Marriage-lite

I happen to think that gay marriage will be a very high-risk social experiment, with consequences that we can’t begin to foresee.  But the compromises devised in the hope of placating the modern non-discrimination principle have huge unintended consequences as well.  Nearly one-third of all official heterosexual unions in France now are a form of marriage-lite, a civil union-type category devised a decade ago for gays.  Ninety-two percent of all new so-called Civil Solidarity Pacts (it’s no better in French) last year were entered into by heterosexuals; for every two marriages, one pacte civil de solidarité is created.  The pacts can be dissolved by one party declaring his desire to separate in court; no property or alimony claims  are allowed.

Obviously one would want to know if the pacts are merely coming on top of the usual marriage rate–and thus are a step up from the nauseatingly cowardly practice of co-habitation–or if they are actually drawing down the marriage rate, before reaching any preliminary conclusions about their effect on marriage.

But at the very least, the use of solidarity pacts reflects the modern explosion in personal choice and autonomy to which  Hume recently drew attention.  It may be that on balance, adults are better off liberated from the weight of tradition and stigma, free to sample from an ever more varied buffet of lifestyle choices, notwithstanding the costs in insecurity and impermanence.  A possible analogy would be to the replacement of the sclerotic but stable corporatist economy of the 1950s by the agile  but high-risk deregulated economy of the 1980s and beyond, as described by David Frum in How We Got Here.

Maybe societies only select those institutional changes that on average have more benefits than costs. 

The problem is, there’s one group that did not assume the risks of the individual autonomy boom.  Children are not benefited by the unstable new co-habiting options that adults are devising for themselves.  Adults are merely rationalizing their own preferences when they intone that children are better off raised by separated parents than in an unhappy marriage.  Hogwash.  Most children would far prefer two unhappy married parents to two happier divorced or never-married parents enjoying their new freedom or new spouses.  Perhaps eventually, if any expectation that a procreative union is permanent is abolished, children will adjust, but I doubt it.  The preview afforded by the black community is not reassuring (though I admit that inner-city Milwaukee is not readily comparable to Lyons or Stockholm).

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47 Responses to Marriage-lite

  1. mnuez says:

    Overall an excellent post though I’m unconvinced that “the children” deserve any more attention than do the rest of the automatons you refer to as “adults” who, in reality, are nothing but grown up children who were subjected to the choices and decisions of the generation past.

    Most importantly though you deserve a bow and applause for your straightforward, unapologetic and gutsy opening sentence. I’m not at all certain that the prospects of gay marriage are any more high-risk than any of the many other wild things we’ve done this past century (such as inventing cars, discovering E=MC squared and about a thousand similar explosive revolutions) but speaking out in anything other than glowing terms about the potential prospects of gay marriage is something gutsy as hell for an agnostic/atheist and I applaud it.

  2. Daniel Dare says:

    I strive to be a Rational Darwinian Agent. Consequently dying for your children is no big deal. It’s the kind of thing RDAs do.

    Living for them in a difficult arrangement is no big deal either.

  3. magog says:

    “Obviously one would want to know if the pacts are merely coming on top of the usual marriage rate–and thus are a step up from the nauseatingly cowardly practice of co-habitation”

    standing by while watching a man slap his wife around in public; deserting a battle; letting a friend take all the blame; refusing to admit an elected politician into your country for fear of stirring up one of your nation’s restive minorities — all nauseatingly cowardly actions. but living together with someone you like? huh?

    heather might also be missing the rather roissy-ish appeal of the PACs — that is, they are a better deal for men. from the article:

    “But PACS unions are also seen as more appealing than marriage because they can be dissolved without costly divorce procedures. If one or both of the partners declares in writing to the court that he or she wants out, the PACS is ended, with neither partner having claim to the other’s property or to alimony.”

  4. Anthony says:

    Daniel said: “I strive to be a Rational Darwinian Agent.”

    Could you unpack that one a little?

  5. What makes you think the government ought to have anything at all to do with marriage? It is some paperwork and a silly religious ceremony stamped out for the masses that, until we start spaying and neutering people at birth, thas nothing to do with whether you are allowed to have and raise children. The issue of marriage has no moral benefits for the godless.

  6. The Kat says:

    I’m confused. First of all, what’s wrong with co-habitation? What’s wrong with actually seeing if you can live with someone you love (because just loving someone is not necessarily enough) EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. before you make a lifetime commitment to it (and on this point we probably agree that marriage should be for life if at all possible). Some people are wonderful people that could love each other but should not be married. I also disagree that children are better off with two unhappy but married parents. This reeks of a sacrificial outlook. I will happily agree with you that people should take the responsibility of parenthood more seriously, but I personally believe that children have the best chance when each of their parents is a rational, self-sufficient, happy person, and that adding as many additional such people, whether they be family members or friends or what have you, helps children even more.

    And what’s so bad about gay marriage, if you’re not going to make a religious objection? I’m not being snarky, I’m asking sincerely. Isn’t it better if gay people, like anyone else, have a means of securing a lifetime commitment to someone they love?

    Also, Steel Phoenix has a great point that I don’t think government should be in the business of marriage or relationships anyway.

  7. Bad says:

    Jon Rauch pointed this out in his book defending gay marriage: if you care about marriage, then you should care about it being a truly universal norm. Deny gay partners access, and marriage-lites are an inevitable outcome… but they cannot be restricted for use only by gay couples. It is the denial of gay marriage that is doing this, not gay marriage itself. Full gay marriage would be the last best chance to try and prevent the slide into a society in which marriage is just one option amongst many others, all robbed of its social power and importance.

  8. By venturing out of the realm of souls and into the real world, religion becomes subject to its rules. It is a double edged sword. The theology in power gets their morality made law, and the security of not having another religion in their place, yet they must accept women into their leadership, silence their hate for rival gods, and provide marriage ceremonies for gay couples.

    I bet they are starting to wish they kept their ceremonies to themselves. I tend to think if you aren’t allowed to discriminate against someone for their gender, then you shouldn’t even be asking for it on the license.

  9. Daniel Dare says:

    Sorry Anthony. Posted something on it a long time ago. Just from memory.

    Rational Darwinian Agent or RDA.
    An RDA is an intelligent lifeform that could evolve by means of Darwinian evolution.

    It always seeks to maximise its inclusive fitness. So it lives its life as if maximising the survival probability of its genes is the sole purpose of its life.

    It’s a theoretical development of the idea that natural selection always selects for inclusive fitness, and it sort of says, what if an intelligent lifeform “consciously” did the same thing?

    It leads to the question: Is Man an RDA?

    To which my answer was: No, an RDA is an idealized abstraction, but Man could be the closest thing to an RDA that has yet evolved on Earth.

  10. Matthew says:

    “Most children would far prefer two unhappy married parents to two happier divorced or never-married parents enjoying their new freedom or new spouses.”

    Cite, please.

    I, for one, was much happier after my father moved out. My parents were miserable together, and their unhappiness made life lousy for us kids.

  11. Anthony says:

    Daniel: Thx for that. My next question is … why do you strive for inclusive fitness? (As I understand what you’re saying, you’re saying that you consciously strive to do this out of choice, and not just that your genetics causes you to strive for it … am I reading this right?)

  12. Gotchaye says:

    The idea that a compromise is worse for opponents of gay marriage than full gay marriage would be is an interesting one.

    It’s apparent that, for supporters of gay marriage, no access to even a marriage-lite union is simply unacceptable. To the extent that opposition to gay marriage is based on a “think of the children/society” attitude instead of “ick”, it seems to me that the rational thing for people like Heather to do is to work with supporters of gay marriage in order to make full and equal gay marriage a reality as quickly as possible. If we drag our feet, we’re more likely to see the creation of socially-legitimate marriage-lite institutions (civil unions might already be one), and I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re going to at least have universal marriage-lite, if not full gay marriage, in the near future. The important thing for opponents at this point is to make sure that the ‘social experiment’ of gay marriage has as few harms as possible, and the best way to do that is to convince as many people as possible that a gay union is fundamentally similar to a straight union, and that there is no substitute for marriage for committed couples. Continued discussion implying that there can be unions which aren’t marriage or that gay unions aren’t as legitimate as straight ones only serves to undermine the institution of marriage in the long run.

    I’ll admit that this has been an incredibly self-serving post. But given the direction we’re headed in, I don’t see where continued opposition to gay marriage pays off for society no matter what your premises.

    Steel Phoenix: While I don’t disagree with you in principle, I see two or three big problems with advocating for the state to be agnostic on marriage. First, it’s less politically feasible than gay marriage, so why bother? Second, to the extent that it is politically feasible, it’s only so because of an attitude among the more bigoted of gay marriage opponents to the effect of “if we have to let gays into our club we just won’t have a club anymore”, and so is less a statement of equality and is more one of spite (so I don’t even know if gay marriage supporters would go for it given the context). Third, it’s unsatisfactory for those conservatives, like Heather, who value the continuity of and the respect given to the institution of civil marriage for reasons of social stability – people aren’t entirely rational, and civil marriage in itself really does have significant benefits for lots of people (including the godless).

  13. kurt9 says:

    If stability for the kids is the issue, why not go the other way on the issue of marriage? Make marriage something that people who plan to have kids do and have some sort of civil union for all of the people who want partnership but do not want to have kids. Obviously we need a social arrangement that provides a secure environment for kids. Yet, at the same time, people who do not have kids should not be bound by the same conventions as those who do.

    I guess what I am not clear on is why do the gays want to get married in the first place? Are they looking for the tax benefits? Medical insurance coverage? If so, why not separate these things from marriage anyways?

    It sounds like from the posting that the French civil union pacts do not offer the same financial protection for women who have kids as traditional marriage. If this is true, then why would any woman be enough of a sucker to enter into this kind of relationship?

  14. The government really needs to follow its own rules. This is simple gender bias.

    The easiest thing for the government to do in the long run is to just get out of anything it doesn’t need to be doing. Instead of constantly having this argument, just take marriage out of the realm of government, and then the churches can do what they like with it again. What they lose in power they will regain in control.

    I’ll weigh in as another person who didn’t grow up in a standard two parent household, and liked it that way. Once again, none of the governments business.

  15. torrentprime says:

    “Most children would far prefer two unhappy married parents to two happier divorced or never-married parents enjoying their new freedom or new spouses. ”
    Oh my yes – citation needed.
    “Children are not benefited by the unstable new co-habiting options that adults are devising for themselves. ”
    Precisely why marriage needs to be an option for gay couples. Gay individuals will have children – short of sterilizing gays or simply removing any children they happen to have, gays will have children though procreation and adoption (the latter legal in most places) – and denial of marriage equality guarantees that their children grow up in an unmarried household if and when their parents partner. Also / worse, that gay child’s friends (and their parents) will see yet another unmarried household, this one led by gays which on average (studies show) turns out kids no worse than and in some cases better kids than heterosexually-led households, all of which can and will led people to think, “Maybe marriage doesn’t matter. They didn’t need it.” Which is the cruelest irony, because the option isn’t even open to gay couples.
    Denying the social and economic benefits of marriage to couples and familes at a time when we’re trying to strengthen the institution is counter-intuitive.

  16. kurt9 says:

    It is true that kids need a stable environment to grow up in and that people who choose to have them must accept certain limitations on their personal choices in order to benefit the kids. However, it seems to me that the social conservatives believe that they can improve the lot of kids by placing restrictions on the life choices of those who choose not to have kids. Why do the social conservatives think this can help at all?

  17. torrentprime says:

    kurt9, why do you want to get married? Why does anyone? Some do it for love, some do it for committment, some do it for status, some do it because they are drunk and in Vegas.
    More seriously, there are hundreds of benefits and legal rights which attach only to spouses, by statute, and the protestes of the “they can just sign contracts that do the same thing” crowd are simply lies. No one can sign a contract that makes someone their wife or husband for inheritance purposes, or receive medical benefits from their employer for their partner or their partner’s children – the policy of companies and the state are nearly always based on the word spouse. Some companies have allowed for domestic partnership for benefits, which is a loophole gays can use in some cases, but it doesn’t make you a spouse when it comes to medical decisons in case of emergency or the hundreds of other state and federal rights which attach at the granting of the marriage license by the state.

  18. I think you point out something important kurt9. with marriage-lite available, there is little reason for gays or their opposition to argue over this at all. It is simply a matter of equality vs. tradition.

    As for having kids, you can’t rely on anyone deciding to follow any rules first. If gays, singles, or teenagers want to have kids, there is really nothing you can do to stop it. Once they have them, I suppose you could try to take them away, but I hardly think that is going to lead to a better world.

  19. kurt9 says:

    I guess what Heather is suggesting is that people who do not want to have kids, either gay or straight, should not get married at all. The institution of marriage should be reserved exclusively for those who are making a life-long commitment to it and plan to have kids. Please confirm that this is the case.

  20. torrentprime, that is all true to varying extents by state, but I think everyone is dancing around their real motivations. One side doesn’t want to see gays gain legitimacy, the other doesn’t want to be second class citizens. If they were to propose a duplicate of marriage and call it something else, 95% of the people who are arguing about it now would still find something to argue about.

  21. torrentprime says:

    Steel Phoenix – actually, this isn’t necessarily true: “with marriage-lite available, there is little reason for gays or their opposition to argue over this at all.”
    Marriage lite doesn’t necessarily have everything. With the advent of civil unions in Connecticut, “equality” was not acheived. Some companies refused to extend benefits to domestic partners, arguing that a civil union partner was not a spouse, and thus they weren’t obligated to extend benefits. After testing them out for a bit, New Jersey determined that civil unions weren’t providing true equality. Marriage is about social status in addition to legal and economic benefits – marriage means something, yes, as any social conservative will tell you – and the “separate but equal” thing (not using the term in a loaded sense, but that is what we’re dissecting) a) has never worked before and b) is clearly not on the table even on its face, since we’re using the term “lite”. Why does gays only have access to a lite version of something so critical to life and familial stability?

  22. torrentprime says:

    “If they were to propose a duplicate of marriage and call it something else, 95% of the people who are arguing about it now would still find something to argue about.”
    Amen. The culture wars being mapped so well into our political system (something that will fade as the greatest generation especially and the boomers to a degree begin to die off, given the younger generations’ pretty well documented acceptance of gay rights) have crystallized this debate into pure politics, sadly.

  23. Gotchaye says:

    Further, there’s a separate but equal issue here. It doesn’t matter if the “colored restrooms” are just as clean and accessible as the “white restrooms”. The clear purpose of the distinction is to set up or reinforce a hierarchy in society and to prevent the coloreds from contaminating white space. Likewise with civil unions for gays and marriage for straights. If you think that the perpetuation of such a hierarchy is bigoted, then you’re not going to be happy with that. Some SSM supporters are willing to accept it as a compromise, but it’s hardly ideal.

  24. Sviluppo says:

    Bear in mind that for a lot of younger guys, marriage seems less and less attractive. Watch a few friends and relatives go through messy divorces, and you start looking at your girlfriend with the attitude, “Is this a person that I want to give half of everything I own in five years when she gets bored, and then continue to pay her while she runs around town dating and having fun?”

    Not all women are vindictive and not all men are victims, but the legal system is pretty heavily tilted towards the women when marriages inevitably end. The concept of a civil union in which either partner can sever it and you keep all your own stuff starts to look very attractive.

    The pure libertarian position is to just only offer civil unions between any two or more* people that want to get in on it, and leave marriage and God-sanctioned coupling to the churches.

    *Conservatives always wail about the slippery slope to polygamy, but from separatist Mormons to sports stars to many city mayors to Hugh Hefner, it’s obvious in this country that if you want multiple women, you can have them.

  25. Daniel Dare says:

    Anthony. I am strongly drawn to taoist philosophy. Wu wei, live naturally, harmony with nature. Go with the flow.

    If we live in harmony with our genetic natures, there is none of the inner conflict many people feel.

  26. Well said Gotchaye.

    Sviluppo, seeing all of the divorces in my family and the litigious nature of divorce certainly didn’t make me any more likely to see marriage as something I’d want to do. If anything, I’ve seen people who really didn’t want to be together stay together because of marriage. I’d much rather wake up each day knowing that the person I’m waking up next to is there because they want to be, not because they feel contractually obligated. Kids may complicate things, but as I said, I’ve had lots of parents and I think I’m better equipped to deal with society because of it.

  27. Hugo says:

    “Most children would far prefer two unhappy married parents to two happier divorced or never-married parents enjoying their new freedom or new spouses.”

    How do you know this? Has there been research on this?
    I am a product of several divorces (my mom has been divorced 4 times and married 5) and I’m happy she did, she did this always with me in mind, the breakups were kept civil (perhaps because there was not much to fight over but that is another matter), I was one of the only kids in my school at first but the society that I grew up in was tolerant and now has years of accepting divorce and gay marriage, in education there now is consideration for such families, when I grew up I did run into some problems, which father should I put on forms etc, teachers often didn’t know either, those situations now no longer exist. I don’t see any difference in our society to other societies (I see some positives that are may or may not be related, there’s no research, people claim to be happy, teen pregnancy is virtually non exiting, abortions is low)
    I still have a good relationship with my father, I’m okay with the 2nd husband and a good relation with her last husband.
    Myself I’m with my wife for 17 years now and married for 13 and we almost have 2 kids.
    My wife often tells me that she wished her parents could have had the opportunity to divorce but the society that she grew up in was very different and they would have had to go against very ingrained institutions and would have probably been isolated if they had. She has problems with her outlook in life and is often depressed, she is getting over it and it is again not clear if this is related but I see such statements as yours all the time and always wonder where they come from?

  28. Lorenzo says:

    Same-sex marriage is less of an experiment than folk seem to think. The notion that it is something never before seen in history is simply false. Various Amerindian cultures had same-sex marriages. They often also had a concept of three (or even four) genders, which complicates matters. But they are not the only examples.

    It is particularly odd to see an historically quite rare form of marriage–monogamous only between men and women who are legal equals–touted as some universal template. After all, it is not quite clear when men and women became legal equals in our society. When women got the vote? When married women were no longer sacked because they got married? When women were presumed to give consent forever when they got married, so there was no rape in marriage?

    That being said, entirely agree that the multiplication of legal forms of marriage to fence marriage-proper off from the gays IS a major social experiment, and one that does not seem to be going so well.

  29. Lorenzo says:

    Marriage evolves depending on social circumstances. With universal pensions (making children less of an investment for old age), single parent income support (making the state-the-spouse-of-some-resort) and prosperity trending ever upward (despite current doom and gloom: and household incomes have been rising even if averages wages have not been) people are more insulated from consequences and have more choices.

    Stephanie Coontz reports that the one common feature anthropologists have been able to find across human societies about marriage is that it creates in-laws: that is, kin support networks. As they become less important, marriage as autonomous-act-of-chosen-binding has naturally become more salient.

    We can look at the incentives and other effects of public policy, but reversing deep social trends is another matter entirely.

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  31. Hugo says:

    “They often also had a concept of three (or even four) genders”

    This is interesting, which other genders are there? Did they include hermaphrodites and eunuchs as a gender?

  32. mikespeir says:

    For every marriage that might have improved if the couple had been denied the right to the easy out of an easy divorce, there’s another couple that would have lived out their days becoming more and more embittered because they were denied that way out. But, of course, for every couple that would have lived out their days becoming more and more embittered because they were denied an easy divorce, there’s a marriage that might have improved if the couple had been denied that out. On the other hand, for every marriage that might have improved if the couple had been denied the right to the easy out of an easy divorce, there’s another couple that would have lived out their days becoming more and more embittered because they were denied that way out….

    I don’t see any solution to this, not even if government were to try to micromanage marriages. We’re probably just going to have to let people, themselves, make these decisions.

  33. @Daniel Dare
    “Consequently dying for your children is no big deal… Living for them in a difficult arrangement is no big deal either.”

    Dying only happens once, living is daily. One push-up is cake compared to thousands.

    Not that I think families shouldn’t try to stay together, I just recognize that sometimes it’s as least as hard as exercising as much as you should.

  34. kurt9 says:

    Heather,

    Just by reading the article I can tell you what the problem is with these French civil unions. These unions do not require the same level of financial and personal commitment as conventional marriage. According to the article, a spouse can walk out of the relationship without owing any alimony or child support. Of course guys are going to prefer this over conventional marriage because many guys are dogs. What is inexplicable to me is why a woman right in the head would even consider having a kid sans the financial security offered by a traditional marriage. My guess is that this is the nature of non East Asian people, particularly less intelligent, less educated ones. East Asian people tend to think about the long term financial issues when deciding to have kids. Apparently most Westerners do not do this (this is completely incomprehensible to me).

    If the civil unions (e.g. “gay” marriage) were changed such that they required the same level of personal and financial commitment as regular marriage, then this would not be such a problem. The people entering into them would have to go through a divorce, along with the allocation of financial resources, as a regular marriage if they later decide they want out. If “gay” marriage was subject to these same standards as regular heterosexual marriage, I fail to see why it would have a corrosive effect on society.

  35. Jeeves says:

    @Sviluppo
    but the legal system is pretty heavily tilted towards the women when marriages inevitably end.

    And this assertion is based on…? As a matter of fact, most studies of divorce, especially the now-prevalent no-fault divorce, have shown that women are by far the more likely to be economically harmed (often permanently) by divorce.

    As for your earlier statements re the inherent inequality of marriage lite, there are more and more private companies, municipalities and states that now recognize civil unions for purposes having to do with health benefits and the like. This trend is likely to continue. As for the power to give medical directions, so far as I’m aware all states permit you to sign a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, so your complaint is a red herring.

    I think it was Kurt9 who said that the primary objection to separate-but-equal was the separateness, not inequality. Probably true, especially since there’s no necessary connection between separateness and inequality. But even here, the SCOTUS in Brown depended on some very dubious work of sociologist Kenneth Clark to “prove” that separateness was bad for black kids’ self-image, i.e., in our context, the claim that civil unions don’t confer the same magical “social status” as marriage, and are therefor inferior.

    Finally, Heather, as a serial cowardly cohabitor, I’d like to know exactly wherein my cowardice–or that of my partners–has injured anyone.

  36. Daniel Dare says:

    Derek Scruggs,

    I guess I just basically regard myself as disposable and biodegradable. I exercise regularly too. Helps to hold off the aging process.
    I intend to be a low-fat meal for the worms. 😉

  37. Brian says:

    The solution to the gay marriage debate is simple: remove marriage from the government purview all together. To establish legal status *everyone* (straight or gay) would file for a civil union, which would legally defines their arrangement. Then, those who wish to be married in the eyes of the church (those who qualify, that is) can do so as a separate event that has no legally binding status.

    Problem solved. Everyone gets maximum benefit, without modifying their belief system or having to force their morality code upon others. I see no flaws in this idea, other than the resistance of those who insist that religious views must be incorporated into the legal and political spectrum.

  38. (A comment I posted here on the 15th was removed, perhaps because it was too sharply worded and was characterizing Heather Mac Donald as a person, rather than just her positions. I have accordingly revised the comment, removing the personal characterizations, while leaving the argument intact. It will be interesting to see whether Miss Mac Donald will allow a reasonable challenge to her position to be posted at her blog, and whether she will reply to it.)

    Heather Mac Donald, as one of the founders of Secular Right, argues that society should be based solely on secular reason, thus excluding religion, religious belief, and religiously based values from society; but then she turns around and regrets the weakening of traditional marriage!

    Does Mac Donald think that marriage can be sustained as the central institution of society by a mere utilitarian calculation of interests? For marriage to work, for marriage to have the appeal that draws people, particularly men, to it and keeps them in it despite all difficulties and sacrifices, it has to have an importance and sanctity that transcends utility and personal desires. It needs, in short, to be based on a transcendent, and thus, at least indirectly, a religious, view of life.

    But, as already indicated, in our society as Mac Donald desires it to be, there would be no religion, no Christianity, no belief in God. She has made clear over and over that she sees belief in God as at best delusional, at worst as a bane. The only common values she will accept are those that are derived from secular, utilitarian reason.

    Mac Donald of course has some conservative views; she sees, for example, that children need stable families with two parents. But her secularizing project puts her in the position of the quintessential liberal who wants to eat society’s central traditions (e.g. religious based morality) and have the goods that come from them (e.g., traditional family values); who wants to tear down the fundaments of society, but still expects them to be there when she thinks they matter.

  39. David Hume says:

    It will be interesting to see whether Miss Mac Donald will allow a reasonable challenge to her position to be posted at her blog, and whether she will reply to it.

    Sir,

    I censored your comment, not Ms. Mac Donald. And for the very reasons you list above. It seems to have had the intended effect.

    Yours Truly,
    DH

  40. Matthew Dunnyveg says:

    Ms MacDonald, along with Mr. Auster, I must admit that I too am in a bit of a quandary over your posting policy. Are posters not allowed to disagree with you? If not, how do you reconcile such a position with the tolerance and inquisitive spirit prerequisite to the rationality you seem to champion?

    I did read the posting policy. It was less than enlightening, especially considering I have no desire to start a blog of my own.

    I’ve had my disagreements with both of you. But I wouldn’t dream of attempting to silence either of you, as I profit greatly from what you have to say, even when we disagree. Where am I going wrong?

  41. Grant Canyon says:

    For marriage to work, for marriage to have the appeal that draws people, particularly men, to it and keeps them in it despite all difficulties and sacrifices, it has to have an importance and sanctity that transcends utility and personal desires. It needs, in short, to be based on a transcendent, and thus, at least indirectly, a religious, view of life.

    That’s nonsense. I’ve known a lot of people in my life, of all religious stripes, and I’ve met no one who was drawn to the institution of marriage primarily because of a religious or “transcendent” association. And I’ve known many atheists and agnostics for whom the importance of marriage lies in the things you blithely disregard as mere utility and personal desire. Maybe I hang around with too many level-headed people, but I’d venture to guess that most people I know got married for the same reasons I did: love of their spouse, a recognition of compatibility, companionship, an expression of commitment, tradition, the desire to raise a family and, above all, a desire to create a life shared together. None of these things require any thought to gibberish about transcendence.

    But her secularizing project puts her in the position of the quintessential liberal who wants to eat society’s central traditions (e.g. religious based morality) and have the goods that come from them (e.g., traditional family values); who wants to tear down the fundaments of society, but still expects them to be there when she thinks they matter.

    Well, I can’t speak for her, but only myself, but since “traditional family values” seems to be little more than code words among religious conservatives to mean lying to kids about sex, fighting the war on blastocysts and hating gay people, you can keep it. If your “religious based morality” is the cause of that, you can have that, too. Who needs it?

  42. “David Hume” replies to me:

    “I censored your comment, not Ms. Mac Donald. And for the very reasons you list above. It seems to have had the intended effect.”

    For those interested in seeing the original comment that David Hume deleted, and thus understanding SR’s limits of acceptability, it is posted at my website.

    Yet at the same time, SR routinely allows comments such as Grant Canyon’s reply to me to be posted:

    “Well, I can’t speak for her, but only myself, but since ‘traditional family values’ seems to be little more than code words among religious conservatives to mean lying to kids about sex, fighting the war on blastocysts and hating gay people, you can keep it. If your ‘religious based morality’ is the cause of that, you can have that, too. Who needs it?”

    And that’s mild compared to the characterizations of non-atheists that are routinely posted at this supposedly conservative website. In effect, the site hosts an ongoing contempt-fest against all religious and traditional people, but my mild characterizations of Heather Mac Donald went too far and were deleted.

  43. David Hume says:

    In effect, the site hosts an ongoing contempt-fest against all religious and traditional people, but my mild characterizations of Heather Mac Donald went too far and were deleted.

    Sir,

    This will be my last response to you. First, your reputation precedes you. Grant Canyon’s does not. Second, I do consider attacks on groups as different from attacks on specific concrete persons. Perhaps I lack some common sense where aspersions cast upon abstract groups are on the same plane as flesh & blood individuals. Third, you are a guest here sir. Is it not common decency to comport oneself with a modicum of politeness toward one’s hosts? Or perhaps that is not a tradition which you seek to preserve.

    Yours truly,
    DH

  44. David Hume says:

    and for the record, no one should bother following up and question moderation policies of this weblog. i’ll delete those comments because we’re not interested in debating with guests on our private property the rules of the game.

  45. Please note that I did not complain about the removal of my initial comment. To the contrary, I freely acknowledged, both at my own site and here, that the comment may have had a personal edge that was inappropriate, and so I revised it and resubmitted it. Obviously, then, I am not questioning the need to comport oneself with a modicum of politeness toward one’s hosts. I accept it and I enforce the same at my own site.

    My point, rather, was that, once I understood that my original comment had indeed been deleted for its sharp tone, I couldn’t help but notice, right in the middle of my exchange with David Hume, Grant Canyon’s bigoted denigration of religious people. And the contrast brought into relief the nature of this website, that it consists in large part of comments that can fairly be characterized as expressions of hatred against anyone who believes in God. Further, these statements are not directed only at abstract groups, as David Hume puts it, but against the specific theists who post at this site.

    And I think that that satisfactorily completes my exchange with Mr. Hume.

  46. David Hume says:

    Mr. Auster,

    The follow-up comment was not directed at you, but someone whose comment I have deleted.

    Best
    DH

  47. Prozium says:

    Larry doesn’t have a problem with bigoted denigration of atheists and Darwinists.

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