbites at them--how is that going to get them to listen to you? So below I'll try to stick to relevant points, argued vigorously but civilly. You've leveled ad hominem abuse at me, but I'll try to keep myself from directly insulting you in return. As I've indicated, I admire a lot of the work people do at Daily Kos. This the main reason our comment thread last Saturday, so obnoxious and uncivil on your parts, was such a disappointment to me.
And so, finally, to get to the issues: One Kossack predictably accused me last Saturday of "not allowing people to marry who they want". Fine. But consider: Never has any culture in world history accepted that the right to marry meant that one might marry "anyone they want". Three important exclusions, the first two very nearly universal, come to mind.
1) Except for very rare cases (some in Amerindian culture, some in 19th Benin), every world culture has recognized that one cannot marry someone of the opposite sex.
2) Except for very rare cases (Roman Egypt for a period), every world culture has recognized that one cannot marry a first sibling.
3) In many cases (Western cultures), one was limited to marrying only one spouse (i.e., no polygamy).
I take the long view of things. I hope my own culture (Western Judeo-Christian democratic culture) remains viable into the future. The same-sex marriage movement is pushing to revoke the very important exclusionary principle listed first above. What will follow?
I don't believe we'll see a push for inter-sibling marriage any time soon. But I do believe, in fact it's just a matter of time, that we'll see a very forceful and concerted push to drop the laws against polygamy. And once that push begins, on what grounds are you going to oppose it? Isn't it, after all, a matter of "marriage equality" and letting people marry "who they want"?
Once same-sex marriage is recognized in most of states, which will likely happen soon enough, the polygamy movement will begin in earnest. At first it will be Mormons pushing it. And they will have some localized success. But soon after that, it will be wealthy Wall Street types and big capitalists jumping on the bandwagon: "We have our own kind of family here. I take care of these people. Why are you trying to break up our family?" Etc.
What will you say then? Don't think it's good that a Goldman Sachs executive has nineteen wives? You'll be accused of "class hatred", oppressing people's civil and religious rights. And, what is even more obvious, the campaign money will be against. Patriarchs who can build a harem of nineteen wives likely have bank accounts 200,000 times bigger than yours and mine.
I give it a couple decades tops for polygamy to start making a very healthy comeback. And the money will be there. If you think this won't happen, you are naive. Mormons will begin the push on religious grounds, evoking "same-sex marriage" as precedent; the secular wealthy will join in. Once the wealthy get it into their heads that they'd like these kinds of marriages, the game will be up. Because the wealthy already largely own our country. And why is that? Is it, well, maybe because too many people on the left have spent the last two decades working on their political correctness and their gender politics? Personally I think it is. You're very welcome to disagree.
Do you know what happens in polygynous cultures? Have you studied the kind of social order such marriages encourage?
Think it won't happen? I think you're naive. It will happen. In any case, I see two kinds of rebuttal coming my way on this point. 1) "Right-wingers have long made this argument linking same-sex marriage to polygamy." Of course I know this. But saying right-wingers made an argument isn't evidence the argument is wrong. Right-wingers also agree that the sun rises in the east (well, at least 83% of them do, according to a recent poll). 2) "You're just using a slippery slope arguments. As if same-sex marriage is the soft drug that will lead to the hard drug polygamy." On this I'd say, first, that in terms of marriage in our culture I think same-sex marriage and polygamy are both hard drugs. Second, though slippery slope arguments are often idiotic, they are often also valid. Example: In 1910 some chauvinist says: "What? Allow women to vote? Soon they'll be allowing dogs to vote!" This is an idiotic slippery slope argument. With same-sex marriage leading to polygamy, however, the slippery slope argument is entirely reasonable. And verifiable. Because it's already happening. And cheery self-styled progressives are already on board!
As predicted, when women finally gained the right to vote in 1920, dogs remained largely silent. Or at least no one interpreted their barking as a plea for voting rights. With polygamists and polyamorists, we see just the opposite. They're all aflutter about "marriage equality". These kinds of marriages will soon be coming to a courthouse near you. And it's all your fault.
But let's change tack. If I as a man suddenly can marry another man, why not another man and another woman? Explain why I can't. Such marriage might suit my ambiguous gender orientation, and, well, just listen: "We already live together, are raising kids. . . Are you trying to break up our family by not recognizing our marriage?"
Sounds familiar actually.
Of course there are already families like this in America: two men, one woman; two women, one man, another man for a few years, then just three again. Though I've nothing against them living as they like, it's not my business, I personally don't think we should recognize such plural families as marriages. I would be strongly against such recognition. And it would be my right to take this stance, since, unlike the way people lead their lives, my own culture's definition of marriage emphatically is my business. Strangely, this is a point you Kossacks don't seem willing to concede. It's because you have a very narrow and individualistic view of what marriage is--a bourgeois view actually. Just think about it: I am a part of the community in question and will eventually be called upon to acknowledge any newly recognized type of marriage as a marriage. Denying my right to enter this debate--"It's not your business who people choose to marry!"--is to claim I have no say in a future contractual arrangement I'll be obliged to be party to.
But to get back to my point: Polygamy and plural marriages will soon follow your "same-sex marriage" wins. In other words, you same-sex marriage supporters are bravely paving the way for this precise kind of marriage drift: the definition of marriage continues to expand until it finally loses all meaningful content. You're okay with same-sex marriage but not with polygyny? Well, because of your own misguided movement, you won't have a leg to stand on once Mormons and big capitalists start pushing for their so-called "rights".
I don't think that we should recognize polygamous marriages and I don't think we should recognize gay or lesbian couples as married either. It's not because I don't like Mormons or am a homophobic bigot, but because I think marriage as an institution stays viable if it is kept "one man and one woman". And if an important institution like marriage is viable, then the Western culture I am part of may continue to be viable. It's as simple as that. I have no queasy feelings about gay sex or my lesbian friends or anything of the sort. The last time I got drunk in a pub, in fact, it was in a gay bar where I was celebrating a birthday. I spent most of the time talking with a young designer from Tahiti and his Japanese boyfriend. You folks imply you know what makes me tick. Frankly your suspicions in this regard are bullshit. You don't know anything about me and you don't care to know either--because you simply are uninterested in understanding people who disagree with you. And you even seem to be proud of such narrowness!
But enough in this vein, I must get back on subject. So: Two decades tops before the polygamy cards start falling. Marriage as an institution will be thinned and flattened and redefined until it is meaningless. Institutions that have no rules, after all, are functionally meaningless. Our democracy itself has become nearly meaningless because the rules that should be keeping corporate money out of politics don't exist.
Sorry, anarchists and liberals. In some instances rules are necessary to maintain institutions.
You think this two decades, re: polygamy, is a long time? It isn't in historical terms. But I'm guessing a lot of my commenters last week don't often think long-term. They believe in whatever's being touted as "progress". And they quickly make it part of their little checklist of what counts as "being on the left". And if someone disagrees with them on any of these narrow gender or social issues, they will suddenly pipe up: "You're lying when you say you're on the left!" I heard this exact line. It's pathetic really; shallow and provincial. It's politics in a little glass ball, a left version of Fox News.
So just because I disagree with Lady Gaga, suddenly I'm not on the left any more, but on the right, is that it?
Duh.
Other arguments raised by commenters last week (and I've already grazed the first one) include the following:
1) As marriage is a "contract" between two people, any marriage in particular, in terms of whether it is a marriage, is nobody's business beyond those two.
2) Marriages are not conferred by churches or religious bodies. They only exist when recognized by the state.
I think both of these arguments are fundamentally wrong.
As to point 1) I believe we all recognize that marriage is not merely a contract or status that exists between two people. It is also, and crucially, a status that exists between that couple and the community as a whole. This is why the anthropological aspects of marriage make for such complex and fascinating study: because these anthropological or social dimensions are so important to what marriage is in essence. Marriage is not only a contract between individuals; it is also a communal status.
My refutation of point 2) is on similar grounds. I do not think the status married is conferred by the state. Not fundamentally so. Who, then, confers this status? If you think about it, you will realize that the group or body that must confer and finally validate a marriage is the community as a whole. This is true for various reasons, but perhaps the most important of them can be glimpsed in what I've said in answer to argument 1). Namely, that marriage is not merely a relationship between the individuals married, but is also a kind of new relationship between that couple and their community as whole. Given that this is the case, it is the community as a whole that must confer the status married, since this community is implicated in the marriage's existence through being called upon to recognize the rights of that married couple according to the culture's standards.
If you understand these points, you will understand why I believe the so-called "marriage equality" movement is pushing us toward a very serious social impasse. Consider: At present the state is trying to impose an entirely novel definition of marriage on our society. And even if a majority of people in a community agree that these are marriages, there are still many people that do not agree. In other words, the community as a whole is not there to confer the status married. But it is the whole community that must confer this status; it is only the whole community that can confer it.
And whereas a majority supports same-sex marriage in some places, in many others a large majority doesn't support it, is in fact strongly against it. So where does that leave the wholeness of the American community in terms of this crucial institution called marriage? In tatters, that's where.
In my view the state's job here is merely to license or recognize marriages that the community as a whole already recognizes. It is not the state's job to impose novel kinds of marriage from above. And this would be especially true if the novel marriages in question are of a kind that has never been recognized in the whole history of Western culture. Which is exactly what is going on!
For purposes of this debate, the whole community I'm referring to is America in toto, not simply this or that state or city or neighborhood. I think, further, that the whole community might safely be defined as something like 98% of Americans. I wouldn't, you know, insist on 100%.
But look: We are presently nowhere near the kind of unanimity that would justify the state licensing this new kind of marriage. These so-called marriages are unprecedented in history and simply fake in the eyes of around half the American population. So why does the state think it has the right to license such marriages when America itself still doesn't agree on the issue? That is a serious and valid question. On what grounds does the state assume this right?
But now I'd like to take up a thornier issue, one which, I believe, is the crux of our debate, at least in terms of American law.
Some Kossacks attacked me with versions of the following kind of argument. As Lost and Found put it:
Daily Kos is not a left/right debating society. You are publicly advocating for same-sex couples to be denied equal treatment under the law, so that does make you a bigot, either with or without scare quotes. I don't really care what your religious background is and it does absolutely nothing to mitigate the ugliness of your views.
Or, as EdSF put it (after grouping me with "religious rightwing nutjobs"):
The "debate" he wants to have has already been had in federal courts and his side has lost. Marriage is a fundamental civil and human right in the United States and the 14th Amendment mandates that it be shared equally by all U.S. citizens. Religious points of view about its nature do not constitute sufficient reason to deny this right to an historically oppressed set of American citizens.
What these arguments do in terms of "the debate [I want] to have" is presume to take as given what is in fact one of the very central points at issue. In logical terms, in other words, posing arguments like this against me are just an instance of begging the question. That the courts have ruled one way, so far, is admittedly significant, but doesn't mean the issue of "same-sex marriage" is no longer worth debating. Clearly many tens of millions of Americans think otherwise. Interestingly, I also think marriage is a fundamental civil and human right. The difference is that I in my view
individuals are endowed with the right to marry, not couples. This is where I think the courts have gone wrong.
Let me clarify. You say that in the U.S. all people are equal under the law and that gay and lesbian civil rights must be upheld. In fact I agree with you entirely. The civil rights of LGBT Americans must be respected and I'd fight to ensure that they are respected. But let's look a bit closer, which is rarely done in this marriage debate, let's actually raise the question of whether a given gay man, we may call him Thomas, is being denied any of the rights that his heterosexual friend Dave has. For argument's sake, we may put these two fictional men in the state I'm from, Wisconsin, which has yet to recognize same-sex marriages.
In Wisconsin, Dave has the right to marry anyone he wants as long as that person is 1) unmarried; 2) not his close relative; and 3) a woman. Now what about his gay friend Thomas' rights? In fact, of course, Thomas also has the right to marry anyone he wants as long as that person is 1) unmarried; 2) not his close relative; and 3) a woman.
Kind of strange, isn't it? It is clear that the two men, in regards to marriage, both possess precisely the same right.
Which means, simply put: Thomas is not being denied any right his friend Dave has. Dave does not have any right Thomas does not also have. And so?
In my view what is at issue in this debate is not whether gays and lesbians have the right to marry (obviously, strictly speaking, they already do have the right to marry), but whether they have the right to change the basic definition of marriage. Personally I do not accept changing the definition of marriage as part of anyone's civil rights. The Kossack community, obviously, insists that this is among some people's rights, that for now it's the LGBT community who gets to modify marriage. I believe it's a very shoddy way of thinking about rights.
"But Thomas doesn't want to marry a woman," you say. For me, really, it's fine if he doesn't. I would never encourage him to go against his sexual orientation. And here I say: End of story.
The point should be clear by now: That Thomas isn't inclined to enter marriage doesn't mean that I, as a citizen, need to recognize any new definition of marriage Thomas may choose to invent. In fact, in this case, I don't recognize it, and there are tens of millions of Americans here to back me up.
Further, none of this is a matter of establishing equal rights because, as I've just demonstrated, Thomas' rights in Wisconsin in this matter of marriage are already precisely equal to Dave's. After all, if Dave were to choose to marry a man, he wouldn't be able to. In my view, neither should Thomas be able to. Because the meaning of marriage is something that should not be changed. Thomas' rights and mine have been exactly equal in this respect since the founding of the republic. End. Of. Story.
This is not a matter of homophobia, at least not on my part. It is a matter of the meaning of marriage in society. Marriage is, after all, a central social institution. I simply do not agree that its meaning should be changed for anybody.
Show me where Thomas' rights are not already precisely equal to mine and you might have something to argue. But until then, I believe you're compelled to acknowledge that your whole argument from equal rights is just hollow rhetoric.
"But it seems like the Supreme Court disagrees with you on this, Eric," you say. "So you'll just have to get used to it whether you like it or not."
Well, Kossacks, the Supreme Court also disagrees with me on the question of whether corporations are people. I'm not going to "get used to" Citizens United. Likewise I'm not going to get used to a fallacious Supreme Court judgment on marriage rights either.
Put it this way: To the same degree I believe Exxon Mobil is a person, to that degree do I believe two men can constitute a marriage.
Our Supreme Court has been wrong before. On this point they are wrong again. I continue to make my argument: No right has been denied. The same right to marry was already equally given to all citizens long before the so-called "marriage equality" movement even began.
To take a slightly different tack: I was born without two ovaries and a womb. Does this mean the state is denying me my fundamental human right to give birth? You may say my question is meaningless or flippant, but given the swift development of new medical technologies, I see arguments about this very question looming in the not-too-distant future. And to the degree that our medical system becomes socialized (which development I support), soon the public will be called upon to provide funding for such "maternal services" for men, which I would definitely not support.
I'm not really thinking here of an artificial womb maintained outside the man's body, which in any case would likely remain less cost-effective than surrogate motherhood, at least for the near term. Rather I'm thinking of some technology that would allow the man to actually carry the womb with him, a womb into which his own bloodstream fed.
Impossible for the time being, but certainly imaginable in the not-too-distant future.
But even putting aside the question of public assistance, I would still be against allowing such technologies to be used by anybody if they develop. I would support laws making use of such technology a crime. Why? Maybe it's that "bigoted" Catholic side of me. I strongly believe technologies like this warp the human meaning of birth.
Say it becomes possible, and it likely soon will, for a male couple to conceive a baby from their sperm cells alone, no egg in the equation. Say the procedure is very pricey. Say further that we have an actual gay couple who wants to have a son that is really "their very own" and that this precious alpha couple has already plundered billions through our sick finance industry or our sick fashion industry or, why not, our sick energy industry. (Given that our economy is inherently unjust, all our super-wealthy have necessarily plundered their wealth. Don't imply I'm casting aspersions here because these guys are gay, alright?) So these successful fellows want to spend some of their mountains of cash to conceive and birth their own son, a genetic combination of the two of them. The best technology available will be available, of course, the best technicians and doctors, and the boy, genetically speaking, will actually be a half-half mix of his two uber-wealthy dads. Oh, joy!
I would be strongly against allowing this technology to be used in the first place, and I think the two gentlemen, besides their crime of being super-wealthy, would be committing a further serious crime by warping the meaning of human conception and birth.
My question for you folks is an obvious one: How are you going to allow these charming fellows same-sex marriage and then deny them the possibility of having "their own son"? The answer, I think, is also obvious: You won't be able to deny them. Because you've unwisely given them the sacred title marriage, with all the traditional rights that implies, including most importantly the right to conceive childbirth, you won't have a leg to stand on here.
So, as I say: Oh, joy! When will the baby shower be?
But maybe some of you folks reading this see no good reason to deny these charming dads their very own genetically them son. I suppose it's possible you actually think this way. I've overestimated you before.
To wind up: These are the kind of future eventualities recognizing same-sex marriages will necessarily lead to. And you keep angrily asking me: "How do gay marriages affect your own life? Explain. How does it have any goddamn impact on your actual life? Admit it--you just hate gay people."
I think (in answer to the cheap shot you keep firing off by labeling me homophobic) that the potential impacts are very many and glaringly obvious. But the truth is I'm not so much concerned about my own personal situation here. Provided we even make it through this century (a very big if indeed) I'm worried about the generations that will then arise. They who come after us will also be trying to lead authentically human lives. But I suspect the culture they live in will be one that is imbalanced and warped by just such developments as I've laid out. It will not be a recognizably Judeo-Christian culture, but a techno-capitalist oligarchy in which everything goes, every kind of marriage or gender mix or birth method can be pursued, and, yes, I think you folks are right now doing your very best to usher it in.
Heterosexual Americans who support same-sex marriage out of solidarity for LGBT couples are being naive and irresponsible. The solidarity is just and right, but the policy solution is not. People's hearts are in the right place, but their heads are out to lunch. It's as if you folks are only thinking five years into the future. You're pursuing a kind of progressive agenda in five-year plans. What you support looks good for the coming five years, but after that arises a culture deeply out of whack (whether it be via the opening to polygamy and other plural marriages you offer or the perverse array of birth and parenting issues that will arise with new technology). It's kind of like Monsanto in agriculture. They also go on a five-year timetable. Regarding the repercussions of their actions thirty years down the road, who on their board has time to think? You folks and Monsanto have an unfortunate similarity here. Like the fallout from Monsanto in our fields thirty years from now, so I fear the fallout from your gender politics in our society thirty years from now.
But to wrap up: Have I been clear enough for you this time? Find anything concrete to discuss? Or would you say I'm just trying to generate advertising revenue from my blog? Or that these various issues I've raised are just "flamebait" or "spam"? Or that I'm just a bigot who hates gays?
If my arguments here are mere flimflam, as you all assumed they'd be, then you should have no trouble explaining where I'm wrong. I look forward to it.
What's more: Did you notice how many of my arguments today are grounded in Bible quotes? Maybe, uh, none? Or how many are specifically Catholic as opposed to merely social or, I may say, human? Yes, perhaps a few of my arguments get their impetus from my Catholicism. But I think most of what I raise here doesn't need a Christian basis to be valid.
Your assumption that a Christian is only capable of thinking in a Christian register is lame. A Christian who's written at this site besides. You show your sense of community by insulting me, and then my faith, repeatedly. When I've little time to respond to a wide range of comments (comments that raise complex--yes, complex--issues and that might actually lead somewhere if approached thoughtfully) you quickly seize on that as proof I'm just spamming. And finally, of course, when I do have time to respond, I can't do so because you've put me in your grade school "time out"! I saw a few adults in that comment thread. Most people seemed to think they were discussing issues by posting dribble like this: "Please tell me, how does YOUR religion relate to MY marriage?" Duh. My religion relates to your everything. Likewise your secularism relates to my everything. That's what it means to be in a society together. Duh. What is interesting is when there is meeting and discussion, each side recognizing that they likely have something to learn from the other side. But your type doesn't value discussion. Your type prefer "time out".
Little leftish Bill O'Reillys is what you look like to me.
Incidentally, among the few adults I noted in that comment thread I would include Tara the Antisocial Social Worker. I felt bad that I didn't have time to address a point she raised, and raised eloquently, as follows:
My wife and I are part of the community. We have rights and responsibilities toward each other. And while not all heterosexual married couples raise children together, my wife and I did.
Families like ours are directly, tangibly harmed when you try to forcibly take our marriage away from us.
If I tried to do that to you, you'd call me a bigot.
Tara's way of getting right to the nitty gritty is spot on. Hers were the only remarks that cut into me; they are words that must be answered, unlike the idiotic "How does YOUR religion. . ." remarks. I will now attempt to answer you, Tara, in detail, in the following paragraphs.
To the extent that you and your partner make a good couple, and have been loving parents besides--both of which possibilities I have absolutely no reason to doubt--to this extent I consider your relationship to be precious, human, and a gift for society as a whole.
I value any such love relationships highly. Under no circumstances would I tolerate a government or anyone trying to separate you as a couple or take your child from you (the kind of state crime which threatens Russian same-sex couples at present). If any sort of judicial efforts to break your family were to gain strength, I'd be spending my time writing against those efforts; I'd be donating money to fight them; I'd be sickened to learn of it.
Further, if I lived near you, I see now reason why I couldn't be a good friend and neighbor to you. I do have several lesbian and gay friends after all. I even like your Kos moniker and appreciate your forthrightness and how you avoided calling me names.
But regardless of all this, Tara, I highly doubt you'd ever accept me as a friend. If I'm correct here, it's a regrettable fact of life, but likely unavoidable. I can hardly blame you. I don't think you'd accept me as a friend because although I think your relationship is precious, to be affirmed, valuable, and your family as well, I also think your marriage, as such, is nonexistent. So when you expect me to call you "wife and wife", I won't be able to. To me you are still a couple of girlfriends. Perhaps excellent people, witty and vibrant, perhaps among the very best people in your community, but again: girlfriends.
Here again I can hear all the Kossacks scoffing. They think these last sentences are in bad taste, or were written in bad faith, or whatnot. But really what can I do about this? In fact these sentences state exactly how I feel on all counts. In my life I've known lesbian couples that I've much admired, but never considered them married. When I still lived in the States, up to the mid-1990s, it was an impossibility, so the issue wasn't even raised. When I posted my "invite" diary last week I did so with the belief that I, as a someone on the left, had every right to post it. And you, Tara, were one of the people who commented. You could have just ignored the diary after all, but didn't. So now I'm responding to you in person. And what do you expect me to say? Do you expect me to say I think you're sinful and need to be cured? But I don't believe that. Do you think I should tell you I hate you? I've no reason to hate you. Actually, I kind of admire you, as with most LGBT people who've managed to make a life in society and who, already years ago, were brave enough to come out. Do you then just expect me to keep quiet? I don't feel like being quiet. I don't think you should be trying to change marriage. And I don't think I'm a bigot just because I take this position. I'm sick of the unfounded implication that I am.
Far too many people in my shoes are simply doing what you want. They are avoiding the unpleasantness of speaking directly to you. Me, I'm tired of the hemming and hawing. It is you who started this conflict, not me. You wrote in one of your comments as follows: "I do not think Catholicism is inherently sinful, and do not advocate the persecution of Catholics. If I supported a law that forced Catholics to remain unmarried, would that make me a bigot?" Of course your implied answer to this rhetorical question is Yes. And of course I get the point. But it would be a bizarre and unprecedented thing to claim that Catholics can't marry. It would be a human rights violation besides. In the case of your "marriage" what we have is something very different. Here it is you who are making the bizarre and unprecedented claim. Because such a marriage has never happened before in Western history. Ever. And it has only very rarely happened in human history. In my assumption that Catholics can marry, I'm part of a two-thousand-year old tradition. In my assumption that marriage is only between male and female, I've 99.9% of cultures behind me, all saying the same thing. And what do you have behind you? Twenty-years of activism in one post-modern late capitalist culture--a culture, besides, likely to do itself in before the end of the century. Analogies are sometimes useful to make a point, but your analogy about Catholics not being allowed to marry is totally unhinged from human reality.
I wish we didn't even have to have this conversation, believe me. It is you who are forcing this conversation, not me. It is you who are proposing something completely unprecedented, not me. The amazing thing is that the culture as a whole, especially the youth culture, has been so quickly convinced that you're in the right on this. And I'm a "bigot". But the issue isn't decided quite yet.
As I've said, I think you are committing no sin living together, and in this I disagree with most other Christians, and with my own Church as well. One or two Kossacks called me a cafeteria Catholic because of this. In fact I actually do accept the vast majority of Church teachings, but have a few teachings I can't bring myself to accept. Among them is this one on homosexuality, according to which LGBT people can only avoid grave sin by having no sex life at all. Maybe on this ground, my one major dissension from Catholic teaching, you might consider me at least a partial ally, I don't know.
Of course it's possible that some day my convictions as to the status of your relationship will change. Some day my Church may convince me your relationship can actually be a marriage. I'm always open to being shown the light. But no one, no state body or gender activist or well-meaning heterosexual, has yet even come close to convincing me on this. My Church may eventually be able to convince me, if it finally decides to accept so-called "same-sex marriages", but until it does, I can think of nothing even remotely persuasive on this issue.
Against the snide remarks of some Kossacks, I'd insist It is my right as a thinking person to be convinced by my Church's teaching that marriage is only between man and woman, but to remain unconvinced by the teaching regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality. Given that a person's core beliefs may have ambiguity, people at Daily Kos have no business calling me a hypocrite because of such dissonance. It is definitely not up to Daily Kos to tell me if I'm a good Catholic; it is up to my Church. To make such remarks on this score as were made in the comment thread was way out of line. "You're not only not a leftist, you're not even a real Catholic," implied one or two kos twerps. This isn't debate; it's just childish name-calling.
I have all along hoped our legal system could sort out issues like hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights, etc. I believe these tangible benefits could have been worked out regardless of the "separate but equal" problem. In other words, there was another way to bring your tangible benefits close enough to those of other couples so as to make for no significant difference.
Regarding the main point you raise, then, the question of what tangible harm your "marriage" does to me, I would put it this way: No serious harm yet done. But as my arguments above make clear, I strongly believe there is serious harm just around the corner. Serious, tangible harm that will affect the future of Western culture. And in this sense, I believe your insistence on calling your relationship a marriage poses a tangible threat to the future of what I hold dear. By the judicial opening you offer to polygamy, by the legal grounds you give to perverse birthing technologies, also by the mere fact of the bitter conflict you have sparked between yourselves and the tens of millions of American Christians, your movement will cause serious, tangible harm. In my view the conflict between Americans over same-sex marriages is only likely to get worse. And soon I suspect your movement will be launching discrimination lawsuits against my Church. Your Kos colleagues, in other words, are talking tripe when they say that my Church's right to decide who can get married therein will be respected. It will certainly not be respected, because your movement will always try to push things to the next level. So, yes, soon you will all be working to force a two-thousand-year-old tradition to change its practices. You will thus damage an institution I hold dear and defend. Yet all along, against any such spirit of conflict, I was hoping gays and lesbians would slowly be accepted in the Church. And LGBT people, compared to a few decades ago, were making great strides in acceptance among the general public. But your movement decided, wrongheadedly, to force the issue of marriage; you decided you needed the title of marriage. And on that, though on that point alone, I will continue to fight you. Because I strongly believe, not merely based on the teachings of my Church, but based on the teachings and practices of nearly all human civilizations, that your relationship is not in fact a marriage and should not be called one.
Currently Christian Americans at work all across the country are being forced to refer to customers as married when they do not accept these customers as married. If one does not go along with the charade, if a hotel desk worker insists on referring to a man's so-called "husband" as his "boyfriend", that desk worker will likely lose his job and may even face legal action. I'm sorry, but this is oppression. And one of the most disgusting things about it is that it is oppression in the name of an extremely dubious politically correct notion that is only a measly two decades old. One of the first prominent cases was a baker, in Colorado I believe, who declined to make a cake for a gay "wedding". He was sued. As a Catholic I don't appreciate this. Even if I were a secular person who didn't believe in same-sex marriage, I wouldn't appreciate it. It is tangible harm.
To assume that you can simply declare this change in marriage by fiat is naive. It shows a lack of understanding of the fabric of society. This same lack of understanding also glares out from our comment thread. Some people at Daily Kos are breathtakingly clueless when it comes to debating social issues with those outside their little circle. Again, for example: "What does YOUR religion have to do with MY marriage, just tell me that?" Statements like this can only come from someone who hasn't even taken the first baby steps toward thinking about society. I'll give you a parallel case to consider. Suppose you are a socialist and one day, at work, you begin criticizing conditions or relations at the company, that they are unjust, etc. And you obviously reference your socialist ideas of what justice is. And then some smart colleague, a manager likely, butts in and says: "Tara! This is a place of work! Keep your socialist ideas at home."
This is precisely what the Kos kids are doing when they say: "What does YOUR religion have to do with the laws of MY society?" Separation of church and state does not mean that religious people cannot reference their religious ideas when advocating for public policies. They will naturally do so, just as, I hope, socialists will stand tall and reference their socialist ideas when trying to reform their place of work. It's simply a matter of standing up for what one believes in. I would never presume to tell people they must pray to a God they don't believe in, but that doesn't mean I'm going to keep my beliefs on ultimate reality from influencing my ideas of law and society. Quite the contrary. Kossacks who are still in junior high and took Civics 101 shouldn't presume to tell me what can inform my ideas on public issues like marriage, the death penalty, birth, etc. Again: Duh. Really, a huge, fullthroated DUUUUHHH. I'm amazed people still think such statements have any place in this debate. Personally I think we're discussing a serious issue. I don't have time for childish nonsense.
And it is childish. Making such remarks is liberalism at its shallowest. In terms of the marriage issue, it's just an immature way of pretending that the deep conflict between our views can be avoided. Let me tell you now: This conflict can't be avoided. It is you have tried to change marriage, and you are going to have to face the conflict you have caused. And it's only just begun.
In my view the best way forward is to continue with open discussion and try to find common ground. But no more of this kiddie talk of "Your religion is your business, my marriage is my business." Marriage is a fundamental social institution, and its meaning can only be decided by the whole society. Once people start trying to change a fundamental institution, everything becomes everybody's business.
In some ways I can't really blame gays and lesbians for trying to change marriage. At least I'm hardly surprised. I know of the suffering and injustice and sleights many LGBT people have endured over the years. For LGBT people it is obviously tempting to work for or seize at anything that may make such injustice less likely in the future. But though I understand and sympathize with the motive, I still think they are doing something wrong. And I suspect they might even be making a tactical mistake, even in terms of their own interests. In other words, should the social balance change, gays and lesbians may finally bring more harm to themselves because of this hasty and ill-considered attempt to alter marriage. The global balance (both economic and environmental) is very unstable, after all. There's no saying what kind of ideologues may take over the reins of state if a serious economic crisis were to hit us. And I believe such a crisis will hit us, that it's only a matter of time. Then, if I see LGBT people oppressed, I hope I have the bravery to stand up for them.
Social reality is always a matter of negotiation and compromise between different factions and interests. Push too hard on something, offend a major social faction, and one might find an even stronger counter-reaction is the result. At present, I don't see this playing out. But again, who's to say the present kind of social balance will continue? This problem is something I don't think gender activists have taken into account.
Every human community has some small percentage of members that are only attracted to the same sex. Except for the former president of Iran, nearly everyone acknowledges this. In a just society, these people are not persecuted or pushed into the closet: their difference must be given space. But on the other hand, this difference should not be forced onto long-standing marriage norms, but should remain where it is--with the gay and lesbian community. Some LGBT people have said this same thing, which I don't find odd in the least. The difference between them and myself here is that they're allowed to state this truth, whereas I, a heterosexual, am not. But I will state it nonetheless because I think it is the truth.
* * *
When I look at the community's reaction as a whole to my invite, what is obvious is that for you folks my motives are deeply suspect. At one level I really can't blame you on this score because, sure, trolls do exist. So your logic is easy to follow: "He knows his position will rile most people here; he still comes and states his position; thus he must be doing it in order to rile people; i.e., he's a troll." Likewise: "Just ignore him. He's a masochist. Can't you see this guy enjoysthe abuse we're giving him? Just ignore him."
I can understand somewhat why you'd jump to this diagnosis. I'd likely lean this way myself if I were in your shoes. I wouldn't, however, have stuck with this diagnosis once I'd seen the "patient" begin trying to reply. At least reply in the way I did.
In any case, though you had some initial grounds for it, your diagnosis is wrong. I've never done anything remotely like trolling anywhere on the Internet in my life. I think it'd be boring as hell to go around provoking people just to get a reaction. What's the point? My motive last week was very different.
I think the issue of marriage is an important one and believe strongly marriage laws shouldn't be changed. But since the start of the millennium, my ideas on this cultural institution, reasonable in themselves, have somehow become unacceptable. The political consensus on the left is that same-sex marriages are fine. And the left in general keeps repeating: "There's no reason, besides homophobia, to be against this." Well, the problem is, I'm on the left, but in fact I disagree strongly, and hey, look, I'm not homophobic. In my mind there are serious problems with this change, recognizing which fact has nothing to do with homophobia. As a thinking and writing person, then, I'm given a clear choice. I can be cowardly and simply go along with the consensus on the left, or I can stand up and say: "I'm still here. And I don't agree on marriage. At all." That we are now having this argument means, obviously, that I've chosen not to be cowardly. But it doesn't mean I'm a troll.
By writing that invite and now this diary, what I'm saying to the progressive community is something like this: "I'm here and don't feel like being quiet. Read my posts on this if you like, then convince me I can't simultaneously be on the left and hold these views. Tell me where I'm wrong--if you can. If you can't, however, then you should shut up with your claim that people like me are 'right-wing bigots'. There are many American moderates and even some left-leaning religious Americans who are against the new project you've taken up. We are not bigoted, we are not on the right, we simply don't agree with you on this issue." And that's it. The way I think about marriage is, whether you like it or not, one possible way of thinking. Why shouldn't I be writing what I actually think here? Because it makes you upset? Sorry, but that's not a good enough reason for me.
And you know what else--I'm not afraid of accusations of homophobia either. I'm no more afraid of this cheap slur than an honest critic of Israeli policy should be afraid of accusations of antisemitism. In both cases the accusation is just a canard.
And my comparison here is, I'm sorry, spot on. The LGBT community itself knows this accusation often isn't just. But they still keep on trotting it out whenever people don't give them what they want. They paint their critics as homophobic in the same way the Israeli state paints all its critics Jew-haters. In both cases, sad, this trick has been effective in silencing people who have valid reasons to criticize. The trick will no longer work on me, however.
So, since you can't keep playing your bigot card, it would seem your only routes left here are to 1) censor me (which I know most of you are eager to do) or 2) engage in discussion with me so as to show me how I'm wrong.
Dissent on one item of a party's platform doesn't entail expulsion except in totalitarian states. Just to remind you all.
Here are some of the Kossacks who implied or insisted I was "just a troll" because last Saturday I didn't post my entire essays at Daily Kos: crose, thanatokephaloidas, vacantlook, Remediator, dougymi, sfbob . . . . In short, quite a lot of Kossacks, no?
I've now partly complied with these Kossacks' demands and posted at least something by way of description of the ideological fence I'm on. But my remarks above are only part of the picture, and since you folks are so stubborn about staying in your Kossack den, I've decided to also post the first piece I wrote on this issue back in 2011, kind of a rough effort actually, but one that gives more by way of the fundamentals of what marriage is in the history of culture. Of course I know my diary today is long already, but I'm still going to post this essay today even so, because who's to say some Kos tykes aren't again going to deploy their third-grade "time out" trick on me.
m
Again: What I was really interested in was discussion with people who disagree with me, learning something from civil and intelligent people who'd be likely to argue a different side. You've all claimed repeatedly that your main problem with me is not that I'm Catholic but that I'm not posting my essays directly to Daily Kos. We will see how true this claim is.
Some of the following essay, politically speaking, is no longer valid, because DOMA has been declared unconstitutional.
Some parts of the essay repeat points raised above; for which I apologize. Still, I was arguing more fundamental issues in 2011, which is natural, since it was my first piece on the subject. But there are many tangential issues raised too. For instance, I discuss the ways gender activists in Swedish education are trying to "help" little Swedish kiddies grow up to realize their true ambiguously-gendered selves. On this, ahem, important world issue of gender orientation, Sweden has been very progressive from the get-go. Yes, last Saturday a Kossack quoted some of my remarks relative to this movement, but quoted me more or less out of context, which may be standard procedure here at Daily Kos when one is quoting people one fears and hates.
Again: Please note how many times the words "Bible" or "Catholic" or "God" appear in this post. Zero times. In short: I'm making a secular argument here--a secular and universal argument, mainly from history and anthropology. Here, to underline this aspect of my writing on same-sex marriage, I'll quote two paragraphs from another essay at my blog, written in response to a friend who was himself showing a kind of Kossack-like refusal to recognize that a Christian isn't always arguing on Christian grounds:
What really disappoints me, Steve, is the following: NONE OF THIS DISCUSSION OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY IS EVEN REMOTELY RELEVANT TO OUR DEBATE. Because, as you apparently haven't yet noticed, my argument against same-sex marriage is not based on Christianity. Rather--AND PLEASE GET THIS--my argument is based on the strictures against same-sex marriage found in Christianity AND Judaism, Islam, all Buddhist cultures, Hinduism, Sikhism, all cultures of the Indian subcontinent, all known Asian and Austronesian cultures, all African cultures (except for one exception: the Dahomey, which allowed a specific kind of marriage between women), most Amerindian cultures (with exceptions, in North American tribes, of "Two-Spirit Marriages"), ancient Greek and Roman cultures (except for some notable, actually notorious, Roman exceptions: the emperors Nero, Elagabalus), the ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, Akkadian and Assyrian cultures, the Phoenicians, secular Soviet bloc and Chinese-allied communist cultures, all known nomadic cultures, whether in the Eurasian steppe or Africa--and of course the list isn't complete. When you and other Americans, understandably sick of the hypocritical antics of the Christian right, argue in favor of gay marriage, you're not arguing against Christianity so much as against the collective wisdom of humanity; you are rejecting, based on a twenty-year-old liberal social movement, one of the few universal human insights. The local cultural instances where gay marriage was practiced historically are minuscule compared to the counter-evidence. What's more, in none of those instances were the couples understood to be composed of "husband and husband" or "wife and wife". Rather, the married individuals took up distinct gender roles: "husband and wife".
I have to say, Steve, it's almost maddening how you refuse to address this point. Refuse to address it except via banalities like "Times change", or "People get married for many reasons nowadays". It's as if you believed there was something unique about modern capitalist culture that allowed it to become, shall we say, post-human. That because of our iPhones and medical technology and the Discovery Channel we are okay as a civilization ignoring what all major civilizations before us have discovered and maintained--often independently of each another.
My essay below addresses the implications of this universal heterosexual marriage norm.
From here on out I believe it's entirely up to you Kossacks to decide if you can tolerate Catholics and moderate dissenters in your midst.
By the way, I'm a leftist who is against abortion too. Just thought I'd let you know.
Your call, Kossacks. Can someone on the Catholic left expect to be treated with any respect in this community?
Your call.
I support gay rights; I'm against gay marriage (2012)
Since coming of age in the 1980s, I have always vocally supported advances in gay and lesbian rights, especially advances in their visibility in society. I strongly believe gays and lesbians should be able to be "out" and comfortable with it in the public sphere. As a teacher of children and teens, I have used the classroom to defuse prejudices against gays and lesbians, doing my best to bring children to understand that homosexuality is an innate trait and that homosexuals deserve the same respect as anyone else. Now that the question of same-sex marriage has become so contested in America--with our president stating his support for it and with most of my friends elated that he has--I feel compelled to clarify my own thinking. In fact I am against legalizing same-sex marriage. In a few paragraphs I will try to explain why.
But can I do so, I wonder, without drifting into the usual arguments--all the tired bromides one hears from conservatives: that heterosexual marriage is "natural," that it is "long-established," that there's "no basis in history" for homosexual marriage--thus no basis for claiming it as a "right" being denied? Will I be able to avoid repeating what has already been said elsewhere?
In fact, regardless of how tired or shallow these arguments may seem, I think some of them represent serious issues. Though I have differences with many conservatives arguing against gay marriage, nonetheless certain of the problems they raise are valid.
"In our culture marriage is defined as a union between one man and one woman." Anyone who's followed the debate has heard this sentence a hundred times or more, but not often enough is the basis of the statement made clear. Our understanding of marriage as Americans is grounded not only in Judeo-Christianity, but also in the longstanding practices of all Western cultures, reaching back to antiquity. Among the ancient cultures especially important for our own was of course that of Greece, where homosexual relations were normal and highly respected. But even there, in ancient Greece, which often glorified homosexual love--even there marriage was considered as strictly heterosexual. Proponents of same-sex marriage might ask themselves why.
The understanding of marriage as heterosexual has been uniform across all the cultures we descend from, so this phrase as to how "we define marriage" is not simply a Christian ideology stating itself--no, it is a universal human fact.
There have been many cultures that offered space to homosexual relations, but in world history, across the vast network of cultural differences, the number of cultures that have accepted gay marriages of any kind could be counted on two fingers. Cultures that have recognized anything like gay marriage (and always with restrictions) are about as common as cultures that have accepted first-sibling marriage. We are talking about a phenomenon that counts for perhaps .0001% of marriages over history. This should tell us something about the function of marriage not simply in Christian or Jewish or Western pagan culture, but in humanity as a whole. Marriage is a bond effected between the sexes.
To break this basic heterosexual meaning of marriage is to undergo a major cultural shift. Proponents have presented it as the extension of a basic right to a currently denied minority, similar in this respect to the extension of voting rights to women. As women are citizens who should have the same voting rights men have, so gays and lesbians fall in love and should have the same marriage rights heterosexuals have. But I find that this argument relies on a false parallel. Because allowing same-sex marriage is not really a matter of extending a currently denied right; it is not a matter of enfranchising a larger number of people. Rather, recognizing gay marriage is to change the meaning of marriage per se, and to change it in an unprecedented way.
Strictly speaking, a right is not being denied in any case. There is no law on our books that states a gay man cannot marry. Rather, given the heterosexual nature of marriage, gay men and lesbian women are not inclined to marry. To marry, after all, entails a particular kind of bond with a member of the opposite sex, which would of course conflict with homosexual orientation. Disinclined to exercise their right to marry, they nonetheless retain that right.
This kind of argument may sound callous, but it should not be misconstrued. I am not suggesting that homosexuals try to change their orientation and seek marriage with opposite-sex partners. No, I believe they must live and create relationships according to their desires. The point of raising the question of rights here is rather to clarify that, strictly speaking, all adults already have the same right to marry. In my state of Wisconsin, as a man, I can marry any unmarried woman who is not close family. A gay man has precisely this same right. That he is disinclined to exercise this right is not to the point. Gay and lesbian claims that their rights have been denied are thus a misrepresentation. Individual disinclination to marriage is what is at issue here, and such disinclination, legitimate as it is, is different from the issue of the right to marriage. Strictly speaking, a right has not been denied. What same-sex marriage supporters want is not the same rights heterosexuals have (they already have these rights); no, what they really want is new rights that have never existed for anyone; they want the right to change the meaning of marriage.
This basic distinction about rights should also make clear why the oft-heard comparison of the same-sex marriage movement to the civil rights movement is false.
But I want to return to the history of cultures, which after all puts the issue in its proper deep perspective. We must not forget that anthropologists have long sought a universal meaning for marriage--i.e., one that would apply to all world cultures that have been studied--and that the data gathered over the decades has been enormous. What have we learned from these many decades of study? One salient feature emerges: in all world cultures marriage relates to the conception and legitimation of children. Marriage, in its deepest cultural sense, is an imprimatur given by society for the right to bring forth a new generation. It is not so much a romantic contract between two people as it is a ritualization of the facts of human generation--the biological facts. Marriage is the way culture assimilates the difference between male and female as these pertain to bringing children into the world.
Marriage, then, is everywhere the founding relationship of future generations. On a ground of love and responsibility between the sexes, it provides the possibility of giving birth to children to be raised in the cradle of this love. That children have both a mother and father raising them is not necessary of course, but the Western institution of marriage rightly sees this as the ideal. After all, it is physically a mother and father who must conceive every child. Given the chaos of social life and the varied environments in which children end up being raised, we tend to forget that every single human being in history, gay or straight, has had exactly one mother and one father. Marriage sanctifies this biological fact; it is both fount and protector of new life. There is no worthy reason to depart from the universal human practice and only now, in the twenty-first century, bring different kinds of relationship within the borders of what is called marriage.
Though grounded in biology and the facts of childbearing, marriage currently exists in many people's minds as a kind of romantic contract. But this understanding of marriage as romantic contract is peculiarly modern and does not do justice to marriage's cultural depth--to its depth and meaning even in our postmodern society. What's more, our modern understanding based on romance is also, as many scholars have noted, responsible for the serial monogamy we now see in America: people marrying two, three or even more times in as many decades and thus undermining the vow of marriage as permanent.
As pointed out above, even the cultures that normalized or glorified homosexual relations, such as that of ancient Greece, never made a move toward instituting same-sex marriage. Now we can see why. Marriage is and has always been a ritualization of the difference between male and female as this difference pertains to the raising of the next generation. To change this basic understanding is to change much more than our thinking about what kinds of adult love are acceptable.
I do not by any means think homosexuality is an acquired habit or a psychological perversion to be ashamed of. Most people who define themselves as homosexuals were born as such. Nonetheless, if one thinks in terms of the institution of marriage, homosexuality must be acknowledged as a problematic outcome in individual sexual development.
I do not believe homosexuals can or should be "cured". Those who can be cured are probably not strongly homosexual to begin with. I do not believe homosexuals should be ashamed to be oriented as they are. Even so, again, homosexuality represents a problematic difference from the norm.
Given that in all cultures sex is hedged about with rituals and restrictions (i.e., sex is inherently problematic) it should be no surprise that many cultures have seen homosexuality as problematic. In a society like ours, that claims to value all its members, the best we can expect is to develop ways to live with the difference that is homosexuality so that the least victimization results. The extreme positions we see now, however (traditionalists insisting that zero social recognition be given homosexual couples, liberals demanding that they be offered the title of marriage) do not seem to me to accomplish this goal. I believe both extremes are off-base, and hope, ultimately, that neither wins the day.
American society has for the most part learned to treat gays and lesbians with respect. This does not mean, however, that gays and lesbians have the right to fundamentally alter social institutions to fit their difference. It is unfortunate, but homosexuality, the result of an individual's sexual development, brings with it certain limitations when the issue is marriage. These limitations should not be imposed on the whole of society; or, to put it another way, the difference that is homosexuality should not be legislated away, final costs to be paid by the heterosexual institution of marriage.
To be gay does not stop one from being a genius. Or from being a hero. Or from being a model of ethical action. It does not stop one from being brave.
It does, however, make it very difficult to marry. Because marriage is between male and female. To say so is not to make a value judgment about different kinds of erotic love, but simply to state a fact.
It is a fact supported by the entire documented history of humanity.
I might also approach this issue from another angle, starting from a common criticism one hears from those supporting same-sex marriage, namely: "What gives you the right to decide that love between a man and a woman is better than love between a man and a man? Why judge some kinds of love to be better than others?" In fact my argument doesn't depend on this kind of judgment at all. The dignity of marriage isn't grounded in an assessment of this or that kind of love relation. Rather, it is grounded in the ancient social recognition that offspring result from male/female relations and that these offspring must be integrated into the social fabric. Marriage is the social contract that all cultures have solemnized to effect this integration. It is the basis of the transition between generations. As such, marriage has precisely nothing to do with any erotic relations that may develop between men and men or women and women.
There are many people who would acknowledge some of my points here, but who would finally want to stop with definitions and history and such and simply say: "But same-sex marriage--at the end of the day, who is hurt by it? Are heterosexual couples in any way threatened by allowing their lesbian neighbors to share the same social status 'married'?"
My answer would be that there are some social changes that do not bring immediate problems for those who witness them--they do not threaten the people down the block, say--but that will nonetheless cause problems over the course of generations.
Changing the meaning of marriage in the way proposed further weakens marriage as the institution ensuring new generations, and may lead to the irrelevance of marriage as such. Many people will balk at this assertion, I know, but it is not mere rhetoric. Such a change would represent a further shift away from biological meaning toward romantic contract, and, happening now, may be enough finally to sink an institution already battered by the phenomena of serial monogamy (easy divorce and remarriage in our society) and increasing out-of-wedlock births. I think it is no coincidence that these things are happening at the same time that same-sex marriage is gaining ground. All are instances of a current cultural disrespect for marriage in its deeper meaning.
A ritual that does not effect a union across the basic male-female division cannot be called a marriage. To call a relationship between two men a marriage is to stretch the meaning of marriage to breaking point: it becomes no longer a ritualization of sexual difference, ultimately grounded in procreation, but rather, as I've indicated, entirely a matter of romantic contract. Marriage loses its radical depth, which is that of biology, the most basic ground of human generation.
Those who think legalizing same-sex marriage would have no impact on the status of marriage in general need only consider our neighbors to the north. When gay marriage became legal in Canada in 2005, legislators were faced with a problem they hadn't foreseen, a linguistic conundrum of sorts. All laws on Canada's books had been worded with heterosexual marriage in mind, the status quo up to that point, and thus contained language that didn't match the newly enacted reality on the ground. In an article in the the journal Touchstone, Douglas Farrow explains how Canada got out of this snag:
In its consequential amendments section, Bill C-38 struck out the language of "natural parent," "blood relationship," etc., from all Canadian laws. Wherever they were found, these expressions were replaced with "legal parent," "legal relationship," and so forth.
That was strictly necessary. . . . [T]he state's goal, as directed by its courts, was to assure absolute equality for same-sex couples. The problem? Same-sex couples could be parents, but not parents of common children. Granting them adoption rights could not fully address the difference. Where natural equality was impossible, however, formal or legal equality was required. To achieve it, "heterosexual marriages" had to be conformed in law to "homosexual marriages."
Farrow eloquently analyzes the implications of this subtle legal change. Not only is a crucial element of the meaning of marriage removed from Canada's law books (namely the biological link between parents and child) but what comes to fill the void thus created is none other than the power of the state:
[Marriage becomes] nothing other than a legal construct. Its roots run no deeper than positive law. It therefore cannot present itself to the state as the bearer of independent rights and responsibilities, as older or more basic than the state itself. Indeed, it is a creature of the state, generated by the state's assumption of the power of invention or re-definition. Which changes everything.
Farrow interestingly points out that this issue is generally ignored by both proponents and opponents of gay marriage. In fact only legal scholars would be likely to notice it as a problem in the first place. It is but one example of how redefining something as fundamental as marriage can bring unintended and potentially far-reaching consequences--in this case giving the state expanded jurisdiction over both families and the meaning of basic words like "parent" and "child".
The legalization of gay marriage would certainly impact our schools as well. Though our education system has rightly rethought issues of gender orientation in the classroom--teachers no longer code interests or subjects as especially "for boys" or "for girls"--one can easily imagine such efforts going overboard and leading to a kind of reverse-victimization. Whereas now our teachers correctly try to prevent boys from bullying others who show feminine characteristics, it's easy to foresee a time when teachers will be expected to bully boys who behave, well, like boys. Think this is unlikely? Well, take a look at the importance "gender-neutral education" has recently acquired in Sweden, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2009.
Swedish ideas of a gender-neutral classroom fit into a wider national movement to do away with traditional ideas of male and female, which are seen as impediments to individual development. Swedish "gender activists" do not simply seek equality between men and women (Sweden is already seen as a world leader in such respects) but actually the erasure of differences between men and women. As a recent
piece in Slate makes clear, many Swedes think it is best if such erasure begins in the classroom:
Several preschools have banished references to pupils' genders, instead referring to children by their first names or as "buddies." So, a teacher would say "good morning, buddies" or "good morning, Lisa, Tom, and Jack" rather than, "good morning, boys and girls." They believe this fulfills the national curriculum's guideline that preschools should "counteract traditional gender patterns and gender roles" and give girls and boys "the same opportunities to test and develop abilities and interests without being limited by stereotypical gender roles."
Though I agree that girls and boys should have such opportunities, I am put off by the idea that some schools have "banished references to pupils' genders". This is, however, just the beginning of the sort of invasive gender-deprogramming to be expected once such movements gain traction. Swedish gender activists have also promoted a gender-neutral pronoun,
hen, to replace the traditional pronouns for
he and
she. Such a neutral pronoun is no doubt useful, allowing one to write "A good driver keeps hens eyes on the road" instead of the more cumbersome "A good driver keeps his or her eyes on the road"--but usefulness is not the main reason the pronoun is being promoted. It is being used, rather, to
replace the gendered pronouns
he and
she, as in "Lisa is a good student. Hen always does hens homework." In this sentence there is no stylistic reason to use
hen instead of
she; there is, however, a very heavy-handed
ideological reason. Identifying Lisa linguistically as a girl suggests that the fact she was born of the female sex has some bearing on how she develops: it suggests that her
femaleness is part of her identity. Gender activists think it shouldn't be.
The
Slate piece, which is worth reading in full, ends by suggesting some of the difficulties in the offing for these attempts to "reform" Swedish education:
Ironically, in the effort to free Swedish children from so-called normative behavior, gender-neutral proponents are also subjecting them to a whole set of new rules and new norms as certain forms of play become taboo, language becomes regulated, and children's interactions and attitudes are closely observed by teachers. One Swedish school got rid of its toy cars because boys "gender-coded" them and ascribed the cars higher status than other toys. Another preschool removed "free playtime" from its schedule because, as a pedagogue at the school put it, when children play freely "stereotypical gender patterns are born and cemented. In free play there is hierarchy, exclusion, and the seed to bullying." And so every detail of children's interactions gets micromanaged by concerned adults, who end up problematizing minute aspects of children's lives, from how they form friendships to what games they play and what songs they sing.
Americans may wonder why a whole nation, in this case the Swedes, would ever let such a misguided clique of ideologues take over the education of their children. The Swedes, in fact, are vigorously debating these changes. But still, how is it that a wide sector of mainstream Swedish society came to accept such ideas in the first place? The answer, I think, has something to do with the indefatigable energy of gender activists.
The stigma previously attached to homosexuality has caused great pain for gays and lesbians, and many have understandably been pushed into an almost feverish need to normalize their status in society, to defeat at whatever cost the dominant culture of "heterosexism". Their efforts have had some success. In Western universities over the past thirty years, via the often radicalized curricula of gender and cultural studies, many educated people, heterosexuals among them, have learned to think of socially accepted sex roles as a kind of oppressive and unnatural system, an ideologically grounded system of domination. The more "progressive" approach suggested in many of these university courses, the more enlightened way to deal with the sexual dyad of male and female, is to do one's best to
erase it: to suppose there is really
no normal way to be male and female, that all gender roles are just "cultural constructs", and usually
wrong constructs at that. The world would be a better place, many have come to believe, if the next generation could be raised without any notions of male and female at all: children could then grow up free to be what they really are--
hen.
It should be no surprise to anyone, while we're on the subject of oppressive ideologies, that a disproportionately large percentage of the scholarly work supporting these views was written by gay and lesbian academics. Though I think some of their insights have merit, I would suggest that the impetus to their efforts was mainly personal. Working through university departments, they struggled both to theorize their own place in the world and to find a route of escape from the burden of their difference. So what if the route of escape they finally discovered entailed remaking the whole of society? They set to work building the movement. Their goal? To do away with the very idea of normal sexual development.
While I sympathize with gays and lesbians for the bigotry they've suffered, I don't support this theory-based quest against heterosexual norms. I don't support it because I see what happens once it gains traction--once, that is, the critique of normal gender development becomes ascendant in important areas like education. Forged on university campuses, the movement is soon making education policy in elementary schools. Its supporters are, as I've said, indefatigable, and their goal is nothing less than to transform society. Thus it soon can become official education policy that boys acting like boys and girls acting like girls is somehow wrong; that children need to be carefully monitored to prevent "heterosexist" tendencies from taking root. This is what is happening in Sweden, and it is clearly a kind of reverse-victimization. Children who develop normally must be victimized, they must be quickly deprogrammed, in order to ensure that the ensuing social order won't make gays and lesbians feel left out. (A further disturbing example of how enthusiastic some parents have become about this brave new "gender-free" world can be seen
here.)
If there is such a thing as normal sexual development (and I think there is, although we can only define it in rough and imprecise ways) then the five or eight percent who do not develop according to this norm will inevitably, in some instances, feel just that--left out. The best that a just society can do about this is, first, to keep from stigmatizing them and, second, to give them space and freedom to develop in their way. Many on the American fringe (think Westboro Baptist Church) show absolutely no sense of the required justice. But while America still has a ways to go in respecting the dignity of homosexuals, this does not mean that homosexuals have a right to remake our culture according to their own difference. This is why, in terms of marriage, I am against legalization. What we need instead is a compromise that both respects marriage and gives space to gays and lesbians.
One suggested compromise that does just that was formulated by
Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis in 2009. Anderson and Girgis refer to the two sides of the marriage debate as "revisionists" and "traditionalists". They presented their work initially in response to a previous compromise, published in the
New York Times, that they believed gave too much to revisionists and too little to traditionalists. Specifically, and on this I agree with them, they stated that traditionalists would never support any definition of civil unions that could make them a steppingstone to legalizing same-sex marriage. Such attempts, they pointed out, had already been made in two state courts. The problem is that once a state defines civil unions in sexual or romantic terms, cases may be raised arguing that such "second-class marriages" are unjust because they are obvious instances of "separate but equal" institutions. The state is then cornered into enacting same-sex marriage.
The Anderson-Girgis compromise suggests creation of a type of civil union between two adults that is not defined in sexual or romantic terms, but that offers most of the substantive benefits offered to married couples. Such unions would be recognized by the federal government and would be supported by traditionalists as part of a trade off. The trade off is that revisionists, those now arguing for gay marriage, would have to desist from attempts to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. DOMA, a US federal law signed by Bill Clinton in 1996, has been challenged on grounds that it is unconstitutional.
Although I am not keen on some of the formulations in Anderson and Girgis' original presentation of their compromise (some of their language seems to me needlessly slighting of homosexual relationships) I agree with them in general. Their proposal accomplishes the essential: it defends marriage as it's currently defined; it gives space and a degree of dignity to gay and lesbian couples. But although I can imagine most traditionalists supporting such a proposal, would the gay and lesbian community do so? I find myself doubting it. And the reason, I have to admit, relates to that indefatigable character of gay activism I noted above: it seems that what gay and lesbian activists really seek is not so much the tangible rights of marriage as the complete obliteration of any notion in mainstream society that they are not normal.
However the battle develops in the coming years, I think it is obvious that marriage traditionalists must, at the very least, hold to something like the Anderson-Girgis compromise if marriage is to be defended.
CONCLUSION
I admit that I hesitated writing up this piece and posting it. I did not want to offend. I think many Americans now find themselves in a position similar to mine on this issue. They've been supportive of gay and lesbian rights and understand that being homosexual is not a "choice". What's more, they welcome a world in which gays and lesbians can be open about who they are. But now these same Americans, who've accepted the reality of homosexuality, see the gay and lesbian community attempting to change the definition of marriage. They're deeply against redefining marriage this way, but don't know how to proceed. They're having trouble stating their opposition to such a change, because they don't want to seem intolerant of gay and lesbian friends, coworkers, family members, etc. Though they might have a clear position on what marriage is, they are trapped by their sensitivity to gays and lesbians from stating it.
In short, many Americans, at present, are hushed. Doubtless the gay and lesbian community is partly depending on this cowed silence of the majority to push through same-sex marriage. I don't think they can be blamed for trying. They've suffered much, and for them, the cost of changing the meaning of marriage is worth it. I don't however think that it is worth it for America as a whole.
Americans need to find the courage to fight for marriage. They must do so while showing respect for gays and lesbians. It doesn't show either hatred of homosexuals or intolerance or backwardness to argue that gay marriage represents a harmful modification of a millennia-old institution. Marriage long predates the current legal arrangements under which we live in our democracy. It is prior to the state, more fundamental than the state, and we should not allow the state to fundamentally change its meaning.
Homosexuals have the right to develop their relationships as they like; they have the freedom to do so. This does not mean, however, that they have the right to impose their redefinition of marriage on the whole American population. Marriage is and has always been a relationship between man and woman. We would be wise to keep it that way.
Also posted at Clay Testament.