Logical Disjunct Twofer

One has to wonder.

This is, in all likelihood, one of the lamest posts by Andrew Sullivan I can remember:

Freedom Or Power?

In many ways, I think those two polarities often expose the deeper fault-lines in our politics than right or left (because the choice between freedom and power exists within both right and left as well). And this Rick Warren flap at its core, I think, is about the difference between those who see a civil rights movement as a means to wield power and those who see it as a means to spread freedom.

It starts with a false dichotomy (even though Sullivan calls it "polarities," he's treating it as a dichotomy, as you can very well see for yourself). Let me pose this question: how free are the powerless? The whole thing goes downhill from there. I had started a point-by-point deconstruction of the thing, but it's ridiculous: there's not a sentence in it that doesn't beg to be challenged, and time is short today.

(I'm very serious about this: the post is a page-and-a-half in print out, and every point in it is waaay off base, if not downright mendacious. I've never accused Sullivan of being an incisive thinker, but this is beyond the Pale. Start with the sentence reiterating the favorite -- and completely baseless -- wingnut mantra of "hate crimes laws equal thought police" and go on from there.)

And, if I hadn't run across that post by Sullivan, this one by Chris Crain would have walked off with top honors for inverted logic. Somehow, and I'm still not sure how he did this, Crain comes to the conclusion that protesting the elevation of a divisive and exclusionary theology to a place of honor is a call to abridge the First Amendment rights of the divisive and exclusionary party.

The angry blogosphere, D.C.-based gay groups and their progressive allies are basically demanding the president-elect remove one minister from his role in a major public ceremony because of his religious beliefs and replace him with one who is more acceptable. Their demand ought to trouble everyone, particularly LGBT Americans and anyone else who values the First Amendment separation between church and state.

WTF?

The first flaw in this, of course, is casting this in terms of the First Amendment at all: expressing rejection of unpopular or distasteful views is called the "free marketplace of ideas." It's when the government enshrines that rejection into law that we start running into First Amendment considerations. That's nowhere at issue here, and Crain should know it -- I really expect better from him.

That said, there doesn't seem to be an argument in Crain's piece that can't be flipped to support the opposite conclusion. The idea that removing Warren from the program indicates that his religious views are "disfavored" (Crain's term, not mine) is as valid as saying that including Warren in the program in the first place sends the message that his views are favored. Rock, meet Hard Place: there's a logical leap here that is only going to lead to broken bones. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)

I do agree with Crain that arguments against same-sex marriage are based in religious belief and that should be the point of attack, but to conflate that with First Amendment issues on the basis he does here is really out in left field. The shoe, as he says himself, is on the other foot.