[Note: There are "spoilers" here (as if you don't know the story), but they are meant to unspoil the spoiling of other reviews.]
So anyway.
When the end credits started, I didn't know what to do. There was no point in sitting through a running list of strangers' names, but what else? Just walk out the door? Well, that's what we have to do, I guess — out to Newport's cobblestones. On with life.
The first thing to say is that I'm astonished at the inability of the movie's critics to see it as artwork. I don't know if they want a documentary or a homily, but what they get is — tada — a movie, and a great movie, at that. Once my head had been cleared with fresh air, I shook it to think how much some critics have missed. The idea first came to me when Judas was being hounded by a gang of devil children. Depending on your point of view, the guy is either being driven mad by his conscience or set upon by demons (I would say they're the same thing); that he sees children mocking him through the hills and a maggot-ridden lamb is no stretch. Consider that he rubs his lips raw, having been stunned by Jesus' admonition about the betraying kiss. (To be honest, I thought Gibson's portrayal of Judas inspired.)
Anti-Semitism. Frankly and directly, if you sit through this movie looking for evidence of anti-Semitism, you've wasted whatever price of admission you paid. It is clear that Gibson did what he could to neutralize any ethnicity-specific blame. But mostly, it seems to me, he endeavored to prevent this controversy from distracting from the message, because, as I read him, the contrast between the Jews (from among whom Jesus came) and the Romans is absolutely central — as a mechanism to highlight qualities of the latter, not the former. Andrew Sullivan, for one, complained that there were "a few actors in those scenes who look like classic hook-nosed Jews." What did he want? Blond hair and slanted eyes? The entire argument over this aspect of the film represents, to put it bluntly, the worst of identity politics, supercilious disdain for our shared humanity. And I won't let my review be polluted by it any further.
Violence. Yes, Jesus is beaten, and he bleeds copiously. But perhaps based on the hype and loose associations with Quentin Tarantino, I found it less gory than I'd expected. I mean, come on. Whenever I hear "Stuck in the Middle with You," I picture that scene in Reservoir Dogs when the gangster cuts the cop's ear off and dances around the room with it ("Hello?"); in Pulp Fiction a kid's brains are casually blown out in a car (catching in Samuel Jackson's afro, as I recall), and an entire scene is devoted to its cleaning. What culture are these critics living in?
Yeah, when the whip actually got stuck in Jesus' side, I thought it was a bit much, but that was the only moment that (for me) even came close to the warnings I'd heard. Sullivan's description of the whipping scene makes me wonder if the theater to which I went got a censored version. "Skin flying through the air"? "Chunks [torn] out of a wooden table"? Maybe I need new glasses. Having read Sullivan's assertion that "no human being could sruvive [sic] it," when I saw the scene itself, I thought of the part in C.S. Lewis's The Horse and His Boy, in which Aslan claws a princes, condemning her to days in bed, and later explains that her experience had been exactly the same as a girl whom she had caused to be whipped.
Sullivan also mentions "yet another money shot" in which a crow pecks out one of the crucified criminals' eyes. Perhaps it was overdrawn, but it isn't wanton in context. A while back I caught a late-night cable creep show in which a guy is handcuffed to a corpse in the middle of the desert and a buzzard comes and plucks the living guy's eye out — literally, you see it come out. Gibson isn't anywhere near that level of gratuity. It would have been more accurate to say, in the present instance, that the crow "attacks the criminal's face."
I've frontloaded these points to get them out of the way, because all they are are distractions. Allow them to slip away just a little (which far too many people seem unwilling to do), and the "artistic message" can begin to show through. Little moments about which people complain — that to some make no sense whatsoever — come into focus. And with such astonishing ease that I'm surprised that, even having read so few reviews, I haven't seen the message.
It seems to me that Gibson has picked up on something in the Gospels that, even when I was an atheist, I've always thought was underplayed considering its relevance to our times, John 18:38: "'What is truth?' Pilate asked." As others have noted, in the movie, Pilate's truth is one of bureaucratic responsibility. But what it ought to highlight — this single moment that is certainly among the most relevant of the entire Bible for our times — is that The Passion of the Christ was created within and for viewing from our modern perch.
Sullivan (whom, if you haven't noticed, I'm using emblematically, here) catches that he is supposed to identify with Pilate, but — tellingly — he takes from that identification that Pilate is portrayed as a saint. He's not; he's our representation.
Everything Pilate does is an attempt to avoid his fate. He sends Jesus away; he brings up a lunatic Barabbas in an attempt to trick the crowd into letting Jesus go; and then he makes a huge, dramatic show of washing his hands of the matter. It isn't the his fault, he declares, it's the Jews'. Jesus' blood is on their head, not his, he says, reaching for the towel to...
The towel? A white towel? Why yes, and thus we realize that he's wrong. Here we've a double irony with which to contend. The first is that Pilate doesn't realize that the very same towel that he uses to symbolically free himself from blame symbolically links him right back to Jesus' blood — because his wife gave Mary just such a towel, and Mary used it to sop up the blood left after the whipping. The second irony is that Sullivan interpreted Mrs. Pilate's towel-giving moment as an out-of-the-way gesture to excuse her husband, when it accomplished just the opposite.
If we keep our minds on the towels, Mrs. Pilate's concern throughout makes sense dramatically to enable the Christian soiling of the Romans' fine linen. It may go a little far, but if you're of a mind, you could further consider that the reason Jesus' blood finds its way into Pilate's symbolism is the very simple, human compassion of one woman for another.
Now, keeping this in mind, rewind a bit. Sullivan says that "the Roman torturers are obviously evil," but I saw them somewhat differently. They're base; some of them are just plain nuts. They are, in fact, the sort of characters to whom one would expect a departmentalized and regimented polity to assign the monstrous work of torture. With that minor adjustment, a subtext ought to click into place when Pilate's top guy, Abenader, comes storming in and yells (approximately, emphasis added): "Your orders were to beat him, not to scourge him to death."
What Pilate and Abenader don't see, for all their concern about Caesar's displeasure and the mob over whom they govern with contempt, is that their order and their organization cannot contain the madness in their own ranks. The representatives of Rome's dark side spilt the blood, after all, that implicates Pilate. They drag Jesus through the streets attracting attention to him, making his crucifixion seem extra significant — converting people along the way.
And that's why I was tempted to call an aspect of a review by Michael Coren, another Christian critic, obscene:
Indeed, the scene where a Roman soldier plunges his spear into Christ's side is, I am sorry, almost like something out of Monty Python. The soldier and those around him shower in the water and blood that cascades out of Yeshua's body.
But I can only feel a sort of vague sadness that Coren, for whatever reason, instinctively translated the movie into a cartoon. With his description in mind, I expected those mad torturers to prance under a tide of blood. In the actual scene, however, one soldier kneels before the gushing liquid, and he's a character that we followed all the way through the streets, increasingly taken aback by the scene unfolding around him, stopping to ask who Mary is. He, in other words, is the most fully drawn of a sketch we see increasingly throughout the cross bearing, which begins among an angry mob and ends among sympathetic witnesses.
A woman comes up to wipe Jesus' face; another woman urges Simon of Cyrene to help Jesus because he's "a holy man"; Simon goes from a plea that it doesn't concern him to active defense and support of Jesus. (He's another character whom Gibson renders masterfully, giving the audience [me, anyway] a real sense of what it means for this man to have walked with Jesus in those final steps; it happened quickly, but I think Gibson even has Simon get poked a bit by the crown of thorns.)
Gibson did make decisions that I would have advised against, some vociferously. The shot of Satan after the crucifixion seemed unnecessary, almost comical, and pulled me right out of the story. I'll definitely have to see the film again; there's so much to ponder. However, on first impression, I find myself wondering what movie some people watched and what they'd been expecting.
For your part, dear reader, watch the movie, and don't let all that nonsense that distracts us from Truth in real life cause you to miss the significance of the film — as a work of art.
ADDENDUM:
Disputations Tom beat me to expression of something regarding Pilate that I mentioned in the comments to this post and was just about to flesh out as an addendum. Now I don't have to:
I have observed, though, that portraying Pilate in this way is seen by many as tantamount to excusing him.If, for a moment, we can set aside the history of Christian anti-Semitism, which is inextricably related to all this, I think we still have a phenomenon worth ruminating on. Presented with a man (or character, if you prefer) who, knowing the man before him is innocent, orders his execution for political reasons, some see a man all but free of guilt.
This is astonishing. It is as though they believe washing his hands actually removes Pilate's guilt. As though they believe Pilate's attempt to deny responsibility for Jesus' death actually transferred responsibility elsewhere.
The latest mention of Deroy Murdock on this blog was in the context of Christians, with whom I took issue, who were complaining that National Review didn't stick to the social conservative line. To be sure, I also disagreed with the argument with which Murdock set off his spark of the flare, but I saw it as a difference to be addressed, not dismissed. Today, he justifies my continued admiration for him by proving that, whether wrong or right, he stands on principle:
The ACLU's supporters should contemplate where this organization has placed itself vis-à-vis NAMBLA and the Boy Scouts. The ACLU seemingly believes that everyone deserves a lawyer, no matter how odious his case. Perhaps, although it would be nice to see NAMBLA siphon its own bank account rather than the ACLU's to justify its evil ways. The ACLU decides for itself where to devote its finite resources. Hence, its leaders freely chose to stand with cheerleaders for pederasty while torpedoing those who mentor rather than rape little boys.Today's ACLU makes one wish it would find some whales to save.
Of course, I would point out to Murdock that he's coming close to connecting some of the very dots that lead social conservatives to differ from him on such issues as gay marriage. Also of course, such persuasion is not possible to the extent that those in my gang have pushed him away.
Well, Marcus Ross today opened his student paper to discover something that brings back memories of my own time at his university: a unanimous cry that he's wrong. Some letters poorly written. Some hilarious. One from a professor. Marcus ought, of course, to be allowed the learning experience of juggling these various tints of monochrome minds; if he intends to remain in the Northeast and to proudly wear the label of "conservative," he'll need the experience.
But I can't resist dipping in.
First up is Katie Block, who writes from the broadly researched position of one who has interviewed her friends on the matter:
In recent days I have walked around the University of Rhode Island campus talking to people I know about gay marriage. Everyone I have talked to has simply said that homosexuals should have the right to marry, it just makes sense.
Such are the critical thinking skills of the acquaintances of a member of Students for Social Change. Well, yes, I suppose that, if one's defining cause is "social change," then redefining marriage does, indeed, "just make sense." Of course, if Ms. Block wishes to further her personal cause of making sense, I'd suggest that she spend some time researching Constitutional law:
My answer to this is that as far as I can remember there is supposed to be a separation of church and state. Therefore, this amendment President Bush wants to put in which defines marriage is unconstitutional in itself. Marriage has no place in the Constitution if it is taken as a religious entity. The government has no right to define marriage. It does, however, have the obligation to uphold the Constitution which, if I remember correctly, says that all men are created equal.
Alright. Maybe it would be a bit ambitious for her to begin with Constitutional law, because one would presume that such studies require some knowledge of what's actually in the Constitution. That stuff about all men being created equal is in the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, specifically speaking, the Establishment Clause, debatably rendered as "separation of church and state," is in the Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments to the Constitution, following which are the other amendments. All of these amendments are, by definition, "constitutional," and since the Federal Marriage Amendment would go at the end of that list, it, too, would acquire that adjective.
With this as a foundation, perhaps Ms. Block could begin pondering such questions as:
Once these points are considered, perhaps she can move on to the next level of profundity:
After all of this hard learning and deep thinking, it might be healthy to inject a bit of levity into the debate. For this, we turn to Keri Mirkovich, who begins:
Marcus Ross, in his recent opinion of the regulation of same-sex marriages, made the same mistake as every other pundit trying to push for the abolishment of gay marriage: assuming that he could truly understand the other side of the argument.
Of course, one could get bogged down in taking offense at the blithe declaration that opponents of gay marriage are just too dumb to understand the minds of its supporters. But let's move along to the very next line, which couldn't have been written better by even our side's least-dumb parodist:
The only argument against gay marriage is religious. Period.
As it happens, in the twisting of things, Ms. Mirkovich concludes by making a superb argument for a Constitutional amendment:
The Supreme Court should be brought this issue as soon as possible so that finally this matter can be settled.
Lastly, we come to the smashing of Ross's "ill-reasoned recent publication" by Library and Political Science Professor Olivier Vocino. Quothe the professor:
Marcus wrote, "What's to stop a 42-year-old man from "marrying" his 15-year-old boyfriend?" The law, Marcus, would stop such a silly thing.
Oh silly Marcus. Of course, the law currently stops homosexuals from marrying, and the basis for the law is precisely what Ross was addressing:
If the definition of marriage is to be so radically altered, as the gay community argues it should, then we as a society require rigorous justification for that change, as well as an understanding of what the new boundaries will be. If the reasoning for allowing same-sex marriage is "because I love them and they love me" coupled with "it isn't fair otherwise" then this is shoddy reasoning indeed. How can this protect our society from truly egregious behavior such as incest and molestation (where minors could be pressured to affirm consent) without appealing to something entirely arbitrary? What's to stop a 42-year-old man from "marrying" his 15-year-old boyfriend?
Rather than researching age-of-consent laws, Prof. Vocino might have better spent his time rereading young Marcus's piece. He's asking about reasoning, not mechanism. At least Cheryl Jacques, of the Human Rights Campaign, got that far when she gave the reason, "Because I don't approve of that."
The professor swings and misses, again:
Or, Marcus, you also said, "If the reasoning for allowing same-sex marriage is 'because I love them and they love me'....is 'shoddy reasoning.'" I'd like to know why heterosexuals marry. It can't because they love each other....I assume you think that is "shoddy reasoning," too.
To the text, Professor! Ross referenced "the reasoning for allowing," not the reason that they would want to be allowed. Ben Franklin may have been correct to quip that "a reasonable Creature" is capable of creating a reason for anything he "has a mind to do," but even that venerable statesman, whose name Ms. Block will find when she peruses the Constitution, left open the reasoning his fellow citizens ought to apply to the question of allowing it. (Although he did move to open each session of the Constitutional convention with a prayer for God's illumination on the obscurity of "political truth.")
For my part, I'll leave it to Mr. Ross to discern what "real issue" Prof. Vocino might present for "good conservatives to be concerned with."
Being as swamped as I am, I thought it worth posting a note that I've got several emails waiting in my inbox to which I intend to reply. If yours is one of them, know that I'm holding on to it until I've got a moment to reply with consideration.
Not to worry. The Big Project should be done this weekend.
Jay Nordlinger quotes, as he puts it, "the lady who would be First Lady," Mrs. Kerry-Heinz:
What has been most damaging, I think — to all of us — about many of the actions of this administration has been the cynicism with which they have perpetrated their positions and with which they have used us to trap us and to, in a sense, terrorize us, because they paralyze us.
Whether deliberately or not, Mr. Nordlinger missed the obvious contemporary cliché suggested by so many utterances of "us."
C'mon. You don't need me to spell it out.
Having not seen the movie, I'm limited in the extent to which I'm able to comment, but I have to get a few thoughts about reaction to The Passion of the Christ out of my head so other thoughts can flow while I walk the dog.
Although I'm surprised that John Derbyshire linked to it with approval, I'm not surprised by Christian Canadian writer Michael Coren's thoughts on the movie. Coren's review brings to mind previous indications of a cross-denomination schism. On one side are believers in what Rev. Donald Sensing calls "Metrosexual Jesus." Put simply, these are people who don't believe that religion should ever make anybody feel badly about themselves, no matter what they insist on doing. Doctrine should change with the times to accommodate the people living in them, and the softer, gentler side of Jesus is taken as license to do so. Does he have a speck in his eye?, they ask the righteous. Well, what of the plank in yours? If the accusation were turned on the person judging another for intolerance, and if the accuser could be made to address the complaint directly, I can only assume a relativist fog would arise, in which the speck/plank comparison changes with perspective such that everybody else's eyes have specks while yours, if you are judging, will always have a plank. Or something.
On the other end are people who believe in what might be called "South American Prison Jesus." These are people who take religion as they have found it, realized that they will sin and be judged, and move on from there. Of course, it is healthy for these folks, among whom I count myself, to realize that Christ's forgiveness does await... if we repent. But the point is that the religion is real. Evil must be faced, particularly within ourselves.
So, based just on a quick look at his column and his Web site, I'm guessing that Coren's closer to the Metrosexual Jesus crowd than he is to the South American Prison Jesus crowd. And it makes sense to me that such people will have a soul-deep dislike of Mel Gibson's movie. This is particularly true of those with the aesthetic sense suggested by his Web site. (If you visit it, make sure to stick around long enough for the music to kick in.) It is even more particularly true of a person likely to write the following:
This is some pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic blood cult. It is populated with medieval-type caricatures, screaming out of context, laughing at suffering. ...The flashbacks seem, with one touching exception depicting Jesus as a child, to be mere attempts to push Catholic eucharistic theology onto the audience.
Putting aside sectarian prejudice, one line strikes to the heart of the matter: the movie "is also so, well, so anti-humanity." That's, well, sort of the point. Humanity brings this ugly sin into the world. It's cliché to say, but Coren, almost by his own admission, wants the "majesty and pathos" without the scourging. As I understand Gibson's intention, it isn't, ultimately, as much a movie about Christ as about us, what we did, and about what we must acknowledge having done. We, I needn't remind Coren, have not yet been raised up into majesty.
One way not to acknowledge this is to throw out decoys that have the tangential benefit of making us feel oh-so-compassionate and full of pathos. A big one in this case is anti-Semitism. Yesterday, Michael Graham wrote in the Corner:
I don't know what the reviewers who see even a hint of anti-Semitism are looking at. While the Jewish leaders certainly aren't heroes, several members of their ranks step forward to defend Christ and denounce the way he is treated. The battle over Jesus isn't Jew vs. Christian in this movie. It's Jew vs. Jew, with both factions doing what they believe is right.In fact, Gibson uses a moment in the Crucifixion to all but declare Caiaphas and his allies "Not Guilty!" for the death of Christ. It's not subtle in the least, and the fact that most reviews I've read skip this moment indicates to me they're doing their part to keep the unfounded controversy alive.
Let me be perfectly clear: There is no way to honestly say this movie is either anti-Semitic or promotes anti-Semitism. That is simply not true, and people who have seen the film and make that claim are being dishonest or ignorant.
To be entirely honest about my own biases, I expected Andrew Sullivan, if he said anything substantive, to relate the movie to his central cause. That seems to me a perfectly normal and understandable reaction. But this, I did not expect:
Is it anti-Semitic? The question has to be placed in the context of the Gospels and it is hard to reproduce the story without risking such inferences. But in my view, Gibson goes much further than what might be forgivable. The first scene in which Caiphas appears has him relaying to Judas how much money he has agreed to hand over in return for Jesus. The Jew - fussing over money again! There are a few actors in those scenes who look like classic hook-nosed Jews of Nazi imagery, hissing and plotting and fulminating against the Christ. For good measure, Gibson has the Jewish priestly elite beat Jesus up as well, before they hand him over to the Romans; and he has Jesus telling Pilate that he is not responsible - the Jewish elite is. Pilate and his wife are portrayed as saints forced by politics and the Jewish elders to kill a man they know is innocent. Again, this reflects part of the Gospels, but Gibson goes further. He presents Pilate's wife as actually finding Mary, providing towels to wipe up Jesus' blood, arguing for Jesus' release. Yes, the Roman torturers are obviously evil; yes, a few Jews dissent; and, of course, all the disciples are Jewish. I wouldn't say that this movie is motivated by anti-Semitism. It's motivated by psychotic sadism. But Gibson does nothing to mitigate the dangerous anti-Semitic elements of the story and goes some way toward exaggerating and highlighting them. To my mind, that is categorically unforgivable. Anti-Semitism is the original sin of Christianity. Far from expiating it, this movie clearly enjoys taunting those Catholics as well as Jews who are determined to confront that legacy. In that sense alone, it is a deeply immoral work of art.
Some of this requires one to see the movie, although modest replies are obvious: Making an issue of the amount of Judas's payment? See Matthew 27:6 and 7, but particularly 9. The Jewish priests rough Jesus up? See Matthew 26:67, Mark 14:65, and John 18:22.
For now, what jumps out the most, however, is the line, "Anti-Semitism is the original sin of Christianity." To illustrate why I picked up on that specifically, I offer another citation — Sullivan's Love Undetectable, page 19: "The loathing of each group [gays and Jews] is also closely linked to fear, and the fear is fanned, in many ways, by the distortion of a particular strain in Christian theology."
ADDENDUM:
Mike Potemra offers his thoughts on the matter:
Now, I saw this movie, too, twice, and I was especially on the lookout for signs of anti-Semitism or an overstress on Jewish guilt. I didn't see it—and I think if Andrew hadn't been angry at the film on other grounds, he wouldn't have seen it either.
[Gabriel Rosenberg made a comment to this post that I thought sufficiently important to put my reply in the main body of the blog. (It also didn't hurt that it took me so long to write it.)]
He talks about a Dad making it to more baseball games. In my family, it was my Mom who was the big baseball fan. My Dad preferred football. If he thinks it is important for his children to have a parent of each gender, he should marry someone of the opposite gender. In our society we generally allow parents to decide what is best for their own children.
— I'll admit that this is an attractive argument. The catch is that the well-being of young Gabriel Rosenberg isn't, of itself, a tremendously "compelling state interest." Let's leave aside that these examples, such as the sports reference, are meant to capture much more intricate arguments about much more subtle relationships. If your mother truly was a baseball enthusiast and wasn't just supporting her son's endeavors, she was unique in that respect.
But again, the sports reference is only emblematic. Allow me to quote our friend Andrew Sullivan in a New York Times Magazine piece on testosterone:
And the difference is a real one. This is so obvious a point that we sometimes miss it. But without that difference, it would be hard to justify separate sports leagues for men and women, just as it would be hard not to suspect judicial bias behind the fact that of the 98 people executed last year in the United States, 100 percent came from a group that composes a little less than 50 percent of the population; that is, men. When the discrepancy is racial, we wring our hands. That it is sexual raises no red flags. Similarly, it is not surprising that 55 percent of everyone arrested in 1998 was under the age of 25 -- the years when male testosterone levels are at their natural peak.
Of course, Sullivan's example isn't a shining one for the male parent (although he elsewhere notes that testosterone levels drop in men in stable marriages); his point throughout is that testosterone affects a person in every way, and "an average woman has 40 to 60 nanograms of testosterone in a deciliter of blood plasma. An average man has 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter." My point, because I am most definitely not a biology-is-destiny type, is that, no matter how you approach the question, men and woman are different in significant ways. To argue that they are not is, resurrecting a metaphor, akin to arguing that triangles and rectangles are not different in significant ways when it comes to skyscraper construction.
This doesn't quite reach your point. Even so, you'll say, it is a matter of opinion whether those differences, however significant they may be, are crucial contributors to the proper development of a child. That they are indeed strikes me as obvious, and I believe recent sociological research backs up what just about everybody believes to be true anyway. At the very least, we can say that your proposal is entirely untested on a societal scale (a scale at which no individual can possibly comprehend every relevant factor), and that the stakes gambled to test it are cataclysmically high.
The entire point of encouraging marriage in any civic form is to address society-wide realities. When it comes to civil marriage, that is, your individualistic point, as emotionally compelling as it may be, is either irrelevant or subversive of the civil institution. Now, you can argue to the public that men and women are not, on average, significantly different when it comes to childrearing. Or you can argue that civil marriage ought to be abolished. But you can't argue that parents have a right to receive public endorsements for every choice that they make in contravention of public belief.
Lane Core notes, from the New York Sun, a piece by Alicia Colon. This part is too eye-popping not to quote; it's one of those documents that sends you searching for signs of fraud or farce, even though it indicates something that you intuit could be true:
Over 40 years ago, Rep. A.S. Herlong of Florida introduced into the Congressional Record, January 10, 1963, excerpts of a book written by a former FBI agent, Cleon Skousen.It was called "The Naked Communist," and the excerpts were "current communist goals." There were 45 in all, at least 40 of which have been achieved. These are some that need to be noted as apropos to what is going on in America today:
- Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
- Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
- Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with social religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."
- Discredit the family as an institution.
- Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
- Eliminate prayer or any phrase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
After some quick research, I can't locate this portion of the Congressional Record on any Web sites in which I'm especially confident (e.g., with a .gov), but this page seems to present information according with every other instance of its mention. Here are a few more objectives that might cause a shiver:
Of course, even assuming that these were actually concerns read into the Congressional Record forty years ago, this doesn't mean that there's an orchestrated conspiracy going on. Forecasting changes that would further the cause of communism would likely lead to some hits even if there's nothing more deliberate than a sort of creeping socialism in the culture. Nonetheless, the matter is worth at least as much consideration as the question about whom the terrorists would want to win the next election — which isn't a loony or superfluous question in the least.
ADDENDUM:
Here's another little wrinkle — almost definitely just a coincidence. While looking into The Naked Communist, I came across this, from a 1998 review of the book on Amazon:
Cleon Skousen used this text for a course at Brigham Young University. ...Now at BYU, in a required course for Poly Sci. majors, Stan Taylor methodically debunks Skousen's "Naked Communist" and Gary Allen's "None Dare Call it Conspiracy." Stan also sits on key policy-making boards for the LDS Church to determine the Church's stand regarding Communist nations.
As it happens, last night I received a highly suspicious email, with a zip file attached in the fashion of the MyDoom virus, and the text: "you are a bad writer." The email address, if you haven't guessed, was from byu.edu.
Scott Ott had two satires reacting from the President's announcement of support for a marriage amendment that I didn't get around to linking to. "Bush Backs Amendment Defining 'Mayor'" brought to mind Gabriel Rosenberg's comment to a recent post, here, asking whether the courts had a right to redefine "governor" to include women.
Meanwhile, "Bush Backs Traditional Marriage, AndrewSullivan.com Hardest Hit" is a humorous reminder of the odd position in which pundits who advocate for a particular cause are in. Whether their side wins or loses a particular significant event, the pundits are likely to experience a career boost. There isn't inherently anything wrong with that — advocates of non-economic causes have to manage somehow — but I thought this part of Ott's piece aptly cutting:
"Not only will AndrewSullivan.com be hard hit," said an unnamed expert in constitutional PR, "But Mr. Sullivan's PayPal donation link will take a beating as liberals and homosexuals race to combat the amendment by funding Andrew's promotional efforts."Mr. Sullivan could not be reached for comment since he is appearing on several dozen news and talk shows.
Keeping up my small-scale efforts to encourage youngsters to think like me, I'd like to take a moment to congratulate Marcus Ross of the University of Rhode Island's Students for the Awareness of Conservatism for braving the zeitgeist to enunciate, intelligently, academic blasphemy:
Proponents of same-sex marriage insist their quest for marriage is the same as the fight to abolish laws prohibiting interracial marriage during the Civil Rights era. But here's where the analogy of interracial and same-sex marriage breaks down: there are no fundamental differences between black, white, Asian or Latino males. Skin color is superficial and (to me, anyway) irrelevant as to who someone wants to marry. But the differences between a man and a woman (irrespective of race)? Those are relevant. Males and females are certainly equal, but they clearly are not identical, nor are the types of relationships in which they engage.
Sorry to get such a late start with the blogging today. We had to drive out to New Bedford for an extensive sonogram (reason for concern, but not much to worry about). On the way back, we stopped at BJs so that we won't have to do so this weekend, and I picked up some much-needed coffee. And, well, a day that I knew was coming has arrived.
Here's the can that I just emptied:
And here's the can that I just opened:
I've known that this little part of life would change just as irrevocably as that terrible rip in all of our lives two-plus years ago. A sort of subtle reminder and distant ripple. I'd held out some miniscule hope that the company would maintain its anachronistic packaging, but that hope had been little more than wishful thinking. The packaging of the twin pack wrapper has long borne the scar of reality:
I imagine the company was just using up its old cans.
It is reasonable to anticipate that, should gay civil marriage come to be, the next push will be to force religious institutions either to perform gay marriages or to disconnect from the ability to grant civil marital status as part of religious ceremonies. Nonetheless, I didn't think it worth worrying about anything specific — such as the loss of tax exemption — because I largely agreed with Eugene Volokh:
He said churches could raise a "significant constitutional defense" to keeping their tax-exempt status. He noted, for instance, the Catholic Church has faced criticism for years because it doesn't ordain women as priests."Churches, quite clearly, have the right to marry or not marry whoever they please," Volokh said. "Maybe somebody could sue them for discrimination in marriage, but the churches will certainly win."
Of course, even on this basis alone, one could suggest that they'll maintain the right to marry whomever they want, while losing the public recognition of those ceremonies. But the SCOTUS ruling regarding discrimination against students in Washington state just because they'll pursue religious studies does much to push Volokh's confidence toward religious folks' worries. Here he is on the Washington scholarship case:
The result, I think, genuinely is the discrimination against religion that people have complained about (sometimes wrongly, but here rightly) -- not just exclusion of either pro-religion or anti-religion messages from the government's own speech, but a regime where the government may discriminate against private religious institutions and programs, but may not discriminate in their favor. Now this is a wrong that is indeed worth amending the Constitution over.
Rick Garnette says that the court "has authorized discrimination by state actors against those who take their religious faith seriously." Prof. Bainbridge positions the ruling in opposition to the frequent calls for the courts to "protect minorities from the 'tyranny' of the majority," a sentiment that gay marriage advocates have voiced to justify pushing their cause through the judiciary.
Put it all together, adding in suppression of free religious speech in Canada and action against the Boy Scouts in the United States, and the circumstances seem to justify moving from vague suspicion into open concern. Volokh suggests that the discrimination against religion is "worth amending the Constitution over," but I wonder to what rallying cry he would tie such a movement. The U.S. Religious Scholarship Protection Amendment?
Too many people have been wooed by specious arguments about "separation of church and state" and convinced that it requires the very discrimination that Volokh decries for a general religion-protection amendment to gain traction. Similarly, too many fair-minded and reasonable people with faith in the law, such as Mr. Volokh, are misidentifying the trends and motivation behind them and underestimating the extent to which judges don't share that faith — or at least believe themselves to be its main prophets.
Increasingly, it seems to me that marriage, and the amendment to protect it, represent just about the strongest conceivable position from which to push back on this attack on the Constitution and, ultimately, on freedom. The FMA would not only slow the tide, but it would also break justifiable pleas for equality from advocacy with less-noble intentions. And, as I've said, when the ripples settle down, when the right circumstances are achieved, it can be repealed.
And the elite delegitimization of religion as a worthwhile pursuit continues:
The Supreme Court, in a new rendering on separation of church and state, voted Wednesday to let states withhold scholarships from students studying theology.The court's 7-2 ruling held that the state of Washington was within its rights to deny a taxpayer-funded scholarship to a college student who was studying to be a minister. That holding applies even when money is available to students studying anything else.
I don't know the specifics of this case, but it would seem relevant to ask whether a student seeking a healthy education in secular humanism and the genius of Marxism would have similar difficulties procuring tax-payer dollars.
The Providence Journal, which has barely mentioned a major protest against gay marriage in Boston and not so much as whispered about smaller protests in closer cities for which it serves as the major paper, is giving top billing to a small gathering of the most liberal of liberal ministers in Rhode Island.
It's just shameful. Saddening and shameful. In an article about religious people, on a topic for which the biggest strawman is that the only arguments against gay marriage are religious, the paper didn't offer a single opposing argument. We're told that the Catholic Church opposes gay marriage, and we get this:
"This group of clergy got together to announce and demonstrate to the public that they, a respectable church, and members of other respectable churches -- in distinction from only the Roman Catholic Church -- were in support of this change in social policy," Perry said after the news conference.Earlier this month, a spokesman for Bishop Robert Mulvee, the head of the Providence Catholic Diocese, said the bishop would work to oppose any bills legalizing gay marriage.
While most speakers at the event yesterday did not specifically refer to the Catholic Church, some urged legislators not to oppose gay marriage on religious grounds.
Instead, it would seem, legislators are to support it on religious grounds:
The Rev. Dr. William C. Trench, of the United Methodist Church in East Greenwich, said his support for gay marriage is based on his religious beliefs.Marriage, he said, "is a promise made before God and the community to love one another forever."
And the Velvet Rag continues to sell its soul for gay marriage.
I'm starting to think that the gay marriage debate is indicative of nothing so much as class differences. Consider Glenn Reynolds's thoughts:
That said, I'm still against it, just as I was against the Defense of Marriage Act that Bill Clinton signed. I know plenty of gay people who are, for all practical purposes, married. I don't see what's wrong with them getting married. I don't understand how letting gay people get married threatens heterosexual marriage (here's an amusing post on that subject). And, in fact, I suspect that to the extent it makes any difference at all in the wider society, gay marriage will prove to be a fundamentally conservative institution, with married gays taking the role of solid citizens that married people have traditionally taken.
I continue to be disappointed by what is essentially a position dismissing all concerns — even more so because this position hasn't changed one bit since June. How does one argue with a perspective that puts aside thousands of words of argument and various social-study analyses on the basis of a few acquaintances? I don't know Prof. Reynolds's gay friends, but is the professorial class really one on which to base cultural policy?
It's not unlike Andrew Sullivan's declaration that "the living, breathing reality of civil marriage in America" is that it's more about coupling than childbearing and family. As I've shown, this is nonsense. Last night, I walked into the living room during a commercial and asked my wife what she was watching. To paraphrase: "That show with the married guy and the kids." I laughed, because there are any number of shows that fit the description.
I mean no disrespect to Prof. Reynolds, of course, but the vision of marriage in academia or in the blue-state jet-set in which Sullivan lives simply don't constitute a plausible — or sane — model for the whole of society. Add to this that middle and working class folks who argue for gay marriage seem disproportionately likely to have had bad experiences with marriage, and it doesn't evince paranoia to suggest that at issue is the removal of perhaps the most significant cultural guardrail.
And, frankly, I'd be much more comfortable with the expressed opinions of the likes of Prof. Reynolds if they took to the time to address others' concerns more extensively than with reference to friends and shows of hand in the law-school classroom.
ADDENDUM:
Just to clarify: "People I know" isn't inadmissible as evidence; it just isn't wholly adequate. It requires, at least, some justification for believing that those people are representative and a willingness to address conflicts between experience and broader information.
I had just about decided not to post my thoughts on the comments to an entry by Roger Simon. What strikes me is the sheer extremism, the fundamentalist confidence, and the belief that only hateful people could take a contrary position. There's no concern for the way in which the "right" policy is implemented. There's no concern about the adverse consequences that accompany even the most righteous change, when that change is as profound as gay marriage would be.
The reason I wasn't going to mention those comments is that they got me thinking that perhaps it would be worth exploring the extent to which Internet demographics play into the arguments. If I had to characterize the standard online position on my side, it would be that tying up some legal issues for gay couples would be fair and compassionate, but that there are reasons for society to single out male-female unions for special approval. There's a quip here, an expression of disbelief there, but for the most part, it is understood, at the very least, that there are shades of motivation and reasonableness on the other side of the issue.
Of course, I'm aware that there are probably chat rooms and certainly computerless folks out there who would put Simon's commenters to shame in the vitriol department with the opposite point of view. That's why I began to wonder whether one could generalize about the relative ages and social positions of those who take both sides on the Internet. The "college kid" corollary on the conservative side of the gay marriage issue is probably far less likely to have ready access to a computer and sufficient interest to read and comment on political blogs than would be an actual college kid.
Anyway, as I implied, there's much to be considered here, and it's hardly so obvious that it can be stated confidently, and I don't have the highest confidence in my ponderosity today. But... then I came across Andrew Sullivan's screed, which could really knock a person back a step. Support for the marriage amendment, according to Sullivan, can be nothing other than a hateful political ploy. That's it. End of story.
Now, I have sympathy for Sullivan in this. Not only is he gay, and not only does he seem to have identified the right to marry as some sort of balm that would retroactively heal the wounds of his childhood, but he's devoted a substantial portion of the latter half of his life to this cause. It would, in fact, be a bit surprising, perhaps disconcerting, if his blog-speed reaction had been of completely even temper.
Nonetheless, I can't help but feel that he's let something more constant show through. I'll be exploring some of this in greater depth in the very near future, but Sullivan changes tone so dramatically when he feels he's got the upper hand versus when he feels he's losing leverage that it's reasonable to be wary of making any judgments based on promises of magnanimity when he thinks the issue is going his way. Frankly, I suspect he's not alone, among gay marriage supporters, in this. He's said that the civil-rights, gay-marriage-supporting, assimilationist side of the gay community has won some sort of internal battle of ideologies. I'm not so sure that's what's happened; I'm not even sure that can be said of Sullivan himself.
So, in short, I think it worth your time to read Sullivan's comments; he hasn't summarized his talking points more concisely anywhere. From the "sacred document" appeal, to race baiting, to accusations of politics, to — yes — assumption of bigotry:
That very tactic is so shocking in its prejudice, so clear in its intent, so extreme in its implications that it leaves people of good will little lee-way.
If you're of good will, in other words, you must oppose this President. If this feeling is deeper than just-stung swearing, I fear Sullivan is badly misunderstanding which way this issue is going to go:
We must appeal to the fair-minded center of the country that balks at the hatred and fear that much of the religious right feeds on.
You may support gay marriage. You may even believe that, deep down, opposition to it stems from some sort of prejudice. But one thing it is delusional to believe is that the "fair-minded center" will look at the President's speech this morning and see hatred and fear of homosexuals. The actual direction in which those emotions are running couldn't be clearer.
For the sake of a project that I'd like to finish up this week, I had intended to blog only lightly today, anyway. However, I've been alternating between feeling tired and nauseous since I woke up, so know that whatever posts there are were written through somewhat of a fog.
Well, sides are being taken, and the President has just chosen his:
The union of man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious or natural roots without weakening the good influence of society today.
I actually didn't catch the speech, so I'll have to keep an eye out for transcripts or streaming media. (Shouldn't those things be just about instantaneous nowadays?) Check the Corner, up from here, for some coverage.
While I'm there, I thought I'd address a couple of things that Ramesh Ponnuru has said. First, there's his response to Andrew Sullivan, who asked whether civil union laws already on the books would be nullified by the FMA. Here's Ponnuru:
The amendment is supposed to block recurrences of such judicial edicts--so you would not see other states following the same pattern. Whether the existing civil unions and civil-unions laws would be nullified is, I think, unanswerable based on FMA alone. It would depend on the applicable law regarding how to handle retrospective changes to the law. Supporters of FMA who agree with one another about every other detail of what its impact would be may well disagree on this question.
I don't know what laws there are pertaining to the continuation of pre-amendment laws. However, changing the question just a little to address whether other states could pass the same laws after the FMA is passed, I'd have to say that I don't believe so. At least Vermont's and California's civil union laws pretty explicitly grant incidents of marriage, as such, to unmarried couples.
In a tangential post, Tim Graham asks:
Ramesh, in your wire story there, isn't it funny that the media always use the term "ban" so-called gay marriages? How do you "ban" something that is presently not officially recognized in most states?
Ponnuru's response is that "it's not inaccurate as a description of a forward-looking prohibition." That's true enough, but I don't think it covers Graham's intended quip. The media has been using "ban" all along, as in: "The SJC today struck down the ban on gay marriages." Personally, this particular instance of spin has bugged me for a while.
ADDENDUM:
The White House's Web site has a transcript and video.
I've held on to various items with the intention to write about them, but for various reasons I haven't found the time. So, here they are:
At some point in the future, I'm sure I'll stop being angered by such media antics as Brent Bozell mentions — as the networks and papers carefully craft their preferred reality — but that reasonable perspective has thus far eluded me.
Rev. Donald Sensing has been writing on the gay marriage thing from various angles. Of particular note is an essay in which he explores differences in the way we approach marriage as a concept.
Joining the two previous topics, Rod Dreher suggests that burying stories about events in the gay marriage battle, as is being done, is exactly what he would do if he held the opposite opinion, a position of power, and loose ethical guidelines.
Patrick Sweeney chides Rush Limbaugh for spinning the lethargy with which Republican politicians have moved to deal with the gay marriage issue. The comments drifted toward the likely extent of the coming cultural struggle. An optimist might suggest that we've an opportunity to undo 1968, in a manner of speaking.
Edward Feser, meanwhile, responds to some reactions to his exploration of why the American academy is such a Leftist stronghold, proving, as he does so, that humor is an apt complement to intelligence.
And last, a couple in Australia raises a question that I've often wondered in the context of late-age remarriage of divorced people with children of opposite sex: to what extent does it serve to "set up" the kids with an intimate, in-house relationship of their own? I wonder just how common this turn of events is and wouldn't be surprised to find it hardly rare at all.
Back in early January, I noted that Andrew Sullivan was evincing a selective memory when he declared, "When gay marriage gets an actual popular majority, as it soon will in Massachusetts, they won't be able to hide behind their argument about 'judicial activism' and will have to be candid that their real, anti-gay goal."
At the time, a new Zogby poll was indicating that the trend was precisely the opposite. While just after Goodridge a Boston Globe survey found a majority of Massachusetts supporting gay marriage (50% to 38%) and opposed to a man-woman-marriage amendment (53% to 36%), the Zogby poll reversed the results of the first question (42% support for versus 52% opposition to gay marriage) and narrowed the second (49% opposition to versus 48% support for an amendment).
Well, Stanley Kurtz points out that the first trend has continued. The Globe has released the results of another poll. Now, only 35% support gay marriage, while 53% oppose it. The question of the amendment, however, has splintered into a more complicated matter, in part as a result of the legislature's attempts to find compromise amendments, with each option polling as follows:
Restrict marriage to heterosexuals: 45% yes, 47% no
Heterosexual marriage, but mandated civil unions: 36% yes, 49% no
Heterosexual marriage, with civil unions defined by legislature: 30% yes, 55% no
At least part of the problem seems to be a misunderstanding of the legal contingencies (which is, of course, absolutely understandable). 71% wanted the issue to be decided by voters in a statewide referendum, and 57% wanted voters to be presented with several options. It seems likely that, as voters come to understand that the only way for them to have a say is if there's an amendment, support will climb, and that they'll choose the option allowing them the most direct control. In that respect, they run right into the linguistic problems arising with the FMA — how to allow something for the people and their representatives while blocking the courts.
Incidentally, I think these numbers indicate another dynamic that I've come to see as likely: whichever way the battle goes, ultimately, there will be a temporary uptick in marriage and decrease in divorce, because the issue of marriage has been on people's minds. Whether as a result of folks' pondering what, in their marriages, is or ought to be blocked to gays or touting the benefits of marriage to which gays ought to have access, the perceived value of the institution rises. If gay marriage wins out, however, this advance will be short lived as the issue fades and as newlyweds enter the scene having never given the matter such deep thought.
Am I a wacko extremist type? I do try to be reasonable, but arguments do tend to carry me away.
It isn't just an ego thing, I don't think, that leads me to be disappointed that I didn't merit mention in Ponnuru's article, considering that he makes a point of establishing a broad view of the debate, via links. If there's something to the omission, I wonder what, specifically, could be more prudently done, on my part, in the future. The Lord knows that, between the Providence Journal and Jonah Goldberg, I didn't make any friends last week.
Perhaps it's just an indication that, while I'm making progress, my hopes are getting ahead of reasonable expectations. Perhaps, however, it might be helpful for me at least to act as if I've reached a point at which it would be advantageous for the leash on my lips, so to speak, to be tightened. I've never had a mentor nor instruction on these sorts of considerations, so it's all a bit like fumbling in the dark.
Okay, end insecure catharsis.
In addressing some of the objections to the FMA that I've fielded recently, Ramesh Ponnuru offers a reminder of something that it's easy to forget: agreement with the marriage amendment in whatever form those negotiating the wording think can pass doesn't mean there won't be degrees of preferred policy different. I could back this, for example, if it would help the cause:
As for the suggestion that no possible language will work, let me offer a suggestion: Strike the words "state or" from the second sentence of the amendment. That is to say, make it possible for a state law to be construed to require the conferral of benefits on same-sex couples. But continue to block the construal of a state constitution that way. That deletion should make Volokh's scenario go away. And amendment supporters would not be giving up very much. What they are most concerned about is the idea that a court will take one of the "majestic generalities" typically found in constitutions and give it a specific meaning they do not believe it can bear. Statutes, by their nature, are less susceptible to this kind of thing. And if a state court took interpretive liberties with a statute, it would be much easier for the state legislature to correct the problem — it would simply need to pass a new statute.
To be sure, if changes are to be made, I'd rather they just clarify what I believe that the FMA already does: allows civil unions as long as they're built without reference to marriage. But that's a subtle point, in the big picture, that I would gladly trade. Particularly if polls continue to trend as I'll be noting in a post or two...
In part because of a blog post by Oswald Sobrino, I've been thinking about the spiritual consequences of sex. Specifically, I mean the mirror attitudes that "it's just sex" and that sex can be spiritually rewarding, from which often follows the conclusion that the Roman Catholic Church (among other prudes) makes way too much of it.
Certainly, one could argue that the Church only seems to elevate it above many other sins because it is an area in which religious tradition jars painfully against modern mores. In our times, particularly, sex happens to be an activity that people seem inclined to defend, even at the expense of faith. It is often clear, at least to me, where those who most strenuously argue that the Church should change its teachings have become perfect examples, themselves, of the reason it should not. Their religion has become more of a New Age naturalism, and when they refer to the spiritual benefits of sex, they're more likely to characterize it as a gift of "our nature" than of God — even if they believe themselves to be devoted Christians.
Explication of this corruption of faith, however, is of limited utility in a world so far gone. Moreover, even I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that the government ought to legislate explicitly so as to diminish neo-paganism. It is a blessing, therefore, that we for whom that actually is a goal find the very same corruption at work in a more social context.
The stages that follow overlap, within an individual and across society. To the extent that they represent a continuous trend, they won't all take the same amount of time to resolve to the next step. But I think the list gives some sort of structure to the logical progression of sexual corruption.
First, the glass onion is thrown up, peeling on the way:
This is about where our culture is right now, although we are rushing toward the next stage, at which the glass onion begins to fall back down:
I'm sure there are a substantial number of people — particularly among those who read the Internet regularly — who would have no problem with any innovation up to and including cloning. From there, who can guess the next step? Would a married couple requesting the pill for the first time have believed anybody loony enough to suggest that gay marriage — let alone cloning — would be the result? Whether folks in the Sixties had reason or capability to see it, the trend is coded, so to speak, in the intial steps of the liberalization of sexual morality, with the innovation of contraception.
My suspicion is that society won't get as far as pushing cloning specifically for the benefit of gay parents (even if that is one excuse put forward). To reach that point, every "conservative" argument for gay marriage must pan out. In all likelihood, the cultural link between parenthood and marriage would fade just as the cultural link between sex and marriage and the biological link between sex and childbearing faded before it. And no matter the ethical qualms one might have with the smashing glass onion, the dissolution of marriage and the norms that it protects would in no way represent a silver lining.
I just noticed that the Providence Journal's Web folks replaced the picture of their front page that I had used in my post about its coverage of reaction to Gov. Carcieri's terrorism bill to a blank, while every other picture is still available. Curious.
If their concern had been for the resources used for each download, one would have expected techies to remove the file or just change its name. Guess I'll return to the practice of hosting pictures on my own server.
The Diocese of Fall River gave us a preview (PDF) of the abuse statistics that are about to hit the media, and I have to say, after years of scandal, they actually aren't as bad as one would have expected from the coverage. Keep in mind, of course, that this is only one diocese, and for context, consider that Fall River was among the first to be hit by the scandal and was the diocese in which Bishop O'Malley earned his reputation as a fixer, so to speak.
Out of 1,353 priests serving since 1954, 32 were the subject of allegations — 2.37%. In total, there were 216 allegations. Unfortunately, the diocese didn't note how many were ultimately substantiated. The bulletin insert also doesn't include such information as the ages or gender of the children.
Now, here's the eye popper: only six of the alleged incidents occurred after 1980. That means that 97.2% of all accusations involved abuse happening during the great cultural convulsion of the Seventies, Sixties, and late Fifties. Moreover, all but 10% — all but 22 allegations — came to light after 1990, which is when the diocese began investigating and addressing the problem.
Of course, any abuse is too much, and of course, the Church oughtn't attempt to absolve itself by pointing a finger at the culture. But it is certainly significant that, at least in our diocese, the problem had largely abated well before action had been taken and before the extent of the problem was known.
The discovery that the first lesbian couple married as if for real in the United States were, in fact, old-time man-haters brought forward an interesting paradox. Here are two women who, if their lesbianism was an inherent, unchangeable aspect of their psychological composition, spent years and expended copious effort attempting to liberate other women from bonds that the pair, themselves, would never have chosen to enter in the first place.
It would be a safe bet that Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin have, at some point in each of their lives, spoken the phrase, "I don't need a man to make me whole." And yet, central to the rights-based argument for gay marriage is the rhetoric that being unable to marry makes homosexuals "less than human." Perhaps it's a little trite, but the take-away message seems to be that straights don't need marriage to be complete, but gays do.
Talk about a reversal of natural law!
Now here's an interesting question. Several of the most vocal proponents of gay marriage have made the distinction between gay marriage and polygamy that, with the latter, there would be a valid concern about the development of a bachelor underclass. Anthropological history, as I understand, makes that a pretty safe bet.
At the same time, some of those same SSM proponents have admitted that they believe women's sexuality to be more fluid, more of a choice. Once the choice is made, lesbians, where given the chance, are more likely to marry than gay men (Vermont civil unions are two to one). Similarly, the "superfidelity" of female-female unions has been often touted as canceling out the likely higher rates of infidelity among male-male unions. Now throw on this mound of factors the reality that the "glass ceiling" is just about gone and adoption rights are sure to follow marriage rights, and that revolutionary techniques in fertility and artificial conception are coming into their own.
It seems to me that female-female unions might be just as likely to have the male-underclass effect as polygamy. Maybe more likely. After all, if a man marries two women, there's only one man left out; if a woman marries a woman, there are two resulting bachelors. Of course, this is in a realm of unknowability about the effects of gay marriage, but at the very least, it would seem a reasonable challenge to the blithe leveraging of lesbians as self-evidently good for the institution of marriage as a whole.
Given the rules for passage of a Constitutional amendment, balances and compromises must certainly be struck. As I noted yesterday, Jonathan Rauch (who is personally against any amendment having to do with marriage, anyway) has suggested that it would be easier to pass an amendment that does nothing more than restrict the gay marriage movement to state-by-state action. He would even leave state judiciaries free to do as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has done.
I've already suggested that such an amendment would sap the motivation of the amendment's strongest supporters, and I just recalled something that one such supporter, Robert Knight, said back in 2001:
Once you abandon morality, you must rely solely on utilitarian arguments. This is one of the weaknesses of the current campaign for the Federal Marriage Amendment: Its defenders have purposely avoided making moral arguments. No constitutional amendment campaign can succeed without a great moral principle driving it. Curbing judicial power is appealing, to be sure, but it is not enough to motivate the mass movement necessary to generate success. Nobody goes into the trenches to preserve a "national debate." Just because homosexual pressure groups are attacking the proposal with vehemence does not mean it is the best vehicle. They react with outrage at any resistance to their agenda.
Seen in this light, Rauch's proposal would siphon off even the "moral principle" having to do with curbing judicial power. By hammering conservatives for abandoning federalism, he seeks to enshrine it as the sole motivation for acting at all. The balance of principle between morality, social requirements, separation of powers, and federalism would be completely restricted to what — for me, at least — ought to be seen as more of a guideline for action rather than its purpose.
Of further interest is that the aspect of the FMA that Rauch would keep is mainly that expressed in the second sentence. In his own attacks on the FMA (which are too plentiful for me to go sifting through right now), Andrew Sullivan has taken the opposite approach, concentrating on limiting conservatives' action merely to the man-and-woman definition.
And this, ultimately, highlights a bit of sleight of hand on Rauch's part. He is characterizing his solution as "to constitutionalize DOMA." But the Defense of Marriage Act, itself, defines marriage as between a man and a woman. In effect, therefore, the FMA as it currently stands does essentially what Rauch is claiming his amendment would do.
Victor Lams brought my attention to an AP report on MSNBC regarding the latest legal happenings in San Francisco. Thereon, I noticed an interactive map with information about the various states' laws regarding gay marriage.
Look closely, and you'll see that the map is provided by Lambda Legal, a major — and I mean central — advocate for gay marriage. Hardly an objective source! And, not surprisingly, if you click on Rhode Island, the following text appears:
A bill is pending that would legalize and allow for same sex marriage in Rhode Island. It is the only pro-same sex marriage bill to have a hearing in the country
Of course, also having a hearing is a bill to ban same-sex marriage, a factoid that Lamda apparently didn't think worthy of mention. Wonder what else goes without saying.
Among the hardest to take of the arguments of gay marriage's proponents is that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. I find myself rubbing my eyes when I read something like this from Andrew Sullivan:
Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. But he was adamant about the impermissibility of divorce. How can the Protestant right ignore his direct teachings on one and yet demand Constitutional action against the other?
He links to a piece by Jack Miles that imagines a young conservative Christian — such as myself — attempting to explain to Jesus why the Defense of Marriage Act isn't a prohibition of divorce. The implication is that Christians have no business opposing gay marriage. Personally, were Jesus to read Miles's column, I think His reaction might be more along the lines of, "Are you people nuts?"
Okay, okay. Of course that wouldn't be His reaction. However, He might say, "Didn't Paul tell you that my Father made His nature and, therefore, His will plain? And didn't he warn that, in wickedness, men would suppress the truth? That, claiming to be wise, they would become fools?
"If you will not believe Paul in what he has told you, perhaps you will look to what is plain in what I said about divorce. 'At the beginning the Creator made them male and female.' And when my disciples protested that my prohibition of divorce was so difficult as to make it better never to marry, is it not plain what I meant by marriage in the way in which I responded?"
It may be a debating point that one must look outside of the Gospels for an explicit condemnation of homosexuality. That does not mean, however, that it doesn't push the boundaries of credulity into foolish wisdom to suggest that Jesus wouldn't have objected to gay marriage.
(Note: Of course, being a member of the Catholic right, I'm presumably in the clear vis-a-vis the speck/plank thing.)
As Jonah Goldberg has indicated, the version of the previous post that now appears is a revision of the original. Since Jonah used the Corner to express his entirely justified reaction to the sentiment that I've edited out, I thought it worth clarifying the matter and issuing something by way of warning to my fellow bloggers.
I opened the original version of the post with what, in my tired Friday morning mind, I intended to be a bit of playful, in the dugout, ball boy jibing of a major leaguer. I didn't mean to sneer or even, really, to accuse Jonah of anything improper. The "cool" comment wasn't meant to imply that he puts forward arguments in which he doesn't believe or expresses conflicts that he doesn't feel are real. Actually, I don't even know that I'd characterize a desire to be "cool," in this sense, as an invalid reason for taking positions.
I posted the entry and emailed Jonah. Within minutes, he had emailed back expressing offense, and within a couple minutes more, I had agreed, revised, and emailed an apology. If a single person read the post as objectionably written, I'd be surprised.
Here's the warning to fellow bloggers: this is minor stuff, in the big picture, particularly if these are seen as personal interactions in the context of a hobby. The danger arises for folks, like me, who are trying to find a way into a career, and who are just starting — for the first time ever — to feel a little give in the door.
Blogging is too quick, perhaps, and a silly overstatement or wayward tone can slip through one's fingers before it can be retracted.
Well, it's retracted, if not forgotten. Back to that doorknob.
There's a gang of relatively well-known conservatives who seem inclined to walk a difficult line of amicability between warring factions on both sides of social disputes. Sometimes, however, it seems to present a problem for them to remain within the boundaries beyond which mainstream friends, like Andrew Sullivan, would start calling them names like "poseur" or "theocon."
Jonah Goldberg, amicable as he is, has been among the most visibly affected by this dilemma, and he solidified his standing with a vaguely disconcerting column that virtually pulsated with his frustration at the growing discomfort of the strategy of doing nothing, to which he's inclined:
I also suspect that millions of Americans share my attitude toward the subject of gay marriage: Enough already. Whether you're for it or against it, many of us just don't want to hear about it anymore — like those commercials featuring mothers and daughters walking on the beach having conversations nobody ever wanted to overhear.
Just make it go away!
But, of course, it won't just go away. There are two sides with irreconcilable intentions. Unfortunately, as Jonah's compatriot Nick Schulz makes clear, it looks as if some number of folks who share Goldberg's frustration are preparing to pounce on a suggestion by Jonathan Rauch as some sort of ideological and emotional life raft. Rauch writes:
So if the problem is the worry that federal judges will impose Massachusetts's gay marriages on the entire country, the way to take care of that would be to constitutionalize DOMA. The sample wording I give in my book is:'Nothing in this Constitution requires any state or the federal government to recognize anything other than the union of one man and one woman as a marriage.'
Somehow it has gone without mention that Jonathan Rauch has long been a key figure pushing gay marriage; Schulz even calls him a "non-partisan writer." Non-partisan in what sense? Here he is in 2001:
I know, I know. Kurtz will simply insist that real, committed marriage will never be normative for homosexuals; gays just don't have that "dynamic of male-female sexuality" thing. Unfortunately, I don't think I can persuade him by telling him about all the gay people I know who have committed their enduring love and care to each other. I doubt I could persuade him even by telling him about all the men I know who have fed and comforted and carried their dying partners, and covered their partners with their bodies to keep them warm, and held their hands at the end and then sobbed and sobbed. Who is more fit to marry, the homosexual who comes home every night to wipe the vomit from the chin of his wasting partner, or the heterosexual who serves his first wife with divorce papers while she is in the hospital with cancer so that he can get on with marrying his second wife? Alas, I think I know what Kurtz would say.
To be sure, Rauch has no particular qualms about pursuing nationalization through litigation, an option that he has left open with his latest proposal. As he slips into his email to Schulz (parenthetically), "Activist state judges are the states' business, so long as no state can impose its own decision on others."
And that's the part that makes it a bit optimistic of Rauch and Schulz to present this amendment as more easily passed. Maybe those who don't want to take a position on the cultural question of gay marriage — as opposed to the easy procedural principle of federalism — will jump to it, but support will be lost among those who are most firmly convinced that action of some kind is necessary in the first place. One need only recall the arguments over sodomy, Lawrence, and Santorum to realize that this expanded apathy won't be shared by gay marriage activists who will apply national pressures and resources to the legal battle in each individual state. And in each individual state, it won't take more than a handful of judges to pound that gavel in their favor.
It ought to be seen as peculiar, to say the least, that passionate supporters of gay marriage would presume to propose a compromise for factions on the other side. And it certainly oughtn't be taken at face value. The day after he wrote the passionate argument that homosexuals deserve marriage, presented above, Rauch expressed a willingness to add "or any state's Constitution" to his proposed amendment. Since he wouldn't support it in any form, suggested by him or otherwise, and probably suspects that watering it down will make it less likely to pass, not more, Rauch is free to negotiate text as convenient.
Which leads us to the shining light of wisdom with which Goldberg closed his latest column:
The trouble with all of this is that a federalism-based compromise only works if you trust that the other side is acting in good faith. If Frank & Co. have no respect for the law of California, why should we expect them to respect the laws anywhere?
Both those who tout federalism uber alles and those who would prefer that the gay marriage debate just go away would best serve their interests by backing the two-sentence Federal Marriage Amendment. It will take the urgency out of the fight. It will allow homosexual advocates to work toward procuring rights for their unions in each state — through the legislature. And it will still leave open the possibility that, through assimilation and interpersonal relationships, homosexuals will change their culture and the larger one that we share such that ambivalence isn't a matter of internal conflict, but of measured experience.
ADDENDUM:
I thought it pertinent to mention, here, that I've responded to Jonah's justified complaint.
Links to worthwhile pieces about gay marriage have begun to clog my bookmarks file, so I thought I'd put them all together in one post. They're all related, inherently, anyway.
Let me start with an anecdote. My wife teaches third grade, and the mother of one of the girls in her class mentioned that the gay marriage debate has found its way into her daughter's head. The girl saw something about it on the news and turned around to declare, "I don't see what the problem is. They're just people; let them marry." I haven't fully explored the implications, myself, but my initial reactions are to be bemused that many adults aren't managing deeper thought than that little girl and to recoil some from the reality that, to address the girl's question, one would have to skirt such topics as are known to sap innocence.
The always-worth-reading Boston University professor Peter Wood brought that anecdote to mind with a piece on NRO looking at gay marriage — and civil unions — from his anthropological point of view:
He noted that, as he has gone around and talked to people in the state about the issue, he has found many who are diffident. They have essentially bought the line, "Why should I care? If two gay people get married, how does that hurt me?" In truth, it probably wouldn't. The destructive consequences would fall mainly on the young and the vulnerable who would grow up in a society without the bulwark of traditional marriage protecting them against the excesses of their own immature appetites and the rapacious desire of older males ever eager to expand the zone of sexual permissiveness.
That "expanding zone of sexual permissiveness" isn't just the paranoid vision of conservatives unable to deal with shifting mores. As Christopher Johnson notes, pedophiles are beginning to feel the pull of their right to be free of "adultist oppression":
For most of his life, he has buried his emotions and masked his long-secreted attraction. It wasn't until recently that Ashford decided to throw off the shackles of pedophilia and shed light on what he says is a misunderstood "sexual orientation." Last year, he became perhaps one of the first pedophiles in the world to put his name and face on a Web site to publicly profess his love for children.
Of course, the anthropological view is only one way of looking at a problem and, therefore, isn't wholly sufficient to require a particular policy. Yet, the indications that the adverse shifts in culture of which Prof. Wood warns and that Mr. Ashford's pleas make tangible are coming from many directions. Stanley Kurtz, for example, tells of the intentions of family law professors to leverage gay marriage to introduce group marriage, and not just for the purposes of increasing the potential for lawyers' fees:
These contracts would recognize marriages in any combination of number or gender. Ertman's goal is to render distinctions between any possible sexual grouping "morally neutral." Again, what’s interesting here is that all of these radicals favor gay marriage. Yet each sees gay marriage as a stepping stone to the effective abolition of marriage itself.
Linda Chavez, meanwhile, notes that gay marriage advocates "reject the notion that there is anything radical about their demand or that it would do harm to the institution of marriage itself," yet while spying in the liberal quarters of the radio spectrum:
Jonathan Katz [no relation], the executive director of the Larry Kramer Initiative for Gay and Lesbian Studies at Yale University (named for the founder of the confrontational gay rights group ACT-UP) admitted on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" this week that gay marriage "would revolutionize the institution of marriage itself. The advent of lesbian and gay marriage might, in fact, serve to not only reinvigorate but to redefine an institution that is increasingly viewed by many in our culture as having outlived its usefulness."
One thing, we can hope, that has not outlived its usefulness is the law. Domenico Bettinelli thinks it might be possible that Massachusetts law would permit "Gov. Mitt Romney... simply to declare the judiciary has overreached into executive powers and issue an executive order stating to that effect." While such action on the East Coast front of the battle would require some governmental spine, the administrators of California's government have recourse to a more obvious and less controversial justification for upholding the rule of law. As David Morrison quotes:
"Instead of saying bride or groom, the form in San Francisco says applicant one and applicant two," Lafaro said. The license form also uses the terms "unmarried individuals" rather than "unmarried man" or "unmarried woman."The changes make the licenses invalid," Evans said.
Nice 'n' neat. Of course, this is going to be a messy cultural struggle, without those straightforward defenses always available, and without the administrative confidence always to exploit them. To help bolster the spine (or change the mind) of your particular representatives, you might do as Lane Core has done.
I can't recall where it was, but after Michael Ledeen told the story of his conveying a source in Iraq to the CIA to investigate some uranium — an opportunity that the CIA never took — somebody, probably many people, merely scoffed. Right, they suggested, the CIA is ignoring the secret sources of journalists for no reason whatsoever.
Well:
And we may see them with atomic bombs. Oddly, just as the foreign minister was announcing Iran's intention to sell enriched uranium to interested parties — thereby spitting in the eye of the French, German, and English diplomats who sang love songs to themselves just a few short months ago, proclaiming they had negotiated an end to the Iranian nuclear program — two smugglers were arrested in Iraq, near Mosul, with what an Iraqi general described as a barrel of uranium. Here is what General Hikmat Mahmoud Mohammed had to say about the event: "This material is in the category of weapons of mass destruction, which is why the investigation is secret. The two suspects were transferred to American forces, who are in charge of the inquiry."Compulsive readers of these little essays may remember that, late last summer, I told CIA that I had been informed of a supply of enriched uranium in Iraq, some of which had been carried to Iran a few years ago. I had offered to put CIA in touch with the original couriers, who said they would take American inspectors to the site, but CIA could not be bothered to go look.
I am told that the uranium in the barrel near Mosul came from the same secret laboratory. Perhaps now the CIA will think better of my sources, and work harder to find these materials.
Of course, this is Ledeen, again, and if you thought him a liar before, you'll see no reason to change your mind. On the other hand, if you believed him before, you've got reason to ratchet up your concern once again, as we watch, helpless, the scenes unfold with a frightening inevitability.
We've got two major strains of belief about reality, in this country. Unfortunately, when the discrepancy resolves, it's sure to be through calamity.
Eugene Volokh points out that Rhode Island's Governor Carcieri has withdrawn his anti-terrorism bill from the legislature's agenda:
Carcieri said his legislation was written after a thorough review of laws to prevent and prosecute terrorism. Noting that state government has a responsibility to protect the public by "responding to new and evolving threats," Carcieri said his office decided that some laws needed to be updated.He said today he will continue to examine the issue.
"Going forward, I will solicit input from a variety of interested and informed parties to determine what alterations to our existing laws are necessary to protect public safety in a post-911 world.
Personally, I'm ambivalent about the bill. I'm not sure why Rhode Island would need it, unless to maintain, locally, laws and procedures under threat for political reasons in the USA Patriot Act, and Carcieri is apparently not sufficiently convinced of its necessity to make the case. Furthermore, there was language that would have had to be tweaked as the bill went through the legislative process.
But it is simply infuriating to see a gang consisting of the media, the ACLU, and a mob of "experts" distort facts and bully the governor into bending to whatever their agenda is. Surely, Carcieri's quick capitulation — and countless surrenders across the country over the years — had an emboldening effect on these groups, and the raw power that it indicates ought to be of concern to anybody who understands that there is, in fact, a balance to be struck between individual liberty and communal well being.
While there is reason to be thankful that legions of watchdogs are out there combing the law on behalf of our individual freedoms, a level of civility has been lost. The groups' knowledge of their power is certainly responsible in some degree.
I've been meaning to mention that Ferry Halim has another heartwarming game over at Orisinal. I don't know what it is about his style, but the games, simple as they are, just make me feel good.
Well, just as I was about to wrap up the blogging for today, I noticed an interesting exchange between Eve Tushnet and Barry Deutsch on the Marriage Debate blog (scroll up from here). Deutsch writes, back on his own blog, in the context of couples' varying sacrifices for the benefit of society, and I don't want to jump into the middle of the debate in that context, so I'll stick to a matter that runs through the middle of it.
Although he tries to cover it up with a reference to discrimination, the very first commenter to Deutsch's post brings up a useful analogue: public schools, which even childless folks are deprived of income to support. The benefit to society of public schools isn't, strictly speaking, the increased knowledge of a particular child. Timmy could, after all, move to Mongolia and live like a king, to no benefit whatsoever to the people back in Duluth. The benefit to society is an educated citizenry, and that derives from the general prioritization of education.
Just so, the relevant (the central) benefit of marital law is to ensure that as many children as possible are born into and raised within marital relationships. It's an on-average thing, of course, and people will rightly make different judgments for their own lives. Put succinctly, the benefit to society is that childbearing and parenthood be culturally linked with marriage. This provides some of the perspective that I think Deutsch misses. It isn't one couple's sacrifice for the benefit of another couple's children; it's a small minority of couples' sacrifice for American children's benefit as a whole (and gay parents are an even smaller minority).
Deutsch makes an interesting comment that highlights the reason this benefit must derive from a general cultural understanding rather than an explicit rule:
She talks about "men who father children when they wish they hadn't" - a reference, I think, to forcing noncustodial fathers to pay child support (among other policies). I agree with that - but noncustodial mothers should also be forced to pay child support. And if child support laws protected the children of straight fathers, but not the children of gay fathers, that would be disgusting.
The obvious question is: how did those gay fathers come to have children? Straight men can father children by accident, which is part of why we encourage straight couples to marry even when they have no intention of becoming parents. Infertile straight couples, on the other hand, don't know that they can't have children until they're already trying, and only about 1% of couples prove, ultimately, to be sterile. But even sterility can't be made a bar to marriage because the level of intrusiveness to check would act as a disincentive to marriage.
In contrast, homosexual couples that have children have had to make a deliberate effort to become parents. Society can be confident, in other words, that the
