I have a feeling that my saying this is going to start up quite bruhaha on it's own right, so I'll say my piece on the subject and leave it at that.

The main problem with a lot of these arguments (aside from the whole caricature of religious views of this nature that tends to turn many sincerely religious people who might otherwise be sympathetic to the social justice aspects of these arguments, I wonder if Powers is even aware that the kind of sexual views he cites are hardly unique to the Abrahamic faiths or that one of the main historical reasons behind the freedom of religion clause in the Constitution is that so each of the original colonies would maintain their own state churches) is that it doesn't really address one of the main reasons so many people are angry about the way in which the gay marriage debate has been framed in the US - namely, that a couple of judges in Massachusetts can redefine society to reflect their liking regardless of what a majority of the population thinks of the subject. To take views that a vast majority of the population clearly holds to and to simply dismiss them off-hand as either irrational, uneducated, or intolerant (is that why judicial fiat is the preferred MO here, so that one can rise above the unenlightened opinions of dumb proles?) doesn't exactly strike me as the kind of thing that's likely to make me change my views on this topic.

I hardly doubt the general opposition to gay marriage that we see reflected in US opinion polls just comes from the "religious right" or those that we often see held up as examples of would-be theocrats. Hell, if over 60% of the population has jumped on that bandwagon, there wouldn't be a religious right, there'd be a religious majority. By lumping those who oppose same-sex marriage into such a category and more or less implying sinister theocratic or otherwise base motives on their part towards the rest of society, Powers is deluding himself and in so doing serves to undercut his own argument.

I've noted this before, so I'll say it again - the exact same arguments, if not the exact same rationale being invoked here can and almost certainly will be utilized in the service of additional causes and ones I suspect that a vast majority of those who support gay marriage will likely recoil from. It is indeed ironic that Powers cites polygamy as being a bad thing, since it is extremely simple to look through his arguments and make the case that the government has no real reason for which to deny the right to make a contract between a man and two women or between a woman and two men. This is hardly a slippery slope, it's just taking the same arguments and rhetoric to their rational conclusion. In the end, it all comes down to an extremely arbitrary matter of taste as to why gay marriage should be allowed and polygamy prohibited, especially if we remove morality from the equation altogether. Much the same goes with any legal prohibitions against incest, I would argue.

Now somehow, I managed to type up all of that without mentioning God, the Bible, or the teachings of my faith. And let me just close by paraphrasing his last statement with one of my own:

"What is needed is not a defense of marriage act, but rather a fundamental understanding among both activists and the judiciary that the bench is not a social engineering experiment and if the plurality desires to implement social changes, they already have a means to do so - the legislature. Let those who seek to alter the nature and institutions of our society do it the same way that everyone else should - by going through the democratic process established under the constitution for the specific purpose of protecting the will of the people. To do anything else is to take away one of our most fundamental principles - the right of the people to decide for themselves what their society looks like, not a king, not a priest, not an activist, and not a judge. To deny the people that right is to hold in contempt the very ideals that make possible both the Constitution and the Republic."

Feh.

I tend to agree with Dan's comment above, although I'm not rock sure. I think we're less than 10 years away (probably less than 5) from the more socially-liberal state legislatures endorsing same-sex civil unions. I think there will be much less resistance to that, and over a generation it's going to spread. I just think people care less and less about their adult neighbors' sexual practices. More judicial fiat (especially if it comes with dissents) is the wrong vehicle for the long run.

Related, but only tangentially, I must add that listening to a group of men who have multiple marriages and notorious affairs tell the world about the sanctity of marriage is most unpleasant. The non-appearance of a sudden thunderbolt is a good argument for atheism.

Those who favor Gay Marriage blur the distinctions between the words tolerate, condone and Bless. The thrust of their argument rests on trivializing the differences. But, those differences are real. The ramifications are painful.

Human beings are perverse creatures; if you search diligently through history you will find every kind of oddity. You'll find the examples mentioned in the article. But, you will find also what is not mentioned: that for a marriage to be valid it must be blessed-- by God, by the state, but mostly, by the community.

It is one thing to tolerate or condone an impropriety: to make a pretence or to turn a blind eye to an infraction. This does not demand our agreement. We can pretend that people who are living together aren't having sex. And when, in loveless marriages, the spouse obviously doesn't care, we can turn a blind eye to extra-martial affairs. And a few bastards turning up in the woodpile, if rare, hurts no one. We can tell ourselves it is none of our business.

But, the proponents of Gay Marriage don't want our tolerance or neglect: They want our blessing. And that they may not get. They want us to say it doesn't matter what they openly do. They want us to change our social norms to theirs. They have declared war on our concepts of virtue and want us to meekly obey theirs. No wonder that 60 percent of Americans disagree with Gay Marriage. The ramifications are awesome.

The homosexuals are petty tyrants. They want a culture war. They want to determine the social norms. And they don't care how much their norms mess up lives of the heterosexual majority, so long as they feel accepted. The Gays may get their way for a while, but they may have over-reached. The political influence of their sponsors, the Left, is waning. The influence of the Right is waxing. A huge backlash may be coming.

Hi.

Lou Wheeler said: "The homosexuals are petty tyrants. They want a culture war."

Could you back off that a little?

I'll go with you this far: some gay activists are petty tyrants. They do indeed want to enforce their standards on others. And that applies not only to straights, but to the leather/bdsm crowd, bisexuals and all sorts of other disapproved groups.

One of the reasons I don't think the polygamy and/or incest argument is as big as people are making out is that some of the same gays that want every privilege they can think of for themselves understand that there are always lines between acceptable and unacceptable, and what they want is not tolerance but to be on the inside discriminating against the outs.

(Personally, overhearing a lesbian couple pipe dream eagerly about how people would realize what nice, respectable people lesbians are if those filthy leather dykes could just be /eliminated/ somehow was a moment of great enlightenment for me. The dynamics of a bunch of stuff I'd encountered snapped into a whole new focus.)

But there's also a lot of reasonable gay activists. There's a lot of gays who just want to get on with their lives, preferably without being defined as a menace to society. There are bisexuals that want no part of separatist culture wars (but who might like to marry the person they love, regardless of whether that person turns out to be male or female). There are married bdsm couples whose sole concern is not to be outed so they don't lose custody of their kids, just out of politically correct judicial spite. I think it's a lot more helpful to bear the common sense side of alternative sexualities in mind than to take the word of the loudest trouble-makers for what it's all about.

I don't think would be social engineers saying what gays must have are helping at all. I don't think stuff like
http://laughingwolf.net/archives/000683.html
helps at all either. I think it's just weak amateur history, prejudice and bad attitude. "To do anything else [than exactly what he wants] violates the rights, liberties, and responsibilities of the individual, and poses contempt for the Constitution and the Republic." (rolls eyes) Fine, it's your constitution: if you think that attitude's the best way to reach an outcome that will be reasonable for everyone: go, play, have fun.

But Lou: don't mistake that as "the case for gay marriage". Because it's not, OK? And gays are not all aggressively evil people who want a culture war. Trust me on this.

The main reason why I tend to view the legalized polygamy or incest argument as flowing naturally from those that gay activists are using is that they basically frame marriage as a secular institution as being essentially a contract. Now that's fine, but I think that is a case where you really have to have your cake and eat it too if the question comes up as to why such a contract couldn't be formed between more than two individuals or between a brother and a sister, especially if (as is being argued?) one should jettison morality altogether when talking about such things in the public sphere.

The polygamy issue isn't just an intellectual exercise in the slippery slope either, IMO. There are thousands of members of Mormon splinter sects that practice it illegally in Utah and if one is to believe CAIR there are 8 million Muslims in the US whose religion does not frown on polygamy, presumably both communities as well as some others could mobilize in much the same sense gay activists have for this cause.

As for what David Blue said, I tend to agree that there are many reasonable appeals to social justice with regard to gay marriage and certainly I tend to consider one of the ones that he postulated as being far more agreeable and certainly not nearly as disrespectful to those who might oppose such a measure as the Powers piece.

Good, intelligent debate on a very touchy issue, pulling no punches yet always remaining respectful. Y'all make me proud to have you here.

How funny that I said of his marriage post:

"It does not go so far as to say 'why marriage at all, in this day and age' or 'why should governments even be in the marriage business.'"

To me, the rest is details starting from a basis of WANTING the government and/or church that enmeshed in our lives.

Not that I am opposed to marriage, as far as what it represents to me, seeing how I got married to a fellow blogger this month.

To me it's a witnessed commitment saying "this one who was NOT part of my family is NOW my family. In the absence of legally binding evidence to the contrary, this person is now my heir and vice-versa. As my closest family, of course I am going to go out of my way to support and defend this person and vice-versa."

It is not anyone's business to promote marriage for their own agenda, or to have benefits you only get if married, and then to tell you here is our definition of "marriage," take it or leave it.

Which brings us to the notion that for gays to seek sanctified marriage is kind of funny, since nobody ought to feel they must do so to be as "married" as any other commited pairing or grouping. It's been made a legal shortcut, and that makes it desirable to some.

At the same time, it's just as funny for the world at large to howl so loudly in objection to non-traditional "marriage" that simplifies matters for those who are a part of it. I include polygamy in this.

It is none of anyone else's business. "Marriages" could as easily be registered with a private bureau as with any government or church unit. "Marriages" could as easily be in the form of a relatively standardized package of legal forms and declaration that take care of setting up the same status as marriage does.

The whole argument is almost downright silly.

On point, I essentially agree with Dan Darling (who makes excellent contributions to this site, by the way).

Tangentially, I hope LaughingWolf's Biblical analysis was secondhand, because it's fairly obviously wrong on a few points. The Bible does NOT contain an injunction against masturbation. The only relevant section is the story of Onan (whose name is the root for the word "onanism", a synonym for masturbation). Yes, Onan was punished by God for masturbating, but that act, in itself, was not the offense. Context is essential.

The story in a nutshell--Onan's older brother had a wife and died without producing an heir. According to the law, the duty of producing an heir devolved onto Onan (yes, yes, this can be criticized by modern standards, but let's get back to the point). Onan, for whatever reason, did not wish to fulfill this duty, either because he didn't want to have sex with her, or he didn't want to create an heir to his brother's patrimony (I believe the text is unclear as to his motivations). Therefore, he masturbated in order to defeat his lawful obligation by being unable to perform, and was punished by God for his crime. This crime was the refusal of a lawful duty, not the means by which he refused.

Unfortunately, certain people have had a motive for casting the Bible as a document that frowns on sexual pleasure (and some of them were Christian; others not). To those people, I suggest you brush up on your Song of Solomon, which has certain sensual overtones, shall we say. I believe the breasts/melons analogy is somewhat older than you might think, for instance.

A alight acquaintance of mine who is a rabbi (either Orthodox or "hard" Conservative, I forget which) write his secular university M.A. thesis on "Images of Cunnilingus in Song of Songs". (Song of Songs is the Jewish name for the text Sam refers to as Song of Solomon.)

The reason that Santorum caused such an uproar was that he was right. Once you open the door, anyone can come through it. Things have gone far enough. It is time to draw a line and say, "Let's stop trashing traditions for a while." Heterophobes (anyone can coin a word, doesn't mean it denotes a reality) can do whatever they want in the privacy of the local public restroom. If that doesn't earn them apotheosis, well, tough break.

Andrew,

Quite so; I believe that some Christian translations of the Bible use Song of Songs as well. I imagine that bringing up the rabbi's thesis would put the fox among the chickens in a number of social contexts (both Christian and not), and the sadistic side of my sense of humor would greatly enjoy watching the ensuing uproar, should it occur. :)

There is a follow-on post up at http://laughingwolf.net that may be of interest to some.

"a couple of judges in Massachusetts can redefine society to reflect their liking regardless of what a majority of the population thinks of the subject. To take views that a vast majority of the population clearly holds to"

I don't think it's a vast majority, if you check the polls, and it may not even be a majority at all in Massachusetts. So the judges are not arbitrarily disregarding their community.

However, sometimes a judge has to do what is right regardless of what the vast majority wants, for example, if the vast majority is a lynch mob. Our system of government explicitly protects the rights of minorities.

Sam, Onan wasn't punished for masturbating, but for withdrawal before ejaculating. However, you got the context right.

"they basically frame marriage as a secular institution as being essentially a contract."

Marriage has usually been a contract in most societies. People wed their kids to each other to cement business and social alliances. Love often didn't enter into it.

In Judaism, although marriage is considered a holy act, it is also a contract: in ancient times the ketuba specified what the husband had to pay the wife if they divorced, and mutual conjugal obligations. The frequency of sexual intercourse (for the wife's satisfaction!) was sometimes spelled out. I am sure marriage contracts of other cultures are just as specific.

So why is the contractual element of marriage considered so distasteful? it's been the norm for centuries.

"it all comes down to an extremely arbitrary matter of taste as to why gay marriage should be allowed and polygamy prohibited, especially if we remove morality from the equation altogether."

Two people promise to form a life-long union of mutual support and fidelity - what is immoral about that? Heterosexuals perform all of the same sexual acts that gays and lesbians do, many heterosexual couples cant bear children and adopt, and everything else about the marriage is literally the same (taking out the garbage, planning finances, arguing about inlaws, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, etc). So why is it moral if hets do it and immoral if gays do it? Why are we all of a sudden talking about incest and polygamy?

You sound like you don't know any gay couples, so you have these weird ideas about what they are like.

The essay you link to conflates Jewish and Christian attitudes toward marriage, which are in fact very different. (There is no such thing as "the Judeo-Christian religion." That's one of my pet peeves. Also, the social dynamics LW describes also obtained in the Far East, in Africa .... it wasn't just a "Judeo-Christian" thing.)

Judaism is very earthy, and is frank about sexual pleasure as well as other pleasures. They are all gifts from God to be enjoyed under the right conditions, none of them are inherently evil. Marital rape was always forbidden in Judaism, and the wife's sexual pleasure was one of the husband's marital obligations. The holy bond between the husband and wife trumps procreation. Couples were comsidered to have fulfilled their duty to procreate after producing one child of each gender, if possible. Birth control and abortion have never been forbidden in Jewish law, but were to be considered under consultation with a rabbi, in response to individual situations.

So if you want to caricature the Catholic Church, don't drag Judaism into it, okay?

I don't understand why there should be a difference. If gay people get married it will cut down on sexually transmitted diseases, promote security so people can be more productive in society and the same reasons that heterosexual marriage became a legal institution in the first place.

If we let public opinion of "morality" dictate law, then what else or who else can that affect? Many people may believe that not believing in Christ is immoral. So what is to stop them from using the same arguments against other minority religions? It is the duty of the law to look at each party and ask who is being hurt by the existing law, who is being protected and who is not. No one has to like the other or accept the other party's beliefs. It seems to me that the Supreme Court in Massachusetts was just doing its job. If public opinion ruled law, I'm afraid to think of what would still be allowed. THis country does not have a very kind past to minority groups. The justices made excellent arguments as to why civil rights were being violated. Why is that so hard to accept? It is certainly easy to see why gay rights were being violated in the first place, not a lot of people like them or understand what it means to be gay. They don't want to.

We live in a free country. To me that means allowing differences. Sexual orientation, whether it is moral or not, is a difference of opinion. You cannot look at a gay relationship (of two condoning adults) or gay act and say that there is a victim, just as you cannot say that with a heterosexual relationship.

To me, morality is whether someone is getting hurt. But those who are gay are not hurting others by being gay. Marriage of the two does not seem to create a problem between them. But not letting them marry seems to hurt them. They have to pay more in taxes, healthcare and all the other things that heterosexual couples get breaks on. That doesn't seem fair to me.

Polygamy it seems was outlawed because people were getting hurt by the arrangement. Men marrying several wives, each not knowing about each other is one example. Also it seems that polygamy was really about one man and many women in a patriarchal set up where the women were often times mistreated. I may be wrong, but it seems that when the relationships extends to three or more, there is more confusion with financial responsibilities and I have always seen it as an unequal partnership where the women are usually treated badly. That's why I cringe when I hear about it.

Incest seems to be wrong because it created higher birth defects. But I appreciated the earlier comment that marriage is making someone outside the family part of the family who can now share in responsibilities.

It seems strange to me to link polygamy and gay marriage. There is an inherently different argument for two people marrying verses several.
Incest seems like another strange comparison. If you let men and women get married, why not family? What is the argument currently for not allowing incest, morality aside? It seems that the family could get hurt, higher incidents of birth defects, more problems with power differences (older/younger siblings). Of course it is wrong with underage sexual exploration of siblings - lots of research showing mental problems associated with it. So, the incest argument stands whether gay people get married - they too can't marry their siblings.

It seems that gay people will marry and make the commitment with their religious clergy whether or not others like it, or larger groups support their beliefs. Not having marriage legally available doesn't stop that. It just makes their lives more difficult. I just don't see why, as a society, we would want to do that to another group of people, just because you have a difference of opinion.