Speaking Truth To Power

Wed, 21 Jul 2004 04:57:36 GMT

Sorry for silence this week; this is one of the foibles of my new format that if time is crunched or if I'm not feeling like getting down to doing some research, I won't write much. C'est la vie. Back at it next week.

Fri, 16 Jul 2004 09:07:15 GMT

Gay Marriage: Postmortem

Apologies for not finishing this up yesterday; the weekend here in Dubai is Thursday and Friday so it's harder to stay in a writing routine those days.

Additionally, the completion of the Senate vote, rejecting the gay marriage amendment (technically, it was a vote to stop the filibuster, but the effect and the votes were the same) without it even receiving a bare majority, sort of deflated my desire to really put the work in on this.

So I'll be brief.

Now that the issue is pretty much dead (and it never was going to pass--the whole thing was a political ploy to energize conservatives and split moderates) the question is this: what next?

The answer, in terms of action taken, is nothing. A few states may pass laws affirming that marriage is between a man and a woman, or whatever. A few others will legalize civil unions or even marriage. Nationally, nothing will happen.

Bush will continue to talk about this in stump speeches, and Kerry and Edwards will continue to dodge the issue in an unprincipled way by talking about civil unions, which are marriages without the name. A totally unprincipled, weak-willed cop-out.

And then, within thirty years or so, we'll look back on this and feel amazed and embarrassed that it was ever a controversy.

Next week, a more challenging topic: Global Warming

Wed, 14 Jul 2004 10:06:41 GMT

The "Debate" On Gay Marriage, Part Two

The first part of this discussion can be found here.

Fundamentally, the core question about gay marriage is not about marriage--it's about gays. Defenders of a Constitutional Amendment, including the President, often try to make a distinction between tolerance of gay "behavior" and acceptance of gay marriage. "Do what you want," this logic goes, "but only outside of marriage." Thankfully, there are those who go out of their way to make it perfectly clear that the agenda here is not to save marriage, but rather to harm gays. I wish that all of the vocal opponents of gay marriage would wear their bigotry on their sleeve a little bit more. Then they'd be exposed as the bigoted, backward-thinking religious totalitarians that they are.

So, really, the third and fourth arguments against gay marriage, mentioned yesterday, pretty much boil down to this:

Gays are evil.

I'm not going to spend any time arguing about this. The so-called "studies" that conclude that gays are more likely to be pedophiles or rapists or atheists or communists or whatever have been so thoroughly debunked by sound social and hard science that I don't want to bother. We'll just operate from here on under the radical assumption that gays are normal people.

****************

Maggie Gallagher made this a three-day project. I was going to write about the politics of the gay marriage issue, attack the Democrats for being utterly spineless, and wrap it up. But I'll put that off until tomorrow because I found an article on the National Review website that sums up a lot of what these extremists are all about. It bore inclusion.

Maggie Gallagher is the President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy. She's a bigshot in the conservative "pro-family" (Read: anti-gay) movement. Her article, "Why Marriage Matters," can be found below, with my comments interspersed.

I. Why Does Marriage Matter?
When their mothers and fathers don't get and stay married, bad things happen to more kids more often: more poverty, welfare dependence, child abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse, physical illness, infant mortality, accidental death, homicide, premature and promiscuous sexuality, early unwed pregnancy, suicide, juvenile delinquency, educational failure, conduct disorders and adult criminality. Children suffer and whole communities pay the cost in crime, social disorder and high taxes as government steps in to deal with the needs created when families fall apart. Family structure matters and the family form that does the best job for kids is the child's own married mother and father.

Poor, poor, bigoted, stupid Maggie Gallagher. She doesn't seem to understand how effectively she's making the case for gay marriage here. I'll explain more in a minute. To be clear, I don't disagree that children from homes in which parents are happily married are more likely to be better off. Of course, there are plenty of kids from homes in which parents are happily married who are crazy, repressed, violent, in jail, or....gay. But we'll leave that for now, and just agree.

Marriage is not created by government. It is older than the Constitution, older than America, older even than the church. It exists in every known human society and it always has something to do with bringing men and women together so that society has the next generation it needs and children have both mothers and fathers, as they need.

Martha had an excellent point (which you can read if you read the comments from yesterday's post) regarding the historical context of marriage. To suggest that marriage has always been a happy bringing together of men and women is hopelessly naive. And, frankly, the historical argument that "it's always been heterosexual" is unpersuasive and irrelevant. Times change. Lots of terrible things have plenty of historical precedent. The question is not "How has it always been?" The question is "How should it be now?

II. Top Five Reasons to Oppose Same-Sex Marriage:

Here we go. I'm sure that Maggie Gallagher is going to finally shed some light on this.

1. Marriage is about affirming the ideal. And when it comes to children, science and common sense both say: Mothers and fathers both matter to children.

Affirming the ideal? What? Marriage is about affirming a relationship. You may want that to be affirmed in God's name or not, with family or not, but fundamentally, it's about affirming a relationship between two people.

But I digress. That's not relevant to the discussion of gay marriage. Let's say that she's right about that. Why can't gays affirm the ideal?

As for the bizarre leap to children in this argument, we'll get to that in a second, since the claim that number 1 and number 2 are different reasons is, in itself, a lie.

2. Same-Sex Marriage sends a terrible message to the next generation: alternative family forms are just as good as traditional families, children don't need a mother and a father, and marriage is about adult desires for affirmation or benefits, not about the well-being of children.

Let's say that marriage is only about the well-being of children. Does this mean that those who are infertile or past child-bearing age can't marry?

Besides that, the heart of the matter is here. If a case could be made that gays would make good parents for adopted children, then the entire premise of her argument absolutely collapses.

Her argument for why they wouldn't--as you'll see below--is that children need a mother and a father. OK. Let's concede that. I've already said that all the things Maggie mentions in the first paragraph of this atrociously argued piece can be true. But there is a matter to consider:

Any children adopted by gay parents don't have an involved mother and father anyway.

If gays were ripping children out of the arms of two loving parents, then that would be one thing. But they aren't, see? If two men decide to adopt a child together, that kid they're adopting is going from zero parents to two.

And why can't gays create a good family environment? There's an assumption that they can't be good parents. Why?

Of course, Maggie is also making the slippery-slope argument here--that once we "send the message" that gay marriage is OK, other marriages will become moot. Why? She doesn't know. Can't explain. There's no connection between those two things.

Think these "reasons" are bad? It gets worse. Look at this:

3. It's just wrong for the law to pretend that two men being intimate are the same as a husband and wife, especially when it comes to raising children.

"It's just wrong?" Potent logic there. May as well have said what she's really thinking, which is that "Gays are just icky."

4. Marriage belongs in the hands of the people. Four judges in Massachusetts have no business rewriting the moral rules our kids are going to live by.

Let me digress for a minute.

I'm not a knee-jerk liberal. I can respect a conservative position I disagree with if there are actually arguments for it and just a difference of opinion. For instance, I'll be avoiding the discussion of abortion, because I understand and--since becoming a parent--even sympathize with the opponents of choice, though I remain staunchly pro-choice.

Is this article what passes for good argument on the other side of this issue?

Scarily, yes. I didn't pick this out so I could summarily dismantle the claims made in an attempt to make myself look like Mr. Smart Guy. I picked it because it's absolutely typical of the other side of the debate, and the arguments are made by one of the louder voices.

So it's pretty impressive that "We don't like them Massachusetts judges" passes for an answer to the question "Why oppose gay marriage?" Hello, non-sequitur.

I discussed society's "values" yesterday. I said enough about that, then. I will only comment additionally that the Massachusetts judges are, factually speaking, only ruling about Massachusetts.

5. Marriage isn't a special interest, it's a common good. Every American benefits from a healthy marriage culture. All Americans pay the price in increased taxes, social disorder, and human suffering when mothers and fathers fail to get and stay married.

Argument based on the assumption that including gays creates an unhealthy marriage culture. But no defense of that assumption. Why?

Cannot a fine argument be made that creating a legally binding relationship between two gay men would help to remedy some of the main "problems" isolated by Maggie, et. al.? Promiscuity, lack of commitment, etcetera? Or is that too much of a mind-blowing concept for these clowns to imagine?

III. Frequently Asked Questions
Don't homosexual people need the benefits of marriage?

If medical proxies aren't working, let's fix that problem. If people need health care, let's get them health care. Don't rewrite marriage laws in order to satisfy a small fraction of adults who have personal needs and problems.

Why not? Hello? Argument? Why not rewrite the laws?

Not to mention that Gallagher's crew are the ones wanting to rewrite the laws. They want to codify discrimination.

Are you saying gays can't be good parents?

Two men might each be a good father, but neither can be a mom. Children are hungry for the love and attention of both their parents — their mom and their dad. Marriage is about giving children the ideal, and no same-sex couple can provide that.

No. Marriage is NOT about giving children the ideal. PARENTING is about giving children the ideal. Why can't same-sex couples provide that? Nothing here.

And this still doesn't speak to the question of how giving children who have no parents two fathers (or mothers) hurts them. How?

Aren't laws prohibiting same-sex marriage the same as laws prohibiting interracial marriage? Aren't they discriminatory?
Anti-miscegenation laws were about keeping two races apart. Marriage is about bringing two sexes together. Having a parent of two different races is just not the same as being fatherless or motherless.

Wow. This is the sort of argumentation I'd expect from my daughter. But she's three.

Marriage is about "bringing two sexes together"? I thought marriage was about giving children the ideal.

Let me poll my married readers. Any one of you mention the importance of "bringing two sexes together" in your wedding ceremonies? Marriage is about the people in the marriage.

And, again, this whole parenting thing is a strawman. See above.

Why do you want to interfere with love?
Love is not an excuse for adults to do whatever they want and assume the kids will adjust. We need to get back to basics, including the idea that one major goal of marriage is to remind men and women that we have the obligation to do the best we can to give our children the protection of a married home in which they can know and love both their mother and their father.

Jesus H. Christ can we cut with the "ask me about marriage, I'll babble about protecting children routine," at least until we can offer any argument at all as to why gay marriage threatens children? Saying "marriage is good for kids" is not a very good argument as to why gay marriage is BAD for kids.

What about older or infertile couples? If they can marry why not same-sex couples?
Every man and woman who marries is capable of giving any child they create (or adopt) a mother and a father. No same-sex couple can do this. It's apples and oranges.

So if a 75-year old man marries a 75-year old woman, their marriage is STILL only about children? Apples and oranges indeed. Marriage is more than that.

Why are you blaming gays and lesbians for the problems of heterosexuals?
Judges are the ones rewriting our marriage laws. People who really cared about marriage and the suffering of fatherless children would not rewrite our marriage law to say that kids don't need fathers, and that alternative family forms are just as good as a husband and wife raising children together. That's the message of same-sex marriage. It's not kind or compassionate to children at all.

The message of same-sex marriage is that kids don't need fathers? I'm sorry? I thought the message was "Consenting adults can marry whomever they want to marry." No mention of children in any laws that I see.

Maggie Gallagher is like Reverend Lovejoy's wife on the Simpson's. "But what about the children?" she cries, hysterically, whether the situation calls for it or not.

And this, people, is as good as they've got.

Tomorrow: Politics

Tue, 13 Jul 2004 06:06:28 GMT

The "Debate" On Gay Marriage, Part One

Senate Republicans are apparently in the midst of an aggressive push to figure out how they can properly word the proposed Constitutional Amendment to forbid gay marriage. The hardest of the hardliners--Rick Santorum, et. al.--want to forbid civil unions, too. That's the focus of the discussion, while a few Democrats yell from the sidelines that they think the decision should be left up to the States.

Politics is a restrictive business. Anyone relying upon keeping the public happy is restricted in what they can do. There are certainly some things that it's impolitic to say if one--as an elected representative--hopes to remain in office. So I understand why there aren't any Congressional voices shouting that we should pass a Constitutional Amendment to allow gay marriage.

Neverthless, I wish someone would say that. Or at least call a spade a spade--those who support the gay marriage amendment are bigots. And I have no intention of mincing words here. If you support the gay marriage amendment, you are a bigot.

Here are the publicly-offered arguments in favor of the gay marriage amendment:

1. Gay marriage threatens the institution of traditional marriage.

2. The public doesn't support gay marriage..

3. Gay marriage is the start of a slippery-slope--allowing it will result in tolerance of adultery, polygamy, incest, and bestiality

4. Gays are evil.

Let's take a look.

1 Gay marriage threatens the institution of traditional marriage.

By far, this is the most commonly cited claim. Here's what our President had to say on this topic:

....the preservation of marriage rises to this level of national importance. The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honoring -- honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Ages of experience have taught humanity that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society.
Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society. Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all.

This is roughly the same thing you'll find if you peruse various pro-Amendment websites and take a look at the comments made by politicians who oppose gay marriage.

Let's not get into the question of the correctness of the above statement. For what it's worth, I pretty much agree with what's said there--I suppose I'd like to see the word "religious" removed, but that's my own schtick. For sake of argument, let's agree completely that traditional marriage is important, that it serves society, that it's good for children.

Unfortunately, these proclamations utterly fail to demonstrate how gay marriage in any way has an impact on traditional marriage. This isn't like some issues (abortion, for example) where I can at least follow the logic of those with whom I disagree. There is no logic here. There is no way to track the reasons that traditional marriage is weakened/harmed/affected by gay marriage. Why? Because there are no reasons.

No one has ever made the argument that specific marriages will be affected by gay marriage. My marriage, and the marriage of everyone I know, will succeed or fail based upon the things that happen between the partners involved. The decision of Adam and Steve down the street to tie the knot will not have an impact. And not even the defenders of the Amendment have attempted to make this claim.

So it boils down to a more amorphous belief that the "foundations" of marriage will be shaken. That the "institution" will be "weakened."

How? Even beyond the question of what in the hell this means, I still don't understand exactly how the institution will be weakened. What is the process?

Higher divorce rates? They're pretty damned high now and I don't see any attempt to make that a constitutional issue. More adultery? Whose faithfulness is based on a vague notion of the societal value of marriage as opposed to a commitment (or lack thereof) to one's spouse? And besides, these are issues that work on a marriage-by-marriage basis as opposed to working on an institutional level.

Let's be clear here--I fully understand that I'm trying to dissect an argument that's never been made. No one has ever made an attempt to coherently explain how traditional marriage--as an institution or as an individual event--is threatened by gay marriage. They just say it. They don't explain it. They never will. They cannot. There is no logical connection to be made.

This is the best they've got, and they've got nothing.

2. The public does not support gay marriage.

This is more or less true, though the poll numbers are very, very clear on this: the number of people who oppose gay marriage is steadily weakening. It is the way of the world (at least in the US) that young people will become more tolerant than the previous generation. Racism and sexism are undeniably demonstrative of this--which isn't to suggest that those things don't still exist, only that they're considerably weaker. When examining the trend lines in these polls, one gets the impression of a group of people, seeing the future, not liking it, and thus rather desperately attempting to stop it from happening by overreaching.

Furthermore, the poll numbers do not suggest that the American public supports a gay marriage amendment. Opposing gay marriage and wanting the Constitution to ban it are different things.

Regardless, there's something more going on here. The same politicians who are hiding behind these EXTREMELY soft measures of public opinion are the very same ones who regularly subvert or ignore public opinion by acting in the interest of corporations rather than the public, or who ignore the traditionally open rules of democracy by making law with covert legislative trickery (riders, and such) rather than keeping it all transparent. Public opinion is a crutch when needed. Usually, it's flouted.

What we need is for someone brave to stand up and say "I support gay marriage. I know that many of you, including many of my constituents, do not. But I support the rights of individuals to do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. And there's no reason to believe that gay marriage will hurt anyone. If you don't support gay marriage, that is your prerogative. I ask only that you give real consideration to the issue. Much of the public was squeamish about ending slavery, about giving women the right to vote, about ending segregation, about interracial marriage. But time has demonstrated that our nation has been strengthened by more tolerance and freedom. Never weakened. This is the latest test of that theory, nothing more. I come down on the side of liberty. I hope you're with me."

In other words, we need someone to lead.

Tomorrow: Are gays evil?

Sun, 11 Jul 2004 08:46:43 GMT

This blog didn't last too terribly long in its incarnation as "Enough", despite the catchy title. I think that the real problem is that it was ill-conceived from the get-go. I pictured it following the same format as Atrios and Daily Kos and these other political blogs that more or less update on news every day as it happened. But the problem with that is twofold: first, it creates pressure to update frequently--pressure I don't need. Second, it makes creativity difficult. This latter issue is more severe for me; such a high percentage of my news intake comes from blogs now that it was increasingly difficult for me to avoid regurgitating whatever was said elsewhere. Hence, the end of Enough.

However, I still feel passionately about politics and believe in my endeavor of separating political writing from non-political writing, which I do over on Hyperbole Online.

So I took a month off and gave it a lot of thought. And I realized that what I really like to do is start an argument. Or at least make arguments. Pseudo-news reporting didn't really give me that opportunity. But I think I have it right, finally.

Speaking Truth To Power will tackle a topic, roughly on a weekly basis. There may only be a couple of posts on it, sometimes more, sometimes less. I'll try and get to the heart of these topics, addressing the arguments on both sides. I'll probably focus mostly on topics that I consider to be relatively one-sided, argumentatively speaking, even if they are controversial. My writing will probably be relatively non-partisan, in that the topics that I'm thinking about are largely linked by failure on both sides of the political aisle. For instance, in the first few weeks I'll be writing about the death penalty, the war on drugs, global warming, sex education and some foreign policy concerns like the war on terror. I've written about many of these before, though none in the depth I hope to achieve, but in any case if you've been reading my blog(s) for a while then you may end up seeing some repeat arguments/examples.

This is an evolving project, and I fully admit that I picked the title of the blog and then tried to figure out how to fit the content to the title. I think the expression "Speaking Truth To Power" is one of the finer contributions of political radicalism, and while I'm no radical, I'll happily appropriate the phraseology.

I'll take topic suggestions where you have them, with the understanding that I'll gleefully reject some of them.

Look for a full-on start here on Tuesday.

Mon, 31 May 2004 07:52:09 GMT

Memorial Day Guest Writer

A lovely Memorial Day remembrance from good friend Steve Collins.

Today is Memorial Day, and throughout the land there are the typical testimonies and tributes to those who have fallen in arms. There will be a lot of politicians posing in front of flags and talking about sacrifice. For most of us, however, I think Memorial Day is more of an excuse to have a day off and a good barbeque with friends and family.

That isn't the case with me. I think I know something about the true meaning of Memorial Day.

Memorial Day began unofficially after the Civil War and was a sincere effort to bring honor and tribute to those that sacrificed themselves in the name of the country, democracy, and freedom. It was made an official federal holiday in 1971. But what does Memorial Day really mean? Most would say that it is about the remembrance of those who gave up their lives in the name of the United States and its values--freedom, democracy, civil rights. But it's more than that.

Memorial Day is about families, and about the terrible, heartbreaking, empty feeling of loss.

I know this because I've lived it. My earliest memory of Memorial Day is back when I was a child, watching the Indianapolis 500 on television. In the pre-race ceremony they have a moment where a bugler plays the lonely, haunting, tones of "Taps." I remember my mother tearing up during the playing. She had reason to tear up.

My mother had three brothers. All three entered the military for different reasons. All three were victims of service.

My mother's oldest brother, Richard, joined the Air Force to be a pilot. He was flying an F-100 Super Sabre in 1965 over South Carolina when his plane malfunctioned. As it was going down, he could have ejected, but he noticed that his plane was heading straight for the small town of Bowman. He stayed with his craft, steering it away from the town until he crashed and died. Today there is a marker of remembrance for him in the town square.

My mother's younger brother, George, followed his brother's footsteps and entered the Air Force to also become a pilot, which he did, even piloting Strom Thurmond back to Washington after the memorial dedication in Bowman in 1971. He was assigned to Vietnam, where he piloted troop transfers and reconnaissance missions. On January 27, 1973, seven hours before the cease fire, he was returning as a co-pilot of an OV-10 to base when he and his pilot saw a Navy F-4 go down. As they were circling to provide rescue information, his plane was struck by a SAM missile. He and his pilot parachuted out. The pilot ended up being one of the last POW's of the war. My uncle was never found. Reports say that he was killed in gun battle and buried in a rice field, but there has never been any confirmation.

My mother's youngest brother, Jeff, was drafted into the Army and served as an artillery soldier in Vietnam. He returned at the end of his tour a different person. After George, his closest brother, disappeared, Jeff changed even more. He withdrew from society and today lives as a hermit in Oregon.

But that is not all for my family and war. My father was in Vietnam when I was born and lost many of his friends to that conflict, including the Best Man at his wedding, Dick Bird, who was killed by a fragmentation grenade. My grandfather Collins was an officer in World War II and fought throughout North Africa, Italy, and Southern France. Oddly, but not unsurprisingly, my father says that he never really talked about his experiences with his son, even though he was a career military officer.

I grew up in the military. I understand what the military is all about. I understand how very intelligent people decide to place themselves in harm's way to defend what they think is important. These are brave men and women and deserve our praise. Even though today I am a liberal and a decidedly anti-war person, I am comfortable with the fact that I am not betraying the sensibilities of my heritage. All military officers are anti-war. The responsibility of placing men and women in harm's way is a heavy burden. But they are professionals, and do their job. And there are terrible costs to their job.

It took my father twenty years before he finally went to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. When we talked about his experience there, he could not finish the discussion. It was the first time I ever saw my father cry. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life. It brought home to me a number of important understandings.

First, war is truly hell, and we should never place its burden on our citizens except when it is absolutely necessary. Second, the people who usually send people to war have never experienced it themselves, otherwise they would try to avoid it as much as possible. Third, those of us who comment on war don't really know what we're taking about. We can make a great deal of platitudes about soldiers, we can critique the decisions of an administration, but an insular distance protects us all. We need to have critique of our leaders, but we also need to think about what is going on the ground of combat and what those poor souls have to deal with.

On this Memorial Day, I think about my family and the losses we have suffered. I remember my Uncles Richard and George. I remember how my grandfather was away from home for three years. I remember how lucky I am that my father came home to be my Dad after having fought at Khe Sahn and Hue. I remember the pain in my father's voice when he talked to me about those friends he lost there in Southeast Asia.

That is what Memorial Day is all about. It's about what war does to families and those who live in them. It is about the honor that people who willingly volunteer to join our armed forces deserve. And it is about the need for our political leaders to make wise and honest decisions that allow those people to conduct themselves in a justified and honorable manner. Memorial Day teaches us that those who do not respect these devotions and sacrifices are beyond contempt.

Let us respect Memorial Day. Let us remember those who have paid the price. And let us think about those who will pay that price in the future due to the decisions of the contemporary government.

May they rest in peace.

Fri, 21 May 2004 11:01:33 GMT

I wrote on Hyperbole--first link on the right--that I need a bit of a blog break. Explanation there. If something particularly outrageous or notable happens in the next two weeks, look for some writing here, but otherwise, don't expect much until around June 5.