"Oh, if the country could be like this... This bill is a model — not just of legislation, but more importantly of how to bridge the cultural rift tearing America apart."
"We have to find a way to live together. We just can't endlessly be litigating against each other. We can't endlessly be in culture wars. If you want to know why Utah got it right, it's because they actually called a truce in the culture war."
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175 comments:
We can't endlessly be in culture wars.
The culture wars will never end. The left has too much fun starting them, fighting them, and continuing them.
Does this mean they punted about evolution?
The Church has made an extraordinary good faith effort here. We'll see if it's accepted by the SJWs. It's interesting that in the article, the only negative comment is from a gay rights activist. Of course, that could be because the Deseret News is owned by the Church. They'd probably like to present a United Front.
As long as people make money off cultural fights, we'll have them. Now time for Utah to repeal their polygamy laws and the Supreme Court to overrule Reynolds. Enough with the morality laws
Why must the Left always discuss religion by calling it a "faith tradition"? Religion is a bit more than hanging lights on your house in December.
The Church has made extraordinary strides to reach out in love. We will see if that love and respect is reciprocated in the future. I have my doubts.
43 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual Utahns and 67 percent of transgender respondents reported being fired, denied a job, denied a promotion, or having experienced other forms of discrimination at some point in their lives
Utah is amazingly open minded place. They had to ask a wide open question to get 43% to say they experienced some type of discrimination in their lives.
Im sure if you asked everyone if they have been discriminated against at some point in their lives the number would be higher than 43%. I'm a white male and I've been told straight up not to apply for a job because it was reserved for a minority.
I'm thinking this reaching out by the Mormon church has to do with polygamy. As soon as gay marriage is legal, anti-polygamy laws will be challenged. If you oppose polygamy you are a polygamophobe.
"We just can't endlessly be litigating against each other. We can't endlessly be in culture wars."
That is what siblings do, at each other's throat. We, from big families, call that teasing.
Cultural war is good. Survival of the Fittest Culture.
"In one sentence I would say we are all children of a Heavenly Father who loves us equally."
"Yea, but mom always liked you best!"
Notice the white elephant sitting quietly in the corner of this article? There's no mention of SSM.
I think most places in the country would be okay with laws forbidding workplace & housing discrimination against gays. Adoption by SS couples gets trickier, and SSM is whole different kettle of fish.
The "culture wars" are about SSM, not the little stuff.
Bill, Congratulations for escaping the FBI dragnet. Be careful though, you are in their sight.
"I'm a white male and I've been told straight up not to apply for a job because it was reserved for a minority."
That is called Affirmative Action.
Should have Hispanicize your last name, or told them you were Native America, aka fake Indian, and get elected to the Senate. Of course, that means you have to move to Mass.
I get mormonism mixed up with scientology.
Coercion works. It's how the government enforces selective rights and revenue schemes. It's how psychiatrists selectively normalized homosexual and other trans behaviors, not orientations. It's how unprincipled normalization replaced principled tolerance.
That said, I wonder what Mormons and the growing libertine population think about the fairy tale (i.e. spontaneous conception) and pro-choice morality (i.e. selective equality) that rationalized elective abortion of wholly innocent human lives. Will they call a truce and let the abortionists define the national religion too?
The secular Church seems doomed to create hazards left for future generations to reconcile.
"The "culture wars" are about SSM, not the little stuff."
For now. As one side capitulates or is overrun, the other side will move on.
"We just can't endlessly be litigating against each other. We can't endlessly be in culture wars."
That's how one side loses the culture wars. Of course, granting more "rights" will stimulate litigation.
For liberals, never enough works in social policy and in the culture wars.
YoungHegelian:
Mormons have tolerated homosexual orientation (i.e. individuals, not couplets) in the public space since at least the early 20th century.
"Everyone would be afforded the same free-speech protections in their private lives"
So is everyone in Utah going to be afforded the same free-sppech protections in their public lives? Can one fire someone at the workplace for talking about how wonderful sodomy is just as one can fire someone for talking about how disgusting sodomy is? Or will it be illegal to fire somebody in either case? Or will sodomites get more free speech rights in the public sphere than people who think sodomy is disgusting or a dangerous addiction?
We just can't endlessly be litigating against each other.
Adding new "protected classes" will increase, not decrease, litigation.
We can't endlessly be in culture wars.
Looking forward with hope and anticipation to the end of time, the Universe at a constant temperature, no differentiation anywhere, all activity ceases.
Mitt Romney did promise to be a more stringent defender of gay rights than Ted Kennedy, after all.
And the unfortunate phrasing award goes to this guy: "If the 20-year-old in me could have seen this day..." Oooh. Cannot unhear that.
@Stephen A. Meigs:
"Or will sodomites get more free speech rights in the public sphere than people who think sodomy is disgusting or a dangerous addiction?"
First, love the word "sodomites." It has such an old world feel to it. Just an aside, most of the anal sex that occurs in this country is between heterosexuals.But to the substance, "free speech" has to do with what the government can do. If an employer feels you have made statements that he or she does not want to be associated with and fires you for it, your "free speech" has not been violated. If some group of people do not like what a CEO says about gays (either pro or anti) and they want to organize a boycott, that CEO's free speech has not been violated.
or having experienced other forms of discrimination
Oh, the horror.
I bet over 99% of them have been nearly beaten to death with a hammer or gotten a dirty look from somebody - just like everyone else.
@elkh1
My great grandmother was Spanish. I'm more Spanish than Elizabeth Warren is Indian. I was a sucker all those years for not claiming Hispanic race.
Not now. I always mark Hispanic now because when I retire I want to start my own company and get the set aside contracts. Fuck 'em.
I'm thinking this reaching out by the Mormon church has to do with polygamy. As soon as gay marriage is legal, anti-polygamy laws will be challenged. If you oppose polygamy you are a polygamophobe.
Bill, there are two things that would lead to a massive exodus from the Mormon Church.
The first (which would produce a lesser exodus) is the sanctioning of SSM in their Temples.
The second (which would produce a massive exodus, especially in the US) is the reintroduction of polygamy.
The ACLU had been petitioning the Church for decades to sign on to a polygamy case. They've declined, because no one wants to do that anymore, but they also recognized it would open the door to SSM long before anyone could have seen it coming.
I don't agree with the idea of calling a truce in the culture wars. Under modern circumstances if you do not have culture wars you do not have a culture.
You also don't have any claim at all on moral standards. In a fallen world, one can do no better than to struggle, else the whole thing falls, inevitably and completely, into amorality.
Matthew 10:34, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword"
J. Farmer, "sodomy" is sex that cannot lead to procreation. It is sex that cannot lead to the creation of new human life. It needn't be anal sex.
@Terry:
I understand that, but I have a feeling that the commenter does not find oral sex to be a "disgusting or a dangerous addiction."
I should add that "sodomy" can also mean specifically anal sex between two men, and I suspect that was the meaning the commenter intended.
@buwaya:
I agree with you, though not about the religious nonsense. It does not even make sense to call a "truce" in the "culture wars" anymore than it makes sense to call a "truce" in the fiscal wars or the foreign policy wars.
I appreciate the agreement, but in the spirit of the culture wars, I must defend the "religious nonsense".
The context of Jesus quoted in Matthew is that the Christian conception of ethics, which is the skeleton of modern western culture, is going to conflict with the general tendency to depravity in human affairs.
It happens that Christian ethics are the de facto substance of the present conception of the Aristotelian "good habits" one must have been brought up on (and implicitly those supported as standard by the general culture). Even a non-religious analysis such as Aristotle's cannot find some other source of general principle to justify an ethical system, other than such a general agreement. So, like it or not, believers or not, we are obliged to operate according to Christian ethics, because they are the only ones we have.
These are NOT the sorts of behaviors, values and taboos the human animal would adopt in a pure state of nature, without a society. Hence the "sword".
In a modern condition of a relative lack of scarcity (surely a temporary state), we no longer even have much of the discipline of personal survival, hence the tendency to degenerate into extremes of self-indulgence and inappropriate emotions, as Aristotle would have them.
"I'm thinking this reaching out by the Mormon church has to do with polygamy."
As a Mormon, I couldn't disagree more. First, no current mainstream Mormons would ever want to practice polygamy. What a nightmare. Second, the Church has spent over one hundred years trying to distance itself from polygamy. Third, legality might put the LDS Church in a bind, since we have the manifesto denouncing polygamy, which was clearly a response to outside pressures, but the doctrine is still interwoven into some facets of the current LDS Church (widower's being sealed in marriage to a new wife, without being unsealed from the first). The LDS Church wants nothing more than the status quo when it comes to polygamy laws. It doesn't want to touch that issue with a ten foot pole.
Instead, this move is one of necessity, but also of good intentions. The LDS Church is in a very difficult transition phase where a majority of very young members (high school) and many older (but mostly silent) members do not agree with its stance on gay marriage and other issues. The LDS Church is trying to walk a very fine line of not alienating the core members while stopping the hemorrhaging of younger members and entire European regions. The LDS Church's survival will be determined based on how well it walks this line.
All that said, the LDS Church leaders are caring individuals. They have their biases and traditions, like all of us. But the mean well and want what is best for their fellow men and women.
This is where the secular crowd always gets confused.
They seem to think that because God so loved the world, that translates to, God also approves of your sin.
He doesn't.
Think of it like a parent. Even if your child turns out to be a murderer. You still love your child and will work for their best interest. That doesn't mean you approve of murder.
God doesn't tolerate our sin. But He does love us, and He gives us choice. Even if they are bad choices.
He wants to see us repent. He waits patiently for it.
If we called a truce in the culture wars wouldn't that mean both armies would stand in place, and neither side could gain any territory?
"Can one fire someone at the workplace for talking about how wonderful sodomy is just as one can fire someone for talking about how disgusting sodomy is? Or will it be illegal to fire somebody in either case? Or will sodomites get more free speech rights in the public sphere than people who think sodomy is disgusting or a dangerous addiction?"
Why in the world should anyone be allowed to talk about sexual acts at work? Your hypothetical is ridiculous, as both employees should be reprimanded.
Think wrote;
"The LDS church is trying to walk a very fine line..."
Why should anyone care what the church wants?
Shouldn't it be what God wants?
As a Christian, I can't understand LDS anymore than I can Islam.
Because we don't care what the Church wants. We care what God wants.
"Why in the world should anyone be allowed to talk about sexual acts at work? Your hypothetical is ridiculous, as both employees should be reprimanded."
Tough standard when you work at an 'Adult Book Shop.'
There are only so many metaphors that can be used when trying to ascertain the deciding factors of the perfect twelve-inch double-headed dildo.
I am Laslo.
A church is a good business that vets others you do business with and is itself run on customer friendly business methods. as a plus it keeps women and children in the patriarchy secure and docile. What's not to like.
"There are only so many metaphors that can be used when trying to ascertain the deciding factors of the perfect twelve-inch double-headed dildo."
Example: I was looking for something more suitable for... advanced 'spelunking'.
I am Laslo.
Tough standard when you work at an 'Adult Book Shop.'
And as for a Christian 'Adult Book Shop': oy vey.
I am Laslo.
J. Farmer, "sodomy" is sex that cannot lead to procreation. It is sex that cannot lead to the creation of new human life.
Heterosexual sex wherein one partner is sterile would qualify, then?
@buwaya:
That's all fine and good. I just don't happen to believe that the creator of the universe transformed himself into an apocalyptic Jewish fanatic in Roman Palestine.
Eric: This isn't an issue of what God wants, because you can't point to any direction from God on the political issue of gay discrimination.
"And as for a Christian 'Adult Book Shop'"
"Sir, all our twelve-inch double-headed dildos are designed for vaginas only. Calling your intended usage an 'alternate vagina' does not change this."
I am Laslo.
In one sentence I would say we are all children of a Heavenly Father who loves us equally....We have to find a way to live together. We just can't endlessly be litigating against each other. We can't endlessly be in culture wars.
Why not? I bet a death match of perverts v. lunatics would sell a lot of popcorn.
Well said, eric.
The Talmud has an interesting take on this subject and specifically Exodus 22:21 about God's given law against wronging or oppressing "strangers" (or non-Hebrew resident aliens). The rabbis specified that people were not required to adopt the Jewish faith and could even worship their idols and nothing must be done to injure or hurt them.
This is one basis for protective status in our legal system.
It doesn't make a behavior or practice right in many people's eyes, it simply gives them freedom--including the freedom to change behavior or practice when exposed to others.
Does this blessing OR LDS holy oils bring immunity from HID/AIDS????
"Because we don't care what the Church wants. We care what God wants."
The problem is whether individuals can come to their own independent understanding of "what God wants". A bit of study makes it clear that this isn't easy. Much of our conception of "what God wants" is really what we absorb through our upbringing, education and other worldly influences. Including ones Church or other religious background.
Disregarded, often, but a bit of humble though will easily reveal the limits of our "independent" thought.
We are social animals.
Its a very rare man who would sit down to meditate under a fig tree, grow an extension to his brain, and come up with his own understanding of the divine and his purpose. Or the equivalent.
And good luck understanding the LDS Church. In some ways is is a paradoxical conflict between a theocracy and democracy. It is probably as foreign to you as Islam since Joseph Smith was radical in many regards. But, despite the common misconception (even by its members sometimes), it still teaches that the grace of Christ is the only way to enter the Kingdom of God.
'eh, it's easy to call a truce when you like the ground you're on. What do you wanna bet those famously free-spirited Contenintals wish they could call a truce with all the strident Muslims they imported? Good luck fellas.
"Tough standard when you work at an 'Adult Book Shop.'"
Touché.
we don't care what the Church wants. We care what God wants.
And I care what the next winning lottery number will be. We each have about the same odds of guessing the correct answer.
You don't have to believe that, if you don't want to. However, it does mean that, for the sake of the general good, as presently understood, you have to behave as if it were true.
"And I care what the next winning lottery number will be. We each have about the same odds of guessing the correct answer."
And the other problem is the thousands of contradictions in what God wants if we use the scriptures to divine God's intent. There isn't a single Church in existence that hasn't had it doctrine shift and change through time.
"And as for a Christian 'Adult Book Shop'"
"Sir, the 'Snake-dildo and apple-flavored panties' set is over in our 'Old Testament' section, just past the 'Burning Bushes' display."
I am Laslo.
You make my point for me, Think.
The Church will change with the blowing of the winds.
God remains consistent. Its us that can't decide what He wants and we argue and fight over that.
But in the end, the question isn't, what does the Church want. Its, what does God want?
And while others are correct, its not always easy to determine what He wants, we must try. This is why we have prayer and scripture. To help us determine His will.
Which is usually quite clear. But our own will tends to muddy the waters.
And the other problem is the thousands of contradictions in what God wants if we use the scriptures to divine God's intent.
More importantly, the belief that the Abrahamic god is omnipotent and loving requires the belief that humans cannot understand him.
It does not make sense to say "I may not understand why a loving God lets children die from cancer, but I know for certain he doesn't want the government to recognize gay marriage." You are obviously dealing with a being that is either a really nasty SOB or has a much better understanding of good and evil than you do.
Talking about adult book stores' problems, think how hard it must be to start your own religion without Moses and Saul of Tarsus channeling the Spirit of the only real God.
Mohammed and Joseph Smith decided the answer was to plagiarized from the faithful writings of those two men.
"But our own will tends to muddy the waters"
Not just our own will, but every deficiency in our abilities. We are not omniscient, we aren't entirely in control of our emotions, our reason is defective. And we aren't very good at understanding our own deficiencies.
There is a reason the Evangelists set out to make communities, not just distribute the Word to individuals.
@buwaya:
"You don't have to believe that, if you don't want to. However, it does mean that, for the sake of the general good, as presently understood, you have to behave as if it were true."
Sure. I've always appreciated religion's ability to keep the rubes in line.
"It does not make sense to say "I may not understand why a loving God lets children die from cancer, but I know for certain he doesn't want the government to recognize gay marriage.""
In this statement you can substitute anything at all for "gay marriage", there is an ethical implication in it, which is subject to ones religious beliefs or religiously influenced cultural values.
You are the Voltaire of the Upper Midwest !
In this statement you can substitute anything at all for "gay marriage", there is an ethical implication in it, which is subject to ones religious beliefs or religiously influenced cultural values.
Yes, exactly. That's why I roll my eyes when people say that the Abrahamic god represents objective morality.
An objective standard that can only ever be understood subjectively and in light of tradition and social consensus is not an objective standard in any meaningful sense of the word. Maybe there's a "God", and maybe he thinks something about gay marriage, but the idea that humans have a chance of objectively determining what that is, is deeply silly.
Divide and Conquer. That's what issues like this are about.
"An objective standard that can only ever be understood subjectively and in light of tradition and social consensus is not an objective standard in any meaningful sense of the word. Maybe there's a "God", and maybe he thinks something about gay marriage, but the idea that humans have a chance of objectively determining what that is, is deeply silly."
We are discussing religion and ethics, so there is no question of objective standards in your meaning of the word. Of course these things are subjective, as is every other similar matter.
This does not mean that they can be dismissed. Ultimately there is no objective reason, unloaded with subjective values, to object to any human behavior at all.
We are discussing religion and ethics, so there is no question of objective standards in your meaning of the word. Of course these things are subjective, as is every other similar matter.
I'm not sure who the "we" is in that sentence. The original subject was the notion that "God", not the church, is the authority in these matters. So the ability to objectively know what "God" wants is obviously pretty darned important. :)
"God" (whatever ones conception of God is), as Nietzsche (and lots of others) have explained, is required as an endpoint backstop to any system of ethics.
Knowing what "God" wants is difficult (if you have pretensions to being the Buddha or his equivalent) if not impossible (the rest of us). Yet it must be attempted. Tough, life is hard, we are in the vale of tears, etc., but necessary.
Its not hard to determine what the objective standard of God is. He told us.
He didn't tell us whether we should marry men to men or women to women. But he also didn't tell us if we should marry men to goats or women to dolphins.
What He did tell us is that men and women should come together to become one flesh. That we ought to love our spouse. That the man ought to be the head of the wife. That the wife ought to respect the husband. Etc.
Lots and lots and lots on marriage. None of it covering any sort of marriage outside of men and women.
The only reason this is hard for some to discern is because we seek our will, instead of His. And that makes us want to see things that aren't there.
Knowing what God wants in general may or may not be difficult, depending on specifically what is under discussion. Anyone who says the Torah or the Christian Bible is ambiguous on the subject of homosexuality is inserting his/her perspective on some pretty clear text. Anyone who says homosexuality is a "new" thing, ditto. Anyone who says the concept of marriage has been fuzzy for the last 10K years or so, ditto.
"You make my point for me, Think. The Church will change with the blowing of the winds."
OK - then we don't disagree that all churches change over time. Now what? The idea that we can perfectly know God's will is unhelpful, since nobody has ever or will ever agree on what it is. Accordingly, I want the Church I belong to to "blow in the wind" if it means correcting past positions that were in error. I get that many, including many LDS, would disagree with me based on notions similar to yours. But I think that in an unrealistic expectation. As social and other sciences advance, we can use that knowledge to modify or improve our understanding, while still keeping the values that attracted us to religion in the first place.
Ultimately though, I wish my church, and all others, would stay out of political issues.
Knowing what God wants in general may or may not be difficult, depending on specifically what is under discussion. Anyone who says the Torah or the Christian Bible is ambiguous on the subject of homosexuality is inserting his/her perspective on some pretty clear text. Anyone who says homosexuality is a "new" thing, ditto. Anyone who says the concept of marriage has been fuzzy for the last 10K years or so, ditto."
All that said, so what? So what if your or my God doesn't want gay marriage. How is that relevant to equality and freedom that all Americans should enjoy? This is a political issue, not a religious one.
Today at work I learned about W Boson-fascinating
Eric, your argument is a straw man. Even if we agree on what God said about the issue, how is that relevant to the political issue at hand?
By your logic, eating pork should be outlawed, blended fabrics banned, wearing gold jewelry a crime, and divorce lawyers should start looking for other work, as divorces must be outlawed.
Laws should not be based on anyone's idea of what God said on the issue.
I also learned about Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment-totally Fab
God's thinking on us started with the first Commandment and would have ended righteously there, but seeing no one was that into Him He came up with up nine more Commandments that really nails everybody including gay folks. Hence Jesus was needed to be the Lamb of God Slain From the Foundation of the World to finish out the relationship in Peace with everybody including the gays.
As social and other sciences advance, we can use that knowledge to modify or improve our understanding, while still keeping the values that attracted us to religion in the first place.
Morality is dependent on scientific knowledge? So much for not getting an "ought" from an "is".
How is that relevant to equality and freedom that all Americans should enjoy? This is a political issue, not a religious one.
How about it's a "moral" issue. Isn't "politics" about, among other things, the imposition of moral order on a polity? Why should your idea of morality be privileged in the political sphere over one based on revelation? After all, it's not like moral systems not based on revelation are in fundamental agreement with each other. Even assuming that a moral systems based on revelation are somehow deficient (a big assumption), the syllogism that:
All moral systems based on revelation are irrational.
My moral system is not based on revelation.
Therefore, my moral system is rational.
is still fallacious.
"divorce lawyers should start looking for other work, as divorces must be outlawed."
Well, yes, that would indeed be an improvement.
"This is a political issue, not a religious one."
All political issues are ethical issues, hence proper matters for applying religious values.
traditionalguy:
God's first directive is recorded in Genesis: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the sky and over all the beasts that tread upon the earth." It describes an integral aspect of an evolutionary fitness function. It's an objective criterion to assess which behaviors should be normalized, tolerated, or rejected.
I'm guessing think and I probably agree on very little with regards to SSM, but I agree with him that the criticism coming from the more conservative bunch here is a bit of attacking a strawman.
The Church said the would support a law that said everybody (most notably their members who make up the majority of UT) would play nice with gay people in everyday settings. This "new" stance is to counter the Legend of the Old, Wizened White Males sitting in their Theocracy in Utah deviously plotting how to "Get the Gays" which emerged after Prop. 8. What this did not do was mention anything at all about Same Sex Marriage or a change from homosexuality from sin to not sin.
To me, it's a changing of cultural practices. About 25 years ago, one of my sister's friends got pregnant while she was still in HS. I remember my mom "tut tutting" with another mom because Pregnant Girl's mom was giving her a baby shower. To them, this seemed beyond the pale, because you're celebrating "a sin." Fast forward a few years---one of my cousins got pregnant out of wedlock. There was a baby shower--my mom attended. There was no "tut tutting." Premarital sex is still considered a sin, but somehow my mom could bear the celebration without worrying about her soul. The same cultural turn will eventually happen with "teh Gays."
YoungHeglian - First, we were talking about church doctrines evolving, not necessarily morality. For example, I would support a church no longer teaching that the earth is 6,000 years old.
But yes, morality very much should be in harmony with scientific knowledge. Not "dependent." But not contradictory.
As to your second point, you are arguing an issue that I never raised. I never said moral systems based on revelation are irrational. So your starting point is wrong.
But it is unethical to impose your idea of what God wants on the guy down the street. The better system is to base laws on shared principles of freedom and equality and basic human rights (which need not religious foundation). Otherwise, we are left arguing what God wants, which is impossible to agree on.
If you stop obsessing about whether Joe and Sam are having sex, you will see that freedom can coexist with your worship of God.
@Birches,
To me, it's a changing of cultural practices.
There's a difference between a "cultural" practice & a moral commandment. Out of wedlock births are certainly nothing new, but the moral concern always was to take a morally dubious situation from the viewpoint of the religious tradition, and, as best as possible, to redeem it in accordance with the moral order (e.g. best solution to have mom & dad marry). Thus, the sin was bent to serve the good. In both ways that your Mom dealt with the showers, that higher moral end of turning a wrong to a right was being served, just with different emphases.
It's not clear from the viewpoint of a religious tradition that in the case of SSM that there is a "redeemable situation". That may seem harsh to many modern notions, but I think it lies at the root of the disagreement over SSM.
" Premarital sex is still considered a sin, but somehow my mom could bear the celebration without worrying about her soul."
From a Catholic POV, one would never be in a position of worrying about ones soul re baby shower. It is in fact a work of charity, so thats as good as it gets and always has been.
The problem is that the rate of sin is the critical matter. Premarital sex, out-of-wedlock births, and "teh gays" are problems all together, along with much else.
"it's a changing of cultural practices"
No, its the abandonment of cultural practices (all of them manifestations of a sense of community ethics), all of them simultaneously, to be replaced with - nothing at all. The only ethical basis left standing is that of Aleister Crowley.
n.n. You are going back to Adam in Eden. Back then nobody needed a lawyer because they had to eat some knowledge of good and evil first and were chickens until Eve talked to a strange snake who assured her God was tricking her. Voila...lawyers.
As a lawyer I want to learn about the Mosaic Law and how to help clients beat the wrap.
@Think,
The better system is to base laws on shared principles of freedom and equality and basic human rights (which need not religious foundation). Otherwise, we are left arguing what God wants, which is impossible to agree on.
Shared? Shared how? There is no such thing as "secular" moral agreement, as if there's some reservoir of secular wisdom we could all tap into with straws if only religion got out of the way. Secularists talk like this all the time, and bluntly, it is philosophically retarded.
You have trouble with the notion of 'God speaks", but yet you think freedom and equality and basic human rights are easy concepts to define much less politically implement. Do you think Plato's just playing a stupid game when the characters in his dialogues tie themselves in knots trying to define "virtue", and all we have to do is pull out the OED & we're ready to rule & be ruled?
There are 2.2 billion Christians. There are 1.8 billion Muslims. Secular moralists inhabit philosophy departments, and no where else. I know what "discourses" I'd pick if I wanted to build a successful polity.
Its not hard to determine what the objective standard of God is. He told us.
By "us", you mean Mohammed?
"The better system is to base laws on shared principles of freedom and equality and basic human rights (which need not religious foundation)"
But they do all have a religious foundation. No avoiding it.
There is no principle of "freedom" or "equality" or "human rights" that can be justified or even rationally derived otherwise.
And, worse, our conceptions of the meanings, in practice, of these words are merely broad social consensus thats itself a leftover from old religiously derived ideas. The props under the structure have been pulled out, so there is nothing to keep the structure up. Just inertia at this point. Gravity will win though.
Freedom, equality, and human rights are the gables, decorative trim and weather-cocks on the top of the ethical system, religion is the foundation.
It's telling that people are concerned about God's moral philosophy, while the so-called "secular" Church denigrates individual dignity and debases human life. It offers selective normalization, rather than principled tolerance, thereby creating moral hazards left for our Posterity to reconcile. It reduces women to womb banks and men to sperm depositors. It corrupts science through conflation and idealization of the four logical domains: fantasy, faith, philosophy, and science. It's pseudo-science relies on liberal assumptions of uniformity and independence. It's ethical science rationalizes that human life is a product of spontaneous conception. Its moral philosophy selectively reduces human life to a commodity. This abstraction of the process and character of life is appealing to women and men who follow the secular profits of wealth, pleasure, leisure, and narcissism.
It's not clear from the viewpoint of a religious tradition that in the case of SSM that there is a "redeemable situation". That may seem harsh to many modern notions, but I think it lies at the root of the disagreement over SSM.
Ahhh, but we're not (at least I'm not) talking SSM. I'm talking about allowing a gay person to work for you, or allowing a gay person to rent your apartment.
And I am totally fine with criticizing the Church from a libertarian POV that anyone can deny service for any reason whatsoever. That argument has some merit, but the LDS Church has never been one for Libertarian values.
But they do all have a religious foundation. No avoiding it.
You are wrong on both counts. Unless you mean "history" when you say "foundation". Of course, by that standard basically everything about human society has "a religious foundation", from human rights to child rape.
"If an employer feels you have made statements that he or she does not want to be associated with and fires you for it, your "free speech" has not been violated."
That's not the point. If an employer fires someone after expresing pro-sodomy views, the employer may end up being sued for allowing discrimination. But if an employer fires an employee for saying that sodomy is disgusting, there is no recourse for that employee--in fact if the employer does not fire him, he may end up being sued for hostile workplace environment. The government is privileging pro-sodomy speech over anti-sodomy speech. Like southerners outlawing abolitionist literature, tyrants try to privilege tyrannical speech because speech promoting tyranny tends to lose out to good speech. And sodomy is tyrannical.
Prostaglandin E2 is produced copiously by seminal vesicles, and PGE2 is a potent algesic that probably is much more effectively absorbed through the simple epithelial tissue lining the rectum than through the multi-cell layer epithelial tissues lining the vagina. (Unlike females of their sister clades, female mammals have openings for the uro-genital system separate from the digestive system, which gives female mammals a huge advantage in resisting the mind-altering effects of semen chemicals, even if it means losing water in urine.) That sort of chemical is ideal for torturers, making their torture much more painful and terrifying than it otherwise would be, which largely explains battered woman syndrome and why most of worst child-torturing killers sodomize while doing it. (I am against all types of sodomy, no matter the sex of the victim. The most useful definition of sodomy, and what I mean by it, is behavior that introduces semen into the digestive system.) Semen probably also contains aphrodisiac rape-drug like chemicals (PGE1 and anandamide are likely culprits, but it's probably a complex warlock's brew) that when absorbed by the digestive system warp the victim's natural sexual preferences from what they otherwise would be. Given the prevalence of sodomy and the evolutionary benefits to males in causing females to find them sexy or at their mercy, it would be quite extraordinary, really, if semen did not contain anti-inhibition chemicals that warp female sensibilities akin to Bill Cosby's supposed rape drugs.
Sodomy is a rape drug useful only for controlling enslavement. Particularly obnoxious is outlawing speech against such tyrannical enslavement in the employment sphere, where our country has a history of enslaving. Do established tyrants using sodomy to pimp their workplace slaves or petty wannabe tyrants trying to screw themselves to the top with sodomy really need government-sponsored employment protections? The Utah state government apparently thinks so, and the courts are putting on their best imitation of Roger Taney to make sure that those who would try to rescue the enslaved from slavery are not allowed to effectively do so; because, for sure, if an individual enslaved by sodomy exits the state where he is controlled by the sodomizer and enters the state where he could be influenced and rescued by a freedom loving person, but the freedom loving person can't say anything to affect rescue because the government will take away the livelihood of the would-be rescuer, there really isn't much difference between what courts are doing now and Dred Scott. People are naïve to think slavery then wasn't mainly about sodomy. When those sodomized white women of the south were a la Floride Calhoun crashing dinner plates on the wall, from a sense they were being enslaved by sodomy, doubtless it was extremely convenient to the sodomizer to be able to point at negro slavery as an example that there be an enslaving worth dying for, and then the white-trash sodomizer types threw their cocks around about it 'til they rebelled killed and died over it in our deadliest war.
@Revenant,
You are wrong on both counts.
Well, gosh, thanks for setting us straight on that topic, and making it all clear, even without the benefit of examples.
You say this like it's patently obvious, and it is not. You care to explain yourself, or should we just take it on your word?
No, not history. History could have gone in all sorts of directions, and has.
Lets take "equality".
This is not a natural concept.
This was a non-existent concept in the ancient world, even from the point of view of personal ethics. Some people were more valuable and "better", mainly based on social position and demonstrated prowess. There is no equality in the Iliad. Some people have a direct line to the Gods, who care more for them than for the rest of the human cattle. Romans happily and virtuously tortured people to death for fun and games.
Equality is a concept derived directly from Jewish and Christian ethics. Jesus specifically.
Well, gosh, thanks for setting us straight on that topic, and making it all clear, even without the benefit of examples.
Anyone who has actually read anything about philosophy has already encountered such systems. Anyone who hasn't isn't worth my time.
Equality is a concept derived directly from Jewish and Christian ethics.
The Jews and Christians got it from the Greeks.
@Revenant,
Anyone who has actually read anything about philosophy has already encountered such systems.
Yes, revenant, I know that. There are quite a few. But that doesn't mean they agree among themselves. Nor does it mean any of them are right, and that the theistic based systems are wrong.
The question here, revenant, is which of those systems do you buy into, and can defend. Because, bluntly, I think a lot of your problems with theology aren't problems with theology at all. They're problems with metaphysics, and you're just not honest enough with yourself or others to state it like that. Because then we'd all see that your noble stand for reason against superstition is really just another lukewarm pot of positivism.
"The Jews and Christians got it from the Greeks."
No they didn't.
There is no Greek equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount, or any precursor.
Just to start.
Yes, revenant, I know that. There are quite a few. But that doesn't mean they agree among themselves. Nor does it mean any of them are right, and that the theistic based systems are wrong.
Irrelevant.
The question here, revenant, is which of those systems do you buy into, and can defend.
No, the question here is "are there shared principles of freedom and equality and basic human rights that do not have a religious foundation".
The answer to that question is, as I pointed out and you conceded, "yes".
Also, your belief that I need to have a defensible system of morality before I can point out that religious people *don't* is incorrect. You're like a Democrat claiming that ObamaCare must be good because Republicans didn't propose a better plan.
God does love each and every one of us, but that doesn't mean we won't each have our own price to pay for our sins, particularly those we were expressly warned about and told not to do, but chose to do anyway.
"are there shared principles of freedom and equality and basic human rights that do not have a religious foundation"
It is easy (and so I do) to dismiss any non-religious philosophical system that attempts to justify these as purely intellectual exercises that are not at the root of the actual Western concepts that are being applied by our culture. Equality as understood in a western cultural sense, which has infected the world, comes from the same root that induced medieval aristocrats and monarchs to ritually wash the feet of
beggars, as an exercise in humility.
No they didn't. There is no Greek equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount, or any precursor. Just to start.
The funny thing about that claim is that Jesus spends a good bit of the sermon condemning hypocrites and asking people not to be hypocritical. Guess what country that concept came from?
Anyhoo, much of the Sermon covers religious topics of no interest to people who don't follow Jesus' god, so it is unsurprising that the Greeks didn't give speeches about, for example, the importance of only allowing divorces for adultery.
What they did cover, centuries before Christ, were concepts like moral consistency (see "hypocrisy", above), the Golden Rule, the importance of the core virtues of courage, justice, prudence, and temperance (which the Church later quite openly adopted), and philanthropy.
Think et al, I'm tired of hearing that what God thinks is so hard to understand that we can't say we understand anything God says. My car is now complicated enough that the average man in the street really doesn't understand the controls, but he still understands enough to drive it. The Bible is crystal clear on some things, including homosexuality. Aside from whether you believe the Bible or not, it isn't ambiguous on this, and the comment was intended not to defend a position about homosexuality - just to say "God's confusing" doesn't apply to this. Just to say derisively "So God told you?" as I that's anything but stupidly implying you're smarter than me; you might well be, but God is clear on this.
The end result of abandoning moral values because they are just religious posturing, and sticking with "scientifically" determined moral values from someone who authentically and rigorously stuck to principles instead of admitting there is a "moral authority":
"I learned that all moral judgments are ‘value judgments,’ that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ I even read somewhere that the Chief Justice of the United States had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured out for myself–what apparently the Chief Justice couldn’t figure out for himself–that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any ‘reason’ to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring–the strength of character–to throw off its shackles…I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable ‘value judgment’ that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these ‘others?’ Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as ‘moral’ or ‘good’ and others as ‘immoral’ or ‘bad’? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure that I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me–after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited."
-- Ted Bundy
"We can't endlessly be in culture wars."
The culture wars will never end. The left has too much fun starting them, fighting them, and continuing them.
That's funny. I actually remember living through the 1980s, when conservatives and their minions outright declared one.
Geez Stephen - it sounds like you're of the belief that you're being thoughtful.
And 35 years later the left is keeping the culture wars alive.
"Equality is a concept derived directly from Jewish and Christian ethics."
The Jews and Christians got it from the Greeks.
Nonsense. The reluctant concession of providing, after much warning, the Davidic monarchy predated anything the Hebrews could have known about Greek or Roman democracy.
Further, Greco-Roman hierarchical norms reflected what was acceptable in the world at large at the time: An owner could kill his slave, a father could kill his wife and children. Jews out-innovated their contemporaries in putting blanket restrictions on what excesses such dominion would allow for.
It is for reasons such as these that Western civilization is considered a synthesis of Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian, rather than a continuation of just one or the other.
Unknown:
Ted Bundy was an intelligent man. Unfortunately, the prevailing moral consensus or religion was incompatible with the rational conclusion reached after characterizing the space and evaluating the evidence. He will be missed by similarly rational and reasonable women and men tempered by selective moral constraints. He wasn't a masochist?
And 35 years later the left is keeping the culture wars alive.
What they're "keeping alive", is reason, that crucial ingredient in civilization as it's existed for thousands of years - one that eludes the right-wing.
There is no decent reason for prohibiting same-sex couples from participating in the matrimonial franchise.
Tradition is not a reason.
Pretending that matrimony serves some purpose (or no purpose) other than recognizing a loving couple's right to combine property, resources, and emotional ties is not a reason, either.
If you want to continue discriminating against others in 2015, you need to provide a good reason for doing so. But you have not done so.
And needing to feel that one is making a "war" (the right's terminology) out of something trivial is not a decent reason, either.
But it underlines the belligerence that engulfs a mindset outwitted by simple reason.
What they did cover, centuries before Christ, were concepts like moral consistency (see "hypocrisy", above), the Golden Rule, the importance of the core virtues of courage, justice, prudence, and temperance (which the Church later quite openly adopted), and philanthropy.
How about "mercy?" Because when it comes to ancient Greeks and Romans being able to fuck their slaves and murder their children, I somehow see the Abrahamic virtue of mercy being a relevant innovation here.
R&B arrives. Time to leave.
Welcome back Rhythm and Balls. You have been missed.
Harrison Ford flies above us Equally.
I am Laslo.
Thanks, TradGuy -
Pity Phil can't think of something decent to say. Seems he has difficulty getting his professed interests and actions to coincide.
I admire this thread for cohesive discussion without knee-jerk reference to Scott Walker. I am tired of Slurp Slurp and LOLOLOL.
Although it is still relatively early, as these things go.
I am Laslo.
The trouble with appeasement is that the crocodile is always hungry. If Utah believes that feeding it "sexual orientation and gender identity"—today's supper and tomorrow's—will satiate it, well, good luck with that.
"There is no decent reason for prohibiting same-sex couples from participating in the matrimonial franchise."
Therein lies a BIG problem. Marriage is not a franchise, it is a religious celebration that the State decided should be encouraged. If the State decides that homosexuals should similarly be encouraged, then the State can do so without invoking religious ceremony. I am not sure why homosexual couples should be encouraged, but other than "it's a nice thing to do" and "don't discriminate" I haven't heard yet why the State should care to offer such encouragement.
Rhythm and Balls said...
"Tradition is not a reason."
Tradition is better and stronger than reason, because experience is better and stronger than reason and tradition is merely experience with roots time out of mind.
There is no decent reason to prohibit any number or combination of men, women, trans, and others, participation in the matrimonial franchise. Equality. Anything else is selective or pro-choice (i.e. unprincipled) exclusion. The secular cult has, once again, created a irreconcilable moral hazard. That it is a product of the secular Church that denigrates individual dignity and debases human life on principle should be expected.
There's a difference between experience, which allows people to learn from it and to change useless patterns, and a love of arbitrary perpetuation. Big difference. The same equivocation could be used to talk about what an insult to experience it was to abandon the burning of witches and the torture of heretics. Such great traditions those were! How much better and stronger and well rooted they were!
Besides, the "tradition" of marriage being an almost exclusively procreation-focused institution is long-gone. Dead. Even your most cherished religious hold-outs don't decline to wed couples who are obviously infertile. So society, as well as those institutions, recognize the other reasons I mentioned as the primary purpose of marriage. The sanctimony needs to end. Replacing it with self-delusion is something you can do better than, also.
In one sentence I say regardless of beliefs facts ascertained prove Christian ethics are superior to others except perhaps Judaism.
http://www.crawfordbroadcasting.com/~wmuz/bob_dutko.htm#.VPk124FHarU
This guy makes a lot of sense, and I don't mean like the Adam Sandler CD of comedy (years ago I posted a link here to the goat bit that was subsequently deleted not by me) saying the crazy cult leader is "making some sense" or some such nonsense.
I mean real sense.
No Nikki Six (although I've come to appreciate, non-sexually, The Six Sense).
Non-sexually.
I think there is a lot of God in that. The persecution suffered by homosexuals (fuck you gay fascists lesbians count too and vice versa) results in more evil almost always. The special folks that rise above could become moral hazards if their story is highlighted; another moral hazard amongst.
There has been a lot of craziness with regards to things like my repetition of the phrase "moral hazard."
This has happened with "but buddies."
And other things.
It's like with my dog, we had a goochie goo type thing about his "itchy ears."
Then I hear via talk radio about a biblical phrase itchy eyes.
Itchy eyes itchy ears you keep on itchin' you effectively applied grease to the squeaky (AND I DON'T MEAN FROHM OR WHATEVER THE CUNT WAS NAMED) wheel.
Why concern about Hillary's emails: she learned from Scotty Weiker/Walker how to operate.
Fuck how can I be Christian and talk about evil cunts going to Hell and shit?
Well to start, acknowledging sin.
In some aspects this is most difficult. It's been learnt and de-learnt before.
Smart folks thought of smart things to say about it. Kipling.
Fish in the water not knowing about land/air (whoa....).
Buckley used to write about epistemological optimism, or he paraphrased it as " the notion that some things are better than others, and we can tell the difference."
I paraphrased Buckley paraphrasing some fucking idiots' group slut definition of epistemology, if there be any conflict ahead on this pointed issue.
By pointed I mean cock.
Another way the Devil created for your lies to soothe you:"that's what they don't know."
Beauty and precious don't describe this mindset.
Part of the cycle is grammar suffers from passion.
12:22 to you; unbeware the deuces of March.
Deuces of March is about soldiers shitting uncomfortably for your (lost) freedom.
At least no person who voted for Obama is racist!
http://mwkworks.com/desiderata.html
I don't know why I keep returning to divine texts and persons and God.
(Demo with byline) Gov. Walker do you believe in Evolution (with a double capital 'E' once I deign to invent it)?
(Gov. Walker) As much as Charles Lindell believed in episomological optimism.
Thanks for the question son, ya got another, in my day we were quicker than that*.
*Hat Tip Wisconsin native Mr. Orson Fucking Welles. Sure he didn't declaim 100% positive things about the state, no honest Wisconsonite hasn't demanded more sooner bitterly bitingly.
Thw hole, as in "the whole" but not quite, quite has determined our downfall.
Laughing at Hitler and heavily ostracisiation via "Godwin's Law" of Truth or aka "Hitler's Resurrection" isn't comfy so Pooty poot.
Springtime for hitler is the playbook.
I am Vincent Lombardi.
Total Bullshit. The only time the Left asks for a truce is when they are on their heels. They'll be back at our throats the moment they catch their breath.
Burn them. Then salt the earth.
Althouse as a blog exists, and it has for a long time, existed, to deploy my time.
Brilliance more I could not imagine.
I have given all I can give, if it suffice sweet.
If o, I have sufficed U sweet so what the deal?
Lots wanna hear that and louder.
But bit all.
All I can say for now is this: Buckley, through the Lord Jesus Christ, didn't fool.
eric said...
Its not hard to determine what the objective standard of God is. He told us.
Schizophrenic much?
Huitzilopochtli told me that I should sacrifice people whose delusions feed their swollen egos, and Odin told me that if I die in the effort my spirit will dwell forever in a fancy resort, margaritas without end. Amen.
@Unknown:
"The Bible is crystal clear on some things, including homosexuality."
I completely agree and would concede that the Bible does condemn homosexuality. And divorce, for that matter. I just don't care about anything in the Bible.
Despite being about as big an atheist and materialist as one can be, I have my doubts about whether a totally secular society can even exist, let alone thrive for an extended period of time. The best candidates for such a society are probably relatively small nations that are fairly homogeneous in their ethnic/cultural makeup. Basically the Nordic countries.
Exploring big, deep philosophical questions usually just ends with me having a headache, so I'm fine with playing Switzerland on the whole battle of ethics and morality. Can a society take from the Judeo-Christian tradition those components it finds correct, advantageous, and useful and dump the superstitious nonsense bits? I have no clue. I'd like to think it could, since I am at least pretty confident that the Bible has no supernatural authorship and is mostly junk that should be flushed. Plus businesses closing early on Sunday really annoys the hell out of me.
amen
tits
The premise is mistaken and, to put it bluntly, idiotic: We don't have to find a way to live together. It's a big planet. Human ingenuity invented walls and fences and borders to allow us the glorious freedom to choose whom we would prefer to live with.
J. Farmer, I respect your right to deny the existence of God, morality of the Bible, etc. After all, you have that choice, given to you by God.
Again, not defending or arguing against homosexuality -- just saying that the notion that the Bible is unclear on this matter is totally bogus, and arguments that "we can't know God will because it's so confusing" can only be sincerely used by those who are either lying or ignorant.
Unknown, I believe you are still arguing points that nobody is making, or that are not material.
Even if we agree that we can divine what God wants on each subject, so what? I still don't see how that is relevant in a free society.
And while I don't have the knowledge that many here claim to have about the origin of ethics, and have never studied the subject in depth, it isn't the history that is relevant. Even if religion was the origin of modern ethics, I don't think it is necessary in order to agree on current ethical standards that we embrace as a country.
And I am not a secular person as some have claimed. I just believe that in modern times, a secular government is in everyone's interest.
Let's take due process as a principle that is mostly accepted in free nations. Why must it be a principle based on religion?
I am genuinely trying to see the other viewpoint on this issue.
Rhythm and Balls: Pretending that matrimony serves some purpose (or no purpose) other than recognizing a loving couple's right to combine property, resources, and emotional ties is not a reason, either.
You have that backwards, R&B. Marriage, to begin with, is a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman, and the purpose for it is the propagation of the species. There are animals that mate for life, after all, and they're certainly not doing it to combine property.
There are also other social benefits from combining the "yin and yang" of male and female in a cohesive unit. A married couple is much better for society than two individuals.
Marriage as an institution, which provides social and legal benefits to the couple, has at its purpose nothing more than the encouragement of those lifetime commitments, which we want more of for the reasons I gave above.
What you're talking about - sharing property, etc. - is the means to the end, not the end itself.
SeanF, even if we take everything in your last post as 100% true, how is any of that undermined if we allow 3-5% of the population to enter gay marriages? My marriage to my wife will remain unchanged. I also doubt my straight children will say, "I was going to get married to the man I love, but not now that the gays are doing it." You can still promote all of those things you wrote about while giving equal rights to people born with a different sexual orientation than you or I.
@Unknown:
"Again, not defending or arguing against homosexuality -- just saying that the notion that the Bible is unclear on this matter is totally bogus, and arguments that 'we can't know God will because it's so confusing' can only be sincerely used by those who are either lying or ignorant."
I generally prefer arguing with the fundamentalist (i.e. person who actually believes what the Bible says) to the so-called sophisticated Christian who adopts all the nice, sweet stuff from the Bible and basically blows off the rest.
As I understand the founding documents (Declaration of Independence, Constitution), they are essentially premised on the notion that a secular state can be constituted. That is, a state can be established among free men that derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed rather than a sovereign deriving power from an established church. I read them as essentially Enlightenment documents and largely as a reaction to the sectarian religious wars that had shaken the continent in the previous century. Of course, there's a difference between a secular state and a secular society. It looks to me like we are still in the middle of this experiment, and the results remain to be seen.
My position is basically elitist. I think religion is a crock, but it seems to serve a lot of important functions in the lives of a lot of humans, is probably here to stay, and has to be accommodated one way or another.
@Think, @SeanF:
"SeanF, even if we take everything in your last post as 100% true, how is any of that undermined if we allow 3-5% of the population to enter gay marriages?"
@Think, I am on your same page. I generally don't like accusations of bad faith, but I suspect that the anti-SSM argument is an essentially dishonest one. I agree with the argument that the institution of marriage is an essential unit of society and can be recognized and encouraged by the state. I also agree with them that a committed married couple, and the extended family, provide a vital structure to producing healthy, well adjusted offspring. They make this argument forcefully, and I think often make it well.
But then comes the sleight of hand. After making the conservative argument for marriage, they claim it is under assault from gay activists who are looking to "redefine" the word. There are less than 100,000 same sex marriages in the US right now with almost 3/4 of the states allowing SSM. Compare that to about 60 million straight married couples in the US.
When I hear people make the anti-SSM argument, it almost sounds to me that they are really trying to fight the old Dan Quayle/Murphy Brown brouhaha of the early 90s--the notion of a woman making a conscious choice to raise a child alone, or couples cohabiting and preferring an "alternative lifestyle." Those arrangements really do challenge the traditional notion of marriage. But that's not SSM. Gay marriage enthusiasts are seeking access to a traditional institution. They are not looking to burn that institution down. Andrew Sullivan, regardless of what I think of his larger political and social commentary, did make the crucial insight that SSM was an essentially conservative cause.
Think...
You can still promote all of those things you wrote about while giving equal rights to people born with a different sexual orientation than you or I.
Part of the issue is, though, that it is not and has not been [for a long time] about "equal rights". It is about ultra-equal rights. It is not "you need to tolerate me". It is "you need to celebrate me".
The old argument (that I don't support but can understand) is "gays are allowed to marry already, just like everyone else". They just need to follow the law and marry someone of the opposite sex.
There are laws that restrict who can marry who. You can't marry your sister as an example.
If the issue was simply about equality, gays would have jumped all in on civil unions but they did not. Tolerance was not enough. Active full acceptance was the goal. Celebration was the goal. To get MARRIED in your church, by your Priest. Many in the movement wanted to rub middle America's nose in SSM. Just HAD to call it marriage knowing that this word has a specific meaning to the majority.
That seems to be the way it usually is with "progressive" causes. Today's earned inch is tomorrow starting line for the next inch.
Accept that some people are gay. Now accept that gays will not be discriminated against. Now accept that some gay people want to legally joined in a union. Now accept that gays should be able to get "married" and must be sanctioned by the church. Now accept that gays can adopt. Now accept that schools will teach that the gay lifestyle (even though it is less than 5% of the population) is perfectly natural and normal. Now accept that some will teach that the gay lifestyle and gay sex is preferable. Now accept...
It is a never ending road of inches.
As to SSM, me, I just don't care anymore. I do understand how others could care.
Hell, just read back through all of these comments and see how tolerant so many on the left are of the religious views of the majority of America. Tolerance cuts both ways and I see very little tolerance from the left for those values, traditions and positions of those on the right despite how far the country has come in even the last 40 years in being more open and accepting of "alternatives".
@Todd:
"Active full acceptance was the goal. Celebration was the goal."
Right now, you are free to oppose homosexuality, teach your children that it is wrong, preach to your community that it is wrong, write blogs, books, articles about why it is wrong. You can protest outside gay nightclubs or bookstores or during gay pride events. You can make it your life's mission to shout down homosexuality as in intolerable vice. You're well within your right to do that, and I would oppose anyone who would try to use force to stop you. Allowing gays to participate in the institution of marriage does not impede your right to do all that I just described. I think a lot of the victimhood you see among many on the anti-SSM side is often a perfect mirror to the victimhood of a lot of the identity politics left.
J. Farmer said... [hush][hide comment]
@Todd:
Ah, but that is the rub. What you say an't so. Try to do any of those things and you become a pariah and can lose your job, lose your livelihood, lose your kids.
The left has no tolerance for tolerance. It is all "my way or the highway". Any dissenting voice is shouted down or shutdown. No slight is too slight. Just look back at the recent SSM issues that made the news. A wedding photographer and a cake baker begged off of work from SSM couples. Were they the only suppliers in town? No but they had the nerve to say no. They must be CRUSHED!
They must be CRUSHED cause "Tolerance !"
@Todd:
Being free to have an opinion does not mean one is free from the consequences of those opinions. I'm free to stand in the middle of my town and shout vile, repulsive things. That doesn't mean I'm free to not be ostracized or considered a pariah in my community. I don't happen to agree with the lawsuits against photographers/florists, but they are an infinitesimal issue given the larger social forces affecting our society. Divorce, illegitimacy, and ethnic changes in demography are massively more consequential for communities than SSM, and both major parties are moribund when it comes to these issues.
J. Farmer said...
Divorce, illegitimacy, and ethnic changes in demography are massively more consequential for communities than SSM, and both major parties are moribund when it comes to these issues.
3/6/15, 11:44 AM
That is far easier to say when it is not your issue or you are not on the "losing" side. Many see this not as an isolated incident or issue but as part of a larger attack on the entire fabric of society. Just one of many fraying threads but not unimportant.
Climbing divorce rates, SSM, out of wed-lock births, growing lawlessness, lack of morals or ethics. All facets of the same problem. Each individually like a pebble but all piled together weighing more than a boulder that can tear the fabric of the country apart.
"Let's take due process as a principle that is mostly accepted in free nations. Why must it be a principle based on religion?
I am genuinely trying to see the other viewpoint on this issue."
Ted Bundy had a really intelligent and reasoned viewpoint on this issue.
@Todd:
"Climbing divorce rates, SSM, out of wed-lock births, growing lawlessness, lack of morals or ethics."
You are conflating a group of people, homosexuals who want to participate in a traditional social arrangement, with a group of people who you might describe as having progressive social attitudes and who advocate for alternative social arrangements outside of the traditional marriage framework. Just because there exists a certain segment of the population with a PC/SJW attitude who also happen to largely support SSM marriage does not mean it is right to argue that SSM is just another bullet point in a far left conspiracy.
Consider the inverse. Among anti-SSM advocates are a certain segment of highly socially conservative, religiously fundamental people who are motivated primarily in their belief that homosexuality is an abomination against god and should not be sanctioned by the state in any form. Confronted with such a person, I think I could address their specific arguments. But they are not the argument you are making, and it would not be right of me to respond to your argument by saying that opposition to SSM is just one part of the larger fundamentalist plan to regulate our sex lives. You would rightly call that a straw man.
So what was the reason for not going with "civil unions"? It was marriage by another name. It was also a non-starter with gay rights activists. It HAD to be called marriage, nothing else would do.
So what was the reason for not going with "civil unions"? It was marriage by another name. It was also a non-starter with gay rights activists. It HAD to be called marriage, nothing else would do.
Unknown believes that reason and intelligence lead to serial killing. Scary.
P.S., nice dodge of the substantive issue at hand. Resorting to hysterics undermines your position considerably.
@Todd:
"So what was the reason for not going with 'civil unions'?"
Multiple reasons. On a visceral level, we are conditioned to be suspect of "separate but equal" institutions. More substantively, from a conservative perspective, civil unions would be a terrible outcome. If states were to enact civil unions, they would not be open only to people of the same sex. They would be available to heterosexuals as well. In that case, heterosexuals will have an alternative means of sanctioning their relationship other than "marriage." In a world of weakening marriages, offering an alternative could potentially have the very effect that you worry about SSM causing: weakening traditional marriage.
It's also worth mentioning that in the wake of the state amendments that were passed banning SSM, several of them specifically prohibited civil unions/domestic partnerships as well, so it is not necessarily true to say that it was a viable alternative to homosexual couples looking to get married.
"That was not done out of a desire to be treated 'equally'. It was done out of spite. To rub everyone else's face in it. The expected backlash occurred. Time has passed and the dust has settled and most(?) folks are over it but don't say the initial ruckus was over equality."
First, how could you know this? Are you saying the people making the argument are being disingenuous? Are lying about their motives? Second, even if it were true, what difference would it make to whether we should have SSM or not?
I do not doubt that you encounter in the media, the visual and written press, certain advocates for SSM who display a smug, "right side of history" moral superiority.
J. Farmer said...
You raise valid points and I will concede that there were some on both sides acting in bad faith. Folks I know did not have an issue with SSM "per say". They had an issue with what it was called. The coverage in the MSM specifically included the debate over how to "name" this and the separate but equal discussion was had. The "voices" in the gay rights movement would not have it. It had to be call marriage and nothing else would do. That was then and like I said earlier, I think most of the dust has settled on this and within another 10(?) years, everyone will wonder what all the fuss was about.
Are you saying the people making the argument are being disingenuous?
Some absolutely were. At the onset issues were raised such as "what if they wanted to get married in a church and a church did not want to" or "what about 'photographers' that did not want do photograph gay weddings" and the answer was not to worry those things will not happen. All we want is the ability to get married. Well those "never happens" have happened. There was also the "ridiculous" argument of allowing gay "marriage" would dilute the word and meaning and lead to all sorts of other unions (again, I don't care but that was the argument). That too is coming to pass. There are currently challenges to "one person to another". Why limit it to just two? Why limit it to just people? Some of these arguments are (agreed) ridiculous but they are happening after the worries were poo-poo-ed by all "right thinking" peoples.
It will all work out. It usually does but conservatives have given up (yet again) ground that they received nothing in return for.
There was a reason for society to promote hetero marriage as it generally led to additional citizens, adds stability to society and generally promotes social improvement as people want their kids to "live in a better world". Part of that promotion was in the form of tax intensives. If the "roll" of marriage is breaking down / changing, get the government out of the business of sanctioning / promoting marriage. Have peoples sign contracts and if they want a ceremony, find a organization that is willing to perform it. Problem solved.
Think: SeanF, even if we take everything in your last post as 100% true, how is any of that undermined if we allow 3-5% of the population to enter gay marriages?
Taken by itself, probably not at all. But it's not by itself. It's part of an attitude of "the committed lifetime male-female relationship is nothing special." That's a dangerous attitude, and SSM is just one more step down that wrong road.
Marriage, to begin with, is a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman, and the purpose for it is the propagation of the species. There are animals that mate for life, after all, and they're certainly not doing it to combine property.
Fine. Then put your money where your mouth is and start demanding fertility tests for all marriage applicants and bans on marriages that include any post-menopausal women.
Enough with the hypocritical, sanctimonious, thoughtless BS.
Unknown believes that sticking strictly to reason and intelligence without some externally defined morality (also called psychopathy) leads to serial killing. And it is scary.
Dear Ms. G: 1 Corinthians 6:8-10Amplified Bible (AMP)
8 But [instead it is you] yourselves who wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren [by so treating them]!
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous and the wrongdoers will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived (misled): neither the impure and immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who participate in homosexuality,
10 Nor cheats (swindlers and thieves), nor greedy graspers, nor drunkards, nor foulmouthed revilers and slanderers, nor extortioners and robbers will inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God.
If the issue is related to whether morality can be derived from objective criteria, it's not hysterics to show where an untainted (by non-objectivism) objective view goes.
" elkh1 said...
Cultural war is good. Survival of the Fittest Culture.
3/5/15, 10:20 AM"
If these wars continue, eventually survival of the fittest culture will be won by the most well armed culture...
" If these wars continue, eventually survival of the fittest culture will be won by the most well armed culture... "
--------
or the most God fearing.
@Todd:
"There was a reason for society to promote hetero marriage as it generally led to additional citizens, adds stability to society and generally promotes social improvement as people want their kids to 'live in a better world'."
I still think you are conflating people who advocate living arrangements or child rearing outside of traditional marriage with gay couples who wish to participate in a traditional marriage arrangement. If you believe that there are policies the state can take that will decrease the number of marriages that end in divorce or the number of children born out of wedlock, you should advocate those policies. I could quite probably agree with you on what they may be. But what is the mechanism by which SSM causes a breakdown of traditional marriage (either through increased heterosexual divorce or out-of-wedlock births)?
I also think you are making a mistake of tribalism. Because SSM is now widely seen as a Democrat issue or an issue "of the left," you are conflating it with what you see as a wider agenda to attack and breakdown traditional moral institutions and social conventions predicated on a sort of multicultural, relativist worldview. Now, I have a lot of contempt for that worldview myself and have a lot to criticize it for. But that is not my argument for SSM, and there are a number of eloquent writers who make a conservative case for SSM that I am not sure you have fully responded to.
@Unknown:
"Unknown believes that sticking strictly to reason and intelligence without some externally defined morality (also called psychopathy) leads to serial killing. And it is scary."
Psychopathy is not just about antisocial attitudes towards social norms and amorality, it has most acutely characterized by diminished capacity for empathy and a sense of remorse. They're a relatively rare phenomenon.
Is your argument that morality must be grounded in some kind of god, regardless of the actual truth of that god's existence? Or is the objective nature of the morality grounded in the truthfulnesses of the god's existence? Christians and Muslims both justify moral claims by appeals to god/allah via his revealed word, the bible/quran. How are we to differentiate which is the objective morality?
Japan has managed to form a productive society with relatively high standards of social conduct, but does this say anything to you about the truthfulness of Buddhist or Shinto claims?
J. Farmer said...
I think you have my position confused. As I stated earlier in the thread, at this point I just don't care any more one way or the other but I DO see the point of some that oppose SSM. Some on the grounds of they oppose the SSM groups "stealing" the term marriage (has strong and deep meaning for many) and some that oppose SSM on the grounds that it is part of a larger "agenda" that weakens the fabric of society, not on its own but as yet another pebble in the pile.
There is some hate in the opposition but I think most of it comes from fear. Fear of change and fear of where society is going.
I think 10 years or so from now this will be such a "yesterday" issue but at this point we are still too close to it. Too many people feel that the gay lobby and liberals "screwed" the people by going the legal route verses the democratic route. The feeling in many quarters is "democracy counts, laws count, except when the left does not get the outcome they want" and there is a measure of truth to those feelings.
Just saying...
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