A number of comments have suggested that the debate over gay marriage is a smokescreen or a red herring. Maybe. But the arguments are real. And it turns out they’re not only offered by nincompoops. I found the following analysis while wandering in the blogosphere:
>Yes, Senator James Inhofe (“I’m very proud that in the entire recorded history of our family, there has never been…any kind of homosexual relationship”) is a sick and moronic bigot. Bill Bennett is a crude embarassment, mostly to himself.
>But all their repulsive, and obsessive, arguments against gay marriage, such as this from Inhofe — “Now, stop and think. What’s going to be the results of this? The results are going to be that it’s going to be a very expensive thing, all these kids, many of them are going to be ending up on welfare” — are to be found, dressed up in fancy-pants pseudo-Alisdair MacIntyre rhetoric, in this document, the Princeton Principles on Marriage, released recently.
>The signatories to this document include such previously respectable conservatives as Jean Bethke Elshtain (Chicago), Robert George (of Princeton, not the young New York Post editorialist), Mary Ann Glendon (Harvard Law), Leon Kass (Chicago), Jeremy Rabkin (Cornell) and the legendary Mr. James Q. Wilson.
>On reading this, my first reaction was that if the academic left can be a little wacky and irresponsible, the academic right is wacky and despicable.
>The most specific of their arguments against gay marriage — which is only one of the “Principles,” but obviously they chose to release it to coincide with the debate — is that marriage equals monogamy and gay marriage “would likely corrode marital norms of sexual fidelity, since gay marriage advocates and gay couples tend to downplay the importance of sexual fidelity in their definition of marriage.” In other words, when gay people make a lifetime vow, they probably don’t really mean it because, well, you know how those gays are.
Read the rest at TPMcafe. I haven’t yet found the document he is referring to. If anyone can, I’d appreciate it.
here’s the link:
http://www.princetonprinciples.org/contents.html
The document he refers to can be read at the following site:
http://www.princetonprinciples.org
whoops, the site’s already posted, sorry about that, but the thing said zero comments. Oh well
From the “Principles:”
> 10. “Civil marriage” and “religious marriage” cannot be rigidly or completely divorced from one another.
And so their final point hits upon the “confounding duality” I mentioned in my last post. (Do links work here? Let’s see: link!).
If the religious aspect of marriage cannot be divorced from the civil, would the signatories have it that atheists be just as un-weddable as gays? (Well, probably).
well, seeing as marriage was almost strictly an economic proposition for the founders–whose extramarital dalliances are well-reknowned(thank you, joseph ellis)–i doubt they would have condemmned an atheistic union–but the gays would have been right out!. you married for money and did what you pleased, discreetly, on the side. yeah, that didn’t really work so well. but isn’t this type of arrangement equally corrosive to “marital fidelity?” how about common law marriages–aren’t these eople essentially “living in sin” to use the parlance of the opposition? yet their unions are sanctioned by the state and unquestioned and unprotested by the anti-gay crowd. why? if the argument against gay marriage is based on a set of corrosive morals, then the above sorts of “sinful” arrangements should meet the same level of rancor as the suggestions of gay marriages–but they don’t, at least not on as large a scale. i understand the clear articulation and reality of the arguments against gay marriage, but they stem from a premise that proves ultimately self-defeating, that is, the use of a religious morality to legislate. for this rerason, i cannot help but see them being utilized as, while perhaps not intended as, a means of rousing support for a lagging political party and distracting an already fractured liberal constituency from focusing on the larger questions. that said, i do realize the need to meet these arguments and offer counter claims.