The burden of marriage proof
CommentsA very helpful site user new to GaysDefendMarriage.com, Musicguy, posted a comment that helped me clarify something about the “marriage equality” movement I have felt for a long time but could never quite articulate.
We have a burden of proof problem in the marriage debate in America.
If I was proposing a major change to one of the most important traditions in America - say, whether we adopt the Euro or whether all drugs should be legalized - I would understand that the burden would be on me to convince the rest of society that my idea is good. I would carefully try to build a coalition and over a number of years try to at least get a first vote in Congress (even if we lose) and hopefully bring enough people on board to build an influential movement and lobby politicians and voters to take our position so we eventually triumph several years later.
Many, many LGBT activists have operated the opposite way. If you read Musicguy and many other posts, it’s as if the default position (Gemara term, sorry) is that same-sex marriage is legal and moral and accepted - and it’s the traditionalists who are trying to take rights away from people who have had them for centuries. It’s as if, ridiculously, the burden of proof is on the traditionalists, who must defend their position or give in. Well, I’m sorry, that’s not how social change has ever worked. Yet the “marriage equality” movement has basically asserted that same-sex marriage is a civil right (despite the fact that nearly all the experts such as the Supreme Court and Barack Obama don’t think it is) and then gotten offended that huge swaths of society would have the temerity to want to keep things the the way they have been throughout American history.
Well, get over yourselves. I acknowledge that at some point legal marriage as an institution may change in certain places. But LGBT people are the ones who have to prove it’s a good idea - it’s not my job to prove it’s bad (though I’m pretty good at it and am willing to do it whenever invited). The plan of the “marriage equality” movement appears to be to win by any means necessary in state after state (including outright cheating in Massachusetts, California, and New York) and then to quickly change the laws as radically as possible so that not only does their side get to define marriage, but so everyone else’s definition must change too if they don’t want the power of the state limiting their assets, their occupation, and their freedom.
Some LGBT activists I’ve debated have gotten angry, raised their voices, hurled terrible insults, insinuated death threats, and I’m told I made one lesbian cry (not on purpose). Why? Because I have the chutzpah to defend the system as it has always been. I found out yesterday a lesbian I really like has decided we’re no longer friends because of the marriage issue. I asked her why cutting an Orthodox Jew out of your life for doing what Orthodox Jews do is any more acceptable than cutting a lesbian out of your life for doing what lesbians do. She ignored the question. I could have sympathy for someone being upset at a friend for advocating an offensive kind of extreme social change, like interning American Muslims. But it is both selfish and childish to join a radical social movement and then insist that everyone you know also abandon the old system, or be cut out of your life.
The “marriage equality” movement shows a great deal of righteous indignation. If anyone should have righteous indignation, it is those who have been blindsided by sneaky, fraudulent and arguably illegal advocacy of an extreme political position, which would not only change society’s definition of a cherished social institution, but would come down hard on the “bigoted” people who lost the debate and are asking for nothing more than to continue using the old definition in the way they perform their jobs, run their businesses, and raise their families. Given that nobody stopped gays and lesbians from pretending their nuptials were real when they were completely unrecognized by the law, the fact that when marriage law changes LGBT people want to use state power to impose their definition universally is truly scary.
I wish both sides of this debate had some interest in compromise, because I think there’s lots of room for it. Instead, we are headed straight for a disaster in which huge numbers of Americans (which ones may depend on the state) get nothing they want while their adversaries get everything they want. This situation is not good for America, but given the lack of flexible people on each side, I have no idea how to fix it.
David: ‘We have a burden of proof problem in the marriage debate in America.’
Exactly as you say, LGBT advocates do put the burden on you guys, and I’m sure you champ at the indignity and regard it as a problem. But we’re not the least bit apologetic for reasons I’ve often mentioned in other contexts: despite your best efforts to come up with one, we really don’t see that there’s any anti-SSM argument that doesn’t have homophobia as a not very hidden premise, and the only argument for homophobia is a narrowly and superstitiously religious one.
The secular case for homophobia has collapsed, in a couple of stages. In the early 70s, scientists realized, that, duh, if you study only gay people that have been to psychiatrists, it looks like 100% of them are mentally ill, whereas if you seek out a genuine random sample, they’re actually about as well-adjusted as everybody else. Then, in the 80s, AIDS was simultaneously the worst and best thing that ever happened to gay people, because it forced large numbers of them out of the closet. It’s easy to demonize an invisible subclass, but when people actually get to know gay people, it starts to look like what it is: fossilized mindless hatred. As a result, negative views of gay people are highly correlated with religion, and increasingly, conservative religion. As with ID, where religious organizations even bother to attempt a secular case, it consists largely of invented or misrepresented facts. Liberal denominations are changing their doctrines and mainstream denominations are warding off schisms. The more explicitly sectarian the argument becomes, the more LGBT people have a logical right to treat it as presumptive nonsense in debate and the more they have a civil right under the First Amendment to be protected from it.
And, as I say, we regard the SSM debate as just part of this. Of course the way marriage should be really does depend on many other factors besides whether gay sex is immoral and there could in principle be a non-homophobic reason for opposing it. We just don’t see that there is. The arguments always stop halfway through. For example, it is argued that opening marriage to gay people, a group who have commonly negotiated non-monogamy agreements, would ‘change’ marriage relative to some idealization that the advocate has in mind. Assuming that for the sake of argument, so what? Why is that a bad thing? What’s the goal here anyway? Monogamy for its own sake is a stupid goal. One worthy goal is to create a stable environment for bringing up children. Does non-monogamy help or hinder that? Obviously sometimes it hinders, as when a spouse goes off permanently with a romantic interest, but the gay community’s experience is that it can work the other way too. What’s the right balance? Does it depend on factors like the availability of contraceptives or the extent to which women are economically dependent on men? If so is the traditional solution still workable? Etc, etc, etc. I know religious people _are_ thinking about these things and sometimes modifying their views, I’m just not detecting any hint of it in the anti-SSM crowd.
Mark Barton, I’ve read so many posts here and I’ve kept quiet, but you have actually succeeded in bringing me out of the closet. I’m a conservative religious person, and I’ve been reading so much here with shame, but no I’ve found my neo-con, ultra-right, fundamentalist pride and I’m out! This brainwashed non-thinking superstitious sheep is marching with pride. Thank you for helping me to find my voice.
Do you really believe the drivel that you write?
You: “we really don’t see that there’s any anti-SSM argument that doesn’t have homophobia as a not very hidden premise, and the only argument for homophobia is a narrowly and superstitiously religious one”
David is homophobic?!? What?!? How intellectually dishonest can a human being get? As a person with fundamental beliefs, I actually get that intelligent people can disagree with me. Don’t you get that a person can believe in G-d and religion with strong intellectual basis. Have you never had a serious conversation with either an orthodox Jew or a Catholic who is an intellectual. (I don’t mean to offend any other religions, but these two have perhaps the strongest intellectual side.) You may never be either of these, but how you can so easily dismiss all religious people as homophobic is . . . how shall I say it? You challenge me not to get into a name calling tizzy.
Perhaps you use a definition of homophobic that includes everyone who thinks that it is immoral. That would be your right, but it would be an inaccurate and overly broad definition. You don’t need my permission to change the English language, but that’s what you do when you call David, me, and tons more like us homophobic. Dictionary.com confirms my suspicion. They write that homophobic means, “unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality.” I have no fear of homosexuals nor homosexuality. I have a belief that certain homosexual behavior is immoral. This belief is not unreasoning. I don’t ask you to convert towards my path, nor do I try to force it upon you as your belief. I have gay friends. I have business relations with gay people.
If you were more secure about yourself and your sexuality, I think you’d be able to understand that some people think this way. I understand why atheists believe what they do and I understand why people outside of my fold haven’t found my path. Dear, wake up. There are some very intelligent people who have come to different conclusions than you have. Not every person who believes in G-d and is a hate filled homophobe. Some are and they are miserable scum. I think the people with “G-d hates faggots” are loathsome and disgusting morons.
One of David’s themes that you just gloss over (perhaps in your insecurity) is that there people on the straight side who are opposed to SSM who are decent. Perhaps learning to hear what they have to say respectfully would enable a more peaceful and loving dialog. You do seem to love peace and love, no? Chill out on your neoconophobia and try to understand those who disagree with you. I am challenging you to something that I think I have risen to. I completely understand the LGBT mainstream argument for SSM. There are many good points, and, like David, I’d like to see an approach that seeks to be win/win. I’m guided by my understanding of morality and I have a civic right to disagree. Do you think that David has made zero good points? If so, you are indeed a candidate for one of the most dishonest people on the planet.
Submitted lovingly with all of my homophobic tendencies locked up. Thank you again for helping me find my voice.
Sam: Don’t you get that a person can believe in G-d and religion with strong intellectual basis. Have you never had a serious conversation with either an orthodox Jew or a Catholic who is an intellectual.’
Jews not so much, Catholics yes. At the end of the day, I’m not impressed. They’re very intellectual about a broad range of things and many have made good scientists, but they’re compartmentalizers. If you walk them very close to foundational issues in their religion they get as irrational and careless with facts and logic as creationists.
‘Perhaps you use a definition of homophobic that includes everyone who thinks that it is immoral.’
Yes.
‘That would be your right, but it would be an inaccurate and overly broad definition.’
One might think so if one had never heard anyone use it and was reacting to the “-phobia” element, which in many words does imply, well, a phobia. But in fact it’s always normally been used as I use it, by analogy to Francophobia or racism, to refer primarily to mere strong disapproval.
‘You don’t need my permission to change the English language, but that’s what you do when you call David, me, and tons more like us homophobic. Dictionary.com confirms my suspicion. They write that homophobic means, “unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality.”’
Sure, but the OED has merely, ‘ “fear or hatred of homosexuals or homosexuality”‘ [my emphasis] Moreover, the citations in the OED show that they’re closer to the truth than dictionary.com. Their first citation from 1969 doesn’t make it clear one way or the other but from 1975 we have, “There is no such thing as the homosexual problem any more than there is a black problem - the problems are racism and homophobia.” (1975 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 4 Sept. 7/3)
‘I have no fear of homosexuals nor homosexuality. I have a belief that certain homosexual behavior is immoral. ‘
I really don’t mean to suggest anything else by the use of the word ‘homophobia’.
‘This belief is not unreasoning.’
I _do_ think your belief is unreasoning, but I don’t take that to be part of the definition of homophobia.
‘I don’t ask you to convert towards my path, nor do I try to force it upon you as your belief. I have gay friends. I have business relations with gay people.’
That’s great - I’m all for having a detente.
‘One of David’s themes that you just gloss over (perhaps in your insecurity) is that there people on the straight side who are opposed to SSM who are decent. ‘
Don’t get me wrong - I’m sure they’re decent about many things. I’d trust them with my wallet to about the same extent as anybody else. But the majority of people opposing SSM are cheerfully open about the fact that it’s homophobia (mostly religious but not entirely so), and I think the majority of the remainder are biting their lips about homophobia so as not to put off moderates, and the majority of the few left over are kidding themselves that they’re not motivated by homophobia.
Mark: Jews not so much, Catholics yes. At the end of the day, I’m not impressed. They’re very intellectual about a broad range of things and many have made good scientists, but they’re compartmentalizers. If you walk them very close to foundational issues in their religion they get as irrational and careless with facts and logic as creationists.
I hear you loud and clear. I’m also not convinced (can you guess which “radical fundamentalist” I am?), but they have an internal consistency of intellectual honesty. Yes, it requires an acceptance of “leap of faith” hypotheses which do not require the same scrutiny as everything which follows. But still, I guess I’m asking/challenging you to allow yourself the ability to respect people who believe that you have an aspect of your life that is wrong. In my world (and yours), there are many otherwise decent people (who I would also trust with my wallet) who just happen to believe that I’m doomed to burn forever because my idea of personal savior is, shall we say, radically different than theirs.
Okay. So what, so you believe I’m going to hell? Please pass the ketchup. I don’t care what you think of me. I’ve worked out my beliefs. I’m cool with that.
I can imagine that a fair response from you would be, “Yeah, but what would you say/feel if those who disagree with you were attempting to legislate something that is a frontal attack to your belief system?” My answer would be 1) it’s still not personal, it’s idealogical and 2) I would hope that I’d still avoid the name calling and the disrespect in a forum of hashing out ideas. It just seems that you express your hatred while decrying theirs.
As for your take on the semantics of homophobic, I have two feelings. One is that I’m glad that you can understand that there are many who operate without fear. However, the second is that I think that definition sucks (sometimes my English impresses me ( ; ). By using homophobic to group together all who think that homosexual sex is wrong is to hurt your own cause. I am a person who would fight for your rights and believes that you should be free from harassment. What you do and don’t do with your sexual organs is about as interesting to me as what I do with mine is to you. In my “religious voice,” that’s between you and G-d. In my “civic voice,” that’s your business.
When you use homophobe/homophobic to lump us together - to put me with the scum bags who truly hate and fear you - you hurt your cause. It might surprise you to know that I have a belief system can actually tolerate the following: I believe that homosexual sex is immoral, but I don’t believe that I am better than you if you engage in that behavior and I don’t. In my spiritual system, I have no room to go there. If you want my bets, I’ll put myself above a handful of people who bring practically nothing but evil into the world (Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are three of my favorites), but I don’t go into G-d’s world. I have enough on my plate to worry about how stuff operates in the heavens.
As I wrote that I have gay friends and business relations, I realized that it had the sound of “Some of my best friends are Jewish.” My intention was only to highlight that I don’t live with the perceived fear of homosexuals - that you say isn’t part of the homophobic gestalt.
Mark: I _do_ think your belief is unreasoning, but I don’t take that to be part of the definition of homophobia.
It’s pretty difficult for you to think that my belief is unreasoning when you have never met me and have never heard me explain my belief. Forgive my slight belligerence, but who here is unreasoning? I don’t quite think that this is the forum for this, but we’d have to pit the following assumptions against each other (I think). My assumption, based on reasoning believe it or not, is that G-d has revealed that homosexual sex (not feelings) is immoral. If I have a reasonable and logical approach that gets me to that point, then my belief is reasonable. I am under the impression that your belief is predicated upon something akin to, “This is my nature; G-d made me this way. Attempting to change is impossible and undesirable. I will change my sexual orientation as quickly as you’ll cut off a limb.”
My main point is that mutual respect is possible.
Mark: Don’t get me wrong - I’m sure they’re decent about many things. I’d trust them with my wallet to about the same extent as anybody else. But the majority of people opposing SSM are cheerfully open about the fact that it’s homophobia (mostly religious but not entirely so), and I think the majority of the remainder are biting their lips about homophobia so as not to put off moderates, and the majority of the few left over are kidding themselves that they’re not motivated by homophobia.
Again, with your definition of homophobic, there is little to argue with. According to you, I am homophobic and so is David. Imagine being gay and homophobic. I don’t envy him. I think you would benefit yourself, me, and the entire conversation by using a more narrow definition of homophobic. I don’t pretend that the homophobes aren’t out there. Remember, I get to hear what they say when they believe that there are not gays around (I’m sure you do sometimes as well, but I’m married so they “know” I’m not gay). I don’t spend personal time with hateful people, but I still get to hear it more than you. But, I think that if you’d learn to allow yourself to hear the voice that “moderates” carry and not be so quick to condemn people like me as a homophobe, you’d be able to take the conversation to a higher and more productive place. Maybe I’m kidding myself, but to conclude with breathtakingly sublime logic - maybe not.
Sam: ‘But still, I guess I’m asking/challenging you to allow yourself the ability to respect people who believe that you have an aspect of your life that is wrong.’
Sure, but as I was saying to David recently, there are several different sorts of respect in play. G.B. Shaw said it best: “We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.” I respect people’s religion as something that gives them comfort in a harsh world. I don’t respect it as probably true, at least in respect of the theology or any morality tightly tied to the theology. If people want to comfort themselves in the privacy of their heads or their houses or their places of worship by fulminating against me as immoral, it’s good harmless fun and I’ll pay level-1 respect by biting my tongue. But although they also have the civil right of free speech to repeat these things in the public square, as soon as they do the detente is off and I reserve the right to criticize them harshly. (I also reserve the right to take a more honeyed approach.) I don’t see why I should stand by and let _anybody_ be slandered in the public square unless the accusation earns level-2 respect by being probably true.
‘It might surprise you to know that I have a belief system can actually tolerate the following: I believe that homosexual sex is immoral, but I don’t believe that I am better than you if you engage in that behavior and I don’t. In my spiritual system, I have no room to go there.’
I appreciate the humility implicit in this, and even though I don’t have much time for the theological underpinnings, I think there’s some good secular wisdom there as well. But I’m not mollified. The “we’re all sinners” play doesn’t magically make “your relationship is immoral” not slander. _Both_ aspects are important: maintaining adequate humility _and_ getting your concept of morality right.
‘It’s pretty difficult for you to think that my belief is unreasoning when you have never met me and have never heard me explain my belief.’
Not _so_ difficult. First, I’ve been sparring with a variety of religious people on the Internet for well over a decade, as well as reading up on the history and theology of various religions, and I’m pretty sure I would have heard all possible arguments. Second, it’s an inescapable fact that religion, considered generally as a preoccupation of people in every place and era, is _normally_ wrong about theology, and this sets a pretty high a-priori bar to clear. If as is very likely, at any point you’ve assumed that of course _your_ spiritual ancestors wouldn’t have put words into the mouth of a god/God character, you’ve got nothing, just empty pride. That’s what people _do_, not every day, but often enough to saturate the world with religions. Similarly, if at any point you’ve assumed that _your_ spiritual ancestors wouldn’t have _believed_ people who put words into the mouth of a god/God character, again you’ve got nothing.
‘I am under the impression that your belief is predicated upon something akin to, “This is my nature; G-d made me this way. Attempting to change is impossible and undesirable. I will change my sexual orientation as quickly as you’ll cut off a limb.”’
Err, way off, actually. First, I don’t view it in theological terms. I am what I am, enough said. Second, whether being gay is impossible to change or not is a distraction. The fact that being gay does appear to be immutable and that being in a gay relationship is important to my happiness just raises the stakes. The main issue is that your complaint is superstitious nonsense. I’d react nearly as strongly if you denounced me as immoral for stamp collecting, a hobby in which I have only the most desultory interest and could throw over for something else without the least unhappiness.
‘My main point is that mutual respect is possible’
Mutual level-1 respect is certainly possible in principle and I’m all for it. But as far as I’m concerned, it includes your side choosing not to use your civil right to call sexually active gay people immoral in the public square and renouncing any right to take vigilante action (anything from shunning and withholding of service through to stoning). Deal?
Mark,
I’ve written a lengthy response, but me thinketh it too long for this forum. If you’d like, I’d gladly email it to David (aka Mr. Benkof) and have him send it to you. This is the short version without quoting you on every point. With more space, I can afford to be more gentle. Here, I frankly am more in your face. No offense intended. You seem tough.
You display a glaring hypocrisy. Slander of gays is bad. Slander of religious people is common sense. After all, they are so intellectually crippled that they frankly deserve it. Huh? Your response is littered with slanderous comments and implications against those with “superstitious nonsense.”
You paint yourself as well researched and clear on religion and religious claims, yet you haven’t had as much as a conversation with an orthodox Jew. It would be very easy for you to dismiss this suggestion as another attempt at conversing with a sheep with blind faith, but that would be stereotyping and over generalization. I would think that stereotyping and generalization would be especially repulsive to a homosexual. Why is it fair for you to assume that I’m a brainless zombie afraid of a lonely universe, yet if I assume that you are a promiscuous pedophile, I’d be quickly (and rightly) labeled as a bigoted scumbag? Let me make it clear that I don’t assume this of you or anyone; it just seems to be the double standard that you’ve created.
Last point. You said that you don’t view your sexuality from a theological starting point. Instead, it is a product of “I am what I am. Enough said.” That would be a subjective point of view through which to see the universe and self. That’s the kernel from which you piece together your gestalt. Your entitled to it, but it’s made by man with all of his flaws and limitations. Ultimately, it’s your blind faith that you are what you are, and that it’s right/moral/whatever to be what you are.
I don’t do blind faith. My intellect has brought me to an objective and timeless morality. I live with constant battles to conform to objective reality, and not to give into the reality that I’d like to create for my own pleasures and desires.
Ironic. I get to my starting point through logic and reason. By your own admission, your starting point is you. Then, you criticize me for being a person with corrupt intellect.
By the way, I’m aware of the lists of seemingly strange laws/verses/practices of orthodox Jews (I’ve seen some of them on this very blog). Before you glibly throw them at me, if you are the intellectually advanced one that you claim to be, let’s take this to a more appropriate forum and you can respectfully ask me if I believe in these things. Please don’t throw more hate and ugly stereotypes my way. It doesn’t do you justice.
Sam: ‘You display a glaring hypocrisy. Slander of gays is bad. Slander of religious people is common sense.’
Well, duh, in a certain important sense, yes. Religion _is_ normally wrong about theology. No one can sensibly deny this, they can only be in denial about it. As Stephen Roberts said, and Richard Dawkins famously echoed, “I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” The question is, how do we create a livable society when the majority of people _are_ in denial of this? The answer is, with a whole lot of lip-biting and feigned respect. I’m up for that, but you broke the detente by publicly denouncing my relationship as immoral.
‘You paint yourself as well researched and clear on religion and religious claims, yet you haven’t had as much as a conversation with an orthodox Jew.’
Err, I did say “not so much”. And I have read up on Judaism, the authorship of the OT etc, etc, etc.
‘Ultimately, it’s your blind faith that you are what you are, and that it’s right/moral/whatever to be what you are.’
Err, no, that’s not my position. I’ve been very lucky in not having particularly sociopathic tendencies, and also in having enough useful skills to not have been subjected to much want or temptation. But I could have been, and then I would have had to struggle mightily to do the right thing. It’s just irrelevant because I deny that being gay, or being in a same-sex relationship, is sociopathic or otherwise immoral.
I think I got it now. Remember. I’m slow with all of this religion stuff clouding my brain.
Let me see if I can try the reversal of this.
I know that homosexuals are all people weak of spirit. They could all change if they only had a strong enough desire and good enough counseling. The world would be so much better if they’d just stop this gay stuff. You know how I know this? I read some books about them and of course some articles on the internet. I’m serious about my claims despite the fact that I’ve never spoken to a gay person. Why would I need to do that? I’ve got books and the internet.
You have a curious inability to be honest or courageous. You believe that it is not moral to engage in same-sex sex? Where do you get your morals from? Do you understand that it is subjective? It’s not a judgment call. It’s a statement of logic.
And lack of courage? You claim to have such a broad view of life. I can hear your condescending yawn. Mark has been there and when he was there, he done that. As it’s said when the realization hits that you’re involved in a one-way conversation, when only one person is interested in listening and lovingly sharing ideas, “Whatever.”
Sam: ‘Let me see if I can try the reversal of this. [//] I know that homosexuals are all people weak of spirit. They could all change if they only had a strong enough desire and good enough counseling. The world would be so much better if they’d just stop this gay stuff. You know how I know this? I read some books about them and of course some articles on the internet.’
Whether this is a good analogy depends on whether you read anything actually _by_ gay people or just hatchet jobs against them by their enemies. For example I know that NARTH is a fraud not primarily by reading attacks on them but by actually going to their website and reading it carefully. They make people “ex-gay” primarily by moving the goal posts past them using a number of different strategies. Sometimes they use a non-standard definition of “gay” which is a confused mix of identity (”I call myself gay”) and behaviour (”I primarily have same-sex sex”) rather than orientation (”I am primarily same-sex attracted”). And when they do seem to be talking about orientation, if you read carefully you’ll see that they’ve been teaching gay people to misidentify sexual attraction as something else and something else (not necessarily the same something) as sexual attraction. (If this sounds implausible, it’s just reversing my own trajectory, where for a while I mistook sexual attraction for envy because it came from such an unexpected direction that I didn’t recognize it.)
‘You have a curious inability to be honest or courageous. You believe that it is not moral to engage in same-sex sex? Where do you get your morals from?’
Same place as religious people do: balancing principles of fairness with practical considerations and then trawling through scripture to find verses that can be used as support. Except I tend to skip the trawling through scripture step.
Mark writes that Orthodox Jews get our morals in part by “trawling through scripture to find verses that can be used as support.” You show a curious tendency (you’ve done this several times) to assume that Orthodox Jews do whatever evangelical Christians do - we just leave out the part about Jesus. That just isn’t true.
When it comes to practical halacha (Jewish law), scripture is among the least important sources for guiding us. If I had to determine what marriage should be, and I went to the Torah, I wouldn’t find much, except maybe that part in Bereishit/Genesis about “a man shall cling to his wife and they shall be as one flesh” (my paraphrase). But to get specific, detailed guidance about what is or is not a marriage, I would be smart to start with the Talmud Masechet Kiddishin, which is page after dense page of discussions about marriage, including which ones are and are not legitimate. Another smart place to would be Maimonides/Rambam’s 12th century Mishneh Torah, specifically under “Hilchot Ishut” which is all about marriage. And of course it would be stupid to forget the 16th century Shulchan Aruch, specifically Even Ha-Ezer, which has lots of data about marriage. There are of course many volumes written by Acharonim (later sages) since the Shulchan Aruch, including responsa (legal opinions) written during the present and previous generation. It would be irresponsible not to look at them.
Finally, Shmuel is qualified to look at all the legal literature described above, as he is a rabbi, but I am not. On particularly tricky questions, Shmuel would no doubt ask his own rabbi, and on all but the simplest questions (is rabbit kosher?) I would ask my rabbi, which I do at least twice a month.
So the notion that we make up our minds, and then look for a scriptural support is woefully ignorant of how Judaism works. There are rabbis, such as Shmuley Boteach, who are phenomenally pro-gay. If there was a way he could jimmy the system to make same-sex civil marriage legitimate, he would. But he can’t, because the system is not that flexible (it’s only a little flexible) and we believe that’s because Hashem (G-d) wants it that way. People like Shmuel and me are certain that Hashem thinks marriage by definition is between a man and a woman. We don’t start with our opinion and find a way to impute it to Hashem. Rather, we start with Hashem’s opinion and find a way to impute it to our lives.
Mark,
I had decided to not come back here. I was just going to let you have the last word. What happened. I have been corresponding with David, and he told me that he’d responded. So, I gave in to my weakness and returned.
The reason that I was not going to come back, and the reason why this will likely be my last post on this blog is because I have found so much to be disgusted by. I would list it for you, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters to you, but you.
You are intelligent, but you are intellectually corrupt. I don’t need you to defend gays as being able to change. I’ve never been to NARTH. I don’t believe the stupidity that I wrote. It was an example of how impossibly corrupt you are intellectually. I am an orthodox Jew. I don’t get my theology from Christians. It predates them by over one thousand years. You know next to nothing about me, my theology, or basic tenets of logic, yet you are critical.
By “balancing principles of fairness with practical considerations,” you have finally admitted that you have a system that starts with you and your brain. This puts you into the same system as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. You only disagree on exactly how to define fairness and practical. Oh no! How can I say such a thing? They were murderous thugs. Yeah, but they figured out a system that worked for them, surrounded themselves with a whole bunch of non-critical thinkers and cowards who wouldn’t dream of disagreeing with the mob and went with the flow of their humanism.
I’ll end with something I said before. Judgment is for G-d. I don’t know if you are good or evil (or somewhere in between), for I can never know what your challenges, strengths, knowledge base, etc. are. I don’t end this thinking you are wicked. I end this thinking that you are severely impaired in your ability to reach conclusions based on reason and true research.
At the end of the day, it may be better to be wicked than to be skewed in one’s thinking. With clear and honest thinking, one can change from wicked to good. With skewed logic, one will always be stuck as a fool.
David: ‘Mark writes that Orthodox Jews get our morals in part by “trawling through scripture to find verses that can be used as support.”’
Well I said “religious people” but I did mean to include Orthodox Jews to at least some extent. They undoubtedly do less of the above than typical Christians, but they still do some of it as you inadvertently confirm by citing four different authorities who have expanded the thin gruel of the Torah into elaborate moral systems in broadly similar but different ways according the aesthetic and moral prejudices of the particular authors.
Where I was remiss is not emphasizing the _other_ major mechanism whereby religious people get values, which is believing personal opinion or conventional wisdom that earlier generations have put into the mouth of God. I know that it’s a cherished Jewish tradition that Moses got both the written and oral Torah straight from God, but the historical record isn’t remotely good enough to establish anything of the kind against the background fact that religions are normally made up. The oldest manuscripts are a few hundred BC for documents that record events that supposedly occurred as far back as 1700 BC and before.
Mark criticizes my “citing four different authorities who have expanded the thin gruel of the Torah into elaborate moral systems in broadly similar but different ways according the aesthetic and moral prejudices of the particular authors.”
It’s lovely that you believe those opinions were invented by their authors. Especially with the older sources, I believe they are part of the Oral Law delivered at Sinai and thus they come from G-d. I have no interest in convincing you that the Oral Law comes from G-d. I really don’t care. But the fact is I believe it is Divine and treat it as divine and thus your criticism that Orthodox Jews decide what they believe and then look for a text to justify it is complete baloney to anyone who understands how Judaism works.
I agree with you that “religions are normally made up.” Virtually every religion in history is made up. Mine comes from G-d. And the only one I care about is mine.