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Answering Peter Robinson on SCOTUS and Gay Marriage
Peter posed a question earlier today: If the Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage, how should we respond? I defer to Richard Epstein’s views on the comparison between Dred Scott, Lochner, and gay marriage. I think that Robert P. George rightly warns of the dangers of the use of the due process clause by judges to advance their personal policy preferences. There are surely similarities between the Court’s use of substantive due process in all three periods. I think that a decision imposing gay marriage on the nation incorrectly reads our constitutional structure, just as Dred Scott mistakenly interpreted the Constitution’s original understanding of federal and state control over slavery and freedom.
But there is an important difference here, one that shouldn’t affect their legal decision but will control the political response. A majority of Americans support gay marriage now, as opposed to 2008. There will be no groundswell of opposition to the Court on gay marriage in the way there was against Dred Scott.
The most there will be, I predict, will be opposition of the kind that arose in response to Roe v. Wade — gay marriage could become an important issue in debates about values and judicial appointments. But there won’t be widespread resistance and successful presidential candidates who promise to under-enforce the decision because the majority of Americans will agree with the outcome, even if they disagree with the way our society reached it.
Published in Law, Marriage
Ok, we need to get clarity on this. A number of my interlocutors here before you seem to share your sentiments. I will repeat my objection as plainly as I can, because none of you have offered your own objections, just denunciation, & none have answered my objections!
So far as I know, political philosophy is more or less the invention of Plato & Aristotle. They certainly looked at human nature as such, not only a mere part of it, whichever part. They certainly never said they will leave any part out or that only some parts matter.
Then look at Hobbes & Locke: They tell you they know about man’s nature as such, what it is & how to make it into a successful polity. They do not say political philosophy is limited or that any part of human nature is off limits.
Are these men not political philosophers? Were they somehow deluded? Where did you men learn that these men were deluded?
It’s actually easier to see now that you’ve used your words to explain at least part of what the heck you are talking about. It was you, however, who failed to do that at the outset. Now can you take us another step — in full sentences — explaining why freedom makes no sense? I’ll spot you that we are all born into families and countries that we didn’t choose.
I have explained to the other fellow how he misinterprets crudely because he has an interest in structure, which, to be sure, is in itself laudable, but nothing to what I was saying.
I also did not say that ‘freedom makes no sense’. I do not take people who are so little willing or able to see what I am saying up on insulting offers. I am not sure why you wish to talk to me, if you do not see sense. I advise you, if you do want to talk with me, to pay attention to what I say. If this matters to you, I will return to courtesy.
Nevermind. I think I’ll be ok without.
Indeed. I regret the hubbub I seem to have caused.
If so, they were wrong on that point.
There’s nothing weird or insulting to say that some political philosophers have over-expansive views of their subject’s applicability.
No, certainly not, probably each philosopher has at least some of what you kindly call over-expansive views: But every political philosopher up until recently said & proved by his work the same thing. How could they all be wrong without political philosophy having to be abandoned! Maybe it should be. But those who bring it up should face this fact.
I understand that, following Locke, as best as I can see, libertarians would rather ignore as much as possible about the origins of the free adult whereof they speak. But let’s not call libertarianism a political philosophy if it is so limited. I am skeptical of the proposition that the answer to the extraordinary claims & ambitions of political philosophers is to abandon the ambitions.
In this case, my reason is really as vulgar as I said: In reality, sex & family come before any of this freedom & put limits on it. Some other principle than individual autonomy is needed to reckon with nature. Maybe libertarians would like the walk back to smith & to Locke, who are sometimes acknowledged their progenitors, & who did put a lot of work into dealing with this problem. That it is not seen or readily admitted now strikes me as worrying. Political philosophers certainly got this part about common sense, at least the ones with which I am acquainted, whatever their shortcomings.
Titus: “If that is not moralism, I do not know what is.”
Then you don’t know what is.
Does it occur to you that you keep up with denials & denunciations & nothing else? Meanwhile, you have not shown the courtesy of admitting or correcting crass misinterpretations which seem to have led you to those denunciations. What do you think is a good word for that? Is it honesty or civility to make these denunciations & then refuse to acknowledge my answers?
I think you are missing the whole history of the SSM quarrels that prefaced the first legal same-sex “marriages” in 2004. Most of us Social Conservatives would be very happy to promote a marriage amendment. We remember, however, how libertarian and Chamber-of-Commerce Republicans united to attack SoCons who tried to promote one in the 1990s. I found it quite rich for a libertarian in 2015 to criticize SoCons for not pursuing a marriage amendment.
I would like to point out that the most ardent of the Social Conservatives of the 1990s were ridiculed by libertarian and Establishment Republicans for predicting things that have come to pass in the past decade.
You can’t think of a comparable pro-SSM exemplar?
I think my local paper ran one about once every two months or so throughout the period from 1999 through 2008. We were treated to dozens and dozens of sympathetic portrayals of gay couples and their happy families who just wanted to be able to live lives like their married neighbors. These were about half local features and half were supplied by the Associated Press.
MJ, where do you live? I can hardly deny what appeared in your local paper, but I’ve never seen any such thing anywhere. Let me add that if there were that many, you’ve sort of made my point — which is that the benefits of SSM are quite widespread, while the horror stories of abuses of religious service providers are about as common as fatal shark attacks.
[withdrawn]
Somewhere back on this thread Tom asked whether I was referring to Ricochet when I said some people support blurring gender distinctions. I was not, but today I see that support is there.
Cato, you must not read the papers at all. Big Journalism has been promoting everything gay for three decades at least. You can search any major market newspaper site for “gay couple” and find dozens of fawning puff pieces that promote gays as normal hardworking sweet-natured good neighbors who are being oppressed by awful old Christian hateful bigots. I just did this search at the Nashville Tennessean and the St. Louis paper (because my Memphis paper has their articles behind a paywall).
I think every gay couple in every city that could be covered has been, from the amount of coverage. Leaving out, of course, any that could not be portrayed favorably. Far outside their representative numbers in the population, even in big blue cities.
I am not the only person who thinks this way. Mollie used to be a regular at GetReligion, a media criticism blog. The GetReligion bloggers are all journalists who are mostly social liberals but theologically-conservative Christians. (Mollie is a libertarian, and not really a SoCon; they never had a true social conservative on their team.) They wrote a number of blog posts criticizing journalists for using the style pages of newspapers to run cheerleading articles for gay marriage. I searched there, and screened out posts about hard news from the culture war, but here are posts that focused on puff pieces from the “living” or “lifestyle” or “style” sections of newspapers, that were criticized at GetReligion for being one-sided to an extent that they represented bad journalism:
http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2013/08/a-front-page-puff-piece-on-same-sex-marriage?rq=puff-piece-on-same-sex
http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2012/09/sacrificing-journalism-on-altar-of-gay-advocacy?rq=style%20section
http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2010/04/washington-post-fears-and-loathes-cultural-conservatives?rq=style%20section
http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2009/09/not-just-wrong-but-crazy-too?rq=style%20section
http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2009/04/generational-generalities?rq=style%20section
http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2009/08/on-threesomes-and-marriage?rq=style%20section
http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2004/02/primetime-family-news
http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2008/11/everyone-has-a-story
1) By “Molly” do you mean Molly Hemingway? Because if so, I’m surprised to hear her described as a libertarian, and not surprised that she and you share a concern that gay people might be getting too much good press. She is not someone I’d consider an honest broker.
2) I just glanced through “Get Religion.” It looks like Jennifer T’s “Posts I Have Started” list. You suggested a couple of days ago that I shouldn’t expect you to find stories published by GLAAD credible, which is fine. But do me a favor. Return the courtesy. It is a prime example of what I referred to earlier as the “Outrage Industry” and Get Religion is on the anti-gay side of that industry. Gay people represent, I don’t know, but 3%, 5%, 7%, whatever, of the population. Unless we’re terrorized into hiding in the closet, we’re going to produce the occasional positive story, and a website devoted to searching out each one of those and criticizing it, is going to find some material to work with.
3) Did you find anything in either of the two mainstream papers you claim to have searched?
Please address any errors of fact. Her opinions are carefully acknowledged. Her media criticism, and that of her colleagues, is based on faults in lamestream journalism. Big Journalism is tilted in your favor. Gay people are, in fact, getting good press, which is not necessarily a problem. The problem is that gay people are getting uniformly good press while traditional believers are getting bad press, and neutral telling of events has disappeared from Big Journalism. The GetReligion blog is a media criticism site. And, as a theologically-conservative Christian, I am not surprised if you find both me and Mollie to be dishonest. That seems to be part of your standard method. But I can safely say that Mollie is a libertarian, and not a social conservative like me.
No, it does not. There is no advocacy there. What there is, is criticism of journalists for mingling their pro-gay biases into straight news stories, mangling news with editorializing. Try reading there again.
Gay people represent less than 3.5 percent of the population. Most Americans would answer polling, until just the past five years, with assumptions that gays were up to 20 percent of the population. This was entirely due to the pro-gay advocacy position of Big Journalism.
Yes, I found several positive stories about local gay households in those papers, and I did not have to look far. You should take a look for yourself. You would have to search very hard to find any criticism of gays in any major market newspaper, except for the quotes attributed to anti-gay activists.
If I’m reading you correctly MJ, it seems that I’m to accept that pro-gay advocacy is to be ruled in-credible and not worthy of consideration, but if I raise questions about anti-gay advocacy, I should expect to make you angry. Am I over reading? Your response seemed to have a tone I don’t usually associate with you.
If I may interject, because I always make things better, I think all the Mollie Hemingway stories were about media bias. Media bias against supporters of traditional marriage. I’m guessing the GLAAD stories were not about media bias against supporters of gay marriage. I would like to read those.
I followed one of the links to Mollie’s story, and it did contain some stuff that would be funny except that they get away with it. It was an excerpt from a Washington Post friendly profile on a gay marriage opponent, and it went something like, “Sure most gay marriage opponents are slobbering evil cretins, but this guy is different.”
JoJo, GLAAD is an acronym for “Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.” It was founded for exactly the same purpose GetReligion claims — to combat media bias. It has become much more pro-active and much more successful than the struggling anti-bias campaign I knew 20+ years ago when one of my colleagues, who was an early board member, started extracting tribute for it from me. Calling attention to what it considers media bias, however, just as GetReligion purports to do, remains a core part of its mission and GLAAD is the principle gay advocacy group with that focus in the United States. The real difference between them, for purposes of this conversation, is that the groups they defend against perceived bias are different.
Well I’ll take a peek.
MJ, I believe you misread my comment at #4, which you excerpt from above. I said that not seeking a constitutional amendment speaks badly of the pro-SSM side (see above, emphasis added); i.e., of the majority of those who wished to change the definition of marriage; I was being self-critical of my own side. I’ve said as much ever since I favored expanding marriage to include homosexual couples; to my chagrin, the idea never caught on.
I concede that I did not make this adequately clear before.
?
Is there a specific comment you’re referring to?
Tom, you are correct; I did mis-read your comment. Pardon me.
Pro-gay advocacy is worthy of consideration as advocacy when it is rolled out by gays and pro-gay advocates. I find fault with pro-gay advocacy when it is disguised as journalism.
Your beef about anti-gay advocacy is with conservative niche media, who candidly admit that they are on one side of the issue. It has only been in this decade that major lamestream media outlets (New York Times and Washington Post) have admitted that they believe that the traditional journalism ethic of neutrality only applies to politics and does not need to apply to culture war issues. The rest of the lamestream are pretending to journalistic neutrality, and I highlighted the blog posts at GetReligion because they have links to many examples of Big Journalism hiding pro-gay advocacy in their style sections and news pages.
Cato, you said:
Which I thought was laughable, and disingenuous. I have seen several dozens of stories about cherry-picked appealing gay households. At GetReligion I have seen excerpts of dozens of others, and MRC and Breitbart have dozens more. I have no doubt that the actual total runs to hundreds. No single exemplar became a big story because the emphasis was always on how normal and nice they were. But the issue is not about the individuals; the issue is journalism.
The reason for the outrage on my side is that the brewing collision between gay rights and the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion is something that social conservatives have been talking about for three decades. It is a topic that was almost never covered by pro-gay Big Journalism. Even the Hobby Lobby case was only about contraception, until it was taken up by the Supreme Court, and then some lamestream media folk actually started to explain that there was another side to the story.
The outrage is aimed at the journalists.
There were lots of comments favoring the right of a man to use the women’s locker room, and his right to decide what gender he was. The woman who wanted the privacy implicit in separate gender facilities was derided as a whiner. When gender becomes what you think you are, not what you are, that’s a weakening of distinctions. If your body is one thing but you can “choose” to be the other, you could choose to be anywhere in between, too.
Tom, now that I am un-tangled and properly read what you said here, I will repeat my apology. This is a point that deserves further consideration.
The pro-SSM side never ever thought of seeking a constitutional amendment. Until last year it would have been a laughable proposition. Even Obama had to pretend to oppose it to win his anointing.
The pro-SSM side is owned by the Left. The Progressives use SSM as a lever to continue their attack on traditional Christianity. The Left never try to persuade people that they have a good case. They just look at the words that present a problem for them, and go about the long task of changing the meaning of the words. Their natural inclination is one of great patience, and they have had amazing success. They have been at work since before the French Revolution, and the work of generations of the Leftists is bearing fruit.
Took a look at the GLAAD website. What I saw did not seem to deal with media bias against gays. I searched “media bias” and got an article complaining about a traditional marriage advocate complaining about media bias in favor of gays. Lots of articles about 6 or 7 year old trans-sexuals, though. I can’t imagine why a child needs to be classified like that, seems like would do more harm than good.
Further to the outrage:
How many times has a Christian school been held up for public opprobrium, for the hateful bigoted practice of teaching traditional Christian morals?
http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2015/3/13/catholic-school-teachers-blunt-facebook-post-turns-into-media-free-for-all
http://www.getreligion.org/search?q=school%20gay
Traditional Christian morals:
“See this is the agenda . . . one minute they argue that hey [sic] are born this way and it is not a choice to get 14th amendment rights equal protection . . . bologna . . . which was carved for permanent characteristics . . . unchangeable characteristics such as race and disability . . . but once they [sic] in the 14th amendment they will argue everyone should be able to choose they [sic] gay or lesbian lifestyle . . . in other words they want to reengineer western civ into a slow extinction. We need healthy families with a mother and a father for the sake of humanity!!!!”