GayThink, freedom, and the California vote
CommentsMy longtime gay friend Tom Chatt recently posted a really good criticism of my “Same-sex marriages can do harm” piece. Because I was in a rush to get a piece to newspapers that could run on Tuesday, and because I only had 800 words, my point about same-sex kissing being a reason to oppose gay marriage appears as a total non-sequitur. Since I now have the leisure to more fully explain what I mean, and because blogging gives me an unlimited word length, I will now try to elucidate exactly what I was trying to say. The basic point relates to my belief that given the uncompromising attitudes of “marriage equality” advocates, a world without gay marriage will have more freedom for more people than a world with gay marriage. More on that below.
First off, to clarify, I think gays should be allowed to kiss in ballparks, but I think they shouldn’t. I think Hare Krishna people should be allowed to try to convert people in airports, but I think they shouldn’t. I think racists should be allowed to teach their children that blacks are inferior, but I think they shouldn’t. I think lesbians should be allowed to make a brand-new baby without a father, but I think they shouldn’t.
Based on my long history of involvement with the gay community, my Internet surfing and my many conversations at this blog and others, I have come to believe that at least 90% of gay and lesbian people have a set of attitudes I’ll call GayThink. One of the most important tenets of GayThink is that believing that gay sex is immoral and that man-woman marriage is better than same-sex relationships and that it’s best for children to have both a mother and a father is by definition bigotry. According to GayThink, it is as offensive to hold such beliefs as it is to believe that interracial sex is immoral and that people should marry their own race.
If LGBT readers of this blog do not in fact hold the beliefs of what I’m calling GayThink, please correct me. I’m not out to misrepresent anyone.
Now, according to GayThink, my views about sex, marriage, and the family are bigoted. Through most of my life, that hasn’t been a problem. I’ve had my views and LGBT activists have had theirs. But in the last few years, the gay community’s lobbying and especially lawsuits have begun to get more and more goverment units to adopt GayThink. And the more that happens, the more freedoms I lose.
One example is that if I want to start an adoption agency in Massachusetts, I will be shut down if I use my values about what’s best for children instead of GayThink’s values. I have heard from more than 15 gay activists, some of them quite prominent, who think a teacher should be disciplined or fired for using the definition of marriage she believes in with with her students instead of the GayThink definition. Now, a decade ago the gay group GLSEN convinced many public schools to use a curriculum that contained a definition of marriage that made no mention of opposite sexes. I am quite certain no teacher was disciplined or fired for teaching the GayThink definition of marriage, which was purely imaginary and legal nowhere at the time the curriculum was published. Yet under gay marriage, people with my values will find our jobs at risk if we don’t adopt GayThink in the way we perform our tasks.
Now, kissing. GayThink believes that it is bigoted to want to wait until your children get older to teach them about homosexuality but to teach about male-female love when they are quite young - especially if your reason is to be able to teach them when they are mature enough that your family considers gay sex immoral and that they should plan on marrying a member of the opposite sex when they grow up. (LGBT readers, again, tell me if you don’t agree with this tenet of GayThink.)
So LGBT people in Seattle grew quite angry when a mother tried to get lesbians to stop kissing because it was confusing her son. Some gays even proposed the solution of arranging for lots of same-sex couples to make out in front of children at the ballpark. That is a reasonable strategy in GayThink because any parent who would object is a bigot, and for the sake of her children - especially if someday they grow up to be gay - they should be exposed to homosexuality right away, rather than when the parents desire it.
If gay “marriage” becomes permanent in California, I am quite certain that the folks at GLSEN and the gay caucus of the National Education Association will start looking for ways to teach younger and younger children that when they grow up they can marry a man, or a woman - it’s up to them. (I will withdraw this statement if those groups pass a resolution never to support curricula such as I have described.) Parents who want to teach their children that they should only marry an opposite-sex person will have some of their freedom taken away. Now, any time a public school teacher tells her students that homosexuality is immoral or gay relationships are inferior, the gay-education lobby goes ballistic and makes sure the teacher stops saying that, or is even fired. Yet if GayThink becomes part of the law, traditionally religious parents will have no recourse when their children are taught at school that their family’s values are a form of bigotry similar to racism.
So you see, even freedom-loving people who personally see no reason gays shouldn’t get married should vote for the California Marriage Protection Act. If it passes, same-sex couples will lose no rights other than the word “marriage.” Gays and straights will continue to be able to teach, write, run their businesses and raise their children using the definition of marriage they believe in. If it fails, only people who accept the tenets of GayThink (an extreme ideology most Californians don’t agree with) will be able to use their own definition of marriage in running their lives. For anyone who cares about living in a free country, the only possible vote on the CMPA is yes.
David,
I’m not saying this as an attack, but did you ever try to change and to be straight? One thing about GayThink that I completely disagree with is the notion that once you have a sexuality it is set in stone for the rest of you life. I believe people can change if they want it bad enough. People can be whatever they truly want! And you are obviously incredibly unhappy being gay! Again, I don’t mean this as an insult! Go, do what it takes, find the right woman, be straight! You’ll be so much happier and you’ll feel superior too I’m quite sure of that!
Dan
Dan-
If I woke up tomorrow and found I was straight, I would be very happy. It would then be much easier to fulfill the Jewish commandment to marry and reproduce. Unfortunately, I believe there are only two things that have ever made a gay person straight: time and prayer. It is undeniable that some people’s sexual orientations change as they age - in both directions. If I believed that prayer could not lead to any possible change in one’s life, I would never pray. Of course, G-d is not like Aladdin’s genie who grants us all our wishes. On the other hand, after many years of examining the evidence, I am convinced that sheer willpower, force, and therapy are completely ineffective in changing someone’s orientation.
If you have a specific suggestion that has been proven to work in making gay men straight (other than time and prayer), I’m really interested in hearing it. It may be the most helpful advice anyone has ever given me in my life.
David,
You completely disarmed me with your latest response. Unfortunately I do not have any solutions for you as changing my own sexuality has never been a desire of mine. However, one suggestion (that to me sounds like common sense) is to separate yourself from anything gay - not just in action, but in thought as well. The rest will follow.
Good luck! ( I do mean that sincereley)
Dan
David: ‘One of the most important tenets of GayThink is that believing that gay sex is immoral and that man-woman marriage is better than same-sex relationships and that it’s best for children to have both a mother and a father is by definition bigotry. According to GayThink, it is as offensive to hold such beliefs as it is to believe that interracial sex is immoral and that people should marry their own race.’
I think “by definition” is a bit strong. The claim is not that there _couldn’t_ be a good reason for thinking gay sex (or miscegenation) is immoral, it’s that there just plain _isn’t_, and that in 2008 it should be sufficiently obvious that there isn’t that it calls into question the basic moral sense of the person saying there is.
Okay, your religious community believes that gay sex is immoral. My religious community believes that gay sex is not inherently immoral (certainly sexuality can be expressed in harmful ways, but distinctions can be made).
A long list could be made of things that one group or another consider immoral. Dancing. Drinking. Failure to believe in the divinity of Jesus. Just going by those last three, I’m in big trouble. I don’t know how you feel about dancing and drinking, but there’s someone out there who considers you immoral over that third one.
How do we sort our way through this maze? Do we ban everything that a group holds to be immoral? If we are going to ban same-sex marriage because some groups believe that homosexuality is immoral, do we also ban dancing? What about alcohol? Coffee?
If someone were to tell me that his or her religion forbade something, I suppose my reaction would be “okay, then don’t do that.” But it goes beyond the bounds of a civil society to demand that I refrain because of someone else’s religious beliefs.
Dan-
Since your suggestion that I separate from everything gay in thought and action has never been shown to work in making a gay person straight, and since none of my rabbis has recommended it, I’m going to decline your well-intentioned suggestion. But thank you.
Mark-
I respect your stance that the opinion of Judaism that G-d declared gay sex to be immoral is not a “good reason” to feel that way. However, in a country with freedom of religion, the government may not declare that my religious belief about gay sex, or whether it’s moral for a Jew to eat pork, or anything else, is “good” or not good. I think it’s terrific that you think I’m the one who’s immoral for being against gay sex, rather than you being the who’s immoral for supporting gay sex and perhaps even engaging in it. If you want to vote based on that belief, and try to pass laws that reflect it, and shout it from the rooftops, and even argue in favor of it right here on my blog, I support you 100%. All I ask is the same courtesy from you when it comes to my expressing my own belief that gay sex is in fact immoral.
Yes, but John D, my religion doesn’t just believe it’s immoral for me to have gay sex. It believes it’s immoral for you to have gay sex. The only way for you to convince me I’m wrong is to show me a rabbinic text that I then show to my posek (Jewish legal decision-maker). If he says - which he theoretically could - “Goodness! I never saw that text before. Yes, there is nothing immoral with gay sex” then I will immediately stop saying gay sex is immoral. That’s how Judaism works.
I did not ever “demand that (you) refrain” from gay sex because it’s against the Torah. I have never advocated sodomy laws, which as they were written were not consistent with Jewish attitudes toward sexuality.
What I spoke about in the blog post above is how I want to be able to teach my children that gay sex is immoral and they should plan on marrying only an opposite-sex person without having the government label me a bigot, for example by having public schools teach children that my family’s values are wrong.
I support your right to have all the gay sex you want. Will you support my right to teach my children the values of my faith without the government declaring that my values are inferior? That’s not a sarcastic question. I’d really like to know.
David: ‘However, in a country with freedom of religion, the government may not declare that my religious belief about gay sex, or whether it’s moral for a Jew to eat pork, or anything else, is “good” or not good.’
Nonsense. It’s close to impossible for it to _silence_ you from advocating religious practices, especially in your home or place of worship, but with only moderate difficulty it can _condemn_ religious practices and it can _ban_ religious practices. Quite properly, it needs a reason that will withstand “strict scrutiny” (there needs to be a “compelling government interest”, which in a religious freedom context would include secularity, it needs to be “narrowly tailored”, and it needs to be the “least restrictive means”) but it can do it and it has done it. It did it to the Mormons over polygamy, something I would have thought you’d enthusiastically support.
I would love to say “yes,” but…
You see, I support your right to teach your children just about anything you want (almost, I won’t derail the comment by specifying the extreme cases, we know we can go there).
If you want to teach your children that group X is immoral or that the world is flat and 6,000 years old, go ahead. Whatever.
But they you said, “without the government declaring that my values are inferior.” I know this gambit. It’s the whole argument that permitting people different values is a decree that your values are inferior.
It’s a tough issue, sure.
I noticed that in your comment you went right to gay sex. What about dancing and drinking? Or a belief in Jesus.
I dance, I drink, I don’t believe in Jesus, and I have gay sex. How much worse can I get?
If the government allows me to drink and dance (which I just did in San Francisco, surrounded by heterosexual couples of about my age), are they declaring inferior the values of religions that feel drinking and dancing are immoral?
Must we, along with a ban on same-sex marriage, also go for a ban on drinking and dancing? Are we not denigrating deeply held religious beliefs?
And if you support my right to have as much gay sex as I want (despite that you find it immoral), why not in the context of a marriage (since your objection to same-sex marriage is that gay sex is immoral)?
In the clash of religious beliefs, we must go for the careful balance of rights and harms. Tell your children that people have a right to it, but you don’t think it’s a good thing.
And I promise not to call your values inferior. Just different.
Now what about my values, in which same-sex marriage is a positive thing? Are you going to tell me that my values are inferior?
Mark-
The government may ban polygamy. But for all the public schools in Utah to teach little Mormon boys and girls that the founder of their religion who had more than one wife was an immoral person, that is an unconstitutional endorsement of one religion over another. There’s a little known secret that some non-Ashkenazic Jews are still practicing polygamy, and Rabbenu Gershom’s ban on polygamy in the year 1000 C.E. was only for one thousand years. In other words, it no longer applies. Other, lesser rabbis have extended it, but the original ban has expired. I do not believe polygamy is immoral or evil. I do not have a strong opinion on whether it should be legal in the United States. It certainly is not a redefinition of marriage. It’s just permission for men to enter into more than one marriage with different women.
David,
You’re jumping to a conclusion here. I certainly learned in school that George Washington owned slaves, but there was never a breath of the idea that he might be anything other than a greatly moral being. I sincerely doubt that public schools anywhere are teaching that Joseph Smith was immoral.
I would be opposed to a teacher in any public school making the claim that Joseph Smith was “immoral,” even though I actually feel that polygamy is immoral. It strikes me as editorializing. I would take equal umbrage at the teacher who said that Harvey Milk was immoral because he had gay sex.
John D-
Your questions are completely reasonable and respectful, and I’m happy to answer them. I do plan to teach my children that the earth is 6,000 years old (in a certain sense). I think it’s great that some people think drinking, dancing, and not believing in Jesus are immoral. And I have no problem with the jurisdictions that indeed ban drinking and dancing based on the religious beliefs of the majority of their citizens. That’s not unconstitutional. I don’t know how one can force someone to believe in Jesus, but I can’t think of any ways that would pass muster with the free exercise clause.
If the government allowed the public schools to teach children that drinking and dancing are sinful and immoral, that would be an unconstitutional establishment of religion. But banning dancing or drinking are completely constitutional. When the 18th Amendment was in force, Prohibition of alcohol was by definition constitutional.
I think it should be legal, though it is totally reprehensible, for you to have all the gay sex you want in the context of a marriage (like a certain senator from Idaho is alleged to have done). I do not think there is any compelling reason for the government to call the relationship you have with one of the men you have sex with a “marriage.”
I never said I object to same-sex “marriage” because gay sex is immoral. That has literally nothing to do with my objections. The Talmud forbids both same-sex civil and religious marriage for Jews and non-Jews even if the partners are completely celibate. That’s one reason. I also feel strongly that whenever possible a child should have both a mother and a father, which is a good reason to privilege male-female families. There are other reasons too that you can find in my many blog posts, but those are the two most important to me.
It’s interesting that you bring up cultural relativism, which I object. When I was a freshman in college, we read Chinua Achebe’s excellent Things Fall Apart, which discusses an African tribe with many unusual practices including a superstition against twins. When twins were born, they would be left in the woods to die, because their beliefs considered twins to be taboo.
I mentioned in the discussion section how disgusted I was with that practice, and the class found my opinion to be wrong-headed and even racist. “That’s their culture,” they said. “They might find practices of your culture to be disgusting.” And I reminded them, “They kill babies. That’s not inherently evil?” The answer in the class was mostly no.
Now, I don’t want to draw too many conclusion from a room full of smart but admittedly immature college freshmen. Still, I think it gives a since of why I don’t take the attitude that other people’s values aren’t inferior, they’re just different. If they were equal, why don’t I just switch and adopt their values so we can all get along better?
Yes, your values that same-sex “marriage” is a good thing are inferior to my values. If I felt our values were completely equal, I’d be happy to switch sides so we can end this conflict. If you really believe my values are completely equal and not inferior, I invite you to switch sides so we can end this conflict.
JohnD-
I think we’re more in agreement than we think. It is wrong for a public school teacher to say that a polygamist was immoral, and it is wrong for a teacher to say that a gay man was immoral for having gay sex.
Would you agree that it is wrong for a public school teacher to say that favoring male-female marriage over same-sex marriage is a form of bigotry that is as wrong as racism?
If so, we should explore ways to structure same-sex marriage laws (in case you win this debate) in a way that allows people like me full religious freedom.
David: ‘The government may ban polygamy. But for all the public schools in Utah to teach little Mormon boys and girls that the founder of their religion who had more than one wife was an immoral person, that is an unconstitutional endorsement of one religion over another.’
That’s a different claim from what you started with, in two respects. First, you started out with talk of “good” and “bad”. The government declared polygamy “bad” by banning it. I don’t see a problem with that, and I don’t see why it can’t back up that message with language of the form, “Polygamy is bad because [secular reason].” However for better or worse, “immoral” has religious overtones, so indeed I think the government would be on dangerous ground using such language.
Second, you’ve changed the subject from practices to people. People are complicated creatures, often noble in some respects while despicable in others. Moses’ first recorded act is murdering an Egyptian. Jefferson ended the slave trade but kept slaves. I’d hesitate to judge people like that, and I expect most people would, but any discomfort we might have with that is irrelevant to the question of whether Smith’s actions were good or bad.
David,
You’re in a trap. Truth for you in what the Torah says and what Rabbis are telling you (based on previous Halacha rulings and the Talmud). Now your problem is that your self-identification is still as a gay man.
That conflict can only be resolved one of three ways:
1) Thinking for yourself (i.e. not let religious scholars do that for you). By the way, do you believe everything the Talmud says including the Talmud’s writing about the gentiles?
2) Changing who/what you are or identify as. You seem a lot more obsessed with your sexuality than I am.
3) Do nothing and just be angry. This options will render your current physical life miserable and your life after death a gamble that you chose the right religion and its proper interpretation.
What a conundrum!
Mark-
Murder is a legal conclusion. Killing a physical description. I do not know for sure, but I vaguely remember learning that Moses never murdered anyone. He just killed someone. If you shoot someone in self-defense, for example, nobody thinks you’re a murderer. You are by definition a killer though.
To be clear: you think it’s problematic and maybe an unconstitutional endorsement of non-Mormon religion for a public school teacher to say that Joseph Smith was immoral because he had more than one wife. Right?
Now, is it problematic and maybe an unconstitutional endorsement of non-traditional religion for a public school teacher to say that someone who treats lesbian marriages differently than male-female prejudice is exercising a form of bigotry similar to racism? Is it problematic and maybe an unconstitutional endorsement of non-traditional religion for a public school teacher to say that when children grow up, it’s just as good and right and proper for them to marry a man as it is to marry a woman?
If the last example is not unconstitutional and problematic, do you believe that in the other 48 states it is completely legitimate for a public school to tell her students that when they grow up it is only good and right and proper for them to marry a member of the opposite sex?
If you answer my questions as I think you will, you’ve got some ’splainin to do.
Dan-
I’m not sure when the conversation turned from my ideas to my life, but I don’t remember you having asked my consent to speculate about such personal things about me publicly. If you have questions along the line you’re going down, or if anyone else does, feel free to E-mail me at DavidBenkof@aol.com.
David,
So let me get this clear:
You oppose same-sex marriage because it is forbidden by Jewish law (specifically, it is banned in the Talmud, though the reference makes a great counter-claim to those who say that same-sex marriage never existed before: thanks).
You do not oppose sodomy laws, even though gay sex is forbidden by Jewish law (that famous passage in Leviticus as a start).
You want there to be a legal ban on same-sex marriage because it is forbidden by Jewish law.
You want there to be no legal ban on gay sex despite that it is forbidden by Jewish law.
How can you claim that Jewish law is the controlling authority on the first issue when you say it is not in the second?
Or, down the road will you be telling us after a same-sex marriage ban, sodomy should be recriminalized?
David,
I did not ask for your consent. You as a person living such a conflicting life is what I find interesting; Your attempts at finding silly compromises to gay marriage or somehow debate with gay people an acceptance that their value is lesser due to some superstitions is of no interest to me at all.
I know I hit a chord with you, but you can’t confront it. I’ll be happy to skip this blog, I do have better things to do.
Dan
David: ‘Murder is a legal conclusion. Killing a physical description. I do not know for sure, but I vaguely remember learning that Moses never murdered anyone. He just killed someone. If you shoot someone in self-defense, for example, nobody thinks you’re a murderer. You are by definition a killer though.’
Quite so. However it seems to me that the account in Exodus 2:11ff would easily qualify as murder under any usual definition. It certainly wasn’t self-defence.
‘To be clear: you think it’s problematic and maybe an unconstitutional endorsement of non-Mormon religion for a public school teacher to say that Joseph Smith was immoral because he had more than one wife. Right?’
Well, as I said, there are two issues: criticizing a person as opposed to a person’s actions and using language with religious overtones. The first is tacky but not constitutionally problematic. And the more I think about it, the less I think I’d make an issue of the religious overtones. It’s a tradeoff - “morality” does have religious overtones but on the other hand I think it’s important not to give tacit approval to the idea that religion has some sort of natural monopoly on morality.
‘Now, is it problematic and maybe an unconstitutional endorsement of non-traditional religion for a public school teacher to say that someone who treats lesbian marriages differently than male-female prejudice is exercising a form of bigotry similar to racism? Is it problematic and maybe an unconstitutional endorsement of non-traditional religion for a public school teacher to say that when children grow up, it’s just as good and right and proper for them to marry a man as it is to marry a woman?’
It could be, but only if the teacher in question is pushing the views of a specific non-traditional religion, e.g. the Metropolitan Community Church, without trying to make any sort of secular argument and without making clear that it’s his/her personal view and not necessarily endorsed by the government..
John D-
I’m glad you think my comment about the Talmud helps your argument; I believe in stating the truth even when it hurts my argument - to his credit kind of like Mark Barton of this very blog. To be clear: the Talmud gives no evidence of knowing gay people, but it does acknowledge that presumably bisexual people could desire to enter a same-sex “marriage” - which it condemns.
Your question about sodomy laws is entirely fair, and looking back I don’t understand why I didn’t notice the hole in my argumentation. Thank you for giving me a chance to clear things up. If you or anyone else wants to propose a constitutional amendment overturning Lawrence v. Texas that is entirely consistent with halacha (Jewish law) on gay sex, I would take the text of that law to my posek (halachic decision-maker) and ask if I may, may not, must, or must not support that law. Then my position would be whatever he says.
Bob Jones University vs. The United States (1983) established the precedence to revoke Tax Exempt Status for Institutions that discriminate against a Suspect Class.
“That governmental interest [protecting a suspect class] substantially outweighs whatever burden denial of tax benefits places on petitioners’ exercise of their religious beliefs.”
It was 35 years from a CA Supreme Court ruling for interracial marriage (Perez v. Sharp 1948) until the US Supreme court revoked tax exempt status for institutions that discriminated against interracial marriage and dating.
Judge George granted Suspect Class protections for Sexual Orientation. I suspect by 2043 Churches (and certainly religious schools) will lose Tax Exempt Status. Donations couldn’t be deducted, and property would be taxed.
The equation implied by George is really quite simple to fill out:
KKK=Racial Discrimination=Orientation Discrimination=Catholic Chruch, Baptist Chruch, LDS.
Roger-
I think it’s great that you openly admit that some supporters of same-sex marriage have a long-term plan to tax the property of and disallow deductions for donations to churches and religious schools that do not agree with same-sex marriage. Thank you for confirming that GayThink considers preference for man-woman marriage to be just as wrong as racial discrimination. Now we know that anyone who wants to allow everyone to practice their religious and moral beliefs without government sanction must vote for the California Marriage Protection Act, even if they have no objection to same-sex marriage per se.