Evangelical Christianity, Homosexuality and the Deeply Flawed "Tale of Two Bobs"

The other day I came across a blog post by Rod Dreher, in which he embraces a parable somebody wrote a couple of years ago about two neighbors, both named Bob, who get along even though the author assumes that they're not supposed to.

The opening of the parable could be this,

There once were two neighbors, both named Bob. One is a neo-Nazi, the other is Jewish. They've lived next to one another in a duplex for several years, and have been good neighbors: getting one another's mail when the other travels, hauling each other's garbage cans to and from the curb, and have occasionally had a cookout together. They are friends, but they've never really had a discussion about their differences.

Or this,

There once were two neighbors, both named Bob. One is a KKK member, the other is in an interracial marriage. They've lived next to one another in a duplex for several years, and have been good neighbors: getting one another's mail when the other travels, hauling each other's garbage cans to and from the curb, and have occasionally had a cookout together. They are friends, but they've never really had a discussion about their differences.

Or this,

There once were two neighbors, both named Bob. One is an evangelical Christian, the other is gay and agnostic. They've lived next to one another in a duplex for several years, and have been good neighbors: getting one another's mail when the other travels, hauling each other's garbage cans to and from the curb, and have occasionally had a cookout together. They are friends, but they've never really had a discussion about their differences.

The narrative continues,

One day, during March Madness, a stiff gust of wind knocked a tree limb into their power lines, and they found themselves without electricity, five minutes before the U of L game. They wandered out onto their respective porches and decided to go to a nearby pizzeria to watch the game.

Somewhere before the end of the game, this conversation began:

Bob 1: Isn’t it surprising that we've become friends?

Bob2: What do you mean?

1: Well, one of us has a [swastika / KKK emblem / rainbow sticker], and the other has a [Magen David / pro-diversity sticker / fish emblem]. According to most folks, we shouldn't get along.

2: Yeah, I'll admit it's crossed my mind once or twice. Does it bother you?

1: Does what bother me?

2: Well, that I am who I am?

1: Hmmm… I don't know how to answer that. Does it bother you that I am the way that I am?

The narrative continues,

Bob 2 scratches his chin, waits a moment.

2: I suppose there are two answers to that question. One is no, not at all. We've been good friends. You took my dog to the vet when it got into a fight with a possum. You share my hatred of the University of Kentucky. What's not to like? On the other hand, I think you've have committed your life to something that's toxic to our culture, and to yourself, and I wish for your sake, my sake, and the world's that you believed something different. So no. And also, I worry about you.

Bob 1 leans back a little, grinning.

2: Did I offend you?

1: No, not at all. In fact, I would probably give the same answer about you, though I'd phrase it a little differently.

2: How so?

1: Well first of all, I’d talk about your barbecue skills, and I’d admit that I like your smelly dog. Second, I’d say that I think who you are and who I am is more complex than beliefs and commitments… but I think that's true for myself too.

2: You don't think you chose to be that way?

1: Did you?

2: I guess I did and I didn't. Or maybe, I didn’t then I did. It was something I didn’t want, but eventually I had to admit it.

1: I guess I didn't and then I did.

2: That's a better way of putting it.

1: For both of us.

2: For both of us.

1: So all this simmers in the background while we see one another, day by day.

2: Yep.

1: But we just keep on being neighbors and sharing the occasional pizza.

2: Yep. Breathing the same air, trying to figure out how to get along.

The game got heated for a few moments and they drifted away from the conversation. Soon, it started up again.

1: Let me ask you something.

2: Shoot.

1: You're saying that you didn't choose to be the way you are, but then you did.

2: Yeah. It was a journey. I didn't want to believe it, but eventually, it became undeniable, and I had to accept it inwardly, and then I had to accept it outwardly.

1: How did your family react?

2: Well, they're more sympathetic to you than me… It wasn't easy. It still isn't. I get snarky comments occasionally, especially during election seasons.

1: Oh yeah… the worst.

2: The worst. Let me ask you something now.

1: Okay.

2: Has it caused trouble for you? Like, at work or anything?

1: Well, sometimes. Some folks just think it's awful, and you have to win them over by just being an ordinary person.

2: Because they think you're a monster?

1: Because they think you're a monster.

2: That's familiar.

1: Yep.

The game ends, the two walk back home, and their friendship resumes. Conversations return to this topic, and both try to convince the other of their errors… But thus far, not much has changed. They remain good friends and good neighbors.

The author argues,

This parable is meant to do two things. First, it’s sort of a Rorschach test. Which of the Bobs is a Christian, and which one is gay? In a culture that remains hostile to the LGBT community at one end of the spectrum, and at the other end, hostile to Christians who hold traditional beliefs, we will find folks like both Bobs: their social experiences are almost interchangeable.

Even within the context of "Which of the Bobs is a Christian, and which one is gay", the exchange is strange and contrived. When you recognize the fact that, perhaps with a slight adjustment for time and place, the exchange as easily "fits" contexts in which one person's views would be unacceptable by broadly held contemporary standards, the parable falls apart as a highly strained false equivalence. There is a difference between disliking somebody because of their beliefs, particularly when those beliefs cast you as somebody who is destined to Hell or inherently inferior, and disliking somebody over an aspect of their being that they cannot change -- such as their heritage, or their (or their spouse's, or their children's) skin color.

If you want to reduce it to a parable about mutual acceptance, to make it a song and dance number for a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, you don't need to bring religion or status into the discussion. ">The farmer and the cowman can be friends. You say tomato, and I say to-mah-to. You say goodbye, and I say hello. The exchange actually works better if you treat the disagreement as being over a triviality. Consider Dr. Suess's story of the star-bellied sneetches, creatures identical in all respects save for the presence of stars on their bellies, who come to realize the absurdity of using that distinction as the basis of a claim of superiority. That form of the narrative can still serve as an analogy for much more serious, real world, bigotry and discrimination, but without the need for a false analogy.

Secondly, I think this conversation is very real and true to life. It’s a conversation that I’ve had in one form or another with many friends over the years. I’ve also had conversations that were much less friendly. But the context here is, I think, the key: being neighborly, being a friend, creates space for conversations that are hard. And while that probably won’t resolve the growing public tension over these issues, it might help us to live at peace with our neighbors, and that is, in some ways, far more important.

Except the conversation is not real and is not true to life. I'm not going to rule out the possibility, for example, that a member of the Westboro Baptist Church gets along with his gay neighbor, but this is not the conversation such a person would be at all likely to have with that neighbor. Also, the author starts from the preconception that gay people "shouldn't get along" with evangelical Christians, and vice versa. While some evangelical Christian churches and movements do preach intolerance, that's not prerequisite to being an evangelical Christian. And while a gay person might not like getting the stink eye from somebody who is intolerant of his relationships, there's absolutely no reason to presuppose that being gay predisposes you to not "get along" with an evangelical Christian. For goodness sake, you can both be an evangelical Christian and be gay.

The parable seems to recognize the inherent weakness of trying to analogize the condemnation of a group of people based on status -- something they cannot change -- and criticism of people based upon their beliefs, even sincerely held religious beliefs. The Bobs are posited as having this interchangeable view of their realizing that they were gay, or their embracing a form of evangelical Christianity that regards homosexuality as a mortal sin,

2: You don't think you chose to be that way?

1: Did you?

2: I guess I did and I didn't. Or maybe, I didn’t then I did. It was something I didn’t want, but eventually I had to admit it.

1: I guess I didn't and then I did.

2: That's a better way of putting it.

1: For both of us.

2: For both of us.

The problem here is that "gay Bob" would be describing a process by which he recognized and accepted his homosexuality despite strong social pressure not to be gay. Accepting the fact that you are gay is not a "choice" as posited by the narrative. In contrast, if a person in fact struggles with whether to join a particular religious or social movement, and struggles with those portions of its beliefs that teach intolerance of others, their ultimate decision to remain within the movement and to embrace those beliefs comes as the result of an actual choice. Under the interchangeable narrative, "Christian Bob" describes himself as coming from a family that holds different views than his own, and is accepting of gay people ("they're more sympathetic to you than me"). While "Christian Bob" may believe that his religion dictates his attitudes toward gay people, under the narrative he chose the path that led to those beliefs.

Some try to draw a fine line between homosexual thoughts and homosexual practices -- the conception being that if a gay person doesn't accept his homosexuality, or if he does accept it but represses any action on his desires, that he is somehow elevated above a homosexual person who involves himself in a gay relationship. Under that thesis as it plays out in the real world, you're asking homosexual people to either live a lie, usually at the expense of another person (their heterosexual spouse), or to openly state that they are homosexuality and then to live a life of chastity. Even if the latter path were realistic, many evangelical communities would not be welcoming to such an individual. We can debate the extent to which that's the result of the teachings of their church, the result of larger social views, or some combination thereof, but it's a reality. There's a vast difference between not excluding a gay parishioner and welcoming them into your church as a full and equal member.

To the extent that the narrative reminds evangelical Christians of the teaching that you can love the sinner while hating the sin, that you can be accepting of others without compromising your Christian values, that you can be neighborly even toward people whose lifestyles you find to be sinful, great. The preconception of the narrative, that evangelical Christians "shouldn't get along" with gay people is not necessary -- you can be a devout Christian without hating anybody. Why does a contrary impression exist? Not only because of the antics of groups like the Westboro Baptist Church ("God Hates Fags"), but because of attitudes like those acknowledged here,

I can't look my gay brother in the eye anymore and say "I love the sinner but hate the sin." I can't keep drawing circles in the sand.

I thought I just needed to try harder. Maybe I needed to focus more on loving the sinner, and less on protesting the sin. But even if I was able to fully live up to that "ideal," I'd still be wrong. I'd still be viewing him as something other, something different.

Not human. Not friend. Not Christian. Not brother.

Sinner.

And despite all my theological disclaimers about how I'm just as much a sinner too, it's not the same. We don't use that phrase for everybody else. Only them. Only "the gays." That's the only place where we make "sinner" the all-encompassing identity....

The author clearly felt immense pressure within his religious community to reject homosexuals. He also speaks of how, upon reflection, he can continue to hold his religious beliefs without joining in with that type of condemnation of his literal and figurative brothers. The author of the "Bobs" narrative asserts,

Christians make space for others all the time; neighbors who are adulterers or gluttons, alcoholics or tax cheats. We have family members who are liars and Christians – at their best – love these folks because they know that they are no different but for the grace of God. And so, Bob can make space for Bob even while he lovingly extends the offer of grace in Jesus Christ. That offer includes a call to repent of Bob’s sins, and that’s a tough pill to swallow.

Save for the contrived assertion that "Gay Bob" is agnostic, "Gay Bob" could have been Christian who attends a church that is accepting of his homosexuality. I doubt that the same sort of emphasis on "the offer of grace in Jesus Christ" or repentance of sins would be asserted if this were "Evangelical Bob and Presbyterian Bob", yet save for the author's contrivance "Gay Bob" could a devout Presbyterian, perhaps even a minister.

But the truth is that the other Bob wants to convert Christian Bob too – not to being gay, of course, but to his own worldview.

As the "Two Bobs" narrative unfolds, there's no reason to believe that to be the case. That is, with "Christian Bob" being able to be friends with his gay neighbor, there's little more that "Gay Bob" could hope to accomplish -- and no reason to believe that "Gay Bob" would be particularly interested in trying to push "Christian Bob" into making further concessions. After all, if most or all evangelicals were as neighborly, the author would have felt no need to write his parable.

Dreher's take-away from the parable was this:

Cosper’s point is that Bob 1 can be the gay agnostic, or the traditional Christian, and the same moral would apply. If you can’t see how either one could play either role in the conversation, perhaps you need to work on your empathy.

For reasons I've already outlined, and which should be readily apparent from the applicability of the parable to other contexts in which it becomes instantly uncomfortable, Dreher's first take-away fails due to narrative's reliance upon a false equivalence.

The argument for empathy -- for mutual empathy -- is more interesting. While the narrative flounders when it attempts to draw a parallel between immutable aspects of a person and their social or religious beliefs, there is no question but that people can be friends with evangelical Christians without sharing or endorsing their beliefs. Sure, just as political discussions are off the table at a lot of family Thanksgiving dinners, there may be discussions that don't occur in the interest of good neighborly relations, but that's part of how we get along with others who don't fully share our views.

The false analogy makes the argument for empathy a bit awkward -- I'm hard pressed to think of any gay person I've ever known who held the sort of blanket views of evangelical Christians that the author seems to believe are prevalent -- but certainly, there's room for neighbors with different social, political and religious views to find common ground. (Nonetheless, if "Christian Bob" is marching with the Westboro Baptist Church or is actively protesting gay marriage and lobbying politicians for a ban on employee benefits for same-sex partners, he needs to take responsibility for the fact that his actions make it much less likely that he will find common ground with his gay neighbor.)

The State Will Make it a Crime for Ministers to Practice Their Religion

Except, predictably, it's the anti-gay marriage folks who are behind the criminalization.

Movement Toward Gay Marriage and the Myth of Roe v. Wade

Although I rarely find Charles Krauthammer to make a meaningful contribution to a public discussion, and his column on the DOMA decision isn't really an exception, he is repeating some unimpressive arguments raised often enough that it may be worth attempting to push them back. Before I get to the current column, I'll travel back in time seven years to some of his prior musings on the subject. Back then, Krauthammer was pushing the anti-gay marriage canard that if you allow gay marriage it inevitably follows that you should legalize polygamy:

In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement -- the number restriction (two and only two) -- is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.

Right there, Krauthammer give us pretty much all the evidence we need that his thinking on this issue is weak, and that he doesn't understand the legal issues involved in the case. I don't want to assume to much, but I would hope that even Krauthammer would concede that to apply a similar argument to anti-miscegenation laws would be an "epic fail".

After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) the same race, and if, as advocates of interracial marriage insist, the race requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement -- the number restriction (two and only two) -- is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.

I know that opponents of marriage equality argue vociferously that "allowing gay marriage is completely different from allowing interracial marriage", but the reason that comparison comes up is because of arguments like Krauthammer's. By his "logic", there is no distinction - if you don't allow discrimination in which of two, unmarried adults can get married, you cannot defend restricting the institution of marriage to two unmarried adults.

The response of many opponents of gay marriage is that being gay is not a protected category - it's not on the short list of factors that the state is supposed to scrupulously avoid using to discriminate between citizens - and thus the reasoning behind Loving does not extend to gay marriage. That because the discrimination is not based upon a protected class such as race, religion, national origin, color, (in their opinion) sex, or another such category, that the courts should not concern themselves with the question. Krauthammer does not appear to be working from the "protected category" argument, because "married vs. unmarried" isn't on that list.

The language of DOMA permitted the Supreme Court to resolve the case from a different angle - that Congress intruded into an area of law traditionally left to the states (domestic relations) in order to impose restrictions and disabilities on a class of people, and thus ultimately violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government. What frightens opponents of marriage equality is that the court all but said that there is not even a rational basis for opposing gay marriage - that should the issue be squarely raised. Given that the two leading arguments against gay marriage (and you'll forgive me if I missed a third)¹ are "tradition" and various forms of "gay sex is icky", it's not surprising that they are concerned that a future court might find there to be no rational basis for the continued state-level prohibition.

Perhaps Krauthammer accepts that the arguments against gay marriage are fundamentally weak. Perhaps, like many gay marriage opponents, he starts channeling Rick Santorum - never mind that the same "slippery slope" argument applies to anti-miscegenation laws (and were probably applied to that particular marriage equality argument in certain parts of the country). The slippery slope argument can be raised about any change, and its use is usually fallacious. In this particular instance, no surprise, it is fallacious.

We can start with this: When you have two unmarried individuals, the marriage contract is between them and them alone. If you then say, "We don't care if you're married already, you are free to marry an additional spouse," you risk infringing the rights of the existing spouse. And if you require that spouse's knowing consent to the new marriage - or should I say, all spouses - you're conceding a significant difference between the marriage of unmarried people and the marriage where one or more of the parties to the marriage is already married. Adding additional spouses is not, as Krauthammer blithely asserts an "individual choice" because the marriage already involves more than one individual. States have created bodies of law addressing the rights and duties of married couples, property division upon divorce, child custody upon separation or divorce, what property is part of the marital estate, pension and inheritance rights, access to health insurance benefits, taxes, housing laws, eligibility for social services.... When you add additional parties to the mix, every single one of those laws would need to be revisited and would become ridiculously complex.

There's a reason why the few nations that permit polygamy restrict that right to the male partner, and given him most of the rights within the marriage including in relation to assets and the children - because once you move toward an egalitarian arrangement it becomes extraordinarily difficult to create legal institutions around multi-partner marriages. In those cultures, the marriage is a constant that revolves around the man. Women can enter or leave the marriage. But if you attempt to create egalitarian multi-partner marriages you create a context in which the marriage can continue even after one or more partners leaves. You could end up with a marriage in which the original parties to the marriage are no longer involved, a 'divorce' that creates two or more new 'marriages' in its wake, and claims to custody or visitation from a wide assortment of moms and dads.

If you're not willing to directly address the weakness of the argument for proscribing gay marriage, perhaps it's not surprising that you've given even less thought to the weakness of the slippery slope argument you throw up as a shield. But whether or not you support polygamy, you cannot avoid the fact that there is a rational distinction between categorizing people as "married" versus "unmarried", and you cannot avoid acknowledging the complexity of rebuilding our nation's laws to accommodate marriages involving multiple parties.²

Krauthammer agrees that gay marriage poses no threat to "traditional marriage", so his argument really is one of fairness,

Posit a union of, say, three gay women all deeply devoted to each other. On what grounds would gay activists dismiss their union as mere activity rather than authentic love and self-expression?

That's a group choice, not, as he earlier posited, an individual choice. Here, Krauthammer is shifting the question from "is there a rational basis for the state to treat unmarried people differently from married people" to "If we allow gay marriage, is it unfair to people who want polygamous marriage." The "logic" here appears to be that it's better to be unfair to large numbers of people than it is to be unfair to smaller numbers of people, without regard to whether the distinction can be explained or justified - and that argument ultimately betrays the fact that Krauthammer's argument lacks a logical foundation. His argument boils down to, "It may be unfair to gay people to not allow them to marry, but allowing gay marriage would not end the unfairness to polygamists that they can't engage in multi-partner marriages, so we shouldn't do it.

As for gay marriage, I've come to a studied ambivalence. I think it is a mistake for society to make this ultimate declaration of indifference between gay and straight life, if only for reasons of pedagogy. On the other hand, I have gay friends and feel the pain of their inability to have the same level of social approbation and confirmation of their relationship with a loved one that I'm not about to go to anyone's barricade to deny them that. It is critical, however, that any such fundamental change in the very definition of marriage be enacted democratically and not (as in the disastrous case of abortion) by judicial fiat.

"...if only for reasons of pedagogy"? How... compelling. To me, that does not sound like an expression of "studied ambivalence" - it sounds like a preference for the status quo and the willingness to disregard the consequences of his policy preferences on any class of people who aren't Charles Krauthammer. As for the conclusion about judicial fiat... call it foreshadowing.

For a guy who wants us to see him as "ambivelent" on the subject of gay marriage, Krauthammer seems to have little conflict - beyond that one-time nod to the pain suffered by his "gay friends", but all of his arguments come down on the other side. For example, he imagines that gay marriage will lead to a "war on religion", picturing a religious college that is sued for denying a married, gay couple the opportunity to live in married student housing. Never mind that the school could avoid being a casualty of this imagined war simply by refusing federal money - a notion that I guess Krauthammer finds far more disturbing than discrimination against gay couples. Krauthammer complains, "It will be sued everywhere in the country if it’s declared to be a constitutional right, because it would imply that anybody who opposes it does it only out of bigotry, for no other reason". Given that the only other reasons for opposing gay marriage that Krauthammer has acknowledged are "pedagogy" and that "allowing gay marriage would be unfair to polygamists"... I suppose he makes a valid point. To assume that all marriage opponents are anti-gay bigots can be said to be making the mistake of attributing to malice something that at times will be better explained by ignorance.

Krauthammer's ambivelence is cast further into doubt by his recent column on the subject. Krauthammer proposes that there are only two possible grounds for holding DOMA to be unconstitutional, federalism and leaving the institution of marriage to the states, and equal protection. Krauthammer sees the two justifications as irreconcilable, and thus that it's inevitable that the Supreme Court will rule that all states must allow gay marriage. I'm not sure whether I should take that to mean that Krauthammer is implicitly conceding that there's no rational basis for laws prohibiting gay marriage, or if he's unable to fathom why the court does not find "reasons of pedagogy" to be an adequate basis for discrimination.

From a technical standpoint, Krauthammer is conflating a decision holding that the federal government cannot arbitrarily curb the rights of a group of people with an emphasis on interstate recognition of marriage, with state legislation that is entirely intrastate in nature. Krauthammer complains about equal protection,

In states with same-sex marriage, Washington must give the same federal benefits to gay couples as to straight couples because to do otherwise is to discriminate against the gay couples. After all, they are equally married in their states. For Washington to discriminate against them is to deny them equal protection of the laws. Such discrimination is nothing more than irrational animus — and therefore constitutionally inadmissible.

Except the Supreme Court was commenting not on state laws for or against gay marriage, but on a federal law that targeted married gay couples and stripped them of a basic legal protection - to have their lawful marriages respected by other states. As the Court put it, "The Act’s demonstrated purpose is to ensure that if any State decides to recognize same-sex marriages, those unions will be treated as second-class marriages for purposes of federal law." There's nothing inherent in the Windsor decision that removes from a state the right to forbid same sex marriages within its borders - but that state will no longer have a federal statute that it can point to as a justification for disregarding the validity of gay marriages lawfully entered in other states.

In other words, Krauthammer's argument only holds if he believes that there are no better arguments for opposing gay marriage than those proposed by the defenders of DOMA. I'm not sure if I should take this as an implicit abandonment of his notion that gay marriage can be forbidden "for reasons of pedagogy", but it's safe to infer that he does not expect the Supreme Court to find a law premised upon his position to have a rational basis.

As Krauthammer sees it, the problem with this decision is that it paves the way for a future decision that will require all states to permit gay marriage.

Which is exactly where the majority’s [equal protection] rationale leads — nationalizing gay marriage, the way Roe nationalized abortion. This is certainly why David Boies, the lead attorney in the companion Proposition 8 case, was so jubilant when he came out onto the courthouse steps after the ruling. He understood immediately that once the court finds it unconstitutional to discriminate between gay and straight couples, nationalizing gay marriage is just one step away.

I know there's a "conventional wisdom" that holds that but for the opinion in Roe v. Wade we would have had a national debate that would have led toward reproductive freedom across the country, and that the reason we have a continued debate over abortion rights is because the Supreme Court cut that debate short. The only problem with that argument is, well, everything. Roe v. Wade is controversial because it's at the center of the abortion rights debate, but despite decades of controversy and opprobrium it was, is, and remains consistent with public opinion. To the extent that Roe foreclosed part of a debate, it was not the part that would lead toward the expansion of reproductive freedoms for women, it was the effort to restrict and outlaw abortion procedures. Scott Lemieux argues,

In general, the comparison of abortion politics before and after Roe v. Wade is most consistent with the expectations held by skeptics of judicial exceptionalism. Clearly, the legitimation hypothesis is not applicable in the abortion case. The court’s intervention certainly did not resolve the abortion issue in any meaningful sense, and the public certainly did not accept the court’s verdict as the final word on the issue. On the other hand, there is also little evidence that the court’s action would have produced more countermobilization than a similar policy enacted by Congress or state legislatures. The pro-life movement was a powerful force before Roe, and the decision did not demonstrably change either the tone of abortion discourse or the distribution of public opinion on the issue. There is no evidence, specifically or generally, that policy-making by the courts is thought of as inherently illegitimate by the public. It should be re-emphasized that these empirical findings do not mean that there was no countermobilization against Roe.... Certainly, abortion politics are more salient at the level of presidential politics in 2003 than they were in 1972 when George McGovern declined to take a position on the issue. The comparison of abortion politics before and after Roe, however, compels the strong inference that it is the nationalization of abortion politics represented by Roe, and not the legalization of [abortion], that is the key variable in explaining this shift. Hypothetically, had Congress passed (and been constitutionally able) to pass legislation with similar policy content, there can be little question that abortion would have become a more salient issue in presidential politics as well.

Lemieux's argument, as exemplified by his reference to McGovern, is also consistent with the fact that it was not until the Reagan era, and its effort to turn the religious right into a permanent Republican voting bloc, that being "pro-life" became a litmus test in the Republican Party.

Krauthammer is not demonstrating concern that this theoretical cut-off of debate predicated by decisions like Roe or Windsor will prevent the development of abortion rights and gay marriage as national legal rights. For example, if he's truly concerned about federalism, why didn't he blow a gasket about DOMA, a law that allowed state legislatures to avoid trying to create laws and policies consistent with their own constitutions and the U.S. Constitution. What meaningful debate did we have in the decade after the passage of DOMA?

Krauthammer's selective focus on court decisions that lead toward gay marriage, and his (at best) disinterest in state and federal legislation and ballot initiatives that attempt to impede or prevent movement toward gay marriage, suggests that his opposition is to the expansion of rights and not to the means by which those rights are expanded or protected. In this specific case it seems less that Krauthammer's actual objection is to the fact that the Supreme court intervened, and is more to the fact that he is unable to articulate a single reason why the Court's decision was incorrect.
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1. A third argument might be, "If gay marriage is allowed, the result will be to weaken the traditional institution of marriage." The primary problem with that argument is that there's no evidence to support it, not even from jurisdictions that permit gay marriage. If you don't care whether your argument is supported by evidence, you could as easily argue that gay marriage will bring on a Martian invasion. Either way, in the absence of evidence you're blowing smoke.

2. Krauthammer claimed, "This line of argument makes gay activists furious" - no, Charles, this is what "furious" looks like; odds are that was people pointing and laughing.

The Problems of Heterosexual Marriage Can't Be Attributed to Things That Haven't Happened

Before going out of town, I apparently opened a browser window to Ross Douthat's latest editorial on gay marriage, one in which he reverts to his traditional form of not coming to a clear conclusion. Instead, he implies that gay marriage is somehow causing problems for heterosexual marriages:

“Proponents of gay marriage can only get what they want,” [David] Frum wrote, “by weakening Americans’ attachment to the traditional family even more than it has already been weakened,” and speeding the “process of social dissolution” that the 1960s and 1970s began....

Yet for an argument that has persuaded so few, the conservative view has actually had decent predictive power. As the cause of gay marriage has pressed forward, the social link between marriage and childbearing has indeed weakened faster than before. As the public’s shift on the issue has accelerated, so has marriage’s overall decline.

Since Frum warned that gay marriage could advance only at traditional wedlock’s expense, the marriage rate has been falling faster, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has been rising faster, and the substitution of cohabitation for marriage has markedly increased. Underlying these trends is a steady shift in values: Americans are less likely to see children as important to marriage and less likely to see marriage as important to childbearing (the generation gap on gay marriage shows up on unwed parenting as well) than even in the very recent past.

Correlations do not, of course, establish causation.

No, they don't. But more to the point, there's no meaningful correlation. If there were, Douthat could point to the more market collapse of heterosexual marriage in states and nations that have legalized gay marriage, or in cities with larger numbers of gay couples.¹ He could point to opinion polls showing that states or regions with the highest opposition to gay marriage have the strongest heterosexual marriages. As it stands, he may as well be saying, "I'm not saying that the deterioration of heterosexual marriage is caused by the Earth orbiting around the sun, but you can't deny the correlation."

If you were to look through history, to look at cultures and communities that were troubled by high rates of birth outside of marriage, unstable relationships and the like, you might learn something. Such as, when the people of those communities are given a path into a stable middle class lifestyle, they start to behave in a way Douthat would deem acceptable. Not the way he behaved before his personal rejection of the hook-up culture of his college, but the way he has ostensibly behaved since his revelation. And when you pull the economic carpet out from under a community, the same issues predictably arise. That's a correlation you can believe in. Douthat gives it a nod:

The economy is obviously playing a leading role in the retreat from marriage — the shocks of recession, the stagnation of wages, the bleak prospects of blue-collar men. Culturally, what matters most is the emergence of what the National Marriage Project calls a “capstone” understanding of marriage, which treats wedlock less as a foundation for adulthood and more as a celebration of adult achievement — and which seems to work out far better for our disciplined upper class than for society as a whole.

Our "disciplined upper class", as compared to the undisciplined, perhaps unwashed masses? It's almost as if Douthat wants to slip into the caricature of the manor born, sniffing at the shiftless behaviors of those of lesser birth. As if it's discipline that allows him to live a life of relative leisure, while that shameless hussy of a scullery maid was caught kissing a footman during her half-day off from her 16-hour work shifts, and thus had to be dismissed without a reference. You cannot claim to be disciplined in the face of a recession, and loss of career and income potential, unless you actually feel the effect - and sorry, Ross, "The Princess and the Pea" is a fable, and no matter how sensitive you believe yourself to be, having a pea under your 100 mattresses is not the same thing as sleeping on the floor.

Douthat huffs,

For 10 years, America’s only major public debate about marriage and family has featured one side — judges and journalists, celebrities and now finally politicians — pressing the case that modern marriage has nothing to do with the way human beings reproduce themselves, that the procreative understanding of the institution was founded entirely on prejudice, and that the shift away from a male-female marital ideal is analogous to the end of segregation.

Certainly, that was a decade with not one voice speaking against gay marriage. There was no concerted, multi-million dollar campaign to defeat gay marriage in California. Maggie Gallagher wasn't, in effect, a paid spokesperson for "traditional marriage". Ross Douthat and his anti-gay marriage peers found themselves strangely unable to speak on the subject. Opponents of gay marriage didn't push ballot initiatives across the nation not only to prevent gay marriage, but also to weaken civil union laws and block gay employees from receiving benefits for their partners. And then there's the real world. Look, I'm sorry Ross found himself losing in the marketplace of ideas... no, scratch that, I'm not at all sorry... but there was a contest of ideals. Douthat prefers to pretend that gay marriage supporters were not opposed, but the fact is that his faction fought a bloody fight and despite its best effort is now on the verge of total defeat. Why? Because the anti-gay marriage arguments they present, as exemplified by the columns about which I am writing, were feeble, and the fall-back position of "tradition!" was not found to be compelling. What do we see now? Douthat attempting to rewrite history and caricature the positions of gay marriage advocates. That's the best he can do.

As I recall it, it was not advocates of gay marriage who brought procreation into the discussion. It was culture scolds like Douthat. If you take away procreation from his effort to wall off marriage as a heterosexual institution, what's left of Douthat's already weak argument? I think it's fair to say, also, that some of those bringing procreation into the mix wanted to evoke a visceral reaction against gay marriage - "We can't let them raise children." If Douthat resents that there was push-back against that type of argument that left its proponents looking foolish, even if by stating the painfully obvious truth that nothing about somebody else's gay marriage affects my ability to procreate and raise children within my own marriage (or Douthat's)... oh well.

Douthat continues,

Now that this argument seems on its way to victory, is it really plausible that it has changed how Americans view gay relationships while leaving all other ideas about matrimony untouched?...

A more honest, less triumphalist case for gay marriage would be willing to concede that, yes, there might be some social costs to redefining marriage. It would simply argue that those costs are too diffuse and hard to quantify to outweigh the immediate benefits of recognizing gay couples’ love and commitment.

No, actually that would not be an honest argument. It might reasonably be deemed "Throwing a bone to Ross Douthat", but beyond that it's a position without substance. There might be some social costs to redefining marriage, and there are social costs to not redefining marriage. The former, the costs upon which Douthat would have us place all of our attention, are theoretical. The latter are real, and are substantiated. This is the art of distraction - hand waving. There is no need to perform a weight of theoretical, unarticulated, unsubstantiated "costs" associated with allowing gay marriage and the costs of maintaining the status quo, as one side of the equation is a null set.

Douthat whines,

Such honesty would make social liberals more magnanimous in what looks increasingly like victory, and less likely to hound and harass religious institutions that still want to elevate and defend the older marital ideal.

Honesty? The honesty of "admitting" that, as the future is uncertain, some unanticipated development could somehow detrimentally affect gay marriage? One might say, "There's no harm in throwing somebody like Douthat a bone, in ceding to him that as the future is uncertain something negative could result from gay marriage." Except that Douthat's whinging about "honesty" is itself dishonest - he still can't identify any actual harm that is likely to result from gay marriage. Is this demand for a concession anything more than his asking us to feed his smugness, give him the self-satisfaction of saying, "See? Even supporters of gay marriage admit that bad things can happen."

You know what I wouldn't mind seeing? I wouldn't mind seeing Douthat demonstrate some honesty for once. I would like to see him admit that he has been unable to provide any evidence or support for the notion that gay marraige causes any harm to the institution of marriage. I would like to see him admit that gay marriage could strengthen the institution of marriage, as the option of marriage becomes available to a greater number of committed couples. I would like to see him admit that gay marriage could benefit the children of gay couples who are presently legally barred from marrying. I would like to see him admit that his opposition to gay marriage, whether it is rationalized based upon his religious beliefs, "tradition", or the sort of gut reaction that he had to "chunky Reese Witherspoon", is at heart bigotry. He should relax - the churches that offered a religious defense of slavery, the subjugation of women, Jim Crow, and anti-miscegenation laws are still with us, and many have evolved to the point that it's easy to forget where they once stood. Instead he grouses that when you call bigotry what it is, it makes bigots look bad.²

Douthat continues,

But whether people think they’re on the side of God or of History, magnanimity has rarely been a feature of the culture war.

As Douthat believes himself to be on the side of God, to be supported by history, and to be a champion of the correct side in the culture wars he fights, I guess that's his way of saying, "Don't expect any magnanimity or honesty from me."
---------------
1. It's fair to point out that the social trends Douthat laments are more visible in states in which there is broad opposition to gay marriage, and are less visible in states that allow legal gay marriage.

2. Douthat argues that the position that marriage has a strong connection to procreation and the rearing of children has historic truth, and that in the past that as recently as the early 1970's nobody found that argument to be "transparently silly". But here's the thing: You can accept that history of marriage, not dismiss it a silly, and still find it to be wholly irrelevant to the question before us. You can observe that we do not require straight couples to be fertile or to agree to have children before we allow them to marry, and that the institution of marriage has not been weakened by those non-procreative partnerships. You can also point out that the 1971 Minnesota case he mentions came a mere four years after the U.S. Supreme Court finally struck down anti-miscegenation laws, which had previously been upheld by state courts who treated the mixing of the races as a very serious matter.

You can observe that, shocking as it may be to Douthat, gay parents are capable of parenting children and many gay parents are presently raising children. Is Douthat prepared to go into the puerile, "But kids need a biological mommy and a biological daddy" argument to distinguish the children of gay couples from those of heterosexual couples who adopt, who use an egg donor, sperm donor or surrogate due to fertility issues, who raise stepchildren, who take in the child of a troubled family member?

Douthat again whnes that it's "almost impossible for liberals to show magnanimity in victory, and accept the continued existence of people and institutions that still take the older view of what marriage is and means." When Douthat demonstrates the honesty I previously invited from him, when he demonstrates an iota of humility about his stance, we can talk about "magnanimity". As it stands, I don't feel any greater need to give Douthat a shoulder to cry on than to give similar comfort to the alumni of Oral Roberts University when it finally abandoned its prohibition of interracial dating. I don't need to "rewrite the past" to make Douthat look bad - he's doing fine, all by himself.

Yet Another Weak Argument Against Gay Marriage

Doug Mainwaring, "co-founder of the National Capital Tea Party Patriots", has decided that he doesn't support gay marriage. For some reason, the Washington Post decided that this was a sufficiently newsworthy development that Mainwaring should be given space to publish an editorial explaining his views. And thus we find one of the weakest arguments against gay marriage that I have seen presented in a major publication.

Mainwaring opens by describing an anti-gay marriage petition in Maryland, and describes how some proponents of gay marriage were surprised to see people they knew signing a petition in opposition. He then recites,

While only 56,650 certified signatures were necessary to get the measure on the ballot, more than 160,000 signatures were collected and delivered to the Maryland Secretary of State.

There are what? Close to 6 million people in Maryland? Why is Mainwaring's reaction tot the "160,000" figure, "Why are there so many," instead of "Why are there so few?" Mainwaring proceeds to give a breakdown by party alignment of the people who signed and, although noting that a majority were Republican, proclaiming, "It’s not just Republicans who object to this legislation. This is a common, mainstream concern."

Later, Mainwaring makes the implicit admission that his argument is weak: "A signature on a petition actually says very little". If it says so little, why is Mainwaring opening with an argument he implicitly concedes to be a house of cards?

What is Mainwaring actually trying to argue? That if support for or opposition to an issue breaks down along partisan lines we can dismiss it as "uncommon" or "outside of the mainstream"? If so, he's probably the only Tea Party leader in the nation who holds that position. Would we have found him arguing at his Tea Party meetings over the past few years, "Opposition to the President's agenda is breaking down along partisan lines, so we can only conclude that the opponents are unprincipled partisans whose positions should not be considered"?

Mainwaring complains that advocates of gay marriage should have pushed for something less than full marriage equality. Why? Because in 2010 it appeared that the push might backfire, and prevent the passage of any form of bill establishing marriage rights for gay couples. He insists that the argument remains correct, even though history proved it wrong with the passage of a marriage equality law.

Mainwaring argues,

I am certain that the vast majority are others who, like me, simply view “marriage” as an immutable term that can only apply to heterosexuals.

If it needs to be said, that is not a logical argument. Mainwaring could as easily argue on behalf of people who believe that the word "gay" should only apply to feelings of "happiness". More than that, his argument is self-refuting. If the petition he is supporting were merely to keep things exactly as they are, with full marriage rights given to gay couples but substituting a different term for "marriage", he might plausibly be able to argue that people were concerned only about the word "marriage". But he's supporting an initiative that is intended to strip gay couples of any right to marry - he would have to be obtuse to believe that most people supporting the initiative care only about semantics.

Mainwaring continues,

It’s undeniable that, from age to age, marriage has been humanity’s greatest success and source of prosperity, crossing all cultures and religions. We shouldn’t mess with it.

Dare I say, even without straying from the sphere of heterosexuality, over the course of human history we have "messed with" the concept of marriage in a considerable number of ways? "From King Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines, to the eleven or so wives of Muhammad, to the 27 wives of Joseph Smith, the same basic concept of marriage has crossed all cultures and religions...." Or, "When Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin, he was supporting a tradition of marriage that dates back to Isaac and Jacob."

Similarly, would Mainwaring have applied the same argument to anti-miscegenation laws? If not, why not, and if so, how is it that making dramatic changes to the number of wives you can legally have, the age at which you can marry, or the race of your prospective spouse don't constitute "messing with" marriage in any meaningful sense? For that matter, would Mainwaring see a law permitting polygamy, permitting marriage to children and first cousins, allowing fathers to compel their daughters to marry designated husbands, or re-implementing anti-miscegenation laws as no big deal, because they're consistent with most of human and religious history?

More to the point, declaring that marriage is "marriage has been humanity’s greatest success" does not make it so. Insisting that it is "humanity’s greatest... source of prosperity" does not make it so. (By way of example, I personally would have a lot more money in the bank had I remained single).

Just as the concept of marriage has evolved over time while remaining viable, even within religions, there's no reason to believe that its further evolution through legal gay marriage will have any material impact on other married couples. Having examined every bit of evidence I can find, I feel quite comfortable asserting that gay marriages have absolutely no impact on my marriage - none at all. They are irrelevant to my marriage. What magical power does Mainwaring believe gay marriages hold that will weaken my marriage and others like it, and why haven't we seen the impact of that dark magic in any state or nation that permits gay marriage?

Then, of course, the kicker:

Full disclosure: I am gay.

Was that supposed to be an appeal to authority - "I am gay, and so my argument must be presumed to be carefully considered and selfless"? My reaction to the disclosure is less charitable: Had Mainwaring believed his argument to hold water, he would have allowed it to stand on its own. His declaration of his homosexuality is irrelevant - it does not make his argument any stronger or weaker - so if he believes he has made his case why present it as if it's some sort of trump card?

Same-sex relationships are different from heterosexual relationships, and gay men and lesbians need to accept that and design their own tradition.

I found a video of Mainwaring explaining the logic behind that assertion:

Okay, that wasn't actually Mainwaring, but his implied "square pegs and round holes' argument is right at the kindergarten level. When (if ever) can we expect more from Mainwaring than platitudes?

A few years ago, I was on the other side of the fence on this topic. But the more I read, thought, investigated and attempted to defend my position, the more I realized that I couldn’t.

I can't say that I'm surprised that Mainwaring had difficulty defending his former position, given his demonstrated inability to articulate a logical defense of his present position. I would like to read Mainwaring's old arguments, if they're available anywhere, because I suspect that I would find considerable amusement in an argument he made in earnest that's weaker than the one he presents in his current opinion piece.

Voting on Civil Rights

On a recent episode of Real Time, Reihan Salam argued that it would be a positive thing to hold direct votes on certain civil rights issues, such as gay marriage, rather than achieving equality through the courts. Rev. Al Sharpton took issue with Salam, pointing out that if people had voted on civil rights he would still be riding at the back of the bus, and with a "bad eyed driver" so would Salam. In large part, Sharpton is correct - had civil rights been expected to pass on a state-by-state basis some states would have acted promptly but others would have been slow to act, and we would likely still be waiting on a number of states.

I'm not sure what the concept is behind popular voting for civil rights. If there's popular support for a civil rights movement but for some reason the nation's legislatures are slow to act, court action addressing the situation is not likely to be unpopular. If there's a lack of popular support, direct voting won't bring about change, and it would thus fall on legislatures and the courts to implement any change against the will of the people.

The theory appears to be that if you have a few successful votes around the nation, you will start to shift the balance and eventually create a tipping point at which people will back away from their prejudices and accept that they, also, should support the civil rights movement. Reihan focused on Roe v. Wade as opposed to segregation and Jim Crow, and Sharpton was correct to bring the issue back into focus.

Reihan can protest that had reproductive rights been allowed to progress on a state-by-state basis we would not have abortion (and contraception) rights as a front-and-center issue in every federal election. But if the objection people have to Roe v. Wade is that stripped states of their rights, and imposed on certain states a policy that the majority of their residents found objectionable, why isn't the same true of the civil rights movement in general? Even in states that saw violent opposition to the civil rights movement, there is now a general acceptance that segregation is neither "equal" nor consistent with our nation's values.

Another objection to the notion that important civil rights issues should be resolved by plebiscite is that we live in a representative democracy. As a matter of routine, important decisions are made by our elected representatives in part under the theory that they're better informed than the people at large, and are better positioned to avoid the passions and prejudices of the day. Why would we want to add an asterisk to our system of government, such that we would revert to a direct democracy on those issues over which the people are most passionate or prejudiced? That doesn't sound to me like a recipe for a state-by-state transformation of the nation, with gradual realization that other groups of people deserve additional civil rights. It sounds to me like a formula to preserve the status quo in much or all of the country.

The plebiscite approach also raises a question of finality: If people can vote to grant civil rights, why can't they also vote to take them away? If we are supposed to get some sort of finality and social acceptance of the grant of civil rights by proceeding state-by-state, how is that achieved when every election cycle has a new initiative to repeal those rights on the ballot. When the Supreme Court has rolled back the protections of cases like Roe v. Wade, or policies such as affirmative action, the tendency has not been for legislatures and ballot initiatives to move to protect the status quo. Quite the opposite - we see immediate activity to roll back rights that had previously been accepted or assumed, and some legislatures immediately setting up legislation for the next "test case" to push through the courts in the hope of achieving a further rollback of rights.

In the context of gay marriage, when the issue has been placed on the ballot in states like California we have already seen well-funded "anti-" campaigns run by outside groups that oppose gay marriage. If repeal is permitted, that would happen in most or all election cycles. If repeal were not permitted, the argument for resolving civil rights issues by plebiscite becomes incoherent.

Those who favor the "state's rights" or plebiscite approach often also express a certain contemptuousness for the Surpeme Court, speaking of it as an unelected body, a small number of elites who get to decide very important issues, and that the public has little recourse even when the decision is against the overwhelming will of the people. So I look at my copy of the Constitution (1780), I review the case in which the Supreme Court established itself as the final arbiter of constitutionality (Marbury v Madison, 1803), and I say to myself, "Wow - how is it that nobody has noticed this until now?"

No, what I actually do is again note that our system of government was designed to have an independent judiciary, a Supreme Court that would render opinions on matters of constitutionality, and that for all of its flaws the approach has held up for more than two centuries. I note also the contextual nature of the argument - those who criticize the elitist, non-democratic nature of the Supreme Court when it is expanding civil rights do not express similar sentiments when the Supreme Court rolls them back, nor do they express similar sentiments when the Supreme Court expands other rights that they support.

Nobody is suggesting anything more than a gut check for which issues should be taken out of the Supreme Court's hands and (supposedly) resolved gradually, over time, by plebiscite or state legislative action. If you shake your fist angrily that Roe v. Wade deprives state and local governments, and the people they represent, of their right to fashion laws and outcomes that fit their circumstances, why are you celebrating D.C. v. Heller for depriving local governments of a tool they view as important to suppressing crime and keeping their streets safe?

When I look back on the civil rights movement and cases like Brown v. Board, and compare present level of controversy to Roe v. Wade, I don't see that public acceptance of civil rights is tied to how those rights are implemented. I see that there are people with strong religious and moral objections to abortion rights, and even to contraception, who don't care about policy arguments, they want a "no ifs, ands or buts" ban, or something very close to it. I can respect strongly held moral beliefs, I can respect adherence to the teachings of your church, but I don't believe that either should trump either constitutional process or efforts to form sound public policy.

Rick Santorum's Inability to Articulate Good Policy

I recognize that I'm suddenly supposed to accept Rick Santorum as a serious candidate (just like every other bubble candidate who came before him), blame past coverage of his liabilities on unfair treatment by the media, and pretend that this time (just like every other time) he is resonating with the public not because voters are desperate for an alternative to Mitt Romney but because Santorum offers something that's truly different. Yeah, right.

Let's be honest for a moment: Mitt Romney's level of support has been pretty steady - not just in this campaign, but even in relation to five years ago. His level of support in Iowa were pretty much the same as it was four years ago. Other candidates have, for the most part, been able to obtain a much lower level of support from their respective bases, but have been sequentially buoyed by a series of bubbles. Each time we hear the same thing: This guy or gal could be the "real thing", and each time the bubble bursts - not because the media has previously been unfair to the candidate, but because the media has previously not taken the candidate seriously and thus spared him serious scrutiny.

The real difference this time is that those who really don't want Romney to get the nomination are out of options. They can pray for Rick Perry to have a miraculous comeback, they can pray for Rick Santorum to tread water long enough to keep Romney from locking up the nomination, they can even hope that Ron Paul continues to pull a significant "none of the above" vote, Ross Perot style, for a bit longer. But as much as some want to pretend that he's a serious, credible candidate, that "Tourette's Syndome" excuse is not going to carry the day, nor will he be able to credibly deny his more bizarre or inappropriate statements by claiming confusing followed up by dubious stories about what he "really said".

Some of Santorum's problems arise from the fact that, having not been taken seriously as a candidate, his past statements have not received much scrutiny. He's in the "success hasn't spoiled me yet" phase of his bubble - but he need look no further than Ron Paul to see whether his past statements and associations are likely to remain buried.

When you hear Santorum talk about foreign policy issues, it's clear that he doesn't understand foreign policy. It seems pretty clear as well that he doesn't understand the economy. So what does he understand? What's his saving grace? That he's a social conservative who opposes, in essence, feminism, reproductive freedom, equal rights for gay citizens, and... civil rights in general?

[Santorum] declared himself against individualism, against libertarianism, against “this whole idea of personal autonomy, . . . this idea that people should be left alone.” And in this 2005 TV interview, you can hear these classic hits: “This is the mantra of the left: I have a right to do what I want to do” and “We have a whole culture that is focused on immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness . . . and it is harming America.”

Or as Jonathan Rauch observed,

Though he is a populist critic of Big Government, Santorum shows no interest in defining principled limits on political power. His first priority is to make government pro-family, not to make it small. He has no use for a constitutional (or, as far as one can tell, moral) right to privacy, which he regards as a "constitutional wrecking ball" that has become inimical to the very principle of the common good. Ditto for the notions of government neutrality and free expression. He does not support a ban on contraception, but he thinks the government has every right to impose one.

I don't think that Santorum is a stupid man - he seems to be slightly above average in his intelligence - but he's not a thoughtful man. Despite being a career politician and campaigner, he either has little interest in or little aptitude for understanding some pretty basic issues.

Consider his recent statement on Palestinians - that there are no Palestinians and the occupied territories are actually part of Israel. From a "pandering to a reactionary base" standpoint, such a statement may have seemed right to Santorum, but would he actually proceed with that as U.S. policy? Not if he understands anything about the conflict and the fact that Israel does not want to transform the Palestinian population of the West Bank into Israeli citizens. Has he completely missed the entire discussion of a two state solution, and why Israel does not want to annex the West Bank and Gaza along with their Palestinian populations? Apparently so, but how?

Consider his statements on the military - predictably he does not want gay people to be able to serve, but he couldn't stop there:

Asked by a YouTube questioner whether he would try to reverse the policy allowing gays to serve in the military, Santorum responded: “Any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.”

In his longer answer, the former Pennsylvania senator clarified that his objection to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was that it was an attempt to “inject social policy” into military policy.

When it comes to sex in uniform, Santorum said: “Keep it to yourself, whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.”

So it seems that Santorum wants our nation's soldiers to be celibate, and to give no hint to each other of their sexual interests, even if they're heterosexual. How can an anti-gay rights zealot like Santorum, who was in a position of national leadership during extensive debate of "don't ask, don't tell", be that clueless both about what it means, let alone think that you can expect enlisted personnel to be both celibate and completely discreet about their sexual preferences for their years of service.

As a guy who has made stupid comments in the past about gay marriage, leading to his so-called "Google problem", you would think he might have thought about what to say when the issue again, inevitably, arose. And apparently he did - but his new response is also vapid:

"Are we saying everyone should have the right to marry? So anyone can marry anyone else?" Santorum asked, according to a video by NBC News. "So anybody can marry several people?"

The former Pennsylvania senator was clearly on the defensive throughout the exchange, as he attempted to prevent the back-and-forth from becoming a free-for-all.

"We're going to have a civil discussion or were going to move on to another question," he said at one point. Confronted by one critic, he fired back, "What about three men?"

Clearly antagonized, Santorum continued, "If it makes three people happy to get married, based on what you just said, what makes that wrong and what you said right?"

While this time he didn't say that allowing gay marriage would be tantamount to "man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be." But he did suggest that gay marriage is tantamount to allowing polygamy and, as he's never retracted the prior statement, effectively added polygamy to his list of things that are like "man on child, man on dog". He makes no effort to explain how polygamy becomes inevitable from allowing gay marriage, or why it's not the inevitable result of straight marriage. We could put it like this: Would Santorum, himself, be lobbying for polygamy if gay marriage became the law of the land? If not, why not - and why doesn't he believe that most Americans would share his values and continue to insist that marriage is between two partners? No need to drag pets, kids, or third parties into it.

I recognize that the Republican Party tries to portray itself as a party of the average guy, with the candidate you would most like to drink a beer with, and that past would-be nominees, nominees, and even incumbent Presidents have played down their intelligence in order to better connect with the presumed Republican voter. But this is important: Santorum's not playing.

Update: I won't attempt to determine if Gail Collins is offering excerpts representative of Santorum's book, "It Takes a Family", or if she's picking his most absurd claims, but her examples highlight Santorum's intellectual mediocrity:

Santorum looks at Clinton’s village and sees something like the evil mountain in “Lord of the Rings.” Everything the liberal elders do is for the worst possible motives. They don’t want to legalize same-sex marriage so that gay couples can have the right to commit themselves permanently and legally to each other. The liberals/gays don’t believe in lifelong commitments! They only believe in “a kind of cohabitation,” where you can pack up and leave any time you like, and now they’re trying to impose that on the poor, monogamous peasants.

I would say that I would love to hear Santorum explain how laws that allow people enter what even he might acknowledge to be the bonds of matrimony are in fact designed to break down family relationships. Up is down, left is right,and all that. But I can't say that, because honestly, after seeing some of his prior attempts to defend his poorly considered positions I don't want to listen to Santorum.

Gay Marriage Causes No Harm To Any Other Marriage

Adam Serwer and Glenn Greenwald offer substantive responses to Ross Douthat's lament against gay marriage. I'll leave it at this:

But if we just accept this shift [valuing lifelong commitment over serial relationships], we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve.

I can't think of a single thing that gay marriage would take away from my marriage. I can't even imagine a context in which gay marriage would lead me take a different or lesser view of my marriage than the one I presently hold. If anything, the "serial monogamy" Douthat decries diminish marriage by making divorce and remarriage seem easy and acceptable, as if changing a spouse is no different from updating your wardrobe.

When Douthat offers the conclusory statement that gay and heterosexual marriage are "similar in emotional commitment, but distinct both in their challenges and their potential fruit". I would like to see Douthat develop and explain that idea (or any idea, instead of his usual waffling), but I suspect that as soon as he tries to substantiate his argument it collapses. (To the extent that he speaks of "lifelong heterosexual monogamy at its best" as offering "a microcosm of civilization, and an organic connection between human generations", he's presenting far more of a mystical than a logical argument, and he's holding up the exception as the rule.) There are enough states and countries that now permit gay marriage that Douthat should be able to substantiate his opinions with real world examples. But the real world seems to reflect my side of the debate.

Infidelity

Sure, anybody can be unfaithful, but infidelity doesn't "just happen" - it's a choice. It can't "happen to anyone" because anybody can choose marital fidelity. (via TPM.)

What we may be witnessing is the end of the "What happens in D.C. stays in D.C." mindset that, sure, makes it easier to be unfaithful but does not take away your free will.

The First Amendment... According to Pat Buchanan

Apparently I've been misreading it?

Congress shall make no law impacting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, as long as the religion is Catholicism.....

Buchanan rants,

Consider. In every referendum in 16 states, where homosexual marriage has been on the ballot, majorities ranging from 52 to 86 percent have voted to outlaw it as an absurdity and an abomination.

I'm sure that was the exact ballot language. And I wouldn't be surprised if Buchanan feels the same way about civil rights rulings and anti-miscegenation laws.

For five decades, Americans resisted Godless Communism. If they come to realize they did so to save Godless Capitalism, or Godless Socialism, what happens to loyalty and love of country?

The answer, at least to Pat Bucahanan, seems to be blowing in the wind.

Amendment vs. Revision of the California Constitution

At Volokh, Dale Carpenter offers a thoughtful post on the distinction between amendment and revision of California's constitution, and whether Proposition 8 should properly be categorized as an amendment (requiring simple majority vote) or a revision (requiring "approval by two-thirds of each state house, followed by a majority vote"). Without having looked deeply at the issue, I suspect that the distinction was supposed to offer a procedural safeguard, but Carpenter raises interesting points about stripping away people's constitutional rights by majority vote.

Personally, I can't help but wonder if the amendment process itself should be amended (or is it revised). I recognize that it's a double-edged sword - if you make it harder for the people to amend the constitution, you effectively leave that power in the hands of legislatures who may be slow or reluctant to honor the wishes of a clear majority of the population on subjects like medical marijuana. But you also get bad policy, and it seems particularly bad tax policy, enshrined in the constitution, with the likely result that you will have financially mandated tax inequalities and budget problems. And you raise questions of whether matters arguably best addressed by legislation should be enshrined in a state constitution.

That is, you may try to fix a cyclical problem (e.g., budgeting issues) and end up creating a structural problem (a constitution that prevents the government from obtaining the tax revenues it needs to fulfill basic functions, or enshrining discriminatory tax policy that may deter immigration into a state or unduly burden a subset of state residents).

But What If God Makes You Infertile?

The New York Times has a rather vapid piece on same-sex marriage, Using Biology, Not Religion, to Argue Against Same-Sex Marriage. The authors present the views of a Christian couple who contend that their opposition to same-sex marriage arises from biology, not their religious beliefs:

“It takes a man and a woman to create children and thus create a family,” Mrs. Galloway, 60, told a legislative panel in Connecticut last year as it was considering a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.

Except....

For the Galloways, the notion that same-sex couples should not marry because they cannot have children is complicated by their own story. They married nearly 17 years ago, and tried to have children. When they couldn’t conceive, they became foster parents in the hope of adopting.

If the argument truly is that biology dictates the answer - couples who can't have children shouldn't be allowed to marry - why should the Galloways be permitted to remain married? Why should any infertile person be allowed to marry? If the solution to God's will is adoption, as the Galloways suggest at least in relation to their own inability to bear children, how is their marriage different from that of a same-sex couple that adopts?

What of a fertile couple that chooses not to have children, or an infertile couple with no intention of adopting - should they be allowed to marry? How does "biology" justify their marriage?

It's sleight of hand - the argument is quietly shifted from biology - the capacity to reproduce - to "gender roles":

The notion that gender roles are unimportant in raising children is “bunk,” added Mrs. Galloway. “It is not an accident that it takes a man and a woman coming together to create a child,” she said.

Certainly, it's not an "accident" that species that reproduce sexually engage in sexual reproduction. That's a given. But what do we make of "biology" when mommy mantis bites off daddy's head or mommy wolf spider eats daddy. Even if we stick to humans, the mere fact that a species engages in sexual reproduction does not necessarily require that the father have any involvement in the child's life past the point of conception. And that's true even when parents have the best of intentions:

Mr. Galloway, whose father died when he was 3, said being raised solely by women - his mother and his aunts - hindered his development and altered his sense of self-worth.

The Galloway's argument is premised in sociology, not biology. And even in that context, its based upon personal experience and opinion, not empirical data.

This emphasis on biology roughly parallels the idea that "if we call it 'intelligent design' it's not really creationism." When the religious argument doesn't gain traction, spin it into something you can try to rebrand as science, even if there's no actual science involved.

If You're Happy And You Know It....

George Will's column today invites all sorts of snarky retorts. Conservatives, he claims on the basis of a self-reporting survey, are happier than liberals. Or at least happer than "conservative Republicans"... not quite the same thing, particularly these days.

But, then, conscientious liberals cannot enjoy automobiles because there is global warming to worry about, and the perils of corporate-driven consumerism, which is the handmaiden of bourgeoisie materialism. And high-powered cars (how many liberals drive Corvettes?) are metaphors (for America's reckless foreign policy, for machismo rampant, etc.). And then there is -- was -- all that rustic beauty paved over for highways. (And for those giant parking lots at exurban mega-churches. The less said about them the better.) And automobiles discourage the egalitarian enjoyment of mass transit. And automobiles, by facilitating suburban sprawl, deny sprawl's victims -- that word must make an appearance in liberal laments; and lament is what liberals do -- the uplifting communitarian experience of high-density living. And automobiles . . .

[eyeroll] Maybe some Oxycontin would cheer the liberals up? (Oops... that was snarky. But what comes closer to a "happy pill"?)

The survey also concludes, "Married people are happier than unmarrieds. People who worship frequently are happier than those who don't. ... Rich people are happier than poor people. Whites and Hispanics are happier than blacks. Sunbelt residents are happier than those who live in the rest of the country." Of those, Will mentions religion, the sunbelt and marriage.

The Importance of Marriage

In today's Washington Post, William Rasberry instructs us of a growing disconnect between marriage and motherhood for poor mothers.

Unlike earlier generations, they don't look to marriage to give their children "a name" or for economic stability; they see it as a crowning achievement -- something to look forward to after they have their children, decent jobs and a house of their own. To marry earlier, they insist, is to leave themselves prey to the controlling and abusive men who are available to them in their inner-city Philadelphia and Camden, N.J., neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, Maggie Gallagher has produced an analysis of recent research on family structure and delinquency that concludes that -- after controlling for race, income and education -- boys who grow up without fathers are several times more likely to end up in jail. Earlier studies, says Gallagher, who is president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, show that children raised outside marriage are more prone to poverty, substance abuse, school failure, delinquency and adult crime.

Wait a second... I thought Maggie Gallagher was a staunch opponent of marriage. Oops - I guess that's only gay marriage.

Seriously, though, Gallagher is an ideologue who rails against gay marriage, single parent households and abortion rights, with a consistent subtext that there should be a diminishment of the wall between church and state. She is sufficiently reliable in her opinion that she was commissioned by the Bush Administration to write brochures on the subject of marriage, but sufficiently unreliable in her candor that she "forgot" to tell her readership of the arrangement when subsequently editorializing in favor of Bush Administration policies. You don't need to be told which positions Maggie holds or what conclusions her organization advances - if it didn't support her position, she wouldn't be talking about it.

The description reminded me of a rather unpersuasive interview I heard on NPR a few weeks ago, with author Peggy Drexler. While Drexler was asserting that her recent book, "Raising Boys Without Men", was intended only to show that single mothers and gay couples didn't have to fret about the absence of a male presence in their household, her arguments have widely been viewed as anti-male. She argued in effect that most of the supposedly deleterious effects of single parent households are tied to other factors, and that single mothers who lived in decent neighborhoods with stable incomes were producing sons who fared no worse, and sometimes better, than those from "traditional" families.

What I found unpersuasive about this was her methodology (interviews with the boys and their mothers over a period of years), which seemed designed to screen out both opposing viewpoints and unstable families (which are likely to drop out of a longitudinal study). She frequently referred to her findings as following a scientific methodology, but never used the magical words "peer reviewed" in relation to her more controversial findings. Which is not to say that there aren't many single parent households and gay households raising fine children, or "traditional" households which aren't - it's just to say that she seemed to be letting her ideology drive her research and her conclusions. Which I guess makes her Maggie Gallagher's counterpart, save for the fact that Drexler at least performs research.

So I was not particularly suprprised when I Googled Gallagher's organization the "Institute for Marriage and Public Policy" and found that the report mentioned in the Raspberry column was apparently prepared to rebut Drexler:

Can Married Parents Reduce Crime? 9/21/05
Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy says, "Results like these are a reality check for people such as Peggy Drexler ("Raising Boys Without Men") who argue that it is only poverty, and not father absence, that hurts children. Boys are hardwired to grow into men. But they are not hardwired to grow into good family men. That’s a job for mothers and fathers working together."

Well, there's a scientific assertion.... You can download the report (in PDF format) from Gallagher's site.

The report isn't actually a study - it's a survey of studies. And it doesn't actually conclude that "after controlling for race, income and education ... boys who grow up without fathers are several times more likely to end up in jail" - it states, "recent research strongly suggests both that young adults and teens raised in single-parent homes are more likely to commit crimes, and that communities with high rates of family fragmentation (especially unwed childbearing) suffer higher crime rates as a result". Raspberry should have checked his source.

Lest you believe that Gallagher's advocacy for government intervention in the family is premised in her concern for poverty, her writings will quickly set you straight:

We expect our governments, local, state and federal, to respond to our citizens' needs, all of them, even those too poor or too stupid to get out of the way of a Category 5 hurricane.

Given Gallagher's position that it is a matter for contempt and derision to suggest that government should help the poor, her advocacy for government policies relating to marriage can safely be presumed to be about something other than a concern for poverty.

A Bad Trend

So first an unnecessary ban on gay marriage through a constitutional amendment - which also deprive public employers, and attempts to deprive private employers, of their right to contract in the form of providing employees with benefits for domestic partners, and also attempts to ban civil domestic partnerships - now this? What's next?

Repubicans like to speak of themselves as the Party of Lincoln. But the fingerprints I see on the Michigan party's legislative agenda don't appear to be Lincoln's.

Gay Marriage

Over at Crime and Federalism, Norm Pattis has an interesting post on gay marriage.

Don't Give *Them* "Special Rights"

There are people in our society who have made a certain "lifestyle choice", and are now demanding that we give them special rights because of their choice. (You know who I am talking about.) I think the conduct of some of these people, and their demands for those "special rights" merits some scrutiny.

If you listen carefully to the media today, you will hear the claim that discrimination and even violence against these people is widespread. They are often depicted as victims of hate crimes or unfair hiring and firing practices - even before any scrutiny has been applied to determine why they might have been victimized. These people and their advocacy groups use these incidents to portray themselves as victims. They demand state support for their lifestyle choices and practices, and demand anti-discrimination laws to protect their lifestyle choices.

It goes without saying that these people have, as their ultimate goal, public acceptance of their lifestyle. One method of achieving this goal is to give their lifestyle choice protection through nondiscrimination legislation, granting them the same civil rights status enjoyed by women, African Americans and the disabled.

A Cause For Concern

To some, protecting these people from discrimination may not sound like such a bad idea. Neither does protecting them from violent crimes. But we must be careful not to miss the real purpose of these efforts by their activists, to portray themselves as victims. Granting them special rights sends a strong message to society. It says that people who make this lifestyle choice deserve the same legal status and protection as someone who is born black or female or handicapped. This amounts to a pretense that their lifestyle is not a choice but a predetermined characteristic. By talking the focus off of their choices and behavior and making themselves victims, these people engender more support for their lifestyle. For this reason alone, it is vitally important that the citizens of this nation understand the danger of granting them special rights.

Legislative Activity

Over the years, a great deal of legislation has been introduced and reintroduced at both the federal and state levels that purport to be about protecting these people from employment discrimination and the violence of hate crimes, while their underlying goal is to keep this lifestyle choice on the list of protected classes, like race and gender. They have been remarkably successful in obtaining the introduction of legislation which favors their lifestyle choice in the context of employment, housing and public accommodation, and even to advance their lifestyle choices within public school settings. They also want legal protections for their choice of relationship, and even legislative endorsement of their preferred manner of sexual relations.

Special protection for these people could also mean problems for landlords. Under the laws they demand, landlords could be sued for refusing to rent to these people, particularly if the landlord was aware of their lifestyle choice. Furthermore, landowners who rent apartments, sometimes even in their own homes, would be told they must rent to individuals who may be committing offensive acts on their property.

A Civil Rights or Moral Issue

The argument that the granting of protected status for these people is a civil rights issue has been used often in this debate. It is a comparison that has angered some in the African-American community. “Skin color is a benign, non-behavioral characteristic,” General Colin Powell wrote. In contrast, while this lifestyle choice might be described as "perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics", comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument.

The U.S. Supreme Court has laid down three requirements for a group to receive protected status - a shared immutable characteristic, economic deprivation, and a history of political powerlessness. A close look at each of these characteristics reveals that this lifestyle choice does not meet the requirements.

Immutable Characteristics?

Making a lifestyle choice is not the same as being black or being a woman. These are characteristics that can be seen and are not based on behavior.

“The Supreme Court has declared that immutable characteristics are like the shape of the eyes, skin and hair," says Reverend Louis P. Sheldon, president of the Traditional Values Coalition. A similar definition is provided in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There is nothing immutable about this lifestyle choice. It is a behavior-driven characteristic and to align it with minority status is absolutely erroneous. Behavior is not included in the definition.

Economic Deprivation?

Is it even fair to compare the history of the black Civil Rights Movement with this demand for special rights? People in this class often earn more per capita than the average American, woman or black. When you look at the conditions for blacks and other minorities, you must ask yourself:
"where is the discrimination?" These people have tremendous income, enormous economic and buying power, and a lot of discretionary income.

Political Powerlessness?

Does the special rights movement have a history of being politically powerless? If you look at the history of the movement from the earliest days of this nation, this movement has been anything but powerless. This is a group that has wielded an enormous amount of power from the
very beginning, with tremendous influence on state legislatures. Their participation in politics, and their open advocacy of expansive special rights for their lifestyle choice, is accepted without controversy. The major political parties cater to them to try to secure their votes and favors, and have even been known to promise special rights legislation at the national level.

It is obvious that this group does not have a history of political powerlessness.

The Real Issue

Civil rights laws were enacted to offset discrimination against blacks, but these people can claim no victim status as an oppressed, poor minority. They are trying to hijack a movement for their own advantage.

It is clear that these people as a group do not meet the requirements of a protected class. The real issue, of course, is one of choice, not civil rights. A lifestyle choice is a behavior. More importantly, it is a behavior that encompasses a very distinct lifestyle in which specific conduct and actions play a major role. Granting them protection creates both a threat to free speech and a danger to children.

Freedom of Expression

One of the questions that granting these people special rights or protected status raises is, how much of an impact will it have on the freedom of expression? While proponents claim that it will not affect free speech at all, a closer look clearly demonstrates that this is simply not the case. If special rights legislation were passed, a supervisor with different beliefs would be unable to express those beliefs in the workplace. Business owners who reject this lifestyle choice might be faced with difficult choices over whom they hire and whom they fire.

Employment legislation isn’t the only threat to free speech. Hate crimes legislation could also impact the freedom to express deeply held beliefs. Robert Knight of the Family Research Council testified in May before a Senate committee that the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 actually "creates thought crime" because the violent acts are already against the law. Furthermore, some in the media and in the government have begun to interpret public opposition to the normalization of this lifestyle choice as "hate". Special rights advocates have characterized even mild formulations of opposing views as an expression of hatred or as a proximate cause of violence.

Some of these special rights advocates even object to advertisements meant to invite or encourage these people to make different lifestyle choices. Supposedly, these types of messages - undiluted messages of love - instigate prejudice against their lifestyle choices, or lead to crimes of violence against them.

A Threat to Children

Special rights legislation also has the potential of impacting the most vulnerable in our society. This becomes more of a concern in the area of employment. Under the laws these special rights advocates have long demanded, public school systems would not be allowed to hire or fire teachers, principles and guidance counselors on the basis of their lifestyle choice. They are also very vocal in trying to get school libraries to include literature which advances their lifestyle choice, while working to censor anything they believe casts any doubt or negative light on that choice. They won't hesitate to sue a school that won't treat their on-campus activities as if they were any other student organization - as if they were a chess club. They have even been successful in having textbooks changed to reflect their agenda, overriding other people's notions of science and morality for those consistent with their lifestyle choice.

The educational system isn’t the only institution where special rights legislation is threatening children. Even voluntary clubs or youth organizations are feeling the pressure. These people would not hesitate to sue an organization like the Boy Scouts if they were terminated as scout leaders because of their lifestyle choice. This is the type of organization that special rights legislation has an impact on, and this is exactly the kind of organization that special rights advocates want most to infiltrate. How better to shape the future than to mold the minds of the youth?

Worse, these people have a long history of trying to indoctrinate children, and to convince them to share their lifestyle choice. There are documented cases in which special rights advocates, aware that a child's parents reject their lifestyle choice, have nonetheless tried to convert the child to their lifestyle - in some cases through threats.

The Agenda

There is obviously more to special rights legislation than the activists would like us to believe. The push to have their lifestyle choice added to the list of specially protected classes has been a stated part of their agenda for hundreds of years. And with good reason. It is much easier for special rights activists to gain support for antidiscrimination laws than it is for them to gain support for more blatant legislation such as redefining marriage according to their preferred definition.

It must be remembered that this legislation is not really about protecting these people in the workplace or from violent crimes. These people are already protected in these areas just like everyone else. Special rights legislation is simply another, more subtle attempt by special rights groups to legitimize their lifestyle. Making their lifestyle choice a protected class does more than just grant these people "special rights" status. It also poses a serious threat to the free speech rights of millions of Americans who disagree with that choice or find it distasteful - even offensive.

This is the world these special rights advocates want: One in which business men and women who hold other values and beliefs are unable to express those beliefs in the workplace. One in which public school administrators are forced to hire teachers and guidance counselors without consideration of their lifestyle choice. One in which private organizations like the Boy Scouts are expected to make lifestyle choice irrelevant in the selection of scout leaders, and subject to litigation if they refuse. Most importantly, one in which parents will have to watch in silence as their children are placed at the feet of those who push the special rights agenda.

The goal of the special rights movement is to receive social acceptance of their lifestyle. Once a group defined by lifestyle choice receives special rights status, they are one step closer to that goal.

But Who Are These People?

At some point, I may have lost track.... but I don't think I was writing about homosexuals.

[This document is based on "Special Rights For Homosexuals", by the North Carolina Family Policy Council.]