A very good comment from one of Andrew Sullivan's readers, who I think has a good take on what's happening now:
A political and demographic re-alignment is happening before their eyes, and they are reaching back into their old bag of tricks of intimidation, violence, and apocalyptic fearmongering. You are British, Andrew. You love this country, and we love you for it. But you didn't grow up around these folks, and you don't realize what a permanent and potent part of the American political landscape they are.
They have always been with us, the people who believed in manifest destiny, who delighted in the slaughter of this land's original inhabitants, who cheered a nation into a civil war to support an economic system of slavery that didn't even benefit them. They are the people who bashed the unions and cheered on the anti-sedition laws, who joined the Pinkertons and the No Nothing Party, who beat up Catholic immigrants and occasionally torched the black part of town. They rode through the Southern pine forests at night, they banned non-European immigration, they burned John Rockefeller Jr. in effigy for proposing the Grand Tetons National Park.
Read the whole thing. It's really very good. It goes a long way to explain the teabaggers, the health care reform "protests," the birthers, and a lot of other things that are finally crawling out from under their rocks.
Add in these observations by Bill Maher, and you can see why it's all becoming so obvious:
And before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.
I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive.
He's talking about people we all know -- some of them are even our relatives. (Yeah, I admit it. I don't see them much.) They are the people who get their "news" from Fox, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly, think that Ann Coulter is the philosophical genius of the conservative movement, and never go downtown. They live hermetically sealed lives because the universe -- read "reality" -- is a scary place.
They're afraid. They're afraid of everything. So they don't want to know about it, and they don't need to know aboiut it because they have opinions, you see. It doesn't matter that they're someone else's opinions, they believe them, and belief trumps truth.
I could investigate the causes of this attitude, but they're largely undocumentable, I suspect. My own prime suspect is a belief system that relies on received wisdom, condemns free enquiry, and holds dogma as superior to observable fact. And no, I'm not just targeting certain brands of Christianity or Islam -- you can find this attitude among Hindus, among animists, among atheists (well, the dogma part, any way), even among Pagans (which I consider scandalous, considering Paganism's deep connection to the natural world).
Keep in mind that most people are followers. Does that give you an insight?
Note: A further thought on that: the problem that I, and I think many people, are having with Obama right now is that he promised leadership -- and hasn't displayed any.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Friday, August 07, 2009
Dr. Thio: Further Comments
J. Ryan Golden, who was instrumental in the protests against Dr. Thio Li-ann's visiting scholar appointment at NYU Law School, was kind enough to provide further background on those protests, and some comments on Wendy Kaminer's piece at The Atlantic, which appears upon investigation to be even more poorly researched and poorly thought out than I had at first realized. I may have some additional comments on Mr. Golden's letter, but I will save those for later.
From J. Ryan Golden:
This letter is intended as a response to criticism I have received for opposing the appointment of Thio Li-ann to teach “Human Rights Law in Asia” at NYU School of Law. As I have always considered myself a libertarian, and do not consider myself as part of either the left-wing or the right-wing, some of the criticism has been very disappointing. Heck, I even once attended the Log Cabin Republican National Convention with a friend of mine. How many liberal men do you think could stomach that!
My involvement in the controversy began after I proposed to NYU Law’s gay student organization, OUTLAW, that they should formally demand she be removed from teaching any course that focused on human rights. The OUTLAW Board ultimately voted in private, and although a majority of the Board voted for aggressive action, the voting rules left them with insufficient votes, and they issued a public statement delineating this course of action:
As a former Board member, I was quite upset with this result. I created a group on facebook entitled “NYU Students and Alumni opposed to Thio Li-ann teaching human rights.” I even purchased facebook ads to promote the group, and within a few days hundreds of students and alumni had joined. Shortly thereafter, other NYU Law students helped create a petition to formally oppose her teaching human rights. This petition did not directly call for her to be fired, but there was an optional checkbox that the vast majority of people checked-including myself-that stated: “Additionally, I call on the Administration to rescind Dr. Thio’s appointment.”
Five days later, I received a call from the New York Times for an upcoming story. That same day Thio Li-ann sent her letter of resignation to NYU Law, and Dean Revesz sent a public statement to the New York Times.
Now that you understand the background of the controversy, I would like to defend my course of action. Most critics of the petition are concerned about the infringement of academic freedom, and thus the concept of freedom of speech more generally. It is my belief that OUTLAW’s course of action was strongly guided by advice they received from an openly gay law professor, Kenji Yoshino. He has since stated publicly to the press in Singapore that he told OUTLAW “I made it clear to them that my view was that the answer to objectionable speech was 'more speech' rather than censorship.” Unlike Professor Yoshino, I am not a constitutional scholar. However, I believe his advice was based upon a peculiar view of censorship, and a cursory review of Thio Li-ann as a scholar.
As an individual student at a private university, I do not believe creating a petition to oppose the appointment of a professor can amount to censorship or an affront on academic freedom. In Sweezy v. New Hamsphire, Justice Frankfurter stated that academic freedom “means the exclusion of governmental intervention in the intellectual life of a university.” And while the meaning of censorship varies widely, it typically involves the action of a higher authority, such as the government. It is paradoxical to state that the expression of freedom of assembly rights by private individuals amounts to censorship against an elite figure. While it may be true that if NYU had ultimately gave in to our demands, they would have been censoring her views, Thio Li-Ann independently chose to resign after facing opposition.
Moreover, academic freedom does not and should never give a professor carte blanche to espouse hateful and demonstrably false viewpoints. Like many conservatives and libertarians, I am also disappointed in the small proportion of non-liberal viewpoints in higher education. But that problem does not mean we should allow a professor to teach concepts that go way beyond simple irresponsibility into their own flagrant prejudices. Obvious examples are holocaust deniers, segregationists , and in this case, a professor of human rights who believes roughly 5% of the population is committing a moral wrong and thus does not deserve any human rights. The consensus seems to be that the law school would have responded for differently if Thio Li-Ann had made similar statements about a religious or racial minority. Why then is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation different? NYU’s own policy of nondiscrimination puts sexual orientation on equal footing with race, religion, and sex.
The most publicized critique of the petition came from Wendy Kaminer of The Atlantic. Earlier in her life, she was heavily involved in feminist movements to censor pornography. Apparently she had a change of heart, joined the board of the ACLU, and recently wrote an article entitled “Law Students Flunk Academic Freedom 101” where she stated in regards to those involved with the petition “I wouldn't want one of these future lawyers ever advocating for me.”
One would think before writing this article a former advocate of censorship would have actually researched my claim that Thio supported fining a television Singapore program for displaying a gay family in a positive light. Instead she mentioned it, and put in parentheses: “(If the latter claim is accurate, it surely undermines her credibility as victim of censorship.)” Well I happen to have the transcript of Thio Li-Ann’s speech in Parliament. Speaking in regards to a citizen complaint about the TV program she stated: “Could the Minister elaborate on how to prevent similar future breaches, and how to ensure industry players make greater use of consumer advice in airing sensitive content? “ And earlier in her speech, she even advocated censoring the Internet! She stated “If private parties misuse the Internet to destroy people whose views they dislike, this will kill free speech. Our shared commitment to democracy will be eroded if abusive online content goes unregulated… I hope the Minister will consider the need to deter such anti-social attacks to prevent harassing malicious public online speech from undermining the Internet as a free and fair communications medium.”
Thio Li-Ann seems to think it is okay for the government to officially censor views of individuals on the Internet, but not okay for individuals to protest a professor/politician who uses, in her own words, “harassing malicious public” speech to oppress a minority population. She clearly envisions her own utopian society where the elite members of the government can control the boundaries of free speech, but private citizens are at their own peril.
Ms. Kaminer also stated “The refusal of law students even to hear opposing views, reflecting opposing moral codes, is particularly worrisome.” Unlike Ms. Kaminer, I actually heavily researched Thio Li-Ann. I heard her opposing views in much greater detail, and concluded they were not worth hearing again, especially since her salary comes in part from my own tuition dollars. Why should I subsidize what is no more than flawed religious-based hate speech disguised as an opposing moral code? And for those readers who may be Christian or deeply religious, I urge you to read her recently published book Mind The Gap where she goes into great detail about her moral code. The book is an absurd distortion of biblical text aimed at oppressing the gay population and uprooting the secular government of Singapore. I would provide some quotations, and perhaps I will at a later date, but the book is far more offensive than her speech before Parliament, and suggests that unless society rejects homosexuality it will face Armageddon.
Now that I have rambled on about Wendy Kaminer’s misguided article, I would like to conclude on a more positive note. While many individuals-including Kenji Yoshino-have expressed that they are upset that they lost a chance to debate Professor Thio at NYU, I believe a much larger opportunity was gained as a result of her decision to run away with her tail between her legs. You see, the gay population in Singapore knows much more about Thio Li-ann than we do. They know her statement that she feared for her safety was most likely fabricated based on her past exaggerations of hate mail. They know her arguments just fell apart when they faced real criticism in a country where her opponents could not be silenced. And they now are empowered to put 377A back on the table, and in a government setting where Thio Li-Ann no longer has a seat in Parliament.
Let’s all hope now that Thio Li-ann’s distorted views have been publicized worldwide, The Parliament of Singapore will make the right choice, and repeal what remains of 377A, a historical remnant of their British colonial history. Singapore is a secular society that deeply values their own culture-let’s just hope they recognize this legal artifact never had a rightful place there.
(Edited for style.)
From J. Ryan Golden:
This letter is intended as a response to criticism I have received for opposing the appointment of Thio Li-ann to teach “Human Rights Law in Asia” at NYU School of Law. As I have always considered myself a libertarian, and do not consider myself as part of either the left-wing or the right-wing, some of the criticism has been very disappointing. Heck, I even once attended the Log Cabin Republican National Convention with a friend of mine. How many liberal men do you think could stomach that!
My involvement in the controversy began after I proposed to NYU Law’s gay student organization, OUTLAW, that they should formally demand she be removed from teaching any course that focused on human rights. The OUTLAW Board ultimately voted in private, and although a majority of the Board voted for aggressive action, the voting rules left them with insufficient votes, and they issued a public statement delineating this course of action:
“Nonetheless, the Board thinks it best to fight Dr. Thio's offensive views not by silencing her but by engaging in a respectful and productive dialogue about the boundaries of human rights”
As a former Board member, I was quite upset with this result. I created a group on facebook entitled “NYU Students and Alumni opposed to Thio Li-ann teaching human rights.” I even purchased facebook ads to promote the group, and within a few days hundreds of students and alumni had joined. Shortly thereafter, other NYU Law students helped create a petition to formally oppose her teaching human rights. This petition did not directly call for her to be fired, but there was an optional checkbox that the vast majority of people checked-including myself-that stated: “Additionally, I call on the Administration to rescind Dr. Thio’s appointment.”
Five days later, I received a call from the New York Times for an upcoming story. That same day Thio Li-ann sent her letter of resignation to NYU Law, and Dean Revesz sent a public statement to the New York Times.
Now that you understand the background of the controversy, I would like to defend my course of action. Most critics of the petition are concerned about the infringement of academic freedom, and thus the concept of freedom of speech more generally. It is my belief that OUTLAW’s course of action was strongly guided by advice they received from an openly gay law professor, Kenji Yoshino. He has since stated publicly to the press in Singapore that he told OUTLAW “I made it clear to them that my view was that the answer to objectionable speech was 'more speech' rather than censorship.” Unlike Professor Yoshino, I am not a constitutional scholar. However, I believe his advice was based upon a peculiar view of censorship, and a cursory review of Thio Li-ann as a scholar.
As an individual student at a private university, I do not believe creating a petition to oppose the appointment of a professor can amount to censorship or an affront on academic freedom. In Sweezy v. New Hamsphire, Justice Frankfurter stated that academic freedom “means the exclusion of governmental intervention in the intellectual life of a university.” And while the meaning of censorship varies widely, it typically involves the action of a higher authority, such as the government. It is paradoxical to state that the expression of freedom of assembly rights by private individuals amounts to censorship against an elite figure. While it may be true that if NYU had ultimately gave in to our demands, they would have been censoring her views, Thio Li-Ann independently chose to resign after facing opposition.
Moreover, academic freedom does not and should never give a professor carte blanche to espouse hateful and demonstrably false viewpoints. Like many conservatives and libertarians, I am also disappointed in the small proportion of non-liberal viewpoints in higher education. But that problem does not mean we should allow a professor to teach concepts that go way beyond simple irresponsibility into their own flagrant prejudices. Obvious examples are holocaust deniers, segregationists , and in this case, a professor of human rights who believes roughly 5% of the population is committing a moral wrong and thus does not deserve any human rights. The consensus seems to be that the law school would have responded for differently if Thio Li-Ann had made similar statements about a religious or racial minority. Why then is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation different? NYU’s own policy of nondiscrimination puts sexual orientation on equal footing with race, religion, and sex.
The most publicized critique of the petition came from Wendy Kaminer of The Atlantic. Earlier in her life, she was heavily involved in feminist movements to censor pornography. Apparently she had a change of heart, joined the board of the ACLU, and recently wrote an article entitled “Law Students Flunk Academic Freedom 101” where she stated in regards to those involved with the petition “I wouldn't want one of these future lawyers ever advocating for me.”
One would think before writing this article a former advocate of censorship would have actually researched my claim that Thio supported fining a television Singapore program for displaying a gay family in a positive light. Instead she mentioned it, and put in parentheses: “(If the latter claim is accurate, it surely undermines her credibility as victim of censorship.)” Well I happen to have the transcript of Thio Li-Ann’s speech in Parliament. Speaking in regards to a citizen complaint about the TV program she stated: “Could the Minister elaborate on how to prevent similar future breaches, and how to ensure industry players make greater use of consumer advice in airing sensitive content? “ And earlier in her speech, she even advocated censoring the Internet! She stated “If private parties misuse the Internet to destroy people whose views they dislike, this will kill free speech. Our shared commitment to democracy will be eroded if abusive online content goes unregulated… I hope the Minister will consider the need to deter such anti-social attacks to prevent harassing malicious public online speech from undermining the Internet as a free and fair communications medium.”
Thio Li-Ann seems to think it is okay for the government to officially censor views of individuals on the Internet, but not okay for individuals to protest a professor/politician who uses, in her own words, “harassing malicious public” speech to oppress a minority population. She clearly envisions her own utopian society where the elite members of the government can control the boundaries of free speech, but private citizens are at their own peril.
Ms. Kaminer also stated “The refusal of law students even to hear opposing views, reflecting opposing moral codes, is particularly worrisome.” Unlike Ms. Kaminer, I actually heavily researched Thio Li-Ann. I heard her opposing views in much greater detail, and concluded they were not worth hearing again, especially since her salary comes in part from my own tuition dollars. Why should I subsidize what is no more than flawed religious-based hate speech disguised as an opposing moral code? And for those readers who may be Christian or deeply religious, I urge you to read her recently published book Mind The Gap where she goes into great detail about her moral code. The book is an absurd distortion of biblical text aimed at oppressing the gay population and uprooting the secular government of Singapore. I would provide some quotations, and perhaps I will at a later date, but the book is far more offensive than her speech before Parliament, and suggests that unless society rejects homosexuality it will face Armageddon.
Now that I have rambled on about Wendy Kaminer’s misguided article, I would like to conclude on a more positive note. While many individuals-including Kenji Yoshino-have expressed that they are upset that they lost a chance to debate Professor Thio at NYU, I believe a much larger opportunity was gained as a result of her decision to run away with her tail between her legs. You see, the gay population in Singapore knows much more about Thio Li-ann than we do. They know her statement that she feared for her safety was most likely fabricated based on her past exaggerations of hate mail. They know her arguments just fell apart when they faced real criticism in a country where her opponents could not be silenced. And they now are empowered to put 377A back on the table, and in a government setting where Thio Li-Ann no longer has a seat in Parliament.
Let’s all hope now that Thio Li-ann’s distorted views have been publicized worldwide, The Parliament of Singapore will make the right choice, and repeal what remains of 377A, a historical remnant of their British colonial history. Singapore is a secular society that deeply values their own culture-let’s just hope they recognize this legal artifact never had a rightful place there.
(Edited for style.)
Thursday, August 06, 2009
An Alternative to Same-Sex Marriage: Follow-Up, Part II
Hey, I'm on a roll this morning.
Jonathan Rowe, in his response to Andrew Sullivan and Robert P. George, begins by tackling the "procreative sex" issue, quoting George's argument and Sullivan's response. He does point out, quite rightly, that George has not proposed an alternative in civil law to accommodate same-sex relationships, but really, I think, gives George too much latitude by quoting a proposal from the Witherspoon Institute, where George is a fellow (but apparently did not participate in the preparation of this paper):
It’s true that George, understandably, doesn’t propose a policy for gay couples in his limited space op-ed. However, if I am not mistaken, elsewhere I think he has proposed/endorsed such. At least, his intellectual disciples Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis have in this piece written for The Witherspoon Institute, where George is a senior fellow:
Once again, it's underplaying the significance of committed, exclusive love relationships between two persons of the same sex, equating them to an arrangement "available to any two adults who commit to sharing domestic responsibilities." So you can have a series of "arrangements" with roommates. That aspect of the proposal seems to elude Rowe completely: something tells me that deep in his psyche is the idea that gays are somehow emotionally incomplete.
This is a key flaw in Rowe's stance, and one that Sullivan addressed. Once again, however, Rowe misses the point:
One thing that amazes me about this debate is how willing we are to argue over symbolism, even when tangible privileges/rights aren’t at issue.
The point is, it's the symbolism of marriage that is of overwhelming importance. That's been recognized by the courts in Massachusetts and California, and it seems to me that it should be quite obvious to anyone who has the least understanding of what marriage really is. I find the assumption that a civil institution is devoid of symbolism to be quite singular.
Rowe does hit the core of the argument as advanced by the right:
Social conservatives may accuse gays of being fanatical for refusing anything short government endorsement of “marriage,” even when they have all of the same privileges, rights and responsibilities (under a sexually platonic civil mechanism). However, the same charge can be leveled against Dr. George et al. His position asserts that a key purpose of government is to promote morality (not necessarily defined by the Bible or church dogma, but the natural law, which, coincidentally, perfectly parallels traditional biblical morality and church dogma of many conservative Jewish, Christian, Mormon and Muslim denominations). And that means it’s okay for government to be nice to gay couples, allow them to enter into partnerships that grant them rights and whatnot. But it’s not okay to give them these rights/privileges under a mechanism that might symbolically intimate gay sex is okay.
Let me state right here that "natural law" is a religious concept. It is, in fact, a completely man-made construct that has no relationship to the way nature actually works. It's an Abrahamic moral code with a false moustache. And Rowe has hit the heart of the right's position here: they won't tolerate any civil institution that deviates from their concept of "morality."
Rowe then proposes the libertarian solution (which is not new and has been proposed by all sorts of people):
On the gay marriage issue, I argued using James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance as an analogy here. On disputed issues of “the good” that fall outside of governments minimal purview of enforcing our rights to life, political liberty and property, government should just stay out of it and leave issues up to individuals and private groups.
That means privatize marriage, everyone gets that two person civil union for which The Witherspoon Institute argues and individuals and private groups, not government decides what is “marriage” just as they decide what is true “religion.”
It's really not so unworkable -- in fact, that's the system in place in France, although it's still limited to heterosexual couples. In practical terms, making the shift from our present system to something this logical (yes, it's logical, that's why they do it in France) is going to meet huge resistance from the right, I promise you: in addition to hating anything that deviates from their somewhat primitive understanding of "morality," they want the government to reinforce that understanding in civil law. That's the entire thrust of the so-called "social conservatives."
OK, so Rowe's post wasn't worse than George's. Chalk one up for Rowe. To be quite honest, I have no problem at all with Rowe's proposal, except for the obvious practical hurdles of actually implementing it. Fortunately for me, I happen to subscribe to a religion that welcomes same-sex unions. However, considering some of the ritual activities involved in a traditional handfasting, I think I want to be married in the summer. During a heat wave.
This is the post of Sullivan's that Rowe is responding to. I do want to highlight one point that Sullivan brings up, because I think it has bearing on the religious nature of the insistence on male/female relationships as the only legitimate ones:
But if non-procreative sex can consummate a heterosexual marriage, then why not a homosexual one? I covered all this at length in Virtually Normal, and it comes down in the end to an assertion that heterosexuality be privileged in civil law because it is the norm. Buried behind this is an unscientific notion - derived from Aquinas - that the universe is somehow perfectly gendered into two opposite and complementary halves. No one with any knowledge of contemporary biology or evolution could agree with this. (Emphasis added.)
Strangely enough, Paganism, which not only recognizes the dual nature of the universe, but has incorporated it into its basic beliefs, has also come to recognize (with the exception of some die-hard Gardnerians) that this duality is also innate to a greater or lesser degree in each individual. It's a function, I think, of the realization that the universe is a continuum, not a set of dichotomies. Consequently, most Pagan traditions that I'm aware of understand that two men or two women can incorporate in their relationships both masculine and feminine aspects. (And I must say that the idea that certain traits are "masculine" or "feminine" makes less and less sense to me as time goes on.) I've noted before that certain followers of the Abrahamic faiths -- fundamentalists and literalists -- have a distinct problem with metaphor. This only points it up. And of course, there's the basic problem of those monotheisms, that they do typify the universe as a set of dichotomies and not as the continuum that we are beginning to understand that it is.
Sullivan goes on to hammer George on his lack of provision for same-sex couples under civil law, and quite rightly so.
Beneath the elegant philosophical language is a blunter message to George's gay fellow human beings: be straight or go away.
And of course, we're not going to go away.
(Another note: since I'm indefatigable on this issue, look for me to come back with commentary on the piece from The Witherspoon Institute.)
Jonathan Rowe, in his response to Andrew Sullivan and Robert P. George, begins by tackling the "procreative sex" issue, quoting George's argument and Sullivan's response. He does point out, quite rightly, that George has not proposed an alternative in civil law to accommodate same-sex relationships, but really, I think, gives George too much latitude by quoting a proposal from the Witherspoon Institute, where George is a fellow (but apparently did not participate in the preparation of this paper):
It’s true that George, understandably, doesn’t propose a policy for gay couples in his limited space op-ed. However, if I am not mistaken, elsewhere I think he has proposed/endorsed such. At least, his intellectual disciples Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis have in this piece written for The Witherspoon Institute, where George is a senior fellow:
[U]nions recognized by the federal government would be available to any two adults who commit to sharing domestic responsibilities, whether or not their relationship is sexual. Available only to people otherwise ineligible to marry each other (say, because of consanguinity), these unions would neither introduce a rival “marriage-lite” option nor treat same-sex unions as marriages. Their purpose would be to protect adult domestic partners who have pledged themselves to a mutually binding relationship of care. What (if anything) goes on in the bedroom would have nothing to do with these unions’ goals or, thus, eligibility requirements.
Once again, it's underplaying the significance of committed, exclusive love relationships between two persons of the same sex, equating them to an arrangement "available to any two adults who commit to sharing domestic responsibilities." So you can have a series of "arrangements" with roommates. That aspect of the proposal seems to elude Rowe completely: something tells me that deep in his psyche is the idea that gays are somehow emotionally incomplete.
This is a key flaw in Rowe's stance, and one that Sullivan addressed. Once again, however, Rowe misses the point:
One thing that amazes me about this debate is how willing we are to argue over symbolism, even when tangible privileges/rights aren’t at issue.
The point is, it's the symbolism of marriage that is of overwhelming importance. That's been recognized by the courts in Massachusetts and California, and it seems to me that it should be quite obvious to anyone who has the least understanding of what marriage really is. I find the assumption that a civil institution is devoid of symbolism to be quite singular.
Rowe does hit the core of the argument as advanced by the right:
Social conservatives may accuse gays of being fanatical for refusing anything short government endorsement of “marriage,” even when they have all of the same privileges, rights and responsibilities (under a sexually platonic civil mechanism). However, the same charge can be leveled against Dr. George et al. His position asserts that a key purpose of government is to promote morality (not necessarily defined by the Bible or church dogma, but the natural law, which, coincidentally, perfectly parallels traditional biblical morality and church dogma of many conservative Jewish, Christian, Mormon and Muslim denominations). And that means it’s okay for government to be nice to gay couples, allow them to enter into partnerships that grant them rights and whatnot. But it’s not okay to give them these rights/privileges under a mechanism that might symbolically intimate gay sex is okay.
Let me state right here that "natural law" is a religious concept. It is, in fact, a completely man-made construct that has no relationship to the way nature actually works. It's an Abrahamic moral code with a false moustache. And Rowe has hit the heart of the right's position here: they won't tolerate any civil institution that deviates from their concept of "morality."
Rowe then proposes the libertarian solution (which is not new and has been proposed by all sorts of people):
On the gay marriage issue, I argued using James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance as an analogy here. On disputed issues of “the good” that fall outside of governments minimal purview of enforcing our rights to life, political liberty and property, government should just stay out of it and leave issues up to individuals and private groups.
That means privatize marriage, everyone gets that two person civil union for which The Witherspoon Institute argues and individuals and private groups, not government decides what is “marriage” just as they decide what is true “religion.”
It's really not so unworkable -- in fact, that's the system in place in France, although it's still limited to heterosexual couples. In practical terms, making the shift from our present system to something this logical (yes, it's logical, that's why they do it in France) is going to meet huge resistance from the right, I promise you: in addition to hating anything that deviates from their somewhat primitive understanding of "morality," they want the government to reinforce that understanding in civil law. That's the entire thrust of the so-called "social conservatives."
OK, so Rowe's post wasn't worse than George's. Chalk one up for Rowe. To be quite honest, I have no problem at all with Rowe's proposal, except for the obvious practical hurdles of actually implementing it. Fortunately for me, I happen to subscribe to a religion that welcomes same-sex unions. However, considering some of the ritual activities involved in a traditional handfasting, I think I want to be married in the summer. During a heat wave.
This is the post of Sullivan's that Rowe is responding to. I do want to highlight one point that Sullivan brings up, because I think it has bearing on the religious nature of the insistence on male/female relationships as the only legitimate ones:
But if non-procreative sex can consummate a heterosexual marriage, then why not a homosexual one? I covered all this at length in Virtually Normal, and it comes down in the end to an assertion that heterosexuality be privileged in civil law because it is the norm. Buried behind this is an unscientific notion - derived from Aquinas - that the universe is somehow perfectly gendered into two opposite and complementary halves. No one with any knowledge of contemporary biology or evolution could agree with this. (Emphasis added.)
Strangely enough, Paganism, which not only recognizes the dual nature of the universe, but has incorporated it into its basic beliefs, has also come to recognize (with the exception of some die-hard Gardnerians) that this duality is also innate to a greater or lesser degree in each individual. It's a function, I think, of the realization that the universe is a continuum, not a set of dichotomies. Consequently, most Pagan traditions that I'm aware of understand that two men or two women can incorporate in their relationships both masculine and feminine aspects. (And I must say that the idea that certain traits are "masculine" or "feminine" makes less and less sense to me as time goes on.) I've noted before that certain followers of the Abrahamic faiths -- fundamentalists and literalists -- have a distinct problem with metaphor. This only points it up. And of course, there's the basic problem of those monotheisms, that they do typify the universe as a set of dichotomies and not as the continuum that we are beginning to understand that it is.
Sullivan goes on to hammer George on his lack of provision for same-sex couples under civil law, and quite rightly so.
Beneath the elegant philosophical language is a blunter message to George's gay fellow human beings: be straight or go away.
And of course, we're not going to go away.
(Another note: since I'm indefatigable on this issue, look for me to come back with commentary on the piece from The Witherspoon Institute.)
An Alternative to Same-Sex Marriage: Follow-Up, Part I
As promised, here is the first part of my commentary on the two essays mentioned in Andrew Sullivan's post, on which I commented yesterday. As soon as I realized that Robert P. George's piece against same-sex marriage was an OpEd for the Wall Street Journal, I had a strong feeling about which way it would go. Let me put it as succinctly as possible: George is presenting, once again, all the tired, nonfunctional arguments of "marriage as breeding license" that we've seen before from such luminaries as the Pope, David Blankenhorn, and other right-wing shills. He's basically arguing Christian dogma here, not civil law. He spends the opening paragraphs pooh-poohing the idea that marriage is a fundamental right for gays -- for everyone else, but not for gays -- because marriage is about the conception of children.
Opponents of racist laws in Loving did not question the idea, deeply embodied in our law and its shaping philosophical tradition, of marriage as a union that takes its distinctive character from being founded, unlike other friendships, on bodily unity of the kind that sometimes generates new life. This unity is why marriage, in our legal tradition, is consummated only by acts that are generative in kind. Such acts unite husband and wife at the most fundamental level and thus legally consummate marriage whether or not they are generative in effect, and even when conception is not sought.
He's already attempting to dodge the problem of childless heterosexual marriages: marriage "sometimes" generates new life. From a secular point of view, can you see the big gaping hole here? Making love is only real if there's the possibility of children -- not the desire, not the intent, but only the possibility. The dodge here is in that last clause: "even when conception is not sought." Can I call bullshit? If you're taking steps to avoid conception, how can the union be generative in nature? Just because you're of opposite sexes? So that a man and a woman, even if they are practicing birth control, have "bodily unity," while me and my (sadly, at this point only theoretical) husband are only having animalistic sex. (Which does have its place, after all.) Sorry, no -- I've had sex with men I loved and it was just a deeply spiritual and unifying as anyone else's, and I defy anyone to tell me differently.
The stinky brown stuff gets deeper:
Only this understanding makes sense of all the norms-annulability for non-consummation, the pledge of permanence, monogamy, sexual exclusivity-that shape marriage as we know it and that our law reflects.
No. Simply not true. This is another case of a right-wing apologist making up a "definition" of marriage that he doesn't want to change. Of course not, it's his baby -- if you'll pardon the expression. There are other understandings that make sense of all the norms, particularly the one that has been a primary understanding throughout history: the basic idea has been marriage as a contract to produce heirs, which is the main reason for annullability because of non-consummation, monogamy, sexual exclusivity: it's a property arrangement, and always was. Making up some spiritual mumbo-jumbo doesn't change that. Ah, you say, but what about permanence? Well, everyone wants love to last forever, don't they? I would be thrilled to meet Mr. Right and live happily ever after.
He's managed a double whammy here:
If marriage is redefined, its connection to organic bodily union-and thus to procreation-will be undermined. It will increasingly be understood as an emotional union for the sake of adult satisfaction that is served by mutually agreeable sexual play. But there is no reason that primarily emotional unions like friendships should be permanent, exclusive, limited to two, or legally regulated at all. Thus, there will remain no principled basis for upholding marital norms like monogamy.
Let's take his first sentence for what it is: an unprovable assertion. Then we can go on to the whammies:
One: "emotional union fo rthe sake of adult satisfaction that is served by mutually agreeable sexual play." Let's undercut the emotional and spiritual aspects of a love relationship and reduce it to sex -- after all, we're talking about gays here, and that's all they're interested in, right?
Two: same-sex "marriage" (got to have the "fake" quotes at least once) is simply "friends with benefits," so there's no need to give them legal recognition as marriage. This is because, you see, two men or two women cannot possibly share the deep emotional and spiritual connection that a mixed-sex couple automatically does -- even if it's only for 55 hours. That also clears the way to further demean same-sex relationships by equating them to housekeeping arrangements between elderly nuns -- who I'm sure have some regard for each other, and probably a deep and abiding friendship, but it's not the kind of love that I've been fortunate enough to share with a couple of men in my life. And do note that George quite deliberately equates love between two men or two women to "friendships."
And then he goes on to the "it's going to lead to polygamy" argument. We've done that one before. No, it won't, unless we want it to. No one's advocating it, in spite of his "citation" of activists -- his list starts off "over 300 lesbian, gay, and allied activists" -- and he doesn't name one lesbian or gay. I know there are some who are against marriage, but they are nowhere near the mainstream of the gay civil rights movement.
He ends up where he started:
Because marriage has already been deeply wounded, some say that redefining it will do no additional harm. I disagree. We should strengthen, not redefine, marriage. But whatever one’s view, surely it is the people, not the courts, who should debate and decide. For reasons of both principle and prudence, the issue should be settled by democratic means, not by what Justice Byron White, in his dissent in Roe, called an “act of raw judicial power.”
There's another dodge in here that is as far as I can see a fundamental flaw: no one has so far explained, without recourse to "mystical unions" in the service of "procreation" -- oh, excuse me, that's now "the possibility of procreation" -- how including another group in the institution of marriage weakens it. It's all tied up in this "definition" that seems made of equal parts wishful thinking and Ozzie and Harriet reruns.
This man is a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton, and doesn't want to recognize one central fact of American jurisprudence: fundamental rights are not subject to plebiscites. That, it seems, is too inconvenient to mention. In point of fact, it has always been the courts who have decided questions of fundamental civil rights. Sometimes they've decided poorly, but things work out -- in fact, it's often at the courts' insistence that legislatures (and please note that in his earlier paragraphs he dismissed the role of legislatures, which are, after all, the representatives of the people, selected by the people to pass laws on these and other issues) have acted at all. The thing about legislatures is that they're always going to take the easier route. Referenda are entirely dependent on who can buy the most air time and whether those groups are at all constrained by fact (usually not, in the case of same-sex marriage).
In fact, he doesn't address the fundamental issues here at all. His lead-in dicussion of the role of the courts in this is spun so heavily it's a wonder he wasn't too dizzy to finish the essay. (Or maybe he was -- that would explain the caliber of his "argument.") In fact, he dismisses the idea that gays are entitled to the same fundamental rights as straights. I certainly wouldn't want him representing me in court.
Sullivan is much too respectful of this drivel. And it is drivel, nothing more.
Rowe's post looks, if anything, even worse, but I'm too tired to dissect it now. Tomorrow, or maybe later today.
Opponents of racist laws in Loving did not question the idea, deeply embodied in our law and its shaping philosophical tradition, of marriage as a union that takes its distinctive character from being founded, unlike other friendships, on bodily unity of the kind that sometimes generates new life. This unity is why marriage, in our legal tradition, is consummated only by acts that are generative in kind. Such acts unite husband and wife at the most fundamental level and thus legally consummate marriage whether or not they are generative in effect, and even when conception is not sought.
He's already attempting to dodge the problem of childless heterosexual marriages: marriage "sometimes" generates new life. From a secular point of view, can you see the big gaping hole here? Making love is only real if there's the possibility of children -- not the desire, not the intent, but only the possibility. The dodge here is in that last clause: "even when conception is not sought." Can I call bullshit? If you're taking steps to avoid conception, how can the union be generative in nature? Just because you're of opposite sexes? So that a man and a woman, even if they are practicing birth control, have "bodily unity," while me and my (sadly, at this point only theoretical) husband are only having animalistic sex. (Which does have its place, after all.) Sorry, no -- I've had sex with men I loved and it was just a deeply spiritual and unifying as anyone else's, and I defy anyone to tell me differently.
The stinky brown stuff gets deeper:
Only this understanding makes sense of all the norms-annulability for non-consummation, the pledge of permanence, monogamy, sexual exclusivity-that shape marriage as we know it and that our law reflects.
No. Simply not true. This is another case of a right-wing apologist making up a "definition" of marriage that he doesn't want to change. Of course not, it's his baby -- if you'll pardon the expression. There are other understandings that make sense of all the norms, particularly the one that has been a primary understanding throughout history: the basic idea has been marriage as a contract to produce heirs, which is the main reason for annullability because of non-consummation, monogamy, sexual exclusivity: it's a property arrangement, and always was. Making up some spiritual mumbo-jumbo doesn't change that. Ah, you say, but what about permanence? Well, everyone wants love to last forever, don't they? I would be thrilled to meet Mr. Right and live happily ever after.
He's managed a double whammy here:
If marriage is redefined, its connection to organic bodily union-and thus to procreation-will be undermined. It will increasingly be understood as an emotional union for the sake of adult satisfaction that is served by mutually agreeable sexual play. But there is no reason that primarily emotional unions like friendships should be permanent, exclusive, limited to two, or legally regulated at all. Thus, there will remain no principled basis for upholding marital norms like monogamy.
Let's take his first sentence for what it is: an unprovable assertion. Then we can go on to the whammies:
One: "emotional union fo rthe sake of adult satisfaction that is served by mutually agreeable sexual play." Let's undercut the emotional and spiritual aspects of a love relationship and reduce it to sex -- after all, we're talking about gays here, and that's all they're interested in, right?
Two: same-sex "marriage" (got to have the "fake" quotes at least once) is simply "friends with benefits," so there's no need to give them legal recognition as marriage. This is because, you see, two men or two women cannot possibly share the deep emotional and spiritual connection that a mixed-sex couple automatically does -- even if it's only for 55 hours. That also clears the way to further demean same-sex relationships by equating them to housekeeping arrangements between elderly nuns -- who I'm sure have some regard for each other, and probably a deep and abiding friendship, but it's not the kind of love that I've been fortunate enough to share with a couple of men in my life. And do note that George quite deliberately equates love between two men or two women to "friendships."
And then he goes on to the "it's going to lead to polygamy" argument. We've done that one before. No, it won't, unless we want it to. No one's advocating it, in spite of his "citation" of activists -- his list starts off "over 300 lesbian, gay, and allied activists" -- and he doesn't name one lesbian or gay. I know there are some who are against marriage, but they are nowhere near the mainstream of the gay civil rights movement.
He ends up where he started:
Because marriage has already been deeply wounded, some say that redefining it will do no additional harm. I disagree. We should strengthen, not redefine, marriage. But whatever one’s view, surely it is the people, not the courts, who should debate and decide. For reasons of both principle and prudence, the issue should be settled by democratic means, not by what Justice Byron White, in his dissent in Roe, called an “act of raw judicial power.”
There's another dodge in here that is as far as I can see a fundamental flaw: no one has so far explained, without recourse to "mystical unions" in the service of "procreation" -- oh, excuse me, that's now "the possibility of procreation" -- how including another group in the institution of marriage weakens it. It's all tied up in this "definition" that seems made of equal parts wishful thinking and Ozzie and Harriet reruns.
This man is a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton, and doesn't want to recognize one central fact of American jurisprudence: fundamental rights are not subject to plebiscites. That, it seems, is too inconvenient to mention. In point of fact, it has always been the courts who have decided questions of fundamental civil rights. Sometimes they've decided poorly, but things work out -- in fact, it's often at the courts' insistence that legislatures (and please note that in his earlier paragraphs he dismissed the role of legislatures, which are, after all, the representatives of the people, selected by the people to pass laws on these and other issues) have acted at all. The thing about legislatures is that they're always going to take the easier route. Referenda are entirely dependent on who can buy the most air time and whether those groups are at all constrained by fact (usually not, in the case of same-sex marriage).
In fact, he doesn't address the fundamental issues here at all. His lead-in dicussion of the role of the courts in this is spun so heavily it's a wonder he wasn't too dizzy to finish the essay. (Or maybe he was -- that would explain the caliber of his "argument.") In fact, he dismisses the idea that gays are entitled to the same fundamental rights as straights. I certainly wouldn't want him representing me in court.
Sullivan is much too respectful of this drivel. And it is drivel, nothing more.
Rowe's post looks, if anything, even worse, but I'm too tired to dissect it now. Tomorrow, or maybe later today.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
The "F" Bomb
An excellent column by Jeff McGregor at ESPN on language as a weapon and how difficult we find it to deal with. A must read.
An Alternative To Same-Sex Marriage? (Updated)
Via Sullivan, this essay on the downside of same-sex marriage by Tom Flynn. He's missing a huge point here, and I think the fault is that -- well, thinking about it, it's just that he wants an alternative to marriage and wanted us -- the gay civil rights movement -- to do the dirty work for him.
Those of us who eagerly awaited a legally robust alternative institution are the losers. The GLBT movement was the only constituency on today’s horizon with the power to force that sort of reform. In all likelihood, no strong and legal alternative to marriage will be achieved during our lifetimes.
There is one aspect of marriage that he doesn't touch on, which is arguably the most important -- after all, civil unions and domestic partnrships can provide all the legal and economic benefits of marriage, even if it becomes more complicated and expensive when children are involved (although that can certainly be built into the law, as well). But "civil unioned" doesn't really have the same resonance as "married," you know?
It's something I've discussed before, but to repeat myself once again, in spite of it's quasi-religious aura (or maybe because of it), marriage as a social institution has one overriding feature that no alternative can provide, at least not for the foreseeable future: instant recognition by the group of the married couple's status. If you say "we're married," people immediately know where you fit into the scheme of things. They can identify you in social-role terms without having to think about it. They know that you are a family, and that you and your spouse are probably not available for certain recreational activities, and that if you have kids you'll probably be showing up at PTA meetings. You are a known member of the community.
Want to try that with a domestic partnership? In Washington state or California, you could come close; in Chicago, it means nothing. (Yes, we do have a domestic partnership registry in Chicago. And it really does mean almost nothing, except that if your employer offers domestic partner benefits, you qualify. And you get to pay the taxes on them.) But people can recognize you as a couple only to the extent that they recognize any other couple cohabiting. You're not "married."
There's a fair amount of history at the beginning of that essay that as far as I can see doesn't pertain, centering on the "traditional" marriage in which a father essentially granted property rights in his daughter to her new owner. The minute you have two guys in Iowa getting married, that goes right out the window. (And I might remind those lesbian feminists who are against marriage to remember that, as well. The point is, as you should have been able to infer from the points I made above about marriage as a social-recognition mechanism, that marriage may be tied up with patriarchy in your mind, but that doesn't mean it is in mine.)
Anyway, I'd be inclined to take this whole thing more seriously if I thought Flynn was serious, but somehow, I think he's just playing.
Update: Ran across this response by Andrew Sullivan to other arguments in a similar vein, by Jonathan Rowe and Robert P. George. (Rowe is also responding to this post by Sullivan.) I haven't read them yet, but I'll come back to this when I've had a chance. In the meantime, read Sullivan's piece -- he underscores some of my arguments above about the social-recognition function of marriage, and makes a couple of new points.
Those of us who eagerly awaited a legally robust alternative institution are the losers. The GLBT movement was the only constituency on today’s horizon with the power to force that sort of reform. In all likelihood, no strong and legal alternative to marriage will be achieved during our lifetimes.
There is one aspect of marriage that he doesn't touch on, which is arguably the most important -- after all, civil unions and domestic partnrships can provide all the legal and economic benefits of marriage, even if it becomes more complicated and expensive when children are involved (although that can certainly be built into the law, as well). But "civil unioned" doesn't really have the same resonance as "married," you know?
It's something I've discussed before, but to repeat myself once again, in spite of it's quasi-religious aura (or maybe because of it), marriage as a social institution has one overriding feature that no alternative can provide, at least not for the foreseeable future: instant recognition by the group of the married couple's status. If you say "we're married," people immediately know where you fit into the scheme of things. They can identify you in social-role terms without having to think about it. They know that you are a family, and that you and your spouse are probably not available for certain recreational activities, and that if you have kids you'll probably be showing up at PTA meetings. You are a known member of the community.
Want to try that with a domestic partnership? In Washington state or California, you could come close; in Chicago, it means nothing. (Yes, we do have a domestic partnership registry in Chicago. And it really does mean almost nothing, except that if your employer offers domestic partner benefits, you qualify. And you get to pay the taxes on them.) But people can recognize you as a couple only to the extent that they recognize any other couple cohabiting. You're not "married."
There's a fair amount of history at the beginning of that essay that as far as I can see doesn't pertain, centering on the "traditional" marriage in which a father essentially granted property rights in his daughter to her new owner. The minute you have two guys in Iowa getting married, that goes right out the window. (And I might remind those lesbian feminists who are against marriage to remember that, as well. The point is, as you should have been able to infer from the points I made above about marriage as a social-recognition mechanism, that marriage may be tied up with patriarchy in your mind, but that doesn't mean it is in mine.)
Anyway, I'd be inclined to take this whole thing more seriously if I thought Flynn was serious, but somehow, I think he's just playing.
Update: Ran across this response by Andrew Sullivan to other arguments in a similar vein, by Jonathan Rowe and Robert P. George. (Rowe is also responding to this post by Sullivan.) I haven't read them yet, but I'll come back to this when I've had a chance. In the meantime, read Sullivan's piece -- he underscores some of my arguments above about the social-recognition function of marriage, and makes a couple of new points.
Idiot of the Week
Arthur Laffer. I couldn't embed the video, but watch Laffer spouting off about "how would you like it if the government were running Medicare and Medicaid?" It's a major howler.
What's even worse is that no one calls him on it.
What's even worse is that no one calls him on it.
Obama's Civil Rights Agenda
I meant to post this yesterday and forgot. (I overslept -- do you believe it? Me?)
Very odd post by a guest blogger, Alexander Tsesis, at Balkinization on Obaman's civil rights agenda. Note the complete inability to see the elephant in the room. Although health care is included, and food stamps for ex-felons are included (can you ever, in this country, be an "ex-felon"?), there is no mention, aside from the hate crimes bill, of the major civil rights issue of the decade: GLBT rights. No mention of DADT repeal, no mention of DOMA, no mention of the Uniting American Families Act, no mention of transgender rights at all.
Perhaps this means, as I have begun to suspect, that Obama has no "civil rights agenda."
Very odd post by a guest blogger, Alexander Tsesis, at Balkinization on Obaman's civil rights agenda. Note the complete inability to see the elephant in the room. Although health care is included, and food stamps for ex-felons are included (can you ever, in this country, be an "ex-felon"?), there is no mention, aside from the hate crimes bill, of the major civil rights issue of the decade: GLBT rights. No mention of DADT repeal, no mention of DOMA, no mention of the Uniting American Families Act, no mention of transgender rights at all.
Perhaps this means, as I have begun to suspect, that Obama has no "civil rights agenda."
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Take a Look
I've updated this post on the reaction of the libertarian right to Dr. Thio Li-Ann's fiasco at NYU. (That's what I get for trying to post at work, where I am interrupted approximately every thirty seconds by the criminally confused.) Some comments I had simply forgotten to include the first time around.
Monday, August 03, 2009
America
From a British point of view. Here is a rather wonderful report from Justin Webb, who for the past seven years has been the BBC's North American editor and is now returning to Britain.
The immensity of America, the energy and the zest for life remind me sometimes of India. And as with India, where I spent some time for the BBC many moons ago, America shines a light on the entire human condition.
Few other nations really do. Italy reveals truths about Italians, Afghanistan about Afghans, Fiji about Fijians. But America speaks to the whole of humanity because the whole of humanity is represented here; our possibilities and our propensities.
Read the whole thing. It's sympathetic, sometimes acerbic, humorous, and fairly tough.
The immensity of America, the energy and the zest for life remind me sometimes of India. And as with India, where I spent some time for the BBC many moons ago, America shines a light on the entire human condition.
Few other nations really do. Italy reveals truths about Italians, Afghanistan about Afghans, Fiji about Fijians. But America speaks to the whole of humanity because the whole of humanity is represented here; our possibilities and our propensities.
Read the whole thing. It's sympathetic, sometimes acerbic, humorous, and fairly tough.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Reviews in Brief Momoko Tenzen's Manhattan Love Story
Every once in a while something slips through the cracks and you find yourself scratching your head and saying to yourself "I don't believe that." That's my story with Momoko Tenzen's Manhattan Love Story. What I don't believe is that I haven't given it a notice here.This is another one of those collections of related stories, centered on Diamond "Dan" Loving, a florist in New York City. His lover is Rock Melville, a young, high-powered executive who happens to own, among other things, the shop from which Dan works. Another set of stories involves Kirie Kanan, Dan's co-worker in the shop, and Kenji, a young Japanese student visiting New York. The story about Kenji's young cousin, Rafael, and a teacher in his school takes us a few years into the future, then we come back to now for a sweet comic tale about Rock's secretary, Jessie Cry, and his spiky, difficult lover Lou.
These are more of Tenzen's low-key stories, subtly told and worth thinking about after you read them -- there's probably something you missed. They are, as is the case with her stories, character-driven, and the characters are richly drawn and easy to like. Dan's insecurity about Rock, Kirie's angry hurt when Kenji seemingly forgets him, Rafael's confusion about Mr. Austin, all ring true -- even Lou dropping his grouchy facade long enough to reassure Jessie about his place in Lou's heart has reality behind it.
And of course, there's Tenzen's drawing, which I love. Even in this early work -- 2002 -- it's elegant and expressive. And this is her best cover, at least insofar as giving an accurate idea of the interior art.
OK, it's not up to the level of Seven or The Paradise on the Hill, but if you want to spend a nice hour or two with something charming and romantic, this is a good one to put on your list. From Juné.
(Irony note: I ran across another "review" of this one, as well as another of my favorites, Satoru Ishihara's God of Dogs, that panned both of them. An object lesson in what happens when you don't put your preconceptions aside. Besides, the fool should have known that you never pay attention to cover copy.)
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Who's Running the Country, Part ?
It's not us, that's for damned sure. It seems the American citizen has a chance to affect the decisions every two years, reflected in our ability to boot assholes out of office when their abuses become to egregious to ignore any longer. From Susie Madrak at C&L, interesting little tidbit on who actually has some influence in Congress. Read her post -- I can't do it justice.
I also recommend keeping up with Barbara O'Brien's posts on health care reform at The Mahablog. She's another who's on top of it.
As a counter to Rep. Ross and his DINO friends, get this story about Rep. Anthony Weiner (D (a real one)-NY), who forced opponents of reform to go on record about "government run health care."
I also recommend keeping up with Barbara O'Brien's posts on health care reform at The Mahablog. She's another who's on top of it.
As a counter to Rep. Ross and his DINO friends, get this story about Rep. Anthony Weiner (D (a real one)-NY), who forced opponents of reform to go on record about "government run health care."
Dr. Thio: Recap and Update (Updated Again)
Reader PietB called attention to this story at NYT as additional information on my post about Andrew Sullivan's post on Dr. Thio Li-Ann. Sullivan:
Thio Li-ann, a Singapore law professor, was forced to resign from an NYU human rights course after students protested what they called her anti-gay views.
It seems that the major form the protest took was that almost no one enrolled for her classes. There was, indeed, a petition signed by 748 people against her appointment, but I think real meat is the low enrollment. And note the word tricks here: they protested what "they called" her anti-gay views. By any objective measure, she's an anti-gay advocate who could put James Dobson to shame. Update: In that vein, please note that Dr. Thio was not "forced to resign." She withdrew her name because of the antipathy expressed by the students toward her repellent record on human, specifically, gay rights. Again, there's that low enrollment, which I understand was pathetic for a distinguished visiting professor.
As usual, I find myself with two prongs to this discussion. (Remember, there's never only one answer.)
First is Sullivan's reaction. Knee-jerk glibertarianism. Sullivan is too ready to condemn "the left" for doing what the right has done for years, which is taking those with opposed views to task. I'm not doing the "but your side does it, too" dance, because Sullivan is quite publicly appalled by the anti-gay stance of the rabid right in this country, but I don't recall him ever making the kind of sweeping denunciation of the authoritarian right-wing bigots here that he routinely makes toward the "authoritarian left." (I don't recall any instance of the left making up outright lies about their opponents, as is customary with Dr. Thio and her ilk. I provided a link to the notorious speech against repeal of 337A in my earlier post, but here it is again. It's pretty awful, just from a factual accuracy point of view, and the reasoning is based more on debater's tricks than anything else -- sort of what you'd expect from a law professor.) Sullivan's reaction to this sort of thing is "It's 'the left' doing it, so it must be anti-democratic," which is a stance that defies not only reason, but any shred of sanity.
To give credit where credit it due, Sullivan will be educated. It takes a lot, but he is open enough for that.
Another strand of this is the idea that she should be provided another forum for expressing her views, as repellent as they may be. Sullivan's post, as I noted, relies heavily on this piece by Wendy Kaminer. Let me point out that Kaminer's bias is evident in the last sentence of her first paragraph:
According to a petition protesting it, she had opposed repeal of a Singaporean law criminalizing homosexual conduct and "supported the imposition of a $15,000 fine on a free-access Singaporean television channel for presenting a gay couple and their child as a family unit." (If the latter claim is accurate, it surely undermines her credibility as victim of censorship.)
There's no reason to doubt the accuracy of that report. Dr. Thio has not disputed it any place that I can find, and to cast it in terms of "If it is accurate" to me reads as an attempt to undercut the credibility of testimony against Dr. Thio. What is accurate is that she has no credibility as a victim of censorship. She has not been censored. She's just been given to understand that her views are unacceptable to enough of those at NYU's law school that her appearance there would be a failure.
The major flaw in the Sullivan/Kaminer stance is simply that Dr. Thio has had ample opportunity to express her views on homosexuality and has taken advantage of it. Kaminer:
The refusal of law students even to hear opposing views, reflecting opposing moral codes, is particularly worrisome. I wouldn't want one of these future lawyers ever advocating for me. They're unlikely to learn how to argue effectively if they limit their law school debates to matters about which only presumptively reasonable people disagree. Uniformity of opinion breeds complacency, close-mindedness, and a tendency to mistake attitudes for arguments.
But the whole point is that her views are on record, and you can bet those students were aware of her views and her expression of them. As I pointed out in my previous post, her factual basis for her opinions is nonexistent and her reasoning is pure sophistry -- hardly qualifications to be teaching at NYU or anyplace else. (Perhaps in matters of pure, abstract, constitutional law she is a competent if not inspired teacher. I wonder if mere competence is enough.) I wonder what the reaction from the Kaminer/Sullivan camp would have been if a well-known gay rights activist had been invited to a guest lectureship at, say, Bob Jones University, only to withdraw after massive protests and denunuciations. Would we have heard snide remarks about the "authoritarian right"?
What makes me wonder if Kaminer really knows what she's talking about is simply that I've actually read Dr. Thio's 337A speech, which I discussed earlier. Dr. Thio disqualified herself as a teacher simply on the basis of the manner in which her "arguments" were presented and the fact that those arguments have, at best, a tenuous relationship with objective reality.
What I'm left with is that both Sullivan and Kaminer are saying, in effect, that those with radical views, unfounded in any sort of factual reality, should be provided a forum to express those views because they are radical and unfounded. This is, apparently, even more true if those views are offensive to a large portion of the prospective audience, and especially if that audience can in any way be typified as "liberal."
Update: Another comment: I've said before that I consider libertarianism a morally bankrupt political philosophy (and I won't go into the complete absence of intellectual underpinnings based on the ways human societies actually work), and neither Sullivan nor Kaminer have done anything to change my mind. Both seem to be, from their comments on this issue, just waiting for another chance to take a poke at "the authoritarian left" without every examining the realities of the situation under discussion. One has to wonder when The Atlantic became the final refuge of second-rate thinkers. Going back over this, I can't identify any real substance to Kaminer's text, and Sullivan's biases are embarrassingly obvious.
We now return to our previously scheduled program.
As for Dr. Thio's reaction to the controversy, it's no suprise that she attempted to take the moral high ground -- and failed. From the Straits Times:
In a response carried in the Insider Higher Ed portal, Dr Thio said: 'Everyone is entitled to their opinion, free conscience, free thought - that is a cardinal principle for every academic community.'
'We can be united in commitment to this principle, without slavishly bowing to a demanded uniformity or dogma of political correctness set by elite diktat. I cannot say I am impressed by this ugly brand of politicking which I hope is not endemic.'
'I think certain Americans have to realise the fact that there are a diversity of views on the subject and it is not a settled matter; there is no universal norm and it is nothing short of moral imperialism to suggest there is.'
Referring back to the $15,000 fine issue, Dr. Thio seems to believe that the idea that "everyone is entitled to their opinion, free conscience, free thought" has distinct limits, particularly for those who hold views opposed to her own. Now, she may make the argument that a free-access television station is not an "academic community," but why should such freedoms be limited to that milieu? That's not what democracy is about.
I'd also like to take issue with her comment about "moral imperialism." First, that is exactly what she is espousing, except that it's her concept of morality which much take precedence, at least in Singapore. She doesn't seem to like it when she can't have the game played by her rules.
There's also the fact that she's talking about a "morality" that is purely a social construct that has been ripped out of its original context, where it might have had some validity as a mechanism for social unification (there is evidence that the twelve tribes that became the nation of Israel were, in fact, a congeries of groups, not all of which were even Semites, that banded together under the banner of one God) and used as an instrument of social control in contexts in which it has become less and less valid, particularly as we learn more about human behavior, and even more particularly in this instance as we learn more about the origins and prevalence of same-sex attraction. (It's also, as I have stated before, a particularly shallow reading of morality that relies on a mechanistic view of people and doesn't come close to developing a basis for moral behavior.)
In short, the Sullivan/Kaminer whining about "free speech" is simply a matter of a shoe that fits on either foot. It's a much more complex question, even in this case, than either of them are really capable of dealing with, from all appearances.
As I see it, Sullivan and Kaminer are using Dr. Thio to attack those who are exercising their rights to free speech to protest Dr. Thio's appointment. The protests took a couple of forms, one of which proved very effective. PietB noted that she has lost face big-time because of the low enrollment in her classes. I suppose the Sullivan/Kaminer camp would hold the attitude that students should have enrolled because we not only must be willing to listen to offensive viewpoints, but must make a special effort to do so.
Sullivan remarked:
It seems to me that gay rights supporters should always, always, always defend the freedom of speech and association of our opponents. In a free and open debate, we will always win because our arguments are so strong.
No one has attacked Dr. Thio's right to express her views. She has been criticized for the content of those views, and the university was, quite rightly, I think, criticized for providing a forum for those views. Let me point out that we are in the age of the Internet -- it's not like anyone of any prominence (and large numbers of those with no prominence whatsoever) is lacking a public forum: the Internet is one big public forum, and maybe Sullivan should alter his conceptual basis of the universe to take account of that fact. Dr. Thio has exercised her right to free speech. That's not the question. The question is whether an American university must provide her yet another forum to express those views.
I found it particularly revealing that Kaminer quoted the remarks of Richard Revesz, dean of NYU's law school, without apparently understanding what he actually said:
"At the same time, our evaluation of Professor Thio's strength as a scholar might have been usefully informed by an assessment of the analytic cogency and methodological integrity of the arguments and evidence she marshaled for her position."
That sounds to me very much as though he's saying that if they had investigated a little more thoroughly and actually read any of her statements in terms of their "analytic cogency and methodological integrity," she never would have been offered the appointment to begin with. (And as for the evidence, I've already noted that what I saw was carefully selected to support her agenda, and in large part was either misinformation or complete fabrication.)
Damn -- I'm certainly not a law professor -- I don't even write for the Atlantic -- and I could spot the holes in her reasoning a mile away.
Lord save us from wishy-washy libertarians. I mean, if you're going to argue a position, make sure you've actually got a position to argue before you open your mouth.
(Footnote: I've heard from a correspondent in Singapore who is terribly embarrassed by Dr. Thio. As he put it, that's the part of Singapore that he didn't want me to know about, and earnestly wants me to understand that they're not all like that. In fact, most of them aren't.)
Thio Li-ann, a Singapore law professor, was forced to resign from an NYU human rights course after students protested what they called her anti-gay views.
It seems that the major form the protest took was that almost no one enrolled for her classes. There was, indeed, a petition signed by 748 people against her appointment, but I think real meat is the low enrollment. And note the word tricks here: they protested what "they called" her anti-gay views. By any objective measure, she's an anti-gay advocate who could put James Dobson to shame. Update: In that vein, please note that Dr. Thio was not "forced to resign." She withdrew her name because of the antipathy expressed by the students toward her repellent record on human, specifically, gay rights. Again, there's that low enrollment, which I understand was pathetic for a distinguished visiting professor.
As usual, I find myself with two prongs to this discussion. (Remember, there's never only one answer.)
First is Sullivan's reaction. Knee-jerk glibertarianism. Sullivan is too ready to condemn "the left" for doing what the right has done for years, which is taking those with opposed views to task. I'm not doing the "but your side does it, too" dance, because Sullivan is quite publicly appalled by the anti-gay stance of the rabid right in this country, but I don't recall him ever making the kind of sweeping denunciation of the authoritarian right-wing bigots here that he routinely makes toward the "authoritarian left." (I don't recall any instance of the left making up outright lies about their opponents, as is customary with Dr. Thio and her ilk. I provided a link to the notorious speech against repeal of 337A in my earlier post, but here it is again. It's pretty awful, just from a factual accuracy point of view, and the reasoning is based more on debater's tricks than anything else -- sort of what you'd expect from a law professor.) Sullivan's reaction to this sort of thing is "It's 'the left' doing it, so it must be anti-democratic," which is a stance that defies not only reason, but any shred of sanity.
To give credit where credit it due, Sullivan will be educated. It takes a lot, but he is open enough for that.
Another strand of this is the idea that she should be provided another forum for expressing her views, as repellent as they may be. Sullivan's post, as I noted, relies heavily on this piece by Wendy Kaminer. Let me point out that Kaminer's bias is evident in the last sentence of her first paragraph:
According to a petition protesting it, she had opposed repeal of a Singaporean law criminalizing homosexual conduct and "supported the imposition of a $15,000 fine on a free-access Singaporean television channel for presenting a gay couple and their child as a family unit." (If the latter claim is accurate, it surely undermines her credibility as victim of censorship.)
There's no reason to doubt the accuracy of that report. Dr. Thio has not disputed it any place that I can find, and to cast it in terms of "If it is accurate" to me reads as an attempt to undercut the credibility of testimony against Dr. Thio. What is accurate is that she has no credibility as a victim of censorship. She has not been censored. She's just been given to understand that her views are unacceptable to enough of those at NYU's law school that her appearance there would be a failure.
The major flaw in the Sullivan/Kaminer stance is simply that Dr. Thio has had ample opportunity to express her views on homosexuality and has taken advantage of it. Kaminer:
The refusal of law students even to hear opposing views, reflecting opposing moral codes, is particularly worrisome. I wouldn't want one of these future lawyers ever advocating for me. They're unlikely to learn how to argue effectively if they limit their law school debates to matters about which only presumptively reasonable people disagree. Uniformity of opinion breeds complacency, close-mindedness, and a tendency to mistake attitudes for arguments.
But the whole point is that her views are on record, and you can bet those students were aware of her views and her expression of them. As I pointed out in my previous post, her factual basis for her opinions is nonexistent and her reasoning is pure sophistry -- hardly qualifications to be teaching at NYU or anyplace else. (Perhaps in matters of pure, abstract, constitutional law she is a competent if not inspired teacher. I wonder if mere competence is enough.) I wonder what the reaction from the Kaminer/Sullivan camp would have been if a well-known gay rights activist had been invited to a guest lectureship at, say, Bob Jones University, only to withdraw after massive protests and denunuciations. Would we have heard snide remarks about the "authoritarian right"?
What makes me wonder if Kaminer really knows what she's talking about is simply that I've actually read Dr. Thio's 337A speech, which I discussed earlier. Dr. Thio disqualified herself as a teacher simply on the basis of the manner in which her "arguments" were presented and the fact that those arguments have, at best, a tenuous relationship with objective reality.
What I'm left with is that both Sullivan and Kaminer are saying, in effect, that those with radical views, unfounded in any sort of factual reality, should be provided a forum to express those views because they are radical and unfounded. This is, apparently, even more true if those views are offensive to a large portion of the prospective audience, and especially if that audience can in any way be typified as "liberal."
Update: Another comment: I've said before that I consider libertarianism a morally bankrupt political philosophy (and I won't go into the complete absence of intellectual underpinnings based on the ways human societies actually work), and neither Sullivan nor Kaminer have done anything to change my mind. Both seem to be, from their comments on this issue, just waiting for another chance to take a poke at "the authoritarian left" without every examining the realities of the situation under discussion. One has to wonder when The Atlantic became the final refuge of second-rate thinkers. Going back over this, I can't identify any real substance to Kaminer's text, and Sullivan's biases are embarrassingly obvious.
We now return to our previously scheduled program.
As for Dr. Thio's reaction to the controversy, it's no suprise that she attempted to take the moral high ground -- and failed. From the Straits Times:
In a response carried in the Insider Higher Ed portal, Dr Thio said: 'Everyone is entitled to their opinion, free conscience, free thought - that is a cardinal principle for every academic community.'
'We can be united in commitment to this principle, without slavishly bowing to a demanded uniformity or dogma of political correctness set by elite diktat. I cannot say I am impressed by this ugly brand of politicking which I hope is not endemic.'
'I think certain Americans have to realise the fact that there are a diversity of views on the subject and it is not a settled matter; there is no universal norm and it is nothing short of moral imperialism to suggest there is.'
Referring back to the $15,000 fine issue, Dr. Thio seems to believe that the idea that "everyone is entitled to their opinion, free conscience, free thought" has distinct limits, particularly for those who hold views opposed to her own. Now, she may make the argument that a free-access television station is not an "academic community," but why should such freedoms be limited to that milieu? That's not what democracy is about.
I'd also like to take issue with her comment about "moral imperialism." First, that is exactly what she is espousing, except that it's her concept of morality which much take precedence, at least in Singapore. She doesn't seem to like it when she can't have the game played by her rules.
There's also the fact that she's talking about a "morality" that is purely a social construct that has been ripped out of its original context, where it might have had some validity as a mechanism for social unification (there is evidence that the twelve tribes that became the nation of Israel were, in fact, a congeries of groups, not all of which were even Semites, that banded together under the banner of one God) and used as an instrument of social control in contexts in which it has become less and less valid, particularly as we learn more about human behavior, and even more particularly in this instance as we learn more about the origins and prevalence of same-sex attraction. (It's also, as I have stated before, a particularly shallow reading of morality that relies on a mechanistic view of people and doesn't come close to developing a basis for moral behavior.)
In short, the Sullivan/Kaminer whining about "free speech" is simply a matter of a shoe that fits on either foot. It's a much more complex question, even in this case, than either of them are really capable of dealing with, from all appearances.
As I see it, Sullivan and Kaminer are using Dr. Thio to attack those who are exercising their rights to free speech to protest Dr. Thio's appointment. The protests took a couple of forms, one of which proved very effective. PietB noted that she has lost face big-time because of the low enrollment in her classes. I suppose the Sullivan/Kaminer camp would hold the attitude that students should have enrolled because we not only must be willing to listen to offensive viewpoints, but must make a special effort to do so.
Sullivan remarked:
It seems to me that gay rights supporters should always, always, always defend the freedom of speech and association of our opponents. In a free and open debate, we will always win because our arguments are so strong.
No one has attacked Dr. Thio's right to express her views. She has been criticized for the content of those views, and the university was, quite rightly, I think, criticized for providing a forum for those views. Let me point out that we are in the age of the Internet -- it's not like anyone of any prominence (and large numbers of those with no prominence whatsoever) is lacking a public forum: the Internet is one big public forum, and maybe Sullivan should alter his conceptual basis of the universe to take account of that fact. Dr. Thio has exercised her right to free speech. That's not the question. The question is whether an American university must provide her yet another forum to express those views.
I found it particularly revealing that Kaminer quoted the remarks of Richard Revesz, dean of NYU's law school, without apparently understanding what he actually said:
"At the same time, our evaluation of Professor Thio's strength as a scholar might have been usefully informed by an assessment of the analytic cogency and methodological integrity of the arguments and evidence she marshaled for her position."
That sounds to me very much as though he's saying that if they had investigated a little more thoroughly and actually read any of her statements in terms of their "analytic cogency and methodological integrity," she never would have been offered the appointment to begin with. (And as for the evidence, I've already noted that what I saw was carefully selected to support her agenda, and in large part was either misinformation or complete fabrication.)
Damn -- I'm certainly not a law professor -- I don't even write for the Atlantic -- and I could spot the holes in her reasoning a mile away.
Lord save us from wishy-washy libertarians. I mean, if you're going to argue a position, make sure you've actually got a position to argue before you open your mouth.
(Footnote: I've heard from a correspondent in Singapore who is terribly embarrassed by Dr. Thio. As he put it, that's the part of Singapore that he didn't want me to know about, and earnestly wants me to understand that they're not all like that. In fact, most of them aren't.)
Friday, July 31, 2009
Y'Know, It's Like Evolution
You reach a point where the evidence is so overwhelming that you have to take it as fact. From Ezra Klein:
In my chat today, a reader asked me to respond to Megan McArdle's lengthy case against national health insurance. The problem is that, well, there's not a lot to specifically respond to. In 1,600 words, she doesn't muster a single link to a study or argument, nor a single number that she didn't make up (what numbers do exist come in the form of thought experiments and assumptions). Megan's argument against national health insurance boils down to a visceral hatred of the government.
He goes on from there. It's pretty devastating.
DougJ sums it up at Balloon Juice:
McMeghan does not deserve to be taken seriously. What bothers me most about the whole MCMEGHAN IS A SERIOUS THINKER stuff is that it stems not only from the strange respect the Atlantic imprimatur inexplicably yields, but also from the soft sexism of lowered expectations.
My own summation is somewhat more concise: Jeebus, are people still paying attention to her?
(It may be symptomatic of something that Andrew Sullivan has repeatedly noted how much he respects her opinions. I'm just not sure what.)
In my chat today, a reader asked me to respond to Megan McArdle's lengthy case against national health insurance. The problem is that, well, there's not a lot to specifically respond to. In 1,600 words, she doesn't muster a single link to a study or argument, nor a single number that she didn't make up (what numbers do exist come in the form of thought experiments and assumptions). Megan's argument against national health insurance boils down to a visceral hatred of the government.
He goes on from there. It's pretty devastating.
DougJ sums it up at Balloon Juice:
McMeghan does not deserve to be taken seriously. What bothers me most about the whole MCMEGHAN IS A SERIOUS THINKER stuff is that it stems not only from the strange respect the Atlantic imprimatur inexplicably yields, but also from the soft sexism of lowered expectations.
My own summation is somewhat more concise: Jeebus, are people still paying attention to her?
(It may be symptomatic of something that Andrew Sullivan has repeatedly noted how much he respects her opinions. I'm just not sure what.)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday Gay Blogging Goes Random
Since we elected a "progressive" president who has proven himself to be a "fierce advocate" for gay civil rights, the gay news has started hitting fast and furious. Since my Friday schedule no longer allows me much time to assemble a weekly summary, you'll be getting it as it happens -- or as much as I can keep up with. It will still carry the "Friday Gay Blogging" tag, so you can search using that.
(And all you Obamabots, please pardon the snark. You get what you pay for. Or less.)
(And all you Obamabots, please pardon the snark. You get what you pay for. Or less.)
Obama's Gay Rights Score Hits Negative Numbers
This is sort of devastating:
I don't think I need to add anything, except to note that when a progressive introduces a bill to help move toward what 70% of the American people want and is told by the White House to stop, just what is it that we're dealing with here?
There's nothing controversial about repeal of DADT -- even majorities of church-going Republicans endorse that one.
Update:
Here's a summary post of the results from our Democratic allies.
I don't think I need to add anything, except to note that when a progressive introduces a bill to help move toward what 70% of the American people want and is told by the White House to stop, just what is it that we're dealing with here?
There's nothing controversial about repeal of DADT -- even majorities of church-going Republicans endorse that one.
Update:
Here's a summary post of the results from our Democratic allies.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
On Free Speech, With Some Comments on Hate Crimes
Time to take another poke at Andrew Sullivan. My first reaction to this post was pretty negative, but in some respects Sullivan has it right: Thio Li-anh, who was recently forced to withdraw from consideration for an NYU human rights course, does have a right to express her opinions, no matter how wrong and baseless they are. (And I'm sure you're asking yourselves "Can an opinion be wrong?" Yes, of course it can, if it's based on false information.):
It seems to me that gay rights supporters should always, always, always defend the freedom of speech and association of our opponents. In a free and open debate, we will always win because our arguments are so strong.
At its best, that's a naive assumption that ignores everything we've learned in the past thirty years or so. If it were true, we wouldn't have to be campaigning for equal rights now.
There's also the question of whether Thio is really an appropriate teacher for a human rights course, given her views on human rights. From her public statements that I've read, she's not willing to include gays in the "human" part of that concept, and she's woefully ignorant of the realities of "gayness," its origins, and its context.
Be that as it may, does she have a right to express her views? Of course. Although from what I hear -- and that's supported by this snippet: "Dr. Thio, for one, "supported the imposition of a $15,000 fine on a free-access Singaporean television channel for presenting a gay couple and their child as a family unit." -- she's not willing to extend that right to others if she disagrees with them. That's an interesting question for Sullivan: If Dr. Thio and her like are not willing to extend those rights to others, why should we extend those rights to them? They are not, after all, playing by the rules.
But should the university provide a forum for those views without protest? That's a little knottier, and a question, I suspect, that's beyond Sullivan's depth.
Sullivan's taking off from this post by Wendy Kaminer in The Atlantic, which is another abstract, in the ideal world sort of discourse on free speech. Kaminer does touch on the key issue, which she at least notes, although she doesn't discuss it at all:
In responding to her withdrawal, NYU law school dean Richard Revesz smartly finessed questions about her appointment by noting that while her views should not have disqualified her, despite their variance from the university's ideals, the quality of her arguments in support of her views were relevant to her evaluation. "Leading academic institutions benefit greatly from a diversity of perspectives, not from hiring only people who share the same views," Revesv observed (he is quoted at length at abajournal.com). "At the same time, our evaluation of Professor Thio's strength as a scholar might have been usefully informed by an assessment of the analytic cogency and methodological integrity of the arguments and evidence she marshaled for her position."
Kaminer doesn't seem to have really read any of Thio Li-anh's statements. I did find a transcript of the notorious speech to Parliament defending section 337A, Singapore's anti-gay law. It's a mish-mash of flat assertions, appeals to "morality," misinformation, unsupported statements -- the standard right-wing scare speech. This is just an example:
Homosexuality is a gender identity disorder; there are numerous examples of former homosexuals successfully dealing with this. They claim a right of sexual reorientation. Just this year, two high profile US activists left the homosexual lifestyle, the publisher of Venus, a lesbian magazine, and an editor of Young Gay America. Their stories are available online. An article by an ex-gay in the New Statesmen this July identified the roots of his emotional hurts, like a distant father, overbearing mother and sexual abuse by a family friend; after working through his pain, his unwanted same-sex attractions left. While difficult, change is possible and a compassionate society would help those wanting to fulfill their heterosexual potential.
This is crap from the beginning. "Gender identity disorder"? Conflating two different typologies -- one of the right's favorite tactics. I'm a man. I've always been a man. I love being a man. I love other men for being men. None of us think we're women, nor do we want to be: we are not transexuals. Transexuals have an entirely different psychological make-up.
Ex-gays: This is another assertion as fact of something that is highly debatable at best. "Numerous examples" is an overstatement. "Ex-gay" proponents in the U.S. have claimed "thousands" of successful conversions, but have never been able to produce more than a handful, most of whom have relapsed at the first opportunity. Even Alan Chambers admits that his orientation hasn't changed -- he's just denying it expression. And of course, Thio didn't mention the fact that such conversions have been condemned by every reputable association of psychologists, psychotherapists, and other caregivers.
So if this is the caliber of Thio Li-anh's reasoning ability, I have to say that, in formal terms, she's not all that great, as well as being reality-challenged. She's arguing an agenda, and doing so using specious methods. I don't see how that qualifies her to teach human rights law.
As for the content of her remarks, I personally think she should have been allowed to teach the course -- and let the students nail her there, both on content and form.
Oh, and about hate crimes. Sullivan shows, once again, his essential shallowness:
And yet the authoritarian part of the left is often there, waiting in the wings. We need vigilance against them and their arguments, including the poisonous concept of hate crime laws.
Why he felt it necessary to throw in the reference to "the poisonous concept of hate crime laws" I think owes more to Sullivan's own issues than anything else. To put it in terms that even Sullivan should be able to understand, "hate crimes" are, by definition, a form of terrorism: their effect is to intimidate members of a group. Hate crime laws stipulate enhanced penalties for violent crimes motivated by bias. Enhanced penalties based on motivation are nothing new in Western jurisprudence -- the difference between murder and manslaughter is one of motivation. To equate enhanced penalties for violent crimes in this category with criminalizing thought, as Sullivan and others have done, is specious at best. I find it hard to believe that Sullivan would willingly put himself in the same class as James Dobson, Bill O'Reilly, Mat Staver, and their ilk. He really needs to rethink that whole thing, with some grounding in reality.
Don't misunderstand -- you should know by now that I have little patience with the PC left. I don't respond well to authority, no matter which end of the political spectrum it originates from. I suspect, however, that Sullivan and I have different criteria for assigning membership in that particular group.
It seems to me that gay rights supporters should always, always, always defend the freedom of speech and association of our opponents. In a free and open debate, we will always win because our arguments are so strong.
At its best, that's a naive assumption that ignores everything we've learned in the past thirty years or so. If it were true, we wouldn't have to be campaigning for equal rights now.
There's also the question of whether Thio is really an appropriate teacher for a human rights course, given her views on human rights. From her public statements that I've read, she's not willing to include gays in the "human" part of that concept, and she's woefully ignorant of the realities of "gayness," its origins, and its context.
Be that as it may, does she have a right to express her views? Of course. Although from what I hear -- and that's supported by this snippet: "Dr. Thio, for one, "supported the imposition of a $15,000 fine on a free-access Singaporean television channel for presenting a gay couple and their child as a family unit." -- she's not willing to extend that right to others if she disagrees with them. That's an interesting question for Sullivan: If Dr. Thio and her like are not willing to extend those rights to others, why should we extend those rights to them? They are not, after all, playing by the rules.
But should the university provide a forum for those views without protest? That's a little knottier, and a question, I suspect, that's beyond Sullivan's depth.
Sullivan's taking off from this post by Wendy Kaminer in The Atlantic, which is another abstract, in the ideal world sort of discourse on free speech. Kaminer does touch on the key issue, which she at least notes, although she doesn't discuss it at all:
In responding to her withdrawal, NYU law school dean Richard Revesz smartly finessed questions about her appointment by noting that while her views should not have disqualified her, despite their variance from the university's ideals, the quality of her arguments in support of her views were relevant to her evaluation. "Leading academic institutions benefit greatly from a diversity of perspectives, not from hiring only people who share the same views," Revesv observed (he is quoted at length at abajournal.com). "At the same time, our evaluation of Professor Thio's strength as a scholar might have been usefully informed by an assessment of the analytic cogency and methodological integrity of the arguments and evidence she marshaled for her position."
Kaminer doesn't seem to have really read any of Thio Li-anh's statements. I did find a transcript of the notorious speech to Parliament defending section 337A, Singapore's anti-gay law. It's a mish-mash of flat assertions, appeals to "morality," misinformation, unsupported statements -- the standard right-wing scare speech. This is just an example:
Homosexuality is a gender identity disorder; there are numerous examples of former homosexuals successfully dealing with this. They claim a right of sexual reorientation. Just this year, two high profile US activists left the homosexual lifestyle, the publisher of Venus, a lesbian magazine, and an editor of Young Gay America. Their stories are available online. An article by an ex-gay in the New Statesmen this July identified the roots of his emotional hurts, like a distant father, overbearing mother and sexual abuse by a family friend; after working through his pain, his unwanted same-sex attractions left. While difficult, change is possible and a compassionate society would help those wanting to fulfill their heterosexual potential.
This is crap from the beginning. "Gender identity disorder"? Conflating two different typologies -- one of the right's favorite tactics. I'm a man. I've always been a man. I love being a man. I love other men for being men. None of us think we're women, nor do we want to be: we are not transexuals. Transexuals have an entirely different psychological make-up.
Ex-gays: This is another assertion as fact of something that is highly debatable at best. "Numerous examples" is an overstatement. "Ex-gay" proponents in the U.S. have claimed "thousands" of successful conversions, but have never been able to produce more than a handful, most of whom have relapsed at the first opportunity. Even Alan Chambers admits that his orientation hasn't changed -- he's just denying it expression. And of course, Thio didn't mention the fact that such conversions have been condemned by every reputable association of psychologists, psychotherapists, and other caregivers.
So if this is the caliber of Thio Li-anh's reasoning ability, I have to say that, in formal terms, she's not all that great, as well as being reality-challenged. She's arguing an agenda, and doing so using specious methods. I don't see how that qualifies her to teach human rights law.
As for the content of her remarks, I personally think she should have been allowed to teach the course -- and let the students nail her there, both on content and form.
Oh, and about hate crimes. Sullivan shows, once again, his essential shallowness:
And yet the authoritarian part of the left is often there, waiting in the wings. We need vigilance against them and their arguments, including the poisonous concept of hate crime laws.
Why he felt it necessary to throw in the reference to "the poisonous concept of hate crime laws" I think owes more to Sullivan's own issues than anything else. To put it in terms that even Sullivan should be able to understand, "hate crimes" are, by definition, a form of terrorism: their effect is to intimidate members of a group. Hate crime laws stipulate enhanced penalties for violent crimes motivated by bias. Enhanced penalties based on motivation are nothing new in Western jurisprudence -- the difference between murder and manslaughter is one of motivation. To equate enhanced penalties for violent crimes in this category with criminalizing thought, as Sullivan and others have done, is specious at best. I find it hard to believe that Sullivan would willingly put himself in the same class as James Dobson, Bill O'Reilly, Mat Staver, and their ilk. He really needs to rethink that whole thing, with some grounding in reality.
Don't misunderstand -- you should know by now that I have little patience with the PC left. I don't respond well to authority, no matter which end of the political spectrum it originates from. I suspect, however, that Sullivan and I have different criteria for assigning membership in that particular group.
It's the Democrats, Stupid!
I sort of saw this coming, but I didn't think it would be so blatant. The Democrats have spent the last fifteen years as a minority party catering to the Republicans. Now that they have the majority in both houses and the White House, they're . . . catering to the Republicans (including the Blue Dogs, who in a sane world would have run as Republicans to begin with).
Via Jane Hamsher at Campaign Silo, this knock-out interview with Maxine Waters (D-CA):
Note particularly Waters' comments on the White House's stance:
Of course they did. Because Rahm believes what the Blue Dogs believe. What's to interfere with? And let's remember -- Rahm beat the shit out of progressives on the supplemental/IMF and on Waxman-Markey. It's not like he has a "hands off" policy.
And Andrew Sullivan takes a swing at the Dems on gay rights:
It's vital for the gay rights movement to understand that the Republicans are intent on discriminating against gay citizens at every opportunity in order to win votes from bigots. And the Democratic party's only interest in gay equality is getting gay money.
(Clinton saw the money angle first and realized that the gay establishment was so desperate for any sort of recognition that he could get millions even while ramping up discrimination in the military and doing all he could to destroy our chances for marriage equality. And he intuitively knew that HRC's poobahs would worship him for it). Once you disillusion yourself of any other fantasies, it all gets easier to explain. None of the leading Democrats really believes that our civil rights are being trampled on; including president Obama, who has still achieved nothing substantive whatsoever for gay Americans.
I'd like to take Sullivan's comment on Obama one step farther -- not only has Obama not achieved anything substantive for gay Americans, he's said point-blank that he's not even going to try: he's leaving it up to Congress.
(As I've noted before, I -- and many others -- lay this at Rahm Emanuel's door. What surprises me is that Emanuel represented a very liberal, heavily gay district in Chicago, but got burned by the Clinton DADT debacle. And he hasn't figured out yet that it's not 1994 any more. It's just another example of how Washington works: screw your constituents, it's all about the Club.)
What it boils down to is that the Repubicans still have a majority in Congress -- it's just that a lot of them are calling themselves "Democrats."
Update: Here's a post by Publius at Obsidian Wings on one way to deal with the Blue Dogs. I wonder if anyone in Congress or the White House has any interest in doing that.
Via Jane Hamsher at Campaign Silo, this knock-out interview with Maxine Waters (D-CA):
Note particularly Waters' comments on the White House's stance:
WATERS: Well that may be difficult for Rahm Emanuel, because don't forget -- he recruited most of them. As when he was over in the Congress, in the leadership, Rahm Emanuel recruited more conservative members and based on some of the information I'm getting, they told them that they could vote the way they wanted to vote, that they would not interfere with what was considered their philosophy about some of these things. So, now the chickens have come home to roost.
Of course they did. Because Rahm believes what the Blue Dogs believe. What's to interfere with? And let's remember -- Rahm beat the shit out of progressives on the supplemental/IMF and on Waxman-Markey. It's not like he has a "hands off" policy.
And Andrew Sullivan takes a swing at the Dems on gay rights:
It's vital for the gay rights movement to understand that the Republicans are intent on discriminating against gay citizens at every opportunity in order to win votes from bigots. And the Democratic party's only interest in gay equality is getting gay money.
(Clinton saw the money angle first and realized that the gay establishment was so desperate for any sort of recognition that he could get millions even while ramping up discrimination in the military and doing all he could to destroy our chances for marriage equality. And he intuitively knew that HRC's poobahs would worship him for it). Once you disillusion yourself of any other fantasies, it all gets easier to explain. None of the leading Democrats really believes that our civil rights are being trampled on; including president Obama, who has still achieved nothing substantive whatsoever for gay Americans.
I'd like to take Sullivan's comment on Obama one step farther -- not only has Obama not achieved anything substantive for gay Americans, he's said point-blank that he's not even going to try: he's leaving it up to Congress.
(As I've noted before, I -- and many others -- lay this at Rahm Emanuel's door. What surprises me is that Emanuel represented a very liberal, heavily gay district in Chicago, but got burned by the Clinton DADT debacle. And he hasn't figured out yet that it's not 1994 any more. It's just another example of how Washington works: screw your constituents, it's all about the Club.)
What it boils down to is that the Repubicans still have a majority in Congress -- it's just that a lot of them are calling themselves "Democrats."
Update: Here's a post by Publius at Obsidian Wings on one way to deal with the Blue Dogs. I wonder if anyone in Congress or the White House has any interest in doing that.
Monday, July 27, 2009
What's Missing From This Picture?
An interesting case from Britain, reported by Pink News: A Christian doctor was removed from her position as a member of an adoption panel because she refused to vote on same-sex couples who were being considered as prospective parents. Just to show how far out of whack political correctness has gotten in some places, the reasoning is as follows:
However, in February a same-sex couple applied to the Northamptonshire panel. Dr Matthews told the head of Northamptonshire's children's services, Martin Pratt, that she was intending to abstain from any vote the panel made, and would not discuss her concerns with other panel members so as to not influence their decision.
Despite her promises she was barred from attending the panel and asked instead to meet with Mr Pratt to explain her position. Dr Matthews then told Mr Pratt that she felt unable to recommend same-sex applicants as suitable candidates. A few days Dr Matthews received notice from Mr Pratt informing her of the council's decision to replace her due to the "significant problems" her views created for the adoption service.
In the letter, Mr Pratt stated: "There are three concerns that I have: that we have to comply with the law, that we attract the widest possible range of suitable adopters and that we comply with our own policies.
"I believe that we could not allow a panel member to continue to participate in the process who is unable to consider, on the merits of the application alone, applications to adopt."
Her rationale is the standard-issue Christianist dodge:
In a statement, Dr Matthews said: "I don't feel that placing children for adoption with same-sex couples is the best place for them."
She added: "Mothers are more nurturing and fathers are more challenging and the combination of both is best for the development of a child."
She went on to express concerns that "The children of gay adoptive parents are also more likely to be bullied at school, on top of being singled out as different because they are adopted."
"As a Christian, I don't believe it's an appropriate lifestyle and I don't believe the outcomes for children would be as good as if they were placed with heterosexual couples."
Citing professional and personal reasons, she continued: "I cannot recommend placement in a same-sex household to be in the best interest of a child, despite what politicians may have legislated for."
I fault the panel's director for one thing: she was a medical advisor and her reasons for refusing to vote on gay couples have no scientific basis -- there is no support for any of her "beliefs" in real life. The other reasons he cited are tailor-made as fuel for the Christianist "victim" strategy. Why not use a perfectly valid -- and perfectly ideology-free -- reason?
As it happens, she has been reinstated but is not allowed to vote on any applicants, which seems fair to me.
However, in February a same-sex couple applied to the Northamptonshire panel. Dr Matthews told the head of Northamptonshire's children's services, Martin Pratt, that she was intending to abstain from any vote the panel made, and would not discuss her concerns with other panel members so as to not influence their decision.
Despite her promises she was barred from attending the panel and asked instead to meet with Mr Pratt to explain her position. Dr Matthews then told Mr Pratt that she felt unable to recommend same-sex applicants as suitable candidates. A few days Dr Matthews received notice from Mr Pratt informing her of the council's decision to replace her due to the "significant problems" her views created for the adoption service.
In the letter, Mr Pratt stated: "There are three concerns that I have: that we have to comply with the law, that we attract the widest possible range of suitable adopters and that we comply with our own policies.
"I believe that we could not allow a panel member to continue to participate in the process who is unable to consider, on the merits of the application alone, applications to adopt."
Her rationale is the standard-issue Christianist dodge:
In a statement, Dr Matthews said: "I don't feel that placing children for adoption with same-sex couples is the best place for them."
She added: "Mothers are more nurturing and fathers are more challenging and the combination of both is best for the development of a child."
She went on to express concerns that "The children of gay adoptive parents are also more likely to be bullied at school, on top of being singled out as different because they are adopted."
"As a Christian, I don't believe it's an appropriate lifestyle and I don't believe the outcomes for children would be as good as if they were placed with heterosexual couples."
Citing professional and personal reasons, she continued: "I cannot recommend placement in a same-sex household to be in the best interest of a child, despite what politicians may have legislated for."
I fault the panel's director for one thing: she was a medical advisor and her reasons for refusing to vote on gay couples have no scientific basis -- there is no support for any of her "beliefs" in real life. The other reasons he cited are tailor-made as fuel for the Christianist "victim" strategy. Why not use a perfectly valid -- and perfectly ideology-free -- reason?
As it happens, she has been reinstated but is not allowed to vote on any applicants, which seems fair to me.
Core Issues
This post by Chris Bodenner at Daily Dish is instructive, but not for the reasons Bodenner discusses.
Along those lines, the chart's creator, ReligiousTolerance.org, opted for the label "homosexual orientation" over "gay sex," while it referred to "teen sex" and "premarital sex" elsewhere. So it appears their methodology took into account the Catholic parsing of desire and behavior. I personally think such parsing is bullshit (e.g. how exactly is "deliberately engaging in fantasies" an action?). But in the mind of a strict Catholic, a homosexually-oriented person who's never engaged in gay sex is still neutral to sin.
The Church has the same position on masturbation that it does on homosexual behavior: "The Catechism calls masturbation 'an intrinsically and gravely disordered action' (CCC 2352)."
Bodenner is quoting from Catholic.com, and this I found revealing:
[W]e must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations of divine and natural law.
Now, divine law is an iffy sort of thing -- there seem to be as many "divine laws" as there are divinities, and anyone who has studied religion in any depth, particularly those faiths outside one's own, knows this. Even more ludicrous is the Church's repeated insistence on "natural law," a construct that is wholly theological and not only has nothing to do with nature, but flies in the face of observed fact. (I mean, come on -- monkeys masturbate, probably for the same reasons people do: they're horny and bored. So what's "intrinsically disordered" about it?)
I am put in mind of nothing more than a dictum that I ran across in my reading at one point, about the role of religion as a political instrument for maintaining those in power in their comfortable positions, which was expressed very succinctly by the author (and regrettably, due to the erosion of my bear trap-like memory by the inevitable advance of years, I don't remember who it was or where I ran across this gem): Control sex and you control the people. The Christian churches, thanks to the pernicious influence of St. Paul, have made controlling sex -- for everyone else, at least -- one of their primary purposes for the past 2,000 years. (Remember, by all reports, Paul didn't like sex -- unless it came with a rich widow.)
Rather than fostering any true understanding on the part of their followers into the moral ramifications of sexuality, the churches have opted for fear -- the first resort of those who have no substance to advance, as we can well see from the condition of our own political discourse. And, I might point out, it is the Roman Catholic Church in particular that has proven itself incapable of understanding morality in any real sense, particularly when a legitimately moral stance might erode its power.
There are those who will claim that by attacking their churches, I am attacking their religion. Nothing could be further from the truth: being a believer myself, and one whose religion recognizes that there are many ways that lead to the one Truth, I'm not prepared to condemn religious belief out of hand. Churches, however, are another story: no matter what their claims, they are purely man-made institutions (and for the overwhelming majority of such institutions, that is the literal truth), and their doctrines are no better than any other manifestation of human thought, and worse than many. We'd best keep in mind that they are flawed, imperfect as we are imperfect, and should be understood in the context of their times and their political aims, because they are as much political as anything else.
So, take Catholic doctrine on homosexual behavior for what it's worth: it is, after all, a human creation, based on nothing so much as a stray Bible verse, which may or may not have been interpreted correctly, used as a gloss to dress up the Church's overriding definition of humanity, which as far as I've been able to figure out, equates fairly closely with the term "breeding stock."
(Afterthought: Regarding "natural law," it strikes me that this is a deeply flawed doctrine developed from unfounded assumptions based on an imperfect understanding of nature and its workings -- or it might be more accurate to say "a complete disregard of nature and its workings." Remember that Nature fell from grace with humanity, but Nature, I'm told, is not redeemable, Teilhard de Chardin notwithstanding. Think about that for awhile.)
Along those lines, the chart's creator, ReligiousTolerance.org, opted for the label "homosexual orientation" over "gay sex," while it referred to "teen sex" and "premarital sex" elsewhere. So it appears their methodology took into account the Catholic parsing of desire and behavior. I personally think such parsing is bullshit (e.g. how exactly is "deliberately engaging in fantasies" an action?). But in the mind of a strict Catholic, a homosexually-oriented person who's never engaged in gay sex is still neutral to sin.
The Church has the same position on masturbation that it does on homosexual behavior: "The Catechism calls masturbation 'an intrinsically and gravely disordered action' (CCC 2352)."
Bodenner is quoting from Catholic.com, and this I found revealing:
[W]e must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations of divine and natural law.
Now, divine law is an iffy sort of thing -- there seem to be as many "divine laws" as there are divinities, and anyone who has studied religion in any depth, particularly those faiths outside one's own, knows this. Even more ludicrous is the Church's repeated insistence on "natural law," a construct that is wholly theological and not only has nothing to do with nature, but flies in the face of observed fact. (I mean, come on -- monkeys masturbate, probably for the same reasons people do: they're horny and bored. So what's "intrinsically disordered" about it?)
I am put in mind of nothing more than a dictum that I ran across in my reading at one point, about the role of religion as a political instrument for maintaining those in power in their comfortable positions, which was expressed very succinctly by the author (and regrettably, due to the erosion of my bear trap-like memory by the inevitable advance of years, I don't remember who it was or where I ran across this gem): Control sex and you control the people. The Christian churches, thanks to the pernicious influence of St. Paul, have made controlling sex -- for everyone else, at least -- one of their primary purposes for the past 2,000 years. (Remember, by all reports, Paul didn't like sex -- unless it came with a rich widow.)
Rather than fostering any true understanding on the part of their followers into the moral ramifications of sexuality, the churches have opted for fear -- the first resort of those who have no substance to advance, as we can well see from the condition of our own political discourse. And, I might point out, it is the Roman Catholic Church in particular that has proven itself incapable of understanding morality in any real sense, particularly when a legitimately moral stance might erode its power.
There are those who will claim that by attacking their churches, I am attacking their religion. Nothing could be further from the truth: being a believer myself, and one whose religion recognizes that there are many ways that lead to the one Truth, I'm not prepared to condemn religious belief out of hand. Churches, however, are another story: no matter what their claims, they are purely man-made institutions (and for the overwhelming majority of such institutions, that is the literal truth), and their doctrines are no better than any other manifestation of human thought, and worse than many. We'd best keep in mind that they are flawed, imperfect as we are imperfect, and should be understood in the context of their times and their political aims, because they are as much political as anything else.
So, take Catholic doctrine on homosexual behavior for what it's worth: it is, after all, a human creation, based on nothing so much as a stray Bible verse, which may or may not have been interpreted correctly, used as a gloss to dress up the Church's overriding definition of humanity, which as far as I've been able to figure out, equates fairly closely with the term "breeding stock."
(Afterthought: Regarding "natural law," it strikes me that this is a deeply flawed doctrine developed from unfounded assumptions based on an imperfect understanding of nature and its workings -- or it might be more accurate to say "a complete disregard of nature and its workings." Remember that Nature fell from grace with humanity, but Nature, I'm told, is not redeemable, Teilhard de Chardin notwithstanding. Think about that for awhile.)
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