Gay Activists’ Entitlement and Incivility
The aftermath of Proposition 8’s passage in California has put the spotlight on the glaring incivility of homosexual activists in the state. Understandably disappointed, they’ve gone too far by staging high-profile personal attacks on individuals who sided against their cause.
It seems that everyone in America mistakenly believes that they are entitled to have their every whim emblazoned into law. What ever happened to the idea of bringing society’s questions to a vote and accepting the result afterward? It’s certainly gone out of vogue, if it was ever in, and we’re the worse for it.
The irony of California’s unrest is that proximate cause of the current high was the state supreme court’s controversial decision to legalize gay marriage at the expense of an existing voter-approved ballot measure to the contrary. Had the activists on the court simply accepted voters’ wishes the current situation would not have come to pass.
In that respect the court’s ruling is similar to the one that initiated years of forced integration in the nation’s public school system. Although busing was a largely failed effort that left cities half-empty and half-broke and helped create suburban sprawl without achieving significant social integration, desegregation at least dealt with a fundamental question of equality – the distribution of the tax-funded education system’s resources.
Gay marriage does not and cannot meet the same standard for two reasons. First, homosexuals in America are perfectly free to live the lifestyle they’ve chosen. It’s even hip in certain circles to be gay. Second, the issue as it’s framed is little more than an attempt to redefine the all-important institution of marriage so as to grant homosexuality a legitimacy it does not have on its merits.
If the discussion, if what’s going on in California can be termed such, were about rights of survivorship, inheritance, access to insurance benefits, or other such legal construct, I suspect that gays would have encountered much less resistance. Certainly I would not be writing this article, if that’s any indication of the country at-large.
Instead, and suddenly, gay activists are publicly demonizing blacks, straights, Mormons, and the elderly as bad people who deserve to be ambushed in person and in print for daring to exercise their constitutional right to vote their conscience. If that doesn’t epitomize the chilling of free speech I don’t know what does.
It’s one thing to disagree with a law, to work to have it overturned, and to march on City Hall. But it’s quite another to accost and attack the opposition simply because your position – no matter how closely held – is rejected.
Writing about the crude behavior Chicago students toward a lone, daring McCain supporter, Katie Allison Granju says:
…most people who express political disagreement via trashtalk somehow find a way to justify their own ugliness, blaming it on the opposition rather than owning their personal decision to resort to insults and nastiness as they try (and usually fail) to make their points.
Gays and lesbians are failing to make their point in California for exactly these reasons. Their cause lost in the court of public opinion and they now think they can shout down and bully their opponents into compliance using sheer shrillness. Not so.
I’m glad that I am not the only one seeing this issue for what it really is. It’s all about being able to silence their critics by removing their freedom to voice their conscious and nothing about family.
There is of course good reasons, even if only tactical, to avoid stradegies of intimidation (a stradegy employed incidently at the center of the Yes on 8 campaign.) But this wasn’t a vote for school bonds but for discrimination at the core of the constitution.
With revelations by the San Francisco Chronicle, we now see with cruel irony, in the stronghold of gay and lesbian liberalism, a lover of Mozart and stamp collecting orchestrates the repeal of basic human rights in inviting collusion with other reactionary religious forces. It is beyond embarassing so self evident the lie in the attempt by Bishop Blaire and Archbishop Mahoney to characterize this undermining of the equal protection clause of the Constitution as not directed at same sex couples and the presently 13000 children of those unions. It is equally fatuous of them to insist that the opposition play nice and accept the tyranny of the majority and its injustice. And it is in utter contempt of the truth for the bishop of Sacramento to label as bigots those protesting the churches that acted as political agents of reaction, when far from being the aggrieved party he and they are the oppressor.
Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles Archdiocese stated clearly the bishops agenda in a manner that in previous times struck fear in Jews and Hugenots, in the following statement.
“I am grateful to the Catholic Community of Los Angeles for your commitment to the institution of marriage as fashioned by God and to work with such energy to enshrine this divine plan into our state’s Constitution,” What else is on the Cradinal’s agenda?
One major tactical error by the anti-8 forces is to pretend that everyone who opposes them are all bigots or motivted by hate. While there is an undeniable fringe, apparently very few of the proponents were active in that direction compared to the multitudes inspired by principles or religion.
Raj, just to clear up the record: The LDS church does not condone polygamy. The practice was banned more than 100 years ago. Some radical groups that call themselves Mormons still practice it, but are not affiliated with mainstream Mormonism. As for the racism issue, many current Mormons joined the church after 1978, and the church publicly denounced whatever justification they had used for the ban prior to 1978. A good argument can be made that it was a wrong and racist policy. But do you really think all current Mormons are racist because of it? Do you know any members of the LDS church?
For the record, I’m a Mormon who is conflicted on the issue of Proposition 8, although thankfully I don’t live in California. The attacks on the church aren’t likely to win me over, but I suppose I’m not your target audience. I was going to write a post on my blog trying to look at the issue objectively, but the issue has become so heated, and I’m afraid my words will be twisted and used against me, that I probably won’t even post it.
With that said, marc, I don’t really understand how the pro-proposition 8 folks are limited the free speech of the opposition. If they really believe that support of Proposition 8 amounts to bigotry, they should be free to say so. Of course if it rises, as in some cases it has, to physical attacks or to public slander of private citizens, then that’s not appropriate. But proportionately protesting, even with signs that accuse the other side of hate, is perfectly within their rights and doesn’t limit the free speech of the other side at all. Perhaps it’s the more extreme behavior your referring to though.
As far the courts are concerned, I also don’t understand the argument that “Had the activists on the court simply accepted voters’ wishes the current situation would not have come to pass.” The court should not be bound to the will of the voters. If it were so, why have courts at all? Why have a constitution at all, if all issues are to be decided just by popular vote. If the weight the evidence presented before the court led them to the conclusion that restricting gay marriage is unconstitutional, they have the obligation to rule that way, even if 99% of the public disagrees. We can debate whether it is constitutional, but I don’t agree at all with the argument that a court is activist if it disagrees with the majority.
Sorry for the long comment. I had a lot to respond to.
That should have been “passionately protesting” not “proportionately protesting”. Spell check got me.
Hmm I’m liking the comments so far, very thoughtful and measured. I have to chime in to agree with Mike: Engaging issues to public opinion is fine, but public opinion is not and should not be the standard for everything. People should be entitled to equal rights under the law even if 99,999% of folks think they should be given less rights. Currently gays and lesbians don’t have those equal rights. I’m very much in favor of educating and reaching out to the public in order to get public opinion on their side. However, even if 98% of people thought that gays and lesbians don’t deserve equal protection under the law, it would still be wrong and I would approve of court intervention. That’s what courts are for, in part, to interpret the law in a manner that protects even unfavored groups.
Gay marriage is very much like inter-racial marriage, the fact that public opinion is or was against it has no bearing on how right or wrong it is. Of course unlike inter-racial marriage, people of one race have the potential to be happy with people of their same race, whereas gay people would never be happy in an opposite sex marriage. I know you like to think of being gay as a “lifestyle choice” Marc, but sadly for you a wealth of psychological and medical data contradict you, which is why no respected medical institution on the planet currently shares your view. Personally, just like interracial marriage, I would believe same sex marriage should be allowed even if homosexuality were a choice. The fact that it is not only adds more urgency to the matter.
The role for the courts is really difficult in a situation like this. On the one hand, I agree with Claudia that an independent judiciary is established precisely to protect the rights of minorities against the prejudices of the majority. But on the other hand, do we really want to establish as a general principle that the details of defining rights is entirely in the hands of a Mandarin elite that is systemically and consistently hostile to a huge part of the public? Such a principle threatens to provoke serious instability, as the portion of the public that finds itself repeatedly in the majority but nonetheless persistently discriminated against by the courts on all kinds of issues (not only those that are harming others, but trivial things too) struggles to overturn the over-expanded principle that is repressing them.
One problem here is that the power of courts to overrule the majority relies on trust in the public that that power will not be abused. The fact that it has been so badly and blatantly abused by some courts over the last 40 years (the Ninth Circuit is particularly egregious at times) has undermined that trust and made it more difficult to believe that the power of courts to overturn democratic outcomes should be endorsed at a blanket level.
The United States is not a theocracy. We separate church and state.
It is unjust and unconstitutional to discriminate against a category of people in the United States of America. Voters have disenfranchised American citizens by denying them their constitutional civil right to marry. Marriage is a a legal right.
California’s constitution can be *amended* by a majority vote, but it can only be *revised* with the approval of two-thirds of both houses of the legislature and then submitted to voters. This vote was a REVISION that removes the constitutional guarantee of equality. A majority is not granted the power to take away a right guaranteed by the constitution.
The California Supreme Court majority opinion did not affect religion. It stated that “no religion will be required to change its policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs.”
The guarantee of equality exists to protect minorities from discrimination at the hands of a majority.
Actually Matthew touches on an issue that does not only affect the rights of Gays and Lesbians.
Whose idiot idea was it to make it so the state constitution could be amended by a simply majority vote? That reduces the state constitution to the same level as parking violation laws. Theoretically constitutions should exist as superior forms of law, widely accepted rights and obligations that are more stable than the laws beneath it. That’s the way the US Constitution works, and it boggles my mind that the California constitution is so vulnerable. If a constitution is really meant to enshrine the more basic and important laws, it should be stable, harder to change than, say, a law about animal husbandry practices.
Claudia,
I imagine that the allowance of a majority vote to *amend* the constitution is perhaps because it was assumed it would only be used to grant additional rights. If for example, the public decided that everyone should have some right, it seems perfectly reasonable that it should be able to be added to the constitution without needing to go through as many hoops as a change to the constitution (a revision). The problem in this case is that it is, in some people’s view, taking away a right.
This is actually why I believe the courts will rule that this was a revision, and not amendment, and therefore declare the proposition invalid. The CA Supreme Court ruled in May that the CA constitution protected gay marriage. So whether we like it or not, that is not the official interpretation. If Proposition 8 contradicts that, then it is, by definition, a change to the constitution (gay marriage is now unconstitutional whereas before it was protected) instead of an addition. Therefore, I expect the legal challenges to succeed. Of course that’s just my amateur opinion. I’m not a lawyer. If that does happen, it will be interesting to see what the reaction is to that.
And also, as I’ve said before, my personal feelings regarding whether the legal recognition of gay marriage is good for society are conflicted. I’m making a legal prediction based on what has already been decided by the court.
I’ve never before heard of this distinction between an amendment and a revision. Substantively, I agree that it appears to provide a means to a better outcome to the dispute over the content of the California state constitution. Procedurally, however, it appears to me a very dangerous principle that in effect grants to the courts unlimited and unchecked power to overrule any change to the state constitution with which the judges personally disagree. Basically, any attempt to turn back overreaching by judges could be frustrated by the judges themselves declaring the effort to be a “revision” and relying on a mere 1/3 of the single-party-machine-controlled state legislature to sustain. What remains of democracy in such an environment?
Jason,
But if the change is made through the legislature (with 2/3 of the vote), then the court cannot overrule it. This is the check on the judicial branch. So yes, the courts do have some power to overrule popular opinion, but it is checked. This is the same as is true at the federal level.
But to complicate matters, I understand that in California justices are elected by popular vote, although somehow they’re not supposed to consider that when making legal decisions, which is probably impossible. So the only thing that makes me doubt my prediction (other than the fact that perhaps there are legal details I’m not aware of, which there probably are) is that perhaps a justice or two will fear having the “activist” label and change their view. I can only imagine how angry those who believe courts should not overrule popular opinion will be if they again strike down a proposition. It’s relevant that the May decision was a 5-4 vote, so if even one justice yields to this pressure, it would make a difference.
Given the near impossibility of removing a sitting judge in a reelection vote (as I understand it, incumbents for judicial seats have the highest reelection rate and highest rate of running unopposed of all elected offices above the local level) and given the overwhelmingly single-party-machine character of the California state legislature, I have serious doubts about the ability of the mechanisms you cite to constitute any significant limitation of the ability of left-leaning judges to do anything they want, regardless of popular opinion.
It is intrinsically dangerous when one political party overwhelmingly controls all 3 branches of government simultaneously AND is armed with the legal tools to overrule and even prohibit even the expression of grass-roots dissent. College campuses, with their pseudo-legalistic star chambers (judicial), heavily ideologically skewed speech codes, and overwhelming dominance by leftists on the faculty (analogous to legislatures) and in administration (analogous to executive branch) shows a microcosm of the kinds of dysfunction and repression that can result when institutional checks become inoperative due to single-party dominance.
I am personally finding it frightening how one minority that feels aggrieved due to an election outcome is not only offered a very likely legal path to overturning that election outcome, but is also being empowered to undertake extra-legal punitive retaliation upon any individuals that they suspect are associated even with the failed ATTEMPT to change the state constitution. I don’t have much faith in the heavily-dominated state legislature or judiciary to protect the civil rights of those who might have supported Prop 8. California is starting to look like Chavez’ Venezuela.
Does anyone detect the slightest hint of hypocrisy in the fact that the same group that for years has been calling for acceptance and tolerance refuses to accept and tolerate the will of the voters? Everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, had an equal voice in the voting booth. It is now time for those who have been advocating tolerance to practice what they preach. BTW, since there is no law forbidding a gay person from marrying someone of the opposite sex, the real issue at hand, legally speaking, is not equal rights, it is special rights.
We will not be lectured or intimidated by those with nothing but contempt for the laws of God, Nature and Man.
ALL of those now state that marriage is defined as the union of one MAN and one WOMAN.
Until you STOP TRYING TO DISTORT AND CO-OPT these laws, faith and militant homosexuality will remain unable to peacefully coexist.
So it’s time for our leaders to make your stand. Preserve the liberties that a dozen generations of Americans have fought and died to protect. Or succumb to an anything-goes culture to please a tiny sect of the populous who insist on wearing their lifestyles on their sleeves.
“Laws of God”? Which God? Yours? A Hindu God? An animist God? Which modality of your God? The Jewish one? The Muslim one? The Christian one? Which sub-modality of the Christian modality of the Biblical god? The Catholic one? The Orthodox Christian one? The Baptist one? The Mormon one? The Methodist one? Which one do you think should be imposed on everyone as the law of the land?
The answer to that question is of course irrelevant, since we don’t live in a Theocracy, and therefore the law of no God is considered automatically the law of the land. Check the Constitution. If you are uncomfortable living in a country that does not put “Gods law” above all other considerations, may I suggest a country more respectful of religious law. How about Iran?
“Laws of Man”? Which men? English men? Chinese men? Afghani men? Spanish men? Dutch men? Canadian men? American men? Which American men? Utah men? California men? Massachusetts men? Connecticut men? Alabama men?
All their laws are different from one another, even on the narrow subject of homosexuality. Some places allow gay marriage (and so far have not seen the death of the heterosexual family, shockingly enough) others do not. Different times have also had different laws of men. Laws of men enshrined both the enslavement and liberation of blacks. Laws of men allowed nobles to rape women on their wedding night. Laws of men have also given every person a certain set of basic rights, no matter how small and how hated their minority. Laws of men ensure a womans rights over her own body or the freedom to kill the unborn, depending on what you think of the subject. That a law is a law makes it neither just nor unjust. If laws were supposed perfect there would be no mechanism in place to change them.
“Laws of Nature”? Almost the only laws nature actually has are those of thermodynamics. Within that framework, nature has a free run. I am going to suppose you mean that since homosexuality is not “natural” it is inherently “against the laws of nature” and hence wrong. This of course ignores the fact that homosexuality can indeed be found in nature in up to 1500 animal species, including dolphins, killer whales, lions, birds (that can have monogamous homosexual relationships) and different types of primates (including dwarf chimpanzees where all individuals are bisexual). Do you know what you can’t find in nature at all? Religion. So I suppose that since religion isn’t in nature, making it by definition unnatural, therefore it is wrong no?
It’s ironic that you would talk about preserving liberties in an argument that seeks to justify precisely the opposite for a minority of people. It’s doubly ironic that you would speak of submitting to an “anything goes culture” while trying to argue that gays should be excluded from the possibility of embarking on the conservative institution of marriage.
It saddens me to see what lengths people will go to try to justify the denial of rights to people who are patently harming no one. However it somewhat consoles me to know that it is merely a matter of time. The younger generation is accepting and understanding. They do not feel threatened by the happiness of someone who is different. They will be around longer than those who are. It is merely a matter of time.
As a conservative black American I take issue with the comparison of Gay Marriage rights to that of inter-racial marriage.
In fact I resent the comparison! Inter-racial Marriage has one fact gays conveniently overlook; inter-racial marriage was the marriage of one man and one woman who happen to be of different races. It not the same as one man and one man or one woman and one woman, and to say it’s the same is an outright deliberate attempt to mislead the ignorant and gullible.
With or without the support of society inter-racial marriage was happening throughout the world and beautifully mixed children were being produced like Obama for example. Some in society who had nothing but hate and some still do, would try to prevent a man and a women from doing what other men and women did when they were in love.
Gay marriage is not the same by any means to inter-racial marriage and those who have an issue with digesting this misguided gay logic should question it because its not convincing whatsoever. The fact that the entire world from the beginning has done well without gay marriage stands to reason that the entire world will do well in the future without gay marriage as well. And if there are some who welcome this logic then so be it but to pretend as if those that reject this gay logic are doing so based on hate is in itself hate in my view. Hate of those that disagree with your logic.
And stop using Blacks as a scapegoat to your agenda! What have gays done for Blacks in America except use their suffering to promote there selfish goals!
Uhm yes, you’ve caught me there! Interracial marriage is indeed the marriage of two people who happen to be of a different race, while same sex marriage is the marriage of two people who happen to be of the same gender. They are, in that sense, different. They are also arrangements that were widely disapproved of by society and yet hurt no one. Eventually courts needed to step in to protect their rights, because public opinion couldn’t be trusted to do so by itself.
With or without the support of society same-sex marriage (or partnership) is happening throughout the world. Beautiful adopted or biological children are being raised in those families. Some in society had nothing than hate and some still do, and try to prevent two people from doing what they do when they are in love.
As for “well we never had gay marriage before and we were doing fine!”. Yeah, and for millennium slavery was considered perfectly normal. Would you support an argument in favor of slavery that said “well for thousands of years there’s been slavery and everything is fine, so of course if we keep on having slavery everything will be fine!”
Everything will be fine except for the slaves naturally. Not having Gay marriage makes everything fine, for everyone but the gays of course, and their children.
A “scapegoat”, in case you’re curious, is used to blame someone for what you believe to be a problem. I do not believe gay marriage to be a problem except that it’s a pity many don’t have the right to it. You actually mean you don’t want me using blacks as an example. I refuse to stop. I happen to believe it’s a fine and valid example and frankly you don’t get to own any example having to do with black people because you happen to be black. Remember, there are black gays also, there are even interracial gay couples. Someday, they will be able to marry and have the same shot at happiness that everyone else has.
Claudia, it really comes down to whether or not homosexuality is an identity (as race obviously is) vs. an environmentally influenced choice of behavior. I’ve challenged you before to produce scientific evidence of the former, and I don’t think you responded (as I recall, Jason put forward a couple of links but I felt they were far from conclusive and explained why- which I believe even Jason conceded.)
Perhaps one day there will be such evidence (which will only open up new cans of worms though, because even evidence of a biologically inherent trait won’t convince people that it’s a healthy trait so you’ll have people dividing into camps which alternately say this proves that gays should be fully accepted and those who say the trait should be ‘corrected’.)
I don’t think there will ever come a time when being gay will have the same meaning in terms of civil rights protections that racial differences have. If there will be such a time, I think we’re far from it, and I feel that gays and gay rights activists should recognize that these attitudes can’t be legislated. In that sense, the perfect shouldn’t be allowed to be the enemy of the good- it would be much better to legislate what potentially can be legislated (pushing for civil union equality, not marriage) and not fighting to have everyone in society accept homosexuality as an equally moral choice to heterosexuality. Again, the latter is attidinal and can’t be created by legislative fiat or aggressive political tactics.
I believe you are overstating the extent of my concession and omitting key additional points of mine that you also failed to respond to at the time.
I conceded that the evidence was not conclusive, but I noted that all available inconclusive evidence is nonetheless unidirectional. Since it is impossible to design a conclusive study to differentiate nature from nurture in the development of sexuality, the fact that all inconclusive evidence nonetheless points towards a nature as the primary factor lends presumption to the notion that sexuality is analogous to race in that it lies outside the control of the individual. Until and unless there emerges a substantial body of evidence to the contrary, policy questions should be premised on the presumption that sexuality is innate, not chosen. Critics of gay rights should not be empowered to appeal to the mere possibility that all the available inconclusive but substantial evidence available might mysteriously be wrong as a dispositive argument. It is sort of the same situation as with polls — it is true that all polls are imperfect measurements of public opinion, but when dozens of imperfect polls on the exact same subject produce a consistent pattern of the same outcome, it is most reasonable to conclude that they are probably more right than wrong and respond accordingly in making political calculations. Perpetual skepticism based on clinging to any remaining shred of doubt may be fun for Socrates, but let’s not pretend that it represents a serious approach to policymaking either.
This is reinforced by my point that you overlooked before and that you overlook now: That EVEN IF sexuality is in part or in whole determined by nurture, that is STILL not a reason to justify discrimination. Neuroses and various other forms of emotional or cognitive dysfunction are formed by life experiences — should we therefore prohibit neurotics and those with other emotional problems from marrying? Of course not. Even if evidence were suddenly discovered to support the premise, the idea that sexuality may be partially or even wholly contingent does not clearly support the conclusion that gay rights critics want to assert. The common use of this argument as a primary foundation for anti-gay rights arguments is frankly just an exercise in really bad logical reasoning.
Jason, I was aware that I was probably overstating the degree that you conceded the lack of conclusiveness(I still disagree with you but didn’t mean to mistate your opinion- just couldn’t think of a short way to write it more clearly.)
But also, I didn’t ignore that last point your discussing- I responded to it by rejecting your analogy regarding neuroses. A comparable analogy would be in hiring someone with a neurosis- we do in fact accept that hiring decisions aren’t discriminatory if they are based on an actual inability to perform a job function due to the neurosis (say, an OCD person who can’t complete tasks because he’s constantly performing rituals.) I don’t think the fact that we don’t allow discriminatory decisions on neurotic people marrying implies that such disorders allow such people to claim priveleged status in all matters, IOW. If the behavior itself could be seen as an impediment to granting equal status in any one legal area, the state can and will determine whether or not the decision to exclude such people is discriminatory or allowable.
Note that my position on gay marriage is that I’d favor equal civil union status for homosexuals and heterosexuals, so from the standpoint of the state I do not think discrimination in regard to civil protections for couple should be permitted. But I think it’s an overreach to redefine the traditional definition of marriage because I do believe it poses a danger to religious freedom- since marriage is both secular and religious institution, redefining it in the secular sphere runs the risk of overinterpretation of civil rights to include the right to a church sanctioned marriage. I know we’ve discussed this before and you disagree with my concern based on past legal precedent, but I’m unconvinced. This is because I feel that it’s very possible that such cases would be brought up, and I don’t think it’s at all unlikely that a future liberal activist court would hear them and perhaps side against the religious groups.
Or, it could even happen legislatively first- with liberal legislative branches deciding to codify a statute which would disallow churches’ discretion on marrying homosexuals. Think about it- if the law invokes the principle that you say that it should (presuming innateness of homosexuality) then how can a church say otherwise? I realize that there’s been much precedent for allowing churches to decide who is in good standing to participate in membership, sacraments, rituals, etc- but surely the law would not allow the church to make those judgments en masse for one group of people? And if homosexuality is considered innate, then that’s exactly what the church would be doing (rather than considering it a disqualifying factor based on choice of the individual’s behavior.)
Consider too, in terms of judicial philosophy shifts- before Roe, you’d have had to have said that the courts generally have permitted the states’ legislatures to decide on putting restrictions on abortion. That changed pretty dramatically though, no? And so why do you feel it’s inconcievable that the courts might begin interpreting the churches’ exemption from discriminatory judgments in a different light?
And back to abortion again for another example of shifting (this time through the legislative branch)- if the FOCA passes, my understanding is that the longstanding tradition of allowing Catholic (or other religious) hospitals to be exempt from providing abortions will be overturned. So again, how are we not to believe that we’re not at the precipice of a slippery slope with all of these matters of religious freedom?
I feel the need to point out here, Jason, something you probably are already aware of- that research funding is a highly politicized process. What do you think the odds are of getting funded by NIMH for a study seeking to provide evidence of the nurture influence, or evidence of homosexuality being pathological?
Jason, thank you for an excellent round up both of the matter of the evidence towards an innate cause to homosexuality and the folly of arguing that gay marriage would be wrong even accepting the (unsupported) claim that homosexuality is a “choice”.
C. Stanley, a group of people cannot be denied rights solely based on the fear that, unlike all the previous times church doctrine has come into conflict with secular practice this time the church would be forced to capitulate. At the very least you should provide some concrete example of the church being forced to change its own rules to include a henceforth prohibited practice. Women are equal in the law and no one forces churches to name female priests. Divorce is exceedingly common and yet the Catholic church is not forced to accommodate this practice. Quite simply I would love for you to show me an instance where something prohibited by the church was forced upon them in the name of equal rights. And I’m not talking about an associated charity losing tax exempt status due to anti-discrimination rules, I mean something at least close to as grave as what you’re implying you fear could happen.
Since the Constitution does not permit the endorsement of any religion or denomination, you likewise cannot pretend that your marriage should be the recognized marriage in the law while gay marriage (which is permitted in some liberal denominations) does not have the right to call itself marriage. If I am ever married, my marriage will have no religious connotations, as you know. And yet I will be married and the fact no priest officiated it will not change that fact. You are free to not recognize my marriage as valid, but would you deny me the legal right, out of fear that the state would force churches to open up marriage to non-believers?
C Stanley, if you are minimally aware of the scientific method, you know that by its very nature a study must allow for positive or negative results. You can hypothesize that the brain chemistry of a gay man is different from that of a heterosexual man, but for your paper to be accepted you must conduct experiments that allow for the opposite result, with all the proper controls included.
Grant requests will most often not include something as presumptuous as the expected result. They will include a question, the relevant known data on the matter and especially the reasons why the answer is interesting to find.
If you are saying that scientists are tweaking the scientific results so that they show a politically favorable conclusion, then you are leveling the accusation of scientific fraud. No accusation is more grave in science, so it’s not one to be made lightly. Naturally enough the scientific method has a failsafe, the requirement of reproducibility. If results have been faked, then it is to be expected that it will be found out the minute other groups attempt similar experiments and find drastically different results. Of course, considering that the virtual totality of credible science points to no choice being involved in the matter of sexuality, this would mean a global conspiracy to commit scientific fraud. Is that your accusation?
Of course, considering that the virtual totality of credible science points to no choice being involved in the matter of sexuality, this would mean a global conspiracy to commit scientific fraud. Is that your accusation?
Claudia, I’m sure you are well aware that biases do not require conspiracy and that a group of people is often unaware of their own bias. Please spare me the outrage over your overblown interpretation of my ‘accusation’.
I am short on time and unable to respond to all the rest of your questions. I think I’ve already covered my opinions about gay marriage vs. gay civil unions in previous threads pretty thoroughly. I’m of the opinion that the thing we currently call a civil marriage is different than a religious marriage (or can be different) and that the same term shouldn’t be used in order to differentiate the legal status from the religiously sanctioned status. I believe that in terms of civil liberties, this distinction should protect the rights of all while also protecting against infringement of religious freedom. You are asking for evidence that that freedom has already been infringed, but I believe Constitutionally a concern should be addressed before the fact to ensure protections against plausible challenges.
Biochemical and genetic research into the matter of homosexuality is about as immune to bias as any other biochemical study. Either the chemistry is different or it isn’t. Either the results conform to statistical models or they do not. I can’t wish my way into neurotransmitter balances I would prefer.
As for the psychological or psychiatric examinations, though I am not familiar with all the details, it’s my understanding that usually when the evaluation of a result depends on the judgment of a human being, extra measures are usually taken to make the study as blind, as bias free, as possible. Removing bias from a scientific study is a part of good scientific methodology, and I can only imagine that they become more important as the data becomes softer and more open to outside interpretation.
In any event the initial point by Jason holds; a policy position cannot be taken predicated on the possibility that every study done on a given subject is either voluntarily or involuntarily wrong, and therefore conclusions must be derived assuming that the opposite is true or even that there is no information on the subject. Unless and until credible evidence surfaces pointing to homosexuality being a free choice the current understanding that it is not should be the norm. Not that in my view gays would be entitled to fewer rights if they had a choice to not be gay (after all, people have the choice to be religious or not and it doesn’t change their rights), but for now the data points to there not being a choice.
Claudia, my point is simply that it’s really not going to be possible to prove conclusively one way or another. The studies Jason linked to last time were very similar to anxiety studies, focusing on amygdala gating. The current theory on anxiety disorders is a mixed nature/nurture model, based on similar studies. Yet the conclusions being touted in the homosexuality studies are being touted as proof of innateness- that’s one example of bias and drawing a more politically palatable conclusion.
Another example as I’ve already mentioned is the funding bias. Of course I know that one does not submit a study saying “This study will prove X conclusion” but it’s also quite obvious that many presumptions can be made about the implications if a hypothesis does prove true or false. If there are conceptually 100 different areas that people are considering looking at regarding brain structure, function, or neurotransmitters, and some of those areas have already been theorized to be genetically predetermined while others are known to be developmental, environmentally influenced pathways, chemicals, or structures, then which ones studies will be chosen to fund by someone who believes that it would be politically inflammatory to uncover evidence that homosexuality is at least partly a choice?
And again, I’m not suggesting that those decisions are made by a vast conspiracy- probably not even consciously done by the individuals who made the decisions.
Interestingly as a side note: as someone who has worked for an advocacy group for families of kids with anxiety disorders, I saw this work in reverse because it favored the families to find as much evidence as possible that the disorders had a genetic basis. This helped remove the stigma of ‘bad parenting’. So, guess which studies WE tried to help fund through private research foundations, and which published studies we published on our website and literature? That’s the way science becomes part of the political dialogue- and it’s a fair enough process but scientists sometimes are guilty of the politicization and bias too (all humans are subject to bias, I’m not claiming that there’s not an effort made by scientists) but we ought to be a lot more careful about drawing one sided conclusions. The burden of proof and degree of skepticism ought to be pretty high whenever there are political stakes.
Sure they can and have historically been allowed to do so. The Mormon church systematically discriminated against blacks up until 1979, with no challenge from the government even throughout the famously activist Warren Court. Why? The First Amendment specifically prohibits the government from making any public policy mandates on churches, period. Zero. Zilch. None. Not even on race. Not even on sex. (Catholics and Mormons and Muslims and many other churches regularly discriminate on the basis of sex.) Codes of worthiness within religion can even be entirely arbitrary and the government has still refused to overrule them, regardless of how far they conflict with government policy.
All fantasies about churches being forced by the government to marry homosexuals are just that, fantasies. They have no basis in law or fact. And there is black letter Constitution standing in the way of any hypothetical scenario. Seriously, don’t you feel yourself straining to come up with a scenario here?
No, Jason, seriously, I don’t. Consider my example of Roe- using your logic, wouldn’t you have been able to similarly say that there was no precedent for that kind of judicial activism prior to that decision?
And what I am telling you is that even the same Court that decided Roe never made even the slightest step towards the kind of government intervention into religion that you are predicting. The courts refused to intervene even in cases of overt and sweeping religious discrimination based on BOTH race and sex. Not even a local federal district judge has attempted what you predict.
I think you have a very high burden of proof before you can expect such a theory of completely novel behavior from the courts to carry any weight in an argument about gay marriage.
Jason, obviously we won’t have the same court that we had at the time of Roe; we don’t now and we won’t in the future. There’s every reason to think that Obama might appoint justices who would cross what you consider a bright line, even if it’s not been done before (consider my example of what he seeks to do legislatively with FOCA.)
And to be honest, even if I’m wrong to think this concern is warranted, politically it would make a lot more sense for gay rights activists to respect this concern and back initiatives for civil unions while also refraining from fighting against legislation to ban gay ‘marriage’. Do you at least see my point in that regard? Anyone who seeks to create a societal shift in acceptance ought to recognize that being so dismissive of the sensitivities of the majority (and having an ‘all or nothing’ approach) is not a great strategy. Surely there are ways that the concerns for religious freedom can be addressed in a positive manner rather than engaging in handwringing about how it’s never happened before so why worry now?
Interesting debate. Regarding the ability of the courts to impose on religion, I agree with Jason that it seems to me to be well established that equal rights laws are not applicable to religions. I have never heard of a credible law suit to force conservatives religions to accept women in leadership roles, for example. If it were at all possible, I’m sure the feminist movement would have tried it.
However, considering the example of abortion and birth control, we do see court action being taken against *individuals* who refuse to offer abortion as an option to patients, or pharmacists who refuse to sell birth control. And the recent example of a photographer who was sued because he did not want to photograph a gay wedding is comparable to that. What about a marriage counselor who, for whatever reason, did not want to offer his services to a gay couple? We can debate whether that is the right thing to do, even for someone who things homosexuality is immoral. But still, these are valid fears of the religious community.
So, in short, I think there is some truth in what both of you are saying.
If I could somewhat digress for a second. It seems a key theme of this discussion is the “right ” or appropriateness of using “religious standards” to vote or influence policy. I’m a bit struck by that insofar that we (the electorate) use a variety of “value-sets” to influences our decisions. I note California just past Prop. 2 which aimed to “Require that an enclosure or tether confining specified farm animals allow the animals for the majority of every day to fully extend their limbs or wings, lie down, stand up, and turn around.”
This proposition essentially “begs” the voter to use values beyond the everyday decisions of the livestock manager. “I have an animal that I need to grow and then kill so I can sell it. Whether I grow it in a small pen or a large pen won’t change that reality”
Now we can argue all we want as to the “correctness” of what value-set we bring to bear on this decision but clearly IMHO each voter has the right (dare I suggest responsibility unless we’re ok with randomly voting “yes” or “no”)to use whatever one he/she wants to use: be it religious or whatever. To do so is not to “impose one’s religious views on others”. (Unless, of course, the question at hand is a clear case of the state “establishing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion”)