In my opinion one of the most important additions to Freethought Blogs has been Natalie Reed. At least it's been important to me, and the reason is because her opinions and her life circumstances very much challenge me. No, I don't stand up and cheer at everything Natalie says, the way I do with a lot of the other FtB bloggers. While I've been comfortable with the idea of gender as a fluid concept for quite some time, there are some trans issues that Natalie brings up which are foreign to me, are difficult for me, cause me to sometimes react by saying, "No no, that can't be right."
And what do I do when that happens? I just listen. And today, it struck me exactly why that is the right thing to do.
You know how annoying it is when a theist thinks they've got some knock-down argument for the existence of God, and it turns out to be some dumb crap that we've all heard a thousand times before and was refuted a million times before any of us were even born? The reason the theist does this is a unique property of being the majority: They don't realize that we've heard all of those arguments before.
It is a feature of being in the minority in regards to a controversial topic that -- independently of whether one is actually right or wrong -- one has probably heard all of the majority's arguments ad nauseum. Again, this does not automatically make the minority position right: The majority may have a knock-down irrefutable argument, and you've heard it but for whatever reason don't accept it. But the idea that someone in a distinctly minority position hasn't even heard the majority's arguments? Pretty silly.
Sometimes Natalie writes something and my initial reaction is, "No no no, that's not right at all! And here's why..." But before I say anything, I try to remember that she's almost certainly heard all of that before. And sure enough, more often than not my objections wind up being addressed at some point.
Trans issues are pretty frikkin' complicated (check out this mind-blowing post from Natalie on how the issue of "coming out" relates so differently to trans individuals than it does to cisgendered gay people, for example) and sometimes it is just too much for me to wrap my head around from the isolated position from which I sit. The best I can do sometimes is to just sit and listen. I don't always agree. But you know what? Natalie all the time brings me enlightenment in regards to these issues, whereas the odds that I am going to say something that will "enlighten" her in regards to trans issues are approximately zero.
So yeah, if you're in the majority... try to be humble about your great insights. Those in the minority have almost certainly heard them all before, and won't find them particularly clever.
Freedom to Marry Ohio has been collecting signatures to get an amendment to the Ohio state constitution on the ballot which would recognize same-sex marriage. Today the news came down that Ohio attorney general Mike DeWine, a well-known opponent of marriage equality, rejected the petition. He had three purported reasons:
The summary is longer than the amendment.
The summary states that "political subdivisions" would not have to "recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals", while (DeWine claims) the amendment itself says no such thing.
The summary states that the amendment "retains the portions of Title 31 that codifies this Amendment", while the amendment itself makes no reference to Title 31.
So, being the pedantic skeptic I am, my first thought was: Sure, DeWine has plenty of motivation to find reasons to deny this petition -- but that doesn't automatically mean the reasons are illegitimate. There might be legitimate problems with the petition despite DeWine's nefarious motivations.
After doing some digging, I think the first and third complaints are complete and utter bullshit. The second complaint might be legitimate, although I'm somewhat mixed on it. It's certainly a red herring, but it may be a technically valid reason to deny the petition.
Overlong summary
First, the summary-longer-than-amendment thing... DeWine cites a piece of Ohio constitutional case law called "State ex rel. Hubbell v. Bettman, 124 Ohio St. 24, 176 N.E. 664 (1931)". I did not find the original decision, but I did find that DeWine's predecessor denied an amendment petition citing the same case, and explaining some of the reasoning.
At first blush, it looks like DeWine is legit: The Hubbell court did indeed explicitly complain that a "summary" is not much of a summary if it is longer than what it proposes to summarize, and other Ohio AG's have cited it thusly. But here's the problem: In both the original Hubbell case, as well as in the petition denied by former Ohio AG Nancy Rogers, both the amendment and its summary were several pages long. The Hubbell court rightly ruled that if the purpose of a summary is to make the proposed law understandable to the average voter, a summary of a couple dozen pages is not of much use.
By contrast, Freedom to Marry Ohio's proposed amendment is 72 words by my count. We will get to the full text of it in a moment, but suffice to say it is a very small change to the Ohio Constitution, but one which has a ripple effect on existing Ohio law. It only makes sense in this case that the summary would elaborate on that ripple effect. This is a clear misapplication of Hubbell.
Title 31
I'm now going to skip ahead to the Title 31 thing, because this is also an easy one with a crystal clear answer. First, some background: Article XV, Section 11 of the Ohio state constitution defines marriage. It is part of the state constitution and thus cannot be easily changed by the legislature. Title 31, on the other hand, is Ohio's revised code for domestic relationships. It is legislation -- i.e. not part of the constitution -- which spells out the details of Ohio law in relation to marriage.
The full text of Article XV, Section 11, is as follows:
Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions. This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.
The proposed amendment would replace that with:
In the State of Ohio and its political subdivisions, marriage shall be a union of two consenting adults not nearer of kin than second cousins, and not having a husband or wife living, and no religious institution shall be required to perform or recognize a marriage.
Note that neither the existing version nor the proposed change mention Title 31. Nor would it make any fucking sense if they did: This is Ohio's constitutional definition of marriage, and Title 31 is supporting legislation which details how that constitutional definition shall be implemented. There is no need to mention it.
In fact, if the amendment did mention it, that would muddy up Ohio's constitution something awful, as it puts the cart before the horse: The legislation only makes sense within the framework of the constitution, so having a part of the constitution make reference to legislation just makes no sense at all. Hell, what would happen if the Ohio state legislature voted to strike Title 31 and instead moved the marriage code elsewhere in the Ohio lawbooks? The constitution would stop making sense until another amendment was passed. That's just dumb.
Not only is it unnecessary for the proposed amendment to mention Title 31, it is highly desirable that it doesn't mention it. Moreover, since the proposed amendment affects the interpretation of Title 31, it is also highly desirable that the summary does mention it. DeWine's objection, while factually accurate, is simply ludicrous once you put it in context.
Legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals
The final point, on this right of "political subdivisions to not recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals" thing, is a little murkier. Return again to the full text of the existing Section 11 above, and note the second sentence. What this says in plain English is, "Domestic partnership laws are out, too." Ohio will not recognize any arrangement that attempts to approximate marriage, no matter what you call it.
Now, arguably this is a moot point if Ohio recognizes same-sex marriage. The only reason anybody wanted that provision is to deny domestic/civil partner status to same-sex couples, so if same-sex couples can get married then nobody cares about that aspect of it.
But if the summary portion of the petition really did say that the protections afforded by this part of the existing section were being retained, then that is factually false, at least by my reading. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate the full text of the summary (Freedom to Marry Ohio has a, erm, summary of the summary, but I can't find the whole thing) so I don't know if DeWine is accurately representing the summary. Based on his other two arguments against the petition, I am skeptical.
Does it matter? I'm not sure. Technically, the Ohio state legislature would now be free, for example, to recognize polygamy in a sort of "multi-partner domestic partnership", as long as they didn't call it "marriage", whereas with the existing Section 11 they would be constitutionally barred from doing so. Certainly at present there is absolutely zero chance of that happening; only same-sex domestic partnerships were realistically on the table at the time the existing Section 11 was codified. But I could potentially see a pro-same-sex marriage anti-polygamy voter who would be concerned about this as a future possibility.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's my analysis. Two of DeWine's arguments are complete bullshit, an obvious move to quash the petition with legal smoke and mirrors. One of them I am less sure about. If I could find the full text of the summary, I might be able to say something more definitive. But if DeWine accurately represented the summary in that regard (a big "if", I must say!), then there is probably a reasonable argument in his favor.
Update: I found the full text of the initiative petition. The summary here contains two bullets which are not listed any longer on the summary as it appears on Freedom to Marry Ohio's website, specifically:
4. Retain the rights of section 11 of Article XV for political subdivisions to not recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals; 5. Retain the portions of Title 31 that codifies this Amendment.
As I wrote before, I do not think the amendment as written does preserve the existing Section 11's disposition in regard to the "legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals." This bullet point is actually a little confusing to me, because the existing Section 11 explicitly prohibits Ohio or any of its political subdivisions from recognizing a marriage-like status for unmarried individuals, whereas this bullet point seems to be interpreting it as political subdivisions having a right not to recognize a legal status that is recognized at the state level. Either I'm misreading the summary, or the author of the summary misread the existing law.
I am sorry to say it, but I think Freedom to Marry Ohio may have screwed the pooch here. I do not understand what they mean by point 4 in the summary, and I feel that it carries misleading implications. DeWine's other two reasons are clearly grasping at straws, but this part, despite being somewhat of a technicality, may be legitimate grounds for denying the petition.
At a post over at Prop8TrialTracker.com on the purging of the most vile homophobic elements from the mainstream anti-marriage equality movement, I made a comment as to how this signals a movement into "dog whistle politics" regarding LGBTQ issues, where it is no longer okay to blame it all on those evil gays, but new codewords creep in like "traditional family" and "special rights". I felt the need to qualify my comment thusly:
(Disclaimer: As a straight white male, I've never felt the sting of having a mainstream politician call me less-than-human in cleverly veiled terms. I can't imagine...)
Except that I have felt that sting, sort of. One need not look far to find plenty of examples of mainstream politicians demonizing atheists in truly shocking ways. For an admittedly not-that-recent example, look at Bush Sr.'s infamous remarks about whether atheists should even be citizens.
But I can't shake the feeling that it's just not the same. It doesn't cut me as deeply as I think it would to have my race, my sexual orientation, my gender classed as sub-human. And I got to thinking: why is that?
I think it comes down to two major factors: Degree of choice, and "believing" vs. "being".
Now note I said "degree of choice", not "choice". At this point, atheism is not really a choice for me per se. I could no more decide at this moment to believe in god(s) than I suspect you, dear reader, could choose at this very moment to believe in the Keebler Elves. Oh sure, you might freely choose to proclaim an allegiance to Ernie and the gang any time you wish, but you wouldn't sincerely mean it.
But I suspect that if you really dearly wanted to believe in the Elves... If you told yourself every day that they were real, if you surrounded yourself with others who shared the same forthright belief, if you fervently tried to make yourself believe, one day I suspect you'd wake up and be quite certain of the magical origin of Keebler cookies. It might be a more tenuous faith, you might be more inclined to inwardly question it than those who had been Keeblerites since birth or had experienced a more organic conversion to Keeblerism. But I bet if you really wanted, you could pull it off.
To do the same thing in regards to one's race or one's gender is patently absurd. And as we now know from dearly-bought experience, attempting to do so in regard to one's sexual orientation is ineffective, dangerous, and often deadly.
My atheism is something less than a free choice, but it is somewhat more of a choice than are race, gender, sexual preference. I am an atheist because it is what seems to me to be the clear truth. I cannot change it as easily as I could change my shirt or my hair color or the restaurant I go to most often... but I probably could change it with sufficient time and effort, if sufficiently motivated.
The other difference is harder to get at, and I fear I am verging on a form of Cartesian dualism here... But I really think there is a subtle difference between what you are and what you believe.
To explain what I mean, consider a person who is a straight-up communist, and somewhat of an activist at that. If she is really sincere about her communist beliefs, it may be no more of a choice than is my atheism: She could insincerely declare her mind changed at any time, and she may at some time be sincerely argued out of it (and I naively hope she would; I find communism to be about as sensible a position as laissez faire capitalism, i.e. not very -- but this is an irrelevant digression and I will say no more about it), yet if she really believes in her cause at 8:32PM on Wednesday, she cannot simply "decide" not to believe in it at 8:33PM on Wednesday.
And there is no question that many Americans consider communists to be less-than-human. Yet somehow it feels like that stings a lot less than racial prejudice or anti-gay prejudice or misogyny. There's just something about what you think about things, especially when it is ostensibly for rational reasons, that makes criticism of it seem less hurtful than something which you are -- even when the distinction between identity and belief is fuzzy.
Perhaps it doesn't matter that this reeks of dualism; we are all de facto dualists in our day-to-day lives, after all, and since this post is all about perception, perhaps the fact that we usually perceive ourselves as dualists is enough to justify this perception.
In any case, I do think there are differences, and as such I think I still cannot claim to know what it feels like to be a member of a group whose very identity is (or recently has been) denigrated by the mainstream. There are a lot of ways in which anti-atheist prejudice is similar -- there's been much talk about how the "coming out" analogy works very well for atheism as well, for example -- but I think the experience of it is different in some crucial ways.
I've been meaning to write this post for a week or two, and the latest post from Jason Rosenhouse addresses a very similar topic, so I figure I best get on it.
At a party the other weekend, I was talking to a friend and mentioned my blog (which he was already aware of) in passing. Actually, I only mentioned it because I was saying how relieved I was that the looming Markuze threat had been neutralized -- here's hoping Dennis is feeling better, by the way! In any case, this prompted him to say, "That reminds me something I've been meaning to ask you," and for clarity, I'm going to loosely paraphrase him in the first person:
I'm an atheist, but I have no desire to engage religion on any level. The whole idea just seems incredibly silly to me, and I'm just not really interested in discussing it.
But lately I've been thinking about third-wave feminism, about how a lot of young women today don't appreciate, or even want to disassociate themselves from earlier first-wave feminists like Susan B. Anthony, or second-wave feminists like Gloria Steinem. They've grown up with the default assumption that women and men ought to be treated equally, and it's disappointing when they aren't willing to acknowledge how hard their predecessors had to fight for this basic notion.
I started to wonder if that's me in regards to my atheism. Am I obligated to be outspoken, to be part of the struggle? Or can I just be myself?
Hopefully it is not too unseemly to have a pair of thirty-something guys discussing how young women are "doin it rong" in regards to feminism! But I think the analogy is clear -- who has not had the cringe-inducing experience of hearing a young woman declare that she is "not a feminist" or "not one of those feminists"?
I think it is a very good question, and my answer was this: You have absolutely no obligation to do anything you are uncomfortable with, to be more of an "activist" than you are naturally inclined to be. The only thing I think is important is that you don't throw other atheists under the bus because of their own way of expressing it. To extend the analogy to feminism, I don't think that every single woman ought to feel compelled to get out there and "burn her bra" (to use the popular metaphor), but I do find it unseemly when women are critical or dismissive of those who do. By the same token, you can just be an atheist and you don't have to make a big deal out of it or push for greater acceptance or try to highlight the flaws of religion. You are totally fine just ignoring it -- but please don't make other atheists out to be villains because they have a different approach.
The one thing I did say I thought was useful for all atheists to do, if they can -- although situations vary and this is not always practical -- is to be open and forthcoming about their lack of belief, to be "out" as it were. Drawing an analogy this time to the gay rights movement, I don't think there is pressure for every LGBT person to march in Pride parades, to campaign for marriage equality, etc., but there is at least some pressure to come out of the closet, if they can. And I think this is appropriate. Obviously some circumstances dictate remaining in the closet, whether it be an LGBT person or an atheist -- a young person living at home in an unaccepting family, the possibility of damaging one's career, etc. But generally speaking, this is something which everyone ought to do if they can, as it can have such a powerful effect on public perception.
Beyond that -- be yourself! And let other people be themselves too.
The Rosenhouse post today quotes from a bridge-building atheist -- as opposed to an I-don't-care atheist like my friend -- but the principle is the same: Everyone has their own approach, and that's okay. What's not okay is telling somebody else their approach is wrong and they should shut up. We ought to all be on the same side here. It's this throwing-under-the-bus that separates nice guys like Bruce Hood from dickheads like Nick Matzke.
"I'm not one of those atheists" is just as unseemly as "I'm not one of those feminists." Look, you don't have to be. Just don't demonize us.
Ed Brayton over at Dispatches has a thoughtful piece up titled Drawing Lines on Religion-Based Discrimination, which takes as a jumping-off point the example of a gay couple in Illinois suing a bed-and-breakfast that refused to host their wedding, and goes on to examine the complex relationship between religious freedom and religious discrimination, and attempts to explore in which contexts religious-based discrimination is acceptable. It's a balanced and well-written piece which comes to some very reasonable (though tentative) conclusions... but while reading, I just couldn't stop shaking my head. All this, to prevent conflicts over what seems to me to be obviously made-up bullshit! Explicit protections for religious freedom are crucial, of course, but it's not because there is some critical benefit to diverse religious beliefs; rather, it's because without those protections, religion becomes a tool of oppression. Establishment of a state religion is no better or worse than the state establishing a mandated preference for Star Trek: The Next Generation over Star Trek: The Original Series, it's just that the latter issue tends not to arise because people don't get nearly as stupid-crazy over Star Trek as they do over religion.
But that got me thinking... What if people did get that crazy over Star Trek? And so without further ado, I present Ed's piece, rewritten as if we lived in an alternate universe where countless wars were fought to settle the age-old question: Who would win in a fight, Kirk or Picard?
The Chicago Tribune reports that a Picardian couple is suing two bed and breakfasts for refusing to rent facilities to them for a Borg-themed civil union ceremony.
The Beall Mansion in Alton told the Wathens via email that it “will just be doing traditional weddings.” The owner of the Timber Creek Bed and Breakfast in Paxton wrote in an email to the couple: “We will never host Borg-themed civil unions. We will never host Borg-themed weddings even if they become legal in Illinois. We believe the Borg are not canon and are mere fiction based on what The Original Series fails to say about them. If that is discrimination, I guess we unfortunately discriminate.”
Here’s the legal situation:
The couple filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, which investigated and found “substantial evidence” that a civil rights violation had been committed.
The August finding allows the Wathens 90 days to file a complaint with the state Human Rights Commission or take civil action in Circuit Court. The Wathens’ attorney, Betty Tsamis of Chicago, told the Tribune that her clients have chosen the latter path and will file lawsuits against both businesses as early as next week.
This action, should it proceed, could bring to the courtroom a debate over the boundary lines between Trekkian freedom and discrimination in Illinois.
Steven Amjad, an attorney representing Timber Creek, said the state constitution guarantees Trekkian freedoms.
“These are business owners that have strong Star Trek-based convictions. The Legislature has created this (conflict), and the courts will have to sort this out,” he said.
Andrew Koppelman, a professor of political science and law at Northwestern University, said the question is whether the state’s Star Trek Freedom Restoration Act — which protects Trekkian freedoms from government intrusion — can trump the state’s Human Rights Act, which includes the protection of people based on whether they are into the Borg or not.
“The hotels seem pretty clearly in violation of the Human Rights Act,” Koppelman said. “And if you’re going to say that somebody is exempted from the human rights law under the Star Trek Freedom Restoration Act, that would mean that people could discriminate based on Trekkian views. It’s a slippery slope.”
I’ve written recently about the billboard put up in Grand Rapids by my friends at the Center for Inquiry – Michigan. They had a billboard company refuse to put up their sign before finding one that would. After last week’s CFI meeting, I had an interesting conversation with the director of that group, Jeff Seaver, about whether that was illegal discrimination or not. He had actually been asked about that by a local TV reporter and had said something like, “And that’s okay, they’re a private company and they can turn down our business if they want to.” But since then, he’d been thinking about it and he wasn’t so sure that was true.
Interest in the Borg is not covered by the anti-discrimination statutes in Michigan, or at the federal level, though it is covered by some states. But Star Trek series preference is covered nationally and in every state and it does cover private businesses. A Kirkian restaurant could not refuse to serve someone because they’re Picardian— or atrekist, for that matter. This is well established law and enjoys overwhelming public support, so it’s pretty well settled. So what’s the difference?
On the other hand, a Star Trek club can, of course, limit its hiring to only those who prefer the same captain. This is known in legal terms as the nerdisterial exception. And this is a crucial principle. Freedom of Star Trek would mean nothing if the state could force a Kirkian club to hire a Picardian as its treasurer. But what are the limits of such an exception? What about a Star Trek school? Could the government force a Picardian school to hire an atrekist teacher? I think the vast majority of people, even atrekists, would say no.
But what about a Star Trek club-operated day care center? Or a homeless shelter? Or a restaurant set up by a Star Trek club to fund some charitable activity? Jeff offered this possible distinction: If the activity is explicitly Star Trek-related, then the exception should apply, but if it’s a service that is not inherently Trekkian in nature and is open to the public, they should be required to accept all takers both in terms of employment and servicing the public. And that seems reasonable, though not a perfect solution.
Some Kirkians claim that requiring them to serve Borg-loving customers in any context is a violation of their Trekkian freedom. But if it is, it is exactly the same as requiring them to serve customers of every race or gender. Discrimination on the basis of race can be and historically has been based on various TV series as well, yet almost no one seriously argues today that any business should be able to turn away a black person. Who is going to stand up and say that a business should be allowed to refuse to hire women because their sincerely-held Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire-based beliefs tell them that women should stay at home and not work?
Even if someone would make that argument, it’s not going to work, either legally or politically. It’s simply a non-starter. And there is no difference between those situations and discrimination against Borg-loving people or atrekists. If it is a violation of Trekkian freedom to force businesses to serve or hire Borg fans and atrekists, it is just as much a violation of television-based freedom to force them to serve or hire black people or women.
But Prof. Koppelman is right to point out that, legally, the Star Trek Freedom Restoration Act and its many state versions does complicate this. That law requires that Trekkian groups and individuals be given exemptions from generally applicable laws unless the government can show a compelling state interest in enforcing the law on them specifically in that particular context. And those laws are used everyday to exempt Star Trek clubs from zoning regulations and lots of other laws.
It may be that STFRA and other such laws should simply be done away with, that there should be no exemption for Trekkian groups or individuals, period. But then we go back to that nerdisterial exception, which I think even the most hardened atrekist would agree with — no one thinks we should force Star Trek clubs to hire people who are fans of the other show. So perhaps Jeff’s solution is ultimately necessary, a narrowly drawn exception for Star Trek clubs and probably Star Trek club-run schools, but not for businesses that just happen to be owned by Kirkians who feel the need to discriminate.
Thoughts?
Update: I swear to God, I had not seen this before I wrote this. 2:10 is most relevant.
Since I just read a Greta Christina article which touched on the controversy over whether or not liberal/progressive belief enables extremism, it is apropos that a (religious) friend of mine posted the following to Facebook today:
"Is it working? Your belief system, that is. Is it really working? God's intention all along has been for the believer's life to work." Beth Moore
(On a side note, this Beth Moore does not actually appear to be all that progressive of a believer -- though still progressive enough to piss off other evangelicals I guess -- and is strongly anti-gay among other nasty things.)
Anyway, this is an interesting little quote, because on the one hand it is all wrong from a logical/epistemologial perspective, and if taken literally it could even be potentially dangerous; while on the other hand, for the target audience I think the message is generally a positive one. That pretty much sums up the conundrum of progressive theism right there, so let's dissect this one.
First, the bad: For starters, there is a hidden circularity here which renders it somewhat of an empty statement. If your criteria for determining what you believe is, "Does it work for me?", then logically the only basis you have for asserting anything about "God's intention" is whether or not that belief works for you. It's a tautology. Moore is basically saying, "I believe whatever works for me, and that includes believing that you should believe whatever works for you." It's pretty hollow when you think about it.
Worse yet, there is at least a theoretical danger in any untethered epistemology. If we take this statement literally, I might say, "Well, I feel bad that I shoplifted, but it's nice to have this free stuff. Wait a minute... if I just tell myself that God wants me to shoplift, then I don't feel bad about it anymore. Works for me!"
That's perhaps an unrealistic example, but there could be others. For instance, the process of examining one's own unconscious prejudices can be a painful one, and if you can just get yourself to believe that God shares your prejudice, then you can go on comfortably ignoring it. How many people have short-circuited a logical examination of their reasons for opposing marriage equality by just hiding behind religious belief? That is starting to sound like more than just a theoretical problem.
On the other hand, the message the target audience is going to receive from this assertion is probably a positive one: If a particular piece of dogma is not working for you, if it just seems terribly wrong to you, well maybe you ought to discard it. Moore's justification is wrong and perhaps even dangerous, but the conclusion is right.
I think the following is probably a bad example, since from what I can find it appears Moore toes the Evangelical line on homosexuality, i.e. she is dead fucking wrong and screwing up people's lives, but it's the only example I can think of, so let's go with it: Imagine a gay Christian teen who is struggling to come to terms with the contradiction between her identity and her beliefs. While I, and presumably most readers of this blog, would much rather see her discard the bonds of theism altogether, that can be a supremely difficult thing for people to do, especially as they may be struggling with other deeply emotional issues. Furthermore, as Richard Wade has eloquently pointed out, many young people still living at home may find that the security of their most basic needs is tied to belief, or at least the facade of belief. Better than nothing is if this hypothetical teen were able to say to herself, "Hey, this silly dogma about homosexuality is just not working for me. God couldn't possibly want me to feel so awful in this way. That has to be a mistake, and I'm not going to believe that crap anymore."
Again, Moore unfortunately fails to take this philosophy all the way and still clings to Evangelical beliefs that are downright hateful. But the quote on its own has some merit for believers -- if they're going to stick with belief that is. And that's always the conundrum, isn't it?
This quote from PZ was one of those "Oh damn, now I get it" moments for me:
If we strip marriage of the asymmetry of power, as we must if we allow men to marry men and women to marry women, then we also strip away the man and wife, dominant and submissive, owner and owned, master and servant relationship that characterizes the conservative view of marriage.
Of course! I was always really puzzled how anyone could assert with a straight face that allowing more people to get married was somehow destructive towards the "institution of traditional marriage". But my confusion was a result of me thinking that the definition of "traditional marriage" was simply that it was between a man and a woman. If that were the case, then I would be right, same-sex marriage poses no threat to that "institution" because, with the possible exception of a few sexless sham marriages, the number of people getting "traditional marriages" would be exactly the same as before, and the couples in them would be entirely unaffected.
But if the definition of "traditional marriage" inherently implies patriarchy as well, then of course same-sex marriage is corrosive to that institution. No heterosexual person is going to look at someone else's same-sex marriage and say, "Hey, that looks like fun, I think I'm going to decide to be gay!": sexual orientation doesn't work like that. But it's entirely plausible that many heterosexual women might look at a happily married well-adjusted same-sex couple and say, "Hey, how come they treat each other like equals? Shouldn't I be treated as an equal with my husband?" And that's just bad for business. If you're a misogynist patriarchal theocrat, that is.
The 2010 edition of the General Social Survey shows for the first time more Americans supporting same-sex marriage (46%) than opposing it (40%). Not that majority rule ought to determine who gets civil rights anyway, but can we finally look forward to an end to all those faux-democratic arguments against same-sex marriage? Can we stop hearing about the myth of "activist judges"?
Ah, sample size. We all know that sample size can be a real problem. Too small of a sample, and you get all sorts of spurious results. This is especially true if your population is huge but your sample is small.
But what would you say about a study with a population of about 400,000, that actually sampled a full 28% of the population? Oh my god, this is a statistician's wet dream. A sample that large and that comprehensive, assuming there are no major selection biases, you can basically get the precise answer for the entire population. It would take an astounding coincidence for that to be misrepresentative sample.
And yet... and yet... In the Senate hearings on DADT that are going on right now, at least three Rethuglican senators (McCain, Inhofe, and Brown... oh joy, tools all around) have expressed concern that the Senate committee report on the possible repeal of DADT "only" sampled 28% of the 400,000 or so active military personnel. Inhofe even said that 28% "isn't very much."
Wow. I mean, even for these lying sacks of shit, that's just... just... I'm speechless.
This would be like a baseball player, who hit a home run every third time he swung at a pitch. "Hmmm, I dunno, one in three isn't very much. I don't think that guy's very good at hitting home runs..." Oy.
There are more Americans who believe Obama is a Muslim than there are gay Americans. Though I am not a member of either group, I find that pretty stomach-churning.
"Listen, I'm fine with Stupid people, as long as they don't flaunt it in public. I take a Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell policy towards Stupid."
(Before proceeding, I should be very clear that by "valid" I don't mean that the argument is satisfactory or convincing. I merely mean that it doesn't rely on fallacious reasoning, abject falsehoods, or imagined costs or risks; i.e. I am defining "valid" as meaning an argument which identifies a real cost or risk, no matter how trivial that cost may be when compared to the benefits of doing the right thing.)
One thing I am fond of saying to explain my rabid support of gay marriage is that, unlike the vast majority of political issues, this one is a no-brainer. I have previously claimed that legalizing gay marriage is a rare legislative action that is all benefit and no cost. This differs from other issues on which I have a strong opinion, but where I acknowledge there are significant costs to the position I advocate, making it an issue where reasonable people might differ (e.g. my opinions on abortion rights and the death penalty fit this profile1). We don't even have to figure out the logistics of enacting the legislation -- you just say, "Now all marriage laws are exactly the same as they were yesterday, except the gender of the involved parties doesn't matter." Done.2
So I was contemplating that this morning, and I suddenly thought of an actual, real cost of legalizing gay marriage. Mind you, it's a rather small cost, and even if it were a large cost I would still strongly support gay marriage because it's simply the right thing to do. Denying full civil rights to the LGBT community cannot be deemed acceptable under any circumstances.
Still, since the cost I have identified has a direct effect on the federal budget, it seems odd that a political party that nominally prides itself on fiscal responsibility has so far failed to raise this argument in their attack on gay marriage. (Or, it would seem odd if I actually believed the modern Republican party had any clearly articulated ideals at all, other than providing a haven for bigotry and promoting unapologetic demagoguery)
Without further ado, here it goes:
I'm not exactly sure how the numbers work out, but it seems likely that recognizing gay marriage at the federal level would create a sudden spike in the number of "Married filing jointly" tax returns, with a presumably negative effect on tax revenue. I don't imagine the impact will be large, and as I said, even if it were, it would be irrelevant in a discussion on civil rights. And furthermore, this can't become a reality until DOMA is either repealed or correctly ruled unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, so the only way it can be applied to legalization of gay marriage at the state level is via the "slippery slope" argument (but we know gay marriage opponents have no qualms about using that usually-fallacious argument...)
But isn't it strange that this argument hasn't been made? Doesn't it seem like a perfect fit for Rush Limbaugh to be blathering on about how "these deficit-happy liberals want to deal a further blow to the federal budget right in the middle of the worst recession in recent memory?"
Could it be that it is beneath even the modern GOP to argue that civil rights should be arbitrarily denied to a certain group in order to increase tax revenue? It doesn't seem like it... The only answer -- and I guess we knew this already, but it is just further evidence -- is that when the GOP has a choice between promoting fiscal conservatism vs. promoting bigotry, they're going to go with the one that they know their audience can grasp.
1My position on those two issues, and why it's not as cut and dry as gay marriage...
On abortion rights: I support full abortion rights with no restrictions on when they are performed or on medical necessity. I recognize that this position would conceivably allow a small number of abortions to occur which reasonable people -- myself included -- might view as hugely immoral, on par with infanticide. I think this cost/risk is justified because a) the vast majority of women seeking a late abortion are doing so for legitimate medical reasons, b) both the government and insurance companies have shown themselves to be completely untrustworthy at discerning what "legitimate medical reasons" are in regards to abortion, and c) good luck finding a doctor willing to perform a 3rd-trimester abortion on a healthy fetus inside a healthy mother, anyway.
We might imagine a distant future when reproductive rights are not so politicized, when regulations might be put in place on late abortions to define parameters when they are acceptable -- but in the near term any attempt to do so is simply going to be used as a foot in the door to deny appropriate medical care to women undergoing one of the most devastating events of their lives. Still, there are real costs here, and (unlike gay marriage) the issue is a bit tricky.
On the death penalty: It's a waste of money, a waste of time, and far too often a waste of an innocent life. But it is still less of a no-brainer than the gay marriage issue, because while the death penalty is a lousy deterrent for violent crimes, there is some suggestive evidence that a person who does not believe proper "justice" is being done in response to wrongdoing is less likely to behave ethically. We might extend that to a whole population, and argue that by failing to execute violent criminals, we contribute to a general nonchalance about unethical behavior.
Okay, that's a stretch. But the other reason I don't feel quite as passionate about the death penalty as I do about gay marriage is that for criminals whose actions are beyond reprehensible and whose guilt is not in doubt, my reaction to their execution is pretty much a big shrug. The recent execution of the DC sniper comes to mind. I don't generally support government-sponsored murder, and I feel like it's wasteful from a practical perspective -- but do I feel a sense of outrage that this guy was executed? Nope, not at all.
Don't get me wrong, on both of these issues, I still feel strongly. But there are major costs and benefits on both sides, so it requires careful thought to come to a conclusion, and opinions could conceivably change over time. With gay marriage, there are simply no (non-trivial) costs to speak of, and I cannot imagine my opinion changing under any circumstances. Nearly unique among political issues, it is a complete and total no-brainer.
2Seriously, legalizing gay marriage is that simple. As we have seen by precedent in areas where it has been legalized, it's not even a big deal if the existing marriage license forms say "Husband" and "Wife". People just cross out the erroneous appellation and replace it with an appropriate one for the time-being, until the local government can get around to printing out "Spouse/Spouse" forms to correct that embarrassment. It's not ideal, but it shouldn't be a barrier to legalizing gay marriage, particularly in cash-strapped locales where expediency might dictate that the old-style forms remain in use until they would have needed to print new ones anyway.
Fixing those little remaining artifacts of prejudice like "Husband/Wife" forms is something that needs to be done, but it is not at all a requirement for legalizing gay marriage. Gay marriage could be legalized across the entire country, today, with nary a hiccup in the bureaucratic administration of marriage laws.
Yep, Prop 1 in Maine succeeded. No surprise there.
The outcome is "further evidence that although voters have shown tolerance toward same sex couples, they draw the line at marriage," said Jeff Flint, a partner with Schubert Flint Public Affairs in Sacramento, who worked on California's "Yes on 8" campaign in 2008.
No, it's further evidence that making it so that voters can overturn acts of the legislature and pass (state) constitutional amendments with a bare majority is a fucking retarded idea. I'm totally down with a voter veto if a supermajority is required -- that could be a useful check against the possibility of a corrupt legislature. But a bare majority? Insanity.
Referendum 71 does look like it's going to pass in Washington State, but that only extends equal benefits, i.e. it's the old separate-but-equal refrain.
Oh well. Have fun being on the wrong side of history, assholes.
Okay, the title of this post is needlessly inflammatory, but given how nasty the whole accomodationism debate has gotten, I figure I need to be inflammatory to get anybody's attention, right?
There have been variousresponses to that argument, mostly focusing on Mooney's very premise, which I agree is weak on evidence. However, I want to pose a completely different response to Mooney's argument:
Yeah, so?
Let's assume for a second that Mooney is completely right: The success and visibility of The God Delusion has had a net negative contribution to the mission of The Greatest Show in Earth to bring people over to the pro-evolution side. However, getting people to come around on evolution is not the only goal in the whole wide world... is it?
To this point I have been focused specifically on the evolution issue. Obviously, though, I think religion lies at the heart of a great many other societal ills. It is the primary factor in issues like bigotry towards homosexuals, repressive attitudes toward women, assaults on public education, and a political system in which people must profess the strength of their religious faith to have any hope of a future. Those are just a few examples.
Indeed, and in fact I have to criticize Jason just a little bit for failing to follow up on this point as much as he might. I'm going to go out on a limb and argue that bigotry and repression of women and homosexuals are more important issues than evolution education. Not that the latter isn't critically important, and I believe there is synergy between these various goals -- but if I were offered a choice between ending Creationism and ending bigotry, I wouldn't even have to think about that one.
So, as I said, let's say Mooney is right. So what? Is he saying that The God Delusion was completely worthless in all respects, then? That it has not had any positive effect on the public conversation about the false respect accorded to religion and religious prejudice? Well, maybe Mooney is saying that, but I think that's ridiculous.
Rosenhouse says something very similar, that the long-term goal is moving towards a more godless society, but he puts it firmly within the context of the Creationism problem, i.e. he argues that as the American and UK mainstream stop giving so much undue deference to religious belief, ideas like "Teach the controversy" will fade into crackpot obscurity, where they belong.
I think Rosenhouse is exactly right, that there is synergy here. But I'm going to go one step further and say that the goal of tearing down religion's wall of protection is the more important aim even if it had no effect, or even a negative effect, on the fight against creationism. As atheists and other nontheists are further emboldened to speak out, it helps in so many other struggles as well: In countering those who would use religiously-motivated scare-mongering to fight against marriage equality, in deflating the silly faux-liberal belief that equates criticism of misogyny with ethnocentric intolerance, and in combating dangerous nigh-genocidal prohibitions issued by a certain "rat" of a pontiff. All of these things are important -- at least as important as whether evolution gets taught properly in schools, don't you think?
When making grand pronouncements on the wisdom of writing The God Delusion, one cannot take into account only the costs and benefits in regards to evolution education and future books on evolution -- one must look at all the costs and benefits. And I say, even if The God Delusion did have some small deleterious effect on evolution education (an unproven allegation to begin with), it still would be a net positive, because it helped to bring atheism and frank religious criticism into the mainstream. It seems to me that to argue otherwise is rather short-sighted and narrow-minded.
The Maine anti-gay marriage campaign Yes On 1 released their most recent finance report, covering donations since October 1st. Does the $1.4 million they managed to raise reflect massive grassroots opposition to gay marriage? No, no it does not. It reflects the political and economic clout of two well-funded tax-exempt brainwashing hate groups: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the Catholic church.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland contributed $167,750, with various other churches contributing another $10,000 or so. This doesn't seem like a large amount until one considers that it is more than all of the legitimate private donors combined.
Wait, that math doesn't work out! How is $167k more than half of $1.4 million?
Well, that's because the National Organization of Marriage, which some (including myself) believe to be a Mormon front organization, contributed a whopping $1.1 million dollars, in three separate donations.
Worse yet, these Liars for Jesus have absolutely no reservations about telling flat-out lies in order to further their bigoted agenda. The falsehoods in the famous Gathering Storm commercial are well-documented. In the Yes On 1 campaign, they are claiming that priests who do not believe in gay marriage will not be allowed to refuse to perform a marriage ceremony for a same-sex couple, and could face a lawsuit or fines -- even though the bill explicitly states that such is not the case1. I mean, you know you've gone negative when there is an investigation by the Attorney General into whether you are telling dirty lies, and she comes back and confirms that you are.
But wait, the opposition (the Good Guys) have raised even more money. Surely, the majority of that money must have come from some sort of powerful special interest group on par with NOM?
Nope. Largest donor to No on 1: The Human Rights Campaign (a pro-LGBT lobbying group) with a total contribution of $155,000. Most of the money is coming from individual donors.
That the Catholic and Mormon churches extorttithe extort2 and then use this money -- concealing the fact to boot, in the case of LD$, Inc. -- to promote hatred, tax-free... the mind reels.
1From the bill:
Sec. 5. 19-A MRSA §655, sub-§3 is enacted to read:
3. Affirmation of religious freedom. This Part does not authorize any court or other state or local governmental body, entity, agency or commission to compel, prevent or interfere in any way with any religious institution's religious doctrine, policy, teaching or solemnization of marriage within that particular religious faith's tradition as guaranteed by the Maine Constitution, Article 1, Section 3 or the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. A person authorized to join persons in marriage and who fails or refuses to join persons in marriage is not subject to any fine or other penalty for such failure or refusal.
That's right, bigots, nobody is going to force you to stop treating other people like dirt. You still have your God-given First Amendment right as a righteous white Christian to shit all over the Fourteenth Amendment rights of everyone else. You just don't get to force other people to shit on those rights too.
But when has the truth ever gotten in the way of some good righteous religious hate speech?
2Yes, "extort" really is the right word. You cannot enter a Mormon temple unless you have a temple recommend, which requires that you are fully up-to-date on your tithing. Mormons aspire to get married in the temple. You might think they'd give an exemption to the temple recommend requirement for family attending a wedding, but then, you'd think that because, unlike the church elders, you have human feelings. So, if your son or daughter is getting married in the temple, if you want to actually be at their wedding, you must have paid the church ten percent of your gross income (Not net! They are very explicit about this...) for at least the past year, or else.
Well, this is the most depressing story I've heard in a long time. One member of a gay couple vacationing in Florida suffers a brain aneurysm and is rushed to the hospital, where she sadly will not recover. Despite having all the legal documents in place, the hospital refused to admit the grieving partner or give her full information about what was going on.
So, when Mormons cry about how they are being hated on for interfering with the vote for Prop 8... Yeah. Don't get me started.
I'm only being a little bit snarky when I say that exhorting the kinds of people who would be likely to vote yes on Prop 1 to actually read something is a big waste of time.
Seriously, though, from a tactical perspective I'm not sure this is such a good idea. The big fear card that the bad guys are playing is that our children will have to learn that families can include loving gay parents. That's it. It is not the fear that their children will catch teh gay jurmms as a result of this, it's just the fact that their children will learn it exists at all.
See, we on the other side don't get that, because we don't see how that could possibly be objectionable; we assume that more is being implied, and it seems the new No on 1 ad is trying to convince that this is a positive message. It is, of course, but if they want to get this hateful proposition voted down in November's election, that positive message needs to be deferred for another four weeks. Instead, the message needs to be: "Don't worry, your kids will still know absolutely nothing."
They also need to focus way more on this "outsiders" attacking Maine thing. Play up the angle that Maine is being bossed around by states two thousand miles away.
I thought their first ad (the one I have in the sidebar until November) was pitch perfect as an opening volley. It gave people an image of gay marriage that was completely desexualized -- notice the son is always seated between his moms, never the moms next to each other -- and emphasized the negative effect Prop 1 would have on (straight) children, rather than on gay spouses. This was a great reframing of the issue.
When the Yes On 1 assholes started spreading lies about indoctrination in schools and priests being forced to marry gay couples against their will under threat of imprisonment, though, I feel like the good guys needed to go way more on the attack than they have.
I saw a comment on the YouTube video of No on 1's rebuttal ad, which I have transcribed here since YouTube doesn't give any way to perma-link to comments:
Guys, seriously: *say it*. "SAME-SEX MARRIAGE CANNOT AND WILL NOT BE TAUGHT IN MAINE SCHOOLS. HERE IS WHY. ERGO, YESONONE IS LYING." This is a nice ad, but "nice" doesn't win elections. You can't expect your audience to make the leap in logic that you're asking them to make. You said Yesonone was lying, but you didn't tell us how or why. Do that, and you have a chance. (from azelmaroark)
I think azelmaroark may not have it quite right (repeating the opposition's claims, even if the next thing you do is to debunk them, still means one extra time those claims get repeated on TV, i.e. one more chance for the meme to replicate) but I went back and watched the video again after that, and I think he/she is right that No on 1 is playing softball.
The only "negative" stuff in the ad is the brief moment of static and the "outsiders will HARM OUR KIDS" rhetoric. That's a good start, but notice that the music stays happy even during these dire pronouncements, and about 2/3 of the ad by time is people smiling and talking about happy things. This will probably motivate the base to get out and vote, but it ain't gonna change any minds. There's no fear, and that, unfortunately, is what drives the average American voter these days.
I'm not sure what the right thing is. I'm tempted to go one step further than azelmoark even and propose that No on 1 should outright lie, by implying that Prop 1 would take children away from their parents or something. But then again, that's a whole lot of "stooping to their level", and I'm not a fan of that either.
I don't know. As of a week ago, the poll numbers were not encouraging (as the blogger I linked to points out, the poll was essentially tied before the bigots' ad campaign got into full swing). I guess I should take the longview and remember that this can't go on for very many more years -- especially since young people overwhelmingly support gay marriage. It's just so depressing that things are moving so slowly..
Last weekend was our town's Pride parade, and just like last year, there are about a half a dozen or more churches that march in the parade, with signs like "All our welcome" and "God loves you the way you are," etc.
I always have mixed feelings when they go by. It would probably be an understatement to say I am not exactly fond of religion. On the other hand, it's hard to really be all that upset at people for promoting tolerance.
I think there is a parallel here to the Creationism-centric accomodationism/"New Atheist" debate. Namely, is a religion that accepts Leviticus as scripture compatible with a stance that is tolerant and accepting of homosexuality?
The Bible seems pretty unambiguous on this point, so I would tend to answer "no". And until a little over a year ago, I viewed attempts by LGBT people and their families to reconcile their religion with the reality of their lives to be rather superfluous. The whole philosophy is based on intolerance; why go to all the mental gymnastics to remake it into something tolerant when you could just discard the whole godforsaken thing?
I command you to see this movie.
I have since adopted a somewhat more "accomodationist" standpoint on this, and it was the result of seeing the movie For the Bible Tells Me So. It is a documentary about conservative religious parents who have an LGBT son or daughter, and how the family chooses to deal with it. Some of the parents, as with the straight-laced looking family on the poster, eventually come not only to accept their son, but to embrace the cause of promoting LGBT rights and helping other families to reconcile their faith with a tolerance for homosexuality. Other families have a much harder time, coming only to a tacit acknowledgment, still disapproving strongly of their childrens' lifestyle.
The movie is heartbreaking, and helped me to understand just how important this issue is. Some families are simply not going to give up their beliefs no matter what. For them, finding a way to reconcile their faith with homosexuality is not just an exercise in academics, but rather it is critical to maintaining their familial ties. In some cases, it could even be a life-or-death issue, as the shockingly high suicide rate among LGBT teens demonstrates.
For the Bible Tells Me So puts forth some arguments addressing the passages in the Bible condemning homosexuality and how they can be interpreted in ways other than the obvious one. The most convincing was a reframing of the story of Soddom and Gomorah, which basically argued that the cities were destroyed because they failed to show proper hospitality to travelers, and that teh buttsex was just a red herring. I actually buy this one, but it still leaves numerous other passages that are pretty explicitly anti-gay.
To deal with Leviticus, they have a rabbi who argues that the word "abomination" is not a particularly good translation, and that the original Hebrew word would have been close to "against tradition" -- so therefore, Leviticus was not saying that homosexuality was evil, it was merely saying that the Jews in the time of Moses just traditionally didn't do it. This sounds compelling until you remember that the penalty proscribed in Leviticus is nothing short of death, which makes it a bit hard to swallow that this was just intended as a style issue. (And anyway, the historicity of the story of Moses is extremely dubious, which it makes it sort of meaningless to talk about the "cultural context" of a culture that was made-up...)
Other mentions of homosexuality in the Bible are similarly framed as an issue of "this is our culture" as opposed to "this is what is right and wrong". To me, it's a bit ho-hum -- but if it means the difference between a family loving their son or daughter and embracing them for who they are, vs. estrangement and resentment.... Hey, I'm all for it.
So I roll my eyes a bit when the churchies march past in the Pride parade. But I'm glad they are there, anyway. It's progress.
