Sorry Fannie. I stand by my remarks.

For the record:

The following exchange with SSM proponent Fannie at her blog, Fannie's Room.
http://fanniesroom.com/2012/02/on-core-of-mariage.html

Crossposted (seperate comment section) at Family Scholars Blog:
http://faimilyscholars.org/2012/02/02/on-the-core-of-marriage/#comments

* * * * *

Fannie wrote a blogpost on the core meaning of marriage. It was prompted, she said, by a previous discussion in the comment sections in which the core meaning of marriage was disputed. Under her "core" blogpost and later under a blogpost on civil union [see links below] Fannie had difficulty sustaining her misrepresentations of the argument she dislikes.

That is the context for the exchange that is on the record under the blogpost I linked above at her blogsite. She deleted my latest comment and expressed her ill-will toward me rather than deal with the errors she had made.

She replaced my words with her own. I think that is symbolic of her approach to her attack on the marriage idea and her defense/promotion of the SSM idea.

Discussion of contentious issues is difficult, of course. So I do not entirely fault Fannie for her easy resort to namecalling on this issue. From the start she merely played out the script taught by the very prominent example of the SSM campaign.

I don't hesitate to put this exchange on the record because it serves as a warning to all sides on the pitfalls in discusson of a conflict in which the assertion of the supremacy of identity politics dominates the underlying assumptions of the pro SSM approach but is treated as untouchable due to the volatile nature of the disputed assumptions. The common ground has been seeded as a minefield.

I am grateful for the blogging that Fannie has done at FSB because she has inadvertently used an prominent platform to reveal the profound weaknesses of the pro SSM arguments and the intolerant attitudes of SSM proponents toward their opponents as persons.

I have often said that if SSMers, such as Fannie, would try harder to understand before demanding that they be understood, then, they might be surprised at how much common ground there really is while also learning to appreciate how significant is the narrowed scope of the actual disagreement. If we'd realize that much it would go a long way to defusing the minefield.

Admittedly there is a limit beyond which I will not put up with personalized attacks and personalized misrepresentations. Fannie threw barbs and accusations and I met that with impatience and an initial note of sarcastic exasperation.

I apologize to her and to readers for that.

At the same time I do not withdraw the substance of my remarks.

I do not rush to call myself a victim, contrary to Fannie's pre-emptive attempt to recast me as someone quick to claim the  mantle of The Victim that she herself clutches habitually when the content of her remarks implode. She attacked a strawman and did not touch me as a human being though she'd clearly intended to insult and to smear me.

I endeavor to aim at the content of remarks whereas Fannie has aimed instead at the content of the character (or rather caricture) of those with whom she disagrees. She is not alone among SSM proponents in that regard.

You can read Fannie's part at her blogsite. Below is my comment which she replaced with her own words to add yet more gratuitous personalized attacks.

* * * *

Fannie, thank you for your rapport-building reply. Maybe you think that I had asked you about the "core" of marriage when I wrote:

Let us go with your thinking on this, Fannie. There is no core meaning; just a lot of different meanings."

I can now see my error. I should have been decipherable and used words more harmonious with your thinking on this, Fannie, and asked about moving forward with your view that there are many different meanings.

I am confident, but not overly confident, that David Blankenhorn might even commend you for bringing up the "core" for discussion with him. Credit where credit is due, I suppose. Where did you get the idea to talk about that given your thinking is of a different sort? It is not very strange at all, I suppose.

Now, more to the point (or beside the point of your blogpost above), let's follow your change of topic. By the way, thank you for the colorful way in which you reminded me that you wrote a blogpost a few years ago.

- - -

Since you wrote your objections to these three points in the MR piece, the facts have not changed. Facts are stubborn things,  you might agree.

The first item was not a statement asserting that imposition of SSM caused HIV/AIDS nor that SSM had caused an increase in HIV/AIDS rates. You misread an "in the period after" use of the word, since, to mean "because"  and, as you insisted, also not correlative in the conversational sense but as a technical statement of statistical logic.

The logic in the item was not as you portrayed it. But you chased that hare anyway.

As for rate increases, which you confounded with causation, you readily agreed that "it is true" that people with HIV/AIDS are living longer. The other half of that thought is provided by your quote of the CDC:

"and because more people become infected with HIV than die from the disease each year."

More infections contribute to the prevalence. It is not just longer survival. The prevalence rates increased across the board (and we should be grateful for the survivors).

We could go into that more deeply, if you feel competent to do so, but it suffices that it is, as you said, true.

- - -

The second item in your list of objections is also factual. An SSM question was on the bar exam. The marriage amendment was still in the works ... with more signatures on the petition than any other recent initiative ... and the gentleman in this item protested the politicization of the exam. It was removed later. You disagreed with his protest. Your disagreement (and mockery) does not make this item a lie.

Same goes for the third item, regarding the concerned father of a child in public school kindergarten, which is also factual.

These are the items that you raised to the fore in 2008 and which, frankly, I had thought represented trivial cause for your overhyped outrage. The facts did not change since you wrote your objections.

These claims are not egregious claims. Nor asinine. Nor disgusting. Nor invented. Concisely stated, yes. Conversational, yes. In the common form of a political pamphlet, yes. But what is so wrong with that?

You moralized quite a bit in your frenzied objections, Fannie, and showed a lack of moral neutrality on he facts. That is okay but keep that in mind when next you feel it advantageous for you to claim that you are ready to cool things down, to seek dialogue, to stick with the facts and to reason the way forward.

- - -

I am not affiliated with MR. And they can defend themselves independently of Opine and myself. That is up to them.

I took a look at your objections. I agree with the facts. You disagree with the source more than the facts.

If you want to press this further, okay, but since the imposition of SSM in Massachusetts no SSMer has managed to justify the special place of marriage in law, much less in the culture. Maybe it is not so special in your view, afterall. That might be an intellectually honest view, which needs only to be articulated by someone who holds it. Maybe you?

Maybe you will get around to coherently addressing the key questions that arise from within your own SSM argumentation and your own remarks about no core and about as-if-married.

- - -

I sympathize with the complaint about the amount of effort it can take to unpack and address items that are presented concisely. SSMers thow about falsehoods aplenty. When thoroughly addressed, they complain about that. Oh well.

- - -

Apologies for the typos. I have a slight disability with my hands and wrists.

* * * *

Links:

http://fanniesroom.com/2012/02/on-the-core-of-marriage.html
http://familyscholars.org/2012/02/02/on-the-core-of-marriage/#comments

http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2008/10/it-is-worse-than-most-realize

http://fanniesroom.com/2008/10/propaganda-watch-harm-of-same-sex.html

* * * *

Also see previous blogost, "Fairness and the Core Meaning of Marriage".
http://opine-editorials.blogspt.com/2012/02/fairnessand-core-meaning-of-marriage.html