Blogger's being more than a little difficult this morning (yesterday it was completely nonfunctional, so I guess that's an improvement). But, as promised, I'm going back to David Klinghoffer's essay on Ted Haggard and how that justifies opposition to same-sex marriage. Or whatever. This is really long -- print it out and sit down with it over your coffee -- or take your laptop to brunch.
By way of caveat and introduction, it seems fairly obvious to me that Klinghoffer is writing, not from a "conservative" perspective, as he claims (except as that term has been corrupted by rightwing religious political activists), nor even from a mainstream Christian perspective. It is germane, I think, to point out that he's a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, best known for its determined attempts to replace science with the Bible. His stance is simply that of a political Christianist, a wannabe theocrat.
Klinghoffer begins by spinning history:
Accused of conducting a sordid homosexual affair, he admitted on Sunday, “The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There’s a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life.”
No, that's not quite accurate. First he denied it; then he admitted to hiring Jones for massages; then he admitted bying crystal meth but throwing it away. Then he finally admitted it all. Whatever the motivations (and I have no doubt that fear and disgust were major ones), there's a certain amount of hypocrisy involved here, in spite of what Jack Balkin says (see below).
And then, of course, there is the characterization of same-sex orientation as "repulsive and dark."
The conservative case against redefining marriage is based on the observation of human vulnerability to temptation. Haggard confirms what we’ve said all along. It is pervasive moral weakness that makes such things necessary.
There are a host of problems with this statement. First, the view that anything that does not fit the conservative Christian idea of "morality" is a temptation. (Based, of course, on the Christian idea that people are essentially bad.) On its face, that makes perfect sense, but step back a bit -- Christians see everything outside what I consider narrow boundaries as "temptation." The whole religion is built on resisting temptation to sin, which includes eating, drinking, sex, art, music, dancing, and just about everything humanity has created that makes life worth living. A second step back, and let's please remember that we are living in a secular republic in which not only is everyone not a conservative Christian, but not everyone is even Christian and there are significant minorities that do not even recognize "sin" as such. That such a consideration is not even on the theocrats' radar is borne out by Klinghoffer's next statement:
If everyone were in control of his appetites, there would be no need for the government to be involved in endorsing some sexual relationships while withholding endorsement from others. The more society undermines ancient standards of moral conduct, the harder it becomes to withstand temptation.
In other words, the government should be enforcing Klinghoffer's view of morality, which is based on the teachings of a very narrow and restrictive brand of Christianity. My own view, of course, is that the government has no business doing any such thing, in the absence of coercion.
As for marriage specifically, Klinghoffer keeps rolling:
This is why gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. When the awe in which people once held matrimony is diluted, by treating it as a man-made and thus amendable institution rather than a divinely determined one, heterosexuals find sexual sins of all sorts harder to resist.
This is so specious I can hardly figure out where to start. The point is, of course, that marriage, especially civil marriage, is a man-made institution, purely and simply. Even the religious ceremony can't reasonably be demonstrated to be anything else: the idea that it is otherwise relies on dictum, with no basis except that men have decided to ascribe this particular institution to god -- once again, a human decision. I mean, let's look at it head on: organized religion itself is a human institution, no matter what its claims. As for the threat, see what Jack Balkin has to say below.
But if even Haggard, this Christian fighter against homosexual culture, succumbed, doesn’t that prove that gay identity is natural, inborn, and therefore normal? Well, yes, in a way it does. But all temptations are natural, many are inborn, and to be called to fight against them in ourselves, according to a religious view, is the most normal thing in the world.
That's something I can dispute as well. If the whole idea of temptation is a religious construct out of the minds of prophets and saints, then how can it be "natural"? (This presupposes that we're referring to "natural" as it actually occurs, i.e., something that takes place outside of the control of humanity,, not in the sense of an arbitrary concept created by dictat, as in "homosexual behavior is unnatural," which it demonstrably is not.) It strikes me that among human societies, those most in touch with nature and least "civilized" from our point of view also tend to have less conflict of this sort -- if there is sin, it is a social event, a transgression against the group, not against the gods. The more the gods take primacy of place, the more artificial the society becomes. No, sorry -- temptations are not natural, or at least not entirely: they are, by and large, the result of imposing artifical constraints on natural behavior (same-sex attraction, for example) and the excesses available in an artificial culture, particularly when there is no real need to do so. Let's face it, from the time of the first god-kings, religion has been a means of controlling the population.
After more of the same, Klinghoffer gets into outright lies:
When we fail, it hardly impugns the Biblical framework. This basic religious view, whether in its Christian or Jewish version, stands at loggerheads with secularism. The latter denies personal moral responsibility, which may in turn be the bottom-line point of disagreement between conservatives and liberals.
That's simply not true. It's a repetition of the false argument that only religion is the basis of morality, which, quite frankly, doesn't hold up under any sort of scrutiny. In fact, one could, without too much trouble, recognize the exact opposite as the case: morality grows out of the requirements of sociality (don't eat the neighbors, etc.) and religion, given a creature with creativity but as of yet (in this historical view) limited intellectual capacity, becomes a way of transmitting those necessities. "God" is a nice way of conceptualizing everything you don't understand about the universe, and best of all, it serves as a concise description. Transmission of culture is, after all, one thing that distinguishes us (and our cousins) from the so-called "lower" animals. As for the idea that conservatives have a hammerlock on personal moral respponsibility, has anyone taken a look at Congress lately? There's been several million dollars' worth of lack of moral responsibility in play there. (Aside from the fact that the assumption itself is blatantly false.)
Of course, Klinghoffer would just claim that this proves his point: temptation is everywhere, and anyone can fall, which is an argument that I find as intellectually dishonest as his claim that Christians and Jews are somehow intrinsically more moral than secularists. (By the way, notice that Muslims, followers of the other major monotheism, are not included.) For that matter, one can be both religious and a secularist. That's a gimme.
Essentially, Klinghoffer's stance is that of a Christian Dominionist, which is what really underpins of the entire conservative Christian political movement -- the Chrtistianists. The reasoning lacks coherence, the assumptions are insupportable, and the view lacks depth, completely ignoring the real context of the question, which is simply, as I noted, we live in a secular state, and, as much as they might like to be, the Christianists are not in control.
Update:
Ran across this this morning at Andrew Sullivan. This comment by Jonah Goldberg is telling:
I work from the Hayekian assumption that there is a vast amount of social-evolutionary knowledge and utility embedded in traditional marriage that should be respected even if I cannot tell you what it is...
This, to me, is more an argument in favor of same-sex marriage than against it. As Sullivan points out in the quote from his own book, given that the social context changes, the conservative response -- which I think is the only rational response -- is to fit the changes into existing institutions to cause as little disruption as possible. (Unless, of course, the institutions were inappropriate to begin with.) The right, in this case, casts this as a major restructuring of marriage, which it is not. It's merely an expansion of the marriageable class, not too different than adjustments in that particular institution that have taken place in the past. The question is really whether we want to bring gays and lesbians into the mainstream of American culture. Ultimately, the answer will be "yes," as both Goldenberg and Sullivan concede.
Fascinating take by Jack Balkin on Ted Haggard. He's headed toward the same place I am, I think, but from a different (and much more forgiving) perspective (although I'm getting there):
Viewed from Ted Haggard's perspective-- a man who, despite his shame and guilt, is attracted to other men-- gay marriage and the gay lifestyle really are a threat to heterosexual relationships and heterosexual marriage. That is because they are a threat to his heterosexual identity and his heterosexual marriage. He knows the Devil is always tracking him, waiting for him to slip up. That is because he conceptualizes his sexual desires as sin and as alienation from God, and not as the expressions of something that might actually become valuable to him if accepted them as part of himself. If Haggard accepted that he was bi-sexual or even gay, and that it was morally permissible to be either of these things, he would have to change his understandings of his own desires and what they mean. He would have to view himself and his relationship to God very differently. But he has not been able to accept these things, because he is closeted from himself. That is why he has been a vocal opponent of people he has a great deal in common with.
I really do find Balkin's take on this very interesting. Being a Pagan, I have no conflicts between my gods and my sexuality. (Nor, apropos of nothing, does evolution threaten my faith -- in fact, it reinforces it.) I'd like to hear from any of you who think of such things about your relationship with your god(s) in light of your sexual orientation, particularly those of you who still profess Christianity. I know there are gay Christians, but I don't think I know any personally.
By the way, read the comments to Balkin's piece, especially the one by Andrew:
Pastor Ted, and his congregation, have a deeply held world view which allows them to make sense of the challenges of life. He didn't, and doesn't, lack self knowledge. He frames it in a very different way than I would.
For what it's worth, his congregation, and others with that world view, absolutely will not see his actions as hypocrisy. They see themselves as battling the armies of Satan every day, just as our troops are battling terrorist armies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We do not morally condemn a soldier or marine for being killed in Ramadi or Fallujah by an IED. To the sacralist, falling into sin is something we all can do. Provided we repent and abjure the sin, salvation is still held out to us, along with the welcoming arms of the believing community.
That resonates very nicely with this note from Towleroad:
"When I was on a radio program down in Colorado Springs, they all thanked me. In fact, when I was checking into the hotel in Colorado Springs last night, the desk clerk, he goes, 'Are you the Mike Jones of....' I answered, 'Maybe.' And he said, 'I want you to know that I am from the New Life Church.' And he extended his hand and said, 'Thank you. You did us a service for Ted and our church so he can get the help he needs.'"
In spite of what I consider a very warped attitude toward gays, there is an underlying sense of goodwill that, while it may be absent from too many of the pastors, seems to linger on in the parishioners.
I should make it clear my objections to Christianity as a religion are largely theoretical -- the denial of the female half of deity, its historical disregard of stewardship of the earth, that sort of thing. To followers of Christ, I have no real objection. For the most visible "Christians" I have no use: theirs is a narrow, punitive, hypocritical view that has less to do with the teachings of Christ than I do.
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