There's Nothing to Fear But All the Awful Things That Might Happen
In his ongoing debate with Rod Dreher, the estimable Damon Linker writes:
…that brings me to what I think is the core of Rod’s case against homosexuality. It seems to me that Rod’s opposition to gay marriage and social acceptance follows less from an argument or an assertion about the world, nature, or God than it does from a disposition or temperament — from a disposition or temperament inclined toward fear. (In retrospect, I can see how significant and telling it is that one of the first questions I posed to Rod in my original post was “What are you afraid of?”, and that Andrew fastened onto that passage in his initial response and returned to it in the title of his longer post in response to Rod. Fear has been at the center of this debate from the beginning.)
Rod imagines a future in which homosexuality has been brought completely into the mainstream of American life, and he responds with a shudder. But why? What does he fear?
First, as I noted above, he fears change. This is perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of the conservative temperament. (And that’s just one of the reasons why I think Andrew is wrong to insist on calling himself a conservative. But that’s a topic for another post.) Rod fears that if our understanding of marriage changes to include homosexual unions, this bedrock institution of civilization will collapse. Pretty soon we’ll have polygamy. Then before you know it, I’ll be taking my golden retriever to dinner parties and introducing him as my fiancé. The assumption behind this fear is that change tends to make things worse — that the primary thing holding civilization together is received custom. Without those limits to channel and direct and limit our actions, human beings will behave like beasts, or worse. We therefore tinker with and change those customs at our peril.
Although I favor gay marriage, I think Damon is giving insufficient due to conservative skepticism of change. I say “skepticism” rather than “fear” because the former suggests rational precaution, whereas the latter implies that conservatives are basically irrational reactionaries.
For example, I am not afraid of pre-nuptial agreements, but reason and observation persuade me that they weaken the institution of marriage by changing received custom with opaque, poorly understood, and unpredictable results. To cite an issue unrelated to marriage, consider the paleo-cons who opposed the Iraq War. Those folks harbored grave doubts about the ability of the United States to install a new form of government and civil society in a complicated foreign culture, even as neocons argued that the progression from autocracy to representative democracy is a universal human desire. Is it accurate to say that they were motivated by fear? Perhaps it is, insofar as they were afraid that the United States was engaging in a historic blunder with profoundly tragic consequences, but describing their opposition as rooted in mere fear hardly does justice to the more complicated roots of their beliefs.
This isn’t to say that conservatives are never unduly motivated by fear — many surely are, just as many liberals have been unduly motivated by fear of welfare reform, or media consolidation, or airline deregulation. Fear of change, whether rightly or wrongly held, is hardly an exclusively conservative trait, as is amply demonstrated by the way global warming fears are distributed across the political spectrum.
Damon writes:
Say what you will about this view of things, try to come up with empirical examples to demonstrate its paranoia, etc. But, in my view at least, it has a certain dignity. I don’t view the world that way. I don’t fear that if I tell my young son that the men living together down the street are married to each other that he will join a group-sex club in high school or be any less likely to marry when he grows up, or be more likely to divorce. But as a humanist — as a student of human history and culture — I can understand where Rod’s fear is coming from, because I’ve seen it before, and I’ll see it again. And I can accept that nothing I say to him is likely to change his tendency to view the world in the way he does. Because temperament isn’t the product of an argument; it’s what leads you to find certain arguments more compelling than others.
When it comes to gay marriage, neither Damon nor I view the world as Rod does — we reject the notion that mere acceptance of gays and their marriages threaten society. But Damon is saying more when he writes, “I don’t view the world that way.” He is asserting that he doesn’t fear change as a general proposition, that he doesn’t share what he regards as a conservative temperament. I find that hard to believe. Would Damon worry if instead of backing gay marriage, a substantial percentage of citizens and several states were working to legalize polygamy, incest, or group sex clubs in high school? Is there no social change whose implications Damon fears, though they aren’t entirely clear beforehand?
I ask because when he writes, “I can understand where Rod’s fear is coming from, because I’ve seen it before, and I’ll see it again,” he is being rather uncharitable to those who view change skeptically. Sure, Damon understands Rod’s fear of rapid social change partly because he’s observed the same temperament in others, but can’t Damon also see the same temperament — albeit a diminished variety — in himself? And if not, can’t he at least see that history amply demonstrates the perilous nature of rapid social change, and often enough vindicates those who were shouting stop? It isn’t as though everyone grasped beforehand all the nefarious consequences of communism, or national socialism, or Mao’s agricultural tinkering, or the widespread absence of fathers from the lives of their offspring, or the spread of crack cocaine, or even changes that most of us, myself included, regard as beneficial, like the discovery of fossil fuels, or the widespread availability of cheap food, or the anonymity afforded by the Internet.
Anyone who, having studied history, doesn’t have a healthy respect for the fragility of civil society, and some tempermental aversion to rapid change, is both foolhardy and quite unlike most people in Western society, whose tempermental conservatism reflects the fact that they’ve got a helluva lot to lose. Those who adopt conservatism as their political philosophy are seeking to distill the wisdom gained by observing humanity’s tumultuous past, reasoning through its lessons, and applying them to the present.
Non-conservatives may emphasize other lessons drawn from reason, history, and experience, but they hardly rid themselves entirely of the human impulse to resist change (and they’re well-served by the vestige). At times, Damon treats this aversion as a temperament that one either possesses or doesn’t, but the truth is that almost everyone resists “progress” to some degree, and that the objectively correct position on the spectrum running from extreme reactionary to revolutionary isn’t always the same. Who disagrees at this late date that racial equality should have progressed faster in the United States? Or that humanity would’ve done well to rein in the proliferation or nuclear technology, and the weapons it spawns? With regard to biotechnology, is the appropriate stance to oppose it entirely, to embrace it wholeheartedly, or to fall somewhere in between, making prudent suggestions on a case by case basis? It is a question we might be able to answer with certainty giving more data — if we knew, for example, that current research will lead to our extinction in 5 years, we could all agree to shut all research down — but with imperfect knowledge, whether the progressives or conservatives are objectively correct on this matter, as opposed to making the smartest bet given what we know, is impossible to determine.
Rather than stray farther from the topic at hand, I’ll close by suggesting that if Damon should reconsider his dismissive take on the conservative temperament, and that if he really wants to grapple with gay marriage as it relates to conservative skepticism of rapid change, he ought to respond to this post.
UPDATE: Note that Damon updated his post.
I think that some liberals have greatly underestimated the need for certain “you should do this/you shouldn’t do that” statements in order to have a functioning society. You have to have a social contract. But I also believe that many conservatives endorse norms, particularly regarding sex, that simply have no value for society anymore. It’s true that “everything goes” is a poor axiom for creating a civil society. But you can support gay marriage and not think that everything or anything goes. So I think I broadly agree with you.
— Freddie · Apr 3, 04:34 PM · #
I really like this post and wish that I saw more questioned framed this way. Without acknowledging that change entails risk, how can we have a lucid debate over whether or not it’s a risk worth taking? Let alone get to acknowledging that changing involves risk too.
Dreher makes (in my opinion) an unconvincing case against SSM by pointing out the risks an expansion of the legal definition of marriage or the further normalization of homosexuality poses to society at large. But too often the counter-argument seem rooted in (what is for me) a disquieting certainty about what the future holds (“That’s silly to suggest that legal recognition of SSM will lead to legal recognition of polyamorous marriage, etc.”)
I don’t think it’s silly to suggest this is a possibility; and am, at best, ambivalent about the idea. But I think a much more convincing case for SSM can be made by addressing this as a real possibility and then contemplating the risks of legal recognition of polyamorous marriage against the benefits of equal recognition of SSM.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 3, 04:42 PM · #
FYI, I’ve added a brief update to the post in response to this critique.
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/linker/default.aspx
— Damon Linker · Apr 3, 05:19 PM · #
Attributing your opponents’ views to fear, and then speculating about the psychological causes of that fear, is a hell of a lot easier than formulating and responding to arguments.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 3, 06:23 PM · #
Characterizing your opponent’s views as not being in keeping with God’s law isn’t exactly a towering intellectual achievement either.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 3, 07:08 PM · #
One of the best things ever written on gay marriage comes from none other than Noah Millman:
http://www.gideonsblog.blogspot.com/2003_07_01_gideonsblog_archive.html#105952165206390107
— JD · Apr 3, 07:25 PM · #
I actually think I do a better job of formulating arguments for Rod’s position than he does himself. But that’s just me.
— Damon Linker · Apr 3, 07:36 PM · #
All this seems to ignore the fact that not doing anything – cleaving to tradition – often has risks, as well. And not always known ones – hence only in the last 10-20 years have we identified the risks of past and future industrialization to climate.
— Chet · Apr 3, 07:46 PM · #
In the end it doesn’t matter. Rod & Co. are outgunned. Time to stop worrying about defeating his arguments and start hoping his arguments are wrong.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 3, 07:50 PM · #
Characterizing your opponent’s views as not being in keeping with God’s law isn’t exactly a towering intellectual achievement either.
Tony, I would say that that depends on whether you just assert the point or try to make an argument for it. If you make an argument, then even if you’re totally wrong, at least people have something substantive to respond to. I would actually agree with Damon that Rod hasn’t made very many clear arguments for his views on this subject — he has indicated what the general form of the arguments would be, but I don’t think he has actually made them.
But there’s no way to debate with someone who claims to know the inmost secrets of your “disposition” because, following the rhetorical trick that Freud perfected, he will just treat every denial as confirmation. And in any case, as soon he has you arguing about your own disposition instead of the issue at hand, he keeps you on the defensive and keeps his own views safe from refutation or even scrutiny. It’s best just to ignore that rhetorical maneuver: it’s a no-win situation for the person under accusation, and it keeps questions of truth always at arm’s length.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 3, 07:51 PM · #
But there’s no way to debate with someone who claims
Similarly, there’s no way to debate with someone who claims to know that God approves of oral sex a (married) man and woman, but disapproves of oral sex between a man and another man. Argument or mere assertion, how do you push back against “God says so.”?
More over, I’m far more comfortable guessing at the inner working of Rod Dreher psyche, especially on a subject on which he’s left a trail of bread crumbs (more like the whole fucking loaf, IMO) than I am at guessing at what God’s plan is with regard to who can sodomize whom.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 3, 08:09 PM · #
I think the thing I find most frustrating about Rod Dreher’s posts is that he seems unwilling or unable to admit that there’s a vast middle ground between the highly traditional procreation-centric view of marriage he espouses and an “anything goes” hedonism. In fact, I suspect that many (most?) of us fall somewhere in that middle ground. And I can’t quite figure out why he thinks the slope is quite so slippery.
It might help if he dipped into some moral philosophy besides MacIntyre’s After Virtue which, brilliant though it may be, is a bit too apocalyptic as an actual description of our society.
— Lee · Apr 3, 08:44 PM · #
JD: I don’t actually stand behind that 2003 post anymore. I just wrote a long post adding my 2 cents to this debate, and the whole fracking thing was eaten by Internet Explorer and lost forever, and I don’t have time to re-write it now. Maybe later in the weekend.
— Noah Millman · Apr 3, 09:03 PM · #
Why not let Denmark or wherever experiment with fundamental changes to marriage for a generation and see how it works out for them rather than put the pedal to the medal in California, a state with 38 million people, not many of them noted for their level-headedness, which is also the pop culture media capital of the world?
— Steve Sailer · Apr 3, 09:07 PM · #
As for what could go wrong …
But could it be, instead, that fewer gay men want to be married than get married? Does gay marriage appeal more because sexual fidelity offers a role for a lifetime, or because a wedding provides the role of a lifetime? As one gay comic puts it, “Gay marriage is the hot political issue because you get all these great benefits: insurance, adoption, and a really fabulous veil.”Yet, will gay weddings destroy society? Overall, I’m not terribly worried. Still, the fervor with which some gay grooms will pursue the perfect wedding will make straight men even less enthusiastic about enduring their own weddings. The opportunities for gays to turn weddings into high-camp farces are endless. For example, if two drag queens get married, who gets to wear white? And anything that discourages straight men from marrying would be widely harmful. While most straight guys eventually decide that being married is fine, the vast majority find getting married a baffling and punitive process. (You may have noticed that while Modern Bride magazine is now over 1,000 pages long, there is no Eager Groom magazine.) About the only comment a straight man can make in favor of his role in the wedding-industrial complex is that at least it’s a guy thing — not a gay thing. But for how much longer?
— Steve Sailer · Apr 3, 09:09 PM · #
JD: I don’t actually stand behind that 2003 post anymore. I just wrote a long post adding my 2 cents to this debate, and the whole fracking thing was eaten by Internet Explorer and lost forever, and I don’t have time to re-write it now. Maybe later in the weekend.
If you had really wanted to add your two cent to this debate you would have composed your comment in another program rather than in the text box of a notoriously unreliable application.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 3, 09:32 PM · #
“I don’t actually stand behind that 2003 post anymore.”
Hmmm. Well, regardless, it was one of the most thoughtful things I’ve ever read. Certainly more thoughtful than any of the reflexively Rawlsian stuff that Damon Linker has been writing.
— JD · Apr 3, 10:02 PM · #
In the age of Bridezillas I don’t see how this could possibly be an argument anyone is supposed to take seriously.
— Chet · Apr 3, 11:14 PM · #
Speaking of Bridezillas: http://spectator.org/archives/2008/04/07/here-comes-the-bride-zilla
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 4, 01:40 AM · #
Argument or mere assertion, how do you push back against “God says so.”?
By saying, “I don’t think that God does say so, and here’s why.” If all the other person says is “God says so,” that’s mere assertion. And mere assertion is hard to argue with, I grant you. But if the person says “Here’s what I think Christianity is all about, and here’s what I think Christian teaching is on subject X, and here’s my evidence,” well, then you can have a real debate. If you want one.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 4, 02:01 AM · #
“Argument or mere assertion, how do you push back against “God says so.”?
By saying, “I don’t think that God does say so, and here’s why.””
Anything you say re god’s wishes can only be somebody’s mere assertion, whether it’s mine or Moses’. It of the same class of statement as me saying: there’s a real powerful monkey in magma bubble at the center of the earth and he told me gay mariage was nasty. There is no way to prove or disprove it.
So, god’s wishes, unless sheheit makes them indisputably know to us, are not legal in argument.
— cw · Apr 4, 06:13 AM · #
cw, everything everyone believes backs up at some point to an assertion — something is unproven and yet axiomatic for each of us, even if it’s only “we’re really living in this world, not in the Matrix.” But that doesn’t make debate about intermediate issues impossible. You can just assert your belief and walk away, but you don’t have to. (Of course, some claims take a lot more explanation and defense than others. . . .)
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 4, 11:52 AM · #
Alan, dude, that’s crazyhorse. You’re hugging the kryptonite that killed Carnap and early Wittgenstein as if it weren’t a thousand times more dangerous for religion.
Yes, to communicate with each other, to even think, we must rely on unproven axioms like “1=1” and “if x = y, then y = x”. You got us. We nailed.
You, on the other hand, must rely on unproven axioms like “God Exists”, “He Reveals/Revealed Himself” and “He Cares”. Me? I’ll take minimum mutilation for a thousand, Alex.
— JA · Apr 4, 02:49 PM · #
I’m pretty sure I’ve read all of the debate between Rod and Damon, including the very, very long list of comments on Rod’s blog.
I’ve even read Maggie Gallagher’s posts on the Corner recently about culture and marriage (yes, I know, that is brutal – I am not a masochist, I just want to know the arguments well. Sigh.)
Well, this is just my opinion, of course, but the conservative argument against gay marriage IS a mixture of irrational fear, bigotry, and “because God says so.”
If you don’t believe the fear and bigotry part, just search for “Erin Manning” and “gays will burn in hell” on Rod’s blog.
And Manning is Rod’s sidekick.
Now I agree that fear of rapid societal change is normal and healthy. I’ve got plenty of this myself and I have lots of gripes about modern culture.
But, to me, gays, as teachers, soldiers, artists, public servants, writers, thinkers, etc., have proven themselves over and over and over and over and over and over again as normal, loving, decent men and women deserving of exactly the same respect, love, and human rights that most straight people view as fundamental.
Sorry, but, in my opinion, the argument against gay marriage from Christians is a disgrace.
— anonymous · Apr 4, 02:56 PM · #
Alan said:
By saying, “I don’t think that God does say so, and here’s why.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This just makes me crazy.
How does ANYONE KNOW what “God says”???????
It’s an absurd basis for a discussion.
I admire Mr. Linker’s writing, so it’s obvious to me why he makes no such argument.
— anonymous · Apr 4, 03:01 PM · #
JA, it’s okay, man, I’m not trying to “nail” anybody. I’m trying to make a very simple point: that you can simply assert any claim you happen to favor, or — if you want to create a different way of dealing with people who disagree with you — you can offer reasons, explanations, and arguments. I’m sure you wouldn’t say that no one has ever defended the claim that God exists, even if you don’t find those defenses plausible. (Richard Dawkins is paying for his retirement home in Majorca by arguing with such people.) All the difference in the world between making an argument that doesn’t convince someone and not making an argument at all. The person who says “Thus saith the Lord,” end of discussion, is taking a very different attitude towards disagreement than the person who says “Let me explain to you why I believe as I do.”
See, what I’m talking about is not knowledge as such but rhetoric and ethics — the different approaches we can take towards people who don’t share our views. These considerations apply to any difference of opinion on any subject; religion isn’t a special case. There’s always the choice of whether to assert or engage.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 4, 04:14 PM · #
I actually would say that no one has ever defended the claim that God exists. At least, not to me – every time I’ve sought out such a defense, the response is invariably one of two:
1) You need to go talk to (or read books by) this other guy.
2) You’re so rude for even asking!
Part of the problem for belief in God is that theists actually do not defend the claim that God exists – they just assume that someone else has already done so. (Defending the claim that it is no less reasonable to believe in God than not, incidentally, is not the same thing at all.)
— Chet · Apr 4, 05:13 PM · #
“There’s always the choice of whether to assert or engage.”
But your interpretation of god’s desires is always going to be an unsupportable assertion. You can “explain why you believe as [you] do” but your explaination can never be supported by anything close to observable evidence as far as I can tell. You can say that you believe god is against gay marriage because of the statements in Leviticus (?), but the bible is an unsupported assertion. There is nothing that I can think of observable in the natural world that can be used as anywhere near unambiguous evidence of anything god desires. That is why this religion has to have faith.
So, becasue the desires of god exisit in this metephysical realm, I think that it is unhelpful to bring them in to any discussion of practical earthly matters with people who have different conceptions of the universe. I can say, sure I know yhow you feel about god’s will, but I don’t feel that same way. Where can we go from there? You feelings count, but so do mine. There is no eveidence to support or deny either. We cancel each other out. Now what? We have to move on to eartly considerations.
This is not making any challenge to the validity of anyone’s beliefs, it just saying that unsuppportable beliefs have to be excluded from any rational argumenta bout real world concerns. Now, if a majority shares these unsupportable beliefs, that army of human feeling has to be taken into consideration in a rational argument because that army of feeling is a real world phenomena. Unlike the specifics of what they actually believe.
— cw · Apr 4, 05:37 PM · #
Alan, re: There’s always the choice of whether to assert or engage.
Pues si, amigo, the latter is better.
The problem, as I see it (with your employing epistemological pragmatism to legitimate arguments about what God says): in the religious-theological argumentative universe, it’s precisely the axioms that are controversial (in fact, I’d go so far as to say that they’re the only parts of that universe that are interesting). And, because the axioms are unavoidably controversial, making arguments about “what God wants” will always and forever come across to those outside the choir as mere assertion rather than “engagement”. In other words, logical validity cannot inoculate truth-claims against foundational disease.
And yes, strictly speaking there is no foundation, no ground on which we can rest anything. That’s why we have to be pragmatic about where we start to build our lattice of beliefs. Quine answered that we should start with intersubjectivity, and I agree. Yes, theoretically we could all be brains in a vat, or God could be a deceiver after all, but it’s also the case that each and every one of us will give his outright assent that he feels the facts to be otherwise. It appears the outside world exists, it seems we obtain information about it through our senses, we can agree without reflection that certain events strike our senses in similar ways at the same times, so we can assume that said event actually happened. When you throw in logic and mathematics, you have an epistemological foundation that, while not being on the ground, is at least uncontroversially suspended in air.
I know you know all this, but I sometimes wonder if some subliminal quarantine is keeping it from being fully assimilated into your worldview. Yes, all theories are evidentially underdetermined; an infinite of hypotheses can fit any set of data. Yes, that leads to the doctrinal pragmatism of minimum mutilation, which can hinder as well as help our understanding of the world.
What it doesn’t do, what it can’t do, is provide legitimacy to an argument whose core axiom is “God exists and cares about us.” That’s like saying, because it’s necessary to jump from the first floor it’s just fine to jump from the hundredth.
In other words, because it takes such a leap to get there, it’s kind of bad protocol to base a consequential political argument on it. That’s all I’m saying.
— JA · Apr 4, 05:40 PM · #
Note to people refusing dialogue with God-informed opponents of gay marriage because their arguments are God-informed: you are summoning up the spirit of non-God-informed anti-gay marriage arguments. Careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
— James · Apr 4, 06:14 PM · #
CW beat me to it. Also this:
. . . is right on.
— JA · Apr 4, 06:16 PM · #
You can say that you believe god is against gay marriage because of the statements in Leviticus (?), but the bible is an unsupported assertion.
Presumably you mean that the claim that the Bible is authoritative and binding is an unsupported assertion. Yes, cw, but only if a believer chooses to stop there. People make arguments for the authority of the Bible, you know, just as they make arguments for the existence of God. This is why — pace JA — nobody has to jump from the hundredth floor: you can work your way down one argumentative step at a time.
People do this all the time, you know. There are hundreds, nay thousands, of books that argue every floor, from the hundredth down to the first. It’s of course perfectly reasonable to say that you find those arguments unconvincing, but it seems mighty strange to me to say that they aren’t arguments at all. Read a book by, say, William Lane Craig, who has devoted his whole life to these things. You’ll see argument after argument, hardly a bald assertion in sight. And — to go back to my one simple point that in my innocence I thought no one could possible disagree with — to handle disagreements in the way Craig does is (ethically and rhetorically) different than saying “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.”
JA, I too think “it’s kind of bad protocol to base a consequential political argument” on religious belief — or at least it’s a strategy that has almost zero chance of working — as I have said more than once on this very blog. But I wasn’t even raising that question here.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 4, 06:22 PM · #
Careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
I’m wishing for quite a bit, since I don’t have anything in common with the Mammonized, rights-humping deontologists on the other side, either.
Alan, the problem is, how do you justify starting on the hundredth floor in the first place? Why not start on the 21st floor with the animistic beliefs of a child (sorry for the metaphorical caramello).
— JA · Apr 4, 06:41 PM · #
Since I’ve pissed all over this thread already, let me say one more thing: Conor’s original post is just right, as is his challenge to Linker to respond to McCardle’s Excellent Primer. That’s the headspace we should inhabit when we talk about this stuff.
— JA · Apr 4, 06:50 PM · #
deontologists
I had been regretting dipping my oar into all this, but then this gem! A word to spit back at the various authorities I’ve done battle with (and expect to battle again) over whether or not my work can be displayed. Not that I expect that it will do much good, but at least I’ll have the satisfaction of imagining them scurrying for the dictionary.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 4, 06:53 PM · #
Alan, the problem is, how do you justify starting on the hundredth floor in the first place?
Debates start in different places, don’t they, according to what prompts them? Sometimes you find yourself arguing up to higher levels, sometimes down to the more basic. Depends on the situation. My interest is in having debates that start anywhere as long as they’re debates, not just contesting assertions.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 4, 06:55 PM · #
non-God-informed anti-gay marriage arguments
But there aren’t any.
I do not believe any can exist, but I would gladly listen if someone proposed one.
The secular right argument posed by Heather, Razib and Steve Sailer is some sort of handwaving at “traditional wisdom”.
Actually “traditional wisdom” is the argument imposed by Kylon and the Democrats on the Pythagoreans……the argument of mob-rule.
— matoko_chan · Apr 4, 07:03 PM · #
And Tony, you got me into this with your question about how to push back on the claim that “God says X.” I was just trying to explain that the answer to that question depends on the tone and the approach of the person who says “God says X.” That’s what I get for trying to answer a rhetorical question.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 4, 07:27 PM · #
That’s what I get for trying to answer a rhetorical question.
Rhetorical for you, perhaps. A matter of practical consideration for me.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 4, 07:30 PM · #
“ It’s of course perfectly reasonable to say that you find those arguments unconvincing, but it seems mighty strange to me to say that they aren’t arguments at all.”
Statments about what god desires are a form of argument, but they are a form of argument, a class of statement, that are unsupportable with real world evidence, as far as I can tell. I’m not an expert, maybe there is some real world evidence of what the Christian (or any) god desires out there, but I have not seen it. Can you give me some?
To illustrate: “God hates gay marriage” is the same class of statement as “Lono doesn’t like people surfing his private beach.” Both have very little reasonable chance of be proved or disproved.
Another kind of statment is: “the ickyness of gay marriage will cause straight men to shy away from marriage.” This is something that we can find out.
Again, I think that, while I respect a person’s beliefs about god’s will, that that type of statement is not useful in the gay marriage argument becasuse it leads nowhere if I disagree with your beliefs. We are at a stalemate. I have no rational way to convince you of my argument and you have no rational way to convince me of yours. So statments about god’s desires don’t really work in a rational evidenced-based argument.
Of course you could try to convert me to your religion or I could try to convert you to mine, but that seems like an awful big detour.
— cw · Apr 4, 07:38 PM · #
I’m afraid that’s my fault. Anywho, I’m off to drink basketball and watch more beer. Happy Saturday.
— JA · Apr 4, 07:48 PM · #
lightweight
— cw · Apr 4, 08:04 PM · #
Well, one other problem with statements from Christians that they know “what god says” about this or that: these assertions have changed over the years.
How can that be?
After all, didn’t god in the past “say” that we ought to torture, imprison, and burn heretics at the stake?
Or is the explanation that, well, we got things wrong (about what “god says”) in the past, but, now, NOW! we have it right?
What I don’t understand is, how would you know that you have it right now?
Didn’t the church’s torturers think the very same thing in the past – that they were “right”?
— anonymous · Apr 4, 11:24 PM · #
Okay, I bit. And … nothing. Which is pretty much what I figured, btw. Why oh why must we make things up?
— John Schwenkler · Apr 5, 04:35 AM · #
“Okay, I bit. And … nothing. Which is pretty much what I figured, btw. Why oh why must we make things up?”
I didn’t make it up – though I didn’t quote it accurately – I apologize and I imagine that’s why you didn’t find it.
Here is the exact quote from Manning:
“It’s not about whether gay people are lovely or not; it’s not even about whether gay marriage should be blessed by Christians, or just solidifies the participants in their state of grave sin, making it more and more likely with each passing day that they’ll spend eternity in misery amid the flames of Hell—those are important questions, but they are strictly religious ones.”
This is the link:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/03/dreher-linker-sullivan-on-gay_comments.html
And the post by Manning is on March 31, at 2009 2:11 PM.
— anonymous · Apr 5, 02:07 PM · #
I reckon that just as my point of view makes me more sensitive to passages such as the one from Manning quoted above, and makes them easier to remember or find, and makes them seems quite typical of the sort of rhetoric I hear from people who subscribe to an anti-homosexual point of view; J. Schwenkler’s point of view makes these passages less memorable for him, and when they are present for his inspection, I’d guess they probably strike him as exceptional rather than typical.
When I came in from yard work yesterday, and via JA suggestion very much looking forward to a cold beer, I was quite nearly despondent that the only bottle left from the SA variety pack was Cranberry Limbic, a brew I find most foul.
For a moment I imagined this was God’s punishment for my provocations on this thread. Then I opened and drank it while I cooked my girls a steak.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 5, 02:35 PM · #
If you are at all familiar with the rest of Manning’s output, then you know that it is a common theme that homosexuals are living in a state of “grave sin” and are condemned. That is the argument that I consider disgraceful. Condemned for who they are?
Also, I would say that Manning’s approach is to spread fear of an apocalyptic future, where gays are not seeking love, acceptance, and rights. Gays are instead, as I read Manning’s posts, seeking to force America to accept “queer theory”, and on a mission to destroy heterosexual marriage.
— anonymous · Apr 5, 02:42 PM · #
Ah – there’s a post by Rod at the top of his blog right now, praising another post by Manning – and quoting it extensively, and approvingly.
And Manning is essentially assertng this: it should be okay to condemn homosexuality because it is a sin, just like lying, cheating, stealing, and greed.
— anonymous · Apr 5, 03:42 PM · #
Can I pose a challenge to TAS?
I’ll throw down the gauntlet.
Come up with a secular argument against SSM.
— matoko_chan · Apr 5, 05:52 PM · #
Mr. Schwenkler:
It’s interesting that we go from “I couldn’t find the quote” to “you’re a liar” in one fell swoop.
Why oh why must we make this leap?
Whatever happened to the intermediate gentleman’s challenge: “I can’t find it – can you back this up?”
But wait, there’s more!
I was “making it up” even BEFORE you did a search:
“Which is pretty much what I figured, btw.”
You could have saved yourself a step!
— anonymous · Apr 5, 06:42 PM · #
anon: Well, you put the words in quotation marks, which certainly suggested that it was intended to be a direct quote, so it’s not as if the leap came out of nowhere. And there is, of course, a subtle but significant difference between “will” and “are making it more and more likely that”. But apologies for moving right to the charge of outright making things up, and not considering the possibility that you might be just misremembering or (perhaps) misrepresenting what Manning had written; there are important differences therein, too, and since I don’t usually frequent Rod’s comboxes I wouldn’t really know how she tends to put things.
I agree, by the way, that the words you cite aren’t an appropriately charitable way to speak about an issue like this one.
— John Schwenkler · Apr 5, 07:27 PM · #
Sorry, matoko, you have to go read, I mean really read, your Nietzsche first.
— James · Apr 5, 07:33 PM · #
Sorry, matoko, you have to go read, I mean really read, your Nietzsche first.
How marvelously glib!
— Tony Comstock · Apr 5, 08:21 PM · #
No.
I want an answer. Quote Nietzsche or n/e one you like.
Let’s rumble or you can cede my point.
— matoko_chan · Apr 5, 11:34 PM · #
Mr. Schwenkler,
Thank you.
You know, in all honesty there are a number of issues where I agree with Mr. Dreher (I am not a conservative – not quite sure what I am except that I am NOT a Republican.)
His emphasis on authenticity, tradition, and other issues such as preserving old architecture is an emphasis I share. I, too, see a lot of things about modern culture that I do not like.
Rod is a good thinker and a valuable voice.
But, to me, it is the Christian part of the equation that leads to trouble.
The idea that being gay is immoral and emblematic of the decay and rot of modern civilization is, to me, an undignified position. And I believe that is Rod’s view, essentially.
I believe that view is a disgrace.
— anonymous · Apr 5, 11:56 PM · #
M_chan
I think the argument is right in this post somehwere: if we change the nature of marriage once, we may have to change it again. The slippery slope argument. Same-sex marriage today, polygamy tomorrow. Becasue marriage and family are central to our culture, this maybe cascading marriage change may change our culture in ways we wouldn’t like. So to be safe, we should just keep things like they are.
Here are my responses to this (legitimate) argument:
1. no one can give any credible senarios of these terrible change or at least not any I have seen.
2. It is at least equally plausible to argue that we would do as much or more damage to our culture by denying same sex marriage than we would by allowing it.
3. It is morally wrong and unconstitutional to deny an innocent minority rights central to our society simple on the possibility that it will change our culture negatively, especially since no one can convincingly spell out what these negative changes would be.
4. We don’t have much control over culture. Culture is continually recreated every day through zillions of actions, both human and inhuman. Culture is like a society’s psychology. Gay marriage has been brewing our societies psyche for hundreds of years. If it’s moment is here we can no more stop it than we can stop making action-hero movies or salty crunchy snack foods.
— cw · Apr 6, 03:59 AM · #
Just wanted to drop in and ask Mr. Schwenkler to consider reading the whole of my comment that the anonymous person quoted here.
At the very least, consider the next part, as follows:
[It is, as Rod has said repeatedly, about whether or not gender is an aspect of marriage and, indeed, of the human person, or an irrelevant quality like hair or eye color which can be ignored as we redefine marriage, tear down traditional understandings of family and of what children need, reshape society, insist that children do well in any sort of arrangement so long as the adults are happy, and set our feet on a path to a world where adult desires are much, much more important than biological parenthood in our understanding of what marriage is for.]
My posting there was in response to being told that being concerned about whether the ancient understanding that marriage did involve people of different genders (sometimes one man and one woman, sometimes one man and many women, sometimes, though rarely, one women and more than one man) was somehow important to this civic entity we call “marriage” is simply a religious belief—that is, that thinking there must be something about human civilizations’ understanding of marriage that caused it to involve at least one person of each gender is no different than thinking that the correct Eucharistic understanding involves transubstantiation, or that one ought, if one is a practicing Catholic, abstain from meat this Friday.
People are, of course, perfectly free to think that there is no reason whatsoever why marriage has not, in any major civilization in human history until the immediate and recent past, ever attempted to include same-gender couples within its definition of marriage as merely a sad reflection on the inherent bigotry, backwardness and superstition of all of our benighted ancestors; as a conservative, though, I find that an alarmingly hubristic notion to take.
What causes my sometimes unintentionally hurtful language (for which I apologize) is the frustration of being told that concerns for the integrity of words and meanings, the prudence of acting with extreme caution when proposing to tamper with one of the foundational pillars of society, and the need to reflect on whether or not defining marriage as the union of male and female was indeed nothing but the ugly bigotry of every generation until our own is a religious belief. Certainly, as a practicing Catholic I have religious beliefs about the morality of various types of sexual behavior, including the morality of homosexual acts, but I rarely discuss these beliefs in the context of these arguments; the example of extremes which the anonymous person quotes was meant to be an illustration of the fact that I don’t choose to discuss my beliefs in the context of these arguments most of the time.
I am not saying anywhere that “Homosexual acts are immoral, thus gay marriage should be forbidden.” I am saying “Marriage has always until the very recent present involved at least some combination of males and females, and has been in many ways a quintessentially heterosexual institution; now we see many agitating for a new understanding of marriage on the grounds that the heterosexual nature of marriage was a mere accident produced by historical bigotry, and not in any way because there is something about marriage, something worth preserving, which has to do with certain aspects of the relationship between a male and a female which are unique to this kind of relationship, and which do have something to do with the stability of society, the environment created for raising future citizens, and the like.
I recognize that many people take the latter position: the heterosexual nature of marriage was a historical accident produced by bigotry. I respectfully disagree with that position. But I’ll be darned if I can figure out how that position, in and of itself, is a religious one.
— Erin Manning · Apr 6, 05:36 AM · #
Thanks, Erin; I’m wishy-washy on same-sex marriage but quite sympathetic to much of what you say here. And of course you’re right to point out that the “flames of Hell” remark quoted above was intended to explain why you don’t think such religious concerns are especially relevant; indeed, and in addition to the “will”/“are making it more and more likely that” distinction I noticed, it’s worth noting that the entire remark was embedded in a context that clearly didn’t entail your commitment to such a view of perdition. But I’m glad we can all agree that it’s best to err on the side of avoiding talk of hellfire in contexts like this one. :)
— John Schwenkler · Apr 6, 05:54 AM · #
Erin Manning wrote:
“but I rarely discuss these beliefs in the context of these arguments; the example of extremes which the anonymous person quotes was meant to be an illustration of the fact that I don’t choose to discuss my beliefs in the context of these arguments most of the time.”
I take this to mean that you sometimes don’t tell us what you really think. Is that right?
Or did I not understand you correctly?
We could cut to the chase: are gay people condemned to hell for living in a state of “grave sin”?
— anonymous · Apr 6, 01:38 PM · #
Erin,
I respect your postition and it was vey nicely stated. It brings up a question though. You write:
“…there is something about marriage, something worth preserving, which has to do with certain aspects of the relationship between a male and a female which are unique to this kind of relationship, and which do have something to do with the stability of society, the environment created for raising future citizens, and the like.”
You are saying there is something bad that might happen to our society if we allow gay marriage, but you don’t say what it is. I think people taking your position have to start giving us some detailed, plausible scenarios about the bad things that might happen, rather than just raise these vauge fears. What specifically might happen?
— cw · Apr 6, 03:49 PM · #
tyvm for responding cw.
I think the argument is right in this post somehwere: if we change the nature of marriage once, we may have to change it again. The slippery slope argument
Sorry, that is NOT a legitimate argument.
Polygamy was the normative form of marriage for many thousands of years.
It’s in the bible lol.
Cultural evolution is not a slippery slope.
Razib said to me once that culture does not shape people as much as people shape culture according to their needs. In modern American culture that means a spectrum of different marriage forms have evolved— divorced parents, childless marriages, grandparent marriages, same-sex parents, mixed-race parents, etc.
Presumeably if a societal need for line-marriage arose, a form would evolve to support it.
And anyways, anti-SSM laws and DOMA do not prevent the practice of polygamy in this country, though presumeably polygamy is illegal NOW.
lol
So no, that is not a legitimate secular argument.
Anyone else?
— matoko_chan · Apr 6, 03:50 PM · #
the heterosexual nature of marriage was a mere accident produced by historical bigotry
No, Erin, the heterosexual nature of marriage was an evolutionary fitness enhancer based on biology.
Since homo sapiens sapiens has achieved some degree of control over his environment, including reproduction control, adoption, fertility therapy, etc., the selection gradient has moved.
So you cannot actually answer cw’s question about societal harm arising from SSM, because more marriage and more families always enhance their society’s relative fitness.
Again, the only opposition to SSM seems to be “because god told meh”.
— matoko_chan · Apr 6, 04:31 PM · #
Allow me to point out that Erin’s argument falls into my “handwaving-at-traditional-wisdom” category.
Fail.
Next?
— matoko_chan · Apr 6, 04:35 PM · #
This isn’t true, though. There are abundant historic examples of same-sex, erotic relationships described either as “marriage” or in terms of being like marriage. Same-sex marriage is hardly new, nor limited to non-Christian societies. I mean you could look no further than the Bible for examples of same-sex partners living in spiritual, sexual communion.
I wonder if this is the same sort of historic revisionism that leads people to believe that Roe V. Wade was the first time abortion was legal in America.
— Chet · Apr 6, 04:57 PM · #
Also I’ll take a pre-emptive strike at Sailer’s “freaky-deaky gay weddings will scare straight men off of marriage” hypothesis right here with fabulously popular reality-tv shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Bridezilla.
Prediction: within 5 years, a reality-tv show titled My Big Fat Gay Wedding.
Evo Theory of Culture 101.
— matoko_chan · Apr 6, 04:57 PM · #
Matoko,
1. Who is Razib and why should he/she be taken as authority on how culture works?
2. Define “societal need.”
3. I’m not interested in making arguments for or against SSM, but I’m interested in the logical implications of your position. It seems clear to me that polygamous marriage, according to your “societal need” rubric, should be allowed. Is there, in your opinion, a secular argument against brother/sister marriage, given the movement of the selection gradient that you describe?
— You say,“So you cannot actually answer cw’s question about societal harm arising from SSM, because more marriage and more families always enhance their society’s relative fitness.” Why or how is this so, absent the idea of marriage as an “evolutionary fitness enhancer based on biology”?
I don’t wish to engage in an argument about SSM, especially since I’m tentatively for it. I am sympathetic to more conservative viewpoints, however, and in any event I find that your “refutations” of the arguments against same-sex marriage seem as vague and imprecise as the arguments you dismiss with your trademark LOL.
— Kate Marie · Apr 6, 07:53 PM · #
ok.
I’m not interested in Katemarie.
Page meh if u have a valid argument, TAS.
— matoko_chan · Apr 6, 08:16 PM · #
Matoko,
I want an answer. Let’s rumble, or you can cede that you aren’t prepared to answer my questions. LOL!
To be honest, I’m not really interested either. I was just curious whether you had the substrate to define your terms more precisely and explain an apparent inconsistency in your “refutation.”
Fail. Next?
— Kate Marie · Apr 6, 09:27 PM · #
Relevance? The problem with the slippery-slope argument is that you can follow it all the way back up the slope. If gay marriage must be banned to prevent sibling marriage, then surely straight marriage must be banned to prevent gay marriage.
— Chet · Apr 7, 04:52 PM · #
Chet,
My question to Matoko wasn’t about slippery slope arguments (I suggest you look at a recent post of Eugene Volokh’s if you want an interesting discussion of slippery slope arguments), but about the logical implications of Matoko’s premises. Apparently, she’s not ready to rumble, though. LOL.
— Kate Marie · Apr 7, 05:57 PM · #
No need.
Behold teh Future.
— matoko_chan · Apr 7, 06:00 PM · #
Volokh is making slipperyslope legal arguments.
These same arguments, along with “federalism” aka local mob-rule were historically used to support rationale for segregation academies and anti-miscegenation laws, the “dire threat to the very fabric of society”.
At no point does Volokh give a valid secular reason to oppose SSM.
And as long as that secular reason is nonexistant, and since we do NOT have a state religion in America, the Supreme Court and the Bill of Rights will simply overrride any cost-viability or slipperyslope arguments.
— matoko_chan · Apr 7, 06:12 PM · #
And….it is difficult for me to believe this….but is it really possible that Katemaries scientific knowledge of reproduction is so sketchy that she doesn’t understand inbreeding of 1st or 2nd degree consanginous relatives generally results in massive exposure of deleterious autosomal recessives?
tch, tch, she must have gone to a christian school, poor thing.
— matoko_chan · Apr 7, 06:23 PM · #
Matoko,
Who said Volokh is providing secular arguments against SSM? Not me. Chet suggested my question to you was a slippery slope argument against SSM. It wasn’t — I’m not even interested in making an argument against SSM. I’m simply curious about whether you can answer questions about your own arguments and “refutations.” Apparently you can’t. LOL.
P.S. Snideness is not an argument. If you are attempting to make an argument against brother/sister marriage — i.e., the “selection gradient” hasn’t moved far enough, the potential genetic harm to society outweighs the restriction of constitutional rights, etc. — just make it. You want to pretend to be “not interested,” and then to come back in and (what a surprise) snipe at me with “you’re stooooopid!”
P.S.S. Since we’re on the subject of schooling, I am happy to report that my years of schooling taught me how to spell “non existent” correctly.
— Kate Marie · Apr 7, 06:40 PM · #
Nope, I’m just still looking for a response to my TAS challenge.
Is there a valid secular reason to oppose SSM?
— matoko_chan · Apr 7, 07:16 PM · #
And I’m still looking for an answer to my questions, particularly this one:
You say,“So you cannot actually answer cw’s question about societal harm arising from SSM, because more marriage and more families always enhance their society’s relative fitness.” Why or how is this so, absent the idea of marriage as an “evolutionary fitness enhancer based on biology”?
LOL.
— Kate Marie · Apr 7, 07:58 PM · #
Is there a valid secular reason to oppose SSM?
Define “secular”. To argue for or against SSM, at some point you have to appeal to unprovable axioms — if those axioms don’t refer to the will of God, does that make them secular?
— kenB · Apr 8, 02:35 AM · #
kenB, if you read through the comments, you will see the base argument against SSM distills to “because god says so”.
All I want is an argument that does not involve pretending to know the wishes of a supernatural being.
— matoko_chan · Apr 8, 03:21 AM · #
Kate, Matoko, just get a room already.
— cw · Apr 8, 04:07 AM · #
Oh please cw, Katemaries arguments are like something i’d scrape off my intellectual shoe.
Why not just have Jacobs ban me again, like he did for rudely pointing out that PEG was lying on stem cell science?
— matoko_chan · Apr 8, 12:55 PM · #
Kate and Matoko sitting in a tree…
— cw · Apr 8, 03:11 PM · #
I just read a bit from the Notre Dame Seminary that claims that cunnilingus, if performed with sufficient skill and duration to cause orgasm, even when perform by a man upon his wife, is sinful; let alone between feuding blog commenters of the same gender.
Sitting in a tree out to be safe enough. But if they get a room, they’re going to need a chaperone. I volunteer Alan.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 8, 04:20 PM · #
But if they get a room
Sorry guyz, i might be a hip bi-curious scene chick in RL, but I find Katemarie just as intellectually repulsive as Glen Beck, who I view with horrified, incredulous loathing.
I think if “reform” conservatives want serious consideration as an alternative party, they had better toss Katemarie and Glen Back out of the tent.
— matoko_chan · Apr 8, 04:38 PM · #
Great. We sure wouldn’t want to break, like, two percent female readership, so be sure to heckle them whenever they comment. That’ll prevent a cootie outbreak at the American Scene. Very classy, gentlemen.
— Matt Frost · Apr 8, 04:39 PM · #
Um Matt, do you think maybe (just maybe) the heckling has more to do with the fact that Ms. Chan is a raving lunatic and KM thinks I’m going to hell because I very much enjoy using my mouth to get my wife off than it has to do with their gender?
— Tony Comstock · Apr 8, 04:50 PM · #
Come on Matoko, even an emotional retard like me can see the sparks flashing between you two. You are like the American Scene’s Hepburn and Tracy.
And Matt, it wasn’t me that brought up the cunihoosis. I just saw two young people in love and, clumsy fool that I am, brought it to their attention. Call me a Cruchy Con if you must, but if trying to build community and promote basic, age old human values are wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
— cw · Apr 8, 05:01 PM · #
PS. I enjoy Matoko and don’t think that she is a lunatic in the bad sense of the word. I don’t really read Kate Marie’s comments because they seem directed exclusivly at Matoko and reading them would feel kind of voyueristic, but I like her name and hope she keeps posting, no matter what happens with her and Matoko.
— cw · Apr 8, 05:05 PM · #
here cw, i’ll correct your delusion and fix the problem Blizzard style. /permanent lua-script ignore (Katemarie)
sorry, but if i’m going to be bi-curious, it will have to be with someone of my own species.
— matoko_chan · Apr 8, 05:10 PM · #
I don’t really read Kate Marie’s comments because they seem directed exclusivly at Matoko
that, and the devoid of content part.
n/e ways cw, bi-curious definitely equates to teh fires of hell in katemaries limited substrate.
Good thing i escaped the Bad Shepherd and the rest of Mother Churches clown posse and converted to sufism.
— matoko_chan · Apr 8, 05:18 PM · #
Tony, can you point me to anything I’ve written in these comments that justifies your claim about what I believe?
Sorry to all for my focus on Matoko. TAS is one of my favorite blogs, and I simply find Matoko’s repetitive, nasty, and — for the most part — poorly reasoned comments excessively annoying. I suppose that — a la Tony — I ought to consider her a raving lunatic and leave it at that.
— Kate Marie · Apr 8, 08:10 PM · #
“Tony, can you point me to anything I’ve written in these comments that justifies your claim about what I believe?”
You are correct; you said no such thing. I inferred from your comments here and and else where that you are not a “cafeteria catholic”. Apparently I was wrong.
— Tony Comstock · Apr 9, 12:19 AM · #
Thanks, Tony.
— Kate Marie · Apr 9, 01:25 AM · #