In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King wrote there are two types of laws: just and unjust.” He went on to ask “How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.”
While King was protesting segregation, his argument drew on a theological tradition going back to Augustine, Aquinas, Locke and others, namely, that right and wrong is not defined by governments but by the law of God. Governments are under God’s authority and cannot command absolute allegiance. Of course the state can and often has good reasons for tolerating actions contrary to divine law but if the states endorses them, is complicit in their commission or attempts to legitimate them as valid, then it usurps its authority. When it does this its citizens have the right to resist it.
This theological tradition is the reason many Christians oppose same-sex marriage. King was correct to claim that the law of God grants equal dignity to all people regardless of race; the law of God also instituted marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Sexual activity between people of the same-sex is morally wrong, just like people of the same family or sexual activity with multiple partners at the same time. The state may have good reasons in a fallen society for tolerating such actions but has no right to declare them valid.
We believe that given certain defensible theological presuppositions this position is defensible and robust.
The above summarises the basis for our opposition to same-sex marriage; this is why we believe the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill should not be passed. Over at Whale Oil our guest post, “Critiquing the Case for Same-Sex Marriage“, offers rebuttals of the arguments that have been advanced by proponents of the Bill.
Readers of both this post and the one at Whale Oil will note that in this post we appeal to theological premises – this is because we are describing why we oppose it and we, as Christians, accept these theological views – but on Whale Oil we are offering a rebuttal of other people’s arguments; hence, there we draw on premises that those who support the Bill are likely to be committed to.
In the comments section at Whale Oil we have been accused of being sneaky in taking this approach. We disagree. We are quite happy to speak about our own position; however, that was not what we were doing on Whale Oil. What we were doing on Whale Oil was offering a critique of our opponents’ position – the dialectical context was not the same. Offering reasons why we accept something is not the same thing as offering our opponents reasons why they should reject certain arguments they have advanced. Far from doing anything sneaky, we are simply trying to engage our opponents on their own terms.
When there is a fundamental difference in presuppositions between one’s opponent and oneself then a critique of one’s opponents’ argument only provides them with reasons for rejecting the argument if the critique appeals to premises they accept or are logically committed to by virtue of their presuppositions.
Appealing to theological beliefs they do not themselves hold provides them with no reason for accepting anything. Incidentally, the converse is also true: attempts to rebut theologically based positions do not provide religious people who hold such positions any rational reason for abandoning them unless those rebuttals appeal to premises the religious person accepts and is logically committed to. This is not being sneaky, it is called effective rational dialogue. The alternative is simply talking past each other in a dialectical stand-off of assertion and counter-assertion where neither side is listening to each other, no true engagement occurs and no understanding is possible.
So that said, check out our guest post: “Critiquing the Case for Same-Sex Marriage“.
Aside
For all those who state that the passage of the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill will not have any impact on Christians like us consider section 56 of the Marriage Act 1955, then consider the statement we made at the outset of this post expressing our religious viewpoint in light of the Marriage Act being amended as proposed (and no, the proposed Bill does not propose amending this section):
56 Offence to deny or impugn validity of lawful marriage
(1) Every person commits an offence against this Act, and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $200, who—
(a) alleges, expressly or by implication, that any persons lawfully married are not truly and sufficiently married;
Tags: Gay Marriage · Marriage Equality · Same Sex Marriage · Whale Oil127 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
How is same sex morally wrong?
I can’t say I was surprised, but I was disgusted by a fair few of the comments made toward you both in your guest post.
I am only a layman (and a young Christian) so my grasp of philosophy is limited, but I was shocked at the behavior of people who obviously think of themselves as highly intelligent, that they could not understand your argument, that they could not even construct a strawman (instead, attacking an analogy – incorrectly).
Any way, thankyou for putting forward an argument that some of us are not yet equipped to.
🙂
Aidan: this is a discussion about marriage not sex.
Good spotting Madeleine. So if a clergyman says to his congregation referring to an MP and his partner, “these two sodomites are not married in the eyes of God – no matter what the law says” and the congregation says, “Amen” they all could be up for a $200. fine?
@ M&M
You state that: “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.”
OK So all you have to do is prove that your God actually exists and I’ll endorse your perspective with regard to the status of this proposed law change.
This should be interesting!
Paul, and of course the same applies to any secular moral perspective.
When you say : the state has an obligation to recognise same sex unions its a matter of human rights.
All the secularist has to do is prove that moral duties, obligations and or rights exist, and then we can accept their position.
Are you willing to shoulder the burden of proof you demand of others?
Nice try Matt
But I’m not the one attempting to justify your position, you are. So you either prove that your God exists or you accept that your perspective is invalid as without proof of God your stance holds no authority with regard to how just or un-just the position is.
Back to you Matt
Quite right Paul. After all, it was here that we heard the argument that if fundamentalist parents of a child objected to evolutionary science then schools should not be able to teach it because it would violate their rights.
The screwed up “logic” of theology.
Christians are somehow victims because the rest of us don’t accept their prejudices.
Ken,
considering that nothing in your first paragraph is even remotely related to theology, I would advise you to think before you spout your nonsense (or even better: spare us).
Paul,
you did not answer the question: when someone from a secular perspective makes a claim about something being moral/immoral/amoral, do do reject their claims as having no authority unless they prove the truth of their ethical model as well?
Yes or no?
Paul, my response is essentially the response WMF makes.
WMF -the mode of argument, the motivated “logic”, the mental gymnastics to justify a preordained “conclusion” is all typically theological.
And childish.
Christians painting themselves as victims because they are denied their current or past priveliges or rights to discriminate indeed.
How childish!
@ WMF & Matt
My perspective with regard to “Gay Marriage” has nothing to do with the fact that you still haven’t proved the existence of your God to validate your stance in relation to your opposition of legalised “Gay Mariage”
Of course you could always just admit that you can’t prove your God exists so we stop going round in circles.
I wonder if John Rawls’ ideas get much play in NZ. I’m thinking in particular of his ideas surrounding what he in one place called “the criterion of reciprocity.” Concerning basic matters of justice, the idea is roughly that citizens are to wield the coercive power of the state only in ways that can be justified on grounds that those subjugated by those laws can be reasonably expected to accept. In a pluralistic society, one typically cannot reasonably expect one’s fellow citizens to accept justifications that depend on doctrines peculiar to a particular ideology or theological tradition. (This is not, of course, to deny that one can reasonably expect the LGBT community to accept that “traditional marriage” is regarded as sacred by many religiously-inclined individuals.)
@Paul Bennet
I would be interested in seeing your answer to WMF and Matts question.
Thom, I a written have critiques of Rawls on this blog in the past. At the last EPS meeting Frank Beckwith gave an interesting paper which argued that applied consistently the Rawlsian approach leads to a rejection of same sex marriage laws.
Here is why: First, laws against same sex marriage prohibit the state from recognizing or solemnization such unions. They don’t restrict anyone’s freedom to form such unions, so they do not appear to impose restrictions on the freedom of individuals. However, given anti-discrimination legislation these laws do pose restriction on the freedom of those who disagree with these unions. ( this might be less an issue in the US which don’t have substantive anti-discrimination legislation that NZ has) hence laws allowing same sex marriage restrict freedom.
Second, Rawl’s position is that no coercive legislation can be based on premises which are based on a comprehensive perspective or doctrine which is not accepted by all in a pluralistic society. He does not limit this to religious doctrines but allows that’s secular ideologies which are not accepted by all in a pluralistic society.
Third, laws in favour of same sex marriage typically appeal to premises about marriage and sexuality which are rejected by significant religious traditions, hence these premises are not accepted by all people in a pluralistic society.
The implication is that laws in favour of same sex marriage lead to restrictions on peoples freedom and do so on the basis of premises which are not accepted by all people in a pluralistic society so its unjust to implement them in such a society.
Give up Matt.
When a secularist makes a valid point it is reason and logic.
When you do the same it is “mental gymnastics”…. even if it is exactly the same point! Some people are incapable of seeing past their ideological blinkers.
I am afraid that I find your argument poorly elaborated. South Africa is the only jurisdiction that permits straight polygamy and same-sex marriage. Moreover, within the British Commonwealth, British Columbia’s Supreme Court held that the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints was not allowed to appeal to “religious freedom” in the context of Section 293 of the Canadian Criminal Code, given that polygamous relationships within the FCLDS “Bountiful” community were characterised by domestic violence and child sexual abuse.
Similarly, none of the jurisdictions that have decriminalised or allow ‘consensual adult’ incest are within the British Commonwealth, and the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled against an adult incestuous couple, Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski. In that case, Karolewski had a personality disorder and learning disabilities that rendered her consent questionable. Moreover, two of their four children, Eric and Sarah, have severe intellectual and physical disabilities.
While there are therefore good public policy reasons not to allow decriminalisation of polygamy or “consensual adult” incest within New Zealand, there are few secular reasons why same-sex marriage should not be permitted other than sectarian religious impositions on Christian denominations, other faiths and inclusive secularists that do not follow doctrinal and social conservatism on such matters.
Are you both aware that two Unitarian ministers, Dawn Seacrest and Kay Greenleaf, were actually arrested for performing same-sex weddings in New Paltz, New York back in 2004?
This is a little bit silly Paul, I assume you don’t endorse any law unless the moral/ethical principle behind it has been proven as true. Sorry but this reeks of special pleading
Hi Craig, good to hear from you again.
Actually, we responded to that argument in the original article. There we addressed both the argument that no jurisdictions have allowed this, and also the argument there are good reasons for discriminating against incest and polygamous unions.
Paul,
Actually it does because the argument I gave about your position is analogous to one you offer against mine. Hence you can’t rationally press your objection against my position unless you also accept my analogous argument as telling against yours.
If lack of proof for God shows appeals to God’s commands is indefensible then lack of proof for moral obligations and rights shows appeals to obligations to not discriminate and non-discrimination rights are indefensible.
So either you can (b) reject both my position and your position (c) suggest your objection is unsound. (d) accept your position and objection show that while God cannot be proven to exist but moral obligations and rights can be.
@ Matt
What you fail to grasp is that as much as you continue to insist that I gave an opposing view to yours: You said, I said – “When you say : the state has an obligation to recognise same sex unions its a matter of human rights”.
If you actually re-read my posts, you’ll see that you are mistaken. In fact I may actually feel that “Gay Marriage” shouldn’t be legalised, but just for different reasons than the ones you gave.
However, none of that is of any importance. I’m just looking for proof of your God, then I’d not only agree with your stance on this matter, but also on most other things given the implications that proof that your God does in fact actually exist would have on me. So, back to you!
Paul, two things:
My original question to you was whether you apply the same burden of proof to secular arguments that appeal to rights and obligations commands as you do to religious appeals to divine commands. Whatever position you take on this issue, unless you are moral skeptic or nihilist and believe all moral claims are false or rationally unjustified. You will have to appeal to the existence of rights or obligations. I have yet to see any secularist or atheist prove such things exist. (There are is ought problems to begin with in doing so) So my question is again, do you reject all secular moral arguments because they appeal to things which haven’t be proven? If not, why is this an objection to theologically based ethics.
Second, if you read my post you’ll see when I mentioned God’s commands I said explicitly I was not offering these premises as reasons why atheists or people like yourself should oppose homosexual marriage. I stated they were the reasons I opposed the Bill, I pointed out if I was in dialogue with someone who did not share the theological assumptions I did then I would appeal to something else, premises they accept or are committed to. I think pointed to a post where I had done so, I also in the reply to Thom above, offer an argument that appeals only to the standard secularist position on religion an public life.
The distinction between me offering my reason for the position and the offering others who don’t share my presuppositions was the central theme of the post.
So when your respond by claiming that my argument does not provide you ( an atheist) with a reason to accept the conclusion, you are simply repeating the point I made in my post. Its true if I appeal to a premise you don’t accept I don’t convince you just as every athiest who appeals to moral principles religious people reject don’t convince them either.
On the other hand if your claim is supposed to be an objection to my position then, unless you can prove the existence of obligations and rights, an analogous argument applies to any moral position so what we have is not an argument against theological ethics but an argument against any ethical position secular or religious. I am pretty sure you are not a nihilist and so your objection is incoherent.
@Matt
Three things.
Firstly you state that “Governments are under God’s authority and cannot command absolute allegiance. Of course the state can and often has good reasons for tolerating actions contrary to divine law but if the states endorses them, is complicit in their commission or attempts to legitimate them as valid, then it usurps its authority. When it does this its citizens have the right to resist it”.
From this, I take it to mean that you believe God gives you the right to resist the Governments attempt to legalise “Gay Marriage”
Secondly, you state that, “Readers of both this post and the one at Whale Oil will note that in this post we appeal to theological premises – this is because we are describing why we oppose it and we, as Christians, accept these theological views”.
I take this to mean that you are making it explicit that your objection to what is being proposed is explicitly due to your christian beliefs, which in turn get their authority from the belief that your God exists.
Thirdly, you state that, “Incidentally, the converse is also true: attempts to rebut theologically based positions do not provide religious people who hold such positions any rational reason for abandoning them unless those rebuttals appeal to premises the religious person accepts and is logically committed to”.
From this I infer that the only way you will consider abandoning your position, is if I only use rebuttals related to premises you accept and are logically committed to.
So, taking everything you’ve said so far, I’d summarize your position as:
1 – You believe that your God’s authority over the NZ Government validates your opposition to legalised “Gay Marriage”
2 – You believe that as a christian, belief in your God validates your stance as stated in 1
3 – The only kind of challenge that you will even consider, has to relate directly to perspectives that appeal to aspects of your stated christian beliefs, which would logically infer a belief in God.
Finally, I therefore feel that my original challenge, “Prove to me your God exists” is a valid one in relation to your position given in 1,2 & 3.
Your turn Matt
From this I infer that the only way you will consider abandoning your position, is if I only use rebuttals related to premises you accept and are logically committed to.
That’s correct, its hard to see what the problem is here, if someone offered me an argument from premises I do not accept and have no reason to then its hard to see how they have offered me any reason for anything. Your demand that I have to prove God exists before you accept divine commands exist tends to confirm this point.
So, taking everything you’ve said so far, I’d summarize your position as:
1 – You believe that your God’s authority over the NZ Government validates your opposition to legalised “Gay Marriage”
2 – You believe that as a christian, belief in your God validates your stance as stated in 1
3 – The only kind of challenge that you will even consider, has to relate directly to perspectives that appeal to aspects of your stated christian beliefs, which would logically infer a belief in God.
No, it has to appeal to premises I accept or am rationally commited to accepting. Belief in God is one belief I accept but its not the only one. So it does not follow that any argument that appeals to a belief I accept must be one you can infer God’s existence from.
Finally, I therefore feel that my original challenge, “Prove to me your God exists” is a valid one in relation to your position given in 1,2 & 3.
This does not follow from anything you state, suppose its true that in order for you to provide me with a reason for supporting same sex marriage you have to provide me with arguments that appeal to premises I either accept or am committed to accepting given what else I believe. Then that means you have to provide me with such an argument to convince me. It does not follow I have to prove God exists to you.
Moreover, your argument here actually reinforces my point. Because I can offer an analogous argument against any secular case for ( or against) same sex marriage
1 – You believe that your secular understanding of moral obligations and rights valids support ( or opposition) for SSM
2 – You believe that as a believer in some secular morality, belief in moral obligations validates your stance as stated in 1
3 – The only kind of challenge that you will even consider, has to relate directly to moral premises which are secular.
These three premises are analogues of the case you made above, so why can’t I infer from them that you need to prove the existence of moral obligation and rights? If that’s a valid inference for you it must be for me. So where is that proof, or do you only demand it when it suits you?
Dear Matt,
Thank you for providing such a substantive response to my question about Rawls. I wonder if you think that Beckwith’s arguments are sound. I find each of them highly dubious.
Beckwith’s first argument, as you report it, seems to rely on what Rawls (and certainly many contemporary Rawlsians) would consider an impoverished conception of freedom—something like what people have in mind when they think of “negative liberty” or a characteristically libertarian conception of freedom.
The second argument seems to rely on the implicit premise that pro-SSM legislation relies for its justification on secular comprehensive doctrines that religious people cannot be reasonably expected to accept. But such a premise is of course highly dubious. While some atheists may argue for SSM on explicitly atheistic premises, this doesn’t of course entail that SSM legislation relies on atheistic premises for its justification. Rawls’ criterion of reciprocity can of course be used to pressure such atheists into providing grounds for their position that religious people can also be reasonably expected to accept.
The third argument, at least as stated, seems just to collapse into the second.
Let’s have a look at Section 56 of the Marriage Act, indeed. It looks like a clause that had its origins back when there was considerably more interdenominational and sectarian rancor between Catholics and Protestants than there is today.
It may also be the case that it refers to the *civil* and statutory aspects of a duly solemnised marriage, rather than whether or not particular *religious* doctrinal positions are adopted in this context. Thus, you could well still legitimately object that a same-sex couple is not married according to your particular doctrinal and theological perspective, as opposed to stating that to be the case in a civil and statutory context.
Has it ever been invoked in case law? If not, then it is a moribund clause, in any case. It seems inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act 1990 and its guarantees of religious freedom, as well as international conventions on religious freedom and toleration which New Zealand has assented to.
But let’s get back to the two Unitarian ministers, Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Seagrest, and the New Paltz, New York same-sex weddings for which they were imprisoned back in 2004.
Regardless of your theological objections to Unitarian, I hope that you would grant that this seems to be a clear-cut case of religious freedom under attack.
Moreover, do you both actually think that religious practise should be absolutely respected, even if other civil liberties and human rights factors, or other legitimate reasons to limit it come into play?
For example, take Southern US Pentecostal snakehandlers. In some parts of the United States, the religious practices of handling poisonous reptiles and drinking strychnine are illegal, but not in others. Or the recent Bountiful case in Canada, in which it was argued that Section 293 of the Canadian Criminal Code might well be an infringement of the religious freedom of polygamists, but that was entitled to be the case because of the reprehensible prevalence of spousal violence and child sexual abuse within the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints.
Some religious practices should therefore be legitimately circumscribed. However, there are broad areas of religious practise that do not harm others and thus should be subject to the usual guarantees of freedom of conscience, belief, worship, assembly and speech that are contained within statutory and international treaty defences of religious freedom. Legitimate religious objections to the morality of homosexuality and same-sex marriage would fall into the latter category.
Thom, thanks for your answer.
I think you have interpreted my points as three separate arguments. As I understand it they are three separate premises of a single argument.
As to your responses. I don’ think the first premise depends on the issue of whether negative libertarian freedom is impoverished or not. The point is rather that the existence of anti-discrimination legalization means that legalising same sex marriage results in restrictions on other people’s negative freedom.
This is important because, as I noted in the second premise, the Rawlsian position is typically justified on the basis that coercion, that is restrictions on negative freedom, must be justified by Rawlsian public reason and not on premises drawn from a comprehensive secular or religious perspective which many reasonable people reject in a pluralistic society.
The conjunction of these first two premises means the proponents of SS marriage have to justify a policy of allowing same sex marriage from the perspective of Rawlsian public reason if there advocacy is to be justified.
Where I think you raise some substantive criticism is the third premise. You state this
Here I think there is a misunderstanding, the issue is not whether the premises are atheistic. Rawls account of public reason means premises used to justify a practice must not be based on any religious or secular comprehensive perspective which is rejected by some reasonable people in a pluralistic society. Instead they must be based on premises which drawn from the overlapping consensus accepted by all these perspectives.
So the issue is not whether a defence of same sex marriage appeals to atheistic premises. For it to be justified on Rawlsian grounds it can’t appeal to accounts of sexuality or understandings of morality or rights, or moral theory which are part of a comprehensive perspective some people reject in a pluralistic society. It must rather employ only premises which every perspective, Marxist, Libertarian, Utilitarian, Naturalist, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Secular humanist, all accept.
I don’t know of any argument for same sex marriage that meets this standard of argument. I suppose its possible one exists but I doubt any does. Most I know of appeal explicitly to moral premises about sexuality or morality which many religious doctrines would not accept. Such things for example that marriage is only about love and has no link to procreation, or claims that all consenting sexual activities are morally on par and so on. These claims are not part of the overlapping consensus of all perspectives they are rather peculiarly modern and secular accounts of morality which many religious doctrines reject.
Craig
That would depend on the details of the case. I don’t know the details but it might be that the ministers claimed to offer a state sanctioned same sex wedding and attempted to issue a state marriage licence. If that was the case then the issue would be fraud not Unitarian beliefs. If a minister refuses to conduct same sex marriages he does not commit fraud nor does a church or mosque that refuses to rent out its altar for a same sex marriage.
Of course not, no one I know has either advocated this, and I agree that restrictions on religious practises that involve child abuse or violence against people can be circumscribed.
That however is not what is at issue here, whats at issue in this case are where people might due to their religious beliefs refuse to be part of a same sex wedding or to support such a wedding in certain ways because they believe, on theological grounds its immoral, or they wish to communicate this belief to others.
Take for example a case I heard about recently, a women who was a marriage counsellor and offered advice to married couples on how to improve their sex life. Once same sex unions were recognised as marriages, she was asked to offer this sort of advice to same sex couples, because she believe same sex sex is morally wrong she believed it would be wrong to provide sexual advice of this nature to such couples. She was fired because she had provided counselling in a “discriminatory manner” . That’s not a case of violence, or child abuse, it’s simply the refusal to give her assistance a same sex couple to have better sex.
Or take a famous UK case, where a couple who were by all accounts good foster parents were banned from fostering children because they said they could not in good conscience teach any children in there charge that same sex unions were morally permissible. That’s not harm or violence either.
Matt,
In Rawls, public reason plays a role in determining legitimacy when the policies in question concern “constitutional essentials” or “matters of basic justice.” While we might wonder whether or not marriage issues belong in these categories, I don’t think Beckwith can credibly insist that such categories only encompass policies that threaten a characteristically libertarian conception of negative liberty. As evidence, first consider the definitions that Rawls helpfully provides.
Next consider the how wrongheaded it would be to insist that Rawls only allows characteristically libertarian protections as reasonable inclusions in a written constitution or the guidelines for the basic structure of society. Indeed, the guidelines for the basic structure of society are none other than Rawls’ famous two principles of justice – and these certainly go well beyond the minimal provisions of a libertarian state. Rawls, moreover, targeted the “basic structure of society” not merely because of its potential to coercively threaten negative liberty, but, more fundamentally, because of the way that it inevitably affected the life prospects of anyone born into the society.
Now I entirely agree that proponents of SSM should try to justify their policy positions on grounds that Christians (or citizens adhering to reasonable religious comprehensive doctrines) can be reasonably expected to accept. Whether or not they would be required to under the Rawlsian conception of legitimacy hangs on the question of whether or not the SSM legislation in question would, if enforced, touch on a constitutional essential or a basic matter of justice. Here we should consider the interests of the religious individuals, and of what is at stake for them. Possibly what is at stake for them is also a constitutional essential or a basic matter of justice, but possibly not. At any rate, it is a very different question than that of determining the status of what is at stake for the LGBT community. Considering these questions in terms of the “life prospects” of individuals, alongside the values of marriage that everyone can be reasonably expected to concede, you can probably appreciate why a Rawlsian might think that the LGBT community would have an easier time arguing that what is at stake for them is a matter of basic justice.
To clarify one point that I made earlier, when I mentioned the atheist’s argument for SSM, I intended this only as an illustration. I of course acknowledge that Rawls treated secular comprehensive doctrines on a par with religious ones. As for your question about how arguments for pro-SSM policies can conform to the Rawlsian idea of public reason, I think the court transcripts surrounding California Proposition 8 provide helpful illustrations. The transcripts of Perry v. Schwarzenegger provide, I think, ample evidence of how SSM can be defended on grounds that are independent of particular ideologies (this is not, of course, to say that all of the arguments conform to the standard of public reason).
The state recognizes divorce (and subsequent marriages between divorcee’s) as valid. To those who are committed to the belief that under God’s law, no man shall tear asunder what God has joined together, and the belief that laws that don’t harmonize with God’s , it seems they must therefore be committed to the belief that it is unjust for the state to recognize (and even celebrates) marriages where one or either party has been divorced.
This is clearly absurd, and most reasonable people would not accept that conclusion. So one of those two beliefs must be jettisoned. Many Christians do accept divorce (and remarriage), but for those that don’t, this poses a problem.
Canada is a country that found itself embroiled in a supreme court case challenging the prohibition on polygamy, which (attempted) to ride in on the momentum from Canada’s now gender neutral marriage laws.
The courts upheld the prohibition on polygamy, and there reasons were very interesting – and I believe make a convincing case that one is perfectly consistent to believe that prohibiting same-sex marriage is discriminatory AND that prohibiting polygamy and incest is not.
There are compelling reasons to prohibit polygamy that outweigh, on balance, the marginal benefit to an individuals freedom to form such unions. It’s a notoriously destabilizing form of union, for society and the individual family units themselves, and the state would be wise to avoid it.
1) increased violent crime and terrorism (single men are almost unanimously the purveyors of both)
2) as the pool of marriable women grows smaller, predation for younger and younger female wives increases
3) fathers still devoting resources to seeking new wives cannot devote time to raising their children
4) competition for resources in polygamous households is severe and ultimately harms the children
… and there are many more …
Incest also has many *really* bad consequences as well. Incestuous relationships are almost always cases of abuse, and cannot be called consensual at all. In most cases, incestuous relationships are cases where one domineering family member has abused and groomed and unwilling family member (who also has no prospects to escape from their predicament). The so-called consensual incestuous relationship between two healthy, independent adults is pretty much a complete fiction, with a few exceptions here and there. I think its safe to say that laws recognizing incest as a valid type of union to be celebrated would make it even more difficult for us to legally put a stop to these sorts of abusive relationships.
As for same-sex marriage, there are no such severe societal consequences – in fact, there may be benefits, if not for society as a whole, but for the homosexuals themselves.
Thom
I agree that for Rawls public reason applies to “constitutional essentials” and matters of “basic justice” I assumed you considered marriage to fall under that issue as you suggested a Rawlsian approach to the issue. I am inclined to think it probably does not, but that’s another issue.
I don’t think Frank, holds nor does he need to hold, that constitutional essentials only encompass policies that threaten a libertarian conception of negative liberty. All he needs to hold is that SSM laws restrict the negative religious liberty of religious believers and I think the cases he cites in his paper show it does.
I think it clearly would be, it involves regulations on freedom of religion and its hard to see how freedom of religion would not be a constitutional essential.
I guess I don’t see this, all Gay marriage gives LGBT couples is the state declaring their union as a marriage. The homosexual law reform act of 1985 meant homosexuals can form unions legally live together in the ways married couples do. In terms of property issues that was addressed by the omnibus bill of 2005. The civil unions act even gave them a state sanctioned ceremony and registration. So I doubt very much it’s easier for them to argue that what is at stake is a matter of basic justice. I don’t think the right to have your union called a marriage by the government, if it exists at all is a matter of basic justice. Freedom of religion and how we regulate that is pretty clearly a matter of constitutional essentials and basic justice. So I am inclined to think the evidence suggests the opposite here.
I have not read the court transcripts you refer to, my familiarity with moral philosophy makes me sceptical that there is a moral argument for any substantive moral position from premises which are accepted by all reasonable comprehensive perspectives. It’s widely acknowledged I think that few moral arguments meet that standard. One only needs to appreciate the existence of nihilism to appreciate that.
Matt, your argument seems to have deviated into the field of antidiscrimination law, rather than marriage equality specifically. It seems to be due to a stubborn refusal by conservative Christian opponents of marriage equality to acknowledge that sexual orientation (and gender identity) discrimination constitute forms of harm that require remedies through statutory attention, such as the Human Rights Act 1993 offers.
Unfortunately for New Zealand conservative Christians, New Zealand has had antidiscrimination laws since the nineties that encompass lesbian, gay, bisexual (and heterosexual!) sexual orientation and HIV status. The United States has not yet passed the mooted Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which renders imported arguments from the US context irrelevant to the New Zealand context. Or else, it constitutes an alternatiive version of the slippery slope argument that our side of the marriage equality debate can deploy eg
“See? They don’t just oppose marriage equality and adoption reform, they’re attacking our right to freedom from employment, accomodation and goods and service discrimination as well. What next? Recriminalise male homosexuality?!” …and the problem is that Robert George and you have made such arguments in the current context when it comes to anti-discrimination laws, and Bob McCoskrie is now on record as condemning civil unions.
To use an equivalent from your own political commitments, there are “pro-life” arguments that most western societies aren’t willing to recriminalise abortion, but may instead recognise incremental restrictions on it. However, along comes a more robust prohibitionist anti-abortion group that hasn’t given up wanting to ban abortion altogether. Which is why SPUC/Voice for Life booted out Right to Life- the latter was propagandising for the Status of the Unborn Child Bill 1983. From what pro-choice news services tell me, much the same has happened in the context of the “Personhood” prohibitionist anti-abortionists and the US National Right to Life Committee.
Is your Frank Beckwith reference to his Christian Research Journal article “Wedding Bell Blues”? Read it ages ago and still have a copy of it. It’s one of the clearest and most succint summaries of the natural law/conservative Catholic position on marriage equality I know, even given that I disagree with his philosophical and theological premises.
Craig, Frank’s paper was a more academic one he presented to the evangelical philosophical society in San Francisco last year. I can dig out the title for you. I am not sure where it has been published.
As to your other arguments, I think you are stretching the word “harm” if you use it to include all the forms of discrimination banned by the HRA. I don’t think for example one can credibly say they are harmed because someone else refuses to give you the altar to their church when you ask them to. Nor are you harmed if a marriage counsellor refuses to give you advice on spicing up your sex life. There is no right to these things in the first place.
Of course there are certain discriminatory actions which do constitute harms, such as lynching African Americans, or depriving women of the vote, these however are harms independently of their discriminatory application. If lynchings occurred indiscriminately for example or all races were lynched equally it would still be harms, denying all people the vote men and women or simply giving out arbitrarily by lottery would deny people of a civil liberty ( the right to vote) despite the fact it was not discriminatory. So in most cases, where a discriminatory action constitutes harm its harmful nature has nothing to do with discrimination but the fact something people had a right to was deprived of them.
I also think you are misunderstanding Frank’s argument here, its not a slippery slope, if you decriminalise X then that leads to Y. It’s rather an argument which attempts to show that same sex marriage is unjust according to the position on religion and public life standardly accepted by political liberals. The standard position is that any legislation which restricts the freedom of citizens cannot be justly implemented unless it can be justified by “public reason” where public reason refers to reasons or premises which are not based on any comprehensive secular or religious doctrine not shared by all reasonable people in a pluralistic society. Given same sex marriage laws lead to restrictions on peoples freedom it follows immediately that laws allowing same sex marriage are unjust unless those who advocate them can justify this from premises which don’t appeal to notions of marriage, sexuality, concepts of rights and so on which would be rejected by a religious citizen.
It seems to me defenders of same sex marriage can rationally escape this argument in three ways, (a) stop advocating for same sex marriage, (b) reject the standard liberal position on religion and public life, (c) or repeal anti-discrimination legislation.
I think each of this options constitutes a quite fundamental back track on the part of liberal defenders of same sex marriage.
Most in fact attempt to argue for same sex marriage by appealing to the liberal view on religion and public life or to anti discrimination rights, which is another way there position is incoherent, apart from the way I mentioned in my blog at whaleoil.
Notice this argument is dialectical, I don’t accept the standard view on religion and public life and am skeptical of the existence of non discrimination rights, however those who oppose same sex marriage often are commited to both these things and so the argument provides them with rational reasons for rejecting these commitments.
Drj
If you look at my original article you’ll see I responded to the argument you raise. We said
Providing good reasons for why polygamous and incestous unions should constitute prohibited unions under the marriage act. Does not show that prohibiting same sex unions is discriminatory and prohibiting polygamy and incest is not. If you discriminate for good reasons you still discriminate, what the existence of those reasons shows is the claim its wrong to discriminate against consensual loving unions is false. You can discriminate if you have reasons for thinking the unions are morally problematic.
Second, if the arguments you provide are good reasons for prohibiting polygamy and incest then it seems to me analogous reasons can be used to prohibit same sex unions. Note the nature of your inference, you note that polygamous unions are a “ a notoriously destabilizing form of union” and note that incest has a whole lot of “bad consquences” and the existence of loving commited incestous unions are extremely rare.
The problem is the same form of argument is used by conservatives against same sex marriage. The sociological evidence suggests same sex unions are a “notoriously” unstable for of union. The study by David McWhiter and Andrew Mattison “The Male Couple” found that infidelity was the rule for homosexual relationships and the exception for heterosexual ones. They concluded that for homosexual couples “monogamy” in such relationships is a passing phase of internalised homophobia. Several other leading surveys have found similar results showing extremely high rates of promiscuity amougst homosexual couples. This promiscuity, alongside the kind of sexual practises often engaged in is linked to a whole lot of “bad consquences” such as higher rates of STD’s, drug use, mental health problems and a lowered age of mortality for homosexual men all or which is well document.
The studies suggest number of homosexual couples who are monogamous is in your words “ is pretty much a complete fiction, with a few exceptions here and there.” When you take into account that the number of people who show signs of being exclusively homosexual is around 2%. This suggests that the benefit to individuals of same sex unions is “marginal” in much the way the same number of people who having monogamous consensual incestous unions are.
Note I am not endorsing ( or rejecting) this argument, I am simply pointing out that the same line of argument you make about incest and polygamy can be made about same sex unions. If one can prohibiting polygamous unions or incestous unions because, with a few exceptions, most such unions are not loving commited monogamous unions and are associated with various negative consquences and the number that is not. then similar reasons suggest we can prohibit same sex unions vast majority of which are not monogamous but promiscuous and associated with various negative consquences.
A little birdey–whose name rhymes with Gladeline–told me that my recent EPS paper is being discussed.
A few clarifications. The paper deals with justificatory liberalism rather than Rawlsian liberalism per se. That is, it concerns the question of whether a citizen may be coerced on a matter of fundamental rights if that citizen is reasonable in rejecting the reasons for the coercion. As Rawls, Thomson, Dworkin, Gaus, Nussbaum, etc. –the whole gang, if you will–affirm, in such a scenario the coercion is in fact unjustified. I focus on the consequence that have, and will, result from the legalizing of same-sex “marriage” on citizens who in fact are reasonable rejecting SSM. Here, I bring to bear on this question Dworkin and Rawls’ generous understanding of reasonableness when it comes to what Rawls calls “comprehensive doctrines.”
The final version of the paper–which has been accepted for publication in a leading philosophy of law journal–is nearly 40 pages long. (Given what happened to Mark Regenerus at Texas; I do not dare publish the name of the journal that accepted it). However, I wrote a piece four years ago in First Things–it is very brief–that will give you an idea where the article is going: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2008/12/same-sex-marriage-and-the-fail
Thank you for your interest in my work.
Frank
Thank’s Frank. I should have remembered you were dealing with justification liberalism in general, given how the word “justificatory” sounds when uttered by an american with an american accent.
Been a few days since I’ve tripped past your site – been busy I see…
OK – in reading the comments so far – I’m in “Pauls” camp (excuse the pun)
Matt – Your responses read like “ducking a punch”.
You say believing in the existence of a God is only one of your beliefs. And demanding that Paul argue the existence of Moral Obligations outside a theological existence.
I have a problem with these responses. I would contend that your beliefs start with your “Belief in God” and any or all of your other beliefs are anchored to that starting point.
Also the use of the word “Obligation” This almost sounds like the performance of a duty whether you feel like it or not. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not.
You use the word “command” (e.g. divine commands ) a lot and this suggests that you need to fulfill someone else’s wishes to exist (or co-exist for that matter).
So here is an idea – stop blaming a God for your “being good” and accept personal responsibility for this, then accepting that you and only you are responsible for this, start thinking about the bigotry that is segregating a section of our community and see that as not good.
Not sure what your objection here is, you suggest that when Paul asks me theological ethicists to “prove God exists” before they can appeal to divine commands, I am ducking the a punch if I don’t offer proof. When a secularist however appeals to a rights or obligations an fails to prove these exist they are not ducking a punch? Why, the only reason I see is you saying “ I have a problem with these responses” and then a summary of what you think the structure of my beliefs are. That hardly addresses the question?
Why do theists bear a burden of proof and atheists not bear an analogous version?
Yes, that’s right, if someone likes to rape or steal or kill or assault people or molest children, its still wrong to do it. The problem is?
Not sure how this follows, if I think society commands me to not steal, through passing the crimes act. Does it follow that have a need to fufill someone else’s desire to exist?
It’s a fairly well noticed point that moral obligations function like commands. Athiests like Peter Singer and R M Hare, J S Mill, have noted this for example. To say you are obligated to do X is to say people have to do X, its to commit one to opposing its omission to censuring those who do, to blaming people who do, accepting one is guilty and need forgiveness if one does not, that’s how the concept of moral obligation functions in our discourse. This is widely noted and defended in secular ethics.
Interesting, in the final analysis you offer name calling, psyoanalysis and assertion instead of any reason.
But again, the claim here does not follow, you suggest that if a person believes unions between members of the same sex should not be recognized as marriage, this is bigotry and imposes “segregation”.
If that followed, then stating unions between members of the same immediate family should not be recognised as marriage (which the act does state) then that would be bigotry against such people and imposing segregation between brothers an sisters. Such an inference is obviously ridiculous. It does not become valid when you substitute the word “family” with “sex”. In logic its uncontroversial that an arguments validity is not effected by such a substitution, so unless you want to reject logic I suggest your argument has no force.
Matt, Frank,
I think it would be odd to attack justificatory liberalism without addressing the position developed in detail by Rawls. Therefore I’ll continue to respond with what I take to be his ideas. After reading the comments and the short essay at First Things, I think it might also be helpful to step back a little to remind ourselves that what is at stake here is much more than simply SSM.
What is at stake is the ability for citizens to have “a firm allegiance to a democratic society’s political (moral) ideals and values,” where this contrasts with honoring those ideals merely as a modus vivendi or in which allegiance is dependent upon one’s comprehensive doctrine prospering and not declining in that society. If the idea of public reason fails then there may be no reasonable and shared basis for citizens in our pluralistic societies to cooperate on fundamental political questions, and the “firm allegiance” to the society’s political ideals and values is simply not obtainable. This would be quite a blow to the possibility of political civility and civic cooperation. No peaceful solution to our fundamental political controversies would exist “except domination by one side or the peace of exhaustion.”
Perhaps you already acknowledge and accept these unfortunate implications of public reason’s failure in fundamental political matters. From what I have seen, however, I don’t think that any of the arguments succeed in undermining Rawls’ more hopeful vision. Some of the arguments I have read appear to involve misunderstandings. Let me focus on what I take to be a particularly crucial one.
The claim has been made that, on matters of basic justice or constitutional essentials, laws, if they are to be legitimate, must be justifiable on grounds that are contained within the overlapping consensus of every reasonable comprehensive doctrine held in that society. Given Rawls’ generous view of what a reasonable comprehensive doctrine can be, the overlapping consensus of such doctrines is found to be far too limited to provide such public justifications. Consequently, neither laws for nor against SSM (for example) can satisfy this criterion of legitimate law.
But the criterion of legitimate law has been crucially misstated. What is missing is the responsibility of reasonableness that Rawls places on citizens to whom justifications for the laws in question are offered. So, as it is sometimes stated, under Rawls’ actual criterion, legitimacy only requires that such law be justifiable on grounds that we can reasonably expect others to accept. The sense of “expect” here is normative (Rawls is not talking about expectation in the sense of prediction). More particularly, Rawls expects citizens to themselves be reasonable and Rawls’ robust notion of a “reasonable citizen” gives crucial substance to what it is that we can reasonably expect others to accept.
Consider carefully, then, Rawls’ characterization of the reasonable citizen:
A key component of this characterization is the idea of a conception of “political justice” (or “political conceptions of justice”). While such conceptions are themselves quite open-ended, the do include the crucial features that they “can be presented independently from comprehensive doctrines of any kind” and “they can be can be worked out from fundamental ideas seen as implicit in the public political culture of a constitutional regime, such as conceptions of citizens as free and equal persons, and of society as a fair system of cooperation.” Both features give substance to what it is that we can reasonably expect others to accept.
So, in offering our proposals regarding laws touching fundamental political questions, we are not to think of ourselves as having to argue from premises that are already implicit in every reasonable comprehensive doctrine. Rather, we are to argue from premises that reasonable citizens could accept, regardless of their particular reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Regarding the fundamental political questions, reasonable citizens are those who, at least in the public political forum, object not directly in terms of their peculiar reasonable comprehensive doctrines, but rather in terms of a political conception of justice. Those who reject the idea of a political conception of justice reject the very ideal that public reason and public justifications are supposed to advance, however reasonable their own particular comprehensive doctrines may turn out to be (that comprehensive doctrines are reasonable in Rawls’ sense does not guarantee that they themselves are reasonable citizens in Rawls’ sense). Having rejected the very ideal that public justifications are intended to serve, such people have abandoned any reasonable grounds for demanding justifications on their own peculiar terms. In other words, having rejected the criterion of reciprocity, they cannot reasonably expect its benefits.
Of such people, Rawls has this to say:
And,
What Rawls says about unreasonable doctrines can also be extended to unreasonable citizens. They certainly exist, and they are “a threat to a democratic society, since it is impossible for them to abide by a constitutional regime except as a modus vivendi. But while
Thom, actually I think the major critics of justificatory liberalism such as Christopher Eberle, in fact addresses those very pionts, when they make the case that Public reason is to limited to provide public justification for many substantive issues. Eberle has a section spelling out Rawl’s account of reasonableness and then arguing that even on those grounds basic things like religious freedom or abortion could not be established by public reason, so I am unsure why you suggest these arguments are based on a misperception.
Matt – really too many words… I believe our morals stem from our societal desire to do good for our community. Our community being our family, neighbours, village, sports team etc.
If I chose to do a “wrong” within that community then there would feedback from that group demonstrating the error of my ways.
The desire to belong to the “society” is an inherent part of our species and ably demonstrated by looking at many species. And the desire to do “good” within the group is strong in our species and again is an equally shared behaviour of many species. No need for a “command” – Its evolutionary – Good aspects are rewarded with survival and bad are punished withed non-survival – For more on this you should consult with specialists in this field – say Anthropologists (not Theologians)
So that’s “Wrongs v Rights” from a morals point of view. Our society provides judgements accordingly. NZ is starting to judge the morality of excluding same-sex relationships from our legal definition of marriage as a Wrong. In my opinion this will stop a form of bigotry that you are of the opinion should continue.
Christianity has a history of exclusion, bigotry, persecution, racism, slavery, (well lets just say a long list of wrongs) Now I expect you to consign many of these aspects to the past, however, at the time they were considered appropriate until enough people said no! these are “wrongs” that need changing.
Are you enlightened enough to see that this is another christian issue that needs to be consigned to the past?
Matt, what page numbers in Eberle’s book do you have in mind? And which other “major critics” do you have in mind?
@Pete, are things still wrong if you get away with them to your advantage?
@jeremy. Maybe you haven’t noticed, that eventually all wrongs get accounted for. While there might be a short term “win” the wrong is eventually found out.
Unless, you are psychopath….then empathy towards the “society” is a little difficult.
Pete, actually I think history suggests the opposite, gross injustices and wrongs have been advocated and sanctioned in numerous cultures through out history for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Matt – your time perspective is too short – not hundreds of years – think thousands and thousands
The hundreds you refer to is more evident of mans folly of superstitious beliefs in mans attempt to explain the natural world. And yet these superstitious beliefs are being dealt to – otherwise we would still be burning people at the stake for suggesting that the earth goes around the sun, and that it is possible to cure illnesses causes my organisms smaller then we can see with the naked eye.
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, that eventually all wrongs get accounted for. While there might be a short term “win” the wrong is eventually found out.”
You’ll have to provide support for this statement. How will ALL wrongs get accounted for? What if I’m really really good at keeping secrets, I could get away with an immoral act.
Pete, perhaps you could point to a time when people did burn people at the stake for believing the earth goes around the sun?
Comments about the progress of history tend to be more credible when the person making them actually has an accurate grasp of history.
Zia, what Pete shows is that he has faith in some form of providence guiding history so that good ultimately triumphs over evil and that all wrongs are accounted for. Whats less clear is how such a faith could be credible or defensible if atheism is true.
@Pete, no i have not noticed that all wrongs get accounted for at all. Only some people ever get caught and held accountable. Wealth and influence often deal with getting caught. History and the law are written by the powerful, the wealthy and the winners.
Biologically there is no such thing as right or wrong, only what works to propagate genes into subsequent generations, or are you suggesting an impersonal solely material universe somehow operates karma to enforce what ‘ought’ to be?
“This suggests that the benefit to individuals of same sex unions is “marginal” in much the way the same number of people who having monogamous consensual incestous unions are.”
Seems odd.
One need not justify marriage rights in terms of the benefits to individuals, but nothing in that would appear to require you refrain from prohibiting marriage rights for reasons of harm.
This is just the standard liberal claim: that the state has no business preventing people from forming consensual and legally recognisable contracts as long as they directly harm no non-consenting parties. The liberal argument against polygamous and incestuous marriages is that these have a very strong tendency to harm non-consenting parties (in these cases children either as spouses or offspring). Polygamy, in particular, has significant negative externalities, as was pointed out above.
This is not to say that all polygamous or incestuous relationships are necessarily evil in this sense, but only that placing the boundary here is the most efficacious way of preventing said evils.
These arguments simply have no analogue when it comes to homosexual marriages. Proponents of homosexual marriages can and do argue against homosexual polygamy or incest on more or less the same grounds as everyone else does (that it harms non consenting parties or those incapable of providing full consent).
There are of course deep issues of what counts as consent here, but granting marriage rights to competent adult homosexuals would seem to cause nor more direct harm to non-consening parties than allowing adult heterosexuals to marry.
I guess my point is that the central issues for liberals are autonomy and consent, and there is a plausible argument that demonstrates why our intuitions about homosexual marriage and polygamy/incest diverge when these principles are salient.
@Matt @jeremy – I like how you get very pedantic when it suits you to put down mine or other opinions offered here.
Are you naive to the acts by Christians in history? Yes – burning people at the stake – the actual religious crime is immaterial so attacking my reference to the heliocentric theory is a cheap shot – but my reading of your blog makes this to be expected from you.
So back to my main point – you offered an opinion as to why you are against the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, and I have (in not so many words) said that your opinion amounts to bigotry. A bigotry that has many historical examples in Christianty – Argh – Don’t demand examples – you actually know them already but chose to ignore then for the sake of your argument.
“Whats less clear is how such a faith could be credible or defensible if atheism is true.” – this seems to prove that you do not understand what atheism is. Being religious means being okay with believing in things without evidence. Thats the most important part of faith. When you understand this then there is hope for you.
“Being religious means being okay with believing in things without evidence. Thats the most important part of faith. When you understand this then there is hope for you.”
Unmitigated bollocks. This kind of arrogant and ignorant comment gets right up my nose.
God promises time and again throughout the Bible that He will prove Himself to anyone who genuinely seeks Him. The most important part of faith is to take God at His word and let Him prove Himself to you. Why of why do people keep repeating this claptrap about “believing without evidence”?
In what way is saying that ‘i do not notice that all wrongs eventually get accounted for’ and offering reasons why i dont notice this, either pedantic or ‘putting down ‘ of your opinion?
This comment strikes me as ‘ad hominem’ rather than a reasoned argument, please explain.
On the subject of rights, do children have rights [ and reasonable expectations ] to have both a father and a mother?
Would ‘marriage equality’ give homosexual couples rights to adopt children?
Whose rights will take priority, those of the children or the adults?
“Third, laws in favour of same sex marriage typically appeal to premises about marriage and sexuality which are rejected by significant religious traditions, hence these premises are not accepted by all people in a pluralistic society.
The implication is that laws in favour of same sex marriage lead to restrictions on peoples freedom and do so on the basis of premises which are not accepted by all people in a pluralistic society so its unjust to implement them in such a society.”
The upshot of this argument seems to be that the state should have no marriage laws, gay or straight, since there are insurmountable differences about the purpose of marriage.
Such a view would be ridiculous, since there are, in fact, widely shared general beliefs about civil marriage in New Zealand societies. It’s just that they are such mundane background features of the way we think that people don’t notice them.
But people will deny them anyway, as arguments that demand some sort of autonomous evaluative response from people are characteristically abused by people who pretend, for sophistical reasons, that they don’t hold the views they actually hold.
regarding Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill
This parliamentary bill gets it’s first reading/vote today.
The religious are generally against this amendment on the grounds that it breaks the sanctimony of marriage. That marriage between a man and a women is the domain of god and while enshrined in our nations law as being more than that, it is still a religious institution first and foremost.
No surprise if you guess that I’m not supporting the religious argument.
One thing they do have right is the acknowledgement that marriage has become more than a religious ceremony. It is now a state ceremony and it’s definition has ramifications in law and society. This amendment (if passed in to law) will have the effect of gathering in a part of our society that is excluded. In other words we have legal and societal conditions that create a 2nd tier within our country and I happy to see this form of bigotry extinguished.
That’s right – the status quo is bigotry.
Pete, so apart from calling those who disagree with you “bigots” do you have an argument for your conclusion.
“This is just the standard liberal claim: that the state has no business preventing people from forming consensual and legally recognisable contracts as long as they directly harm no non-consenting parties.”
If this claim conjoined with the claim that same sex union’s do not harm non consenting third parties justifies recognising same sex unions as marriage, then one should recognise everyone in the local baseball team as married, those people all consent to be in the baseball team, signed a contract, and no one is harmed. Obviously thats absurd and things have to be a little more sensible than simply pointing out the activity in question is consensual and non harming to be considered marriage.
Even more odd, is that your definition would suggest that a group of people who have a herion smoking club, for consenters, or people who have voluntary gladiator matches to the death where all spectators consent to watch also should be declared marriage. Thats consensual and third parties are not harmed, yet no one would seriously suggest that is sufficent to make something a marriage.
“Are you naive to the acts by Christians in history? Yes – burning people at the stake – the actual religious crime is immaterial so attacking my reference to the heliocentric theory is a cheap shot – but my reading of your blog makes this to be expected from you.”
Burning at the stake came from roman law, this underscores the fact that executing people often in creul ways has been a normal practise of most cultures for thousands of years wether or not they embraced Christianity, in fact secular communist countries have carried out similar atrocities after rejecting Christianity, and the french revolution engaged in horrendous atrocities during its dechristianisation phase when it followed the cult of reason.
If your argument is that because Christian culture burnt people at the stake in the past any value drawn from that culture is bigotry. Then I can argue any value which has origins in any and every culture prior to Christianity, and also from the french enlightenemnt and from socialism is also bigotry, do you accept this? I
Pete wrote”Are you naive to the acts by Christians in history? Yes – burning people at the stake – the actual religious crime is immaterial so attacking my reference to the heliocentric theory is a cheap shot ”
Actually its not, First, even if people do commit atrocities that does not justify making false accusations against them on the grounds “they are bad people so it doesn’t matter if I make stuff up” . Second, the claim you made actually is a claim associated with views of church history such as the conflict thesis which is demonstrably false and was invented by 19th century skeptics to defame religious groups and create a false and exagerated picture. I would say appealing to demonstrably false stero types in a rant about the evils of bigotry is kinda important.
Matt, it seems that your real problem is with “blasphemy laws” instead of gay marriage?
“If this claim conjoined with the claim that same sex union’s do not harm non consenting third parties justifies recognising same sex unions as marriage, then one should recognise everyone in the local baseball team as married…”
Come on Matt. I know you’re better than this. Is the principle of charity dead here?
What I said is perfectly compatible with the existence of “contractual states” of varying kinds and intensities. The donkey work will be in formulating what types of protections and rights are to be assigned to the different sorts of associations. There are obvious morally relevant differences between people setting themselves up as a married couple and joining a baseball team – the most obvious being that it is easier (and a lot cheaper) to swap baseball teams. The usual metric will be to determine the degree to which any particular association entwines its participants. Marriage scores highly, if not the highest, on this metric. However, that doesn’t stop us from imagining other forms of association that might be similar in degree but only different in name.
“Even more odd, is that your definition would suggest that a group of people who have a herion smoking club, for consenters, or people who have voluntary gladiator matches to the death where all spectators consent to watch also should be declared marriage. Thats consensual and third parties are not harmed, yet no one would seriously suggest that is sufficent to make something a marriage.”
The externalities of heroin smoking clubs and gladiatorial combat are such that finding a liberal reason for prohibiting them is not that hard. It’s only in imaginary communities utterly unlike our own that these activities cease to generate externalities (e.g. the mythical heroin smoking club that harms only its participants).
So once we accept the mundane claim that associations of different characters and intensities require different sorts of legal protections, the point about polygamy and incest still stands. Liberals have good reason to deny those “associations” legal standing, so I think you owe us a better argument against homosexual marriage.
A, actually finding the externalities you refer is not as easy as you think, one only needs to consider the difficulty Joel Fienberg has in his definitive defense of the harm principle with these difficulties. I have a chapter of my PhD thesis which spells the problems out. An abridged version is here http://www.mandm.org.nz/2007/08/against-liberal-morality.html
“A, actually finding the externalities you refer is not as easy as you think, one only needs to consider the difficulty Joel Fienberg has in his definitive defense of the harm principle with these difficulties. I have a chapter of my PhD thesis which spells the problems out. An abridged version is here.”
I’ve seen this argument before. It is in my opinion hopeless, because we have to deal with the society we live in and not some idealized society.
The argument against gladiatorial games is essentially the same argument as against organ selling. While we might have no objections to these things in principle, it will be the case in practice that the people who end up doing it are the vulnerable members of society who do so for economic reasons (as is exactly the case in organ selling). The issue of consent is murky in these cases. In the case of addictive drugs, the issue of consent is pointless, since the agent’s decision making apparatus is subverted by the addiction.
Any workable legal code is going to be necessarily crude for this reason, and it will end up prohibiting some consensual acts between competent persons in order to prevent non-consensual acts from being legitimised. In other words, the crude nature of laws means that we sometimes end up taking one for the team.
But that’s just life.
As to whether gladiatorial contests harm third parties, one need only look to the brutish character of the societies that actually practiced it (or similar things, like public executions). For the same reasons we don’t display hard core pornography in public, we should not allow people to fight to the death in public. We could, of course, allow them to fight to the death in private, but that would take us back to problems of consent, for it would then be very difficult to police to make sure that all matches were consensual.
Feinberg’s problem is that he wants to exclude these things in principle. That is a difficult task. Fortunately, we don’t have to care about that. Rawls can also get out of this as well, since he grants that we need to know basic facts about people and economies in order to reason behind the veil of ignorance.
A. I would say that if you have no objections to gladiatorial matches “in principle” then the counts as a reductio of the position.
As to your responses, they simply repeat Fienberg’s responses about consent and third party harms which actually I address in the article I linked to.
Ironically enough, it was the infamous persecutor of Christians Diocletian who legislated for monogamy throughout the Roman Empire. Indeed, I believe Judaism carried on with it until the time of Rabbi Judah ben Gershom in the eleventh century CE…
One other response to your pessimistic assessment of the consequences for religious freedom if the marriage equality bill passes its second and third readings. If LGBT communities haven’t bothered with ordination rights within conservative churches, what makes you think we’ll take up the cudgels against them in the context of marriage equality and your religious institutions?
Craig, I think actually the essenes a jewish sect which predated Christ taught monogamy was normative and argued on the basis of the torah, Jesus’s response to the Pharisees in on divorce shows him appropriating the very arguments the essences used, arguing that monogamy was insituted as the norm at creation and the torah made concessions to people’s “hardness of hearts”.
As to Diocletian, I think actually marriages were a private contract during the roman period. In fact a public ceremony was not required for marriage till the fourth laterian council in the 1200’s prior to that something like common law marriages existed which were defined at Canon Law and adminstered the church. The state did not take over officiation till the 1700’s.
If LGBT communities haven’t bothered with ordination rights within conservative churches, what makes you think we’ll take up the cudgels against them in the context of marriage equality and your religious institutions?
Put it down to experience with Gay rights groups at university. But , what makes me think it is that it has happend in other juristictions around the world, why should NZ be any different.
But is your experience representative? I think the response to this news is telling, or the lack thereof. Several faiths and Christian religious denominations have said they’ll opt out of providing recognition or officiation for same-sex marriage shows that some pillarisation/seperate spheres differentiation may be occurring here.
I am afraid that conservative Christians routinely tend to overestimate your level of support within civil society, usually with disastrous results for your political efforts. Still, that does not mean the rest of us want to engage in massive religious persecution a la Nero or Diocletian.
After marriage equality is passed, I think things will go on as they did before. Antigay churches will still be free in terms of their legislative and international treaty religious freedom guarantees to hold their own beliefs, conscience grounds, ordination practises, core doctrines and exclusion of lesbians and gay men from the ordained ministry or faith-based marriage ceremonies. This isn’t Darfur or Srebrenica, thankfully.
While religious practice should not be an absolute freedom given the demonstrable harms that might ensue, that doesn’t mean that you will not still have broad human rights and civil liberties protections in our democratic and pluralist civil society.
With the exception of Westboro Baptist in the USA [which i only know of rather than know], i dont know any ‘anti gay’ christian churches.
If you mean churches that prioritise Gods commands before the fashions of men , then i know many who are opposed to homosexual practice, just as they are opposed to adultery, promiscuity, lying, cheating, stealing etc. The fact that we christians often fail to live up to Gods standards doesnt mean the standards arent there nor does it mean we shouldnt aspire to them. It would seem to be a peculilary human trait to keep lowering standards because we find them too hard .
Jeremy, this is probably an overly naive question, but why exactly is Westboro Baptist “anti-gay”?
I find Craig’s remark here plausible. Matt, it might be interesting to consider this remark in the context of Gerald Gaus’s NDPR review of the book you like by Christopher Eberle.
I am sure you have seen WBCs ‘ God hates faggots’ protests in the news or on the TV, which misrepresent God and fail to distinguish between the person and the practice.
Jeremy, a quick Google search suggests that the claim you cite from the Westboro Baptists might not be so alien to Christian fundamentalists. Consider this from http://carm.org/does-god-hate-anyone
And now there’s a contrasting legal opinion which may set your minds at rest…
“A rebuttal to Family First” St Matthews in the City: 29.08.2012: http://stmatthews.org.nz/news.php?nid=261&sid=88
Says you, but why should any of us care or give credence to this assertion?
In a world where human beings had the capability to duel one another to the death freely, without coercion, corruption, bias, and all the other ills that come along with such things – AND had full awareness of the consequences of losing and/or winning, etc – why is that obviously wrong? In such a world, a *great* many things which seem morally wrong in our perspective might actually be morally just fine.
And in fact, one sees echoes of a similar sentiment from apologists *all the time*, when they are called to defend Yahweh from his abhorrent seeming behaviour in the Old Testament. Our vantage point is just too limited to see the moral good in murdering babies of conquered lands, etc.
In each case Thom, what is at question is the heart attitude of the people involved. Do not forget 1 John 1:9 and Jeremiah 3:13 and Proverbs 28:13
Jeremy, your responses raise four questions. 1. Is it ever appropriate for anyone (including God) to hate a human being? 2. Is it possible to hate a gay person and still have an appropriate “heart attitude”? 3. Is it possible to proclaim “God hate faggots” and not be “anti-gay”? 4. How do you evaluate the “heart attitude” of the Westboro Baptists?
1, the desriptors in your quotes are all of action or attitudes, God does not hate the individuals as individuals, he infact wants them to repent and turn to the good he desires for them. 2, no, 3, no, 4, attempting to evaluate heart attitude is always hard but abusiveactions speak loudly ( disagreeing with someone / holding up a higher standard doesnt equate to an abusive actio)
Let me revise question 3. Is it possible to claim that God hates practicing homosexuals and not be “anti-gay,” or to still have an appropriate “heart-attitude”? (And would you concede that God hates, or has hated, certain groups of people?)
God does not hate practicing homosexuals although He is very clear about wrong sexual practice both male-female and male-male etc. In your own life you must know people you like even love while finding some of their behaviours less than acceptable, the concept of loving the sinner, hating the sin is not difficult or unknown to us. People just seem to get all defensive, up tight when words like sin and sinner are used. To answer your second question, yes and no. Yes in as much as they willfully and obstinately reject the love and good He offers them, no in that He promises to accept anyone who repents and turns to Him. God is always availbe to those who want to find Him.
You might also want to take a look at this. For something to lead to something, surely it must not therefore precede it?
Polygamy and Christian History: One Man and Several Women: http://www.gaynz.com/blogs/redqueen/?p=1549
Craig, you could look at this blog http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.co.nz/2006/03/persepctives-of-luther-luther.html which gives a different picture to the one you paint.
But lets assume, your account of the history is entirely correct and un-selective. I am not sure what it proves. First, you’d have to ask whether the positions you mention were mainstream positions reflecting common practice and understanding that had existed for centuries or were exceptions to this.
Second, lets assume it was common practise and teaching ( which it wasn’t) not sure what the argument is supposed to prove.
Does the fact that polygamy was sanctioned in the past by Christian’s prove that the current advocated by Louisa Wall and yourself, which is that there is a (a)right to marriage equality so that all people can gain the benefits of marriage and marry whomever they love and also (b) there should be prohibitions on incestous and polygamous unions, is coherent? That does not follow.
Also Craig, you pooh pooh the idea that advocacy of same sex marriage will lead to advocacy of polyamy, polyandry and so on, yet your own website openly stated this was the case a few days ago. The article I remind you was called “Were just getting started” http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_12202.php
Craig wrote
Craig I have seen that opinion, alongside one from the HRC the one from Ian Bassett, and the media comment from Grant Illingworth QC . While I have some moderate philosophy of law knowledge. Neither you nor I are lawyers, but I’d say three things.
First, the opinions differ over whether ministers will be required by law to officiate same sex marriage ceremonies, they appear to agree that churches and private individuals can be compelled to be part of such ceremonies. If Churches, as many churches do, make their ceremonial spaces or facilities available for weddings. And individuals if they work in an industry which involves participation in marriage ceremonies. So all the opinions agree that if the law is passed people will be required by law to participate in religious or quasi religious ceremonies contrary to their religion. That’s a paradigmatic violation of freedom of religion, and does not cease to be so because its not a minister that is so compelled.
Second, where the opinions differ over whether ministers I am inclined to find the arguments of Bassett and Illingworth more compelling. The St Matthew’s opinion bases a negative judgement on the claim the marriage act does not require celebrants marry anyone, and permits them to turn a request down. But, that’s not the question, the question is can they turn it down on grounds prohibited by the HRA. A landlord is not compelled to offer his property to anyone, he can leave it untenanted if he wants, and is not required to accept any tenant that offers, it does not follow he can turn people don’t “on the grounds” that are prohibited by the HRA.
Third, you ask if the activist I encountered at university are representative of NZ, let me give you some names of some people who I had some dealings with during my time at University. Chris Hipkins, Holly Walker, Grant Robinson, Martin Bradbury, Huhana Hickey, another who claims to have known me but less directly is Jacinda Ardern, do any of these people sound familiar to you?
Thom, I actually think there is a sense by which one can hate someone and love them at the same time. Moral judgements I think conceptually involve taking an attitude of disappropriation censure, disgust, blame towards the people who commit them a point J S Mill made some years ago and judicial judgements involve punishing people and in some sense making them suffer or depriving them of various goods ( such as liberty or enjoyment of property), yet this is compatible with a loving and just society, if it weren’t love and justice would require nihilism and anarchy.
With Westboro Baptist, I think the issue is that they express censure in a morally inappropriate way. For example , putting the homosexual issue to one side and looking at some other examples. Let’s assume that capital punishment for murder is a just punishment, I think it would still be inappropriate to cheer outside the prision and have a party at the funeral of the serial killer. What the person did was disguisting and deserves death, but that kind of disappropriation is wrong. Similarly, I few years ago a prominent NZer went to jail for child molestation, I supported the person getting a hefty sentence but was disguisted when someone on kiwiblog stated that they and there friends had held a party to celebrate this because they dispised his politics. So I am comfortable with there being a role for hate, disguist, and so on in the moral life that does not commit me to supporting Westboro Baptist, and its compatible with showing people respect and dignity.
As I’ve noted in both the contexts of polygamy and ‘consensual adult’ incest, there is considerable doubt about whether either are fully consensual- given the fact that one of the plaintiffs in the Stuebing v Germany cases in Germany and at the European Court of Human Rights, Susan Karolewski, has a measurable dependent personality disorder and learning and cognitive disabilities that render her ability to consent and comprehend what she is consenting to, questionable.
Moreover, in the Bountiful reference case, Canada ruled to maintain Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada against the practise of polygamy because it was characterised by violence against women and child sexual abuse. Again, “consent” in this context is impossible in the latter context and probably severed compromised by spousal rape in the context of the high incidence of domestic violence within Bountiful, including spousal rape. Canada has recognised same-sex marriage since 2005.
Moreover, the only nation that currently recognises both same-sex marriage and polygamy is South Africa, on the basis that polygamy is viewed as an indigenous Bantu African, as well as Muslim, practise. Those preconditions prevail nowhere else.
As well, despite the fact that polygamy isn’t a western Christian tradition, evidently African Christians do not agree with your condemnation of the practise, given that the Celestial Church of Nigeria, Lutheran Church of Liberia and numerous indigenous African Zionist Apostolic churches sanction the practice of polygamy through sola scriptura- in this case, the Old Testament patriarch polygamists within the Book of Genesis.
As for the tradition itself, Luther, Melanchthon, Ochino, Leyser, Madan, Willenburg and Milton all seem to have advanced arguments for sanctioning the practise of heterosexual polygamy, before even Napoleonic France and Jeremy Bentham had thought about decriminalising male homosexuality by contrast. It may not be normative and it may be discontinous, but it is certainly recurrent.
All the old testament accounts of patriachal polygamy are also accounts of family discord , unhappiness, on-going problems and often sin and lack of faith in God. These hardly constitute an endorsement of polygamy, rather serve as examples of how not to do things.
WRT the issue of some African denominations, I think you answered your own question with your previous paragraph. Polygamy is a cultural practice in large portions of Africa and denominations have incorporated it [wrongly?] or are attempting to justify it after the fact.
“A. I would say that if you have no objections to gladiatorial matches “in principle” then the counts as a reductio of the position.”
Only if you want to ignore what a reductio argument actually is. I don’t personally like the idea of people fighting to the death, but that is not the issue. The general idea of what counts as moral “in principle” is surprisingly thin. It is only fleshed out to something recognisable as morality to us when we apply it to the environment in which we actually have to make moral evaluations – a world that is not insulated from causation.
Here’s an equivalent case. I do not “in principle” disapprove of removing all regulations regarding the dispensing of pharmaceuticals to consenting adults. But anyone who actually suggested doing that in the actual world would be a bona fide lunatic. We can’t have a society run on pure consent, because consent in the actual world is a somewhat nebulous phenomenon.
“As to your responses, they simply repeat Fienberg’s responses about consent and third party harms which actually I address in the article I linked to.”
You address it by denying the reality of what it would mean to actually have such things. History is replete with examples, which you actually noted, but then completely failed to take heed of.
The liberal reason for banning gladiatorial contests is largely the same reason we ban people from selling their organs, and that is that the people who end up doing it are usually vulnerable people who are being exploited.
All this is to say that a liberal society will have to be somewhat paternalistic once we take account of difficulties with the notion of consent that we face in the actual world, and not some thought experiment where what counts as consent is stipulated.
We can’t make laws fine grained enough to prevent the vulnerable from selling their organs but allow the genuinely consenting to do so. Hence, we ban it. Similarly, informed consent regarding pharmaceuticals is largely an ideal, and would be ludicrous as the sole basis for dispensing drugs.
There are countless other examples of similar phenomena, such as the various age related restrictions on marriage, sexual activity, drinking, etc.
Note also Matt, that a Rawlsian using the mechanism outlined in “A Theory of Justice” has good reason to allow limited paternalism for protection.
The contractors in the original position will know general facts about how society works and about the sorts of people who will populate it (including the fact that some people will be religious). They will, for example, know that some citizens will suffer from a diminished capacity for consent. For example: those poor folk who suffer from dementia.
A rational self interested person in the original position could not but hold that it was obligatory for the state to protect such people by imposing limitations on their capacity to enter into contracts. This is nothing more than an extension of the provisions against fraud that would be enacted for everyone, since no rationally self interested person would agree to the enforceability of contracts that were the result of them being duped. Dementia patients are just that small set of people who are permanently “dupable”.
Jeremy, while I personally am inclined to agree with you, some of the patriarchs cited are ancestors of Christ. It also doesn’t change the fact that polygamy went uncondemned by Christians until the time of Diocletian, and was externally imposed on them.
Equally, it isn’t that simple either when it comes to polygamy and African churches. Ah, so US conservative Christian activists will now stop providing support to Uganda and Nigeria given the fact that they might well have been funding pro-polygamy churches?
Oddly enough, I suspect that we probably agree that polygamy is a destructive institution and should not be tolerated within western societies, although one suspects that my reasons for doing so are different from yours. However, in itself, Christian history does not seem to provide a case to do so. Particularly not Protestant Christian history.
“also doesn’t change the fact that polygamy went uncondemned by Christians until the time of Diocletian, and was externally imposed on them.”
This is false,
Moreover I checked the WCC site on the african church you refered to, they position is that converts who already have multiple wives are not to divorce them. I also provided a link which shows you comments about Luther are selective.
Poor liberals. What a philosophical hole they have dug for themselves. Given their elevation of “equality” (that most important value to them) as a justification for homogamy, they have no reason not to expand recognition of marriage to the various other categories that are unjustly excluded from the new law. For example, how about that, ohhh, feminism-destroying institution known as polygamy? Well, Europe’s way ahead of us on this, thanks to the cultural vibrancy being practised under their own noses by those Muhammedans the progressives can’t seem to get enough of. What would be their philosophical grounds for opposing ACTUAL marriage equality? Or is “equality” just a catchphrase promoted for its political effectiveness, so that the left even subverts its own cornerstone value just for the sake of nihilistic anti-traditionalism? Afterall, these same people have railed against marriage itself for decades. (Wasn’t that Helen Clark’s word to describe her personal opposition to the institution of marriage? You know her; that big supporter of the institution of homogamy. LOL!)
Surely any thinking person can see that anti-marriage nihilism provided the necessary condition for homogamy acceptance; namely the lower value placed on marriage itself.
So. Let’s see how many “gays” really support marriage [non-]equality, and how important it really is to them, by how many actually get married. Let’s see… what’s 4% of 1-3% of the population?
Bobby, as I have noted in my contribution to this debate, there is no reason to accept the polygamist and CAI self-designation as ‘consensual,’ given what case law says from Canada and Germany about either.
However, Matt’s point about Luther is an interesting one. One of the books that I cited in my blog on Polygamy and Christian History was a tome by Paul Robinson…a conservative Christian commentator himself, who acknowledges the veracity of the Philip of Hesse account, as well as Luther and Melanchthon’s problematic early stances on the ‘legitimacy’ of polygamy in sixteenth-century Germany.
Craig, you note that incest, when engaged in without contraception and under the conditions that normally occur in the real world has harmful effects on offspring. Is it your position then that we ban a sexual practise on the basis of what happens in the real world when its widely practised without contraception….. So for example can people look at how homosexual sex is widely practised in the real world and ask what wether this has harmful effects if its done without contraception? The point is you suddenly have to use a logic you would not accept in another context.
I think you are confused Matt. Contraception is not something which will ever be needed with homosexual sex!
Did you never get the birds and the bees chat!
Max, thanks for reminding me of the chat,.
But contraception can be used not just to prevent pregnancy but also to prevent contracting certain STD’s . In fact a significant amount of effort has gone into getting people who engage in homosexual conduct to use contraception in light of the AIDS epidemic.
My understanding is that because of certain facts associated with homosexual conduct such as the fact that promiscuity with large numbers of people is more the norm for homosexual men, and also the type of sexual practices engaged in, there is in fact a significantly higher threat of serious injury and even death from uncontracepted homosexual sex. So much so that the life expectancy of the typical homosexual man is significantly lower than that of heterosexual men.
So my point is this: if the fact that uncontracepted incestous sex in many cases causes harm justifies restrictions on incest, then I think a paralell argument can be ran for homosexual sex. A parallel argument could also be ran for causal heterosexual sex as well, uncontracepted causal heterosexual sex brings about large numbers of children whose parents are unwilling to care for them and the social carnage from this is significant.
I am not endorsing any of these arguments simply showing that by the criteria Craig uses with incest one could justify other restrictions he does not accept. Hence the incoherence of his position.
Let’s deal with your point about ‘gay promiscuity’ first. There is considerable variation in terms of the frequency and duration of gay relationships, just as there are in terms of heterosexual relationships. And anyway, that’s a brown herring (as opposed to a red one!) It is the subset of gay men that are monogamous who want marriage equality.
I assume you’re talking about the use of condoms? Well, if you don’t use condoms and have sex, and you’re straight, the outcomes are either pregnancy and then either solo parenthood or abortion, so straight people really have no grounds to act morally superior on the basis of sexual morality. Even monogamous gay men can be exposed to HIV/AIDS in the context of unprotected sex. And of course, most people with HIV/AIDS in the world today are African heterosexuals, given that HIV/AIDS can also be transmitted by unprotected straight vaginal sex if one partner is HIV+.
Incest is wrong, with or without ‘contraception,’ because it causes harm to the weaker participant, even if they are both apparently ‘consenting’ adults, as in the Stuebing case. Again, note the facts of the case- Susan Karolewski has a dependent personality disorder and learning and cognitive disabilities, so ‘consent’ is questionable in this context. Moreover, in the particular case of Stuebing v Germany, contraception was not used, and four children resulted.
As is often the case when dealing with consanguineous pregnancy, two of the resultant children were born with severe intellectual and physical disabilities. I note that Patrick Stuebing has since has a vasectomy, but my objection remains to the questionable nature of ‘consent’ in this context.
There’s also a question of magnitude in this.
As a consequentialist gay political theorist, I am notorious for nagging other gay men with multiple sexual partners to use condoms in the context of safe sex and boycott bareback DVDs, as well as pressing for international decriminalisation of sex work and opposition to New Right welfare reforms to insure that vulnerable gay adolescents are not forced into the otherwise unregulated margins of the porn industry. I do so because I am committed to working to prevent the serious consequences that result to gay men from unprotected sex in the context of HIV/AIDS.
However, when it comes to incest, we’re usually talking about straight men. Whether in the Bountiful case or the Stuebing case, there have been contextual and consequential factors that render those specific relationships harmful by an order of magnitude that is usually avoided in the context of safe, consenting adult gay sex.
Matt, your approach is transparently based on the sodomy trope, in any case, which argues a priori and without reference to empirical fact that male homosexuality is coterminous with an archaic concept of human sexuality that did not differentiate between gay sex, non-procreative straight sex, pedophilia, incest, zoophilia and bestiality. That is a patently erroneous concept.
First, I’ll point out that none of these points you raise are issues of consent or abuse. So the reasoning you talk about here really has no parallel with incest, at all. Polygamy also has potentially drastic and far reaching bad consequences for society at large, not simply bad consequences for the consenting adults in the relationship.
Also, life expectancy of homosexuals is very closely tied to prejiduced against them, and their continued, externally imposed exile from traditional culture and it’s moral institutions. They have higher risks of depression (and other mental disorders) most likely because of these prejiduces (not because of anything innately shameful about homosexuality itself). For all of the history of western civilization, resources have been devoted not to understanding them or helping them, but towards perpetuating their marginalization and/or increasing their shame (this is exactly what your actions and policies foster, Matt).
So your comparisons simply fail, and fail so badly I have to think you aren’t really trying. You’re a smart guy – stop playing dumb.
Craig,
Why couldn’t the defender of incestous union’s reply in the same vein.
1. You note that while the vast majority of homosexual men are promiscuous, a tiny subset are monogamous, and it’s this subject that wants marriage equality. Consequently, one should reject prohibitions on same sex marriage. But our hypothetical defender of incest could respond the same way. Even if the vast majority of cases of incest are non-consensual a small subset are consensual and loving, and it’s that small subset that want marriage equality. So we should reject prohibitions on incestuous marriage.
2. You point out that failure to use condoms by heterosexual people can result in worse or similar problems to what happens when homosexual sex is engaged in without condoms. But the hypothetical incestuous defender can make a similar response, failure to use condoms results might result in a disabled child. But failure to use condoms in a homosexual relationship can have similar consequences, AID’s, HIV, various fatal rectum ailments and so on.
3. Finally you note three cases, one where incest resulted in harm to the third party despite their consent regardless of contraception, but there are cases where homosexual sex can do this as well. You note there is a case where incest was performed where one party was not consenting, this is also true of homosexual conduct, and there are cases where one party is consenting. Homosexual rape sometimes happens. Third you note that in one case where no contraception resulted disabled people resulted. Analogous considerations apply to homosexual sex, there are cases where homosexual sex without contraception results not just in disability but death.
DrJ,
First, I’ll point out that none of these points you raise are issues of consent or abuse.
The argument wasn’t addressed at the consent argument it was addressed to the “children will be deformed argument”.
But you’ll note in my response to Craig an analogue does deal with the consent issue. Its not true that all forms of incest are non- consensual, its true that vast majority are. Similarly its true that only a tiny minority of homosexual unions are monogamous ( in fact some studies found that over a period of several years none are). So if you can justify a moral prohibition on incest based on features which are not intrinsic to incest but rather a feature of vast majority of incestuous relationships in reality, one can justify a ban on homosexual conduct by the same logic.
Sorry but this is bull shit, dying of STDs is caused by unprotected promiscuous sex. To suggest that when you sleep with 50+ anonymous strangers who themselves have all slept with a similar number of anonymous strangers. Then your death is caused by your behaviour not societal condemnation of your behaviour. By the same logic we would have to say that heterosexuals who dies of AIDS due to promiscuity are the victims of societies condemnatory attitude towards promiscuity and endorsement of monogamy.
This is true of lots of practises, criminals in jail for example have higher suicide rates than non- criminals this is undoubtably linked to societal condemnation of crime.
But more noteworthy a significant amount of the suffering people who have been the victim of incest undergo is related to the shame of having broken a social taboo and a feeling that there action is shameful, and so on.
Finally, by this logic if we discover (which we probably would) that heterosexuals who have lot’s of promiscuous sex have higher suicide and mental health problems we can blame that on societies condemnation of promiscuity and failure to recognise it as on par with marriage. Historically this has been condemned the same way homosexual sex has so if higher mental health problems amougst homosexuals can be blamed on societal mores so can higher mental health problems amougst promiscuous heterosexuals.
@ Matt
WRT your comments concerning gay male life expectancy and related health issues. Not sure of your source, but this is worth considering.
And here’s what the author of the “20 years” study (published back in 1997) has to say:
“The aim of our research was never to spread more homophobia … In our paper, we demonstrated that in a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 21 years less than for all men. … In contrast, if we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically … There has been a threefold decrease in mortality in Vancouver as well as in other parts of British Columbia.
“If estimates of an individual gay and bisexual man’s risk of death is truly needed for legal or other purposes, then people making these estimates should use the same actuarial tables that are used for all other males in that population.”
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/6/1499.full
Not sure if this one relates to “Same Sex Marriage” in NZ, but is does make you think about the status of Military same sex couples or other Government employees such as Police, Firefighters, etc.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2012/09/romney-meets-gay-veteran-gets-pwned/
Paul, I was not actually relying on that study, but again I am not sure how you citing it remotely addresses my point. Suppose one can with targeted contraception education reduce the mortality rate amongst Gay men, I am sure with the same targeted contraception could reduce the rate of deformed children amongst incestuous couples. Yet Craig accepts that despite this the risk of harm from non-contraceptive incestous unions justifies not allowing incestuous marriages and hence discriminating against incestuous couples.
But secondly, comments like these from researchers I think prove very little, the note they gathered statistics for a given purpose and don’t intend others to use the research to use conclusions X Y Z. Perhaps that’s true but so what? By themselves statistical claims have no moral implications, however when conjoined with certain philosophical or moral claims such conclusions can be drawn from factual studies. Wether the researcher agrees with these conclusions or approves is irrelevant, whats relevant is wether the conclusions follow from these premises and wether the philosophical claims are true. That’s an issue of substantive moral philosophy not one statisticans can simply avoid by saying “ I don’t intend that”
Matt, since 1986, same-sex male rape and incest have been equally as criminal as their heterosexual counterparts. And rightly so. Any form of child sexual abuse or sexual violence is by definition nonconsensual and is accompanied by severe psychological and physiological trauma. As far as I’m concerned, the duration and severity of sentencing to do with any form of incest and pedophilia should be substantially increased. That includes straight or same-sex CAI. Straight CAI seems to be more prevalent.
As for ‘consensual adult’ incest, I think what needs to be done is this- the Ministers of Health and Justice should convene a working group on genetic sexual attraction and then amend Section 130 (2) of the Crimes Act 1961 , which reads as follows:
130 Incest
(1) Sexual connection is incest if—
(a) it is between 2 people whose relationship is that of parent and child, siblings, half-siblings, or grandparent and grandchild; and
(b) the person charged knows of the relationship.
(2) Every one of or over the age of 16 years who commits incest is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years.
——————————————————————————–
It looks as if this clause covers CAI, thankfully, but there may need to be additional prescriptions dealing with psychotherapeutic and counselling needs to deal with residual genetic sexual attraction issues.
However, I utterly oppose any decriminalisation of CAI.
@Craig: Why proscribe relationships with a grandparent or a step sibling when the degree of consanguinity is the same for those cases as it is for first cousins?
(it’s legal to marry your first cousin in NZ).
JJ- irrelevant to the current argument. We are discussing the question of sibling adult incest or analogous relationships between parents and adult children in this context. That needs to be the focus of any amendment of Section 130 (2). And again, my position, based on Stuebing vs Germany is that CAI should remain illegal, particularly in those prevalent contexts.
And you’ve got to admit, the Stuebing case isn’t a good case for its decriminalisation. Fortunately.
JJ because marrying your first cousin is not within the prohibited degress laid down in the bible but marrying your grand son and step sibling is not. Rejecting the bible as archaic rubbish commits you to rejecting the prohibitions in the marriage act, however admitting that is to logical and shocking for some contemporary liberals so they try and fit these prohibitions into an implausible framework about consent and harm by using arguments and definitions about harm and consent they would reject elsewhere.
For example, take the “harming children” argument. There are several problems with this. First, if people did not engage in incest the children in question would not exist, so the congential defects in question harm them only if possesing them makes ones life not worth living so that non existence is preferable to having them, for most disabilities that’s an implausible statement. Second, similar dangers occur when people who are older have sex or people who have congenital defects have sex.
John Corvino gives a more sensible answer, he suggests that even though there can be consensual and non harmful incestous relationships, the social acceptance of a rule which permitted incest, so that people knew and accepted that when there brothers and sisters or grand children reached 16 they could have sex with them would probably have dangerous and far reaching implications which would justify the rule. This view however grants that one can restrict loving consensual relationships and discriminate against them if a defensible moral rule exists against the practice. That I think gives the game away .
I suspect that Craig’s objection is not biblical. The reason I queried his stated approval of the prohibitions in the marriage act (including those relating to grandparents and half siblings) is that he mentioned then in the context of a “genetic sexual attraction” working group. I was curious to know when attraction should be considered “genetic” (and conversely, when it would not). What would be the terms of reference of this proposed working group?
Personally I find it difficult to argue against consensual adult incest. The genetic argument is inconsistently applied, and I can’t see that cherry picking individual cases as cautionary examples is any help, (especially a case where one partner is “cognitively impaired”).
J
To be honest, though, JJ, the Stuebing case’s facts were good enough for the European Court of Human Rights, and for the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany to maintain prohibitions against CAI (if such it is). I approve of their reasoning- given the risks of severe genetic anomalies occurring within any such relationship, it is better that any such relationships are prohibited through legislative bans beforehand before it can result.
What about same-sex CAI? I’d support identical prohibitions, just as most LGBT community members would in the context of parent/child rape and same-sex rape. However, GSA responds well to prior psychotherapeutic intervention.
As for the terms of reference, it would be to identify the clinical status of genetic sexual attraction and hold a medico-legal discussion about how best to create GSA therapeutic intervention groups, publicise its existence and prevent it from arising in the first place. And perhaps there also need to be discussions about how we might view consent in the context of behavioural, intellectual and cognitive disability when it comes to sexuality.
JJ
I don’t think Craig’s case is biblical, I think he like most people intuitively recognizes something wrong with incest, a lot of moral knowledge is like that we intuitively grasp it without being able to articulate a clear water tight reason if challenged. If I were to demand that you prove me that rape was wrong or that homicide was wrong and asked for reasons why they are wrong I think I could raise similar worries which are well rehearsed in the literature.
My point is this, while Craig intuitively recognizes that incest is wrong and should not be recognized as marriage, the view of sexual morality appealed to by defenders of same sex marriage tends to commit them to denying this claim, and they also have rejected the theological basis that gives these claims much of there intelligibility, as such Craig like Louisa Wall ends up with an incoherent position.
Are Chris, Callum and Hugh going to come in here next so we can have a reunion or something.
Who’s Chris? I don’t remember a Chris.
Matt said: “biblical, I think he (Craig) like most people intuitively recognizes something wrong with incest”
Maybe. I assumed it was politically motivated appeasement which is why it irritated me. Ditto his position on polygamy.
Matt said “a lot of moral knowledge is like that we intuitively grasp it without being able to articulate a clear water tight reason if challenged.”
Evolution would explain such preferences just as adequately.
Evolution would explain such preferences just as adequately.
Not sure what this is supposed to prove, evolution can explain our perceptual abilities as well, it also explains our mathematical abilities, does it follow that sensory perception and math is not prima facie reliable?
No, it is not politically motivated “appeasement”, JJ. It is based on due respect and care for legitimate *feminist* objections to the decriminalisation of polygamy and “consensual adult” incest. The argument is an evidence-based response to spurious claims from Christian Right opponents of same-sex marriage equality.
Read the neccessary case law in this context. And also observe that I do not support similar legislative prohibitions against *polyamory*, because that is ethical but bounded non-monogamy, based on LGBT and feminist premises of egalitarianism, nonviolence and consent. And neither does Justice Robert Bauman, despite deliberate attempts by Bob McCoskrie to conflate polyamory and polygamy
Craig, the prohibition on polygamy is based on the idea that marriage is an exclusive relationship, so when you marry one women you cannot marry a second as it would be adulterous, if you accept polyamory you reject this.
It is interesting however to see frank confessions in here that in fact the goal is to bring in polyamory, incest an so on, perhaps an apology to the groups being attacked as lairs for suggesting this was the next step is in order.
JJ by Chris I mean Chris Banks, given the lies he has written about me on Gaynz however I doubt I’d have a civil conversation with him in the future.
Matt said:
“It is interesting however to see frank confessions in here that in fact the goal is to bring in polyamory, incest an so on”.
LOL, not sure if you’re referring to my comments but if so, I don’t really have a “goal”. I no longer live in NZ so I’m more an interested observer. If anything, I’d favour opening marriage to anyone at all and removing the romantic and sexual overtones. Let anyone “marry” who is able to consent and who wants to make a commitment to support their partner. I doubt if this is a widely shared goal.
I’m not particularly impressed by the case-based arguments against poly-relationships or CAI. They inevitably have a confusing overlay of special circumstances and various jurisdiction based legal quirks and I don’t think that’s a useful basis for theoretical discussion. Nor am I convinced that legislation is the way to deal with CAI. It may not be a good idea, but are legal sanctions helpful?
That doesn’t mean that I’m convinced either way, just that the srguments I’m hearing are strained. It’s also a shame that as usual, the answer to the slippery slope argument is to deny that we’re even on the slope while pre-emptively tossing our fellow travellers over the cliff.
JJ, whether you like it or not, the Bountiful case does exist, and it also reflects some realities of life for women within the context of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints, such as domestic violence and child marriage to pedophiles in the case of female children.
Similar criticisms are made about polygamy in the context of African feminists who are opposed to the institution, such as those in Uganda…who also support LGBT rights against militant fundamentalists who support the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in that context.
As for CAI, again, citing Stuebing is legitimate. The ECHR considered the quality of life for Eric and Sarah Stuebing, who suffer severe intellectual and physiological compound disabilities because of their incestuous sibling parents. Genetic considerations are a legitimate argument in this context.
Polygamy and CAI are not the results of same-sex marriage equality, nor are they legitimised by it. You may dislike the tone and tenor of my arguments. Tough. And note also, again, that I have defended polyamory numerous times during the marriage equality debate.
Matt, the intention is not to ‘introduce polyamory’ in this context. In fact, I suspect that it will take a good ten to fifteen years before enough cumulative research is available that deals with the empirical attributes of polyamorous relationships, whatever it might be. At present, polyamorist groups seem predominantly focused on the ethics of polyamory, rather than polyamorist-oriented legislative reform. However that is no substantive reason to delay same-sex monogamous relationship equality now.
Incidentally, I think you’re both confusing abstract and claimed correlation with demonstrable cause and effect, albeit for different reasons.
Craig says:
“JJ, whether you like it or not, the Bountiful case does exist”
So does Karla Homolka.
” I think you’re both confusing abstract and claimed correlation with demonstrable cause and effect”
Lol.
J
Craig, above you suggested it is unlikey GBTL individuals would not press for churches or religious groups to be prosecuted for violating the HRA.
This law professor in fact states several cases of this have already occured in jursitictions where same sex marriage has been recognised http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/06/29/are-religion-and-marriage-indivisible/same-sex-marriage-protecting-religious-liberty
This is a leading legal scholar on the question, note she says the case law suggests the threats are not speculative, that the collective experience in several states is that “exempting the clergy” is not enough and these issues need to be worked out before a law change. Pretty much everything that the politicans in NZ are not doing. When you have full scale studies by legal professionals many who are supporters of same sex marriage saying A. Louisa Wall simply asserting “not A” is incredibly irresponsible.
I think the problem that I have with the US example is that the United States has gone much too far with its protection of untrammelled and excessive religious practises, like (for example) permitting animal cruelty and sacrifice in the context of Santeria, relative leniency when it comes to polygamists in the context of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints in Nevada, Colorado and Utah, and toleration of the Pentecostal snakehandling and poison-handling subculture of the Church of God With Signs Following and related sects in the Southeastern United States.
I do not believe that diluting antidiscrimination legislation is the answer in this context. Existing international treaties and domestic religious freedom legislation protects the right of specific faiths to freedom of conscience, belief, worship, assembly and speech, as well as broad areas of religious practise.
However, in a democratic and pluralist society, there need to be some constraints on religious practise so that it cannot infringe the human rights and civil liberties of others.
Now, I actually agree that people should be allowed to wear religious symbols of their own choice in workplace situations. Not to do so would be to restrict their personal religious expression and free speech rights. I’ve got no problem with that, as long as it’s universally applied, so that Muslim women can wear the hijab in accordance with their religious beliefs, and Jewish men can similarly wear yarmulkes in their own. Similarly, I am opposed to religious status discrimination just as I am all forms of other discrimination. If one is an evangelical or fundamentalist Protestant, Orthodox Christian or conservative Catholic, then one is protected under the Human Rights Act 1993 when it comes to antidiscrimination laws, just as lesbian, gay and bisexual people are. And heterosexuals, for that matter.
(However, I have longstanding objections to the exclusion of transgender people from our anti-discrimination laws. I also believe that weight-based discrimination is a similar legitimate issue that should also be included, and any other relevant criteria should also be added within an expanded HRA).
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