Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
In the May edition of First Things, R. R. Reno presents an editorial that strikes me as entirely correct--and thoroughly ominous. Excerpts:
Last summer, New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a speech in advance of the close vote in the New York state legislature that decided that men have a right to marry men and women women. He described the fight for same-sex marriage as "the great civil-rights issue of our times...."
[But the]...belief that homosexual acts are immoral is not the same kind of claim as the belief that black people are inferior because they are black. When we deem homosexual acts immoral, we are not stigmatizing a class of persons; we're exercising our moral reason about the rightness and wrongness of actions. Unlike racism, principled opposition to homosexual rights has a firm basis. It's normal to judge behavior, including...sexual behavior. That's why describing homosexual acts as immoral is not at all like calling black men and women inferior.
To merge sexual liberation into the civil-rights movement dramatically raises the stakes in public debate. The Selma analogy [that is, comparing the gay rights movement with the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama] makes traditional views of sexual morality as noxious as racism, and in so doing encourages progressives to adopt something like a total-war doctrine. The implication is that people who hold such views should have no voice in American society and that homosexuality should be aggressively affirmed in our public and private institutions, while dissent is punished.
Chai Feldblum [pictured here] is an Obama appointee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission....She sees the future this way: "Positive changes in the moral values of our country--such as moral values that honor the love between two people, regardless of their gender--will inherently and necessarily pose a challenge to those who believe, for religious or other reasons, that such love is sinful...." [W]hen asked her opinion on the conflict between homosexual rights and the moral commitments of religious institutions she insisted that "in almost all cases sexual liberty should win, because that's the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner." It's a frank statement that clarifies how few restraints progressives feel once they are convinced that they are fighting for "the great civil-rights issue of our times...."
I fear that we are entering into a new phase of the culture war...The Selma analogy gives [progressives]...a rationale for deploying the vast coercive power of the civil-rights apparatus to serve their moral vision of sexual liberation. It's a prospect that will give an even more literal meaning to the dictatorship of relativism.
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Apr '11
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Aaron Miller
Statistically, gays have much higher incidence rates of STDs and other sex-related problems than heterosexuals. They have lower life expectancy. They have higher rates of depression and other psychological ailments, even in gay-friendly communities like San Francisco. And, for reasons unknown to me, a far greater percentage of homosexuals than heterosexuals practice pedophilia.
Any person should be free to live a self-destructive lifestyle. But others should be free to openly disapprove. · 1 hour ago
Talk about putting the cart before the horse. The higher rate of STDs isn't caused by being homosexual but by having poor sex practices, and a smaller community. It is not because men are doing it with men. The same thing would happen to heterosexuals. You are confusing biology with culture. Gays are probably more depressed because they experience more harassment and abuse (because of their sexuality). Also because gay people gather in places like San Francisco doesn't mean they developed their problems there. They brought them along. Pedophilia I think is its own category of sexual behavior. I mean by your logic heterosexuality leads to increased levels of rape. Since most rapists are heterosexuals for some reason...
Jun '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Liberty Dude: Etoildunard,
Just so I understand - you would think it legitimate to deny a group their right of representation just because an amendment stating the same was somehow passed?
If 90% of Americans want prohibition of alcohol, again, we'll get prohibition of alcohol again. That's just about as likely as women losing the vote, but if you say that it's empirically impossible, then that's a type of tyranny coming from you.
Aug '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
I am sure that Chai ( is that short for Theodore ?) understands the gravity of the Holocaust of Stonewall ....
May '11
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Sorry, Chai. You're not my cup of tea.
Edited on April 18, 2012 at 2:39amApr '11
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Liberty Dude: James of England:
I agree with you that in terms of enforcement of the statute, it must only apply prospectively.
However, if voting is a natural right of women, it must have always existed. Otherwise you find yourself in the terrifying situation where your only rights are those granted to you by the whim of the state. Philosophically anyway.
Do you have a degree in law btw? Your writing reflects sophisticated thinking. · 56 minutes ago
Thank you. I'm a California attorney, with a few more degrees than I needed for that. I agree that if women's suffrage were a natural right, it would be likely to be eternal, although it could be a contingent right. As an Orthodox Christian, though, who started out in theology, I don't believe that there is a natural right for anyone to vote; no one voted for Solomon, Moses, or Constantine, but they were all legitimate.
I do think that democratic republicanism is a much better system than any other, and feel horror when I imagine the withdrawal of women's suffrage, but can find no evidence of a divine mandate for either.
Apr '11
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Liberty Dude: Etoiledunord,
So if the constitution was modified such that women no longer have the right to vote, would you consider that legitimate?
Or do they have the right to vote as a consequence of being human? Doesn't the Declaration of Independence say man is born with "certain unalienable rights?", and that our constitutional rights are based on those natural rights?
Your post implies that majority rule could invent any right it wished, and that we should respect it. · 42 minutes ago
Edited 40 minutes ago
If the Constitution, in the view of its authors, consisted solely of inalienable, natural rights (and it's worth noting that almost no right in the Constitution is actually inalienable in a terribly meaningful way), I can't help but feel that more of it would have applied to the states, particularly before the passage of the 14th Amendment.
It is hard to imagine a natural right to be free from a federally established church but subject to Massachusetts laws mandating tithing to, generally, your local congregationalist church. It is a brilliant, and, I believe, divinely inspired document, but it is more a practical work than a piece of scripture.
Jan '11
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Fred Cole
If producing children were the only basis for marriage then we'd administer fertility tests when marriage license applications, it would be limited to people of child bearing age and any marriages that didn't produce children would be declared invalid. · 2 hours ago
Edited 2 hours ago
Why? We issue licenses on the basis of general group characteristics regularly. This is simply another instance of that.
Nov '11
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
James Of England
This claim is beneath you, Fred. You know full well that essentially all laws apply to some people who are not the targets of some specific aims of the law, and do not apply to some people who are specific targets. No law is a perfect fit for its aims, and this is particularly true when, as with marriage, the topic is so ancient and fundamentally entwined with civilization as we know it. · 2 hours ago
We just see the societal function of marriage differently. You see the function as producing children. The way the laws are written doesn't reflect that as a reality, or else the limitations I noted above would and should be applied.
Also, plenty of children are produced out of wedlock, so the linking of marriage and the production of children doesn't seem to hold up. You don't need a societal institution to allow for a basic biological function.
I see marriage as performing two important functions in society: The preservation of capital and the protection of children. Gay marriage performs both these functions just as well.
Nov '11
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Let me add to that:
Marriage is a legal contract between parties.
What makes you third party busybodies think you have the right or authority to stick your nose into my affairs and tell me who I can and cannot contract with and under what circumstances?
Please don't give me any higher purpose communitarian nonsense.
Jun '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Liberty Dude:
Majority rule cannot create/destroy individual rights. If it's determined homosexuals have these rights, then they always had them; they were just not recognized.
"If it's determined" by whom? By our betters? By the (liberal) intelligentsia? By majority vote of the Supreme Court justices? Who has the power, who has the authority to recognize new individual rights?
Jun '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Aaron Miller
Marriage is the most primitive act of human society. It is the cornerstone on which any society is founded. Any society which attempts to alter its foundation without shaking everything built upon that foundation is in for a rude awakening. · 3 hours ago
I agree, but I fear we already passed that point. We fundamentally altered marriage by eliminating permanent, lifelong commitment via no-fault divorce laws.
In comparison, SSM strikes me as drilling another small hole in the hull of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg...
Jun '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Lady Bertrum: The problem is in what isbehavior and what is theauthentic self. Conservatives try to make the distinctions about behavior. Gays (most) don't believe homosexuality is a behavior; they believe it is who they are and how they were born.
Conservatives will lose this agrument as long as they persist in trying to seperate the sin from the sinner. · 4 hours ago
I'm confused by your conclusion. Are you suggesting we would win the argument if we would instead condemn both the sin and the sinner?
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Chai Feldblum uses the worst possible word to advance her cause - honor. When homosexuals insist that others "honor" their relationship, they are asking others to abandon their religious beliefs. "Honor" is completely unnecessary to their cause.
The best word homosexuals can use to have any reasonable chance to reach consensus on the matter with conservatives in general and the religious specifically is to ask us not to "honor" their relationships, but to "ignore" them. It is exactly what I ask of gays about my relationship with my wife. I desire not their approval, only that they stay out of my way.
I do have a problem with the following statement:
Focusing on the action and not desire for the action leaves straight guys with the green light to act on their own desires. How convenient!
Let all who assert that take a vow of lifetime celibacy toward women and leave open only the opportunity to sleep with men and tell me how "normal" they feel.
Jun '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
James Of England
Thank you. I'm a California attorney, with a few more degrees than I needed for that. I agree that if women's suffrage were a natural right, it would be likely to be eternal, although it could be a contingent right. As an Orthodox Christian, though, who started out in theology, I don't believe that there is a natural right for anyone to vote; no one voted for Solomon, Moses, or Constantine, but they were all legitimate.
I do think that democratic republicanism is a much better system than any other, and feel horror when I imagine the withdrawal of women's suffrage, but can find no evidence of a divine mandate for either. · 2 hours ago
Self-determination is a natural right, which is why it's so abhorrent to think of limiting women's suffrage. Only outside force, with this as with any other natural right, can limit its free exercise.
Jun '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
James Of England
If the Constitution, in the view of its authors, consisted solely of inalienable, natural rights (and it's worth noting that almost no right in the Constitution is actually inalienable in a terribly meaningful way), I can't help but feel that more of it would have applied to the states, particularly before the passage of the 14th Amendment.
It is hard to imagine a natural right to be free from a federally established church but subject to Massachusetts laws mandating tithing to, generally, your local congregationalist church. It is a brilliant, and, I believe, divinely inspired document, but it is more a practical work than a piece of scripture. · 2 hours ago
I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding the Constitution, but would add that the document must be properly viewed in the context of our other founding documents, in particular the Declaration of Independence and the bulk of the Federalist Papers. Our Constitution means nothing if we don't understand that it is the guarantor, not the granter, of those rights with which we are born.
Edited on April 18, 2012 at 4:46amJun '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Tommy De Seno:
I do have a problem with the following statement:
Do you have a problem with the first sentence in isolation?
"It's normal to judge behavior, including...sexual behavior." That strikes me as an entirely true and uncontroversial statement.
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Joseph Stanko
Tommy De Seno:
I do have a problem with the following statement:
Do you have a problem with the first sentence in isolation?
"It's normal to judge behavior, including...sexual behavior." That strikes me as an entirely true and uncontroversial statement. · 5 minutes ago
I see your point - judging it is fine. You make a judgment like it or not. Restricting it based upon that judgment when the "damage to society" arguments are entirely contrived and speculative is another.
There is similarity to the racial civil rights movement in that we didn't outlaw the color of anyone's skin, we outlawed their behavior because of it.
Jun '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Tommy De Seno
There is similarity to the racial civil rights movement in that we didn't outlaw the color of anyone's skin, we outlawed their behavior because of it.
The civil rights movement culminated in laws that prohibited discrimination on the basis of skin color. If I own a business such as a lunch counter, I cannot refuse service to someone because I dislike their skin color. MLK famously articulated the underlying moral principle when he said "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
The gay rights movement is attempting to extend the principle of civil rights law to cover discrimination on the basis of behavior. In other words, it will no longer be permissible to judge people by the content of their character.
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Joseph Stanko
Tommy De Seno
There is similarity to the racial civil rights movement in that we didn't outlaw the color of anyone's skin, we outlawed their behavior because of it.
The civil rights movement culminated in laws that prohibited discrimination on the basis of skin color. If I own a business such as a lunch counter, I cannot refuse service to someone because I dislike their skin color.
The restriction was as to action...
Jun '10
Re: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and a New Phase in the Culture War
Tommy De Seno
Joseph Stanko
Tommy De Seno
There is similarity to the racial civil rights movement in that we didn't outlaw the color of anyone's skin, we outlawed their behavior because of it.
The civil rights movement culminated in laws that prohibited discrimination on the basis of skin color. If I own a business such as a lunch counter, I cannot refuse service to someone because I dislike their skin color.
The restriction was as to action... · 5 minutes ago
Aren't laws generally restrictions as to actions?
You can't very easily pass a law prohibiting racism itself, at least not without entering the dangerous realm of thought crimes. So instead you pass a law prohibiting racist behavior.
Chai Feldblum seems to believe we need similar laws prohibiting "homophobic" or "heternormative" behavior.