Holiday break
CommentsThe Jewish holiday of Shavuot starts tonight at sundown, and continues until Tuesday at sundown. I will be completely unreachable by phone, E-mail, and blogging during that time. If you need a fix, there will probably be a piece of mine on HRC’s recent donation of a half a million dollars to the fight against the California Marriage Protection Act in the New York Post on Monday. Later!
I read your Post column and wondered why a gay man would be against marriage equality for our community. Now I understand, since you’ve revealed yourself to be a religiously observant Orthodox Jew who is using his religous beliefs like any Christian fundie to undermine marriage equality for our entire community. I guess you figure the imaginary skygod your ancestors created is angry enough at your being a homo, without also destroying his/her/its plan for marriage. And please don’t e-mail me your scriptural interpretations that you use to justify your actions. I couldn’t care less. Marriage licenses are issued by the state, not your rabbi. Your religious convictions are your own. Don’t try to make them everyone else’s. We live in a republic, not a theocracy.
bill-
Have you spent any time at GaysDefendMarriage.com? If you do, you’ll see that just about the only time I quote Jewish text is when I am specifically addressing rabbis. The G-d I believe in isn’t angry at me - or you - for being attracted to the same sex. But He does have clear demands as to how we live our bedroom and family lives. You might read my post about Barack Obama to see how your concept about not trying to make my religious convictions apply to everyone is not shared by the Democratic nominee in waiting for president. Obama says Judeo-Christian morality can be appropriately codified into American law. I agree with him.
David: ‘If you do, you’ll see that just about the only time I quote Jewish text is when I am specifically addressing rabbis.’
Sure, but you tacitly assume moral imperatives out of them the rest of the time without providing an alternative, secular justification.
‘The G-d I believe in isn’t angry at me - or you - for being attracted to the same sex. But He does have clear demands as to how we live our bedroom and family lives.’
You seem to be suggesting that Bill would naturally be less dismissive of your arguments or consider you less hateful if he appreciated that your God is supposedly only angry at gay people like me for being in a same-sex relationship. I don’t know about Bill, but I appreciated that from pretty early on and it doesn’t make any difference. Why would it?
‘Obama says Judeo-Christian morality can be appropriately codified into American law.’
Sure. It’s not as if it’s discrediting to a proposed moral principle that a religion endorses it - otherwise things like “Thou shalt not steal” would be discredited many times over. Religion is just a thick encrustation of myth over a bunch of stuff the ancients thought they knew, and the ancients were by no means uniformly barbaric. On the other hand, some times they were.
You’ll also notice Obama says only that “much”of US law comes from Judeo-Christianity, implying that there are other sources. And his idea of Judeo-Christianity might not be the same as yours. For example, here http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200803/POL20080303b.html he says “I don’t think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.” And of course the bit of the Sermon on the Mount he’s referring to is the Golden Rule, which transcends any particular religion.
Mark-
Barack Obama has been clear, it’s completely legitimate, even praiseworthy for our justifications to arise from Scripture. But when we try to convince the general public, we should make largely (but not exclusively) secular arguments. And I provide lots of alternative, secular justifications for man-woman marriage on this Web site. I know you don’t agree with any of them, but you declared as soon as you arrived at this Web site that you don’t agree with any justifications for man-woman marriage. Because you disagree with them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
I’m not trying to change Bill’s ideas about G-d - I’m simply trying to correct his statement about what he thinks I believe about G-d. He was mistaken, so I corrected him.
You’re right that Obama interprets religion differently than I do; if he didn’t he’d probably be a Republican. And I of course do not care what the Sermon on the Mount or an obscure passage in Romans say; Jews do not believe in either text.
David: ‘And I provide lots of alternative, secular justifications for man-woman marriage on this Web site.’
But they’re not really secular because whenever I dig it turns out that first-order religious homophobia (”same-sex sex is immoral’) is a hidden premise. (I can’t tell you how great a time I’m having, because Maggie was much better at stonewalling.) For example, same-sex couples are not the optimum parenting arrangement because data shows that, dig, dig, children might be marginally more likely to have same-sex sex. Same-sex couples getting married is wrong because, dig, dig, it might make it more difficult for religious parents to explain that same-sex sex is wrong. And so on and so on.
You seem to congratulate yourself that you have “uncovered” my religious and moral belief that opposite-sex behavior is better than same-sex behavior. But it was never a secret. I follow Barack Obama’s advice in sometimes using religious language to justify the social change I favor, but in also providing lots of secular reasons to support what I propose. What’s the hidden religious agenda behind my opposition of opening marriage up to Daddy-boy and master-slave couples? What’s the hidden religious agenda behind my opposing opening marriage up to a kind of coupling (male-male) that is nearly 70% non-monogamous by mutual consent? What’s my hidden religious agenda behind pointing out that suing for marriage has hurt more gay people in tougher environments than it has marginally helped gay people in pro-gay environments? What’s the hidden religious agenda behind my pointing out that under the amendment everyone will be able to use their own definition of marriage, but if it’s defeated gay people will try to fine, fire, and even jail people who don’t go along with the gay community’s definition marriage? What’s the hidden religious agenda by my suggesting we spend half the “marriage” resources on helping gay people who are poor, in prison, sick, immigrants, etc.? I could go on.
‘You seem to congratulate yourself that you have “uncovered” my religious and moral belief that opposite-sex behavior is better than same-sex behavior.’
No, I congratulate myself on getting you to make it obvious how the religious aspect is running the show and the secular arguments are window dressing.
‘What’s the hidden religious agenda behind my opposition of opening marriage up to Daddy-boy and master-slave couples?’
Well in the master-slave case, you fell back on a Jewish conception of marriage as egalitarian when it was pointed out that the traditional Christian conception was perilously close to master-slave already and the secular conception took egalitarianism as a default but considered master-slave arrangements between consenting adults as none of anyone else’s business. As to Daddy-boy couples, I’m not entirely sure what your argument is period. Their rhetoric seems rather master-slave to me, and rather reminiscent of the way the Christian group Promise Keepers talks about their women.
‘What’s the hidden religious agenda behind my opposing opening marriage up to a kind of coupling (male-male) that is nearly 70% non-monogamous by mutual consent?’
I would have thought that went without saying: the religious conception of marriage both in Judaism and Christianity is as the only acceptable venue for sex (ruling out both consensual non-monogamy and same-sex sex). The important question is, do you have a secular argument for the same thing? I’m not aware we’ve explored this case but I’m betting you don’t.
‘What’s my hidden religious agenda behind pointing out that suing for marriage has hurt more gay people in tougher environments than it has marginally helped gay people in pro-gay environments?’
Duh, obviously it would be to get gay people to fold before claiming the prize most jealously guarded by religion, of civil marriage reflecting the opposite-sex only nature of Judeo-Christian marriage. Don’t insult our intelligence by pretending that you wouldn’t _like_ to see gay people cower at the thought of backlash and abandon their pursuit of gay marriage, or that your reasons don’t include religious ones. As before, the real question is, is there a non-religious argument that passes the laugh test? Now of course, this is a partial exception to my overall claim because backlash is a perfectly real problem that needs to be carefully managed, and there certainly will be tactical arguments for going slowly and there might even be arguments for not pressing particular issues at all. However a person would not be unreasonable to suspect that your religious desire for gay marriage to fail might amount to a thumb on the scales when you claim to be speaking out in the best interests of gay people. I’ve argued that your tactical arguments are pretty stupid - others can be the judge.
To both David and Mark:
What is your non-religious justification for the special status of marriage, in the Law?
And, what do you say are the definitive legal requirements for that special status?
And, is marriage a social institution or is it a legal status? (You might choose to say that it is both but first and foremost one or the other, in which case please read the question as is marriage primarily a social institution or a legal status?
Chairm-
I think treating marriage as special, and giving it certain privileges, rights, and honor, is necessary for the protection of children.
As for the definitive legal requirements, you’re asking the wrong person. I think it differs from state to state, there’s some kind of blood test or something, I don’t know. Maybe you should google it.
I have no opinion on your final question.
As I’ve said in other comments here, the definitive legal requirements include the man-woman criterion (sex integration) and the marriage presumption of paternity (contingency for responsible procreation) and that these are based on society, via the government authorities, recognizing a coherent whole.
That last point is important. Government does not own marriage. The legal status is derived from the social institution that is recognized as pre-governmental. The government recognition is for regulation of the parameters — the boundaries — of the core of marriage which, as I said, also spelled out in terms of legal requirements that are enforced vigorously.
The importance in identifying the core, or the essentials, of marriage shows up when SSMers premise all of their claims on a different type of relationship with a different core and for which they offer NO definitive legal requirements. This makes of SSM arugmentation an attack on the nature of marriage, on marriage as a foundational social institution (i.e. a coherent whole), and on the preferentical or special status of marriage in social policy and in the Law.
So we’d agree that what is at stake is, as you said, “treating marriage as special, and giving it certain privileges, rights, and honor, is necessary for the protection of children”.
And that arises from the core of marriage and from the role of government in recognizing, rather than expropriating, a vital social institution of civil society (i.e. the non-governmental realm of a free people). One could make a comparison with other such institutions such as a free press, religious devotion, intellectual liberty, property, and so forth. The government does not own merely because a regulatory role has developed in these areas of civil society.
Justification for protection should remain high — and based on the essentials of any relationship status, at law — and even higher for preferential status. That’s why I’ve asked Mark — and any other SSMer who reads here — the same questions I’ve asked of you, David. To compare the justifications offered.
Frankly, the SSM side stands on axiomatic beliefs that are psuedo-religious both in the fervor in which they are held and in the leap of faith that is necessary to reach for such beliefs. I don’t take the claim of a purely secular rational for the SSM-merger at face value because it depends utterly on a form of identity politics that induces sectarianism, not pluralism and not consensus on essentials.