My prior post on gay marriage led me to read up on three martyrs in the gay rights movement: Lawrence King, Matthew Shepard, and Harvey Milk. Prior to reading into these stories I had thought that the murders were motivated solely by homophobia. What I found made the stories much more complex.
Larry King
Lawrence "Larry" King, 15, was murdered by Brandon McInerney, 14, last year at a school in California. According to a Newsweek article written just after the murder, Larry liked to flaunt his femininity and tease others with it. He'd wear makeup and high heels to school and tell boys "I know you want me." When a teacher asked him why he'd do this, Larry replied, "It's fun to watch them squirm."
According to the same Newsweek article, Brandon McInerney grew up in a raging household. His father and mother had a history of brutal fights, one involving his father shooting his mother in the arm with a pistol. Brandon was born shortly after that shooting, but the fighting continued and Brandon was constantly in the middle of custody battles, which consisted, it seems, of arguing over whether his meth-addict mom could raise him properly.
It turns out the angry, drug-infested upbringing affected Brandon. He killed Larry in retaliation for a public taunt Larry had made in front of classmates, a taunt that consisted of Larry asking Brandon to "be his Valentine" on Valentine's Day. Though he was only fourteen years old, Brandon will be charged as an adult and will likely face additional penalties because he committed a hate crime; he'll perhaps spend over half a century in prison.
This is not to say that I think Brandon doesn't deserve a harsh punishment, or that he was innocent. It's just to say that the story might have more to do with meth and junior-high teasing and gun control than it had to do with homophobia, especially since Brandon's anger was likely stirred mostly by being teased by classmates rather than by an irrational personal aversion to homosexuality.
In other words, the story isn't exactly what it might appear to be to the many people who see Larry as a poster child for the gay rights movement (and, considering that last year's day of silence was dedicated to Larry, there were many who bought into the surface of the story).
Matthew Shepard
Matthew Shepard's story also had much more to do with meth than I had known. In 2004 ABC News revisited the story, interviewing the two murderers and others surrounding the case. What they found was that Aaron McKinney, the 21-year-old who led the attack, had just come off a week-long meth binge and had set out to rob a meth dealer of $10,000 worth of meth the night he killed Shepard. When the robbery failed he went to a bar where Shepard, who had for two years been in some of the same drug scene as McKinney had, was getting drunk.
Shepard was so drunk that he asked McKinney and his friend Russell Henderson for a ride home, and they obliged. According to McKinney, and who knows if what he says here is true (there were witnesses only to the drug-related events that occurred before this), during the ride Shepard touched McKinney on the leg and then McKinney began to pistol whip him. McKinney demanded that Shepard give up his wallet, which he did, and when McKinney found only 30 bucks inside he went berserk, beating Shepard with the gun until Shepard passed out. Then McKinney and Henderson dragged Shepard's body to a fence and left him there.
When asked if she thought the crime was motivated primarily by drugs, Shepard's mother said, "I'm just not buying into that. There were a lot of things going on that night, and hate was one of them, and they murdered my son ultimately. Anything else we find out just doesn't, just doesn't change that fact."
In other words, she didn't deny that drugs played a part.
Knowing the bit I do about meth, a drug that induces intense paranoia and rampant anger, I have to believe that had the drug been completely absent from the scene, Shepard's death would have been unlikely.
In 1998 the murderers told the jury that they were motivated by their hatred of gays to try to win the jury over to their side. Their plot didn't work, but their words have changed the national landscape, since Obama passed the Matthew Shepard Act two weeks ago, and The Laramie Project, an anti-homophobic play based on these events, has been performed hundreds of times across the nation and even turned into an HBO movie.
It seems the main culprit, meth, got off without a sentence.
Harvey Milk
Another big move for the entertainment industry was last year's Oscar-winning movie, Milk, based on the life of Harvey Milk, America's first gay senator. Since it took place in San Francisco, a city that has had a strong gay presence ever since the gold-mining days when the ratios of men to women in the city were very heavily skewed in favor of men, Milk was a sure-fire hit for critics during the post-Proposition 8 debate.
Dan White, the man who murdered Milk, is frequently perceived as being motivated by a hatred of gays. In this scene from the movie, for instance, White is portrayed as one of those wily supporters of the family:
Dan White: Society can't exist without the family.
Harvey Milk: We're not against that.
Dan White: Can two men reproduce?
Harvey Milk: No, but God knows we keep trying.
(quote lifted from imdb)
It's clever, partisan dialogue. But Ray Sloan, a gay man who worked closely with Dan White during the seventies in various government positions, tells a different story. The author of this article on Sloan's take on Milk claims that "White's character in Milk seems to be a metaphor for a larger cultural and institutional bias against homosexuality that was prevalent in the 1970s."
In opposition to the movie's portrayal of White, Sloan claims that White was accepting of gays, himself included.
According to Sloan, it wasn't until White was pinched for money and Milk voted in favor of a local Catholic church changing a zone ordinance, something White opposed, that White got angry. He resigned from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, but just a few days later, strained for money, he requested his job back. The mayor considered it, but appointed someone else. White fell into a searing anger and one day soon thereafter he shot the mayor and Harvey Milk.
While the trial results were completely inane and most likely motivated by homophobia (White was only given a seven-year sentence for a double murder), it's hard to read the central motive for Milk's death as homophobia, especially since the mayor, the man White killed before he killed Milk, wasn't homosexual.
Parsing Homophobia
Until I read into these stories, I assumed that all three of these murders were motivated solely by homophobia. I simply believed the sound bites I'd heard and pieced together the rest.
In writing this, I'm not turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed against homosexuals throughout history. Nor am I denying that there is still plenty of real pain and struggle surrounding these issues today, or, again, that these murderers were innocent in any way. But I am worried about a non-discerning public transferring their fear of murderers like McInerney, McKinney, and White onto all people who claim that homosexuality is wrong.
I don't think people who are educated about these stories and issues will take this misstep, but, unfortunately, the portion of the population that thinks in simple either/or terms is so large that I worry that the nation will continue to perceive these three people as martyrs for the gay rights movement, despite the evidence that homophobia was only a part of the problem, if it was a part of the problem at all.
I'm hoping that the term "homophobia" can be parsed more carefully. I hope that a non-discerning public doesn't pit members of traditional churches in the same boat as these murderers. I hope that they can discern the difference between someone asserting that homosexuality is a sin and someone ridiculing or physically harming a gay person.
I say this because many people on the fringe of the Proposition 8 debate, the people I'm speaking of when I say "non-discerning public," seem to feel justified in rudeness, rudeness that could only surface once they perceive the "enemy" as irrationally lowly and hate-filled. I'm hoping that people will be able to parse the term "homophobic" more carefully and use it less-readily. If the term isn't parsed more carefully, a non-discerning public is likely to hear only what they want to hear, which may lead them to possibly conflate all traditional church members with the misunderstood McInerney, McKinney, and White.
A Warning about CBO Scoring
5 hours ago
23 comments:
You're 100% right, Jon.
If I can indulge in some snark, I think that these murders have as much to do with homophobia as Prop 8 has to do with love. Sure, love may have played a tangential role (although I'd love to see a working definition of "love"), but in both of these cases, the dictionary definition has to be stretched so far in either direction that it's clearly just an attempt at propoganda.
Although Harvey Milk was probably the closest example of the 3 to being a hate crime, I think all three of these examples are strong reasons to reject the notion of hate crimes altogether. These weren't so much crimes motivated by hatred of homosexuals as they were crimes motivated by hatred, done to people who happened to be homosexuals.
Thanks for the comment, Daine.
I'm still looking for that definition of love in the context of Prop 8 that you requested previously.
I still think I'll find one, but time will tell, I suppose . . .
I agree that much of the rudeness in the aftermath of Prop 8--vandalism, physical violence, death threats, and the like--was unwarranted and dangerous. I also agree that putting all Prop 8 supporters in the same category as these murderers would be irrational and unproductive.
But I wonder, is anyone really going to put you in that category? I understand that you want to narrow the meaning of the word "homophobic," but it means what it means. If we use it only for those homophobes who commit atrocities, what of the people who really do fear or hate homosexuality but have decided not to kill anyone? If one's action, no matter how benign, is actually motivated by this fear or hatred, can we not call that person a homophobe simply because he didn't do anything terrible enough?
I can understand your concern that the term gets thrown around willy-nilly at times, without regard for people's true motivations, and I agree that such use of the word is irresponsible--it shouldn't just be a dirty word for people who don't support every little thing that would make the gay community happy. But I don't think applying the word to supporters of Prop 8 is so irrational, even if it is incorrect in some cases.
First of all, I don't think it is incorrect in many cases. I believe there is homophobia at the root of many Christian groups' anti-gay-marriage stance. This is evidenced by the fact that so many of these groups want not just to prevent gays from marrying but to get rid of the rights gays already enjoy.
But even if the label is incorrect as applied to the LDS church, I don't think it's irrational for people to conclude, based on the evidence they have, that the church's stance is a homophobic one. I don't believe the leaders of our church were motivated by homophobia in their support of Prop 8, but this is because I trust in their good nature. Outsiders have no such trust, so they are left to reason the situation out. What they see is a religious group zealously advocating for applying a religious principle universally in a way that hurts others who don't ascribe to that principle. They also see that gay marriage opponents have not been able to articulate any credible reason why they would be harmed by gay marriage rights. What these outsiders are left with, then, is the fact that this group is deliberately harming a single class of individuals without a valid reason for doing so. Is it so unreasonable for them to infer that such action is motivated by hate?
One easy way to avoid being labeled a homophobe would be to articulate some non-homophobic reason for exerting one's personal religious views outside the religious realm. I haven't heard such a reason so far.
Jessie,
But I hope even outsiders to the LDS Church could see that harboring an irrational fear of something and calling that thing a sin are two different things. Most Americans (80%?) still believe in God and most still believe that there are certain things God dislikes. So unless the definition of "phobia" becomes "that which one thinks is a sin," I think "homophobia" is an overplayed card. If I had to call all perceived sins "phobias," for example, I'd have to include theft, fornication, selfishness, and the like, in the list.
So, no, I don't think "homophobia" is quite the right word. It has connotations of a psychological disorder.
But even though I can't think of secular reasons to oppose homosexual intercourse doesn't mean that I can't think of secular reasons to oppose homosexual marriage.
Here is one of the better articles I've read on the topic, coming from a liberal Democrat.
Another article I've read that I think has some merit is "Soft Despotism and Same Sex Marriage" by Seana Surgue.
The argument unfolds something like this:
Imagine a world without government. In such a world marriages would still occur: men and women would copulate and have kids and stay together to raise these kids. In other words, marriage is a pre-political institution; it would exist even without government. Same-sex marriage, on the other hand, is by definition a political institution; it cannot exist without government.
Surgue argues that you would be hard pressed to find gay rights activists who want gay marriage, but don't believe that gay marriage would also entail the right to have kids.
Unlike heterosexuals, however, who need no one to tell them why their child belongs to them, gays require government to say via law that a particular child belongs to them.
In every instance gay couples require the aid of the state to raise kids.
Gay activists will claim that infertile couples require this same state intervention, but, Surgue argues, unless we're willing to instate a premarital fertility test on everyone, something that would be horribly invasive, we must assume that all heterosexual pairings are capable of producing children.
I don't think either of these arguments swiftly solve the entire problem, but I think that both of these arguments are rational and don't just stem from a visceral hatred of gays.
I think you misunderstood my point. It’s not that “homophobia” is a proper term for a religious belief that homosexuality is a sin. Rather, it’s the application of that religious belief in a secular realm, to people who don’t share your belief, that looks like homophobia, because no one’s heard a good reason for such a sweeping application of that belief. I would never argue with your belief that God doesn’t approve of homosexuality, even if I don’t believe that, because it’s your religious belief. If you believe homosexuality is a sin, don’t practice it—even teach your children not to, if you want (though the likelihood of success in that endeavor in the case your child is a homosexual isn’t great). What I will argue with is the imposition of your religious belief on others without a good reason.
I’ve often heard the same arguments that Mr. Blankenhorn makes—children have a right to be raised by their biological parents, in a “balanced” relationship, that a household with a solid marriage is the best environment for a child, etc. And I agree that it would be wonderful if every child could be raised by his loving biological parents in a committed relationship. But that’s not how the world is. People who make these arguments constantly have to sweep under the rug any set of circumstances that doesn’t fit their paradigm. Why should infertile couples be allowed to adopt and raise a child that isn’t theirs? Why does a young mother—or any mother—have the right (indeed, at times, the responsibility) to give up her child for adoption? Isn’t she robbing her child of an internationally recognized right? And single parents? Tragic, but should single parents automatically feel an obligation to remarry or to give up their children for adoption?
This mess is all about balancing competing interests, as you probably agree. Of course a child should be raised in the best home possible—that is precisely the reason that some mothers feel the need to give up their children for adoption. Sometimes it is not best for the child to remain with its biological mother, because, although biological ties are strong, they aren’t the only interest worth protecting. Sometimes it is not best for a single parent to remarry, because, although two incomes and two able bodies make life easier, that comfort is not always worth the heartache and hazard of a relationship and the possible further harm to the children involved. And, I would argue, it is not best for a child to remain in an orphanage or in foster care rather than with a family that isn’t tied to him biologically.
Many on the outside of my life assume I would have been happier had my mom remarried. Wouldn’t that have been a better, more stable environment? Or maybe I should have been placed with my father, who had remarried, so I would have two parents, one of them biological—surely a better situation? Mr. Blankenhorn complains that the children in these situations are never consulted. If someone had consulted me, I could have explained just how happy I was with my single mother and how terrified I would have been to live with my father or even to accept a new “dad.” The point is, you can’t sit there on the outside and dictate what’s going to be best for someone. There’s no “one size fits all” rule here, and no sure recipe for a healthy, well-adjusted child. You can surely understand how insulting it is to be told I would have turned out better, if only I had had a father.
As I said, it’s about balancing. And those who support gay marriage and, as Surgue correctly points out, adoption rights for gay couples think the religious side is doing a poor job of balancing those competing interests. Would it be better for children to spend their lives in orphanages or move from one foster home to the next, just so they wouldn’t be subjected to being raised by two men or two women in a committed relationship? The religious right says yes; I say obviously not.
Gay marriage opponents often claim that it’s partly the male-female balance in a marriage relationship that makes it a good environment for raising kids, and that a homosexual relationship can’t possibly replicate that balance. Can you show me some evidence of the importance of that balance? Is there some malady that consistently befalls children raised by a single parent that cannot be attributed to any other cause? I submit that the danger to children is not in that missing “balance,” but in the host of other factors that typically—but not always—accompany a single-parent situation. I believe my brothers and I turned out okay because we had a mother who loved us so much that she gave us everything she possibly could. There were no drugs in our house, no alcohol, no abuse. There was certainly poverty, but our home lacked the hopelessness and despair that, I believe, really causes that poverty to get a death-grip on a family for generations.
I’ve heard the argument, too, that children raised in a single-parent home are psychologically harmed by having only one gender of parent—how can a boy with no father understand how to be a man? My own family life is a clear counterexample to this. Because I had only a mother, shouldn’t I be extra feminine? Anyone who knows me can tell you I am not. My mother, who was raised with two parents, somehow didn’t turn out like she “should” have—she’s decidedly unfeminine in many respects, as well. I concede that I am like my mother in many ways, but the fact that I am also like my father in many ways (despite my lack of contact with him as a child) belies the notion that those similarities are only learned. The reason for all of this, I believe, is that people are individuals first; not genders. I believe a child benefits from having two parents not necessarily because they are different sexes, but because they are different people. And a homosexual relationship has every bit as much of that kind of balance as a heterosexual one. A homosexual relationship inherently has more of this balance than a single-parent home, which, as we already established, can churn out upstanding members of society just as well (though perhaps not just as easily) as a married couple.
Surgue argues that heterosexual marriage would exist even without the law, precisely because of reproduction—couples would stay together to raise their children. In other words, marriage doesn’t exist without reproduction. Does that necessarily mean that, without the intervention of the law, infertile couples would not stay together, because they have no children? Does it mean there is no infertile heterosexual marriage without the law? Surgue’s contention that only heterosexual couples have an inherent bond with their children that needs no intervention from the State seems to suggest he doesn’t support adoption at all. He says we can’t preclude infertile couples from marrying (even though their marriage wouldn’t have any independent existence because of their infertility), because a fertility test would be too invasive—it’s easy to tell that two men can’t reproduce, so it’s easy to tell them they can’t marry. Does that mean that, if there were some easy, noninvasive way to identify infertile heterosexual couples, Surgue would want to preclude them from marrying? This seems indefensible, mostly because I can’t believe marriage is or should be only about reproduction—I don’t believe people have no other reason to stay together. Isn’t there some public policy to be served by monogamous couplings, with or without children? Aren’t there plenty of statistics out there about how much happier and more productive married people are? Shouldn’t we encourage that?
And just because the law has to intervene to tell an infertile couple that a child is theirs doesn’t mean their bond with that child is any less valuable than a biological one. It’s different, certainly, but do you think you could get any adopted child to agree that the bond he has with his adoptive parents—gay or straight—is only a legal one?
hi i've lurked since you told me your blog address.
On two of the murders you wonder if the murder would have occurred without meth in the mix. I wonder about the question, would the murders have occurred without homosexuality in the mix? It seems to me that homophobia was a trigger. It can't be written out.
I don't want to drag the civil rights movement into the argument as that can cause a rhetorical quandry, but I can only note that there weren't very many lynchings of whites, but there sure were a lot of lynchings of blacks. Probably alcohol (like meth) was behind many of the abuses, but it was skin color that was the trigger.
Thanks for the comments.
Let me try to explain what I mean by "parsing homophobia" this way:
Pulling from the story of Larry teasing Brandon, let's say that a woman is in the workplace and a co-worker man continually makes sexual advances against her will. In this instance, would we say that the woman has a psychological aversion about sex? No, we'd call it sexual harassment and place the blame on the man.
Now if the woman compounded her disdain for the man to the point where she killed him, we'd condemn her actions and throw her in jail, but even then we wouldn't say that she had a psychological disorder that caused her to irrationally fear sex. She might just have hated the teasing.
So even though I don't deny that homosexuality played a part in any of these murders, I think it's hard to say definitively whether it played a primary role or not. In most instances it seems hard to parse the exact motive of any crime. But this hasn't stopped many gay rights activists from declaring all opponents "homophobes."
I personally think that there are many credible secular reasons for banning gay marriage, including the ones I cited here, most of the arguments in the Square Two articles I linked to earlier, and many of the arguments in the book The Meaning of Marriage.
I can accept that many people believe that the conservative stance on the issue is flimsy, but I don't say that those who disagree with me are "conserva-phobes." (That is, people who have a psychological disorder that causes them to fear all things conservative—though it's tempting at times . . .) Such a label would make real discussion impossible, because I'd be making claims about my opponents' psychological nature and their inner motives. Since I struggle to fully understand my psychology and motives, I have to claim that I don't have access to the psychology and motives of others.
Instead of name calling, then, I believe that those who disagree with my stance likely have had different experiences than I have had, and that if I try to understand their mind and experiences, I may eventually see how they came to the conclusions they came to, or possibly be persuaded to change my position.
Perhaps some of these gay rights activists think their opponents are homophobes because they start by name calling and then justify themselves in not searching for their opponent's stronger arguments? If I start an argument, for instance, by saying that my opponent has a psychological disorder, I find that genuine discussion halts.
And I think, Jessie, that your rebuttal to Blankenhorn and Surgue taps into one of the central divides between liberals and conservatives. That is, liberals generally look at individual experiences and exceptions to the rule while conservatives, hesitant to shake things up too drastically, will generally ignore the exceptions and focus on the rule.
I concede that there are lots and lots of gay couples that can raise kids better than heterosexual couples can, and I think that there is a substantive minority that will really enjoy the rights of marriage. But I have to wonder if changing the entire perception of the word "marriage" and giving the government the right to make such a change will have unintended consequences on the nation or world at large.
Again, I'm still trying to articulate what exactly those unintended consequences might be, but my conservative penchant for doubt in "progress" causes me to hold back from jumping on the gay-rights bandwagon until it is proven that all these perceived unintended consequences are really a mere delusion.
Jessie,
I'm not sure where you were during the prop 8 debate, but it would have saved me a lot of writing and time if I could have just linked people to your opinions. Bravo.
Jon,
You mentioned something in your last comment which has struck a nerve with me. You state that conservatives look to a general rule when making decisions, yet liberals look to exceptions. I firmly disagree with this statement. In my experience (as a scientist), conservatives are just as likely to reject verifiable rules and trends in deference for their own opinions as liberals are. Conservatives overwhelming support abstinence-only education, despite the fact that it's an absolute disaster (seen from the statistics). I won't even touch evolution, vaccination, or global warming.
Are you really falling back on the position that gay marriage should be banned because there are potential societal consequences from giving them access to the institution? By what right do you justify this (other than your own fear of what might happen)? I understand that conservatives are, for lack of a better term, conservative about change, but such apprehension hardly seems an appropriate reason to prevent gays from having equal treatment under the law. I'm confused where you stand.
Also, I'd like to know what the bright line is between when we should allow something as a society and when we shouldn't. If, for example, we see that half of all children raised by gay parents turn out with problems, is that acceptable? What if it's only 5%? What problems would qualify?
Daine,
Thank you; I'm flattered.
Jon,
I agree that the cases you described in your original post are difficult to pick apart--who can tell whether the perpetrators' alleged hatred for gays would have been enough, on its own, to have led to the same result? But that, I think, is an argument against hate crimes generally--it's so hard to know what someone's attitude toward a person is or whether that attitude, if it exists, inspired the crime. For the same reason, I agree with you that the word "homophobia" is tossed around too lightly. It's assumed in too many cases. The same is true of the words "racist" and "sexist." As you said, assuming someone is racist or sexist or homophobic is not the proper starting point for discussion.
Understand, too, that I don't think your stance on gay marriage is homophobic, as I said before. My original point in commenting on here was merely to explain why people think your point of view is homophobic--because they have no evidence to the contrary, really--so you can begin to see eye to eye with them. Rhetoric is best and most productive when we begin by really understanding each other.
Here's an example that might help: remember a couple of weeks ago, when the story came out about the justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple? He went on TV and specifically said, "I'm not racist; I just refuse to marry interracial couples because their children will suffer from not being accepted by either racial group" (I'm paraphrasing here). Well, people continued to call him a racist, and why? I believe it's because the reason he put forward is no reason at all, in the eyes of many. He's perceived as racist because of his outdated, offensive, and unsubstantiated claims about interracial marriage.
You put your finger right on it when you said that people think the reasons put forth by conservatives for opposing gay marriage are flimsy. And can you see why this is? There are no satisfying responses to the difficulties I pointed out in Blankenhorn's and Surgue's arguments, as far as I (and the rest of the gay marriage supporters) can tell. In the end, it seems to come down to (a) homosexuality is wrong, the end; or (b) we just don't know what will happen if gay marriage is permitted, and we'd rather not find out.
Daine astutely pointed out that this is an issue of equal protection of the laws. When dealing with a suspect classification (which homosexuality was deemed to be in the California Supreme Court Marriage cases) or a fundamental right (which marriage was deemed to be in Loving v. Virginia), a law must survive a stringent test called "strict scrutiny" to be allowed under the Equal Protection clause--that is, the law must (a) be justified by a compelling governmental interest; (b) be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest; and (c) be the least restrictive means for achieving that interest.
"Unsubstantiated fear or apprehension" has specifically been shot down as a possible compelling interest. The argument that homosexual marriage may harm families is simply not legally sufficient. What I'm saying here is that you don't have a right, constitutionally speaking, to make people wait for equal protection until all possible negatives of extending equal protection have been disproved.
I'd like to hear some of your credible secular reasons for banning gay marriage or some responses to the holes I perceive in Blankenhorn and Surgue's positions. I've been looking for a long time for an explanation of what harm gay marriage can do. I don't understand the opposition to redefining marriage. People always say, "allowing gay marriage would redefine an important traditional institution." Well, so? Do you think that's inherently bad, or is there more to the argument (besides that unintended consequences bit) that always gets left out?
Coming in late to the conversation. I just have two quick comments.
(1) I'm not exactly sure what I think about the codification of hate crimes--time will tell. But it is important to remember that the standard is applied in a court of law, not the court of public opinion. For all we know, the three cases you cite would not hold up in court to the hate crime standard established by law.
(2) I am profoundly grateful that the government enabled our son to be bound to us in the eyes of the law.
There's a lot here to respond to and I won't be able to get to all of it just now, but I will try to address it in detail soon. (Probably on Monday, since I'll be out of town for a while.)
For now I'll just say that Sugrue (sorry, I spelled it "Surgue" previously) isn't making an anti-adoption argument. She believes that gays should be able to adopt and that society should praise and celebrate all adoptions. Sugrue is more concerned in her article about the rise in popularity of artificial insemination and other non-traditional means gays use to procreate, all of which give more power to a state institution because they require state intervention, intervention that she thinks we should welcome the way we welcome adoption.
Sugrue also talks at some length about gay marriage as a political, rather than a pre-political institution, founding her arguments on Locke and Toqueville. She argues that since gay marriage is a state institution and requires the state to keep it alive, the state must be invested in defending it after creating it. This creates a state vs. religion tension as the state tries to support and uphold and defend gay marriage and religions keep teaching that homosexual relationships—relationships that now have state approval—are sinful.
Now some may say that there are lots of things that the state allows that religions don't endorse: cigarettes and alcohol, for example, in the case of the Latter-day Saints. But the state does not endorse these things. It taxes them. The state, in other words, is working with religion, not against it.
The state must, in the case of gay marriage, stand by its decision once it makes it. If a teacher decides to teach students that gay marriage is normal and acceptable then why would the state get upset, since the teacher is merely telling the children to endorse a state institution. Even if the state makes a token law prohibiting teachers from talking about gay marriage in the classroom, it would paradoxical for the state to enforce it. I can see why religion shouldn't be endorsed in a public school, but why the state shouldn't be endorsed in a public school is a bit far fetched. I can't imagine the state saying, "we created this institution, but we're banning all government organizations from endorsing it." It would be like expelling a teacher for teaching kids about the post office.
And so, as was the case in Massachusetts, it really will become increasingly hard for believers to fight anti-discrimination laws. This isn't just an old-hat argument. If gay marriage becomes the norm and is endorsed by the state then those who belong to traditional churches will be constantly bristling against a state institution. One might say that this is what all minorities have to do. That's true, but if this is the case isn't it clear why wouldn't a church oppose moving in this direction?
So if Latter-day Saints keep espousing our definition of marriage (even proclaiming it our central ordinance), and the state starts espousing their contrary definition, there's automatically conflict of interest, a tension for the Church that wasn't there before. So the LDS stance, instead of merely being one of homophobia, could just be grounded in the idea that the Church doesn't want to find itself in the position of openly and adamantly working contrary to any government-endorsed institution.
To end, I should say that I can see why outsiders might think that the LDS stance here is homophobic—I should have been clearer in saying that I can see that in prior comments. I'm merely trying to show how slippery the word "homophobic" is and in doing so I'm hoping that an outsider will come to see that the LDS stance isn't homophobic.
As far as other arguments go, I like Orson Scott Card's.
Even though he's much more polemic than I tend to be and even though he says some things that are bound to offend people, he gives a pretty good reading of the meaning of marriage. I admit he over-generalizes in spots and flames in others (he's trying to evoke response, no doubt), but I think Card has more than a few solid logical proofs.
Daine,
I keep forgetting about the fundamentalists in the conservative party. Yes, they're a bunch that tends to overlook data (as well as almost every other sane thought process). What I meant to say was that conservatives generally favor order at the expense of trampling on the rights of minorities while liberals generally favor the rights of minorities at the expense of ruffling order. Is that a fairer reading?
Sorry, I meant "isn't it clear why a church *would* oppose moving this direction?"
Brilliant perspective Jon. I don't agree or disagree with your point of view, but I can agree that the artistry of your thought process is beautiful.
Putting a name/label on things might make it easier for others, but it can also be damaging and confusing.
I don't know what gay means, but I refuse to label myself anything. I'm simply a person looking for love. I don't live my life according to the rules of the bible, although I find beauty within its pages. I have no right to claim marriage for myself if I love a man-or a woman for that matter. Marriage is for those that feel it will complete them and make them happy.
I don't speak or write my opinions too often. The world can be confusing enough. However, I do love to point out and describe the beauty I see in it. I sporadically share my point of view, but I frequently urge people to see the beauty in every facet of existence.
You have a great mind Jon. Your writing is a testament to that. I hope to read more from you.
your friend,
Didier
I'm sorry, but I can see little logic in Card's rant. I have to admit that I was profoundly offended by almost everything he said, but, controlling my knee-jerk reaction, I went through and through it, looking for shreds of truth or logic. I didn't find what I was looking for. These are some of the same arguments I blew holes in when Mr. Blankenhorn made them, but expressed with hatred and contempt for anyone who doesn't fit into his cookie-cutter world. And besides that, it is all speculation and preaching and sweeping generalizations, and he alternately employs the rule and ignores the exception or employs the exception and ignores the rule—whatever suits his argument best.
His entire argument hinges on the truth of one thing: marriage is only about the continuation of our civilization through reproduction and child rearing; it serves no other social ideal whatsoever. This is his unjustified opinion, and it is vastly different from mine. Who would want to be married to someone for whom that marriage held no meaning and served no purpose except for churning out productive members of society? Even if it were true that marriage is only about rearing children for the preservation of our civilization, he further assumes that heterosexual couples always do a better job of it than homosexual couples, again, offering no evidence.
His only “evidence” is one unsupported pronouncement after another: Children learn their sex-role expectations from their parents. We need a father to lay “the groundwork for a sense of moral judgment” (oh no—I have no moral judgment!). Children would almost always rather have grown up with Dad and Mom in their proper places at home (which you apparently have to be “in gross denial not to know”). Without a desire to keep civilization going, there would be a sexual free-for-all (in other words, there’s no reason anyone would be monogamous without the goal of rearing children).
Then he gets into the really meaty stuff. This whole decline of civilization started when our government and society started being all “accepting” of single parents. If only we could go back and keep from ever letting people get divorced—think how much better off we would be. Now, I agree that frivolous divorce is a big problem in our society, but is the solution to shun or censure divorcees until it’s no longer socially acceptable? Would that help or hurt children? If a woman has to fear being shut out of society if she gets divorced, how many more children will be raised in abusive households?
Next, he claims that the cunning Left has further ruined society by deciding that we should speak inclusively about different family situations at school, when really we should be telling school children that a “family” is Mom, Dad, and the kids, and anything else is not “the real thing.” And, he says, calling the unit I grew up in a “family” doesn’t make it one. In fact, calling my fake family a “family” just ruins the word for everyone who has a real one.
That absurdly offensive and wrong-headed analysis is what he uses, via analogy, to discredit the concept of gay marriage.
Card goes on to prophesy (read: wildly speculate) about all the ills that will descend on society as soon as gays start to marry. I agree with him that the social discourse will include homosexual marriage as an acceptable thing. Is this bad? Mr. Card thinks so, because if we tell our kids that it’s okay to be gay, they will be! He says the Left wants to “encourage” kids to be gay. This is one of his more ridiculous claims, and that’s saying a lot. There is a huge difference between “accepting” and “encouraging” homosexuality. No one in his right mind would want to do the latter, because even if society does become more accepting of homosexuality, it will likely always be harder to be gay than straight—the same way it is still harder to be black than white or female than male. Why would anyone encourage children into a life that’s harder? The goal of the Left is to make life easier on those people who already face a life of difficulty.
And it can’t be overlooked that that difficulty is caused largely by people like Card, who expresses the condescending sentiment that being gay is not “normal”—gays are simply stuck in an adolescent state of sexuality. They can grow out of it—why not try some “reparative” therapy? Nevermind that it has been condemned by every single recognized psychological association out there. Maybe, since there is no scientific proof about what causes homosexuality, Mr. Card could ask one of his many gay friends whether they chose to be gay or whether, regardless of what caused it, they could possibly forget about it and just practice heterosexual sex.
I’m asking sincerely: What do you perceive as his most solid logical proofs? What do you like about his arguments?
What happened with Catholic Charities in Massachusetts is unfortunate, but not because they were trying to stick up for their religious beliefs and were stamped down by the state. It’s unfortunate that they discontinued their charitable work rather than (a) complying with the law (an anti-discrimination law that is, incidentally, not far removed from the one the LDS church recently announced its support for); or (b) forgoing government funding and continuing their work on their own religious terms. I don’t see this as a case of religion vs. government. As long as a religious group isn’t using government money to discriminate, they can do whatever they want. This concept preserves the separation of church and state that protects religions.
The idea that churches just don’t want to be working against the government is disingenuous—they already do it constantly and don’t seem to have a problem with it. All the government would be saying with gay marriage is, “it’s permissible to marry someone of the same sex.” There would be no promotion, no encouragement, no “endorsement.” It’s the same with divorce—it’s allowed by the government and preached against by all kinds of churches. Same with “it’s permissible to work on Sunday”; “it’s permissible to drink alcohol”; “it’s permissible to buy and view pornography”; “it’s permissible to get an abortion.” None of these things is “endorsed” by the State simply because it is allowed. Upholding and defending are not the same as endorsing. The State has to uphold and defend its decision to allow alcohol, too, but that’s not endorsing the use of alcohol. And, unlike with cigarettes and alcohol, you can hardly say that the State is working with religion on issues like pornography and abortion. What the church can and should do in these situations is to preach to their congregations and teach their families (and even proselytize about) the values they find important, and let people choose for themselves.
Didier,
I'm happy to hear from you! Thanks for reading. I also appreciate your stance for beauty above argument. That needs to be said more often; I should say it's something I could take to heart more often.
Jessie,
Calling Card's article a rant is, to say the least, accurate. He stoops to an emotional level that forces him into hypocrisy in several places, and you're right: he does a poor job of bolstering his argument with any sort of real proof. It's this kind of thing that's turned me off from reading his latest stuff.
That said, there are six things I like in his piece: 1) the introductory argument and running theme of how language cannot change what "is," 2) the complaint that supreme courts have seized control of this issue in some places, ignoring a democratic procedure 3) the idea that there are inherent differences between males and females, 4) the idea that gay marriage won't be the breakdown of the family, but just one more change of several, and not even the most damaging change at that, 5) the claim that changing the meaning of marriage will likely lead believers to be less willing to stand behind "American values," and 6) the claim that an individual's decisions affect the whole of society.
Now, I can see that each of these things is grounded in a some type of conservative assumption and so it's very possible that all of these things are unconvincing from the outset.
But I'd just like to ask two questions:
1. Aren't we both speculating? Neither of us knows perfectly what legalizing gay marriage will bring, so, as is the case with debates about legislation, we're both positing our best guess from our prior experiences and reading.
That's not to say that all answers are equal here; it's just that it's not fair to imply that conservatives are the only ones speculating about the future.
2. Do you believe that there is any difference between homosexual and heterosexual relationships? If not, do you believe—sorry, this is going to be more than two questions :)—that there are no inherent differences between males and females?
I'm going to assume that you believe that homosexuality is innate, and that you also believe that heterosexuality is innate.
But if you believe heterosexuality is innate then you must agree that there is a general difference between the sexes: males are more likely to be attracted to females and females to males.
I realize that there are exceptions to this (homosexuals), but since when did any label describe any group in totality?
What I mean is that if I say that grandmas are kind and it turns out they're only kind 90% of the time that doesn't mean I've miss labeled them; it's just a problem with language.
So if I say that there are inherently female characteristics and that there are inherently male characteristics—that the sexes are inherently different—then I mean that a female characteristic is that which most females exhibit and a male characteristic is that which most males exhibit.
Sexuality, then, is just one possible difference between the sexes. But if there is room for this one difference (and there has to be if you believe that homosexuality is innate), then there could very easily be room for other differences, as hard as they may be to consciously parse.
I don't have the evidence here to say which traits are female and which traits are male and which traits are derived from culture and which traits are derived from birth, but even though I can't yet parse these differences doesn't mean that I believe that there aren't some very real inherent differences between males and females.
So I don't think that one can say that homosexual marriage is just the same as heterosexual marriage. There may be homosexual couples and heterosexual couples that are very, very similar in multiple aspects, but when viewed from a distance, looking at a entire nation or state (the view public policy takes), it becomes more clear that homosexual relationships aren't synonymous with heterosexual relationships.
And this brings me back to what I perceive as a strength in Card's article: changing the definition of marriage won't mean that homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships are identical. It will only mean that we're pretending they are identical.
Since the sexes have inherent differences, homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships are different categories, something that again speaks to the idea of calling homosexual relationships "civil unions" while simultaneously granting homosexuals full rights under the law, as long as those rights allow religions to function as they wish (something, as you pointed out, the Church supports).
You ask what effect gay marriage will have on churches if it is passed, and I've made some conjectures. But allow me to reverse the question: What would unacceptable negative effect would granting full rights and civil unions have on gay couples?
Well put Jon. I wish I had the time to put as much thought and reason as you and the other posters have. But I believe you're spot on with the way you described there being innate male/female characteristics. Keep up the good work on your always intriguing ideas.
daine,
As this topic appears to have about run its course, will you indulge me to respond to an off-topic comment you made regarding conservatives embracing the exception rather than the rule in reference to abstinence-only sex education?
As a conservative, my fear is that we are headed towards abstinence-free sex education. In my youth abstinence was taught in my home, at my church and mentioned in biology classes. All of my close friends believed that it was the right way to behave. It worked for most of us and even for those few who gave in to their urges it worked because they have been faithful to their one partner now for many years.
The current trend of belittling the teaching of abstinence, combined with teaching that, "Everyone is doing it, so you better know how to protect yourself", has led to the hook-up culture so prevalent today.
The difference between the two approaches is one of happiness versus pleasure. The hook-up culture is all about instant gratification or pleasure. It encourages having as many partners as often as you can. That search for multiple partners is much less likely to affect you after marriage than if you have practiced abstinence. Unfaithfulness after marriage may bring pleasure, but never happiness.
Which is the bigger disaster, the fact that teaching abstinence may not lead to 100% compliance and may result in unplanned pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases. Or the fact that omitting its teaching will expand the hook-up culture and lead to unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases (when you just once don't have a condom), will result in uncommitted spouses or live-in partners and unhappiness, frustration and loss of self-esteem that come from hooking up?
In this case, as in the other cases Jon mentioned, I believe the conservatives do embrace the rule rather than the exception.
Jon,
I agree that there are some innate characteristics that differ between the sexes. As you said, they're hard to pin down, because I believe we learn many of the habits and traits that appear, generally, to divide males and females.
But even if that's true--that homosexual marriage is not identical to heterosexual marriage because of these innate differences--there is a problem with the argument that homosexual "marriage" is not really marriage at all. A single-parent home is not identical to a family with both parents intact. But does that mean my family isn't a "family" at all, as Card believes? If you agree with Card, the debate has to stop here; we have to agree to disagree. But I think you would call my family a "family," because you want to be inclusive. So just because a gay marriage is not identical to yours, does that mean we can't expand the definition of marriage to include all loving, monogamous couples?
People on my side of the fence want to be inclusive in our descriptions of families and marriages, because the bonds felt in any given family or marriage are just as important as in any other, and that's what we want to base the definition on. My family is just as much a family as yours--not because the makeup is identical, but because we love each other and have been through so much. By the same token, a gay marriage is just as much a "marriage" as mine, in that those two people are in a loving, monogamous, permanent relationship.
Arguing that gay marriage shouldn't be allowed because it isn't "marriage" (because it isn't identical to heterosexual marriage) is circular. It assumes an arbitrarily narrow definition of marriage that you have chosen: "gay marriage isn't marriage because it isn't the same as 'marriage.'" There's no reason given for refusing to expand the definition of marriage as we have expanded the definition of "family." That's not an argument at all.
If you define these words too narrowly, you leave people out, and I think children, especially, are negatively affected by such exclusion. Telling a child at school that he and his grandparents or he and his single father or mother aren't a "real" family does harm, not good.
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