Pandering ain't pretty

Huckabee, like many another politician, seems to have round heels and loose lips.

Oh, well.

Today on 660-KSKY Dallas talk-radio host Mike Gallagher defended Huckabee's words, ridiculed the NAACP fraudulent extortionist "boycott" of SC because of the flag issue, and had an interesting caller or two on the why the stars and bars shouldn't be identified with slavery.

I don't think the issue is as black and white (pun intended) as the flag's opponents or proponents sometimes like to simplistically make it.

Well, Irenaeus beat me to it re: getting back into the earlier thread Rod shut down, but this is what I wanted to write to Erin, who I sincerely hope is with us today.

Erin wanted people like me to acknowledge that we wanted to make a radical change in society. Here's my answer.

Yes, Erin, I want a radical restructuring of society. But it will only be radical in one way: the majority of gay and lesbian people will lead decent ho-hum lives, no doubt with the struggles every person in a ho-hum life has. Gay and lesbian young adults will see marriage, family and maybe even churches as foundational elements on which they build healthy, spiritual lives. They will not be reflexively hostile to the words "Jesus", "Christian".

Straight men will smile amusedly if they are mistaken for being gay, as no one worries about being "less of a man" if someone were to think that they were gay. The closet and toe-tapping in the bathroom stalls will be things of the past or the refuge of only the most desperate and tormented souls.

A culture of bars, sex clubs and pornography will be challenged and marginalized by a culture of, well, life, family, spirit, decency. In many ways, this is already happening.

Long comment threads on blogs will be reduced by .... oh, 10 percent .... because we're no longer divided on this topic :-)

Radical.

Rod: "If the definition of marriage is fungible, where, logically, does one draw the line? It's a valid question, and I'd like to hear an answer that avoids wailing and gnashing of teeth."

It is a valid question and here's my answer: The line will be drawn where the majority of the people want the line drawn. Or in the case of a constitutional amendment, a super majority. That is how a constitutional democracy works. Why is that so hard to understand? Now, if someone believes that their chuch's definition of marriage should be the law of the land they are perfectly free to lobby their fellow citizens to make it so, or to keep so as the case may be. Others are free to lobby differently. Whoever has the votes wins. Yes, the law may change or even go back and forth over time. But change, while seen as good or bad by individuals is inevitable. To have a law that is out of sync with the will of the people almost never works. See prohibition.

See, no wailing or gnashing there!

"You draw the line when it involves those that cannot give consent to the marriage contract - that includes animals, children, and ficus plants. Yes, that does leave open the possibility of marriages involving more than two people."

Animals don't give consent to being eaten or being pets. If they can be lunch or at the end of a leash, why not brides or bridegrooms?

But isn't consent precisely the problem? By employing consent as the sin qua non of the moral life it makes it a charade. If the answer to every moral question is, "whatever I want as long as it doesn't interfere with what you want," morality ceases to be a guide to the good life but an instrument of my will. In the case of marriage, the capricious will of the individual chooser, rather than the institution and its nature, determines what it is. But in that case, it is nothing but what I want it to be. Then, there is no marriage. There is simply a word, "marriage," that we agree to arbitrarily and capriciously apply to certain living arrangements that are accompanied by mutual penetration of whatever our wills choose to declare are sex organs (whether organic or artificial).

This is why the reasons offered for same-sex marriage are the cultural premises for the dissolution of marriage as such. This is why Rod's question is so difficult to answer without certain folks losing their cool. It is a heavy burden to defend limits that your intuitions demand but your premises disallow.

Never trust what a headline or even a news story (or even a TV/Radio clip) says or portrays what a politician (or anyone else, for that matter) said. GetReligion.org serves up a daily smorgasbord of examples of how reporters/journalists don't understand, let alone get correct, much of what they write about. And that's just with respect to religious topics. When it comes to things like politics and war, the misinformation or predigested and spit-out "facts" are also woefully untrustworthy. Misquotes, shortened quotes, out-of-context quotes, misinformation, deliberate distortion of information, etc., are unfortunately all too commonly paraded as the news "facts."

Rod: "But you know, there's a way to talk about the sanctity of traditional marriage and the risk our society is taking by tossing out tradition, without trying to sledgehammer emotional buttons -- but it's not likely to jolt people into voting for you."

Yes, there is a way to talk about the sanctity of traditional marriage. But in doing so, I would probably focus on the problems confronting people's marriages of *today*. And frankly, gay marriages are a statistical drop in the bucket. Gay marriages in Massachusetts have produced a collective yawn, locally (A tiny bump in tourism at best).

As for gay marriage, there are a couple, recurring categories of opposition:

1) The desire to reserve the word, 'marriage' exclusively for heterosexual couples between the ages of about 14 and up. This includes those who would not allow gay couples to call themselves 'married' but would nonetheless allow some degree of legal 'protection', such as civil unions for homosexual partners.

2) Opposition to 'supporting' gay relationships which includes denying civil unions and other legal arrangements between partners and family members of partners.

I think that with the former category (#1), it's not the relationship being sanctified, but the word itself. Myself, I don't understand the fixation with an unchanging lexicon but I also don't care what it's called as long as the legal ramifications are essentially the same. As noted many times in the past, state 'marriages' are effectively civil unions. It's up to the individual churches to decide if they constitute marriage in the eyes of their respective deities. As for the those in the latter category, I no longer find discussion terribly productive: I consider the 'risk to society' argument to be overblown.

Francis, I'll try to address your points:

>>
Animals don't give consent to being eaten or being pets. If they can be lunch or at the end of a leash, why not brides or bridegrooms?
>>

Because the relationship between an animal and its human owner is one of owner and property. An animal does not sign a contract to establish the owner - owned relationship. This is fundamentally different from the relationship that is created by a marriage contract.

>>>
But isn't consent precisely the problem? By employing consent as the sin qua non of the moral life it makes it a charade. If the answer to every moral question is, "whatever I want as long as it doesn't interfere with what you want," morality ceases to be a guide to the good life but an instrument of my will.
>>>

You seem to be laying the ground work for classifying marriage solely as an institution of morality. The problem is that the only proper concern for a secular state regarding marriage is the legal aspect. The moral concerns regarding marriage are solely the provenance of the chuch, if any, in which the married individuals santify their marriage.

It is entirely possible today for a couple to be married by a civil official such as a Judge or Justice of the Peace. In this case, the only restrictions on such taking place are that the couple be of legal age and mixed gender.

A religious official may properly impose additional requirements on the couple, such as requiring that any children produced from the marriage be raised in their faith or that the couple go through some sort of religious indoctrination.

I would suggest that their are two different types of marriage, a civil and a religious marriage. For convenience, religious marriages that meet the requirements of civil marriage are recognized by the state.

This does not, now, go the other way. I have witnessed a relgious marriage ceremony in which two mixed-gender couples were joined in a group marriage of four people.

>>>>
In the case of marriage, the capricious will of the individual chooser, rather than the institution and its nature, determines what it is. But in that case, it is nothing but what I want it to be. Then, there is no marriage. There is simply a word, "marriage," that we agree to arbitrarily and capriciously apply to certain living arrangements that are accompanied by mutual penetration of whatever our wills choose to declare are sex organs (whether organic or artificial).
>>>

I disagree. Marriage, from the point of view of civil society, is not concerned with mutual penetration. It is concerned with the legal rights and responsibilities of those who have entered into the legal relationship defined by the marriage contract and related Family Codes.

This is why the reasons offered for same-sex marriage are the cultural premises for the dissolution of marriage as such. This is why Rod's question is so difficult to answer without certain folks losing their cool. It is a heavy burden to defend limits that your intuitions demand but your premises disallow.

Posted by: Francis Beckwith | January 18, 2008 9:21 AM

I agree with Frank Beckwith, unsurprisingly. But listen, I want to tell y'all that you might want to move this discussion to the thread I just started, in which I argue that the destruction of traditional marriage was accomplished by heterosexuals in the 1960s, in the cultural (and then legal) revolution that came to see marriage as essentially a contractual arrangement, without a binding link to transcendentals. Gay marriage only follows logically from the premises accepted by mainstream straight society back then. Discuss.

I'm still amazed people bring up the "guy who's been here for fifty years." There was an amnesty in 1986, and several smaller ones since. That guy, if he does exist, had his chance a long time ago.

"If the definition of marriage is fungible, where, logically, does one draw the line? It's a valid question, and I'd like to hear an answer that avoids wailing and gnashing of teeth."

This slippery slope argument is erroneous because it fails to show the causal connection between one policy leading to the other . The logic is amounts to if we allow X behavior then what's to prevent Y behavior from happening.

Here are some general examples:

If we permit and validate people's right to kill someone in self-defense what's to keep society from permitting and validating murder.

If we permit and validate peopel's right to kill people in war, what's to prevent soceity from permitting and validating murder.

And the answer is: distinctions. There are huge distinctions between war fare and self-defense on the one hand and killing someone because they annoy you.

Now you may not find those distinctions valid, but you can't assume those distinctions don't exist. In fact, that's one of the core aspects of the gay rights debate.

I was not thrilled with Hckabee move on that pledge and Numbers USA. I am generally not thrilled with Numebrs USA period

However it is clear to me that he think he can moderate back. There is enough wriggle room from him to come back to the touchback plan or Pence plan. It appears this is where Huckabee wants to go in this debate as a compromise. Even thoug I think that is unworkable and never get passed

"Huckabee is a kinder and gentler Pat Robertson. His twinkle-in-the-eye and skill as a performer make him an upgrade over previous Christian conservative candidates, but don't give the average voter any reason to vote for him. His campaign has specialized in sanctimony layered on top of disingenuousness, low demagoguery and policy incoherence."

--Rich Lowry

Rod,

"People shriek, "He's comparing gay relationships to bestiality!""

Hmmm, I say it, and I say it because it's true. He does. I don't "shriek" it. How come when you type it, it's "saying it", but when I type it, I'm "shrieking" it? Sorta like why is it 'family values when you put a picture of your spouse on your desk, but when I do it, I'm "flaunting" it? Isn't that what is known as a double standard?

"but nobody that I've seen has pointed out the flaw in his logic."

I've been doing nothing BUT pointing out the flaw in his 'logic'. My spouse is NOT comparable to an animal, nor to a child, nor to a plant. He is an adult human being.

"If the definition of marriage is fungible, where, logically, does one draw the line? It's a valid question, and I'd like to hear an answer that avoids wailing and gnashing of teeth."

I'm with Larry Parker: "a partnership between two consenting adults". There, see? No wailing, no teeth were gnashed in the typing of this post. I don't think the same can be said when reading about "polyphobes". Polygamy is not at issue, despite its Biblical provenance. Could we debate one topic at a time? Currently, the law already mandates 2 adult persons, and no one I know is proposing we alter the number, (nor including anmials, children or plants), merely removing the discrimination based on the sex of the persons involved. See, again, no shrieking, now wailing, no gnashed teeth.

"Anyway, for Huck to make this point in a way that appears to compare gay relationships to sex with animals is at best careless, and at worst pandering to the worst instincts in conservative voters."

Imagine now, if the shoe were on the other foot (kind of the 'Do unto others' test) and it were a liberal minister running for President, promising to alter the Constitution so that it would be more in line with his (or her) theological beliefs? I can already hear the righteous howls from conservative voters.

P.S. Why do you get to call them the "worst instincts" (which is a correct observation if the posts on your blog threads are any indication) and we can't? Just askin'.

"Now Huck is promising to deport every illegal alien -- all 12 million of them. Nobody believes that's going to happen. As hard a line as I take against illegal immigration, I don't want to see federal agents apprehend an old man who's been here 50 years, and send him back to Mexico. If they spent 10 seconds thinking about it, I don't think most of my fellow immigration hardliners would either"

With this illegal immigration thing, you really have to aim high to hit the target. The Reagan amnesty resulted in less enforcement than promised. You have to promise the draconian just to end up with reasonable results.

Larry, Reader John, I think the term you are looking for is 'group marriage'.