POLITICAL DEBATE ADVISORY
The following phrase has been RECALLED until further notice:
"Gay Marriage"
If you or someone you know is currently using this phrase, please go immediately to
Frameshop for repairs.
Anyone engaged in the following debates should exercise extreme caution: Civil Rights, Partner Benefits, Tax Law, Sexuality, Families, Minority Rights, Social Issues, AIDS, Morality, Parenting, Education, Reproductive Rights, Religion.
WARNINGS:
Use of this phrase will result in serious damage to political debate and harm to this country.
Repeated use of this phrase will result in the spread of a deceptive conservative frame, damage to the Bill of Rights, and state-sponsored violence against gays and lesbians.
EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED.
---
Frameshop is open.
Problem with the phrase "Gay Marriage"
The term "gay marriage" is set within a deceptively sophisticated logic when Conservatives use it. When people like Jerry Falwell discuss homosexuality, for example, their logic invokes both nature and nurture. This is where progressives fail because the Conservative way of talking about homosexuality not only takes a stand, but also provides a losing role for Progressives to play: the role of the Liberal who argues that people are born homosexual (i.e., they don't "choose to be gay").
Consider the exchange between Chris Matthews and Jerry Falwell on last night's (12.2.04) edition of Hardball. The subject matter was the commercial by the United Church of Christ that was barred by several networks because it engaged the topic of "gay marriage." It was a fascinating exchange between Matthews and Falwell, but not because either of them are very inspiring. Rather, their exchange exemplified perfectly how this debate plays out. So, I give you the entire exchange plus my interruptions to explain what I see:
MATTHEWS: What do you think of this ad, this UCC ad, That showed these bouncers keeping people who were apparently a gay couple and some people who were African-American from coming in the church? Should the networks have run that?
FALWELL: I think networks should have run it. I have no problem with the ad.
The United Church of Christ had a dual purpose. One was a positive one. Everybody is welcome. Every church should say that. Two, apparently, they are trying to say there are churches out there that everybody can`t get in.
MATTHEWS: Right.
FALWELL: And I think they even have a subtler message. They`re saying that the African-American, the Hispanic, the handicapped and then the gay couple or all four bona fide minorities. I would disagree.
The first critical point to see, here, is that the Conservative position is NOT that homosexuality should be kept out of the Church ("Everyone is welcome."). That's the first issue.
Exactly what should be happening to homosexuality once it comes into contact with church teachings is the issue.
The second point is even more important: Gay couples are not a "bona fide minority"--meaning that they are not minorities in the same way as blacks, latinos, or people with disabilities. So far so good, right? He's on his way to taking up the "nurture" side of a the argument, right? Not exactly. Let's continue to listen:
FALWELL: The two ethnic persons are as God made them, as I am Caucasian.
MATTHEWS: Right.
FALWELL: The handicap person, behind his power, his handicap.
MATTHEWS: Right.
FALWELL: And the gay couple. They chose to marry each other.
OK, there it is: Falwell just played the "choice" issue. Gay couples are different than other minorities because they "chose" what makes them different, while the other examples are minorities because "God made them" that way.
And now, predictably, Matthews does what we all do in these debates: he assumes the "nature" side of the nature vs. nurture argument:
MATTHEWS: How did they get to be gay, though?
FALWELL: Well, we probably differ there.
MATTHEWS: I`m asking.
FALWELL: But I think all behavior is chosen.
MATTHEWS: I`m open. I don`t know.
FALWELL: I think that...
MATTHEWS: Did you choose to be heterosexual?
FALWELL: I did.
MATTHEWS: You chose it? You thought about it and you came up with that solution? That lifestyle?
Here we are on familiar ground. The "gay marriage" issue takes us directly to a discussion of nature vs. nurture. The Left says homosexuality is a product of nature, the right says it's a product of nurture. The key word in this dynamic is "lifestyle." Homosexuality is a "choice" to live a certain "lifestyle" or it is not. Because it's "behavior" it is chosen.
But suddely, Falwell introduces a new distinction:
FALWELL: Put it this way. I was taught as a child that`s the right way to...
MATTHEWS: But did you feel an attraction toward women?
FALWELL: Oh, of course.
MATTHEWS: When people are born and they find themselves having an attraction to somebody from the same sex, do you think that`s a choice?
FALWELL: I think you can experiment with any kind of perversity and develop an appetite for it, just like you can food.
MATTHEWS: You don`t think it`s nature? You think it`s nurture.
FALWELL: I don`t think any--I don`t think anybody is born a bank robber or born a hostile left-winger or a hostile right-winger or gay or a promiscuous heterosexual.
I think there comes a time in childhood where environment may be a part of it, whatever, teaching, instruction, one chooses, I will do this or that. And that`s why good, godly parenting [is about]...
And there is the crux of the matter--the real ace-in-the-hole that switches the debate so fast that even someone as quick on his feet as Matthews doesn't catch it.
Falwell just made the case that all people are born with the potential for homosexuality. He just brought "nature" into his argument, and his model now includes observations on both nature and nurture.
The logic is that it is the nature of children to "experiment with perversity," that we are "born" predisposed to experiment, and predisposed to develop an "appetite" for those perversities. That's where "godly" parents come into the picture. Godly parents--a man married to a woman--provide the guidance that helps children resist this natural state of being open to perversity. Godly parents help children "choose" to not let their lives be ruled by their natural proclivity to perversity. A heterosexual marriage is the key to children choosing not to give in to the potential that everyone has to become homosexual.
Of course, Matthews doesn't follow this thread, because he thinks he's got Falwell trapped in one-dimensional nature vs. nurture debate:
MATTHEWS: How old were you when you chose to be heterosexual?
FALWELL: Oh, I don`t remember that.
MATTHEWS: Well, you must, because you say it`s a big decision.
Wrong! That's not what he said, Chris. If only you had been listening. Falwell said it was a "choice" and that choice required godly parents to help children deal with their natural curiosity to experiment. But Falwell humor's Matthews:
FALWELL: Well, I started dating when I was about 13.
Yuck.
MATTHEWS: And you had to decide between boys and girls. And you chose girls.
FALWELL: I never had to decide. I never thought about it.
MATTHEWS: I think it`s a ridiculous proposition that you actually sit down and decide. Let me see, boy or girl this week. Anyway...
FALWELL: I don`t think anybody does that.
Well, Jerry. We'll get you an interviewer that actually listens to what you say, next time.
But at least we could see what Matthews missed. Falwell wasn't talking about making a decision to become homosexual. He imagines a world where all humans are born naturally predisposed to sexual experimentation. At some point, we are faced with a "choice": Either we choose to control that nature or we do not choose to control that nature.
Therefore, when someone becomes heterosexual, that is the result of a choice to control our human nature.
When someone becomes homosexual, that is the absence of the choice to control one's human nature.
When read in this context, "gay marriage" for Falwell is a different order of choosing. It's a decision to embrace one's homosexual default "lifestyle" rather than making the "choice" to control it.
I get the sense that for Falwell it is never too late to make the "choice" to conrol one's apetite for "perversity" and, thus, steer yourself onto the heterosexual path. But the longer we wait to make that choice, the more our "appetites" for the perverse have the potential to turn into addictions.
"Gay marriage," in Falwell's imaginary, is a problem because it eliminates the most important mechanism that enables children to overcome their natural tendency towards the perverse. And as such, each gay marriage produces more gay marriages, until the whole counry becomes awash with perversion and breaks down.
Stopping "gay marriage" is like stopping heroin addiction or sugar addiction. Unless we intervene, the US will become a country of people addicted to perverse self-indulgent behavior.
This logic is horribly flawed.
---
Realigning the Frame: Equality, Rights, Families
There are many, many suggestions about how to reframe this issue.
From a progressive point of view, the issue is not "marriage" at all. The issues are equal rights and the right to privacy.
Progressive's imagine a world where everyone has equal access to the rights and privileges of citizenship, irrespective of how you were born or the legal choice you make in life. There are choices one can make to forfeit those rights, such as the choice to commit murder. We lose our rights as a result of these choices, because these choices are harmful to society as a whole. But the choice to enter into the basic relationship that constitutes a family is not harmful. In fact, vast sections of state and federal law support the thesis that creating a family is one of the single most beneficial things one can do for society. We are a society that wants families. Why on earth would we want statutes that prohibit people from forming families? We don't.
Now, whether or not I like you for who you are as a result of nature, nurture, car accident, genetic experiments, alien abduction, whatever--that's my right as well. I have the right to not like you, to not let you into my house, to not send you a Holiday card, and to not think bitter thoughts about you. But I do not have the right to enact government laws to bar you from the full privileges of citizenship based on my feelings for you.
So, when the conservatives ban marriage--any form of marriage--they are doing damage to the equal rights and right to privacy sections of the US Constitution, and they are doing damage to America society by preventing people from creating families.
To fight back, we should not battle for "gay marriage," but should battle to protect equal rights and families.
Don't Think of "Marriage"
Once again, new langauge is very difficult to generate on this issue. But more than other GOP initiatives, I do believe it is relatively easy to describe the future we want.
Progressives imagine a future where everyone has equal righs, where people who choose to start a family are not penalized for doing so, and where the basic lessons of equality from the Constitution are carried forward as this nation grows.
Here are some staring points for language that can invoke the new frame of equal rights and the protection of families:
- FAMILY BILL OF RIGHTS: This is a somewhat stodgy idea, but it invokes the constitution and forces the GOP to be against Families and Rights
- EQUALITY FOR FAMILIES ACT
- PRO FAMILY: This logic is the same as the "pro choice" response to the "anti abortion" conservative position. Make them say that they are anti family.
Time to roll your up your sleeves...