The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
My husband couldn't get over the light and breezy coverage of Ryan Lochte's mother saying her son has one-night stands. She said this on national television and the media covered it but seemed to have no problem with it. My husband said he feels like up is down. Why, he wonders, do the media revile an athlete like Tim Tebow for attempting to be virtuous but celebrate Lochte for announcing he's not?
One of the things that was so striking about the Million Mouth March (as Jon Stewart called the Chick-fil-A "eat-in") was that it showed that many people strongly believe in things that the media ignore or deliberately hide. They are sick of government overreach and violations of free speech. They are sick of being bullied about same-sex marriage. And they are sick of having traditional values mocked and denigrated. (And, yes, maybe they just like perfectly fried chicken sandwiches.)
The media routinely characterize belief that marriage is sacred -- and that it's a conjugal union, that it should not be dissolved, that it is a blessing if it includes children -- as homophobic or bigoted or retrograde or unloving.
And while that characterization and bullying has been remarkably effective at pushing public opinion in favor of same-sex marriage, at what cost I wonder? This week has been very difficult for activists who support same-sex marriage. Here are three examples:
A mainstream media reporter published on his public Facebook page all sorts of things. Typical stuff -- his hatred for Mitt Romney. His strong support of Barack Obama. His belief that the HHS mandate is no big deal. His hatred for Chick-fil-A. But then it turned out that he was covering the Chick-fil-A eat-in for his paper. He put on Facebook that he'd never felt as much like an alien in his country as he did that day. He claimed he saw things that differed greatly from other reports around the country. He claimed that people were racist, homophobic and speaking ill of immigrants (but that when he asked for their names, they conveniently declined). He went on to mock the protesters for taking "such a brave stand ... eating a [expletive] sandwich." The comment thread to his post is full of people mocking rednecks and Christians and FoxNews. They plot how to physically attack Chick-fil-A locations, etc.
His editor got wind of the very public meltdown and reprimanded him.
Or what about the bully who went after a Chick-fil-A drive-thru worker and then, inexplicably, posted his boorish behavior on the internet for all to see? His employer also reprimanded him. Actually, his employer fired him. He was an executive at the company and had reflected poorly on it.
When I wrote about my experience at Chick-fil-A and media coverage of same, many of my readers expressed dismay that the media could cover it as anything other than bigoted jerks who seethe with hatred for their fellow man. To them it was self-evident. Take this note from a leftist site that a reader posted to show me how awful I was. A lesbian in Tucson drove by an insanely crowded Chick-fil-A and recorded the following reaction:
My reaction surprised me. It felt like all those people—young men in pickup trucks, moms with kids, older couples—were stepping on my chest. It felt like hidden bigotry had come out to make itself known. It felt like hatred and rejection. It felt like go home, you’re not wanted here. My response was visceral. My gut ached, a sob caught in my throat, and my eyes welled up with tears. I couldn’t drive away fast enough. And I’m not a person who cries easily, at least not usually, but I cried all the way home. Just those couple of minutes of seeing how many people are anti-gay, anti-me, hurt more than I could have ever expected.
All of these stories sadden me, even if I can find errors with the thinking or behavior of each of them. Each, in their own way, clearly indicate confusion about who their fellow Americans are and what they believe.
But I place most of the blame the media and the cultural elite.
If it is true that believing marriage is the conjugal union of one man and one wife is bigoted, the equivalent to the most vile racists of the past centuries, then it makes sense to react in the way the reporter, the recently fired corporate executive and the lesbian passer-by did.
If the idea that marriage is the conjugal union of man and wife is bigotry -- and the mainstream media and the cultural elite have pounded this view non-stop for years (here's the latest example of the accompanying holier-than-thou pietism with which the view is pushed) -- then you should respond by tormenting drive-thru workers who are part of the bigotry-industrial complex. You should speak ill of people who hold this view on Facebook. Often! You should feel like eating a chicken sandwich was about people putting their boot on your chest.
The thing is, though, that it's not. And the media and the cultural elite have been lying. And they have gotten us to a place where people are unable to just be civil to each other (one Ricochet member mentioned he recently got kicked out of his fantasy football league for supporting Chick-fil-A).
When I first began covering this issue -- back when California was deciding Prop. 8 -- I was shocked to learn that what the media had told me was wrong. When I interviewed people who supported Prop. 8, I found that they were eminently calm and reasonable. Their arguments did take a while to learn, but they were able to be learned.
These people explained why marriage law exists and what it is designed to protect. They explained why they viewed a change to those laws as seriously misguided. They pointed out some of the logical conclusions to changing the definition of marriage.
Now, you may agree or disagree with what they have to say (and to learn more about what they say, I think this paper is easy to read and digest), but it's not bigotry. And it is a scurrilous indefensible charge to say otherwise.
If our country is to work through these debates about what marriage is and what it should be, we simply must devote ourselves to listening to arguments and thinking things through. It is impossible to do that when we dismiss supporters of traditional marriage as bigots.
It is time to start talking about what marriage is without charging people with bigotry. Some people believe that marriage is the conjugal union of a man and woman who make permanent and exclusive commitment to each other, based on their gender differences and built around conjugal acts -- those acts that naturally lead to reproduction and unite them as a reproductive unit. Other people believe that marriage is the union of two people of any sex who commit to romantically love and care for each other and share domestic burdens.
Marriage law built on either view will have consequences that are far-reaching. We probably haven't even touched the surface of what those consequences might be. And we will never be able to think these things through rationally and calmly if we denounce one or the other view as unfit for public discussion.
Many of us are tired of cultural battles. Unfortunately, tiring of them doesn't do much to help us resolve them. So when we discuss these things, and we must, let's discuss them in a spirit of love and charity. And let's encourage others to do likewise.
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Comments:
Mar '12
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Jonathan Matthew Gilbert:
If even in this bastion of conservatism we can't discuss this issue without multiple exclamation points, without accusations, without ugliness...then don't kid yourself that this debate is too vicious just because of the gays, or the left, or Barack Obama, or Al Qaeda. Either we are in this boat together. Or we are not.
Now, I respect the heck out of a lot of you guys, but nobody's gonna tell me I'm less American than they are. It's my country, too. · 2 hours ago
Jonathan - thanks for returning. If you could take a look at my post (77 and 78) and share your thoughts I'd appreciate it. I think it goes to the heart of your comment about being treated as "less American".
How are the rights of co-habitating homosexuals different from the rights of hetrosexuals who "shack up"?
What remedies have been tried and are dismissed as insufficient by the homosexual community? Why?
What benefits does the homosexual community seek to access by "being married" that have been rebuffed? Not "being married" itself, but the benefits themselves?
I ask these things as I truly don't know.
Thanks.
Nov '10
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
The accounts given by Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon, etc., all corroborate each other on these decisive points; moreover, they corroborate what we know via serious historians about life in the polis. Homoeroticism in ancient Greece was not legitimated by appeals to individuality. In fact, it's extremely telling that the word in ancient Greek for individual is idiot. Properly understood, individual is an adjective (a fact upon which, incidentally, Harry Jaffa has expounded to brilliant effect...)
Arguments for homoeroticism made by characters in Plato, et. al., were arguments for an exceptional way of life by nature, with view to some natural hierarchy within "the whole" (as the philosophers call it) because they saw marriage (which could only be conceived by them as between man/woman) as sanctioned by nomos (divine law; or convention) and they thought themselves beyond some merely convention way of life.
The whole homoerotic element in Plato is actually a literary technique used as a marker for the larger question: what is in fact the exceptional or superior way of life -- the root philosophic question. Is it philosophy? Poetry? Gentlemanship? Tyranny? What form of exceptionalism is the ruling form? What's the highest form?
cont'd
Nov '10
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
This is actually, precisely what's going on in the whole heritage of Western literature, art and philosophy. Not everything is equivalent to everything else.
But all arguments in modernity for things like sodomy and same-sex marriage must inevitably be Nietzschean: i.e., the complete affirmation of individuality. Thus today, whether in art or moral social policy, everything is equivalent to everything else. Nussbaum says incest marriage must be licit. Katha Pollitt, Nussbaum's leftist interlocutor, and likewise staunch advocate of SSM, wonders why on earth then polyamory and polygamy musn't also be licit. SSM means we can no longer tell the difference between a man and a woman, and women's best interests and real passions are subverted by not teaching boys to be gentlemen, and by not teaching girls to be modest. The evidence is all in: women are profoundly less happy today than they were 40 years ago, and they are returning to a beast of burden status, akin to what Jefferson noted about American Indian women in Notes on State of Viriginia -- that civilization alone builds up women. We are returning to some form, permutation of, tribalistic society (cf. Charles Murray).
UPDATED: Pollitt link.
Edited on November 3, 2012 at 11:05pmMar '11
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
I'd love to be able to get this many comments on a thread about foreign policy.....
However, turning to the topic at hand:
Mollie Hemingway : All I'm suggesting is that charges of bigotry no longer be permissible in general debates.
I'm sick of hearing it so casually thrown around. It is a scurrilous charge.
People need to learn each other's arguments and engage them. Calling "bigotry" instead of engaging arguments should no longer be permissible.
This is the core of our disagreement Mollie.
My position, relative to your original thread, can be stated simply:
1) Anti-gay bigotry exists
2) Some anti-gay bigots have used the marriage debate as cover.
It seems to me that all too many conservatives either don't believe that (1) is possible, or they think that admitting it and admitting (2) gives away the farm. So they remain silent.
I don't think we can have the debate as you enjoin us to have it unless we call the Left out on its fascistic bullying designed to close down argument. But I also don't think we can have the debate if we refuse to acknowledge (1) and (2).
Mar '11
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Moreover, to respond to a different theme within this thread, I'm going to have to go all Old Testament on you for a moment:
Some of you are suggesting that you are standing at the gates defending marriage against the forces that threaten to bring it down, but you seem ignorant that this has already been done--and not by gays. It was all of us who, some two generations ago, who hollowed out the meaning of the traditional institution. In part this was done by accepting the modern ideas of what an institution are, in part it was done by accepting a certain new view of sex and gender, in part it was done by birth control technologies that allowed for this re-definition of sex.
But however it came to pass, the change has already come to pass. And it was affected by hetereosexuals, not homosexuals.
The question is not "will civil unions/gay marriage end civilization" (which, by the way, it hasn't in any of the countries where its been legalized--Sweden is not Afghanistan). The question is "what is to be done when a moral consensus in a pluralistic society breaks down"?
Dec '10
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Crow's Nest:
1) Anti-gay bigotry exists
2) Some anti-gay bigots have used the marriage debate as cover.
It seems to me that all too many conservatives either don't believe that (1) is possible, or they think that admitting it and admitting (2) gives away the farm.
Done. Moving on. (It's a lousy argument, imo, as there are some people of ill-will on both sides of every argument ever made. This is a leftist tactic -- to judge intention rather than effect -- and to judge it harshly, rather than engage the reasoning.)
Crow's Nest: ...
the change hasalreadycome to pass. And it was affected by hetereosexuals, not homosexuals.
[Good point. Although, not the Catholic church, I would point out.]
The question is not "will civil unions/gay marriage end civilization"... The question is "what is to be done when a moral consensus in a pluralistic society breaks down"?
Breaking down consensus is what the Left does (it's Afghanistan in slow-mo), which is why no one on the Right should ever align with it. The only thing I know to do is to keep speaking to eternal truths... and pray.
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Jonathan Matthew Gilbert: either you believe gays or dangerous...or you don't. If you don't, you won't be troubled by us getting a piece of paper from the government. If you do, there's nothing anyone can say to change your mind. ...
Now, I respect the heck out of a lot of you guys, but nobody's gonna tell me I'm less American than they are. It's my country, too. · 17 hours ago
I realize that most people -- on whatever side they're on -- get very emotional about this debate. But I think a helpful key is to not make the debate about one's person and make it about something more universal. Yes, it can feel like "teh gays" are out to destroy social norms and all values when you're hearing them talk about same-sex marriage. Yes, it can feel like "teh Bible-thumpers" want to stomp on your chest when they talk about same-sex marriage. But we need to take a step back.
Namely, too, we're talking about "marriage" -- not whether someone is American or not (con't.) ...
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
As someone commented over at a different place I write, we need to focus on definitions -- not how we personally feel:
Before we say that someone is calling us less American, we need to understand their argument and see if that's really true.
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Western Chauvinist
Crow's Nest:
1) Anti-gay bigotry exists
2) Some anti-gay bigots have used the marriage debate as cover.
It seems to me that all too many conservatives either don't believe that (1) is possible, or they think that admitting it and admitting (2) gives away the farm.
Done. Moving on. (It's a lousy argument, imo, as there are some people of ill-will on both sides ofeveryargument ever made. This is a leftist tactic -- to judge intention rather than effect -- and to judge it harshly, rather than engage the reasoning.)
Of course there are [expletives] on all sides. There are horrible people everywhere. And each of us is a sinner in any number of ways.
Does bigotry exist? Yes. Is that the traditional argument for traditional marriage? Absolutely not. It's the same thing on the other side. Yes, there are same-sex marriage activists who are bigots or who haven't even considered other arguments. Yes, there are same-sex marriage activists who are bullies.
But not all. And we need to elevate the debate on the merits -- the best arguments from all sides.
Nov '10
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Crow's Nest:
(1) It was all of us who...who hollowed out the meaning of the traditional institution [vs.] modern institutions
(2) But however it came to pass, the change hasalready come to pass....
(3) Sweden is not Afghanistan.
(4) The question is "what is to be done when a moral consensus in a pluralistic society breaks down"?
(1) You mainly hit it on the head. Indeed, to put it more accurately, SSM actually isn't about SSM. It is about feminism. It is about the total break down in the relations between the sexes. Consider my statement above at #102-103, re. modernity, Nietzsche, and the assertion of pure individuality. As I'm sure you know, Mansfield's "Womanly Nihilism" in Manliness is the great, locus classicus exposition of the phenomenon -- sneering, fully weaponized slurs (I'm stealing your fine turn of phrase) of Martha Nussbaum and her "review" of the book to the contrary notwithstanding.
(2) Because we've experienced this catastrophic break-down, it's thus time now simply to open the flood-gates? Your deference to "consensus" -- or what I can only call slavishness to convention -- simply furthers the nihilistic trajectory.
cont'd
Nov '10
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
(3) Sweden: I've visited Scandinavia. Love the place in many ways. And it's also completely on the way out culturally-politically, given another generation or two. The trajectory is clear. Swedish family policy has been essentially, perhaps wittingly, a borrowing of Soviet family policy. Codevilla's references to Sweden here are edifying/sobering. Consider it in light of Strauss's discussion of Marx in his lecture on Plato's Symposium...
(4) Your argument amounts to human law alone is a sufficient basis for society's laws. The sequence of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche shows precisely where this attempt leads.
Without meaning to, you're actually on the side of those who, like Nussbaum and Pollitt, think historical change in some unidirectional manner is more evident than something like natural right or natural law.
I beg to differ, and I think all experience of the last hundred years proves that you are wrong. What do you get when you leave nature (or even God) behind? And it’s not just a reductio ad Hitlerum argument.
I could write more, but it's a beautiful, sunny, non-nihilistic day outside and a beach in Malibu beckons...
Feb '11
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
As someone who has been involved in a few threads during which I was drastically outnumbered I commend you for advancing your case anyway. Yet I remain unconvinced.
It strikes me as interesting that when the legislative process doesn't get your side a complete victory you endorse a turn to the courts- with the plain intent to use the power of the state to force people to recognize same sex marriage, whether they want to or not, or whether their religion allows them to or not.
Hey, I don't blame you- considering that you believe it to be a fundamental right. I feel the same way about the Second Amendment BTW.
But from that I also conclude that there is no compromise possible, and at the end of the day this issue will be decided by main force.
Either the majority will be allowed to decide whether or not they want gay marriage in their state- or it will be imposed upon them against their wishes.
Not being a fan of tyranny I favor the first option.
Jul '10
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Sorry. These folks want Caesar to provide them their bread and their circuses, to include feeding those filthy charnel house worshippers to the lions. They call you a bigot, call them mass murders. This is all Alinsky poisons in the debate. I was raised in the heart of this clownery, with the children of those who would be our masters, many of those children now trying the same games. Run the same verbal escalations and mind games right back at them with twice the ferocity. And always ask for hard facts. These are the chattel, starting with the news readers that make Ted Baxter sound like Richard Epstein, that cheered at the Colosseum and packed a picnic lunch to watch the crucifixions. Going on the defensive just registers to them that you acknowledge yourself to be whatever variety of troll they claim you are.
It is not "nice" to goose step the entire country off of a cliff so that a few politicians can extend their goody grab a bit. It is not "nice" to invent rights and then try to stigmatize anyone that does not recognize them. It is not intolerance to stop pandering to it.
Edited on August 5, 2012 at 7:21amAug '12
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Excuse me for joining in. I'm a lurker who was enticed by the free month's trial, so I hope I am not imposing.
The question of equality for gay people wrt marriage hinges on which of the two definitions of marriage you pick:
"simply the legal arrangement of any two people who profess a desire to enter it"
or
"the joining of male and female for the procreation and care of future generations"
May I ask why the second is so *obviously* more accurate than the first? Clearly many marriages today are not about procreation, but many (most) marriages are. Putting aside personal religious belief, if the current definition of marriage can accommodate the childless (and the newlywed menopausal) why can't it also accommodate gay people?
What is the logic behind this differentiation?
Oct '10
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Zafar: I'm a lurker who was enticed by the free month's trial ...
The question of equality for gay people wrt marriage hinges on which of the two definitions of marriage you pick:
"simply the legal arrangement of any two people who profess a desire to enter it"
or
"the joining of male and female for the procreation and care of future generations"
May I ask why the second is so *obviously* more accurate than the first?
What is the logic behind this differentiation?
I hope you join as a member.
What is the logic of limiting marriage to your two definitions? Specifically, what logic limits marriage to only two people? In what universe was marriage EVER limited to the procreative? I think these are straw man arguments.
Marriage does not now and never has rested upon logic. Likewise, the variety and forms of sexual attraction are not issues for marriage per se. The question about marriage we confront today has nothing to do with religion. It concerns the legitimate State-interest in encouraging particular domestic arrangements for the health and stability of the body politic. See earlier comments at #10, 18, 26, 30, 38, 40, 46, 94.
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Zafar: Excuse me for joining in. I'm a lurker who was enticed by the free month's trial, so I hope I am not imposing. ...
May I ask why the second is so *obviously* more accurate than the first? Clearly many marriages today are not about procreation, but many (most) marriages are. Putting aside personal religious belief, if the current definition of marriage can accommodate the childless (and the newlywed menopausal) why can't it also accommodate gay people?
What is the logic behind this differentiation? · 10 hours ago
Not imposing at all! This is what we like -- a good discussion.
I actually don't think the definition of marriage has been built around accomplishment of procreation so much as the conjugal act of two people uniting in one purpose, forming one flesh that would naturally lead to procreation.
Or, in other words, is marriage about children or is it about gender complementarity? I imagine it's the latter.
But no matter what, I think it's better to start fresh by asking you, "What is marriage?"
Apr '11
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
"What is marriage?"
I think if you asked the average American you would get something along these lines.
"Marriage is the union of two people who love each other."
And there in lies the problem with marriage debate as I see it. To the masses the definition of marriage is settled; marriage is the affirmation of love. So the question of Homosexual marriage is thus a question of whether homosexual love is legitimate. This is why this debate spins so quickly off the rails.
It is not a debate about the meaning of a word it a debate about the legitimacy of homosexuality. You, Mollie and other conservatives may not like this, but I am afraid that this is what it is all about. Trying to reframe the debate about what "marriage" means I think is too little to late.
If conservatives could offer a different way to affirm the legitimacy of homosexual life style other than marriage you might be able to salvage marriage. But, are most religious conservatives willing to affirm the legitimacy of homosexuality? I don't think they are, and there in lies the rub.
Because, if homosexuality was legitimated, the majority would not oppose SSM.
Edited on August 6, 2012 at 6:16amAug '12
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Here's my take.
Gay couples can already get married. They can have a wedding, register at Target, have a reception, live together and have a life together.
What they can't get in most states is a marriage license. A marriage license exists primarily to provide a legal structure for the children that can result from such unions and secondarily for the parents which will raise the next generation of children. It's a privilege and in some cases a benefit bestowed on these couples by society for serving a public good (producing and raising the next generation). Gay couples have no use or need for this and they are free to have relationships as they wish but they are not free to demand government recognition of this.
This doesn't make them second class citizens any more than it makes me a second class citizen because I can't take advantage of social security or medicare at my whim (even though I'm forced to pay into it).
Aug '12
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Here's an important initial question:
What is bigotry?
Re: The Same-Sex Mariage Debate Is Too Vicious, And Here's What We Need To Do About It
Valiuth: "What is marriage?"
I think if you asked the average American you would get something along these lines.
"Marriage is the union of two people who love each other."
And there in lies the problem with marriage debate as I see it. To the masses the definition of marriage is settled; marriage is the affirmation of love. So the question of Homosexual marriage is thus a question of whether homosexual love is legitimate. This is why this debate spins so quickly of the rails.
Sure. But "the masses" are actually voting to retain a traditional definition of marriage while "the courts" are the one redefining marriage as an affirmation of love between the completely arbitrary number of two people.
And yes, the bullying by elites is strong. But there are myriad examples of other debates -- eugenics, abortion, etc. -- where the elites have persuaded the masses only to have not done a very good job of sealing the deal.
Will this be the same or different? Who in the world knows.