Is the National Organization for Marriage a criminal organization?
There are only a few issues in which the rhetoric of human rights needs to take the front stage, where the utilitarian calculus needs to take a back seat to considerations of morality.
Torture is a good example: torture is wrong. Period. The struggle against slavery and for civil rights is certainly one of the best examples.
Moral considerations are paramount when discussing any policy issue, and they should always be there because they always are there. Our policy preferences, no matter how much we dress them up as the product of a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis, always reflect our deeper-held values. But the problem about putting those values front and center is that it turns the debate into a war of absolutes. When a policy question becomes primordially a moral question, opponents become enemies; they don’t have a different opinion, they are wrong. To oppose X, Y or Z does not mean having a different worldview, it means undermining the foundations of democracy, it means becoming the enemy.
Again, there are cases where this is warranted, because the question at hand is primordially a moral one.
But in most cases, doing so is unwise. It is unwise as a practical political matter, because it radicalizes your opponents, who do not see why a difference of opinion or belief should make them enemies of democracy. It is also unwise morally, because the number of issues where there truly is a black or white answer is actually very small. We are imperfect creatures, groping in the dark for solutions to moral and practical problems, very few of which are optimal.
This long-winded prologue brings me to the subject of this post. Change.org, an organization with which I am sure to disagree on many issues (but agree on many others), and which I respect, published on their gay rights blog, a post titled thus: The National Organization for Marriage Practices a Kinder, Gentler Form of Gay Bashing
The author goes on to dissect an article in the Washington Post on the organization (I guess we could call it NOM, although that makes it sound like a support group for lolcats), whose members explain that they try “to help people see that opposing gay marriage does not make them bigots, that the argument should have nothing to do with hate or fear, and everything to do with history and tradition.” NOM members “pride themselves on being rational, mainstream and sane.”
Rational, mainstream and sane opponents to a policy you favor! Isn’t this anyone’s dream? Now we can have a sane, rational discussion on the issues!
Yeah, right.
The author calls NOM homophobes, the article sleazy. And who knows, maybe NOM are homophobes! Maybe the article is sleazy! Maybe there’s a dark side to NOM and the journalist is remiss in taking NOM at face value! That Change.org post, however, does not lead me to believe that.
But what is the worst about the post is its title: NOM practices “gay bashing.”
Now maybe this is because I have a flawed understanding of idiomatic North American English, but it seems to me that the expression gay bashing does not refer to the kind of bashing that goes on in IRC channels. It seems to me that it refers to the sickening act of physically assaulting, sometimes raping and killing, gay people because they are gay.
In other words, Change.org likens NOM, an organization which ostensibly (perhaps disingenuously!) tries to distance itself from the repellent, violently homophobic fringe opposition to gay marriage, to a criminal organization, which routinely practices one of the most heinous crimes there is. Basically, NOM and the KKK are the same thing. Puts that whole Obama-is-a-socialist thing into perspective, doesn’t it?
To oppose gay marriage is always, always to be a homophobe; always, always to be an enemy of everything that is right and good. It is black and white.
Thus people like Benedict XVI and Barack Obama become the moral equivalent of Russell Arthur Henderson and Aaron James McKinney, the murderers of Matthew Shepard.
It seems to me to be self-evident that this is both politically suicidal and morally very misguided.
Look. I support gay marriage. I probably disagree with NOM on most of what they say. One of their spokespeople puts forward “history and tradition” as reasons to oppose same-sex marriage, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of history will know that these are not sufficient reasons to oppose anything. But I also agree with the same spokesperson that not all opposition to gay marriage is driven by “hate and fear.” And I believe that in the interests of a healthy body politic, both opponents and supporters of gay marriage should support gay marriage opponents who reject “hate and fear” — or at least engage them instead of, well, bashing them.
I have no doubt that there are plenty of homophobes among gay marriage opponents, both of the virulent and of the casual kinds, both kinds of homophobia which are awful and should be combated.
But there are certainly sane, rational reasons to oppose gay marriage, just as there are sane, rational opponents of gay marriage. They are the ones that supporters should engage.
And they should always, always think before they speak. And try to refrain from acting like jerks. That would make us all better off.
Unfortunately, the “sane, rational” reasons to oppose SSM are the same “sane, rational” reasons people used to oppose interracial marriage and civil rights.
Say it with meh, PEG.
There is no valid reason to oppose SSM.
— matoko_chan · Sep 1, 01:25 PM · #
And since this is a “culture” blog, this is how NOM is percieved in the lens of contemporary culture……as ignorant homophobic biblethumpers.
mais oui, perception == reality in culture.
— matoko_chan · Sep 1, 01:29 PM · #
I tend to understand the use of the term bash in that context to mean rhetorical bashing. Also the wikipedia link doesn’t work.
A quick google search found Reihan Salam using the term in the way I understand it.
“I just wish Obama would stop bashing Wal-Mart. As Pew found in 2006, a large majority of Democrats — an overwhelming majority of downscale Democrats — like Wal-Mart for the good reason that it delivers low prices.”
That said, most of the uses on the American Scene seemed to be in comments= but with a similar rhetorical rather than violence connotation.
So I do think you’re getting your idiomatic usage a bit wrong here.
— Greg Sanders · Sep 1, 03:06 PM · #
Greg: Proper link here (fixed now) — “gay bashing” refers to something wholly different than simply “bashing.”
— PEG · Sep 1, 04:09 PM · #
There are, actually, no “sane, rational” reasons to oppose gay marriage. That’s where your analysis first falls down.
— Chet · Sep 1, 04:23 PM · #
Chet and matoko: It’s good to know that the force of repeated, unsupported assertion is still capable of proving something true. I was worried that that rhetorical technique had gone into decline with the end of the Bush administration, but I see it’s still alive and well!
— Ethan C. · Sep 1, 04:37 PM · #
One has to admire the rhetorical fast-talking in this thread. There are no sane, rational reasons to oppose SSM. Therefore, any person who oppose SSM is insane and irrational. There’s no point in listening to people who are obviously insane and irrational, allowing me to persist in my belief that there are no sane, rational reasons for opposing SSM. And the circle of logic goes on!
— JS Bangs · Sep 1, 04:51 PM · #
There are some beliefs that are basically outside the pale. If you argue that the holocaust didn’t happen or that the federal reserve is manipulating stock prices by secretly buying securities on the New York Stock Exchange, I am not really inclined in examining your evidence. If one of my friends forwards me your webpage and asks me what you think, I will probably tell the friend that she can also ignore you because you are pretty clearly mistaken or a nut.
In the case of holocaust denial, there’s a second issue – in addition to a nut, you may also be anti-semitic, in which case, there’s a moral component to my refusal to engage your evidence.
At this point, it looks like we disagree about whether gay marriage falls within this area of (1) so risable as to be dismissed without engagement and potentiall (2) so likely to be motivated by immoral motives as to be morally condemned.
Matoko and Chet appear comfortable concluding (1) and (2), while PEG and the other commenters think not.
— J Mann · Sep 1, 05:39 PM · #
I do have to admit I have never seen a sane, rational argument against same sex marriage.
As with God, however, I cannot then conclude that such an argument doesn’t exist at all. I can merely conclude that I have no evidence that one exists.
Where m_c and Chet are athiests on the subject, I can only call myself agnostic.
— Erik Siegrist · Sep 1, 06:29 PM · #
I basically agree with PEG, so I’m going to pursue distracting side-issues. PEG opens a can of worms when he writes
Figuring out when that point is, however, is also a matter of values, morales, and absolutes. It is not enough, then, to say that, for example, 9/11 truthers or Obama birthers are beyond the pale because they just are. Though I don’t normally like to do so, I think we can actually resort to moral pragmatism for our rationale: These positions are unjustifiable because so many believe that they are, so we can dismiss any who don’t as freaks and outliers.
The flip side is also true: if there is insufficient consensus, then such dismissal is impossible. I don’t think slavery was any more right in antebellum America than it is today, but you couldn’t attack slavery just by saying “You people are immoral monsters and your arguments should not be heard!” and leaving it at that. You would never have convinced anyone. I think gay marriage advocates make a mistake if they make the equivalent of the “immoral monsters” non-argument. We haven’t reached a watershed where that is sufficient.
This is aside the point of whether anti-gay-marriage arguments are at all as monstrous as pro-slavery arguments, incidentally.
BTW, I have never understood “gay-bashing” to mean physical violence exclusively, and in fact have almost always thought of it in the rhetorical sense.
— Blar · Sep 1, 06:40 PM · #
you couldn’t attack slavery just by saying “You people are immoral monsters and your arguments should not be heard!” and leaving it at that.
Well, you could, but it would serve more as a rallying cry for the faithful than as a way to convince those on the fence. Probably you need a mix of both to effect major social change — just the right proportions of cool dispassionate argument and sizzling moral outrage.
— kenB · Sep 1, 07:33 PM · #
It’s good to know that the force of repeated, unsupported assertion is still capable of proving something true.
You have it precisely backward, sir. Those who argue that gay marriage should be prohibited bear the burden of proving why it should be prohibited. No such sane, rational argument has thus far been proferred – instead we are given regurgitated Christofascist moralizing and unthinking protestations of “but that’s the way it’s always been.”
Make an argument against gay marriage that doesn’t rely entirely up the idea that gay and lesbian people are lesser than their straight counterparts. Go ahead, I dare you.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Sep 1, 07:59 PM · #
Someone at TAS (possibly PEG?) linked to this a few months ago. It positions itself as neutral on the question, but an argument for humility in anticipating consequences of massive social change is one that anti-gay-marriage types can make, and often do. I think it meets your qualifications.
— Blar · Sep 1, 08:30 PM · #
Everyone who lived before 1950 was a Neanderthal! They were much stupider than us, and all decisions were informed exclusively by prejudices which we have eliminated (Eliminated! Not shifted! )! We are now rational, enlightened, wise, superior! If they did not put down a defense for their values – if they could not anticipate that we enlightened beings, comparably infinitely wiser, would think differently – then the only logical conclusion is that they had no reasons.
— bcg · Sep 1, 08:40 PM · #
No, it doesn’t.
What is the possible “massive social change” that’s proffered? More gay and lesbian people coming out of the closet and getting married? What could possibly be wrong with that, unless… oh wait.
As noted in the comments to that post, you could replace “gay marriage” with “desegregation” in that essay’s argument and come up with pretty much what Bull Connor argued.
Yes, gay marriage will enact social change. Anyone who opposes that change is making a statement that they value the perpetual and unaltered extension of our current social system as more important than the human rights of gays and lesbians – gays and lesbians don’t deserve these rights because they’ll disrupt things too much.
It’s like someone who tries to argue that the American Civil War wasn’t caused by slavery. The problem is that every other possible cause, in the end, comes back to slavery.
In the end, every possible argument against gay marriage comes back to perpetuation of the historical bias against gays and lesbians.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Sep 1, 08:51 PM · #
‘Marriage’ is a mating arrangement that appears in all human cultures. It seems to arise spontaneously — it is undesigned — and it seems to have something to do with exclusivity. As a robust rule of thumb, these long-term sexual pairings are cognitively reinforced with ritual, recognition and respect, along and some element of the sacred and eternal. And at least for the female, the pairing is meant to be final.
A few immediate questions arise when people of good faith come together to design a social contract. One, is marriage rational, does it have a value, does it have a purpose, does it do something important? Two, if marriage has a value (if it is a preferred lottery of sorts), from what perspective is it valuable? — the gene’s, the individual’s, and/or the group’s? Fourth, why is it valuable to these perspectives? Fifth, can this value be destroyed? Sixth, can it be improved? Seventh, is gay marriage a net value-add?
It seems to me, if marriage registers its value on the group, then 1) all arguments must be in terms of utility and the common good, 2) the burden of proof is on reformers, and 3) reformers should be prepared to accept a second-best alternative.
If the value is for the individual, then gay marriage should be allowed.
If both the individual and the group derive value from long-term, exclusive sexual pairings, but in different ways for different reasons, then a compromise (mutualism) between the two perspectives is the only way forward.
(Note: when weighing the value to the system, our analysis must include the value to the system of ‘perceived legitimacy’ and social trust — this is where moral language comes in.)
(Oh, and fuck the gene; it don’t care about us, we don’t care about it).
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Sep 1, 09:17 PM · #
No, fuck your “second-best alternative.” Nobody in the gay and lesbian community is going to settle for “separate but equal.” We saw what that got African-Americans – fucked for most of a century.
My generation overwhelmingly supports gay marriage. Those who oppose it can enjoy their slow slide into irrelevance.
— Travis · Sep 1, 09:55 PM · #
I’ve heard it refer to verbal abuse, denigration, and so on quite a bit. I’ve never heard of it as exclusive to physical abuse. So I don’t think the article is doing a moral equivalency, and they explicitly state that they’re not as bad as even Robertson-style bombthrowers, and never mention physical violence:
And the original WaPo piece is terrible – it quotes Brian Brown and his allies extensively but none of his opponents (beyond one bit of one saying “you have to take NOM seriously”), asserts his opponents are ignorant (“The gay marriage supporters have not met Brian Brown.”) while he is sane and rational, repeatedly calls his opponents irrational, frequently states his positions verbatim without challenge, etc. It doesn’t question a single thing he says. NOM couldn’t get a more fawning article if they wrote it themselves.
It even does this while mentioning the “Gathering Storm” ad, a NOM production that’s the opposite of “sane and rational”, a pathetic bit of fearmongering complete with scary lightning and ominous voiceovers. Without letting it raise the obvious question, which is why is an organization priding itself on rationality trying to scare people.
— strech · Sep 1, 09:55 PM · #
@Travis: As Kristoffer noted, an important aspect of marriage is that it supports the raising of children by the parents that sired them. This is why it is reserved for heterosexual couples in every society that develops marriage as an institution, including societies tolerant or even supportive of homosexuality. It is not because such societies necessarily hated homosexuals—many were entirely permissive of homosexuality—, but because the notion of homosexual marriage, if it occurred to them, would have been oxymoronic: marriage was for child-rearing, and homosexuals can’t have kids.
The “massive social change” at the heart of this particular argument lies in the further redefinition of marriage away from an institution that supports the raising of one’s kids. That such a definition necessarily excludes homosexuals and other couples who cannot have children is in this case an externality and not a function of discrimination.
A good counter-argument would be that marriage has already been so redefined (an argument I basically agree with). Proponents of the argument might answer that there is no need to move further down that path. At any rate, we would be having a proper argument without claiming that “gay and lesbian people are lesser than their straight counterparts.”
— Blar · Sep 1, 10:57 PM · #
Maybe all you who complain about my tone should put a little more effort into, you know, providing the sane and rational argument you seem to think exists. Otherwise, it looks a little like the debate about atheism:
“There’s no rational argument for the existence of God.”
“How intolerant! Of course there is!”
“What is it?”
“I… don’t know, exactly, I believe in God because of faith, but why don’t you talk to this other guy, I think he knows the rational argument better than I…”
Blar: That is not a rational argument against gay marriage for the very simple reason that homosexuals are not infertile, and often have children. A rational argument, by definition, cannot simply ignore reality.
— Chet · Sep 1, 11:20 PM · #
It’s also not a rational argument because the institution of heterosexual marriage does not require the couple to bear children, nor does it even require the couple to be able to bear children.
Otherwise, we’d prohibit post-menopausal women and any man who’s had a vasectomy from taking the vows.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Sep 1, 11:25 PM · #
I have never thought of “gay bashing” in the physical sense. To me, “gay bashing” and “Walmart bashing” carry the same connotation.
— dj · Sep 2, 12:10 AM · #
Oh great. Now we’re having a discussion about gay marriage.
I’m not going to wade into the issue so I’m going to pick and choose who I’ll respond to.
I’m just going to say that, yes, there are sane and reasonable arguments against gay marriage, and I wish that the people in this thread who maintain otherwise could realize how much they discredit themselves by resorting to crude insults (fuck this, fuck that) and refusing to engage their contradictors.
If you think someone who disagrees with you is an ignorant troglodyte whose arguments are beyond the pall, there’s a slight chance that you’re right and that what they’re saying is about as defensible as Holocaust denial. But there’s a much, much bigger chance that you’re the one not thinking hard enough.
Ethan C:
I LOL’d.
Blar:
I LOL’d as well.
I also agree with this, and in fact it’s one of the points I tried to make in one of my posts. It’s not just that it’s wrong to equate opponents who take pain in being friendly and reasonabl with criminals. It’s that even if you believe that opposition to SSM is morally on part with Jim Crow, you’re doing yourself a disservice politically by behaving like a moral absolutist on the issue.
— PEG · Sep 2, 12:49 PM · #
Oh, and to all those who say that gay bashing doesn’t necessarily refer to the physical abuse kind: ok. I’ll grant Change.org the benefit of the doubt on that one. Be that as it may, the author of the post still takes the stand that it’s impossible to have opposition to gay marriage which is not driven by homophobia.
And I still think that’s (a) factually wrong and (b) politically counter-productive.
— PEG · Sep 2, 12:54 PM · #
Homosexuals are not infertile, of course, but homosexual couples cannot have children with each other. Talk about ignoring reality!
The Catholic Church actually does this, more or less. State marriages don’t, of course, nor do they assume child-rearing at all anymore; and yet state marriages are doing okay for the most part, despite a historically high divorce rate. This is why I basically support gay marriage, because that ship has sailed. Anti-gay-marriage advocates might respond that any erosion of the connection between marriage and child-rearing was regrettable, and that there is no reason to erode that connection any further.
I think we are moving the goalposts. Travis asked for an anti-gay marriage argument that wasn’t bigoted. I think I provided one. Whether or not you like the argument should be irrelevant to whether the argument is bigoted.
PEG, I think, was trying to politely close the discussion in weighing in, so I’m actually being rude by continuing to respond. I’ll stop now, unless someone throws me an easy pitch.
— Blar · Sep 2, 01:20 PM · #
I’m entering this discussion late, but let me add this:
Like several others, I disagreed with Gobry’s initially rigid interpretation of the term, “gay-bashing.” It may have origins in rough, possibly criminal acts, but it has certainly evolved into popular usage as, in Sanders’ phrase, “rhetorical bashing,” not physical battery.
The odd thing, Gobry uses a Wikipedia entry to ostensibly back his interpretation. This is the same Gobry who two weeks ago dismissed Wikipedia when a commenter named kenB used its entry on the “free market” to dispute Gobry’s post, “Free Markets and Government Intervention.”
kenB:
Hang on for a second, I’ll make Wikipedia agree with me…
— PEG · Aug 22, 02:34 AM · #
So, I’m left with a contradictory feeling about Gobry’s latest observations. All in all, his comments make good sense. It taints the conversation, he argues, to demonize one’s opponents, especially when the matter at hand is not an obvious evil, like slavery.
However, how good can the conversation be with someone who in one instance dismisses a source— Wikipedia— because its content doesn’t jibe with his arguments, then in another, grabs the same source to vindicate his position? Seems arbitrary, right? Perhaps even opportunistic. It makes you slightly wary of the guy’s claims if he’s willing to adopt or impugn the same source, depending on whether it serves him.
Okay, maybe that’s overboard. He was just sloppy, perhaps.
In another way, though, his post rings false. It’s quite strange to argue that gay marriage proponents shouldn’t demonize gay marriage opponents. Not because it isn’t politically savvy for proponents to resist doing so—Gobry’s right, here, that it is—but because typically, it’s the opposition to gay marriage that has demonized behavior.
Obviously, members of groups like NOM have been the ones to start this ball rolling of what constitutes right and wrong. Does anyone really believe that these opponents simply view the debate as a difference of opinion? Of course not. They view gay marriage as wrong, and groups like them have a tradition of taking a strong, intolerant stand, prone to backing their opposition with references to harsh Bible excerpts.
Gondry doesn’t link to any “rational” opposition, but I guess we should trust him, they exist.
In the end, his assertion that gay marriage opposition need not stem from homophobia just doesn’t go down. Sure, there are plenty of people who don’t care very much about the issue and might declare opposition largely because it fits into their broader ideological spectrum, not because it’s a front-and-center concern. They don’t have a primal disagreement with homosexuality, itself. It’s just not that big a deal to them. Fair enough. However, these are not the same people who join NOM.
To assert that gay marriage opposition as it’s pitched by a passionate political organization does not necessarily grow out of homophobia is akin to claiming that opponents of miscegenation feel as they do, not on grounds of racism, but on some other, undefined “rational” grounds. How can one really argue that opposition to interracial marriage is not rooted in some form of racism? It may not be the kind of racism that fuels lynchings, but it’s racism all the same. Likewise, how does one not interpret opposition to gay marriage as rooted in some variety of opposition to homosexuality, itself? Of course it’s related to homophobia, at least from anybody who takes the time and trouble to join a group like NOM. To claim otherwise is to be willfully obscure about the subject.
All that said, sure, Gobry’s right, as politics go, gay marriage proponents would do well to play it cool and not bash back against the bashers.
— turnbuckle · Sep 2, 02:24 PM · #
“Tradition” isn’t much of an argument (though I’ve seen it deployed many times in the context of arguments over SSM). Don’t you need to explain why the tradition is valueable? If you can do that, then you don’t have to hang your hat on tradition. In short, pointing to tradition is a lazy argument. You have to explain why changing said tradition is bad.
Maybe NOM can do that in a rational way that holds up in the face of rational counter-argument. I doubt it, though.
— Rob in CT · Sep 2, 03:04 PM · #
I should add, however, that I also thought “gay bashing” meant physical assault, and I agree that NOM is not a “criminal” organization. We haven’t criminalized thought. They may be a reprehensible organization, I don’t know. But not criminal.
— Rob in CT · Sep 2, 03:07 PM · #
I didn’t read the article as equating them with criminals, but as equating them with Robertson, Phelps and so on.
And I don’t think NOM takes pain in being friendly and reasonable – they take pains in trying to get painted as friendly and reasonable; this is an entirely different thing. “Gathering Storm” being the most obvious example of them not being friendly and reasonable, but it’s not the only example I’ve seen (fundraising letters being what I can think off the top of my head, but there are others). It’s perfectly okay to call out an organization that uses “friendly and reasonable” as a dishonest tactical front, and the WaPo article never questioned what NOM had to say, or even thought it was a possibility.
But now I’m realizing the change.org article is really kind of confused and I see how you’re reading it as just shouting down any gay marriage opponents.
— strech · Sep 2, 04:26 PM · #
Absurd. Of course they can have children with each other, and do, via sperm donation, surrogate wombs, adoption, children by a previous marriage, and so on. Sexual intercourse that leads to pregnancy and birth aren’t the only way for two people to have children, and only someone deeply committed to an irrational opposition to gay marriage would be blind to that.
I’m struggling to see the relevance. We’re not talking about gay Catholic marriage, but gay civil marriage.
Which is why there’s no rational argument for denying state marriage to homosexual couples. It’s deeply dishonest to relegate non-child-bearing heterosexual couples to the status of irrelevant corner-case that doesn’t inform the “basic definition” of marriage, and then assert that legal state marriage for non-child-bearing homosexual couples – even more of a corner-case, really – would be somehow so significant as to rock the very foundations of society.
You were asked for the argument against gay marriage that was “sane and rational.” You provided an argument that was irrelevant and inconsistent. My point seems to stand – there’s no “sane, rational” argument against gay marriage. If there were it would have been provided by now.
— Chet · Sep 2, 04:34 PM · #
Bashing: ah, interesting phrase to get hung up on. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bash: to hurl harsh verbal abuse at.
What constitutes harsh verbal abuse? How to we “hurl” spoken words?
Are they yelling at gay people? Are they saying things that hurt, defame, belittle? Yes, probably.
But this article is as ridiculous as gay-bashing. By crafting the most rational and carefully-semantic counter argument while your opponent deals in irrationality, you will not ever meet them in battle. Dismantle their argument, not your own.
I traveled 10 hours with a friend who was getting married in Iowa yesterday because she couldn’t get a certificate in our state. The arguments against her and her girlfriend getting married have nothing to with the reality of their lives or how their lives could conceivably affect anyone else. They want to make a commitment and live their lives within that framework, both legally and spiritually. Their right to do that would not prevent anyone else from different opinion of whether or not they should be married, It will not change how others raise their children, it will not change the meaning of marriage as that meaning is personal and couples define it by their behavior, either to respecting those vows or not. All legalizing same sex marriage means for the law and equal protection under it is that their relationship is formalized and the way they deal with the state is defined and unobstructed. The arguments against their marriage are fear-based, and discuss culture and beliefs which Constitutionally should not be sanctioned by government, yet are in fact. Arguments against SSM and the areas by which the state interacts with couples are mutually exclusive. Marriage as far as the state is concerned is contract law. Denying contracts based on the sex of the two parties is simply unconstitutional, and barriers to equal protection under the law have dismantled their pursuit of happiness.
The freedom of speech exercise by anti-gay marriage groups is also protected up to a very extreme point in this country, see Brandenburg v. Ohio. Unless that speech is directly inciting crime, it goes on unabated, and is precisely why this article’s argument against the use of certain words to describe those hateful entities is ridiculous. It is someone’s opinion that their tactics are gay-bashing. If extreme word-use hurts the overall objectives of establishing gay marriage rights, that is a social and cultural argument worth having.
There may be rational arguments against gay marriage just as there are hateful and irrational ones, but as we can learn from the intensely, measurably harmful speech that Brandenburg v. Ohio and the first amendment protects, harm to society is not just cause under the law to prohibit anything. The Constitution has restraint built in so that it can never become larger than the rights of the people it serves. Right under law is simply not and cannot be the same as moral absolute.
The Constitution provides a framework for vetting moral absolute-type beliefs against what is actually enforceable by law. Learn it. Until then, this argument will never leave this page.
— emile · Sep 2, 07:13 PM · #
Wow. It never occured to you that writing that comment was just a (perhaps poor) joke and not a sweeping verdict on Wikipedia’s usefulness? Or that it’s not contradictory to view it as useful for certain facts but not to define such a broad, fuzzy concept as “the free market”?
Also, as much as I admire him, I am not Michel Gondry.
I am, however, Spartacus.
(I now await with baited breath a comment two weeks from now proclaiming that “We cannot trust this Glarborly, since he clearly identified in comments to an earlier post as Spartacus, and now claims to be French, while it is well known that Spartacus was a Roman! How can we trust a man who hides his true identity?”)
— PEG · Sep 2, 07:57 PM · #
Whether we should be nicer to our opponents is an argument worth having, but there’s no way a fight for SSM can make any progress without insisting that it’s a civil right we are morally compelled to respect.
— Consumatopia · Sep 2, 08:20 PM · #
I can’t say ‘fuck the gene’ without discrediting myself?
Well fuck that. Oh (and this is for some of you): Oddly enough, the frame I supplied above is non-determinative; by speaking to the provenance, ontogeny and value of marriage, one may advocate SSM and win (that’s how I support SSM: I argued my way into it), or advocate DOMA and lose. The frame — its central characteristic is that it recognizes distinct Myworld and Ourworld domain validities, with the latter being discussed in the language of living systems theory — is the sole correct one; it’s the only one that makes sense all the way down. (Poulos knows this but hasn’t admitted it yet.)
And some of you guys need to stop being so damn sensitive about etiquette. We’re not holding meetings in the inner sanctum; we’re speaking in the combox of a minor culture blog. For instance, PEG: would you see the playfulness in my saying that you write in the voice of Vagina Lite (which you do); that, online at least, you sound like Freddie, but with a penis? Would you then hold it against me if I said that this sophisticate-bourgeois pastiche makes your opinions feel . . . como si dice . . . underscrutinized, insubstantial, imprecise, overpastuerized, etc.?
Because I wouldn’t want you to feel bad about that. I like reading you, after all.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Sep 2, 09:10 PM · #
there’s no way a fight for SSM can make any progress without insisting that it’s a civil right we are morally compelled to respect.
As a matter of practicality, I agree. However I’m sure you realize that “insisting” on a change in moral perspective usually takes a few generations to succeed (which, by my calculations, means we’re probably one generation away).
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Sep 2, 09:16 PM · #
Damn. KVS just burned so many people so hard that I honestly don’t even know what he was saying.
— Max Socol · Sep 3, 12:05 AM · #
@Blar –
>> Otherwise, we’d prohibit post-menopausal women and any
>> man who’s had a vasectomy from taking the vows.
> The Catholic Church actually does this, more or less.
Say what? The RCC will not extend the sacrament (or at least will actively discourage) e.g. a postmenopausal widow? The RCC will actively discourage a widower from marrying unless the prospective spouse is young enough to be presumptively fertile?
Yes, I’m aware the the Church believes “second nuptials are less honourable than a first marriage, and the state of widowhood is more commendable” but I would call the defacto policy very much on the less side of “more or less”.
— bayesian · Sep 3, 01:01 AM · #
Point taken, Gabby. I won’t bring up your love-hate relationship with Wikipedia again.
— turnbuckle · Sep 3, 02:44 AM · #
Damn. KVS just burned so many people so hard that I honestly don’t even know what he was saying.
damn, I’m not even warm.
blah blah blahdeblahblah…..KVS is making the same hoary old “traditional wisdom” argument, which was teh IDENTICAL ARGUMENT applied to civil rights for blacks and anti-miscegenation laws.
at least try something fresh PEG, like the HeatherMacSailer argument that gay weddings will cause blacks to have more babies out of wedlock.
;)
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— buy wow gold · Sep 7, 03:39 PM · #
Wikipedia: “[Gay bashing] can also be applied to non-verbal acts of homophobia although that application is less common.” That certainly fits my experience. Well, actually, I’ve never heard it used in the physical way, but I’m willing to accept my lack of worldliness. At worst the meaning of gay bashing here is ambiguous, and using a principle of charitable interpretation I think we’re supposed to assume the rhetorical meaning.
In the context of this discussion I found this sentence to be amusing: However, some people[who?] would include any expression of anti-LGBT sentiment in one or another category of “bashing”.
— Kyle · Sep 9, 01:48 AM · #