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The Wrong Side of Morality
Many of my friends are very happy about Friday’s US Supreme Court decision. While I have mixed feelings, I realize that many of them are driven by great love and respect for other people, their dignity, their equality, and their love. And perhaps they’re right to celebrate the Supreme Court’s expansion of the definition of marriage.
A small minority of them, however, undermine their claim to be driven by love and respect when they lash out in hatred, anger, and derisive mockery at Supreme Court justices, or at others who do not share their views. If you write or like a post that calls Justice Thomas a highly unpleasant expletive, for example, the emotion driving you does not seem to be love, and the values guiding you do not seem to be respect or tolerance.
The moral line dividing us does not run between those who think that marriage and dignity are Constitutionally-protected rights and those that think these are issues for Congress or state legislatures. It does not run between those who think the opposite-gender clause must remain in the definition of marriage and those who think it must be removed. The moral line runs within us, between those parts of us that are driven by anger, bigotry, intolerance, and hate, and those that are driven by love and respect for other people, their orientations, and their opinions.
Wherever one stands on the issue, the part of us that wants to mock or condemn the justices who disagreed with us on Friday is probably on the wrong side of that moral line. We should worry less about being on the wrong side of history than about being on the wrong side of morality and human decency.
Published in General
Father Jonathan Morris, the go-to Catholic priest for FOX News, just reported that he was spat on while walking past a gay parade.
It’s just one incident among many hateful and kind gestures on both sides. But I expect more people will feel justified in such rudeness now that traditional beliefs are “officially” bigoted.
Why don’t parents educate their children about sex from an early age? Jump the gun, as it were, and get in before the schools. I remember my mother, when I was a very little girl, warning my sister and myself, and my younger brother, about the dangers associated with strange men. Also, we were told never to get into a car with strangers.
Shortly after this, one very rainy day, walking to school with my sister, a car drew up beside us with a friendly couple in it. They offered us a lift to school. Drenched, I explained to them that we had been told by our mother NEVER to accept a ride from strangers. I still remember the lady’s face as she laughed in recognition of the wisdom of this advice. She agreed, and they drove off.
My mother got in early! :)
The comparison of same-sex marriage to mixed-race marriage is complete and utter nonsense. Gay is not just another race. And race is very different than a mere sexual urge. To draw an equivalence between the two is like comparing window panes to tricycles. Not even in the same category.
I don’t view any branch of U.S. Government or any member thereof as infallible, so, no, I don’t accept your shoulds. See #58.
Love has nothing to do with it. Nobody can legislate who you love. Nobody can outlaw love. Love is a very different thing than marriage. Although they go together like a horse and carriage. But they’re not the same. The advocates of same sex marriage have long suggested that people are forbidding them from “love.” That’s complete distortion. But it emotionalizes the issue so that objections to gay marriage become objections to gay relationships.
Words mean things. (Well, except to supreme court justices.)
Which has nothing to do with Ontario’s sex-Ed curriculum. Nice try.
What really bothers me is that I am a conservative, and would have to vote Republican if I were an American. Why I can’t “let it go” is that I would feel I am standing back letting those people who are so hateful towards gays, have the last word and label all conservatives as being like them. We are not!
You are entitled to say what you think, as am I. And we are entitled to agree to differ. The difference between us would appear to be that I am prepared to go along with the opinion of the Supreme Court judges, but you disagree with their professional opinions. Which, of course, you are entitled to do. :)
Hey, thanks for calling me hateful, too. Check your progressive tolerance.
One could argue that gays can no more help being what they are than white and black people can help the colour of their skin. I understood that was the argument on Fareed’s program.
Observing the many gay friends I have had, and still have, it would appear to me that they are born gay. It’s seems to be genetic, and runs in families. This is another argument that has been beaten into the ground on Ricochet. Again, we have to agree to differ in opinion.
Incidentally, women seem to have a very different opinion from men on the subject of having a gay son. My women friends are all agreed that women with gay sons are fortunate. Those gay sons are always so loving and attentive towards their Moms.
However, this is all beside the point of the post. I probably shouldn’t comment on the subject because I don’t think morality enters into the judgment given by the Supreme Court. As I see it, it is a matter of Human Rights. But, then, I don’t follow any moral system imposed on me from anyone else.
I wouldn’t go there, Drew! Indaba thinks ALL men like pornography. I wouldn’t probe for her opinion of men on that subject. Just a wee warning! :)
Such rudeness is never justified, Aaron! On the other hand, when one remembers that the Roman Catholic Church considers gays are deviants who have to muster the courage to renounce what to them are their perfectly natural sexual desires, perhaps it makes the reaction of some gays more understandable.
Are any members of the U.S. Government claiming to be infallible in any way? I haven’t heard them do so. I would imagine that most of them know they are human beings like the rest of us, and simply trying to do their best for their country in the circumstances in which we all find ourselves in this day and age. I would apply this of both sides, Republicans and Democrats.
I’m not calling you hateful. In fact, I am sure you are a very nice person.
What I am calling hateful is the attitudes towards gays that too many people express. Doesn’t it seem amazing that some people can’t see how hateful those attitudes are, and how unkind the person who expresses them appears?
I was simply responding to your suggestion that we common folk should defer to professional lawyers. And they did not rule SSM is constitutional, they ruled that state laws disallowing SSM are unconstitutional.
The broad definition of “hateful” indirectly used by Justice Kennedy gave us Friday’s decision. Please elaborate because if we have to go to the Supreme Court for everything that people hate, tomatoes and I are in for some nasty lawyer bills.
I don’t know if you mean “go along with” morally or legally. Legally, I think that BDB is likely to go along with the justices. If he’s ever in a position where he has to deal with marriage rights (perhaps he’s interacting with a married gay subordinate on base?) I suspect that he would treat them as the law dictated.
If you meant it as a moral matter, do you believe that because four experts took position A and five experts took position B, non-experts should conclude that position B is the only acceptable position?
Were you in Alberta before Lawrence v. Texas came down? Did you consider then that sodomy laws were legitimate, since a majority of the Court believed this, or do you not find the SCOTUS to be morally binding in that instance?
“Unbeknownst to many parents, use of gender terms to describe husband and wife, father and mother, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and ‘he’ and ‘she’ is being steadily eradicated in Canadian schools.”
—A Warning from Canada: Same-Sex Marriage Erodes Fundamental Rights
Gender terms’ non-mapping onto reality — it’s what’s most horrifying.
I’ve long said, the real meaning of SSM is the state has, in principle, unlimited power as it has the power to redefine reality. We are no longer seen first as men and women — these are constructs — but rather first as mere individuals. Human beings are reduced to administrative units. Things to be administered.
If there is nothing like natural right — a concrete standard of justice external to the will that can guide the will itself — then we have no reasonable claim against those who may rule us in ways not to our liking. The rulers may not listen to us in any case, but there is no reason for them to accede to us if our claims merely reflect our *idiosyncratic preferences* (sexual liberationism’s substance). Might would then make right.
In this sense, the denial of natural standards is a greater threat to freedom than is the affirmation of such standards. Similarly, the campaign for same-sex marriage, rather than heralding the advent of a new civil right, could actually signal the end of a reasoned basis for civil rights.
And we have useful idiots a-la Gary McVey helping this along.
I once saw a 1967 Israeli cartoon of Abdul Nasser sitting at a Tel Aviv cafe. He had two painful lumps on his head, marked “1948” and “1956”. The helpful waiter with a yarmulke asks “Would you prefer two lumps, or three?”
Welcome back, Lux. I remember you from last time. Make up your mind how many lumps you want.
The idea that social conservatives appetite for porn might not be large could be in error.
http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/pornhub-data-usage-duration-search-interactive-map/
This coincides with other studies I’ve seen.
Now I think one factor that could be in play here is lack of other sexual stimulative services… ie Strip clubs, and others. But an assumption about porn use might not be warranted.
Your and your side’s victory can only be Pyrrhic. History — the basis of your arguments past, which is the resort of people who have no arguments — has no teleology.
Red, I can draw a link between golf balls and banana splits if I want but that doesn’t make golf balls delicious. Drawing a line between mixed race marriages and same sex unions isn’t any more sensible.
Zackly, Thank you for the precision.
One of the unintended consequences of deciding controversial questions by judicial fiat is that there is likely to be a backlash. The backlash could be violent, as in abortion doctor murders and clinic bombings. It could take the form of a political movement intended to reverse not just the homosexual marriage ruling but also to go back to the days when sodomy was a crime.
The homosexual lobby has shown a surprising lack of both historical perspective and respect for contrary views. Not so long ago homosexual sodomy was a crime punishable by death (it still is in many Muslim countries). Here is what Blackstone had to say about it in his Commentaries:
Now, to be clear, I don’t advocate a return to those days. I don’t think consensual sex between adults is the state’s business. I could even be convinced that homosexual marriage might be a good thing. Truth be told, I was starting to come around on that issue.
But I am appalled by the behavior of the homosexual vanguard who are out to destroy their opponents. What they did to Brendan Eich was disgraceful. Their attacks on bakers, wedding photographers, wedding chapels, pizza shop owners, and the like have destroyed any good will I might have felt for their cause.
And they are not done. They fully intend to go after the churches and any other person or group that doesn’t want to celebrate homosexuality. They want to indoctrinate children—not just their children, your children, too—to accept their vision of what is and isn’t moral, normal, acceptable in the realm of sexuality. They intend to criminalize opposition to their agenda by using hate speech codes, much like the ones found on university campuses. They have had success with this in places like Canada under that country’s Human Rights Act.
For these reasons I feel that the homosexual lobby must be opposed. I cannot participate in their celebration over the Court’s decision.
((The backlash could be violent, as in abortion doctor murders and clinic bombings. It could take the form of a political movement intended to reverse not just the homosexual marriage ruling but also to go back to the days when sodomy was a crime.))
You reckon fundamentalists are gonna start shooting up some gay marriage ceremonies? Maybe join up with the Phelps crowd and start picketing churches who do the ceremony?
No, but I would not be the least surprised if some persons whose livelihood was destroyed by a homosexual boycott responded in a violent manner.
Do we really think terms like “useful idiots’ get us anywhere?
Hopefully all sides will finally find a way to prevent both circumstances.
Those who condemn the welfare state are certainly not showing love to the poor.
Those who condemn affirmative action are certainly not showing love to racial minorities.
Those who condemn gun bans are certainly not showing love to victims of gun violence.
Those who condemn abortion are certainly not showing love to women with unwanted pregnancies.
And so on and so forth. Remember, if you love people you MUST also agree with and endorse their lifestyle and beliefs. Otherwise, well, skip to 3:10 on this clip for a special message to y’all.
What? Father Morris is so nice! Horrible!