The United States is a free country. China is not. Yet once in a while, we find a bit of evidence that suggests the opposite. The official English-language newspaper, China Daily, had this article.
When I first taught at Hebei University in Baoding, China, in 1984, I never saw a single boy and a single girl walking together on campus, although I often saw mixed groups. Dancing was illegal when I got there, but it was legalized in May or June. Two people asked me, independently, what there was about capitalism that led to homosexuality. I replied that I didn’t think there was any connection between economic systems and sexual preference. “But there is no homosexuality in China,” I was told.
When I went to China again in 1989, life was much freer–so much so that Beijing Spring occurred between mid-April and June 4th, when it was crushed. Even so, homosexuality was taboo. Marxist societies, like all forms of totalitarianism, are afraid of any kind of freedom, which is why dancing had been outlawed until 1984. But China’s one-child policy had led to a disproportionate number of boys as opposed to girls, and Chinese officials must have thought that allowing homosexuality would ease the pressure on young men in a country where there weren’t enough young women for them to marry.
The gay marriage reported in the China Daily article is not legally binding, at least not yet. But if a government newspaper publicizes it, it is no accident, Comrade.
Comments 109
Fortunately this momentous event occurred early enough to be cited as a precedent and included in her opinion by Ruth Bader Ginsburg when the constitutionality of Proposition 8 finally gets to the Supreme Court.
January 17th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
So what. The young in China already are eschewing family formation and the remnents of the one child policy aren’t having kids at all. Kind of funny, the money in China is all in the cities and the poverty and the only place they are still having babies is in the poor central areas. Wasn’t that what happened when Mao began his march? Plus there is a generation of men who will never find a wife. Yep, China is a dynamo. The model will blow up. So who cares what China thinks about gay marriage. It essentially already exists in the US, its just that the gay politicos aren’t satisfied with an acknowledgement of a joint financial union and are adament on insisting on a the changing of a definition that has existed even before history was recorded. If the US decided to say yes – gay marriage is marriage – most religious won’t acknowledge it anyway.
January 17th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
The model will blow up
Or the “model” fills the vacuum that the literal Bankruptcy of America/Western Europe has created, at least in the short term.Unfortunately,the Short Term lasts a long time.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
@ Rex Caruthers:
It’s conceivable. Lots of things are conceivable, and China is more likely to be able to take advantage of such a situation for limited regional political purposes, not in a way that alters the national strategic situation and establishes a viable long-term model. China’s problems are at least as real as those of the U.S. or of the Eurozone, and her supposed economic virtues are based on accounting that is not only at least as dubious by definition as the standards you apply to the U.S., but aren’t even transparent and trustworthy on their own terms.
If things are as bad as you think they are for the U.S., they are that much worse for China, even before you look at China’s unique challenges.
But at least maybe they’ll have gay marriage. I guess it’s either that or revive the institution of court eunuch on a massive scale. Maybe both.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
If things are as bad as you think they are for the U.S., they are that much worse for China
With this difference CK,we are evolving from Order to Disorder,China is evolving in another direction entirely(The Communist-Capitalist Merger),and they move very slowly in social development,an advantage at the moment.
January 17th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
I hope, for the sake of the billion plus Chinese, that I’m wrong; but my sense is that China will face a lot of challenges potentially even leading to revolution before it can evolve into an overall modern economy. A planned economy can be good at building big showy projects but the test will come when further growth requires flexibility and the willingness to let businesses fail.
Our growth may be stalling; but we’re at a high level of prosperity. If China stalls the two thirds or more of the people who are near subsistence are going to suffer big time, even assuming things stay peaceful.
George probably has the best sense of the probabilities from contacts with actual people on the ground in China. Gordon Chang has written on the issue as well over at Commentary, and I think I saw something by him recently on this subject that appeared elsewhere.
Enjoy the next ten days or so without me. I’ll be in Florida and then on the road and I’ve decided not to take the laptop.
January 17th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
and all the short poems will be where recorded?
St Agnes’ Eve in Florida? A bitter pill
January 17th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
@ Sully:
I presume you’ve already composed 5 posts and 5 suites of poems, 1 set to be posted if Brown wins by a lot, 1 set for a close Brown victory, 1 set for too close to call, etc. I’ll keep an eye out for them on the edit post page and will be happy to make the appropriate selection at the appropriate time.
January 17th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Gordon Chang can be found at forbes.com. Here is his latest
http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/14/china-beijing-google-internet-opinions-columnists-gordon-g-chang.html?boxes=opinionschannellighttop
January 17th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
That the core of the Nazi movement was gay is a commonplace, and it wouldn’t surprise me if plenty of jihadis followed suit, for the same cultural-psychogical reasons astutely cataloged by Lothar Machtan in his book on Hitler. The point is not that there is anything inherently totalitarian about male homosexuality but that in stressful times even sexually repressive societies acquire agendas that may temporarily open the closet door. So this could be a revolutionary symptom.
January 18th, 2010 at 9:23 am
@ George Jochnowitz:
George: What would you say if ten years from now gay couples in China were adopting American babies?
January 18th, 2010 at 10:27 am
ba ba ?
January 18th, 2010 at 10:56 am
@ Zoltan Newberry:
I don’t think Americans are especially likely to give their children away to be adopted in other countries. But if there were gay couples adopting children in China, maybe they could agree to adopt all the unwanted girls in China who are being exported the the United States and elsewhere.
January 18th, 2010 at 11:05 am
Of the arguments in favor of gay marriage, “China does it” seems like one of the poorest.
January 18th, 2010 at 11:50 am
J.E. Dyer wrote:
Could very well define “poor” as far as arguments go – which qualifies it for every other column by Tom Friedman and close consideration by writers of the next Democratic Party platform. It’s this era’s “the Japanese are investing hundreds of billions in infrastructure – how can we stand to remain behind them?”
January 18th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
To CK,JEM,and Sully,The Triumvirate of Denial:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/231130
Let’s ask Gordon his opinion of this opinion.
January 18th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Sorry Rex, I need some more than that. It leads me even further into CK’s argument’s arms. China is the new big thing that doesn’t respect the rule of law, has a demographic nightmare of gigantic proportions coming, and who has less influence over us and our debt that we all might think. It does smack of Japan in the 80s. China is still a relatively poor country, who while growing has taken a path that is not sustainable. The question will be only when the stumble happens. What happens if all the big internet arms decide that they will take on China. There is no way they can keep the truth out. When you have to keep things from your citizens, it is deadly when they find out. If I were Google I would be targeting their citizens like crazy. And ask the Democrats how meeting in secret and ignoring the people is working out.
This in no way excuses our own problems, and they are significant.
January 18th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
India is actually the place to watch. They are the ones who will challenge China and pass them in Asia.
January 18th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
@ J.E, Dyer:
My argument isn’t “China does it.” My argument is: A murderous, totalitarian state can do it, but we, the land of liberty, can’t.
Gay marriage doesn’t hurt a soul in the world. Opposing it is pointless unkindness.
As far as tradition is concerned, in the Bible, polygamy was the rule and not the exception. In the West, arranged marriages were standard practice. Today, both women and men can sue for divorce. A century ago, that would have been unthinkable. Today, no-fault divorce exists. Jesus, on the other hand banned divorce (Matthew 5:31-32). The Old Testament was too liberal for him.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
@ Rex Caruthers:
I found that Newsweek article rather inane, empty and unpersuasive at best. The author lists a series of Western criticisms of China and offers no answer or rebuttal other than the notion that China was able even to take on Google… A “civilization state” of 1 BN+ people was actually able to take on a search engine! Wow – that’s one for the history books. Otherwise, he asserts that the future belongs to China, overwhelmingly, on the basis of no apparent authority other than the fact that he’s written a book on the theme.
China may or may not find a way to negotiate the transition to a new economic model, and, either way, may very well cause lots of problems for us in the world both in its own region and where elsewhere it temporarily fills whatever vacuum we leave by our incidental omissions, but the barriers to Chinese assertion of global cultural, economic, or political hegemony remain immense.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
JEM,These are the basics: The White European Male including his relatives throughout what used to be the various European Empires,have ruled since the Rennaissance. That paradigm is on the WANE(Thanks,Sully). The long term Darkhorses,South America,Russia,and Africa,are overshadowed by the Asian Triangle,Japan,China,and India,take your pick,but the metrics are clear,who is being diminished,and who is in ascendancy.BTW I’m the only one I know who understands that to slow down this process,we need to wage WW4 against OPEC,and digest their assets. This is pure economic logic,nothing more. Social/Historical Darwinism is not pretty,but history could care less about our exceptionalism,only our wealth/power. Besides I don’t think we have the stomach,any longer,to remain the world’s Superpower. We should have devoured Opec 35 years ago,and we had cause,and still do.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Having a world where millions in Asia starve while we’re soaking in butter diminishes us as much as living with a smaller disparity will.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
fuster wrote:
Having a world where millions in Asia starve while we’re soaking in butter diminishes us as much as living with a smaller disparity will.
And OPEC is helping out the Starving Masses? And Nobody’s going soak in Butter,after the Oil Wars,we’ll be no better than break even. Think about it,the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world thru 1975 was from the US to OPEC,and since then,we have had greater transfers of wealth from us to Japan,China,India,and the EEC,and why? Because the God of Cheaper labor demanded the sacrifice of America’s Middle Class. The Wars of Asset Acquisition are the only means left to defang the influence of our top 1%ers in wealth from wringing the middle class dry. Another option would be to French Revolutionize the !%,and confiscate that 1%. It would take about 100 years before the new 1%ers rose from the ashes.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
@ George Jochnowitz:
Hmm. Something to that — but maybe not what your argument proposes.
Everywhere that the people have voted on gay marriage in the US, they have rejected it. We have had a single legislative vote on it by which it was approved, the one in Vermont. It has otherwise been imposed by judicial fiat.
The people do not agree that gay marriage is a “right” that ought to be guaranteed by the government.
There are a number of other points to discuss, but this one is central: whether government is something that exists to affirm a laundry list of people’s views and desires.
In the US, you can call yourself married to a person of your sex, and there are churches that will perform a ceremony to that effect. You can arrange your affairs under civil unions to mimic the presumptions that apply to men and women in traditional marriages. You can live in a circle of friends who all agree with you that you are married.
What you want the government to affirm is that there is a “right” to define marriage differently from the longstanding traditional definition, and make it the law of the land. I don’t agree that there is any such “right.” I don’t agree that that is what government even exists for. Government does not exist to make the dreams of gay people come true, any more than it exists to make my dreams come true.
Go ahead, if you’re gay: call yourself married. Mazeltov! But you demand a government with too big a charter if you want the government to make it the law of the land that you are “married” to a person of the same sex. That’s not what marriage is. It is ridiculous to suggest that some ‘transient majority” of voters is keeping people from exercising a “right” — there is no right to redefine marriage.
Now, if it becomes the case that voting majorities favor the state defining gay marriage, that’s a different story. I would still oppose the concept, but at least the issue would be on the correct footing as it was put to the people. The acknowledgment would be that majorities can make pragmatic decisions about such things for the purposes of civil law — not that anyone has a “right” to define marriage to suit him, and then demand that government endorse his definition.
After all, if the latter is a “right,” then it applies to all of us. Me, you, Anita Bryant, and Pat Robertson.
January 18th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
@ Rex Caruthers:
Rex, which of India, Japan and China are OPEC members. I was thinking that there was a pretty fair transfer of wealth out of India and China for a pretty lengthy period.
You probably would know better that I about how our middle class is currently doing, Rex. Does it look like they’re heading to where they won’t be comfortably housed and fed?
January 18th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
@ fuster:
Saudi
Arabia and other OPEC countries, which are obscenely rich, don’t give a penny to help poor people anywhere. Many countries are helping in Haiti. One of them is Israel. Saudi Arabia is nowhere to be found.
@J.E. Dyer:
Interracial marriage and integrated schools were forced down the throats of states where the people opposed them by court decisions. Separation of powers is part of the glory of the United States Constitution.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
You probably would know better that I about how our middle class is currently doing, Rex. Does it look like they’re heading to where they won’t be comfortably housed and fed
With the current deficits that our government is suffering,anything can happen at any time,from a rapid collapse to a gradual break down. In the case of the USSR,it was very rapid,England is still in the process. BTW,I would rather see Shell,Exxon,and BP in charge of world energy distribution than SA,Iran,Iraq etc.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
@ Rex Caruthers:
Rex, you’re returning to OPEC, and while I’m not disagreeing with you, that’s not what I was talking of.
I was considering if it wasn’t possibly a good thing for China and Japan to have healthy economies and a population that is eating regularly and decently even if it means that we have a little less for luxuries.
Optimist that I am, I thought that might be good for the world.
That, of course, has nothing to do with the money poured into the Gulf States.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
George Jochnowitz wrote:
I’m not an advocate for Saudi Arabia or OPEC, George.
But I’ll ask you if it’s not a positive thing for the Chinese and Indians to all be eating well and to be able to afford education for all their children.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
fuster wrote:
@ Rex Caruthers:
Rex, you’re returning to OPEC, and while I’m not disagreeing with you, that’s not what I was talking of.
I was considering if it wasn’t possibly a good thing for China and Japan to have healthy economies and a population that is eating regularly and decently even if it means that we have a little less for luxuries.
Optimist that I am, I thought that might be good for the world.
To a large degree,they have growing economies based on the destruction of ours,a combination of our policies(trade,Currency) and their policies(Currency Manipulation favoring America Importing everything from everybody,And Carry Trade which flooded us with Debt). It wasn’t out of Goodness that this happened,it was the relentless pursuit of Cheap labor by American Capitalists.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
Do you think that the government has any business offering recognition of any marriage and appending rights and privileges to such recognition?
January 18th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
@ Rex Caruthers:
and therefore, because it was brought about by the selfishness of Capitalists, what?
Can, gasp, capitalism blindly bring about any good or is it all tainted?
Is our loss of luxury too high a price for their gain?
Will we be doomed and forced into penury? Or will wealthy Chindians come and force us into cultivating tea and opium for their idlers?
January 18th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
@ fuster:
One oif the horrors of Marxism is that it always leads to famine. India, which is more overpopulated than China and has fewer natural resources, has never experienced anything nearly as horrible as the famine that Mao caused in 1959-61. A democratic system of government is one of the ways to prevent hunger.
January 18th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
@ George Jochnowitz:
George, I’ve already mentioned that Indian has had horrific famines also, even without Marxism. There are other forms of egregious misgovernment aside from marxism.
But let us not again debate scale of horror.
Instead, if you would, please express your last impression of the Chinese government and if you found it to be as bad as it had been or if you think that it may have been changing.
January 18th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
@ Rex Caruthers:
and therefore, because it was brought about by the selfishness of Capitalists, what?
More so,the idiocy of our governmen’s economic beliefs
January 18th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
George Jochnowitz wrote:
As far as you can see. Look, George, 40 years ago when divorce began to be “accepted,” proponents of no-fault divorce largely argued from a notion of who would be “hurt” most by it. Children, it was firmly, and, I might add, smugly argued, would be “hurt” more if inharmonious parents respected their solemn vows and stayed together than if they separated. And naturally the parents obviously thought they would be “hurt” less if they went their separate ways. So “hurt-wise” it was presented as a no-brainer: They should split the hell up! And laws that had been on the books for centuries were amended to make it ridiculously easy to do so.
The problem was all this assessment of “less hurt” and “more hurt” was completely mistaken, at least as far as children are concerned. I don’t think anyone seriously doubts, 40 years on, that divorce is dreadful for children. They are staggeringly “hurt” by it. And how many societal disasters of today, from crime rates to sexual licentiousness and a hundred more vicious behaviors, clearly stem from children raised in a single-parent home? Not one of which was expected to follow – like night the day, it now does seem – from an apparent relief of hurtfulness? You and I, I submit, are simply not smart enough to figure out what might happen when we overturn traditions, especially when, as with divorce, there is clearly a large measure of selfishness right up front. Gay marriage, I suspect, will be a disaster of comparable moment, even though we may have to wait 100 years to appreciate it. That we shall all be dead in the long run is both cynical and scant consolation.
Millennia-old traditions ought not lightly to be overturned because we cannot tell now what the consequences will be on the basis of our subjective and largely sentimental judgments of vagaries such as “hurtfulness” now. What? Is that which hurts a matter only of what draws blood? That is the law of the jungle. An apprehension of merely physical harm is how the beasts assess their chances in life, and they look to nothing else for guidance. Traditions are unknown to them. Traditions of long-standing are telling us something important, namely, that society long ago and possibly many times went in a direction opposed to the current tradition and suffered grievously for it. We are not obliged to rediscover catastrophes for ourselves in each generation.
Oh. And please. Don’t bring up slavery, which was never a “tradition,” in any recognizable sense of the word. It was just another expression of the law of the jungle.
January 18th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
It was just another expression of the law of the jungle.
Another expression of the Holy Grail of Capitalism,cheap Labor. And,happily,there’s more cheap labor in the US than we have had since the GD.
January 18th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
@ Joe NS:
when women stopped dying in childbirth, it changed things a bit. couple of other things changed also, Joe, before people reacted to those changes by easing divorce.
January 18th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
@ Joe NS:
My grandson was certainly hurt when his parents were divorced. On the other hand, a cousin of mine, whose parents stayed together all their lives despite the fact that they hated each other, was also hurt. Which hurt was greater? It’s impossible to say.
@ fuster:
Now that China has Marxist capitalism–a system that believes in thought control combined with inequality–it is less awful than it was. Children no longer denounce their parents for being rightists. Music is allowed. There have been no famines. Nevertheless, aspects of totalitarianism remain. The January 4 edition of China Daily had an article about children who are taken away for months to be re-educated with marching and uniforms because they are computer addicts. Big Brother is watching the Chinese much more effectively than in the low-tech days of Chairman Mao.
January 18th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
@ George Jochnowitz:
Thanks for the opinion, George. I’ll go see if I can find the China Daily article.
January 18th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
@ George Jochnowitz:
No part of “separation of powers” posits an authority higher than the people. If you really think the courts are there to overrule the people when the people merely seek to uphold the traditions of millennia in their civil laws, you are buying into the fundamental premise of socialist progressivism.
The basis for “forcing” interracial marriage down the throats of some states, as you put it, was the US Constitution, in which race has been specifically invoked as a quality the states cannot discriminate on the basis of. Sexual orientation has not. If you think it should be, it’s your right to try to make that happen.
The US Constitution guarantees no right for anyone to redefine marriage. Of course, invalidating laws against interracial marriage is not redefining marriage anyway. Those laws applied to traditional man-woman marriage, and violated an explicit element of the Constitution. The issue is simply not the same.
January 18th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
I see no reason why we cannot maintain and grow our wealth and see other nations join us – that is the beauty of capitalism – the greatest wealth generating scheme ever devised. And with the US Navy maintaining the trading lanes a great way for many to improve their lot in life.
China’s problem? They are run by people who feel they know best and limit their people’s drive. What happens when China no longer can do it on the cheap? You can get more and more serious manufacturing done in India at costs under China without all the piracy concerns. Cheap goods are moving to Vietnam and other Asian states. The level of wages in the major cities for managerial and skilled labor is rising quickly in China. I am paying almost 60% of a US wage and it is rising at close to 10% a year. Do the math, how long before they catch us? China’s domestic market for infrastructure is where the real money is anymore, not for export to the US. And now in some industries you can import to China at a profit as long as the government hasn’t decided to tariff the hell out of it.
China has some very interesting decisions to make. As their growth makes the labor and goods more expensive, can they be productive enough to work in an information age where info must flow freely and the rule of law and contracts must be protected. Others will be able to supplant them at cheap manufacturing. And they have their imperial dreams as well. Can they maintain the vast military growth they have embarked on? Not that I think we will do anything about it but they are far away from being able to challenge us militarily.
I say they are 50/50 bet to actually be able to make the jump. But it won’t look like what it is today. And if they don’t, they will become the poor sister of Asia – passed by India and other Asian states, while never having managed to catch Japan. It will be a very intersting watch.
January 19th, 2010 at 5:31 am
The Preamble to the Constitution tells us that it was ordained and established to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” It was written when slavery still existed. It was nevertheless the beginning of a process that led to the end of slavery.
Homosexuality has always existed. I can’t think why, but it has. Prejudice, too, has always existed. In the case of homosexuality, it is supported by Leviticus 20:13, which commands us to kill homosexuals. No matter how religious we are, we don’t obey that commandment, nor do we think it ought to be heeded. Similarly, we no longer execute people accused of witchcraft, although the Bible commands us to do so. “Oh, but that’s only the Old Testament,” say Christians nowadays. But it was Christians who burned witches in Europe and hanged them in Massachusetts. Of course, there is no such thing as a witch.
The expansion of liberty has continued ever since the Constitution. Expanding it to include gay marriage is a particularly easy and harmless step.
January 19th, 2010 at 5:34 am
Rex, I don’t disagree that we could just wipe out OPEC if that was our druthers, but the world screamed bloody hell when we took out a maniacal lunatic dictator that had rape rooms and other means of torture while dabbling in international terrorism. Can you imagine what would happen if we did what you suggest?
Two things will eventually make it all moot. We will evolve from oil as a power source at some point. Technology will provide the answers reducing our needs (and we could drill for more of our own which would put downward pressure the worldwide prices and create more instability in places like Iran) for oil.
Secondly, someday, some US president will tell the Palestinians it is over. Make your deal, and if you launch rockets we will give Israel the OK to just declare war and end it. What happens when the Palestinians are no longer there to divert attention from the poor leadership in the region? I think that would be a good thing.
January 19th, 2010 at 5:37 am
George Jochnowitz wrote:
When the people of the US are willing to do so, it will win at the ballot box. There is nothing in the US Constitution to support your argument. Zero. Marriage has a definition that predates modern times. The state supports it because it has been proven to be the best way to raise the next generation of citizens. Gay marriage provides no such advantage to society.
By the way, while we no longer practice slavery, its definition is the same.
We have provided ample vehicles by which gays can build a life together if they choose to do so. Their insistence that I recognize their union as a marriage is in fact an affront to me on their part. I was told to not worry about what goes on in a bedroom between consenting adults. So I didn’t. I was told to not worry about a more public stature for gays. So I didn’t. I was told to be more tolerant of their lifestyle. So I was. Then I was demanded to acknowledge their attempt to redefine an institution regardless of my feelings. I know who the intolerant ones are. “They” aren’t me.
January 19th, 2010 at 5:45 am
@ JEM:
Marriage was redefined when it was recreated as monogamy. It was redefined when women were given the right to own property, instead of being property.
January 19th, 2010 at 5:56 am
China is riding a giant bubble that will dwarf Japan’s when it pops, There might be some comparison with the daisy chain facilitated by
the Dawes plan, to Weimar era Germany, cut short by Smoot Hawley.
Some external circumstance will crack it, or the attendant imbalance
between the rural and urban environs. The demographics described above, will not make for a reassuring result
January 19th, 2010 at 6:17 am
George Jochnowitz wrote:
I realize that polygamy was once more prevalent, but it was still heterosexual. So when women got property, they no longer when married, married men? I realize you are very invested in this, but I need some actual arguments that suggest this is actually a civil rights issue anywhere within our legal framework without a tortured reading or interpretation of it. Likening China as some example that we aren’t so democratic is not a good way to win converts.
Win the debate. You haven’t. And the tactics of some people like minded to yourself, has done more to turn off sympathetic voters than not.
January 19th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Two things will eventually make it all moot.
that is the beauty of capitalism – the greatest wealth generating scheme ever devised.
The Flaw of Capitalism is that it is always accompanied by a Government that can trump it at will,even if the Golden Goose dies. Last week we borrowed $84 Billion(A Bond Fire Sale-0% interest loans from our government to Institutions that can loan back to the Government that same money at 4%-why not just use it directly???) just to meet payroll,most of our deficit was procrastinated. There is no longer enough Capital on the planet to loan us in order to start paying down the deficits. You keep forgetting the 3rd “thing”,our bankruptcy.
January 19th, 2010 at 8:44 am
@ JEM:
Alan Turing’s discoveries led to the computer, which made the internet possible. We are having this discussion because of him. He was driven to suicide by the pointless prejudice against homosexuals. Who knows what he would have invented had he lived longer?
Opposing gay marriage is a continuation of this silly but destructive form of bias.
Perhaps if gay marriage existed, Larry Craig would still be in the Senate. I know that heterosexuals are likely to have extra-marital affairs, and I assume that gay married people do so as well. But Larry Craig was forced to lead a dishonest life because of anti-gay prejudice. When he was trapped in Minnesota, his wife was hurt as well. So were his constituents.
When discrimination against a particular group ends, they are better off. So is everybody else. They can contribute openly to society and increase their productivity.
Prejudice hurts absolutely everybody.
January 19th, 2010 at 8:46 am
@ JEM:
Are there legal advantages to being married not available to unmarried couples?
January 19th, 2010 at 8:48 am
We are having this discussion, because there is a deliberate attempt to deconstruct all traditional societal institutions, every thing that has ever worked has to be torn down. Twenty years ago, no one would have thought of this eventuality. In China’s case their version of behavioral engineering has turned out very badly, which argues against
those people who grumble about overpopulation. It’s much like the vaunted butterfly effect, change one variable, you create a cascade
of consequences
January 19th, 2010 at 8:59 am
@ George Jochnowitz:
You’re not listening to the other side George, instead you’re calling people who disagree with you homophobic. That is the normal, and tedious and offensive tactic of advocates of the gay agenda, and of advocates of every other interest group agenda.
The proponents of gay marriage are asking us to codify in the law the notion that a marriage between two people of the same sex is the same, as far as society is concerned, as a marriage between two people of different sexes. It’s the mark of a civilization that is in the process of losing interest in its own survival – its self-reproduction. Only someone who had been abstracted from the facts of life could believe such a thing, which is akin to believing that 2 + 2 = 5 – or that a mother ought to be as happy with a child chosen at random as with the child she gave birth to. We’re not there yet, and I don’t see why we should want to be.
If you want to believe that 2 + 2 = 5 and that procreative unions do not deserve to be privileged in custom and the law, fine, believe what you like, but having the state validate an absurdity because it makes some people feel a bit better about themselves, for a time, is a very poor basis for public policy, even apart from the unintended consequences of further devaluing the the family.
The family does not exist for the sake of the state. The state exists for the sake of the family. Communists have tried to impose a different view – and, following the usual pattern, typically in the process produce a social fabric that is so torn apart that family relations re-gain primacy again, and the state system turns into a quasi-feudal patchwork of clans.
The Chinese can’t do without families either (can’t have nepotism without nepotes, for one thing). If they grant official notice to gay marriages, they will find a million ways to re-encode the privileging of the “traditional family” – assuming that they haven’t reverted to an even more “natural” state of familial relations amidst the kind of catastrophe familiar from China’s history.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:16 am
@ CK MacLeod:
How does recognizing gay marriage and affording them equal legal rights harm traditional marriage, CK?
Attempting to argue that traditional couples are harmed or that marriage loses something from this seems like a strain.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:28 am
@ fuster:
The argument presumes that there is some good attached to recognition of status in the eyes of the law and society.
Currently, that recognition is afforded to heterosexual, monogamous unions – reflective of the fact, among others, that after long, frequently violent struggle, our civilization decided that, among the alternatives, monogamy and its close variations (what Engels, from a hostile perspective, called “hetaerism”) was the institution that best balanced individual freedom, social and economic development of the broad “middle class,” and survival necessity – since polygamy turned women into chattel and encouraged “hoarding,” and since no other framework proved stable enough even to be taken seriously as an option. (This is potentially a very long discussion so I’ll just leave things there for today.)
Objectively, it is a dilution of that “good” to withdraw recognition from the main purpose of the family – re-producing civilization one child at a time – and turning it toward something that actually is completely different. The traditional or “nuclear” family becomes, in effect, an orphan in the civil law, which latter becomes interested only in a transactional and subjective set of relations between individuals, arbitrarily setting the preferred number for a “marriage” at 2, though with an option to re-visit the definition at a later date or court case.
If that was the end of it – if in our society especially, but really in any human society, it was possible to make a symbolic alteration in the law governing the family, and move on; if it was just the equivalent of a sense of the Senate resolution declaring next Thursday to be national lawnmower day, then the whole controversy would obviously be trivial.
But it never ends there, and the proponents of the gay agenda have no intention of leaving it there. Every area of life is touched on by family relations, and that means that the entirety of our national life will become litigable, with the first fronts re-extended in public education, family law, and church-state and public-private relations.
It’s already started happening in the U.S., and has gone somewhat further in other countries.
Haven’t I linked the Dutch Scholars’ Letter before in discussion, either here or at Contentions? Here it is again. I present it not because I consider it definitive, but because it describes how such a re-definition can become injurious over time to society, to real flesh and blood men, women, and children – somewhat in the manner suggested in Joe’s comments vis-a-vis divorce. I consider its observations useful for trying to think about the second order effects that this kind of progressivism so often produces.
One observation you made about advances in medicine having more to do with the decline in marriage than any particular alterations in the law was I think quite accurate. I would add birth control devices and abortion on demand into the mix, which arose in synergistic conjunction with the ever greater entry of women into the work force, and the longer term transformation of work itself.
In short, modernity presents numerous challenges to the traditional family and its bases, but child-making and child-rearing remains the primary and indissoluble life-and-death proposition not just for civilization but for the species, and there’s no getting around it – nor is there a desirable substitute to the old-fashioned way of making it happen. Nor is it desirable, in my view, to accelerate the decline of the family or intensify the challenges to it.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:14 am
@ CK Mac Leod:
I did not call anybody homophobic. I merely said that prejudice harms everybody. I do not post ad hominem remarks–ever.
Would you be happier if gay men and women married people of the opposite sex? What good would that do to society?
Nowadays, without gay marriage exceept in a few states, a remarkable number of traditional couples have chosen not to have children. I don’t see how gay marriage would change this.
Nowadays, an ever-increasing number of children are born out of wedlock. I don’t see how gay marriage would have any effect, one way or the other, on this phenomenon.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:16 am
George Jochnowitz wrote:
A distinction without a difference. You assert that opposition to gay marriage rests on prejudice, refusing to consider the remarks and arguments of others that have nothing to do with opinions or feelings about homosexuality.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:20 am
@ CK MacLeod:
How could it not rest on prejudice? Otherwise, supporters of stable marriages, most of which are homes where children are raised by loving parents, would be happy that homosexuals too want to establish stable, permanent relationships.
Loving, solid relationships are good for the soul and good for society.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:28 am
@ George Jochnowitz:
You’re just repeating yourself, apparently without having considered what the rest of us have said. It’s not a question of being in favor of or against homosexuals forming loving unions. It’s a question of whether those unions need to be or should be considered the same as traditional unions in law and custom. If we determine that exclusive lifelong dyadic commitment between free homosexuals, and between heterosexuals, too, for that matter, is a good apart from family formation – what we still call “blood relations” – then we can further encourage “civil unions,” perhaps under a different name that makes participants feel better about them.
Traditional marriage in the law is the juridical recognition of the belief that the two people responsible for producing a child have special responsibilities and rights regarding the upbringing of that child, extending eventually to inheritance, but circumscribing all areas of human life on earth. The typical exceptions of non-procreative marriages, adoption, etc. – always brought up sooner or later by gay marriage proponents – are appendages to that basic recognition.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:42 am
Are there any states where it is illegal for Gays to adopt? Is it illogical to presume if gays can adopt,that they should be able to marry?
January 19th, 2010 at 10:43 am
@ CK MacLeod:
You can’t make the argument that we have to hold the line in a poor place to prevent being overrun. That’s the type of lunacy you want to avoid.
Address the issue instead of raising the odd idea that marriage is harmed by this.
Nothing is subtracted by this and no children are harmed in the making of this move
January 19th, 2010 at 10:47 am
fuster wrote:
What issue? Address my arguments and evidence.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:48 am
@ CK MacLeod:
What evidence? All your evidence goes to irrelevancies.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:53 am
“Traditional marriage in the law is the juridical recognition of the BELIEF that the two people responsible for producing a child have SPECIAL responsibilities and rights regarding the upbringing of that child, extending eventually to inheritance, but circumscribing all areas of human life on earth. The typical exceptions of NON-PROCREATIVE marriages, adoption, etc. – always brought up sooner or later by gay marriage proponents – are appendages to that basic recognition.
(1)Lots of Heteros have non-procreative unions;I know a hetero couple that has frequent Abortion every year,they hate Birth Control. Do Non-Procreative Heteros have any Special R&Rs?
(2)Your argument sounds theological to me,is it meant to be a secular position?
January 19th, 2010 at 11:07 am
@ CK MacLeod:
So what’s the problem with offering equivalency to childless marriage?
January 19th, 2010 at 11:07 am
@ Rex Caruthers:
Why should one follow the other? If a single person, such as a family member in the event of the death of parents, takes custody, that person doesn’t have to be considered a one-person “marriage.” If a parent obtains a divorce, he or she is still the child’s father or mother after the marriage is dissolved. The contradictory instances exist in symbiosis with the general rule and the societal preference – stable families. They don’t defeat it. They prove it.
Remove the societal preference and you really are saying that there’s no reason why a married couple ought to prefer staying married, or why expectant parents should become married. That’s exactly what has occurred, at the margins but to a significantly deleterious effect, where marriage has been re-defined. Similar processes and effects were observable, most dramatically in the progressive petri dish of the urban ghetto, when the state got involved in other aspects of family law and custom.
It is plain foolishness to believe that you can establish in law and elaborate in custom that there’s no moral difference between a stable procreative marriage and its rupture, no loss or stigma to the latter, no reason to encourage the former, and not see deleterious effects to what you have radically devalued. It’s pure progressive free lunchism of the sort whose precepts have been massively contradicted by long and bitter experience.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:10 am
“Remove the societal preference and you really are saying that there’s no reason why a married couple ought to prefer staying married, or why expectant parents should become married.”
I’m quite Laissez Faire,anti-Statist,anti-Catholic, on these matters,each individual should determine what in their own best interests including most young children. The “Invisible Hand” should rule the marketplace of the heart.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:25 am
CK MacLeod wrote:
the state offered large cash incentives against stable marriage. bad example.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:31 am
I suppose we have reached the usual impasse on this topic, when proponents of gay marriage characterize opposing opinion as “prejudice,” as if prejudice is only at work in the opinions they disagree with.
It’s important to point out, however, that what you (George J.) appear to propose — the US government creating, against the popular will, a “right” to redefine marriage — is an operation of precisely the kind you have accused religion of in the past. It posits an absolute right and an absolute wrong, and proposes to enforce it on a civil population regardless of what that population thinks about it. In your formulation, the right/wrong of this issue must take precedence over the frequently-expressed desires of majorities of the people.
I note also that this issue bears no relation to that of slavery in the United States. On that issue, the nation began its life profoundly divided, and before the Civil War the people in Northern states demonstrated opposition to it in politically significant numbers when they were given the opportunity to do so. There was never any such process as majority after majority of American voters voting to keep slavery going. The states did not hold referenda every year on the subject, as they have been doing on marriage.
At any rate, to proclaim that it is right to accept gay marriage and wrong to oppose it is to use the forms of God without the authority of God. To want this proclamation to be enforced on others, regardless of their will, is to posit the existence of a moral authority that supersedes the will of the people, an authority to which they must be subject — but without a God of mercy in the picture, and indeed, with philosophical recourse only to the imperfect “justice” of humans.
What I’m afraid you and I will not agree on is that mankind is innately just enough to be chartered with enforcing long lists of moral views on his fellows. Man’s history under all conditions is basically a pile of evidence to the contrary.
Government that demands its citizens officially recognize something as “marriage” that they do not actually view as “marriage” is government that is governing too much. This issue is not about what gay people get to do; making it an issue of government, law, and “rights” inherently makes it about what all the people must do. That’s in fact the whole point of the movement. Since we have repeated demonstrations over the last two decades that adopting gay marriage is not what the majority of Americans want to do, those who insist that they must are invoking the same kind of supersessionary moral authority the Inquisition courts invoked to demand that Jews “convert” in 16th-century Spain.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:57 am
blather.
the proponents are calling for an end to a legal debarment. your position is the one of enforcing a moral view in legal form.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
@ fuster:
An insulting interjection is not an argument. As for the point you try to make, up until around the day before yesterday the idea that individuals of the same sex had been “debarred” from the institution of marriage would have been greeted with mystified laughter. Your argument presumes the re-definition that you are seeking to accomplish.
The main things that likely will be achieved by such a re-definition will be further alienation from the the law and civil institutions of people with traditional views. On past experience, one might expect the effects to worsen over time as legal and other challenges proceed. A backlash is also possible, however.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Certainly, it would have been laughable to some, many, or most.
Many things have been, are and will be.
My argument presumes nothing other than that the state recognizes marriage, it offers privileges to people if they are married, and one of the conditions for obtaining those privileges is that the persons applying for a government-granted license to marry be of opposite sex.
Failing to be of opposite sex is cause for denial of the license.
Is this debarment or not? How am I assuming the re-definition?
January 19th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
CKM — agreed. There is no “debarment” in current law. If everything the government didn’t actively affirm constituted a “debarment,” the list of things all of us were being debarred from, 24/7, would stretch from here back to the beginning of time.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
@ fuster:
By using the word “marriage.” But I think you know that.
If gay activists were content to have state-recognized privileges apply to domestic partnerships and civil unions, which can be contracted by anyone regardless of sexual or romantic relationship, they wouldn’t be demanding the redefinition of marriage.
But they are, in fact, demanding the redefinition of marriage.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
The guv actively affirms and privileges marriage. Two people eligible on every other ground are denied the license by being of same gender.
You’re certainly correct that there are an endless number of legal debarments, but you’re not correct when denying this to be among them.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
I see your point, but I think that we’re on different ground here.
I’m suggesting a modification of the qualification for a state-licensed marriage, you and the Tsar seem to be saying that such eligibility change is overwhelming.
Seems more a linguistic disagreement than anything else.
If you want to call them state-licensed unions conferring legal rights, privileges, duties and obligations, I’m fine with that, despite being both a lazy and terrible typist.
January 19th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
It’s not an arbitrary decision – or no more arbitrary than making some but not all citizens eligible for maternity leave, child support, etc., or for certain public accommodations or benefits, but not other ones – it’s no more arbitrary than denying someone the right to a marriage license simply because the other person he or she would like to marry is too young, already married to someone else, not human, etc.
It was long considered settled that the state had an interest in marriage and related laws because the state had an interest in the lives and welfare of its citizens – in particular because the state wouldn’t exist unless its families produced children who grew up to replace them. In a way, this is historically backwards, because the interest of the species in its own survival pre-exists any particular form of political organization. Again, the state exists to further the interests of people, not the other way around, and the family bond is the most fundamental bond of all.
The state doesn’t have the ability to regulate marriage as currently defined without regard to gender. It would be like charging income tax on assets: Assets aren’t income. It could conceivably stop issuing marriage licenses at all, but even then it wouldn’t really have the ability to withdraw from the marriage game entirely, because family life and gender relations, as defined primarily and overwhelmingly through “blood relations,” pervades every aspect of life.
Call them “civil unions” or “gay marriages” or call them “pastafagiggles” or call them whatever you want. If you acknowledge that they’re not the same as traditional marriage, then you can decide what they imply. If we change the definition of marriage, or define traditional marriage or recognition and celebration of traditional marriage as somehow discriminatory, then we open up the Pandora’s Box, and face the next stages of litigation and life-and-death cultural warfare.
Frankly, I don’t like the fact that this whole thing is turning on 50%+1 votes. Changes this fundamental should reflect societal consensus, not transitory political advantages.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
“pastfagiggles” is a registered trademark and Chef Boyardee is gonna be beating about your bony cranium with a ladle after the ConAgra legal team sues the lint from out your navel.
Now, where the hell did you get “arbitrary” from? Let’s go with wonderful,traditional values held by people for sentimental and spiritual reasons.
Or is traditional marriage the law of the land because George and the boys made a pact with the devil?
January 19th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
“arbitrary” in this context would imply that the exclusion of same sex couples was based on prejudice.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Now, I’m supposed to be pursuing real life stuff. If instead I’m going to be blogging, it’s gonna be on Massacheezits. I’ll put up a new thread.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
You can’t even say discriminatory?
Let’s not go with something that sounds like it might be capricious when the damned debarment is based on religion and notions of God’s will.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
.
I’m not going to dignify that obviously prejudiced statement with an argument. Please re-read this entire thread four times, and read the Dutch Scholars letter, too, then get back to me.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
I can’t read that idiot letter any more than the two times that I have.
It’s nothing beyond opinion. There’s no science in the scientists’ letter.
(It’s highly doubtful that a rise in illegitimate births was caused by same-sex coupling.)
The entirety of the letter was 1) things changed 2) homosexual marriage was one of the things that changed 3) the changes are not ones that seem immediately beneficial.
Piffle and poppycock as it was too short for blather
January 19th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
@ fuster:
Scholars, not scientists. I emphasized that I didn’t consider the letter definitive. However, the points they make and the reasonable concerns they raise go well beyond “not immediately beneficial” – and also have little or nothing to do with “religion and notions of God’s will.”
January 19th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Their concerns are their concerns. The letter is not only not definitive, it’s not necessarily an embodiment of reason.
They have nothing there that is specific to our discussion of same-sex marriage.
A call for caution and study of trends in opposite-sex marriage is tangential or less.
Having more marriages allowed is likely to not result in less marriage.
Forget that.
Do you wish to dispute my bald and unsupported contention that our present system is rooted in, and largely supported because of, religion?
January 19th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
@ fuster:
Already have disputed your bald and unsupported contention above in my meanderings on the history of the institution of marriage, and even if I accepted your argument, what difference would it make, unless you believe that religion arises out of nothing or randomly, rather than, for instance, as a social-cultural construct built on economic, historical, and even biological foundations?
January 19th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
No, your view is simplistic, and, again, presumes the re-definition that people on your side of the argument are seeking to accomplish. Devaluing marriage and in other ways contributing to the decline of marriage may very well lead to fewer marriages over time. It may eventually lead to a situation in which general interest in the institution in its civil dimenions will have decreased substantially. At that point, even those gays who’ve rather recently had their interest in it awakened may not care anymore.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
One difference would be that if religion is a construct of human experience, it would be adaptable and its adherents would be freer to change their opinions than would be the case if they were literalists.
Way early in the discussion George said that homosexual marriage wouldn’t hurt a soul.
I, or course, suspect that some esteemed Zombies would disagree with that.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
It may eventually lead to the end of the known universe or worse, but as there is no rational basis for thinking that, let’s not.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
@ fuster:
If the laws, customs, and beliefs around the institution of marriage have a material basis – in economics and biology, eventually codified in religion – then it’s not a question of adherence to a particular text or interpretation, but whether any re-definition would stand the test of time without an alteration of that material basis. In the meantime, the embrace of an absurdity would still do damage, both to civic institutions and to people, including, eventually, the very same people that the re-definition was intended to benefit most directly.
It probably doesn’t “hurt a soul” for people, gay couples, gay and straight couples, triples, and quadruples, to call themselves married or call themselves pastafagiggled. In isolation, having the state issue marriage certificates to people who wouldn’t previously have qualified doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s just a piece of paper. But things don’t work that way, as I’ve already discussed. If the piece of paper wasn’t thought more than a mere formality or decoration, then no one would be, for example, tracking down gay marriage opponents and harassing them.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
people who harass gay marriage opponents are doing so because it’s beneficial to society.
January 20th, 2010 at 4:56 am
fuster wrote:
Yes, because this family formation predates our modern religions. This is sociology more than anything else. Marriage, the union of the the biological parents of the next generation, has been proven again and again, by social scientists, as the best environment for the rainsing of children. The government merely codified this well known truism (before known based upon tradition, now, known based upon scientific study) in law. It is in the interest of the state to recognize these unions. Other unions offer no benefit to the state. The state did not create marriage, as we know it, and the gay marriage advocates make the argument that it did. It fails the history test.
Once again, I don’t care what the law ever says. A marriage is between a man and a woman. I will never be persuaded otherwise. Just because the state decides to redefine a word doesn’t change my understanding of what the word means. The only ones playing god here are the ones blaming the other side of hiding in their religion. Guess what, I have just decided that green is actually blue. This is no different.
January 20th, 2010 at 8:44 am
fuster wrote:
No, they are demonstrating in spades the great intolerance they have for others. An intolerance for which they accuse others. The gay marriage politicos are the intolerant ones.
What would happen if society decided that since we are being forced to pick sides here, we decide to go back to picking against gays in all respects. So lets go back to blackballing people because they are gay.
This is what the gay marriage avocates in California are doing to people who don’t agree with their desire to redefine marriage. Am I supposed to have to decide on going to go after everyone who was against prop 8 as being anti-family and try and get them fired from their job, and boycott their businesses, and essentially try and destroy them? That’s what they are trying to do to me.
If you don’t think there is a backlash coming you best pay attention. We just saw a different version of one in Massachusetts. There is no reason this cannot move in different directions.
January 20th, 2010 at 8:51 am
@JEM:
Since you say that the legalization of gay marriage won’t change your understanding of what the word means, you shouldn’t have any objection to it.
Before the development of modern religions, open and accepted homosexuality existed in ancient Greece and in shamanistic societies. As for marriage being the best way to raise children, legitimizing gay marriage will stabilize marriage, since homosexuals will be somewhat less likely than before to marry those of the opposite sex–a type of marriage more likely to lead to divorce than one in which the two partners are attracted to each other.
@ CK MacLeod:
The statement by the Dutch doctors gets the chronology wrong. After society recognized that women and men both have sexual desires, and that it was legitimate for them to base marriage on their desires as well as their interest in reproducing, divorce rates rose. This happened long before anyone ever mentioned the possibility of gay marriage.
There is another variable at work concerning this issue. Homosexuals were regularly executed before Christianity was defanged by the Enlightenment and before Biblical Judaism was defanged by the Talmud. They are regularly executed in Iran today. For whatever reason, there are homosexuals and there always have been. Maybe genetic engineering will prevent this from occurring in the future, but that’s a big “if.” In the meantime, it is important to do what we can to end the causeless hatred that so many people feel toward homosexuals. Granting them the same rights as heterosexuals to legal unions, called by the same name, is a way of saying that they are human beings equally entitled to both liberty and respect.
Mutual respect for all law-abiding citizens is inherently good for all societies. Bias hurts not only the target but the whole community.
January 20th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Not a desirable way of achieving that end. More likely to achieve the opposite end result.
The state should not be in the business of mandating absurdities – in this instance that there is no important difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality in regard to family formation – for the sake of reparations or emotional therapy aimed at sub-groups.
What you’re advocating is a kind of moral affirmative action, without regard for the possible consequences, which you simply refuse to acknowledge. Your “mutual respect for all law-abiding citizens” strangely does not extend to those who have strongly different ideas on this issue.
January 20th, 2010 at 11:18 am
@ CK MacLeod:
Affirmative action calls for excluding some people in order to include others. Gay marriage excludes nobody.
Homosexual acts do not lead to pregnancy, and so clearly it does not play the same role in family formation. Family stability is a different question. Mutual love and respect leads to family stability. Gay marriage will, in all likelihood, lower the number of homosexuals in male-female marriages, which in turn is likely to increase stability.
I respect all those who disagree with me. I am surprised that you haven’t noticed that. What I don’t respect is opinions that I believe will support hard-heartedness. Respecting opinions is different from respecting those who hold those opinions.
January 20th, 2010 at 11:44 am
That’s exactly wrong: Re-definition excludes everybody from the pre-existing institution of state-sanctioned monogamous, heterosexual marriage as the basis of family formation, since, as far as the law is concerned, it will have been defined out of existence.
Re-definition of marriage removes the recognition of traditional marriage as the unique and fundamental institution of our civilization. It devalues every existing traditional marriage in the eyes of the state – reducing all marriages to a subjective, instantly revocable expression of commitment between two (for now) adults. The culture war that ensues when the state and society proceed to operate under two definitions and come into conflict – one definition propagated throughout society and enforceable by the state the other continuing to reign in culture and life – will take casualties on both sides, to uncertain long term results, but the principle first victims of further “progress” along these lines will be middle-aged women whose sexual market value will suffer further marginal decline, and their children, as typically under alternative sexual regimes, especially polygamy and “free love.”
What about people who have been discriminated against under the incest taboo, the taboo against adult-child relationships, the taboos against bigamy and adultery, and so on? When do they get their reparations? Under a purely emotional-transactional, subjective/elective definition of marriage, what possible rationale is there for excluding these and other “alternative” arrangements from equal consideration and approval, alongside dismissal of critics and skeptics as merely motivated by prejudice?
January 20th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Can we bring back the Avatar thread, (did you ever think I would say this) this one has gotten stale. China’s attempt at behavioral engineering, got them in this predicament. Did the Greeks and the Romans, have gay marriage, they were more advanced than us puny
mortals on this matter
January 20th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
@ narciso:
Do you seriously want to follow up on Avatar now?
January 20th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Marriage was radically redefined when it became a union–a voluntary union–of two equal partners with equal rights, including the right to property and the right for either party to begin divorce proceedings.
Reparations? Who said anything about reparations? We are talking about liberty and justice for all.
@ narciso:
You’re right. Enough already. Colin may have the last word. I won’t reply any more.
January 20th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
No, not really but it has become a ‘Mexican standoff’. Frankly what people do privately I don’t want to know, so don’t share;( that means you, Andrew) What these issues seem to share is how certain groups can override institutions found seemingly in disfavor(ie; the traditional family, and the military) always for a larger agenda
January 20th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
@ narciso:
So, if gays want to join the military and the ranks of the married that means they don’t like the military or marriage?
January 20th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
@ fuster:
Gays? You mean “gay agenda” advocates and their allies. Not the same thing.
January 20th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Quite, quite true. I commend you for keeping that distinction in mind.
It would have been even better if you had brought it up when someone was
blgoing on and on and on about how the military couldn’t have openly gay people because of the dreadful advocacy groups.January 20th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
An interesting thread. Whoda thought you guys (and gal) on both sides of the question were so obsessive about gays?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’m not doctrinaire one way or the other on the subject of changing the long standing definition of “marriage” to encompass same sex unions for reasons of “fairness” and “equal rights”. But it does strike me that our current obesity problem is proof that it’s possible in life to have too much of a good thing. Also, the fact that a camel can carry a billion straws is not proof it can carry a billion and one.
The mere fact that we’ve already achieved such impressive illegitimacy and single parent “household” rates would seem to counsel conservatism in considering things that will further upset cultural norms and potentially weaken the single most important civilizing institution.
January 24th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Exactly, CKM. Gays are not politically uniform any more than any other segment of the population is. The ones I’ve known have mostly been pretty apolitical, like most of the other people I’ve known. Some think there should be government recognition of gay marriage, others don’t, or don’t care.
I’m sure Sully was doing a gentle chain-pull with his “obsession” reference. That’s how I’m going to take it anyway.
But he raises tangentially a key point, which is that it takes a really, really rich society, generations separated from hand-to-mouth living and with nothing better to do, to come up with political questions like this. No society that has to scrabble for its daily bread would think it was sane to propose that women raise children alone or that men marry each other.
January 24th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
@ Sully:
Back home and surfing again ahead of schedule?
I find this topic interesting because it’s one in which I see the national discussion being mainly carried out in terms that misstate or misrepresent the real arguments – even while the electorate just barely manages to hold on to the position I deem more sound politically, morally, and practically.
January 24th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
As often, you find a wise thing via my points that go beyond my statements.
For the record I’m not doctrinaire on the subject of gay marriage; but I can readily think of lots of other things in our society far more worth arguing about. For one, we’re spawning a huge percentage of kids who are growing up deprived of stable two parent family life, thus condemned to be (probably) even less productive and stable than their parent generation. For another, we’re raising up much of a generation of from the cradle heathens with no religious grounding. We’re doing this because we, the parent generation, see our own (adult acquired) irreligiousness as no problem. Because it was Dan Quayle who asked the question, “Can we be good without God?”, does not make it a bad question.
@ CK MacLeod:
I’m back early because we drove my brother’s car up from Florida expecting to spend a full day each in St. Augustine (too cold), Savannah (too cold) and Richmond (too cold). So we just did a little looking around in each place and drove on. The Villages down in Florida was great, but we originally only planned four days there and that was about right. Neither I nor my wife is quite ready for a long stay in “Heaven’s Waiting Room” quite yet, although we may plan a couple of weeks next time. I’ll be writing more on my own blog if you want to know the details.
January 24th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
You’re absolutely right, by the way, that to have the courts impose gay marriage against the will of the majority of the populace and clearly in the absence of any rational reading of the constitution is both wrong and madness.
Court imposition of black civil rights was clearly in furtherance of the 14th Amendment (and the “all men are created equal” dohicky in the declaration – not that the declaration matters in law, but it does in common sense), which had been wrongly ignored.
Each court discovery of “rights” that are not apparent in the constitution contributes to contempt for courts. One day that contempt will be sufficient to result in bad things. We are only a nation of laws because of the tacit agreement of the vast majority of us to respect that document and the branch of government that interprets it.
January 24th, 2010 at 9:40 pm