As promised, but before I look at Rod Dreher's latest attack on same-sex marriage, I'd like to make one very important point that seems to be misleading both the anti-gay and pro-gay contingents: notwithstanding that the question on the ballot in Maine was whether or not to repeal the same-sex marriage law, the issue that formed the basis of the campaign by NOM and the Catholic Church was "save the children." Schubert-Flint were quite clear that they had no campaign on the actual merits of the law itself, and used the scare tactic that worked for them in California. Consequently, to say that voters rejected same-sex marriage per se is putting quite a bit of spin on it.
With that in mind, let's look at what Dreher has to say.
That's a big part of the gay marriage side's problem: They cannot imagine why, aside from bigotry, anyone would disagree with them. To be sure, anyone on the traditional marriage side who doesn't understand that denying marriage to same-sex couples imposes a serious burden on them is either willfully ignorant or hard-hearted. The thing is, empathy should go both ways.
OK, Dreher, why, aside from bigotry, would anyone disagree that fundamental rights should be extended to all citizens barring a rational reason not to? The basis of the anti-gay campaign in this country is religious bias, pure and simple. Once you prune away all the high-sounding rhetoric about tradition and fundamental institutions, what you're left with is that someone's religion doesn't think it's right. Religious bias is not considered a "rational" reason for anything in this country.
As for empathy going both ways, yes, I can subscribe to that. But a little reality check: we, meaning gay and lesbian Americans, have been attacked as part of a culture war proclaimed by religious extremists. We've tried to talk to them, tried reason, tried understanding, and been met with narrow, mean-spirited reactions based on dogma. So let's try some empathy going both ways, OK?
Leaving aside that there is undoubtedly a significant number of people who vote against gay marriage because they flat-out don't like gay people, there are serious and important reasons to vote against same-sex marriage – and these deserve to be taken seriously.
"Serious and important reasons" -- barring religious prejudice, I've never seen one. I've looked -- boy, have I looked! -- and no one has presented a single serious and important reason that isn't based on their own bias. And Dreher doesn't seem to have any in his arsenal, either.
For starters, gay marriage represents a cultural revolution, a fundamental redefinition of what marriage means. Until the past 10 or 20 years, no society had ever sanctioned marriage between same-sex partners. It was unthinkable outside of a small radical fringe. Now, in the twinkling of an eye, it's coming to pass in a few countries, though the vast majority of humankind still finds it unthinkable.
Flat out not true. It's the old "everywhere and always" argument that has been debunked so many times that, were it anyone but Dreher, I'd be amazed that it was being trotted out again. And as far as "the vast majority of humankind," sorry, but it's well known that we don't accept arguments by assertion here.
That's not an argument against gay marriage, but it is an explanation for why gay marriage remains unpopular in this country. Culture precedes politics. If you cannot change culture, you're reduced to arguing, as same-sex marriage supporter Linda Hirshman did in the wake of the Maine defeat, that people shouldn't have the right to vote on the definition of marriage.
Along those lines, gay marriage backers often say that civil rights shouldn't be submitted to a popular vote. If blacks in the Jim Crow South had depended on a majority vote to gain their civil rights, justice would have been a long time coming. That makes sense to people who see no moral or philosophical difference between race and homosexuality. But it is by no means clear that the two categories are interchangeable. For traditionalists, it's a category mistake to say that they are.
First, "gay marriage" is not remaining unpopular in this country. Most people don't care one way or the other. And people did not vote on the definition of marriage. (So far as I can see, "one man, one woman" is not a definition of anything, merely the foundation for a 50% divorce rate.) If you want a nice succinct discourse on the "definition" of marriage, I give you once again Dan Savage:
In light of Savage's comments, can anyone take this next paragraph seriously?
Which brings us to another reason majorities oppose gay marriage: the belief that its supporters are all too willing to force their own particular view of marriage and its meaning on an unwilling society. It's simply not true that their viewpoint is neutral. To believe that same-sex marriage is the equivalent of heterosexual marriage is to accept that the essence of marriage is fundamentally different from what it has always been.
You'll note, by the way, that Dreher never tells us what the "essence of marriage" always has been. He's gone off into Wonderland here -- the remainder of his piece seems to be based on the idea that :"words mean what I say they mean" and never really touches ground again -- not that it had much contact to begin with. It also slides past the issue I opened with: how many of these majorities actually voted on same-sex civil marriage and not on the scare campaigns waged by opponents? Let's get back to that empathy thing: Dreher seems to think that I should try to empathize with people who lie about me, denigrate me at every opportunity, portray me as less than human, as a pervert, as a child-molester, and as essentially un-American. No thank you -- I do not want to get into their heads at all.
Oh, and now the "free speech, religious freedom" argument:
And thoughtful traditionalists understand that legalizing same-sex marriage almost certainly would bring about serious restrictions on freedom of speech and association, particularly for churches and religious organizations. Nobody is going to force pastors to marry same-sex couples, but legal scholars, including prominent gay-rights advocate and law professor Chai Feldblum, have plainly said that there is an irresolvable conflict between religious freedom and gay civil rights – and only one side can prevail.
I'd like to see some citations here. I'm not about to take Dreher as a reliable source, given his record. The opinions I've seen point out that freedom of speech and association, particularly for churches, are very strongly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and over 200 years of judicial history, and that those guarantees are going to outweigh anything that might happen as a result of legalizing same-sex marriage. (How many Catholic bishops have been sued in Massachusetts, by the way? Anyone have a recent count? I thought so.)
I'd like to know more about that "irresolvable conflict," as well. We have a pathological attitude toward religion in this country, which the Christianist right has made full use of in its campaigns to roll back civil rights for people it doesn't value, which is just about everyone. I have news for Dreher: there are limits on rights. There always have been. If we expect to maintain any sort of workable society, there always will be, on the order of "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." And in the realm of civil law, I think it's religious doctrine that's going to have to give way. It has no place in civil law. The overwhelming attitude among gay activists and commentators is that religious figures are free to believe what they want to believe, they can say what they want from their pulpits and no one is going to try to stop them. But if a preacher gets up and says "Go out and kill faggots" and one of his congregation goes out and kills a faggot, guess what -- that's incitement, and it makes him an accessory to murder. That's an old, established limit on free speech.
What Dreher and those who adhere to this nonsense about restrictions want us to believe is that religious doctrine trumps everyone else's rights under civil law. Sorry -- no go.
This is pure garbage:
You can't expect gay folks to privilege religious liberties over their own interests, but likewise, why is it bigoted for religious traditionalists to stand up for what they believe to be bedrock rights – rights that will be curtailed by same-sex marriage?
If they believe that their bedrock rights include the right to dictate everyone else's life, they'd better get used to the real world. Since Dreher and the Christianist right have yet to demonstrate that any real rights are under assault -- except ours -- this is nonsense.
Gay marriage opponents are not crazy to fear what may be done to them should same-sex marriage become the law of the land. In California, supporters of Proposition 8, which repealed same-sex marriage, have suffered vandalism, job and business loss, intimidation and harassment by activists. One would have to be deeply naïve, indeed foolish, to trust that traditionalist dissent will be tolerated once these groups gain the legal upper hand.
OK -- this is, to say the least, grossly overstated, and I think deliberately so. It's time to play the victim card (although now that I think about it, the whole essay is a set up for the victimhood). I'm not going to play the relative-hate game, except to note that when anti-marriage activists are dragged to death behind trucks, beaten to death by gangs of teenagers, or simply knifed thirty or forty times, then I might be willing to listen. Vandalism I'm not going to condone, even the one or two minor incidents that really happened in the wake of Prop 8. If you lose business because people don't like your politics -- well, that's called social disapproval and is the normal result when someone in a community holds views that are out of step with the rest of the group. The "intimidation and harassment" are also grossly overstated, which is a habit of the right -- any criticism is harassment, according to them.
And the grand finale:
None of this is a case per se against gay marriage (Damn! Coulda fooled me -- ed.), for which a strong moral argument certainly can be made. It is rather to say that with gay marriage proponents racking up loss after loss in state balloting, they would do well to quit falling back on the self-serving "bigotry" excuse and do what they (quite justifiably) ask of their opponents: imagine what this issue looks like through the eyes of people not like themselves.
Note that he's harping again on the losses from campaigns based on lies and scare tactics rather than issues, and trying to make us believe that this accurately reflects the country's attitudes toward same-sex marriage. (You'll also note that there's no mention of how the margins of "victory" for the bigots -- and I use that term advisedly -- have shrunk dramatically in just four or five years.) That's the big flaw in putting questions like this to popular vote, and is one reason we have a Bill of Rights and federal courts to adjudicate those questions: the people are subject to fits of majoritarian tyranny, particularly when they're fed a pack of lies. As for "bigotry," I have my perennial comment: Fine, so your religion says it's OK to be a bigot. You know what -- you're still a bigot, even if you have permission.
Well, that woke me up this morning. I have to say, though, I'm getting tired of rebutting the same tired nonsense, even when it's wearing a spiffy new suit. And this one's not so spiffy.
Update and Coda: Just ran across this comment at Andrew Sullivan, which offers a good contrast, in its clarity and humanity, to the whining mess that Dreher manufactured to justify his own bigotry:
A few of my early salon colleagues became very close friends to my then-fiancee and me. In time I asked three of my closest friends, those whom I thought best understood what marriage represented, to be my groomsmen, regardless of the fact that two of them were gay. That those fellows immediately and graciously accepted didn't strike me as exceptional at the time. But as I look at my wedding pictures today and see these guys standing next to me (babyfaced, just a month after my 18th birthday), their hands on my shoulders and beaming smiles, it is bittersweet. I will never accept that these men could participate in my wedding, but that I might never have the honor and privilege of participating in theirs. Particularly since these men were the ones who so clearly illustrated for me the value of monogamous, supportive and positive relationships. My own parents divorced before I was one year old.
To me this debate is about how comfortable America can pretend to be while marginalizing a group of its citizens on the basis of bigotry. Arguments made in defense of traditional marriage are a type of sophistry designed to legitimize a repugnant view that we have otherwise worked so hard to shed.
As a man who has cherished his so-called traditional marriage for more than half his life, let me state clearly that shutting out gays from this essential cultural institution is out-and-out wrong. I don't just know it; I live it.
'Nuff said?
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