Huckabizzle’s Progressophobia
I really enjoyed watching this clip from The Daily Show today. Jon Stewart goes right to the topic I would have and asks a lot of the same questions I wish I could. And, you get the impression he’s just as dissatisfied with the answers as I would have been.
He really gets to the crux of the Gay Marriage debate which is that there is no good secular argument against it. It’s great to see him force one of the religious right’s more likeable leaders to dance around the issue, because it shows that even the comparably sane and intelligent portion of that segment of society still can’t just answer a question.
There are, as far as I can tell, only three non-religious rationales behind banning gay marriage that are ever even proffered and one is off topic. They are:
1. It’s bad for everyone’s children. I heard this a lot in the debate about the California initiative, parents saying "I don’t want my children to have to learn about gay people." I don’t know where CNN found all of those Californians without basic cable to interview, but trust me ladies and gentlemen, your kids already know.
It’s 2008. Your kids are going to become aware that there is a such thing as same-sex couples. Little Timmy having two mommies isn’t going to be their first exposure, and even if it were, gay people already have children all the time.
You can’t restrict a civil liberty just because it means kids may have to learn about it in school before you’re ready for them to. I’m sure some people once didn’t want their children learning about interracial marriages for the same reason.
2. Gay couples are unfit to raise children. I would actually be open to hearing about this if the argument were over whether or not gay couples were allowed to adopt. You’d have to prove it (which would be tough because almost all data points to the opposite conclusion) but at least it wouldn’t be a straw man. But in reality gay marriage and gay adoption aren’t the same, and arguments against one, even if they were correct, wouldn’t be arguments against another.
In fact, if conservatives believe so heavily in marriage, and they don’t want to stop gays from adopting, they should want them to marry. I realize that sentence was logic, which is kryptonite to the religious right, but it’s true. If they’re already having children, and marriage makes them better parents, it’s in everyone’s best interest that they be allowed to.
3. It’s the way it’s always been. This is by far the most common one. As Stewart points out, for one, it isn’t the way it’s always been. It’s the way it’s been for a while, but not back in the Biblical times social conservatives seem to want to use as a template for modern society. Our marriage system would be almost totally unrecognizable to them. Women marrying in their late twenties to men they actually chose? Unheard of.
But even if it were the way it has always been, that wouldn’t make it right. Slavery had always been legal on this continent, until it wasn’t anymore. Women were always not allowed to vote, until they could. Even most social conservatives wouldn’t argue that those precedents were good ones.
I think that’s the fundamental difference between the socially progressives and the conservatives. Progressives realize that just because something is done one way, and has been done that way for awhile, doesn’t mean it’s right. Conservatives think "that’s the way it’s always been done" is a legitimate argument for anything, even when it hasn’t always been done that way and they’re just too ignorant to know it.
Every great moment of human progress came when someone realized that the way it’s always been done was wrong. Every scientific advance, every great business, every great political movement. Each one has someone behind it who realized that there was a better way than the present one. Einstein realized that the way we thought about time and space was wrong. Sam Walton realized that many things about the way retail chains operated was wrong. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement realized many of our laws were evil.
It’s no shocker that the GDP per capita of the socially conservative states trails so far behind that of the blue, they’re too busy doing things the way they’ve always been done to invent the ways we’ll do them in the future. And unfortunately our electoral college gives them disproportionate power allowing them (as happened in 2000, when they lost the popular vote but won the election due to it) to hold our nation in place against its own collective will.
Huckabee mentions that not all people who want to ban gay marriage are homophobic. I suppose that’s true. They’re not afraid of gay people (not all of them anyway) they’re afraid of change. They’re progressophobic.
December 11, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Conversely, what's the deal with gay couples that will settle for nothing less than a redefining of marriage to include same-sex couples, and that such marriages are recognized/sanctioned via both government and church? I asked a gay couple I know if they'd be satisfied with having a government recognized civil union that conveys all the liberties and privileges currently given to married couples; they said that wasn't good enough. As though it was tantamount to “separate but equal.” I know this is anecdotal, but I assume there are quite a few gay couples that feel the same way. This is where progressiveness goes wrong IMO, when the fight for liberty and equal protection becomes a crusade and culture war against conservatism. Many gay couples not only want to be treated fairly, they want to stick it to the conservatives, make it a fight. I think that tact is completely counter-productive, and in part, the reason why initiatives like Prop 8 gets passed in what is supposed to be a progressive and secular state such as California.
December 11, 2008 at 4:33 pm
No, I wouldn't care, as long as they're being afforded the same protections and benefits. In Plessy, the court ruled that SBE was fine under the text of the Constitution. In Brown, they found that SBE wasn't fair because it wasn't tenable, i.e. the black schools weren't afforded the same resources, the teachers weren't of the same caliber, etc., as white schools, so it was overturned and integration ensued. But in this case, affording gay couples equal protection and benefits as straight couples, is clearly tenable through civil unions because the government isn't required to provide resources in this case, just basic freedoms, e.g. right to see spouse in hospital, etc., and any benefits, e.g. tax breaks, etc.
The terminology doesn't mean anything substantive if the definition entails equal treatment by law.
December 12, 2008 at 8:31 am
Regardless of what is fair/reasonable/right, the fact is that gays are not technically denied any substantive right that others possess.
They want to marry members of the same sex. They are not singled out and denied the right to do that – no one is allowed to marry a member of the same sex. (Thus, this is not like slavery, where blacks were denied freedoms that others received. It is more like a group of people saying, “We want to murder people, therefore the murder laws are discriminatory against us.”)
In substance, the “right” they are denied is not being allowed to marry the person they love. However, characterizing the right in this manner is a slippery slope. Is there much difference between marrying the “person” you love, and marrying the “entity” you love?
I submit that there is not. If the rationale is that you should be free to marry based solely on love, then why stop people from marrying animals, inanimate objects, etc? In fact, why not let Britney Spears marry Pepsi in one of the greatest marketing ploys of all time?
Proponents of gay marriage want to shout at the top of their lungs that opponents only rely upon sectarian arguments, when their own argument is little more than, “because it's fair, because it's fair!”.
December 12, 2008 at 10:19 am
“That's the way it's always been done” means we should keep doing it that way by default unless there exists some valid reason to change it. The opposite of this being a complete disregard for the status quo and a willingness to change anything at any time on a whim.
In the case of gay marriage, it is fairly trivial to come up with a list of practical reasons in favor of change that overwhelm the risks posed by sacrificing the status quo.
December 12, 2008 at 10:55 am
You're splitting hairs with the first part of your argument. Everyone should be able to marry whomever they want. Nobody is really pushing to give only gays the right to marry people of the same sex, but it's called gay marriage simply because they're the only ones who would want to do that. It's really better termed same sex marriage.
The difference between marrying a human and marrying an animal is that the human can choose to marry you in return. Marrying an animal is animal cruelty. Also, it defeats the purpose of marriage. You can't give everyone who decides he loves his lampshade half off of their income taxes.
December 13, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Lol, Is there a difference between a “person” and a “entity”. Um, I would say yes, of course there is. One is a person. One is a term that is totally ambiguous.
Personally I think that 50 years from now everyone is going to look at this cultural evolution like we look on the practice of slavery now. Sort of a, “How could we have been so intolerant back then?” kind of remembrance.
As for the “because it's fair, because it's fair!” argument, are you saying that that is not a valid argument? Looking back at history, when women fought for the right to vote was there really another argument other then “because it's fair?” One section of society is allowed to marry another consenting adult for love. Another much smaller section of society is denied that right.
December 14, 2008 at 11:16 pm
So if the two words afford the exact same rights, why bother having two words at all?
If the problem is the actual word used (marriage), then I say we just replace all instances of the word 'marriage' with the words 'civil unions' in all statutes related to marriage. Then all couples, gay and straight, can be in a union. If some couples want to be married by a church, then they can be 'married' as well as in a 'civil union'… but as far as the State is concerned, only civil unions matter.
Of course, this is a rather silly way to do things, but the reason we have to consider such idiotic things is that the right seems unable to separate the idea of 'legal marriage' from 'religious marriage'. No one is trying to tell churches whom they should marry… Social progressives are simply trying to get equal rights/privileges under the law.
December 15, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Maybe they should. It's not silly if it settles the matter. Call all of them by law, civil unions, fine by me. But if legislatures don't want to redefine, then my argument still stands. Call it civil unions for gays, afford them the same rights and privileges, and call it a day.
And again, it's still the case that it didn't need to come to this, i.e. Prop 8, but gays and gay rights advocates pushed for ownership over the definition, and not just conveyance of rights and benefits. But that's an argument about tact, one that progressive-minded individuals need to seriously consider. It's the same reason a backlash against global warming advocates is underway. The “how” is as important as the “why.”
December 15, 2008 at 5:12 pm
You're wrong on both counts. For one, Prop 8 happened because a court decided denying gay people basic human rights was unconstitutional. It's not as if they had civil unions and were pushing for a word. They had nothing, and then the courts decided that was wrong.
And the primary reason for backlash against global warming is that a lot of people have a vested interest in the status quo, and they're using their lobbying bucks. They don't care about what happens in 50 years because their stock options mature in 3 and they'll be dead in 30. It's the reason our kleptocracy of a government is in many of the predicaments it is in, solving them is too politically inconvenient for those who run it to get elected and stay that way.
December 16, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Why did the court decide that? Because the case was brought to them. And it wasn't about being denied basic rights, it was about not being legally married by definition. The gay advocates never took the tact of wanting the basic freedoms and benefits of marriage, they only argued for marriage. That may seem like minutiae, but effectually, there's a big difference. Ultimately, their argument was over the terminology and the act of getting married, not about the rights that go along with being married, which is what their argument should've been.
As for global warming, you're partially right as to why there's a basic inertia in dealing with the matter by those that have the ability to do so (politicians and big business), but you're wrong about why there's a fundamental backlash. It is about tact. It's because a respected climatologist will provide data and possible hypotheses regarding the effects of not dealing with the problem, but then lay advocates go on crusades and paint apocalyptic scenarios for the public at large. Then, when anyone half way rational decides to look into the issue for themselves, they think, “Wait a minute, the advocates for global warming seem to be exaggerating some key points here, and some of them are outright fabricating the data.” And if there's anything we all know about this country's social sensibilities, they're generally slightly right of center, and progressive agendas only play well if done in a more reserved way.
I'm not trying to shit on either cause, they're both legitimate, but social reaction often meets and exceeds the action. The harder a segment of society pushes, the harder society at large pushes back. There's a basic psychology behind it, and the easiest way to assuage fear of change is to do it at a permissible pace that jibes with social psychology.
December 16, 2008 at 6:53 pm
How is marriage a right? I don't remember covering that in Con Law. There are benefits and privileges granted through marriage, but textually, no one has a right to marriage, that language doesn't exist. There are marriage laws in state constitutions, and gays may have argued that they were denied rights via the California state constitution, but Prop 8 is a legal and binding amendment via legislature which supersedes any court ruling short of the SCOTUS, and the SCOTUS won't mess with this, so it's now precedent.
So it goes back to my point, they should've argued that they weren't afforded the same benefits which falls under Equal Protection. The result would either be progress toward Civil Unions with full conveyance of benefits, or the case would be heard by the SCOTUS, in which case it'd get interesting.
But again, they can't argue for marriage being a right, it's not. But they could argue for equal protection which includes benefits which would probably get them much further down the road of equality.
December 18, 2008 at 2:46 am
That's what I just said in my above post. I said that in the Constitution, there's no language guaranteeing the right to marriage. Then, I said that it is granted, and general marriage laws, in some state constitutions, but that amendments via legislature supersede any state judicial review, in fact it supersedes all judicial review except via SCOTUS and the supremacy clause.
Again, they screwed up. They brought this fight to the California courts, the courts ruled on it in their favor, but that just made it unambiguous for those opposed to gay marriage. Thus, Prop 8, which is legal and binding via all courts including the SCOTUS since the Constitution has no language about marriage, specifically about marriage being a right. So now, this fight is pretty much over unless somehow the LGBT community can get a new amendment passed via legislation overturning Prop 8, which they won't.
Now they can do what they should've done from the beginning, argue that they're discriminated against under the Equal Protection clause because married couples enjoy benefits that they don't, e.g. tax breaks, hospital visitation rights, etc. The SCOTUS will see that case since the EP clause is explicit and the supremacy clause holds over state's legislation.
As for the fight for marriage in California? It's effectively over for the time being, probably for decades. If the LGBT community gets anything, it'll be Civil Unions that grant the benefits discussed.
February 3, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Your argument only makes sense if you think it is a choice to be gay.