David Frum’s new opinion website New Majority debuted yesterday and I find the beginning auspicious. The writing is good, particularly Frum’s own intro for what “shoulda been” Barack Obama’s inaugural speech. (I know I wrote earlier that inaugural addresses count for little in these parlous times, but a tad of inspiration never hurts.) Regular readers of this site will not be surprised that I also applaud James Kirchik’s New Majority post of yesterday: Give Up the Losing Fight on Gay Rights, GOP. [Okay, there you go - promoting gay marriage again.ed. Okay, I'll make a deal with you. You decide who you marry and I decide who I marry. Er... not sure about that... how about I decide both?-ed. Talk about "above your pay grade."]
Unfortunately, Kirchuk begins his piece with a false story. I was on the post-election cruise, which is where I think he is describing the statement about gays and the party. I attended the seminars and heard nothing like that.
I think there is a culture issue about marriage, the term, but very little issue with civil unions except in certain “Bible Belt” areas, perhaps. The principle issue about gay marriage, as I understand it, is concern that, in their eternal quest for acceptance by the straight majority, gays are determined that there can be no institution that denies them exact equality of outcome. This could result, and I suspect their motives if they deny it, in suits to force all religious institutions to perform gay marriage at the penalty of losing tax exemption. I think this is what is driving Andrew Sullivan, for example. He would like the Catholic Church to accept him with no reservation, including marriage as a sacrament.
It may come to the French system, in which marriage is two ceremonies, a civil one and a religious one for those who choose to have it. I have no problem with gay marriage but they have a problem with religious straights who think homosexual behavior sinful. It will never be resolved and attempts to force acceptance with the state will make the breach wider. It is a bit like having an acquaintance who keeps insisting on a more intimate relationship no matter the desire to be left alone. Gays are now a protected class but it is not enough.
How about removing the government from the marriage business altogether? One does not need a license to have children after all.
Marriage licenses came into existence after the Civil War to prevent miscegenation. Prior to that, people went down to their church, the minister married them, and simply made a note in his record books.
There is no reason why we can’t return to that. You can marry whoever or whoevers you wish.
Unfortunately Taos, the economics of marriage make that impossible anymore. Just taxes, handy subject right now (just filed mine!) makes it impossible with the different filing status for single, married, married/separate, HoH. We have to have a legal statement to support many of these declarations, not to mention all the other things that are legally intertwined with marriage.
Although I personally have no problem with the civil aspects of gay marriage, I’m concerned, as Mike_K is, about the overreach many homosexuals and gay-rights advocates take when they get the right to marry. They seem to feel that a state statute trumps the establishment clause of the First Amendment, the ORIGINAL civil rights legislation. They don’t, or won’t, acknowledge the “separation of Church and State” cuts both ways – it’s not just for keeping the Church out of the State, it also should be for keeping the State of of the affairs of the Church (that’s the reason for the religious tax-exemption after all). Therefore, in my opinion, a religious organization should NOT be compelled to hold or allow a gay marriage ceremony on their premises if it runs contrary to their religious teachings, period.
“You decide who you marry and I decide who I marry”
I think that’s the problem. Gay marriage proponents don’t want us to have the right to say “we don’t consider you married.” They want the courts to force us to say it.
If they’d just back off and let society evolve, in 20 – 40 years I predict it won’t even be an issue. That is unless the courts step in amd ensure its an never healing scab like they’ve done with abortion.
Can’t believe I’m writing this, but what’s wrong with the French system in this case? I don’t know why the state is involved in the institution of marriage anyway, except for the economics involved. The state should just issue licenses for civil unions. If people want a religious ceremony, they can go to the religious institution of their choosing. Some will perform same sex ceremonies, others won’t. That’s their business.
Ed, I can’t imagine anyone missing Roger’s point more completely than you did.
Mike and Jeff, that’s a false issue. Priests and ministers are already free to decide who they will or will not conduct marriage ceremonies for. Gay marriage doesn’t threaten that. If it ever were threatened by gay marriage or athiest marriage or whatever, then it should be dealt with at that time.
It makes no sense at all to oppose gay marriage because you don’t want churchs forced to conduct ceremonies against their will.
Tim,
I think I was pretty clear. Gay Marriage doesn’t threaten that, and I don’t oppose gay marriage in and of itself. I oppose what I perceive as overreach. The sad truth is that some take their new “right” to extremes and impose it where they should have no right to, like here:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/judge_rules_monmouth_church_gr.html.
Frankly, in my opinion, that ruling should be unconstitutional. I mean, just because they CAN, doesn’t mean the can do it anywhere they please.
I oppose THAT, and it needs to be definitively addressed before we go any further.
And quite frankly, it’s these extremes, like much of what’s going on with the anti prop-8 crowd – getting people fired, racist talk, anti-religious bigotry, even mapping out the addresses of people who donated to passing the proposition, that causes me to oppose their cause. They don’t deserve to prevail, based upon their behavior. I don’t appreciate threats like that from one group to another in order to force their view on the other, even if I agree in principle with the threatening group. the ends do not justify the means in this case.
Mike and Jeff, that’s a false issue. Priests and ministers are already free to decide who they will or will not conduct marriage ceremonies for. Gay marriage doesn’t threaten that. If it ever were threatened by gay marriage or athiest marriage or whatever, then it should be dealt with at that time.
It makes no sense at all to oppose gay marriage because you don’t want churchs forced to conduct ceremonies against their will.
Sorry but I think these people, especially those like Sullivan and the Prop 8 crowd, cannot be trusted to behave responsibly. It is the same reason why Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is going to be swept away and we will lose up to 25% of the volunteer army. They cannot control themselves. ACT UP runs through St Patrick’s Cathedral spraying blood on people and gay rights is set back 25 years.
They will force the straight community to accept them at the point of a bayonet and they will lose a lot of the tolerance that has evolved since the 1950s. Martin Luther KIng was right. H Rap Brown was wrong. There may be something in about 10% of the gay population that is programmed for exhibitionism. Have you been to a leather festival in San Francisco ? Imagine that on an Army base.
Tim,
To beat a dead horse, they may be free to do, but they may be not free to NOT do, as my link above exhibits the contention.
IMHO, their new right doesn’t preclude a near-original right. They shouldn’t be able to force a Church to perform or allow a ceremony that is against their doctrine.
Your rights end where they intrude on another. Gay-rights advocates don’t seem to get that. There are denominations who accept homosexuals, why is pushing the point pertinent?
You too are overreaching, Mike K. At first, you sound reasonable in your argument even if one disagrees, but then in your last comment, you go too far and reveal your bias. How ridiculous to suggest that what you see at a leather festival in San Francisco has any relationship to the young men and women of our armed services who happen to be gay. It’s insulting to suggest that the only thing stopping them from parading around in chaps and chains is a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Sorry, but your prejudice is showing.
I have come to know and like many gay and lesbian people over my lifetime and have very much enjoyed working and socializing with them. I wish them nothing but whatever personal happiness and fulfillment that they might be able to achieve in life, and I very much sympathize with their desire for their sexual proclivities and choices to be accepted as normative by the American culture, legal system and even religious institutions.
But, on the other hand, we do live in an era of growing moral ambiguity where many other different groups are constantly pushing the polity to also accept them; the slippery slope argument is not at all inappropriate to apply when there are those who want to us to accept, without embarassment, polygomy, brother/sister marriage, marriage of adults to children, even marriage to animals and all sorts of heretofore unimaginable unions which, several decades ago, people would have been too ashamed and afraid to openly advocate.
I know that this position will be immediately attacked as unfair and unrealistic, but, of course, so would it have seemed about openly advocating gay marriage 30 years ago. Furthermore, there are reasons that some public policy should still be guided by sexual identity. The first and formost is obvious biological necessity. Men with men, and women with women, cannot by themselves procreate. Some day this may change, but there has got to be some truth, some evolutionary advantage, that is expressed in this simplist of all facts that has probably inspired both the religious and civic understanding of the marriage contract as only applying to a man and woman, together, for the last couple of thousand years at least. To overthrow this understanding should not be taken lightly, and those opposing it not just dismissed as not “modern” or “progressive” as though one were talking about fashion or technology.
And, finally, I would hesitate to change the sexual identity of marriage because of the the most important reason that society values the marriage contract – the socisal utility of the male/female bond in raising healthy, happy and productive children. Without the necessity of raising children, religious and civil society would very likely never have established the institution of marriage at all. Again, this position can easily be opposed by those who say “who says that two gay, loving parents can’t do a better job of raising an essentially adopted child than would some terribly matched, ignorant or negligent heterosexual couple?” Well, two things mitigate against assuming this. One is that it is in the best interests of society to raise children in the best way possible, and for every inappropriate heterosexual couple wanting to raise a child, there is most likely an equally inappropriate homosexual couple. So, this is not a very good argument. The truer measure would be, whether a motivated homosexual or a similarly motivated heterosexual couple would be able to equally provide the environment most likely to result in the best outcome as far as their offspring is concerned. Here, we have yet very little hard evidence, but we do have the evolved judgment of thousands of years of history which points us in the direction of heterosexual marriage.
The other mitigating factor is found in more recent history. Please recall the massive cultural, legal and even, somewhat less, religious movement in the 1960′s and 1970′s to greatly ease the legal requirements of divorce, stress increasing the self-fulfillment of each indiividual as more important than the utility of “staying together” for the children, stress the desireability of married women’s achievemants outside the home and away from her children, and last, but most importantly, stress the relative unimportance of the need for a two-parent home for children. The cultural avatars, psychologists, sociologists, lawmakers, and lawyers’ associations all encouraged married parents to divorce if it felt good, if it could lead either partner to greater self-actualization on their own. Well, how did that work out? Serious researchers say: not so well. The same experts and avatars who lobby the public, the courts and legislative bodies today for gay marriage, with the same assurances of not only “no harm”, but “justice” and “progress” as well, did so for divorce and single motherhood 30 and 40 years ago. But, today, there is no doubt in the abundant long-term scientific research, as well as in the common sense view of all that is around us, about the incredibly destructive result of that movement. Generations of increasingly more emotionally scarred, less secure and less sucessful (by their own judgment) children from those broken or never-formed homes have made us a less strong and happy nation, and even, in places like Europe, given rise to the coming demographic catastrophe of an ever-dwindling population. So, should we take assurances, from these same arbiters of current received and politically correct wisdom, that there is no real risk from accepting gay marriage as well? I think not.
Let us be very cautious about major changes in our most important social and religious institutions, before we cavalierly change them to suit the latest, but not necessarily wisest, ideas. But, certainly, we should not ignore the pain of those homosexuals who express the longing desire to be accepted by the rest of us, show them as much compassion we can, and give them some chance to build their own institutions, such as civil unions, that might better co-exist with the more normative instition of heterosexual marriage.
Please excuse the many spelling errors in my last post. It’s late, I was writing pretty fast, and I didn’t use spell-check. I’ll try to do better the next time.
David Frum used to be one of my favorite writers, but I will never read him again after his hatchet job on Sarah Palin. I lost all respect for him. I hope his site languishes in oblivion.
Was that “above my pay grade”, or “above my gay parade”?
I’ll pass on all things Frum. There are enough hate-Palin sites on the left already…I have no use for a new on put on by someone pretending to be a conservative. As J. Rockford says above, oblivion would be a nice place for this web site to end up, and Frum along with it. He’s just angling (still) for a spot on the NY Times editorial page as one of their pet gerbil “conservative” writers anyway.