In a non-political ouster, Miss California was stripped of her title for failing to fulfill her role: essentially, not going to meetings. Good riddance. I won’t miss her, and I suspect you won’t either. We should be careful, however, about how that comes out. For one, we should avoid both the actuality and the appearance of sexism. And, more importantly, we should avoid suggesting that a belief in gay equality is somehow a prerequisite for membership in civil society (which is how NOM is reading the termination). It isn’t.
To be sure, there aren’t a lot of principled grounds on which to oppose gay marriage. If homosexuality is not a choice – and really, the evidence is in on this one – the conclusion follows logically and directly that, barring some hitherto unarticulated objective harm, gay men and women deserve our respect, and full equality before the law. That includes marriage. Reasonable people can disagree with elements of this argument, and although legitimate bases for disagreement continue to decrease, and I have no problem with those who find them compelling. I do object, though, to those whose only arguments flow from some subjective, personal morality, or an attempt to cling thoughtlessly to tradition.
Carrie Prejean falls into the latter category, and this alone is my problem with her. I welcome debate with reasonable spokespersons who oppose gay marriage, but because she manages only to recycle meaningless definitional quibbles, I cannot respect Ms. Prejean, and will be glad to see her fade as an opinion maker.
No, support for gay marriage is not a prerequisite to membership in elite society. Being able to defend controversial positions, though, should indeed be such a qualification. Consequentially, I’m not much of a fan of Perez Hilton either.
Finally! Someone arguing for gay marriage who actually welcomes debate! Your article is well written and your points are very clear. I will; however, respectfully disagree with you on one point.
By stating “subjective, personal morality” and “tradition”, I assume you mean religion. My religion and beliefs are very important to me. Religious freedom and the separation of Church and State are two important reasons why our country exists. Our Forefathers (I will explain my word choice later) wrote this concept into the Constitution because of its importance.
My religion tells me that marriage is defined between a man and a woman. This is my belief also and it is part of who I am. To demand I vote otherwise voilates my rights.
I am also a realist. Homosexuality exists. I have friends who are homosexuals. I respect their right to be who they are and I understand their desire for marriage. I can’t fault them for fighting for this right either. Why? Because they have the same rights as I do.
My problem here is the word itself. I am against the movement to rewrite historical books so that they are “politically correct”. Forefathers was an appropriate term for the time period. Not many women were head of household back then. I am not saying it was right or wrong, but it was just how things were back then. Changing the word does not alter the past.
I also don’t like the way that people redefine words. That is where marriage comes into play. As I stated before, my opinion is that marriage is between a man and a woman. If it was just my opinion, then I would not be writing this response. But the word was legally defined as a union between a man and a woman. To change it (in my opinion) is wrong.
Am I against homosexuals wanting to be together? No. I am totally ok with civil unions and I am ok with it having the same rights as a marriage. Regardless, if the law changes and legalizes gay marriage, then I will live with it. But telling me that my morality and traditions are a bad reason is not right.
As for Perez Hilton, he is pathetic and not worth my time. This man makes a living off of causing others pain and suffering. Why was he a judge of an all woman beauty pageant anyway? If gay marriage supporters are ever going to be successful, it will be because of people like you who act like a civilized person. People like Perez only hurt the causes they “fight” for.
Posted by Dan | June 11, 2009, 1:45 pmThanks for your comment! For the record, I’m against historical revisionism too, and I think most reasonable people are. Those few who aren’t are useful windmills to tilt against, but I hope nonrepresentative.
I also respect those on the right with opinions like yours – e.g., give them the same rights, but the adoption of the word is troubling. I understand that, but I think the key is in remembering that marriage is a legal and a religious concept. If we were to give gay couples precisely equal rights, the statute books would either have to have two different terms with identical meaning, which is silly, or refer to all marriages as “civil unions,” and reserve the word “marriage” for churches only. I have no problem with the latter solution, and I think it would pierce some of the rhetoric on both sides, and make a nice compromise solution. Would that meet your concern?
Posted by ACG | June 11, 2009, 2:08 pmI think my other comment may sound too harsh. I think your comment, ACG, says it better.
I would be happy to keep the word marriage out of the hands of the state and leave it for religions to define. Of course, because of tradition, even people who were not married in a church would still probably refer to their civil unions as a marriages. There’d be no way to stop this unless our culture as a whole wanted to.
Posted by Kris | June 11, 2009, 2:16 pmVery true. Unfortunately the rational solution of reclassifying all state rights as “civil unions” would be WAY harder to implement, and probably won’t happen :(
Posted by ACG | June 11, 2009, 4:51 pmWelcome to the discussion, Dan.
Marriage has already had its meaning change over time, and it has mutliple “definitions” too. Marriage in this country used to be “between a man and a woman of the same skin color”. There are two types of things literally called marriage in this country – religious marriage and civil marriage. One is between the couple and their church and god, and the other is between the couple and the state.
You say your religion defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. But that’s not quite right. Your religion defines marriage as “between a man and a woman and god” as I said before. As far as your religion is concerned, if two people of a different religion, or if two atheists, etc. can’t get married because your god and church will not bless their union. Why are you not upset about this?
The point is, marriage means something different to everyone. As far as the state is concerned with civil marriage, it’s about entering into a contract to share rights, priveleges, and responsibilities, and since it is a matter of the state, it should be separate from religion.
In fact, there are even some religions (Unitarian Universalism, for example) that bless gay marriages within their religion. To say that the definition of civil marriage must adhere to your definition of marriage means it cannot accomodate Unitarian Universalism.
Posted by Kris | June 11, 2009, 2:08 pmBtw, I didn’t think this was too harsh…
Posted by ACG | June 11, 2009, 4:52 pmIf the ability to defend controversial positions ought to be a requirement for membership in elite society, then it’s a pretty quick syllogism to demonstrate that support for gay equality ought to be a requirement for membership in elite society.
After all, there is no such thing as a rational defense of gay inequality, so anyone who supports gay inequality is as a matter of fact incapable of defending a controversial position.
Posted by Erik J | June 11, 2009, 4:37 pmI think there are people who rationally oppose gay equality, even if they’re ultimately very wrong. Those whose opposition stems either from caution, or a desire to hold out only the word “marriage,” have SOME legitimacy. Not enough, I’d say, but they’re far better than the Peter LaBarberas of the world.
Posted by ACG | June 11, 2009, 4:49 pmThat they are in the end very wrong is due to the irrationality of opposing gay equality.
Those who are motivated by caution are suffering from an irrational fear. Those who have a desire to hold out on the word “marriage” are not rationally dealing with language and the way it changes.
Seriously, I’ve looked for rational arguments against gay equality. If there is any such thing, it has never been published. Given this fact and the huge number of irrational articles published, I’m pretty secure in my claim that the only opposition to gay equality is based in a failure of reasoning.
Posted by Erik J | June 11, 2009, 5:46 pmI will agree with you on the part about opposing gay equality. Everyone should have equal rights and equal say.
But you will have to go further on the topic of the word “marriage” and language changes.
Language do shift over time as they evolve and adapt to the needs of its users. Simply reading Shakespeare will prove this fact.
But marriage is a core concept in our language. The word has not changed much since even before biblical times. Core concepts tend to stay the same.
Some people claim that the abacus was the first computer. But we have not gone back throughout history and changed volumes of books to alter the word. That would be crazy. It is no where near as powerful as todays computers, but we do not call it that. Even though, early civilizations did calculations on it that were truely amazing.
We have also had calculators and automated filing/adding machines. Each of these systems were built off of the earlier advances, but the name kept changing.
The reason is that while the functions may have been the same, there were key differences enough to create a new word for advancements. The old mainframes of yesteryear still have most of the same components as today’s computers. While they are much more powerful and can perform a lot more functions, the core concept is the same. Thus, the name stays the same.
I hope this clears up thoughts of an irrational fear. However, I am glad that you believe the way you do and that you actively post. It just bothered me that you use terms as “failure to reason” with anything backing up your comments.
Posted by Dan | June 12, 2009, 11:18 amDan,
Strictly speaking, of course, “marriage” has not been around as a word for very long at all, since modern English is only a few centuries old. That nitpick aside, the extension of the concept-family picked out in English by the word “marriage” has varied quite a bit in the last several thousand years, especially across various cultures.
With regards to abacuses and computers, things are a little more complicated. Strictly speaking, we call computers and their related beasties by a few different names for machine types: Turing machines, finite-state machines, von Neumann machines, and so on. An abacus is a finite-state machine; everything from (at least) Babbage’s Difference Engine on up is going to be either a Very Large finite-state machine or a Turing machine; the addition of memory stacks makes a machine into a von Neumann machine.
Putting my rampant nerdery aside, now, let’s think about the modern evolution of “marriage”. If the word “marriage” really had semantic content limiting it to the union of a single man and a single woman, gay people wouldn’t want to get married. Since gay people do want to get married, the word’s content must be broader than the “traditional” meaning would claim.
Posted by Erik J | June 12, 2009, 12:39 pmBut marriage is a core concept in our language. The word has not changed much since even before biblical times. Core concepts tend to stay the same.
This is completely false. For one, the “word” could not have stayed the same for so long, because the English language did not exist then. Meanings are always being lost, added and changed as words move from one language or culture to another.
When you say core concepts, I assume you mean “between a man and a woman” and maybe also “for bearing and raising children.” Children is probably the most constant core concept of marriage historically, I’ll give you that, but children are not essential to marriage in our culture today. Infertile couples or those who simply do not wish to bear children are completely justified in getting married in our society. And that is because “love,” I believe, has become the core concept of marriage in our society. However, love was not historically a core component of marriage. In that regard, “marriage” has in fact changed fairly recently.
As for the “between a man and a woman” part, you are right that historically marriage has not often allowed for “between a man and a man.” But you are wrong that it has always been “between one man and one woman.” You only need to check the Old Testament to see that polygamy has been accepted even in the Judeo-Christian history of the word “marriage.”
Posted by Kris | June 12, 2009, 1:10 pmIf I were Prejean, I would sue the heck out of the pageant!
Posted by Fran, NC | June 13, 2009, 12:35 pmGood luck to her if she chooses to: I’m sure her contract says something like, “you have to show up at our events.”
Posted by ACG | June 13, 2009, 1:00 pm