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Here is an exchange between myself and two SSMers.
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Sean:
Chairm:
Marriage equality is inevitable. Eventually, the US returns to its promise to its citizens to treat all of them equally, without special favored groups, such as straight people. [...] The same kind of people who thought black Americans were second-class citizens evidently think that gay Americans are second-class citizens.
There is no public purpose in restricting marriage to straight people. That’s why marriage equality will triumph.
If you are against “special favored groups” then you would oppose treating the gay subset of nonmarriage as superior to the rest of nonmarriage. Yet you support such special treatment even though the families are similarly situated.Mark:
There is one human race and its nature is two-sexed. The attempt of SSMers to smear the core meaning of marriage as the equivalent of racisim does not withstand scrutiny.
There are two-sexed scenarios that are ineligible because of the lines drawn around the core meaning of marriage; ineligibility to marry does not stamp “second-class” on such scenarios. Indeed, two heterosexual men would be ineligible as well and that does not stamp them with “second-class” status.
Only through the lense of pro-gay bigotry can equal treatment be deemed “second-class” treatment.
Marriage, under the man-woman basis, is not restricted by identity politics; but SSM is promoted entirely on that basis.
When an SSMer pounds his shoe on the table and essentially predicts that the gay identity group will bury marriage, society would well take that as a threat, as a forewarning, and heed the rhetoric as a deeply bigoted promise against all opposition and open dissent.
Chairm:
“There is one human race and its nature is two-sexed.”
And it’s many raced but I don't see you insisting that each race be represented in all marriages.
And, again, approval of SSM does NOTHING (zilch, zip, nada) to OSM.
That is because there is one human race, Mark, and its nature is two-sexed. Marriage includes both sexes of the same human race.Mark:
You object. You assert, as per the anti-miscegenation system, that there is more than one human race. If you use the same criteria as that system, then, you reinforce the problem that makes gay identity politics the racialist analogue.
“You object. You assert, as per the anti-miscegenation system, that there is more than one human race.”Chairm:
You are so CUTE when you try to turn discrimination around and blame people who are promoting equality. My guess is you probably can’t define “anti-miscegenation”.
Again, to follow the example you are trying to portray, you would need a member of each race and a member of each sex (which would include male, female and hermaphrodite) to make it a marriage. Otherwise, you are excluding SOMEONE and, per your twisted logic, that is not marriage.
There is one human race and its nature is two-sexed; marriage is comprised of a man and a woman; they are both members of the same race — the human race — and so their union meets even your own terms, Mark, that you would impose on marriage.
The SSM idea, as argued by SSMers far and wide, is about segregating on the basis of sex and on the basis of sexual orientation and on the basis of identity politics. Yes, the SSMer is the racialist analogue.
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By the way, apart from this particular exchange in the comments, Dr J's original blogpost is well worth the read. As are the comments of others that followed.
See: Marching on the Right Side of History, by Dr. J over at the Ruth Institute's bogsite.
That is something I've been thinking about.
ReplyDeleteCivil rights was about dispelling the notion of different races, because as you say there is one human race and these divisions are arbitrary and false.
And when Blacks won equality, they won equality for all races -- because they dispelled the notion that there should be racial segregation for everyone. Thus all humans were opened up to the same opportunity.
Marriage neuterists depend in their arguments on the falacy of different races (for lack of a better word) of orientation. And if they win equality, or in other words expand marriage, they only expand marriage to homosexuals. Only "homosexuals" as a race (or identity as it is called today) get the new opportunity.
Simply put, civil rights opens up rights for everyone. Gay rights only opens up rights for gays (because they insist on seeing themselves as a unique and particular identity to be named and priviledged).
ALL (I have written & quoted this before but it cannot be overstated concerning the impossibl iresponsible racial analogy...
ReplyDeleteConcerning the Loving analogy as you have employed it. I would draw your attention to the
argument that was forewarded by nothing less than the deep blue very liberal and very influential New York Supreme Court in it's recent decision
Hernadez v Robles.
"Thus, because Perez and Loving refused to allow the marriage institution to be appropriated for nonmarriage ends, to use those two cases to advance just such an appropriative project is to betray them. In other words, the Perez/Loving argument advances a superficial analogy that masks a deep disanalogy. That disanalogy is between the intention of Perez and Loving to protect marriage from appropriation for nonmarriage purposes and the intention of the present marriage project to make such an appropriation. Thus, those who deploy the Perez/Loving argument, whether advocates or judges, are misleading people, including perhaps themselves."
Hernandez, 805 N.Y.S.2d at 379–81, 381 n.3, 382
Here the court is saying that proponets of same-sex "marriage" are like the racists who crafted the anti-miscegenation laws that were the basis of Loving & Perez. Like the racists of old, same-sex "marriage" supporters are attempting to use the foundational constiutional right to marriage to advance gay identity politics. Just as the anti-miscegenationists were intrested more in promoting segregation than in the instiution of marriage, they sought to use marriage as a vehicle for that end. Likewise gay marriage supporters seek to use marriage law to advance their interersts to an end that is not marriage. Marriage is seen primarily as a vehicle to advance gay "rights" and concern for the foundational constitional; right of marriage as but so much grist for the mill.
Now that type of language used by a State Supreme Court is so powerfull and blunt that (If people knew anything of the law) Its very existance in such a prominent and indeed direct case on the merits for same-sex "marriage" would (or should) give even the most ardent same-sex "marriage" enthusiast real cause for concern. The fact is that it shows the ideological nature of such claims for re-difineing marriage.
I liked the very first comment, from "Paul H.":
ReplyDeleteI’m not a big fan of Mark Shea, but as he says, there are two phases of history on issues like this: (1) “What could it hurt?” and (2) “How were we supposed to know?” (I may have misquoted those slightly, but the basic idea is the same.) It’s sad that we have to spend so much time on phase (1) before we get to phase (2).
Sean's first statement shows a profound misunderstanding of equal protection. Gay activists aren't asking for equal protection but for protected class status. Sean incorrectly identified straight people as having protected class status and, by extension, heightened scrutiny under the law.
ReplyDeleteOne obvious problem is the burden of proof under such scrutiny. How does one prove he is gay enough to warrant protected class status? How about we start a national registration of gays and have them carry gay ID? Once we've established a group identity and proof of membership into the community, we can ten talk about gay marriage instead of same sex marriage.
I posted the following at the Ruth Institute site. Basically, this is how we can already answer the future question "how were we supposed to know?":
ReplyDelete1. When a change is proposed that has no historical precedent (or when what precedent there is is insufficient for determination) we have nothing to go on thus to determine whether its effect will be good or bad. We can theorize, we cannot know. It may be good, it may be bad. Disagree?
2. If a proposed change has historical precedent which shows apparent positive effect, it makes the case for its positive effect in the present time and situation more likely, though even with this it does not absolutely prove that the effect will be positive because there may be different factors in the present situation which may affect the success of the change differently from the factors which were present in the past situations.
3. Similarly, if a proposed change has historical precedent which shows apparent negative effect, it makes the case for its negative effect in the present time and situation more likely, though again, it does not absolutely prove that the effect will be negative because, again, of the possible different factors which may affect the change differently.
4. But when a proposed change has NO long-term historical precedent, while this tells us nothing about what effects the change may have, the question of why there is no historical precedent is a legitimate one to ask, and the answer—-if it is even possible for us to determine—is relevant.
5. If we can, with reasonable certainty, answer such a question, and determine that the reason for the lack of historical precedent is one that definitely does notapply in the present, then we have a better case for the change, though not a conclusive one, as the change can be vulnerable to other factors which we do not know about.
6. If we cannot answer the question of why a change has no historical precedent, we are taking more of a gamble with adopting the change.
7. Another question we may then ask, though, is if the lack of historical precedent, all else being equal, should be expected based on the amount of past information available to us, or if it goes against probability and hence needs an explanation. If the latter is true, are we not by adopting the change without the explanation for its absence taking a greater gamble than we would be if the historical absence were merely what we’d expect, let alone if we had an explanation for the absence which accounted for it?
This is where arguments based on tradition come in. Tradition may not always be helpful in telling us why a custom exists. Frequently those who hold to the custom no longer can tell us exactly why it exists, especially not in long-term cause-and-effect terms. To vastly generalize, however, the answer to why traditions exist are likely to be either 1) experience, or 2) some other factor irrelevant to experience.
ReplyDeleteNow 2) is usually not anything which if changed would affect survival (or, perhaps, a society’s progress).
As for 1), this may be due to a false association of a custom with a survival/progress value. Or the association may be true.
But if many cultures have the same custom, is this custom more likely to be of Type 1, or of Type 2? And if Type 1, is it more likely to be of the type which really affects survival or progress, or of the type which does not?
If most cultures have the same custom? If all known cultures have the same custom?
Usually, those opposed to ever using an appeal to tradition, even as an argument for skepticism or caution, base this belief on the assumption that the traditions of past cultures are always due to factors irrelevant to experience, or to a false association of a custom with survival, or progress.
In other words, they assume past cultures to be either irrational in their traditions, or to be drawing an erroneous association of a custom with survival or progress.
Because---or so the thinking goes---unlike today’s enlightened, who can figure out the truth with intellect alone, even over hundreds or thousands of years people of the past could not even learn anything from experience.
So anything they think they learned from experience can be readily dismissed.
Because they were backward, and unenlightened, and hence just plain stupid.
What is this starting to sound like?
Again, this is why I argue that while appeals to tradition may not be proof, they are relevant as arguments for skepticism or caution in regard to proposed changes.
Please, if you want to refute this, refute it point by point, not by quoting some line of platitude, or with a "Well what about this other tradition" diversion.
And, no, in regard to a cultural change ten years does not a historical precedent make.
Hi guys,
ReplyDeleteYour thoughts on this help to further illuminate the problem of the SSMer's racist analogy.
The SSMers are trying to stake a claim that sex difference counts only when sexual orientation is emphasized; but it does not count as a legitimate basis for lawmaking. But then they start by reading into the marriage law a sexual orientation criterion for ineligilbity that simply is not there; then they complain that what is not there is the basis for their demand that SSM become entrenched in the law.
Meanwhile no place that has SSM in the law has a sexual orientation criterion for eligibility. And SSM argumentation ends up turning on the very idea of sexual orientation being of such signifance anywa: SSMers eventually concede that SSM, at law, is not a sexual type of relationship because there is a lack of a legal requirement for same-sex sexual behavior. They concede this but insist that marriage, at law, is not a sexual type of relationship, too, according to their view of things.
But the sexual basis for marriage, in the law, has long-existed. The sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is the same sexual basis for consummation, annulment provisions, adultery-divorce, and so forth. When people enter marriage, they consent to all of these defaults. This sheds light on the man-woman requirement of marriage law; this explicit requirement is not arbitrary but well-justified.
So, the SSM side wants to read into the law something that they claim is an illegitimate basis for lawmaking; but also wants to make that same thing the basis for imposing SSM; and also wants to read out of the law the legal requirements that make marriage a sexual type of relationship; but also wants to argue its gay identity emphasis which conflates sexual orientation and group identity and does so for the purpose of pressing identity politics into the marriage law -- but that gay emphasis does not produce a legal requirement for SSM.
The framework for the SSM idea, as argued by the SSM campaign, is the cultural significance of the social institution of marriage and the existing marriage law governing a public sexual type of relationship. The pro-SSM rhetoric emphasizes gayness as a cultural issue but that is at odds with the pro-SSM argumentation regarding SSM as a legal issue.
ReplyDeleteThe legal argument is based on group identity, not on the meaning of marriage. Not, even, on the meaning of SSM. When the rhetoric does not match the legal argumentation, then, the only route to the imposition of SSM is to depend on the arbitrary exercise of governmental power.
But that would directly contradict the pro-SSM complaint that the marriage law is arbitrary; the SSM idea is not justified, even within the terms of SSM argumentation regarding the insistance that the lack of a legal requirement is decisive; the SSM idea is promoted on the basis of sexual orientation, which is illegitimate SSMers insist; sexual orientatoin is irrelevant given that SSMers concede that SSM, at law, would not be a sexual type of relationship; and all of this negates the claim that same-sex sexual romance is the key to imposing SSM on all of society -- especialy considering that SSM argumentation denounces tradition as insufficient but the SSM rhetoric insists that the tradition of romance is decisive even if it is not a legal requirement.
The SSM rhetoric and argumentation are reconciled only through the assertion that the group identity, gay, merits special status and, thus, it forms the basis for special status for SSM.
But, in the name of that identity, SSMers end-up treating "gay" as a new subspecies of humankind. This is the route they take to assuming it is obvious that the gay subset of nonmarriage is differentiated from and superior to the rest of nonmarriage. Even if there is no legal requirement for gayness for those who'd SSM, the core meaning of marriage must be abolished not only from the law but also from the culture. This is the meaning of the profound flaws of the racist analogy that SSMers rely upon.
They accuse themselves. If gay is the moral, ethical, and legal equivalent of a race, then, the SSM rhetoric that denounces mixed-orientation marriages and promotes sex-segregative arrangements is the explicit basis for treating all unions of husband and wife as if they lacked either husbands or wives. This is not the equivalent of color-blindness; it is the equivalent of using a single colored crayon to scribble over all moral, ethical, and legal distinctions that justify both the legal and the cultural status of the social institution which unites the sexes.