As wedding bells begin ringing for gay couples and families in California, opponents of gay marriage are turning up the volume on a relatively new argument: that same-sex marriage is a threat to religious liberty. Just today we have seen two passionate salvos. Maggie Gallagher, writing at NRO, warns that gay marriage means "the official harassment and repression (by our own government) of traditional religious faiths." Marc Stern, general counsel for the American Jewish Congress, writing in the L.A. Times, warns that "it is religious rights that are likely to be 'obliterated' by an emerging popular majority supporting same-sex relationships."
There was nothing very surprising in either of these op-eds. Maggie began pressing the religious-liberty argument against gay marriage at least three years ago. Stern has a chapter on "Gay Marriage and the Churches" in a forthcoming book of essays by several authors entitled Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty. The book is being sponsored by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which officially takes no position on gay marriage, but regularly files amicus briefs in gay-marriage cases warning of "looming conflicts" with religious freedom.
More surprising was a report broadcast yesterday by National Public Radio, which pointed to "signs of a coming storm" in the "collision" of two legal principles: "equal treatment for same-sex couples" and "the freedom to exercise religious beliefs." The radio version of the report offered two examples of this "collision" that have been widely circulated by gay-marriage opponents. A written addendum to the report offered several more. The most commonly cited examples, summarized below from the report, include:
*Adoption services: Catholic Charities of Boston refused to place children with same-sex couples as required by Massachusetts law. The group withdrew from the adoption business in 2006.
*Housing: In New York City, Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a school under Orthodox Jewish auspices, banned same-sex couples from its married dormitory. In 2001, the state's highest court ruled Yeshiva violated New York City's ban on sexual orientation discrimination and the school now lets same-sex couples live in the dorm.
*Medical services: On religious grounds, a Christian gynecologist in California refused to give his patient in vitro fertilization treatment because she is in a lesbian relationship. (He referred the patient to a partner in his practice group, who agreed to provide the treatment.) The woman sued and the case is pending before the California Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in favor of the lesbian. [UPDATE from Andrew Koppelman, with info not provided by NPR: "Right now the dispute is being litigated on a motion for summary judgment, so there's been no trial, but Benitez's allegations are on pp. 4-6 of her Supreme Court brief, which you can find at http://data.lambdalegal.org/pdf/legal/benitez/benitez-opening-brief.pdf. If she's right, then she had no choice but to go to that group under her health insurance plan, received significantly inferior health care for nearly a year, evidently because of the doctors' scruples, and was finally told, after wasting a year waiting for appropriate treatment, that she wouldn't receive treatment from that group at all."]
*Civil servants: A clerk in Vermont refused to perform a civil union ceremony. In 2001, in a decision that side-stepped the religious liberties issue, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that he did not need to perform the ceremony because there were other civil servants who would. However, the court did indicate that religious beliefs do not allow employees to discriminate against same-sex couples.
*Wedding services: A same sex couple in Albuquerque asked a photographer to shoot their commitment ceremony. The photographer declined, saying her Christian beliefs prevented her from sanctioning same-sex unions. The couple sued, and the New Mexico Human Rights Commission found the photographer guilty of discrimination and ordered her to pay the couple's legal fees. The photographer is appealing.
*Wedding facilities: Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of New Jersey, a Methodist organization, refused to rent its boardwalk pavilion to a lesbian couple for their civil union ceremony. The couple filed a complaint with the state civil rights commission. The commission ruled that the property was open for public use and therefore the Methodist group could not discriminate against gay couples using it. The case is ongoing.
These examples, and others given in the NPR report and by gay-marriage opponents, illustrate many things. They show that there are indeed antidiscrimination laws that apply to those who provide services to the public. They show that these antidiscrimination laws sometimes require individuals and organizations to do things that these persons and organizations claim violate their religious beliefs. They show that conflicts between antidiscrimination laws and religious belief often wind up in court, requiring judges and other decisionmakers to decide how the conflict should be resolved under the law and the Constitution. They show that on at least some occasions antidiscrimination laws are held to trump religious beliefs and that, as a result, religious individuals and organizations must sometimes decide whether to comply with the law or to stop providing services to the public. They even show that many of these disputes arise in the context of religious actors who object in particular to gay relationships.
What these examples do not show, however, is that gay marriage is "repressing" or "obliterating" religious rights or that "a storm is coming" because gay couples are marrying. With the exception of the Vermont clerk refusing to perform a civil union ceremony (about which more below), none of them involve a claim of discrimination provided by the gay couples' status as married or as joined in a civil union or domestic partnership. All of the cases involve the application of state laws barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation that pre-date the official recognition of gay relationships. Neither the viability of the discrimination claim nor the viability of the religious objectors' desired exemption turns on whether the gay couple is officially recognized. In most of the cited cases, in fact, the couples' relationship was not recognized by the state, but adding such a status to the cases would change nothing about their legal significance.
The most egregious abuse of these examples to undermine gay marriage is the Catholic Charities case, which involved the application of a 1989 antidiscrimination law. That dispute arose because the Catholic Church objected to complying with the law for the first time only after gay marriage was permitted in the state. It was a fortuitously timed conflict for gay-marriage opponents given that the state legislature was at that very moment considering a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
So it is not true that (as NPR put it) gay couples "armed with those legal protections" newly provided by marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships, are suddenly challenging religious objectors. The conflicts between the law and religion that NPR points to have been around for a very long time. They go back some three decades, to the very first state and municipal laws that protected gay couples from discrimination in employment, housing, and education. (Indeed, conflicts between antidiscrimination law and religious objectors go back even further, to laws that forbade discrimination on the basis of race and sex.) NPR could have broadcast this same story using similar cases ten or even twenty years ago. But, apparently drawing on complaints by gay-marriage opponents, NPR chose to do so on the day California began to sanction same-sex marriages. That's misleading and irresponsible.
What Gallagher and many others in the anti-gay marriage movement are really objecting to is the extension of antidiscrimination law to gay people — at least insofar as this extension conflicts with someone's claim that their religious scruples require them to discriminate against homosexuals.
That's an argument we've been having for a long time, and it's worth continuing to have it. It is useful to continue to think about how antidiscrimination principles can accommodate religious faith. Religious freedom is a first and founding principle of this country. I think religious accommodation to private persons and organizations should be generously provided, even where not required by the Constitution. At the very least, accommodation should be made where it can be offered without harming the protected class. For that reason, I think an exemption should have been offered in several of the cases cited in the NPR report, including in the case of Catholic Charities of Boston (as I wrote at the time).
(In my view, public officials like the Vermont clerk cited in the NPR story, should be distinguished from private persons. As enforcers of the law and representatives of the state, they should be required to do their duty and enforce the law evenhandedly, regardless of their personal objections. While I'd be generous about accommodating the religious objections of private persons, I am very wary of introducing a system of exemption for public officers serving the public with taxpayers' money and charged with administering the law.)
In the larger national debate over gay marriage, the biggest problem for gay-marriage opponents has been to demonstrate what Eric Posner recently called it "impossible" to demonstrate: that recognizing gay marriage causes some tangible harm. They have tried many harm-based arguments but so far nothing has stuck. Not "evidence" of social decline from Scandinavia or the Netherlands. Not polygamy. Not population implosion.
So opponents of gay marriage are now using what is basically old news in the culture war as an argument to warn the country about the supposedly novel dangers "looming" ahead because of gay marriage. It is an attractive argument because it appeals to Americans' basic sense of fair play, their commitment to the country's fundamental principles, and of course their own deep religious faith. It casts good religious people as victims and gay couples as victimizers who care only about themselves. If you don't look at the complicated facts of the cases, if you disregard the applicable laws involved, if you ignore the difficulty of deciding how to administer exemptions in a consistent and principled fashion, this new harm-based argument is an appealing one.
Even the examples of conflict arising from antidiscrimination law are often exaggerated and oversimplified. The New Jersey beachfront pavilion case cited in the NPR report, for example, involves a plausible claim that the pavilion is quasi-public, not religious, property since the religious group got a $500,000 tax break after representing to the state that the disputed property would be open to the public. The group also reportedly gave up a degree of property ownership rights for the boardwalk and beach in the 19th century to avoid taxation. All of this is disputed, and the legal significance of these matters is open to debate, but it's hardly a straightforward case of a church being required to sanction a gay wedding on its own undisputedly exclusive and private property.
Now it's true that some states and cities (and to a limited extent, federal civil service law) protect people in various ways from "marital status" discrimination. It might be thought that such laws, where they exist, will provide more ammunition to married gay couples who face discrimination. But these laws already protect people even if they're single, much less if their marriage is a gay or straight one.
It's also true that we are likely to see a rise in conflicts between antidiscrimination law and religious objectors in the future. That's not really something gay marriage is "causing," though married gay couples will probably be most prominent among those complaining about discrimination. They don't see themselves as second-class citizens and are more likely to object when they think they're being treated as if they are.
Instead of gay marriage causing a collision, both gay marriage and religious conflicts with antidiscrimination law are themselves the product of a much larger trend that is moving the tectonic plates of our culture. That trend is the increasingly common view that homosexuality is a natural and harmless variation of human sexuality, that gay people are entitled to be judged on their merits and not on the basis of outdated opprobrium, and that these beliefs should to a significant degree be reflected in law.
Many people in our society object strongly to this trend. I think the law should make room for them to a considerable extent. It should be possible, in particular, to recognize gay marriage and to continue to protect religious faith at least to the extent we have already done so when religious views about marriage diverge from the secular law of marriage. Of course no religion should be required to change its doctrine to recognize gay unions. Of course no religious official should be required to perform a same-sex marriage (or an interracial wedding, as some once objected to, or a second-marriage wedding, as some object to now, or any other wedding he objects to). These things have never been required and nobody is asking that they should be.
While marriage and religious belief are one creature in the minds of many people, they are separate things in the law. Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism, for example, refuse to recognize secular divorce. But few argue that we should refuse to let people divorce for this reason. One can be divorced under the law but married in the eyes of the church. The statuses can be separated without a diminution of religious liberty. And nobody thinks that this de-linking of the two constitutes official oppression or the obliteration of religious freedom. Similarly, in principle, it should be possible to have a regime in which same-sex couples are married under the law but not married in the eyes of a given religion — all without extinguishing religious faith.
Matters are more complicated when religious persons and organizations provide services to the public or ask for public funds while at the same time requesting to be exempt from the rules that apply to everyone else. These conflicts come up in a dizzying variety of contexts, where the equities vary wildly and the costs of allowing exemptions are sometimes great and sometimes small. No person of good will should have a one-size-fits-all approach to this — everybody gets an exemption all the time or nobody ever does, no matter the circumstances — and our courts and laws don't usually adopt a categorical approach. Let's think hard about the hard choices involved, but let's not exploit pre-existing conflicts to gain the upper-hand in the gay-marriage debate or scapegoat gay couples who want their families protected by the law.
UPDATE: There's an engaging exchange now between Robert Vischer and Dan Markel, both of whom support SSM, on the subject of exemptions for religious dissenters from antidiscrimination laws. See Vischer's post here and Markel's response here. Vischer is somewhat more concerned about the conflicts between religious liberty and SSM than I am; Markel is generally less willing than I am to indulge accommodations. At any rate, it's a very good exchange and worth a look.
I assume that a religious organization could perfectly legally limit adoption services, residence in married dorms, and wedding services, to people in legally recognized weddings and marriages. That means, of course, that these would piggy-back off the discrimination that is inherent in not permitting same-sex marriage. But that does not mean that permitting same-sex marriage is not the "but for" cause of these issues. Indeed, the fact that same-sex couples now receive access to such services (against the service-provider's will) is part of the reason that they want same-sex marriage.
DC: All (not “most”) of the cases in the NPR report were or are being brought under sexual orientation nondiscrimination policies or statutes. Whether the other instances you provide involving "wedding" services could one day be examples where gay marriage/civil union alone would open up a claim not otherwise available is a different question. So far we’ve seen no such cases that I’m aware of. You’ll need to provide examples, not assumptions.
That only leaves two cases in which the legal issues were at all related to the legal recognition, or nonrecognition, of same sex unions.
I remember race riots in Boston after mandatory busing was imposed. Somehow, I expect that if blogging and the non-stop newscycle existed around the time of Loving, we'd have read much the same as we're reading now.
It seems to me that some things never change. Nobody in this country can hate like the Christians.
No wonder the country's been going to hell since then.
The Elane Photography case, to paraphrase Mr. Volokh, was a rather clear violation of the right to freedom of speech, and would as a result be naturally rather worrying.
Why may I ask you to expect that? I'm honestly amazed that there have been no cases on this matter already, and I've seen a good many individuals call for such cases to be made in the future. Head to Democratic Underground and you've got even odds for seeing such a call on the first page in the gay forums.
If an individual can not decide whether or not to offer a different subject of artwork than what she normally provides, why do you think a religious organization would be exempted from providing the exact same service to different people?
I've got no problem with gay marriage, other than the stupid amount of political capital wasted on a slip of paper when the claimed goals could and have been changed faster by statute, but I can certainly understand the opposition to it and the associated
And by the way, your otherwise pretty decent article would be much better if you were more respectful of the other side and their beliefs:
"They show that these antidiscrimination laws sometimes require individuals and organizations to do things that these persons and organizations claim violate their religious beliefs"
Would you also describe the dispute as a mere "claim" if we were talking about a racial minority that merely "claimed" to be offended by a racial slur? Or would you simply accept their statement that they were offended? Are you really suggesting the courts or anybody else ought to be in the business of evaluating the validity of people's religious beliefs? Mutual respect would go a long way towards achieving a civil discourse on this and many other matters.....
DC: The fact that the public might have trouble understanding the distinction between what is in reality an old conflict and the misleading use of that conflict to influence the outcome in a new one is exactly the sort of confusion these new arguments are exploiting. I think we should take the time to explore the distinctions and explain them, but I understand why some gay-marriage opponents would rather not.
I use “claim” here in the sense that I would use “claim” in the context of any litigation, as part of the description of the dispute. I hope that the post generally reflects my view that religious freedom is fundamentally important, that it should be respected, and that religious exercise should be given broad leeway.
As you know, the NT treats slavery as a given fact (not unlike the Roman occupation); the OT purports to lay out God's express commands for the practice of slavery.
I suppose that in their own ways, Nietzsche and Luther would tell us that Christianity teaches us *all* to be slaves ...
Of course, we have to draw lines: When must the law bend to an individual's religious beliefs? We can argue about where the lines should be drawn, but no thoughtful person says that religion gives people a free pass to violate general laws, and no thoughtful person says that the government can do what it wants regardless of an individual's religious beliefs.
I also see another problem for anti-gay people. It is becoming socially unacceptable to express anti-gay beliefs, just like, over only the past few decades, it became socially unacceptable to express anti-Jewish or anti-Black beliefs. If you believe that gays are somehow morally inferior to straights, and you express those beliefs, you will have a very difficult time getting along with your colleagues in my office. That's true for a lot of jobs these days. And it's becoming true for more and more jobs every day.
The tables are turning. Only a few decades ago, it was strange to think of allowing a gay person to teach in a public school. Now, in many circles, it's unthinkable to even argue that a gay person should be barred from teaching. And the pro-gay-rights side is gaining every year.
0.000001% incline slippery slope that will take a few more centuries to come to fruition.
How do you feel when interracial couples get married, "Galt"? More "ewww," or more "yuck"?
(A libertarian moniker, right? Fascinating.)
... The aversion to gay sex is childish, like a child's aversion to eating liver. I don't care for spinach myself, but I don't make pretend gagging sounds and roll my eyes when someone else eats it in my presence -- because I'm not nine years old.
Gay people have gay sex. Big deal.
Isn't that what the intertubes are for? Transmitting snark?
Oh, and a lot of women find the male-male version attractive, although not as commonly as the men who find the female-female version hot. There are a lot of people grossed out by the matter, but not so many as to take Will and Grace off the air instantly...
Unfortunately for TV viewers everywhere.
*The courts rejected this argument.
It's programmed into out genes for the propagation of the species. We can't help it. Nature makes most of mankind repulsed by gay sex so that mankind can continue. You can't criticize or punish people for something that is hard-wired into their genes.
Response: Why may I ask you to expect that? I'm honestly amazed that there have been no cases on this matter already, and I've seen a good many individuals call for such cases to be made in the future.
For the same reason I can't complain if a prosecutor who needs a lawyer to prosecute death penalty cases refuses to hire me because my faith prohibits me from seeking the death penalty. That's just not a job I'm suited for, and I'm much happier on my side of the case anyway.
But in the case Carpenter summarized, the result seems fair. Assuming the anti-Gay co-worker didn't burden his colleagues, they should let his colleagues handle the other cases. But, as I said in my previous comment, I bet the holdout faces substantial social pressure to perform the ceremonies. In many offices, expressing anti-gay beliefs is socially equivalent to expressing anti-Semitic or racist beliefs. You may have the First Amendment right to speak them, but the rest of us can still think you're a jerk.
No, not really. Nature programs mankind to really like heterosexual sex for the explicit purpose of continuing the species. You could be as grossed out by gay sex as Phelps, but if het sex squicks you too, you're not having many children.
And society can and has criticized or punished people for something hard-wired into their genes. Ignoring the fate versus free will argument, predisposition to gambling, drug, and alcohol addictions are known to be very heavily influenced by genes, but we have few issues punishing those individuals.
That's not to say forcing people to commit ceremonies they disagree with or take pictures of a subject they disagree with is proper, legally or morally, just that there's a few dozen slightly better arguments.
I want new words that mean, unambiguously, "husband", "wife", and "marriage", defined to be "male", "female", and "a joining by God in the eyes of the state between a male and a female".
I also want my rainbow back, and I'd like the word "gay" simply to mean "happy", as well.
In summary, I feel mugged on a symbolic level by all this.
It's still a huge issue for the social conservatives and more libertarian-minded, though.
How do you feel when interracial couples get married, "Galt"? More "ewww," or more "yuck"
My late mother said she looked forward to the day when all people were the same shade of beige. But being a diversity-lover myself I think that having blue-black Kenyans, near-albino Danes, as well as Amerinds, Pacific islanders, Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, etc. (they don't all look the same you know) is a good thing. So while interracial marriage doesn't cause a yuck feeling (it's still the normal procreative transaction) I think it would be sad to dillute all the nationalities and races.
You try to limit this manner of accommodation to cases where it does not "harm" a protected class -- but when is discrimination not harmful? What's the point of anti-discrimination laws, if not to acknowledge that there is some harm involved in discrimination itself? When Catholic Charities refuses to provide adoption services to same-sex couples, adoption opportunities for same-sex couples is correspondingly diminished. Is that not a cognizable form of "harm?" It's the same kind of harm that occurs when a gay person is fired or refused an apartment just because they're gay. To suggest that they simply aren't harmed in certain cases is to implicitly balance their harm against a "harm" against religious expression.
In my view, these kind of EC/FEC claims fit a model well-represented by the New Jersey beachfront case. Religious organizations invoke the EC/FEC in order to avoid some civil requirement that everyone else has to comply with. Typically, as in the zoning cases, the connection is spurious and attenuated. I think the same is true with all the cases you cite. What religious belief is implicated by telling a religious university to provide couples housing to same-sex partners? A religious belief that it is immoral to provide couples housing to same-sex partners? A religious belief that it is immoral to associate with people in a loving same-sex relationship? What religious belief is implicated by telling a doctor not to discriminate between people he provides in-vitro services to? A religious belief that children should not be raised by same-sex couples? Where does that belief come from?
No -- these actions are political in nature, and they are clearly rooted in unprincipled animus, not belief. But even if they were founded in religious beliefs, what then of the corresponding, contrary religious beliefs of people who view same-sex relationships as fully moral? Why should the religious views of a Baptist endocrinologist merit "accommodation" while the lesbian Episcopalian's views will be sufficiently accommodated by sending her to another doctor? If we accept that the religious photographer has a religious belief which prevents her from taking photographs of gay people, then why shouldn't the moral beliefs of most LGBT people be granted the same religious content and presumptive deference?
DC: If you maintain that discrimination by a private person against another private person is always a “harm” sufficient to deny an accommodation, regardless of any tangible harm independent of that dignitary one, these cases are easy for you. You never allow an accommodation. But if you agree that something more that this dignitary should be present before we move the power of the state against religious conviction, the cases become much harder.
Take the example of Catholic Charities. You claim that adoption opportunities for same-sex couples were “diminished” because Catholic Charities decided to stop providing the service to same-sex couples. What’s the evidence of this? About a dozen same-sex couples in the 15 or so years before Catholic Charities’ decision to withdraw used the group’s services to obtain an adoption. Under an exemption, they would have had to go elsewhere for the same service. But the same service was being provided to them by many other agencies in the state. There was no evidence that losing Catholic Charities as an available agency would have harmed gay couples wanting to adopt, or more importantly that it would have reduced adoption possibilities for children.
The whole controversy, fueled by absolutists on one side who demanded an exemption they never felt was needed and by absolutists on the other side who refused to consider one, had no point other than to allow the contestants to show how put-upon and oppressed they are. This game of chicken serves no purpose, wastes time, leaves everyone angry, and hurts gay advocates most of all.
Would you support or oppose a law that required Catholic OB/GYNs to perform abortions? (That's not a leading question; I sincerely have no idea how you would answer that question.) I submit, though, that if you think the state is justified in applying non-discrimination laws to compel such a doctor to perform an in vitro fertilization on the grounds that very often the law does require people to choose between violating their religious belief or some other good, such as maintaining their current profession (or, as in Employment Division v. Smith, their unemployment benefits), then the state would be similarly justified, that is, would be acting just as legitimately, in coercing the doctor to perform the abortion. If the two cases seem different seem different to you, then I think the apparent difference results, at least unconsciously, from you different moral perceptions of gay marriage and abortion.
By the way, 'harm' is in the eye of the beholder. You don't consider gay marriage to cause harm because you do not value as a positive good a form of chastity that disapproves of same-sex relations. Instead, you value something else, perhaps autonomy, as a positive good. (I'm not a monist; I'm sure you value many other things, like food or safety, that are implicitly built into your concepts of 'good' and 'harm'.) But that in itself is the kind of first-order, subjective value judgment that in democracies (in so far as they are democratic, but not necessarily in so far as they are liberal or republican) is left to the will of the majority.
If gays want to get married, I can't say I care much (except that they should read G.B. Shaw's comments on the institution before signing up). But how about a world in which they did what they wanted, and everybody else did what they wanted? E.g., not photographing something if you don't want to, not having a ceremony on your land if you don't want to, etc..
It's true that the Roman Catholic church doesn't recognize divorce. OK. It just doesn't. If you don't like that, join another church. (More technically, if you don't like that you haven't met their definition of being RC, it's more than joining a club). I'm comfortable with that.
Interesting paradox: you can get married in a church and have it recognized, but not divorced in one. Divorce is purely a civil proceeding. And while marrige has few legal barriers, apart from no marriage to someone within whatever degree of consanquinity, which clerks have no way of checking, divorce has countless hurdles.
Question for the day: do the limits on consanquinuity (if I got all the vowels in there) apply to gay marriage?
@Cornellian, why should the Church be forced to recognize a civil divorce (assuming you mean to nullify the marriage within the Church) especially considering that the state's laws on marriage and the Church's teaching on marriage are rather separate issues? (Or perhaps even more importantly, considering that the Church already has a legal process in place to determine if a marriage was not valid when entered into.)
I don't want language to change either. "Moody" should mean "thoughful" and "dreary" should mean "bloodspattered." Heck, we should all be speaking the way they did in the good old days, say about 900 A.D.
I also want chocolate ice cream to constitute a nutritious low-calorie breakfast.
Okay, I'm being sarcastic, but I don't want any of those things.
Except for the chocolate ice cream.
Oh, and God doesn't do anything for the state. Last time I checked, God was not an elected official.
The Catholic Church should not be required to recognize a civil divorce. That was the point of my comment. I was mocking the argument that civil recognition of same sex marriage would lead inevitably to certain religious denominations being forced to recognize such marriages. We've had divorces for more than a century now and we still aren't compelling the Catholic Church to recognize them. So why would civil recognition of same sex marriages lead to compelling religious denominations to recognize them?
EPluribusMoney: I had thought that Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler (we Russians call him a fascist, but perhaps you meant to exclude him) were known for behavior just a little worse than applying sexual orientation discrimination bans. You know, like mass murder, dictatorship, killing or imprisonment of political opponents, and so on. I've certainly been willing to argue against some applications of antidiscrimination laws, including on First Amendment grounds. But isn't "gay fascism" just a bit lacking in perspective here?
I didn't think that mass murder was a necessary component of fascism. I thought it was enough that the state forces it's beliefs and control upon the populace. I better re-read the fascism threads.
I really don't think it is lacking in perspective when the elites in government force their belief system on a society that doesn't agree. Marriage has never in the thousands of years of human history meant two dudes getting it on. Civil unions would be perfectly fine, but when they pervert an existing institution just so they don't have to feel so queer things have gone too far.
That's funny. I was thinking the exact same thing about many positions pushed by organized religion.
"Clearly" these beliefs must be so since you say so. Why bother even considering the opinion of those who might actually hold them?
I'm really not surprised, but am a bit disappointed by the anti-christian bigotry in this post and others on this thread. Somehow while it is wrong to stereotype racial or ethnic minorities, women, and homosexuals, it's just fine to do so to an entire religious group of who knows how many dozens of different denomonations, sects, millions of individuals, etc. I guess tolerance is just what we expect of others?
In all of the above cases, a religious belief that interacting with and providing support for an act or group of acts that are believed to be immoral or unpleasant would be similar to condoning those beliefs.
I have a belief in lawful self-defense and defense-of-others with weaponry. For me, it's non-religious, but for some individuals (Sikhs), it is religious. People with such a belief will often avoid places or people that forbid the ownership or carry of arms. In the last week, I've skipped past several different places for such a reason, even when I wasn't carrying a forbidden arm.
It's not because I have a belief against providing goods at reasonable prices in bulk, or believe that a few people I've met don't exist or are evil, or believe against providing shelters for battered women. It's that I can not in good mind advocate such rules, and going out of my way to be in places where I must be disarmed is in my mind advocating them.
Also, "human history" includes the last decade or so. See, e.g., the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Kingdom of Spain. This particular argument is getting worse with every passing day.
"As you know, the NT treats slavery as a given fact (not unlike the Roman occupation); the OT purports to lay out God's express commands for the practice of slavery."
In fact, it was similar to the eye for an eye thingy, it wasn't laying down the law for purposes of setting a minimum standard, it was doing so for purposes, within its time, of setting down a maximum standard. To understand the broader historical backdrop from which proto-historical accounts were arising out of ur-history, War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage or The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory.
Of course, that assumes more understanding is being sought, rather than facile expressions of triumphalism.
2. We passed the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery. Everyone discussed, debated, and then 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the states ratified the 13th Amendment. These impositions of SSM are not even close to that situation--they are simply judicial tyranny, imposing a minority viewpoint on the majoriyt.
3. We passed the 13th Amendment in the aftermath of a bloody war that happened at least partly because a relatively small but powerful minority decided that its desire to maintain the institution of slavery took precedence over majority will. we may be seeing the same coming.
4. While Professor Volokh is correct that this judicial tyranny doesn't quite rise to the level of fascism yet, slippery slopes are Professor Volokh's specialty--and it is very clear that homosexuals have applied a truly astonishing amount of K-Y Jelly to the slope. We can see where this is going in other countries: prison sentences for pastors who speak against homosexuality; the victim of a riot in Britain sent to jail for homophobia; Canadian efforts to suppress freedom of speech. Homosexuals are unprepared to accept anything except each and every "homophobe" fined, punished, and shut up. And they will be counting on law professors to rationalize and justify it.
Sounds more like soviet. Mussolini’s fascism didn’t do any of that stuff compared to the soviets who hated him and insist on adding Hitler (who tended more socialist) to puff up the body count. As for Franco, who knows what would have been if the Soviets and Germans had stayed out; as it was Spain managed under him through the late 1970s.
Perhaps. Fascism is often used (perhaps too often) to describe non-communist systems advocating blind adherence to law, systems where mala in se aren’t recognized, systems in which what isn’t authorized is implicitly prohibited. Singapore is a realistic modern example, as was Spain through the 1980s.
Fascism –describing a system in which the individual exists for the state-- is not a perfect description, but is closer than ‘gay totalitarianism’ or ‘gay tyranny’. If you don’t like the phrase, come up with a better term for the attempt to crush our culture. [Yes Francis, Christians can hate, but they pale in comparison to gay ‘advocacy’; that is hate.]
Most Americans’ religion makes homosexuality a transgression; a sin, something morally wrong. Many of them believe that. We are witnessing movement where anti-religious (not nonreligious or areligious) behavior is forced on the public, where parents’ religion puts their children at risk of government intervention.
Similar to EpluribusMoney, I am becoming more disturbed with this movement that appears to be headed for confrontation, not acceptance.
I really wish attorneys and law professors spent some time with human beings. It might change their perspective on a lot of things.
If SSM were not a way to force on a heretofore unwilling populace more broad acceptance of the essential nature of being gay -- sexual congress with the same sex -- then why would it be so important in gay rights' circles?
I'm just finding it hard to believe that gays are so wonderfully more fired up about marriage than people in general, who have been treating the institution with steadily more contempt and indifference as the decades go by. What would make the trend of increasing contempt for marriage radically reversed among gays, compared to people in general? If SSM does not have strong implications about a broader acceptance of homosexual sexual practises, I don't see any good reason for the enthusiasm for it among gays. Do you, honestly?
The more I read these remarks by Professor Carpenter, the less over the top "gay fascism" really sounds. It is a very good thing for homosexuals that traditional American society in 1960 decide that it was okay for homosexuals to promote their sexual orientation (although not their actual practice of it). Imagine if 1960 America had decided to shut up homosexual advocates the way that homosexuals now attempt to suppress freedom of conscience by those who don't approve of homosexuality?
I had hoped at one time that we could go for live and let live: Homosexuals could go do what they wanted in private. Those who didn't approve of it wouldn't have it thrown in their faces. Everyone could behave in a reasonably libertarian way, and get along. No laws against homosexuality; no special treatment; you go where you want; as long as you don't frighten the horses, we'll pretend that you aren't there.
It is increasingly clear that homosexuals aren't prepared to live and let live. Perhaps the only option left will be to force them all back into the closet. Homosexuality, right of conscience: pick one.
I don't mean to say that the existence of a "discrimination by a private person against another private person is always a 'harm' sufficient to deny an accommodation." All that I'm trying to say is that your approach seems to draw the accommodation line at "harm" or "tangible harm," when really you mean "harm we should care about" or "significant harm," or something else. You're pretending that the prospective adoptive parents just are not harmed when they go to CC and CC says, "no," but even your reiteration of the point, in response to my comment, makes clear that you're really weighing harms here -- how many prospective parents were there, really? Didn't they have alternatives? Etc. All I'm saying is that the weighing needs to be explicit. Why should an apparent religious belief that children should not be exposed to loving (but gay) parents justify sending a prospective adoptive parent who has, for whatever reason, chosen CC for adoption services to another service? Why should that belief be accommodated?
If you think CC merits an exemption with respect to sexual orientation discrimination, I'm sure you must side with CC with respect to the provision of birth control in health care plans, right? I mean, how many women working for CC want to use prescription birth control, anyway? And they can just go to the doctor and get it on their own, right? So how are they harmed? Should CC be exempt from sex discrimination laws, too? I mean, how many women want to work for CC in the first place? If CC thinks that only men should serve in important policy-making roles, because they view those roles as imbued with a kind of pastoral-quality, then should that belief be accommodated? At what point does the harm become serious enough for you that you'll even notice it?
A couple points about the harm: The number of same-sex applicants may reflect a degree of self-selection. Are you saying, then, that because LGBT people have learned to expect discrimination from some corners, they are not harmed by continuing the status quo? The number also may reflect the number of same-sex couples there are in the first place. If there were only fifteen same-sex couples in Boston looking to adopt a child in the period of time leading up to CC of Boston's withdrawal, then the dozen who applied to CC seems more significant. In other words, the 13/720 ratio for CC adoptions needs to be read in the context of non-CC adoptions. I'll point out, here, that 13/720 would be just under 2% of CC's adoptions in the years leading up to its withdrawal; 2% has been bandied about as a conservative estimate of the number of LGBT's in the general population. The 13 of 720 adoptions you dismiss as insignificant may actually reflect a straight cross-section of the portion of the LGBT community who've entered into stable long-term relationships and who've sought to adopt children. Does that make the "harm" seem more significant to you?
DC: Good questions. I mean more than de minimis or trivial harm, not “balancing” one interest against the other. I’ve seen no evidence that same-sex couples in Massachusetts will be even inconvenienced by having Catholic Charities refuse to provide adoption services to them. The services are plentiful and freely provided elsewhere. While I express no view here on other cases, which would involve many more posts, the provision of needed medical services or employment or housing at least in theory involves much greater interests and greater potential harm. Much more than trivial harm or inconvenience. Now, I could be wrong about the triviality of the harm to gay couples in the Catholic Charities case, but so far I have not seen anyone on the gay-equality side of the dispute even think it necessary to argue beyond the idea that the very fact of discrimination is enough to force the law on Catholics.
Meanwhile, what’s at stake for the Catholic Church is a core belief about traditional family life. That claim is complicated in this particular case because Catholic Charities did, in fact, provide the services to same-sex couples for a time. But it seems plausible to me that the Church hierarchy cracked down on a dissenting but rare practice when it learned of it.
If you, or anyone, can plausibly explain to me how these anti-gay martyrs reach their specific anti-gay positions from specific doctrinal tenets, then maybe I'd be less inclined to describe their positions as "clearly" animus-driven.
As far as I can tell, the religious objection to "homosexuality" or "same-sex marriage" is entirely based upon a few scattered biblical passages targeting certain sexual acts. Same-sex physical intimacy -- short of sexual intimacy -- seems quite common both in the Bible and in the early Church and not immoral. So how does the religious photographer reach her conclusion that she cannot photograph a same-sex union ceremony? She can't be objecting to the fact that these are two people of the same sex, expressing their love for one another. Rather, she seems to be objecting to the possibility that they might later engage in immoral sexual acts -- sexual acts which she has no reason to believe or to know may ever occur. In other words, she has as much reason to believe that two lesbians exchanging vows will later engage in immoral sexual acts as she does any straight couple. Does a Catholic have a legitimate moral objection to photographing Protestants getting married, just because they're more likely to use contraception?
I compare them to the emergency-contraception martyrs. Pharmacists have at least a plausible claim that, by providing EC to women, they are playing a crucial role in enabling someone else's immoral acts. But a photographer, a landlord, a doctor plays no such role. It is not immoral to have your photograph taken, it is not immoral to live in the same residence with someone of your own sex, it is not immoral to give birth to a child. All of these objectors seem focused upon some speculative state of affairs, of sexual acts which may never occur, in a way that is very particular to homosexual sexual acts and exclusive of almost any other moral consideration. In light of this, I feel quite comfortable in explaining this peculiar tunnel-vision as based more in animus than precept. It makes no sense otherwise.
While I am in the latter camp (immorality of gay sex — immoral in the sense that I don't believe that its pursuit is consistent with highest human happiness), I don't particularly mind its legalization. First, I don't really spend much time worrying about what our corrupt government condones. But even when I do, I can't say that condoning gay sex is less conducive to highest human happiness than, say, being in a perpetual state of war — conduct which the state, modern and ancient, seems hell-bent on. But, second, I don't think it's such a bad thing to have such stark examples of where legality is divorced from morality. It's a healthy development. Maybe people will start thinking for themselves.
People should behave properly because it's the right thing to do, not because it's the legal thing to do. For God's sake, if you oppose SSM then go to jail for refusing to perform a SSM marriage if you have to. Seems like we have some historical examples of that kind of behavior...maybe the Christian martyrs are strong enough role models? Whoever said that being pious was going to be easy? Stop your sniveling, everyone.
In all of the above cases, a religious belief that interacting with and providing support for an act or group of acts that are believed to be immoral or unpleasant would be similar to condoning those beliefs.
But think about how this "religious belief" finds expression in the real world. Gays are untouchable. Unmarried couples are frowned upon. Unwed mothers get prenatal support and anti-abortion counseling. Contraception and (straight) sodomy is swept under the rug. Divorce is tolerated. Different sects take different views on alcohol, tobacco, and pornography. Etc.
If there were a legitimate "religious belief" that associating with or providing support for immoral people or immoral acts amounts to "condoning" such acts in an unacceptable way (and I'll note that you've provided absolutely no doctrinal basis for the view that such association is morally equivalent to "condonation," or that such "condonation" is itself morally impermissible), then it seems to me that it ought to apply consistently, at least with respect to the degree of repentance shown by sinners. But this is not what we see. What we see, rather, is an especially targeted moral disapproval of same-sex relationships. Why is this?
How many heretics are there in the U.S., from any particular believer's point of view? How in the world does any earnest believer reach the conclusion that the unrepentant sexual behavior of a tiny minority of fellow citizens is morally significant enough to merit this kind of treatment, when hundreds of millions of other citizens are unrepentantly committed to religious tenets which are profoundly, metaphysically wrong? It seems to me that today's believers have quite more profound things to worry about than who's boinking whom. And yet it is the LGBT who get singled out for distinctly and intentionally second-class treatment. Why? Is this just a matter of "religious belief?"
Thanks, now I see your point. Considering how the current conflict in worldviews in such a broad battlefield (marriage, children, rights of conscience, rights of association, etc.), I'm not sure that divorce and same-sex marriage are equivalent examples.
And you're probably right, that the church would not be "compelled" to recognize SSM. Maggie Gallagher's Banned in Boston, however, did a fair job of explaining how religious organizations could be forced to choose when it comes to the functions of a church.
For instance, the state of Massachusetts couldn't compel Catholic Charities to provide children to same-sex marriages. But CC was forced to choose between doing so, or getting out of adoption services altogether. The Westminster Catholic Children's Society in the UK is now facing the same dilemma, although that organization is taking it to the courts.
EpluribusMoney finds the "idea of homosexuality unspeakable" yet quickly mentions "two guys getting it on" when the topic of marriage for same-sex couples comes up.
Perhaps you two should start a private chat to better revel in your unspeakable thoughts about two guys getting it on.
CC wasn't forced into choosing between providing children to same-sex marriages and getting out of adoption services. The San Francisco chose to deal with the higher-ups' demands that they not place children in same-sex marriages by assisting other agencies who could do so. CC of Boston's specific response was designed to attract attention to MA's law and to stir controversy. Which it has -- note how often it gets cited, and how infrequently CC of San Francisco is.
Simon P,
Your own animus, presumption and arrogations based upon nearly vapid incomprehensions are all something you might begin subjecting to some self-examination. You'll no doubt resist the idea, but just a suggestion that might register at some point in the future. There are in fact people in the world - and they are real people, not the cut-out caricatures you imagine - who think differently than the Simon Ps of the world! It's true, it actually is true! Who'da thunk it!
But Simon P feels "quite comfortable," doncha know, and who'd care to question the epistemic guarantor in "feeling comfortable"? Positively cartoonish. (Here, Simon, it'll be subjected to yet more predictably "comfortable" derision, but it does help to flesh-out one of the more considered positions.)
Fine. So what are your unambiguous definitions of "male" and "female"?
A proposed Constitutional Amendment in California stated:
Let's assume you want the following properties in a definition of F and M:
1. Everyone is either M or F, no-one is neither.
2. Everyone is M or F, but not both simultaneously
3. Everyone is permanently M or permanently F, it can't change.
4. M people can't get pregnant, and F people can't impregnate
5. You don't need a fully equipped laboratory to tell one M person from the majority of F people, or the reverse. That is, men look male, women look female.
No definition that has all these properties exists, but perhaps one that satisfies most will be acceptable.
Analysing the proposal:
Property 1 is preserved, providing you drop "male person" and "female person" and just say "person". If you don't drop the "male" or "female" bit then you violate the first property, as some people's appearance is ambiguous, and chromosomes don't match appearance in others - assuming you go by birth certificates. Which in some countries have an option for "X", neither M nor F (e.g Australia, see the Alex Macfalane case).
Property 2 is preserved - that's one out of 5.
Property 3 is violated by those who are 46xx/47xxy mosaics, with a low proportion of 47xxy. During cell turnover, 47xxy is selected against, so in later life, the person may be genetically entirely 46xx.
Property 4 is hopelessly compromised. There are people with defective SrY complexes who are 46xy but have become pregnant, and those with 46xx chromosomes but a translocated SrY complex who have become biological fathers. Worse, SrY isn't the only complex that can cause masculinisation, there are 3, so a test for SrY doesn't work either. Those women with Swyer syndrome can become surrogate mothers, they have all the normal female reproductive system bar the ovaries. They are 46xy and have streak (atrophied) male gonads.
Property 5 is also completely compromised. Apart from those who have transitioned, there are many women with 46xy chromosomes and feminising Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, and many men with 46xx chromosomes and masculinising Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. Not forgetting those born with other Intersex conditions (or victims of botched genital surgery such as infant circumcision) who have been surgically "corrected" at age 1 year without their knowledge or consent. Many don't even know this happened to them. Then there are those with 5ARD who look female at birth, but masculinise at puberty. There are other similar conditions too, 17BHDD being the most common. So you can't go by appearances, or even medical records. A simple, cheap test for presence of SrY will give a false positive for the presence of a Y chromosome if it's translocated. A single buccal smear or blood test and karyotype costing thousands won't detect mosaicism, you need multiple samples from different parts of the body, maybe a hundred thousand's worth.
Note I haven't even mentioned Transsexuality yet, just Intersex.
Given the ambiguities involved on virtually every plane (you only touch upon the tip of the tip of the iceberg and there only in one area), it seems like a great opportunity for the demos to speak via the democratic process - in lieu of an increasingly usurping judiciary.
The piece you've linked is unresponsive to the point I'm trying to make.
I am not trying to say that homosexual acts are compatible with any religious faith. I am not trying to say that only "animus" can explain the position of religious people who claim that marital sex is the "ideal sex," marital sex serves some broader metaphysical purpose, or that heterosexual sex is in some sense superior to homosexual sex. I think that's all nonsense, obviously, but it is all beside the point.
The question I'm asking is this: given the broader metaphysical scheme in which that piece places the prohibition of homosexual sex, what explains the highly selective choice of homosexual sex as the object of broader, more concerted social disapproval? Given all the serious immorality which exists in this world, homosexual sex seems unique in the degree of disapprobation -- and the volume of literature it generates -- it generates. How can you make sense of that, from an Orthodox Jew's perspective? Why would it seem to drive them, say, to refuse to photograph a same-sex wedding ceremony, but not a non-kosher or non-Jewish one?
Secondly, you've attempted to suggest, indeed you've overtly stated, that it's merely animus which motivates.
Your goal posts are moving.
A few points:
1. Its a fact that millions of Christians read the Bible to say that any sex outside of marriage (along with lustful thoughts) is sinful. This will always be true, as the New Testament provides a clear framework for how sex and marriage are to be understood.
2. Christians mostly believe that salvation depends on repentence of sin. Failure to repent means eternal separation from God.
3. Christians are thus to avoid promoting or accommodating sin, or suggesting sin is not wrong, as doing so shows either a belief that unrepentant sin isn't a big deal, or a lack of concern or contempt for the sinners soul. Christian denominations vary on what constitutes promoting homosexuality, but the following seem to violate their conscience: requirements that they provide housing or benefits to homosexual couples, assist in weddings or obtaining a child, or include them in groups formed to promote Christian purposes.
4. When the law requires Christians to promote or accommodate open homosexual conduct, it is asking Christians to promote unrepentant sin, in violation of their doctrine.
Thus, as the law increasingly requires Christians to either accommodate or promote homosexual conduct, Christians will either have to compromise their doctrine or retreat from the activity in question. Just from the list above, Christians will no longer be able to have colleges that provide student housing, practice in some medical fields, provide commercial wedding services, offer adoption services, or work in county courthouses. Further, its not a stretch to see the discrimination laws applied further: christian schools won't be able to keep out gay teachers, christian social programs will shut down, christians won't be able to have roomates, christian groups will be banned at public schools and from public facilities, and eventually, Christians will be prohibited from preaching their view of marriage ans sexuality or preaching and teaching how to get out of the homosexual lifestyle. In the meantime, public schools attempt to teach Christian children that their views of marriage and sexuality are immoral.
I think much of the push against gay marriage is not so much against gay marriage, but against the rest of the agenda coming to pass. Had gay advocates humbly pointed out the discriminatory aspects of their inability to marry, and not focused so much energy attacking the traditional Christian view of sex and marriage, they'd have a much better chance of success.
Same sex marriage doesn't matter much to me, but as a libertarian, I have a hard time with the gay agenda when it comes to how the anti-discrimination laws are being applied. Christians are often simply seeking to protect their liberty to act according to their doctrines, and I'm not at all convinced that letting them do so in these contexts imposes any hardship on gays in most contexts.
As far as animus, and as an indictor of your "animus" theme: "these actions are political in nature, and they are clearly rooted in unprincipled animus, not belief."
So, I contradicted that, showing that it was and is belief, in turn rooted in a broad anthropological argument. But suddenly that doesn't matter either. That they are, in substantial part, political, is patently obvious. So what, what on earth does that seek to suggest, that the political aspect of the discussion is somehow warranted when you're the one forwarding the debate, but unwarranted when an opposing side forwards aspects of their considered position?
I'm not a Christian (or religious, for that matter), and thus can't really speak of the group's more insular tenets. From my understanding, though, the various texts do not find the sins to be equal in the first place -- otherwise male-male sexual intercourse would be little more interesting than that of the prohibition on types of shellfish. It's considered a fairly bad sin, almost on the level of things like beastiality.
Given the way the Greeks and early Romans practiced male-male intercourse, I can't say I honestly early Christian writers, although I don't agree with them.
Reality is tougher than simply saying X and Y are both supposed to be sins, why not treat X like Y? That's a great bumper sticker, but not remotely related to reasonable discourse. Traditional Christian texts don't even prohibit alcohol (the earliest noteworthy prohibitionist group dates back to right before the American Civil War, and not long before), only drunken behavior. Tobacco and pornography are pretty similar, without even the little canon that exists for alcohol (the closest is 'adultery in your heart', depending on interpretation) -- they're not even mentioned within the primary texts, and prohibitions or limitations on them only exist due to the authority of the various churches, not due to the gospels. The texts give rules for divorce, in Deuteronomy 24, but don't prohibit it. Violating those rules is condemned and considered immoral, but not found to be an abomination. Adultery is considered yet another sin, but still not an abomination.
The concept of morality as a battle between inaction and action, rather than action against a void, predates the Christian religion by several hundred years. It's difficult to find a particular cite for such a thing, simply because it pervades a good portion of the various texts of most major religions and other systems of morality -- if morality provides a very good survival or reproductive technique, you usually don't want to associate with folk that don't follow it.
The specific dogma of many individuals in the United States, that simply filling a prescription presents a pharmacist as complicit in an abortion, or as codified in various complicit inaction laws within the United States and Canada for failing to assist at the scene of an accident. For examples more exact to the books, the destruction of Sodom is stated in Ezekiel 16 as being due to arrogance and failure to assist the needy (and violence against those who did, according to some of the Jewish texts).
I never said that the original belief, the belief that homosexual sex was immoral, was politically- or animus-driven. If you think that I have, you're not reading me closely enough.
What I am questioning is the claim that the moral belief that homosexual sex is wrong also compels the moral belief that any benign association with those who may or may not engage in homosexual sex (but who everyone believes probably do) is wrong because it amounts to a "condonation" of such behavior. The piece you linked, on a skim, does not appear to spend any time addressing that point, which is precisely the one I've driven from the beginning. If you'd like to point me to a portion of the linked piece which precisely addresses that point, I'll consult and respond to it.
Because I cannot find any logical connection between the moral condemnation of homosexual sex and the peculiar status homosexual sex has within our public moral discourse, I conclude that something other than genuine moral belief drives that selection. That "something else" likely being either politics, animus, or both, it is subject to greater scrutiny -- and less respect -- than genuine moral belief itself.
Incidentally, I find describing the piece you linked as providing a "broad anthropological argument" to be a bit... ambitious. I can see that it has a brief anthropological account of the emergence of Jewish "homosexuality" and an anti-homosexual norm, but it provides no "anthropological argument" justifying that norm or its perpetuation in the modern day. The "argument" is almost entirely theological. Which is fine, but it is, again, beside the point.
... or, for that matter, one of them may be divorced? To the Church, sex between two "married" people whose marriage is not legitimate in the eyes of the Church is fornication or adultery.
It requires a very selective reading of religious principles to come up with the squinting, narrowly-targeted animus towards homosexuality that is the predominant pose of religious conservatives today. The overweening focus of some Christians' (and Jews') notion of public "morality" as being almost exclusively concerned with sex, and not with any of the other moral issues discussed in the Bible, is a truly remarkable thing.
Allow me to translate.
"I'm blazingly ignorant of what religious people actually believe, and why. But I don't see any good reason for it. Therefore I conclude that they're bigots, political animals, or both."
This is yet another example of an inherent political weakness of the libertarian view. In a modern democracy, conflicts between equality and liberty tend to end up favoring greater equality, and as conditions become more equal any remaining inequality becomes even less tolerable, especially if it involves a struggle for recognition. Hence the inadequacy of civil unions and the ever more invasive attempts to prevent discrimination in civil society.
Actually, about 70% of Americans used to disapprove of SSM, and there are fewer every year.
Maybe you were citing to the lead poll at this site. True, when asked to pick from gay marriage, civil unions, and nothing, only 30% picked gay marriage, but another 28% supported civil unions. That's 58% support for legalized gay unions. Only 36% opposed providing any recognition for gay unions.
This is a cultural fight that the gay rights side is winning. Time is on our side. Maybe California voters will pass the proposed anti-marriage amendment in November. But they could lose, something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. And even if the anti-marriage side wins this battle, voter attitudes are changing. Eventually, the pro-marriage side will win.
Back to my point, more and more parts of society find anti-gay rhetoric offensive and equivalent to antisemitic or racist rhetoric. That means social pressure will force more anti-gay people to exclude themselves from more and more parts of society or keep their feelings to themselves.
One real impact of SSM could be to further normalize gay people and further integrate them into the rest of society. That normalization and integration will likely increase the social pressure on anti-gay people.
And what is all this about homosexuality occupying a "peculiar" place in our society? There are lots of things different people think are immoral, homosexual behavior is only one of many. It isn't even the only behavior people think is sufficiently immoral to prevent marriage. I'm not even going to bother responding to the part about the Bible and whether or not people have a legitimate "non-animus" basis for their belief (I'm not sure by what power you are entitled to tell people whether or not their beliefs are legitimate anyway) because it displays such a level of ignorance it is clear there is no genuine desire to make any effort to understand the people on the other side of the debate.
Now would somebody come over here and help me finish stuffing the Constitution, "history", and the western cultural heritage down the memory hole? This crap is damned inconvenient to have around and I'd just as soon not have it laying around where these irrationally bigoted religious people can pick it up and throw it at me...
For years, I've heard it stated that gay marriage somehow threatens marriage as an "institution," but in all that time I've never had explained exactly how or why that is.
Can anyone here explain?
Of course, there are other anti-gay religions, such as Islam, that aren't being forced to make those choices. Wouldn't have anything to do with their well-established doctrine of "a bomb in the bathhouse and a slogan gets you more than a slogan!"
A little more Church Militant and a little less turn the other cheek would seem to be the answer. "By any means necessary", to quote another spokesman whose group gets a pass....