New York Governor Dave Paterson made some curious remarks on the gay marriage issue yesterday. The gist of them, so far as I can understand it, was that (a) opponents of gay marriage are motivated by their religion, and (b) the present opposition is vitiated by failure to speak out against the hell on earth (“beaten and often brutalized”) that homosexual college students endured before … well, before some unspecified event that enlightened everyone and made it all stop. Gov. Paterson’s accession, perhaps.
It’s all pretty incoherent, but that’s our Gov. for you. It did get me thinking, though, in the secular-right context, of the non-religious conservative case against gay marriage. There certainly is one, composed of some the following elements, mixed in proportions according to personal taste.
(1) Anti-Minoritarianism. The majority has rights, too.
(2) The social recognition of committed heterosexual bonding has been a constant for thousands of years. No-one of a conservative inclination wants to mess lightly with that. Counter-arguments like “so was slavery” are unconvincing, as the occasional slights suffered by homosexual couples are microscopic by comparison with the injustice of human beings buying and selling other human beings. Gay marriage proponents make much of the cruelty and injustices of the past. I must say, though, being old enough to remember some of that past, I am unimpressed. I was in college in the early 1960s. There were homosexual students, and nobody minded them. They seemed perfectly happy. Certainly they were not “beaten and brutalized”; and if they had been, I assume the ordinary laws of assault and battery would have come into play. I can recall even further back, known homosexual couples keeping house together in my provincial English home town in the 1950s. People made jokes about it, but nobody bothered them — though sodomy was illegal in England at the time! I don’t think private consensual acts should be illegal; but that aside, I don’t see much wrong with the mid-20th-century dispensation, based as it was on the great and splendid Anglo-Saxon principle of minding your own business.
(3) There really is a slippery slope here. Once marriage has been redefined to include homosexual pairings, what grounds will there be to oppose futher redefinition — to encompass people who want to marry their ponies, their sisters, or their soccer team? Are all private contractual relations for cohabitation to be rendered equal, or are some to be privileged over others, as has been customary in all times and places? If the latter, what is wrong with heterosexual pairing as the privileged status, sanctified as it is by custom and popular feeling?
(4) If you have a cognitively-challenged underclass, as every large nation has, you need some anchoring institutions for them to aspire to; and those institutions should have some continuity and stability. Heterosexual marriage is a key such institution. In a society in which nobody had an IQ below 120, homosexual marriage might be plausible. In the actual societies we have, other considerations kick in.
(5) Human nature exists, and has fixed characteristics. We are not infinitely malleable. Human society and human institutions need to “fit” human nature, or at least not go too brazenly against the grain of it. Homophobia seems to be a rooted condition in us. It has been present always and everywhere, if only minimally (and unfairly — there has always been a double standard here) in disdain for “the man who plays the part of a woman.” There has never, anywhere, at any level of civilization, been a society that approved egalitarian (i.e. same age, same status) homosexual bonding. This tells us something about human nature — something it might be wisest (and would certainly be conservative-est) to leave alone.
(6) There is a thinness in the arguments for gay marriage that leaves one thinking the proponents are not so much for something as against something. How many times have you heard that gay marriage is necessary so that gay people will not be hindered in visiting a hospitalized partner? But if hospitals have such rules — a thing I find hard to believe in this PC-whipped age — the rules can be changed, by legislation if necessary. What need to overturn a millennial institution for such trivial ends?
No thoughtful, humane person wishes any harm to homosexuals; and if harm is done, it can and should be punished under long-standing laws. Let people live and love as they want. Human nature is what it is, though, and no-one of a conservative outlook can take lightly an attempt to carry out a radical overhaul of a key human institution, in a direction pointed directly at widespread (though I think normally mild) human emotions of disdain and disgust.
I have nothing to add, and that is one hell of a complement!
I appreciate you laying it out this way, and I particularly appreciate the agnosticism regarding the wisdom of toying with such an ancient and universal social pillar.
Of course, Gay Marriage is almost certainly on its way, and it might not be a disaster, or (more likely) it will turn out to be problematic in a complicated way, and when marriage becomes a meaningless concept, we won’t be able to finger with certainty whose fault that is.
I just wich (children’s word, I know…) that this topic could be treated more seriously than it is. It is genuinely complex, but you wouldn’t know it, listening to the sorts of people who usually like to remind us how complex the world is.
This is a great site, but the way.
I appreciate your post, as I often have a difficult time having people articulate their views on gay marriage without invoking religion. That said, your points strike me as not being entirely rational.
(1) Anti-Minoritarianism. The majority has rights, too.
Of course. The majority of people have the right to be disgusted by gay marriage. How is that right affected by allowing gay people to marry? Does that mean anti-miscegenation laws would be ok if supported by a majority?
(2) The social recognition of committed heterosexual bonding has been a constant for thousands of years. No-one of a conservative inclination wants to mess lightly with that. Counter-arguments like “so was slavery” are unconvincing, as the occasional slights suffered by homosexual couples are microscopic by comparison with the injustice of human beings buying and selling other human beings.
Whenever I hear the “slavery” retort, it’s not meant as a measure of relative suffering. It’s pointing out that this argument against gay marriage is committing the fallacy of appealing to tradition.
(3) There really is a slippery slope here. Once marriage has been redefined to include homosexual pairings, what grounds will there be to oppose further redefinition — to encompass people who want to marry their ponies, their sisters, or their soccer team?
Is this really a fair comparison? I appear to have been built with an attraction to women. So I married one. Marrying more than one woman, or marrying one that is too closely related to me – these are just variations on the same theme, all of which are compatible with a fundamental aspect of my human nature.
I don’t see how my wanting to marry two women is comparable to a person wanting to marry one to which they are fundamentally attracted.
(4) If you have a cognitively-challenged underclass, as every large nation has, you need some anchoring institutions for them to aspire to; and those institutions should have some continuity and stability. Heterosexual marriage is a key such institution. In a society in which nobody had an IQ below 120, homosexual marriage might be plausible.
I’ll confess that I don’t quite understand your point here. At any rate, can’t that institution just be “marriage”? What need is there to refine it to “heterosexual marriage”.
(5) Human nature exists, and has fixed characteristics. We are not infinitely malleable. Human society and human institutions need to ”fit” human nature, or at least not go too brazenly against the grain of it. Homophobia seems to be a rooted condition in us.
Is it really rooted in us? Sure, there has been a long history of it – but that tradition enforces itself. Religion certainly helps cement it. In general, people tend to go with the flow. Is it possible that homophobia actually isn’t rooted in too many of us, and that more often than not we’re simply conforming?
(6) There is a thinness in the arguments for gay marriage that leaves one thinking the proponents are not so much for something as against something. How many times have you heard that gay marriage is necessary so that gay people will not be hindered in visiting a hospitalized partner? But if hospitals have such rules — a thing I find hard to believe in this PC-whipped age — the rules can be changed, by legislation if necessary. What need to overturn a millennial institution for such trivial ends?
Does gay marriage really overturn a millennial institution?
Is visiting a partner in the hospital a trivial end when your partner is in the hospital?
To some extent, you are right. These sorts of issues, while relevant, shouldn’t be necessary to explain one’s support for gay marriage. There is a simpler answer : it gives gay people the exact same rights and status when it comes to marriage.
These are rather weak arguments that tend to fall into logical fallacies such as appeal to tradition for several of them. And your slippery slope argument about the next thing you will see is people wanting to marry llamas or what not is, in and of itself, a silly argument. Similar silly arguments during the time before Loving v Virginia were mde about the dilution of the races and so forth.
The main argument gay marriage lies in the 14th amendment which states that everyone has equal protection under the law. Marriage, is essentially, a property rights issue with other rights attached to it. Disallowing gay people to marry strips them of their equal protection under the law both Federal and State. So bringing the argument that it is a State issue, which it is, still binds the States under the 14th Amendment. If not then the States could essentially legislate interracial marriage once again if the majority voted for it.
#6 “But if hospitals have such rules — a thing I find hard to believe in this PC-whipped age.” Try again. Gay man forced out of dying partner’s room at Oregon Health and Science University hospital” This is from a week ago. A woman in Florida, carrying documents, was kept out of the room while her partner of 18 years died. While their children stood by, no less. Why do people continually bury their heads in the sands about these things? “Oh, I can’t believe that people are so cruel!” It happens. We know it happens. We have documentation that it does. You know what stops it? The universally-understood bond of marriage.
The other major flaw with your agument is you never explain why extending marriage rights to gay couples will “mess” (with), “redefine” “overturn” or “overhaul” marriage. You simply assume your argument throughout. When marriage changed from a property arrangement between a father a prospective husband, when women were changed from essentiialy chattel to equal partners, when marriage was changed from multiple wives to one – all of these did far more to change marriage then changing the gender of the two people involved in today’s civil marriage laws.
Last – “people who want to marry their ponies, their sisters, or their soccer team?” I thought equating homosexuality with bestiality and incest was limited to the religiously motivated. Disgusting. As for polygamy – marriage used to be that way in many cultures. Perhaps you had better ask historians why we changed away from it rather than ask the gays why they should have to preemptively defend against something for which they’re not asking.
I’m basically with Dave on this.
More generally, it seems to me that secular arguments against gay marriage have to engage in a great deal of special pleading. If we’re granting that people have a presumptive right to gay marriage, then the burden is on the anti-s to not merely offer ideas that might constitute good reasons to oppose gay marriage, but to offer actual reasons to oppose gay marriage.
That’s the problem with anti-Minoritarianism. No one thinks that anti-miscegenation laws were justifiable on those grounds. No one thinks that sodomy laws are justifiable on those grounds. Why gay marriage?
The same is true for (2) – why is gay marriage an intolerable affront to tradition whereas inter-racial marriage was not? Whereas abolition was not? Whereas secularism was not? Doesn’t the same argument tell us that we should work to encourage religious feeling in society?
(3) is self-defeating – you acknowledge that we’re just drawing an arbitrary line between heterosexual and homosexual marriage. You say “what is wrong with heterosexual pairing as the privileged status”. Well, what is wrong with consensual adult pairing as the privileged status? You’re offering a reason not to care about gay marriage, not a reason to oppose it. A lot of secular conservative opposition to gay marriage seems to me to be like this – the idea is that whether or not we have gay marriage just shouldn’t be a big deal, and so we might as well oppose it.
(4) begs the question – sure, if heterosexual marriage were a key institution required in order to keep the cognitive underclass in line, opposition to gay marriage would be justified. But I’ve never seen a good, empirical argument that this is the case – I’ve only seen the same kind of reasoning that we all recognize as having been horribly mistaken in the case of inter-racial marriage.
(5) is similar to some of the previous – how do we know that gay marriage is such a threat, and why are you right when people who reasoned in the same way were deeply mistaken about so many other things?
The big problem with all of these is that it was exactly the same kind of thinking that fueled secular opposition to inter-racial marriage and innumerable other civil rights issues. The burden is on the people espousing such arguments to explain why this kind of reasoning is valid now. But we never seem to see that. Sure, people point out that even inter-racial marriage was still man-woman marriage, while gay marriage isn’t, but that’s ducking the issue. There’s always a reason why “things are different this time”. You wouldn’t give someone proposing a planned economy the time of day, even if he had hundreds of pages of analysis explaining what had gone wrong last time and why his proposal avoided those pitfalls. He’d need something huge.
I agree with (6), actually. The best reason to support gay marriage is to uphold equal protection. It’s a principle thing. Separate bathrooms for blacks was also something worth fighting. It’s not that the white bathrooms are any cleaner or any more accessible, but that the clear message sent by drawing those kinds of distinctions is that black people are second-class citizens.
Also, the existence of secular arguments against gay marriage doesn’t mean that virtually all opposition to it is not pre-rational/religious/bigoted. There are secular arguments for creationism – that’s what Intelligent Design is, after all.
The question is how believable those secular arguments are if you’re not already disposed to endorse a society that discriminates against homosexuals (or if you’re not already disposed to accept a view of history that requires a creator). And given the amount of special pleading required to make them at all convincing (in both cases), I’m inclined to think that most people who subscribe to these arguments don’t believe that gay marriage is wrong because of these arguments. Like Intelligent Design, they’re almost always just a flimsy rational gloss on a religious/moral view.
I have to agree with Dave here, many of the points in the article are fallacious and inconsistent.
(1) Our Republic is in place not only to enforce the will of the majority (the legislative branch) but also to protect the rights of the minority (the judicial branch). That is checks and balances and also why the people elect the legislative branch, but do not elect the supreme court.
(2) I agree with Dave, the author misses the point of the “slavery” argument.
(3) Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy in and of itself. Arguing “slippery slope” is a convenient way to avoid talking about the merits of the issue at hand. The point is that along each step of the way there are different arguments for and against any specific action. The arguments for and against gay marriage are NOT the same arguments for and against marrying your dog. I’m reminded of Scott Adams who framed this fallacy nicely when he wrote about taking things to their illogical conclusion; “If you let a barber cut your hair, next thing you know he’s going to be loping limbs off!”
(4) I really don’t understand your argument either. We should make dumb laws so dumb people are placated?
(5) You conveniently fail to mention homosexuality is also part of human nature, as well as many other species natures. People don’t choose to be gay, it doesn’t make sense (why would someone choose to possibly alienate their friends and family and subject themselves to ridicule and harassment) Anyway, homophobia is not an innate human quality, it is socially constructed. I am not homophobic, am I less human? Am I rejecting part of my innate human nature?
(6) borders on a non sequitor, but there are concrete legal concerns – not just flimsy hospital policies – that have real implications for two married gay people.
Even granted every one of your severely fallacious points, none are strong affirmative arguments for harms that will occur should we give gays the right to marry. At best they are flimsy, traditionalist, “what if” arguments made out of fear more than anything else. At worst, they are shoddy fronts for prevalent religious objections for gay marriage.
As conservatives, we should be at the forefront of demanding individual rights and responsibilities – not circulating fear about change.
Promotion of gay marriage and the win for personal freedoms should be the hallmark of a true, ideologically unbound conservative.
It seems as though you could simply replace “gay marriage” with “women’s rights” and it would look like an argument defending Saudi treatment of women. Why do women need to be able to vote, or even drive? Men have always been drivers, and a woman can always get her husband or a male relative to take her somewhere. Who invented this newfangled concept of women being able to have their own bank accounts and have a decision in who they wish to marry? New rights invented out of whole cloth or dangerous judicial activism threatening the foundations of society?
And this point:
(4) If you have a cognitively-challenged underclass, as every large nation has, you need some anchoring institutions for them to aspire to;
…seems to be arguing for some sort of caste-based society in which everyone knows his or her place. There’s an upper class and a servant class; the role of gays is for amusement but they’d best keep to themselves, out of public view (sort of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, something that allows folks to pretend something doesn’t exist).
I once heard an old man weeping because he thought the success of Tiger Woods was going to mean black people would “take over and redefine the game of golf”. He was visibly upset because, what had always been a white privileged sport was now open to minorities. His final argument was, “Can’t we just have our one sport? They have other sports they can play, there’s no reason they have to be on our greens.”
Without the religion, I don’t see any reason to get excited about stopping same-sex marriage (but I may be more of a secular-libertarian than a secular-conservative).
(1) Anti-Minoritarianism: I don’t see how allowing same-sex marriage harms the majority in any way.
(2) Mind your own business: Which translates to don’t sweat it if two men want to marry each other.
(3) Slippery slope: There doesn’t have to be one. If “marriage” is defined by the legislature then it can be re-defined by the legislature to allow for same-sex marriage. The legislature can draw whatever lines it wants. Allowing us to marry people of the opposite sex did not suddenly lead to same-sex marriage. Also, we are far less likely to find ourselves on a slippery slope if we push for a legislative definition of marriage and resist the court’s attempts to re-write equal protection law. Side note: The current definition of marriage does NOT deny equal protection of the law, since it does not deny gay people the right to enter into marriages. The problem with the law, from the gay person’s perspective, is really with the legal definition of marriage and not with how the law is applied.
(4) Aspiration to heterosexual marriage: I strongly believe that we do not chose our sexual preference. Therefore, expanding the definition of marriage will give more of us the ability to expire towards marriage.
(5) Human nature: Gayness is a part of human nature. Forcing gays to live in a world where only same-sex marriage is allowed is contrary to the human world (which includes both gay and straight relationships).
(6) Thin arguments: These are not the real reasons gay people want to marry. They are just additional arguments. Take them all away as you suggest and you will still hear gay people clamoring for “equal” treatment. And why shouldn’t they?
I’m a huge supporter of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” when it comes to any bedroom activity.
The problem seems to me to be one of semantics. Every couple that marries before a JP is entering into a civil union. Why do gays object to calling their unions such? Perhaps what they really want is for religions to accept their marriages and I think that’s going a bit too far, especially when trying to use state power to obtain it.
Oh, Donna. It’s not that gays object to calling their marriage civil unions. It’s that when states have tried civil unions or domestic partnerships, they didn’t work. Two reasons: I’ve cited above the cases where partners have been banned from hospital beds and the like. Claiming, “I am his/her partner or “union…thing” meant nothing. People assigned it no weight. Everyone, however, knows what marriage means. Second, many legal rights and some private benefits, are reserved for spouses only. Some companies expressly refused to offer benefits to partners, as they were only for spouses. Civil unions were demonstrably and clearly less than equal to marriage.
“Perhaps what they really want is for religions to accept their marriages”… Perhaps you’re just mind-reading and assigning nefarious motives to people? Perhaps you’re just bigoted and like to see the worse in people? Of course, I don’t mean that, but before you start playing the “perhaps” game and assigning motives to what’s in people’s heads with no evidence to support you, you could try research? No one can use state power to force a religion to do anything; this is the worst kind of religious-right fear mongering. Are you sure you are on the right site?
Frankly, when discussing gay rights, the fact that you leapt immediately to the bedroom shows a wee bit too much focus on sex, which seems to be another tip-off to the religiously-minded; reading Free Republic shows more focus on gay sex than craigslist.There is more to gay people than sex, you know (I assume you know).
@Donna B.
First off, I would venture say that most gay people couldn’t care less about whether religions accept or do not accept their marriage.
Second, you are wrong when you say that everyone who marries in front of a JP is entering into a civil union. While it may be a civil ceremony, if the couple is heterosexual and they fill out the proper paperwork, it is a marriage. Civil unions are only valid and recognized on a state level – meaning no federal benefits and no recognition in other states.
Those are pretty big omissions.
I, too, am with Dave on this. When you start trying to make a non-religious argument against gay marriage, the ground starts to tremble underneath your feet. That’s because in a religious vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with gay marriage.
As a heterosexual woman happily married to a man, I’ll admit to finding homosexual activity … distasteful to say the least. But I just don’t see how it’s actually *hurting* anything or anyone. Granting them the same rights certainly isn’t going to diminish me or my marriage. How could it?
And the rights we’re talking about go much farther than hospital visits. Tax and inheritance implications come to mind, and, thanks to the DOMA, even if a state allows a gay couple to marry, the feds will step in and claim exorbitant death tax when one half of that couple dies, even when they wouldn’t in the case of a married heterosexual couple.
I also don’t think the abhorrence heterosexuals feel toward homosexuality is necessarily hard-wired. I certainly don’t think we have enough information to declare that proposition a Universal Truth.
“Perhaps what they really want is for religions to accept their marriages and I think that’s going a bit too far, especially when trying to use state power to obtain it.”
No, it would only be a problem for those who mistake the concept of “civil marriage” with “holy matrimony”. I’m confident many same-sex couples can discern the difference for the two, which is why they are asking for the former and not the latter.
I married outside my religion. We were not able to have a religious ceremony because no one would grant us one. Fortunately, the state granted us a marraige and recognizes our union as one of ‘marriage’ and not a ‘civil union’. And I don’t see people in mixed marriages rising up to coerce organized religions into accepting their marriages. I don’t know why it would be different for gay unions, but it’s a good, scary talking point.
Mr. Bradluagh: Thank you! This is precisely what we need from the secular right–a secular defense of social conservatism. (I suspect we already have a lot of secular arguments for economic conservatism).
I’m curious if commenters consider themselves secular rightists. If you are, it’s more evidence that secular right empirically means social centrism or leftism. How can folks call themselves conservative and yet be dismissive of tradition?
I don’t think I self identify with either conservatism or liberalism, which since the late 1800s and early 1900s has flipped meanings.
I do see where civil rights issues do trump tradition and I don’t see how being a conservative means upholding tradition.
Much like many others I define my conservatism with my own definition including less intrusion of government including in the social sphere as well as the economic sphere. More rights and freedom is essentially a good thing for our democratic republic. I also see where government needs to be involved in order to protect the rights of the minority. And I have no issue with those times.
All in all I think tradition sucks. It’s traditional to start Congressional sessions with a invocation, I think that sucks. It is traditional (to many, though they’re wrong) to have In God we Trust on our legal tender, I think it sucks.
@Ron Guhname
Mr. Bradluagh: Thank you! This is precisely what we need from the secular right–a secular defense of social conservatism.
The problem is that it was, I believe, a very poor defense. You’ll have a hard time convincing me otherwise unless you can adequately address some of the issues cited in the posts above.
I’m curious if commenters consider themselves secular rightists. If you are, it’s more evidence that secular right empirically means social centrism or leftism.
I prefer discussing and sharing ideas. You can keep the labels.
How can folks call themselves conservative and yet be dismissive of tradition?
Would you propose that we always defer to tradition? If that was the case, women would lack complete property rights and the eligibility to vote. If we realize today that we were wrong yesterday, are we really obligated to carry that mistake forward?
Change is an inherent part of progress. That’s not to say that all change is good, or that we can’t change things for the worse – but every step we take forward involves some amount of change. I would hope we are able to debate ideas on their own merit, and not feel the need to simply cling to yesterday’s stance under the guise of tradition.
I can’t actually see much here, though possibly I’m missing something.
Of course there is a leftist case for gay marriage. I know that! There’s a conservative case for gay marriage too — Andrew Sullivan has made it.
And there is a religious-right case against gay marriage (i.e. God doesn’t approve). I know that, too. What I’m trying to explore here is whether there is a secular-right case against gay marriage.
There certainly ought to be. Allowing men to marry men, and women women (the actual proportions, last time I looked, are one to two or three, many more lesbians wanting this than gay men) is a huge change in our social arrangements. Conservatives ought to oppose changes of that magnitude by instinct, as I do. Now: are there persuasive arguments in support of that instinct?
I think it’s useful to make a distinction between conservatives and traditionalists. To my mind, a traditionalist values the way we do things because they’re the way we’ve always done things. A conservative is characterized more by a cautiousness about making ‘end of history’ type arguments – arguments that the time is finally right and that you’ve worked out every detail of your grand project (drastically remaking society through social/economic policy, for example). Conservatives still want to be able to say that the abolitionists were in the right, that the state of of women’s rights in much of the developing world is lamentable, etc.
But the thing with ‘end of history’ arguments is that traditionalists sometimes use them, and this ought to put conservatives and traditionalists at odds. As I’ve mentioned a few times now, the arguments of gay marriage opponents look an awful lot like the arguments of modern socialists (no, I don’t mean the Democrats). I can’t think of any historical instance of discrimination like this that we now look back on approvingly, and we can all think of a bunch that we now disapprove of. Where the opponents of inter-racial marriage were obviously misguided, the opponents of gay marriage are sure that they’re right.
Opposition to gay marriage is only conservative in the sense that the old-guard ChiComs are conservative.
Why should conservatives or anyone for that matter oppose changes by instinct as you say. With that reasoning, conservatives should be railing against women’s rights, as noted above, and other “huge change” in social arrangements.
The problem is, adhering to a tradition that denies rights granted by the Constitution to a section of citizens isn’t defensible in anyway.
Bradlaugh
What I’m trying to explore here is whether there is a secular-right case against gay marriage.
There certainly ought to be.
It seems you are trying to start with your conclusion, and then work backwards to justify that conclusion.
Allowing men to marry men, and women women (the actual proportions, last time I looked, are one to two or three, many more lesbians wanting this than gay men) is a huge change in our social arrangements.
It’s definitely a change. Perhaps a material change. I don’t know if it’s a *huge* change. That is, I am not convinced the world would look materially different if it were to occur. But again, as I’m sure we can both agree, there have been a few large changes in our history which I don’t think many would argue against now.
Conservatives ought to oppose changes of that magnitude by instinct, as I do. Now: are there persuasive arguments in support of that instinct?
Maybe that’s true – but are we to decide everything with our instinct? Aren’t we allowed to think things through a little more? Maybe we’ll reach the same conclusion that our instinct did, but it would be nice to have the reassurance.
Are there persuasive arguments which support your instinct/conclusion? I have not encountered any yet. Your arguments, in my opinion, rely on faulty logic. If you feel that my objections to each of your points are not valid, then I suspect we simply disagree. What vexes me is that two (presumably) rational human beings can disagree on seemingly simple points. I don’t mean that we disagree about gay marriage in general; I refer to more basic tenets – such as the idea that ideas steeped in tradition are inherently good.
The whole notion that conservatives should “oppose changes of that magnitude on instinct” is decidedly pedestrian and ultimately silly.
Only those with a very frightened and insular view of the world would reserve judgment on an idea based simply it’s diversion from the status quo.
In fact, much of the conservative agenda has become, unfortunately, quite a large step away from the status quo – smaller government, states rights, low taxes, free trade, etc.
This is all ignoring the fact that gay marriage is really not that big of a change – two adults consensually marrying that just happen to be of the same sex.
whoa, I sure screwed my earlier comment up, eh? I am truly astounded to hear that partners are sometimes not allowed to visit or stay with their ill loved ones. This is a foreign idea to me – call me inexperienced or naive, or what. I can see a patient asking the hospital to forbid certain visitors, but I can’t see a hospital doing it without the patient’s permission.
Second, my ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ comment was a tongue-in-cheek reply to a small part of a comment above mine. But I did mean it literally where sex is concerned. Above all, I mean it about heterosexual sex, because, of course, I know more heterosexuals than homosexuals. Unfortunately, there are far too many heterosexuals (especially women!) who think an appropriate icebreaker is “So, how’s your sex life?”
About the religious part… same as the sex part. Too much is being read into my comment, but I grant that it may have written without enough thought. One of the few homosexual couples I do know does have that issue, so pardon me for extrapolating unwisely.
I’m not in the wrong place, I’m just not very good at expressing my ideas. Yet, I still have this inkling that the word “marriage” itself may be part of the problem. That I misunderstand the reason for insistence on the use of that word for gay unions, I’ll gladly grant. But I do live in the Bible Belt and am exposed daily to “sanctity of marriage” BS and perhaps some of the resistance is an unwillingness to share the word.
I don’t see how it’s a huge change at all. Gays and lesbians have been marrying each other for at least 50 years. Various Christian churches and some Jewish synagogues have blessed and supported same-sex marriages for at least a few decades. Marriage itself little resembles marriage 200, 500, or 1000 years ago. Social institutions always change, over time — marriage, as one of our longest-lasting social institutions, has changed enormously. The change in (what is most probably an ever-growing list of) states that recognize same-sex marriage is less about changing marriage than codifying changes that have already happened. In that regard, I agree that “human society and human institutions need to ‘fit’ human nature.” That’s essentially what is happening.
I was reminded recently, because of the HBO special, about Edith (“Little Edie”) Beale’s comment that her father’s “Mexican divorce” wasn’t valid because it wasn’t a Catholic annulment. In her eyes, her parents were still married, even though the state no longer recognized them as married. It’s a small example of the disconnect that has always existed between how government implements marriage and how various religions implement it. Marriage has survived despite that disconnect. I think of it when people phrase their support or opposition to this issue in terms of “allowing” or “disallowing” same-sex marriage. You can’t do either, no matter how you feel about the subject. Some homosexuals will marry, whether you like it or not, just as some people will divorce, whether you or your church recognizes it or not. The issue is one of equal protection, which I thought was a conservative value. If there is a conservative case to be made for not affording married gay couples the same treatment under the law as afforded married straight couples, you haven’t come close to making it.
Marriage to a pony? Cruelty to animals!
“I don’t see how it’s a huge change at all. Gays and lesbians have been marrying each other for at least 50 years. Various Christian churches and some Jewish synagogues have blessed and supported same-sex marriages for at least a few decades.”
Huh? If I’m not mistaken, there wasn’t a single gay marriage until 2004 in Massachusetts. Some ceremony means nothing. People have made some serious points, but the claim that this change is a small thing is laughable, especially at this forum. It might be a small change in the Castro District, but not in most of America. And not in the eyes of most of the world either.
Texas recognizes common law marriages, which are ones where the couple represents themselves as married before the community. (I’m sure there’s a more detailed definition, but that is the gist of it.) Now, if a homosexual couple represents themselves as married… why not take it at face value?
Just did this data analysis at my blog:
Few homosexuals want to get married: The GSS asked: “If the right person came along, would you like to be married?” The sample size is small (N = 288) so I combined gay men and lesbians, and assuming most bisexuals are closer to homosexuals, I included them too. Results? Thirty-two percent answered yes. That means that 1.04% of Americans would like to personally take advantage of gay marriage.
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2009/04/few-homosexuals-want-to-get-married-gss.html
Most homosexuals just want to make a point.
As someone drawn to the ‘secular right’ I thought I would check this blog out. Instead I find one of the most vile examples of homophobia I have read in a couple of years, not to mention substituting argumentation with fallacies, non sequiturs, stereotypes, and just blind heterosexist priviledge and ignorance of gay people’s lives, I don’t know where to start.
But I am a scientist, I work with specific facts and argument, so let me run through a couple:
(2) The social recognition of committed heterosexual bonding has been a constant for thousands of years.
Ditto for gays. At the most primitive level of society couples just lived together, there was no state marriage. Gays and straights were equal. Later on after Christianity there were still gay relationships. Maybe not in your spit of an English village, but in many Western societies, ancient Rome, Greece, medieval Florence, 18th and 19th century Europe generally there have been out gay people and couples. If by recognize you mean “attach a legal status” then that does not change with equalizing marriage. It’s like saying “the white vote has been recognized for centuries” or “there have always been right-handed desks” as an argument against letting black people vote or left-handed people write at a desk. A talking point that extending rights to a minority somehow affects the majority.
(3) There really is a slippery slope here.
This is just pure garbage – comparing gay couples to pedophiles, group love etc. Thanks for the compliment. There IS a slippery slope here. Once we start writing to some old English guy on a blog, what’s next? Soon we’re going to be talking with pedophiles and cattle and viruses.
How do you like it now?
“In a society in which nobody had an IQ below 120, homosexual marriage might be plausible.”
I have a PhD, do you give me your approval to marry now?
“No thoughtful, humane person wishes any harm to homosexuals; and if harm is done, it can and should be punished under long-standing laws. Let people live and love as they want.”
What a load of horsesh it. You just spent a page and a half talking about how gays shouldn’t have equal rights, but “you wish us no harm”. And thanks for that bit denying that we suffer discrimination. You my friend after a month as an out gay person I think you would run back crying to your little English village. You would not stand for what I have endured because of a lack of gay marriage – endless degradation, economic loss and a decade of forced exile from my country (no immigration rights for my spouse), separation from my family. This is like Sean Hannity volunteering to be water-boarded. Try going around telling people you’re gay for a couple months and living as an out gay person, see how people treat you. Go for it.
I’m so sorry my equal rights offend your precious sensibilities. But until there is a a radical overhaul of my taxes, I am not going to stand every other minority on the face of the earth claiming equal rights, while I get nothing. America is not a homogeneous country and our traditions have been turned upside down by so many people. It’s not your English village. You can walk around in a burka in America, or speak only Spanish, and have equal rights. Illegal aliens practically have more rights than me in my own country. But as usual, gays are singled out as the sacrificial victims to exclude.
Pingback: Greatest Hits: Apr. 30, 2009 | Whatever Is Right
@Ron Guhname
Even 1% is still a few million people.
minding one’s own business is indeed a central anglo-saxon value. what should we care, and what business is it of ‘ours’ if two gay people want to get married?
There was so much transparent ridiculousness and thoughtlessness in this post. I’ll just go through a few of them now:
1. On upholding tradition just because it’s tradition: simply ridiculous. The fact that something has been done for any length of time does not mean that it’s the best way to go. And the comparison to slavery is not about degree of brutality, but about the simple continuation of a tradition. It’s obvious that slavery was both a tradition and one that very few of us can stomach today. Degree of harm is not the issue. The issue is that the existence of a tradition over time does not serve to justify its own continuation.
2. Majorities have rights. Yeah, okay. Do those rights include the popularity-based right to ban anything that they disagree with, for whatever reason (including: it’s icky)?
3. The less intelligent people need some sort of anchor. So what, we just set up rules for the sake of having rules? How about having rules based on considerations of reason, the Golden Rule and considerations of if the shoe was on the other foot? Why not aspire to have ALL of our anchors be having policy based on reason and compassion – which are concepts that you don’t need a 120 IQ to understand. And even if you did, it still beats tyranny of the masses. I’d rather have reason and compassion-based policy that a certain segment of the population did not fully understand than otherwised-based policy that they would not understand.
4. And the human nature argument. Wow. Y’know what else is human nature? BEING GAY! Some people are gay just as naturally as the rest of us who are straight. And there is also evidence for racism being part of our natural inclination – something we can fall into with relative ease in many circumstances. So is rape.
5. On the slippery slope. Maybe there would be, maybe there wouldn’t. It would depend on what we consider the modern day point of marriage to be, the privileges and responsibilities marriage comes with, what exactly a marriage is and what it requires, and so on. Some of these considerations are no longer exactly the same as they were a long time ago. For example, with regard to animal marriage, what would the point of it be if the animal has no inkling of what it is apart of? It’s not like the animal can make a promise like this. About considerations of prenup – it would make more sense to have someone else ensure that, upon one’s death, a certain segment of the person’s wealth be used to ensure the animal has what the person wants it to have. Then of course there’s the issue of consent of the animal. Marriage to an animal just seems utterly untenable by virtue of what marriage is – a set of promises from informed consenting sentient beings.
It’s hard to get into all this now, though, as to really consider what sorts of things could follow and which ones may warrant serious thought in terms of granting marriage status to, we have to consider such things as I mentioned above.
Oh! If the fags get married then I can marry my pony!
I am so sick of this stupid argument. Same sex marriage is between two consenting people who are not closely related. Homosexuals are not asking for anything else. The slippery slope argument is a scare tactic that appeals only to those who are uncomfortable with two men or two women having an adult, consensual relationship.
Gay marriage is going to happen. Young people are overwhelmingly for it. People making stupid arguments (e.g., slippery slope) will be judged in the future as being on the wrong side of civil rights. Which side will you be on, eventually? If you live long enough, Mr. Derbyshire, will you suddenly have a revelation that it was okay, after all? To save your reputation?
I’m sorry but your logic is very poor throughout this entire assessment.
So gay marriage is wrong because it’s a slippery slope? Should straight marriage be disallowed as well because it could very well lead to gay marriage?
What do you know about human nature anyway? Have you studied any science? Any philosophy? Probably not. It’s human nature for some people to be gay.
The cognitively challenged underclass needs to aspire toward heterosexual marriage? Are all cognitively challenged people straight? What if they’re gay? Don’t they need an institution to strive toward? Also, why does the ‘cognitively challenged underclass’ need to strive toward marriage?
PLEASE explain what gay marriage proponents are AGAINST… Are they against straight marriage? Are they against not being subjugated? Your phrasing proves the stupidity of the argument. To be a proponent of something is by definition to be FOR something. Okay, so you need a lesson in biology……….. and one in English.
I think you may be part of this “cognitively challenged underclass” he speaks of.
As a 19 yr. old college student who often listens to your snarky musings online. Though I often disagreed with you, I assumed you to be somewhat intelligent, but after reading just your first point on why secularist could legitimately oppose same-sex unions, I now realise I had been duped all along. What a faker!!
@Donna B.
Then why don’t straight people who don’t have religious ceremonies call their unions “civil unions”?
Also, what about the religious freedom of those (admittedly minority) religious groups that WANT to sanction gay marriage and perform weddings for same-sex couples? Aren’t you denying their religious freedom? Unitarians, for example, and some forms of Judaism.
Right wing Christians seem to often be under the delusion that everyone has religious freedom as long as they exercise it in a way that is agreeable to right wing Christians.
Some citizens can license the civil contract with their male spouse, some others with their female spouse. Marriage equality is about letting all citizens license their marriage with their male spouse, letting all citizens do so with their female spouse. Its not about letting any citizen license the contract in ways that no one is being allowed to right now.
Bradlaugh, I believe you have articulated the best secular right argument opposing gay marriage possible.
That it’s such a defective argument is just the way the gay wedding cake crumbles.
@Bradlaugh
So does that mean that conservatives are supposed to be the Party of NO just as a reflexive act? I was under the impression that it was supposed to be about smaller government, more personal responsibilities, and less fiscal irresponsibility.
I am gay and while growing up in the 70’s and 80’s we were told that we gay people couldn’t be monogamous, that it wasn’t in our nature. Yet my entire life all I ever wanted was another man to call my husband. Promoting same-sex marriage would also cut down the incidences of STD’s and would help lower the threat of AIDS. Promoting monogamous relationships would be good for society as a whole, as well as limiting the amount of money the government has to spend on health care for AIDS patients. Just think, if marriage was a right for gay people, I wouldn’t have to rely on my medicare and social security disability for my AIDS care. I would be expected to go onto my husbands medical insurance from his job, which would shift the responsibility to our collective family. Isn’t that the essence of fiscal and personal responsibility?
Great point! A minority of gays want to get married, so it seems obvious that we shouldn’t allow it.
Hey, come to think of it, most people don’t choose to marry outside their race. Best make things as clean as we can, and go back to traditional laws not allowing that either. Oh! And same for inter-faith marriages, as well.
And I know this is a little off topic, but I just read that people are choosing to buy a whole lot of John Grisham and Mary Higgins Clarke novels, but hardly anyone wants to read Faulkner or Proust. Can’t we get rid of those minority-loved authors? I mean, I know people who read them mean well, but isn’t that just a slippery slope to being forced to read books read by ponies?
(1) so far as I can see, the only right of the majority anti- crowd that would be infringed upon by allowing gays to marry would be their right to deny gays to marry.
(3) since most polygamists are hetero-, isn’t state sanctioned “opposite” marriage (as Miss Calif calls it) a slippery slope to polygamy?
(4) the cognitively-challenged underclass straights abandoned the so-called anchoring institution of marriage years ago. no one cares.
Keep grasping at straws.
back to excuse #4 – you’re saying that stupid people need a template for living because they’re too dumb to figure it out for themselves. if only our populace were more intelligent, then maybe we could be rewarded with legalized gay marriage. i guess this is why other more advanced countries (like South Africa) allow it and we do not, they’re just smarter and therefore more deserving than us.
Just go back in the post and replace “human nature” with “God’s will”.
“God’s will” exists, and has fixed characteristics. We are not infinitely malleable. Human society and human institutions need to ”fit” God’s Will, or at least not go too brazenly against the grain of it. Homophobia seems to be a rooted condition in us. It has been present always and everywhere, if only minimally (and unfairly — there has always been a double standard here) in disdain for “the man who plays the part of a woman.” There has never, anywhere, at any level of civilization, been a society that approved egalitarian (i.e. same age, same status) homosexual bonding. This tells us something about God’s Will— something it might be wisest (and would certainly be conservative-est) to leave alone.”
Once the underlying sources or causes of sexuality are understood more and “treatments” are available to alter it (possibly by detection in utero), the issue of homosexual marriage will cease to be an issue with the new generation….in a surprising conservative way.
“(3) Once marriage has been redefined to include homosexual pairings, what grounds will there be to oppose futher redefinition — to encompass people who want to marry their ponies, their sisters, or their soccer team? Are all private contractual relations for cohabitation to be rendered equal, or are some to be privileged over others, as has been customary in all times and places? If the latter, what is wrong with heterosexual pairing as the privileged status, sanctified as it is by custom and popular feeling?”
If you can produce a pony that is capable of informed consent to a marriage contract, more power to you, and I hope your life together is a happy one.
Regarding incest (and bestiality for that matter), the state does have a public health interest in preventing it. There is no public health danger in allowing homosexuals to marry – in fact, if a homosexual is in a committed relationship, one might expect this to help prevent the spread of STDs.
The case for polygamy is a little less clear-cut. The state already can’t prevent consenting people from living a polygamous lifestyle. If a man wants to have a relationship with several women (or a woman with several men), and they all are aware of (and committed to) the relationships, there’s no law stopping them from doing that. What they can’t currently do is file joint tax returns, or have the same automatic rights and responsibilities that marriage confers. (Well, Spouse 1 and 2 can, but Spouse 3-X can’t). But inheritance and debt laws alone would be completely screwy if more than one person was allowed into a marriage. If Spouse 3 dies owing debt, do the others still owe? Who’s required to co-sign for debt and purchases? That said, I’m not completely sure the same logic that’s being used for legalizing homosexual marriage couldn’t be applied to polygamy.
Ron: Whether a large or small number of gay people want to get married is beside the point. Those that do should have the same rights as everyone else. Rights are given are withheld based on a number of takers.
Secondly, it’s hard to take such surveys seriously when the option of gay marriage isn’t on the table for most couples. Most states don’t allow gay marriage and in those that do, it is a right under attack. For many couples it seems a bit pointless to get married only to turn around and have that taken away from you, like what may happen in California.
The right has to be in place and secure for people to see the utility of it.
Finally and this isn’t directed at Ron, but shouldn’t animals get the right to sign legal documents before we worry about animal-human marriages? That is the silliest argument of the bunch.
Can you expand on this? This seems to be both the biggest unexamined assumption in your argument – and simultaneously it’s the biggest difference with the people arguing the opposite side. You *can’t* just say, “of course it’s a big change” and hope to convince people – you need to explain why a change that will really only directly affect a small number of people will represent a “huge change in our social arrangements”. It’s certainly not true that individual opposite-sex marriage marriages will be modified in some way – and no one really participates in “the institution of marriage” – they participate in an individual marriage with their spouse. Just what is the huge change?
Sorry:
Rights are not given or withheld based on a number of takers.
@Bradlaugh
Conservatives should not oppose social change by reflex. They should be supporting the conservation of personal liberties. They should fight to ensure these liberties are consistent for all citizens and that the government is not limiting these citizens by doling out inconsistent rights and hampering any particular citizen’s liberties. By not offering marriage to gay couples, they are doing just that; it’s sort of horrifying that anyone identifying with conservatism would align against allowing them these rights.
The U.S. Supreme Court has deemed the right to marry to be a fundamental right. Even convicted criminals on death row have a legally enforceable right to marry. Denying a person a legal right just because of that person’s sex, e.g., Fred has the right to marry Susan, but Sally does not have the right to marry Susan, just because of Sally’s sex, requires a strong justification, which JD could not provide.
Secular right-wingers, should be fierce proponents of human liberty and equal treatment for individuals under the law regardless of sex, race, etc.