I either really suck at parody, or I'm a little too good at it. I haven't decided which. I feel a little bad that people I respect thought I was serious. So... sorry for misleading you. There is no Alabama law. I was parodying the Prop 8 debate to make a point.
A little context: I was arguing with a Mormon fellow about Prop 8, and he was making the usual arguments about how the state gives incentives to straight couples because straight couples are beneficial to the state. I pointed out that even if it could be established that straight couples benefit the state more than gay couples, gay couples in a civil union already receive almost exactly the same benefits that married straight couples do, at least in California. The only thing withheld from gay couples in a civil union was the name "marriage". So the court's decision to strike down Prop 22-- and the whole Prop 8 battle that followed-- had exactly no substantive legal consequences.
Put another way, the only thing at stake in the Prop 8 battle was whether gays would be allowed to use the word "marriage" to describe their unions. That's it. Prop 8 was just a case of one cultural group using a Constitutional amendment to stake its claim to a word that carries religious and cultural prestige in our society. It was the culture war gone amok. All this talk of whether gay marriage helps or hurts the state is a red herring. Gay "marriage", as opposed to civil unions, has no real consequences for the state whatsoever.
So my thought was... what if the groups that used the state to force their definition of the word "marriage" on California figured out that they could do the same with other words with even more explicitly religious and cultural import? For one thing, the Mormons might find themselves using the very arguments that the opponents of Prop 8 used, as I illustrated in my parody.
I guess the good thing about people thinking my parody was the real deal is that it illustrates that my hypothetical scenario isn't really that far fetched. The mentalities and arguments and legal theories are already in place for it to become a reality. But again, I apologize for misleading people. It was supposed to be a little more obvious that it wasn't real, but like I said, I suck at parody.
8 comments:
Here would be the difference between the use of the word “Christianity” and the use of the word “marriage.” Marriage is a word that has a legitimate place within our legal discourse as opposed to Christianity. There is such a thing as secular marriage, presided over by the government, that has nothing to do with religion. Since the government is running its own marriage deal (you sign a piece of paper and we give you a tax cut, inheritance and hospital visitation rights) the government needs to actually define what they mean by marriage. This brings us into the whole debate of what the government is trying to get out of marriage and if same sex couples fulfill that. It is a wide open debate with many valid points to be made from both sides. When it comes to Christianity the government has no interest in defining the word or getting involved. From the government’s perspective there are lots of different people out there believing different things and everyone has the right to maintain their beliefs. Furthermore no one is suggesting that same sex couples cannot call themselves married. The government will simply not recognize it because it does not presently fulfill the government’s definition of marriage. If I went to Rome and had my marriage presided over by the Pope himself, but I did not get an official marriage license then the government would not recognize my marriage so no tax breaks for me. So what discrimination is being practiced? A same sex wedding has the exact same legal standing as any hetero-sex wedding presided over by any unlicensed priest or rabbi and with no marriage license signed.
Hi Izgad,
I feel pretty strongly that the government gains as much or more benefit from gay unions as it does from straight ones, and so has every reason to provide benefits and incentive to both. But that's not the argument I'm engaging in. Because in California, gay unions are a fact, and the government already provides benefits and incentives to them. No one is seriously challenging domestic partnerships or the tax incentives given to gay couples. Why? Because when you get down to what the opponents of gay marriage really care about, it has nothing to do with what's good for the state. People don't really give a crap about that. Those arguments are a smokescreen.
When you look at the difference between "gay marriage" and "domestic partnerships", there is little or no substance difference except in two respects. First, marriage requires a ceremony to be considered valid. It may be presided over by a cleric or by a justice of the peace, but it is required. A domestic partnership, on the other hand, is just a document a couple people register for and sign. There's no ceremony or ritual. Second, there's the simple verbal distinction between the two. Marriage has a time-honored cultural weight to it that domestic partnerships don't have.
So why are opponents of gay marriage SO determined to keep gay marriages from receiving the ritual and verbal imprimatur of the state? Quite simply because people care far more about who "owns" our cultural institutions than they care about what's good for the state. If the state gives gay couples tax breaks, that doesn't threaten anybody. But when the state starts allowing outsiders to practice alternative interpretations of a civil religion that the Protestant-Catholic-Jew insiders view as their exclusive domain, the insiders feel enormously threatened. They feel threatened because of the possibility that outsiders will erode their privileged insider status.
And so, the insiders use the state to shore up their ownership of the civil religion's rites and language. As long as they remain in control of that valuable cultural capital, they could really care less about domestic partnerships and the like.
So I guess the discrimination I see is simply that these "outsider" groups-- like for example Episcopalians-- are being denied a legitimate place in the civil religion. Sure, they can sort of do their own thing on the side in an unofficial capacity, but they are denied cultural and religious capital. And they are not denied this capital on any real pragmatic grounds, but simply because the insiders can't bear the thought of jeopardizing their own cultural privilege.
Hope that helps understand where I'm coming from,
-Chris
One could raise some legitimate issues as to the motives of those who supported Prop 8, but one can also question the motives of its opponents. As I see it, a big part of this push for same sex marriage and in particular to get it through the courts is to make it official government policy that anyone who opposes homosexual activity would hereby be deemed a bigot. Judaism and Christianity happen to ban many different sorts of activities many of them involving sexuality. One of the things on that taboo list is sodomy. Now this does not justify banning sodomy, but it does justify not wanting to actively go out and officially celebrate it. For example if I were in power I would not try, as a Jew, to ban the eating of pig. That being said, government subsidies to pork farmers are not going to be high on my list. I am not about to actively celebrate the eating of pigs in this country. Saying that same sex marriage is a constitutional right because to not actively celebrate it is discrimination sets the stage for saying that when Judaism and Christianity ban homosexual activity and by extension ban active homosexuals from positions of authority they are not just enforcing a religious taboo but are practicing discrimination. My fear is that the next round is going to be about forcing religious organizations to back down from their ban on homosexual activity or face the loss of their tax exemptions.
Hi Izgad,
If a Jewish politician made a law that Thanksgiving celebrations where people eat pork are not officially recognized as Thanksgiving celebrations (because the "traditional" meal is turkey, or something like that), I would consider that illegitimate. Call it "discrimination" or call it an "establishment of religion," but it's just wrong to legally endorse a particular faith's interpretation of our civil religion. I'm not asking you to "celebrate" the eating of pork or the performance of gay marriages. But don't try to make your turkey-eating straight marriages the only legally recognized ones.
-Chris
All true, but does our Jewish politician have the right to stand in the way of making pig the alternative to turkey, particularly if he knows that this is part of a plan to move against those who do not eat pig. Can I least have the right to support the president not choosing a thanksgiving pig along with the turkey without the Supreme Court getting in the way?
Keep in mind that technically speaking no one is actually being discriminated against with a ban on gay marriage because, technically, it applies equally to everyone. I am equally unable to marry another man as one of my homosexual friends. Obviously homosexuals are free to not like the status quo and attempt to change it through the normal political process. I would have no problem with going along with this, but they would be in the same moral situation as any other group trying to change the law to better cover their situation. Please do not confuse want, even legitimate wants, with rights.
Izgad,
If I ban public gatherings on Sunday, does that constitute discrimination? One could argue that it technically does not, because it applies to everyone. But the fact is that some of us have more reason to gather on Sunday than others, since for some of us it's a religious obligation. The performance of gay marriages is a religious obligation for Episcopalians and Unitarians. The gay marriage ban is discrimination, because only a narrow segment of the population is going to be affected by it, and the large majority of people will never know the difference one way or the other. They feel no inclination or obligating for gay marriage, and it has no real consequences for them.
As for your pig comments, I have no problem with someone advocating turkey over pig in the realm of public discourse. What I do have a problem with is if you use the state to endorse your religious ethic. So yes, I would have a problem with a politician using the law to block consumption of pork. Please do not confuse the legitimate purposes of the state with the cultural agenda of a sectarian group.
In the case of public gatherings on Sunday, a court would have to decide whether there is some legitimate state interest or is this just a conspiracy against non Seventh Day Adventist Christians. Similarly a court would have to decide whether a state’s definition of marriage as something between a man and a woman is being made out of legitimate state interests or is this some conspiracy to act against homosexuals. Since marriage as something between a man and a woman has existed before the rise of a gay community and because heterosexual marriage does have the advantage of, as a rule, producing children, any fair minded court not acting simply to stick it to the religious right would have to give the state a pass and let it make its own decision on this.
Again the issue with pig here is not of a Jewish politician stopping anyone from eating it, but getting in the way of any state sanction of it. Imagine a President Joe Lieberman giving a presidential order that no pig is to be served at state functions. All pig lovers and people who find that the eating of pig gives meaning to their lives will just have to live with getting jilted for four or eight years. They will just have to satisfy themselves by eating pig in the privacy of their homes without any state sanction.
Izgad,
Lieberman banning pork from state functions is a relatively trivial example, and could actually be justified as a simple attempt to avoid giving offense to Muslims and Jews. Nobody seriously considers eating pork to be a moral or religious obligation, so there would be no reason to raise an objection. But what if there was a sizeable religious minority in this country that did consider eating pork to be a religious obligation, and then Lieberman banned pork from state functions? Then we's have a real fracas on our hands, because it would no longer be a case of the public making a trivial concession to a religious group in the name of tolerance, but rather of one religious minority receiving endorsement from the state at the expense of the other. Obviously if one is being allowed to practice its values at state functions then the other should also, and without any mutual interference. Frankly, that's how this country is supposed to be run.
-Chris
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