Is the religious right deflating? I doubt it, but this piece in the Miami Herald sounds an optimistic note. Some analysts see:
a crumbling conservative Christian base deflated by ethical scandals in the Republican Party, the Democratic victory in the 2006 congressional elections and- perhaps most significantly-a split between the old guard and new leaders over where to go from here. An increasingly vocal branch has called for expanding the platform to include global warming, HIV/AIDS and poverty.
Except for the gay-bashing, that expanded platform sounds rather lefty.
43 Comments for “Whither the Religious Right?”
posted by Lori Heine on
Rather than deflating, I think the Religious Right is expanding. And though that sounds rather frightening, I mean it in a positive sense.
It is expanding by letting in some fresh air and long-needed new ideas. There are a lot of conservative Christians who are tired of being seen as bigots, tired of the overemphasis on divisive “culture war” issues. Some even have gay loved ones they personally accept, even though their churches don’t.
The rank and file in the pews tend to be closer to the real world than many of the leaders, who care primarily about power and money. It’s hard for the average folks to live their daily lives wearing the blinders their leaders have for so long expected them to wear.
Hierarchical religious bodies are always the slowest to see change. Real change bubbles upward from the bottom. It rarely trickles down from the top.
posted by Xeno on
There are a lot of conservative Christians who are tired of being seen as bigots, tired of the overemphasis on divisive “culture war” issues.
Do you have any statistics supporting these statements?
posted by Craig on
I agree Lori. Change is slow, but it’s coming.
Xeno, this only very tangentially answers your question, but a recent poll here in Georgia, one of the reddest of the red states, with a mega Baptist church on most any street corner, found that 52% of respondents were in favor of civil unions for gay couples.
http://www.sovo.com/2007/5-4/news/localnews/6890.cfm
posted by Brian Miller on
The real battle — as always — is between collectivism and individualism.
The “Religious Right” is just another form of collectivist polity, similar to socialists, in that government power is abused/manipulated to force all people into an arrangement that meets the central planner’s key goals.
The battle in the religious right today isn’t over whether or not liberty is a good thing, but rather over what tenets and utopian goals will be advanced through collective application of force. Their core dilemma is whether or not to add in forced socialized medicine to their existing platform of forced social engineering in the form of government-defined “family,” etc.
Get back to me when there are masses of religious people who are seeking a society where government power is used not to enforce religious tenets or points of view, but rather to protect individuals from having those religious central control efforts imposed upon them through force.
posted by Lori Heine on
Xeno, I have no “statistics.” I have something that used to count but evidently does no longer: real life, real-world experience with actual people on the Religious Right.
That won’t convince people who choose not to be convinced.
Please cite your own statistics to prove that I am wrong, and that this is NOT happening. Keep in mind that pop-culture dustups, bought and paid for by rich media-manipulators, do not count. Far from counting, they merely prove my point that the leaders care about wealth and power rather than about those in the pews.
posted by Pete on
The most credible evidence for a “deflation” in the article is the organizational budgets. Charismatic leaders are required, but which is in shorter supply: money or talking heads? On the other hand, money can move around and watching organizations is a bit of a shell game. People like Philip Anschutz, Richard Scaife or Richard Viguerie can easily fund any cause they want. Their politics aren’t going to change anytime soon.
posted by Ray Eckhart on
FWIW, Cal Thomas noted the Coral Ridge Ministries’ decision to disband its political arm and commented here:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2007/05/03/closing_one_door,_opening_another
posted by Bobby on
Oh please, everyone in Miami knows the Miami Herald is an ultra-liberal newspaper that wants to print self-fulfilling prophesies.
posted by dalea on
Lori says: Xeno, I have no “statistics.” I have something that used to count but evidently does no longer: real life, real-world experience with actual people on the Religious Right.
Gee Lori, when I cited my experiences on another thread, you were very down on personal experiences as a method of understanding religious conservatives.
Why are your experiences more ‘real’ than mine?
posted by Casey on
Proving the absence of a thing – like decent conservative Christians – by saying “I’ve never seen it, I’ve only ever seen bastards” is logically impossible. You can’t prove it, all you can say is what your own experiences are. For example, I’ve never seen an albino frog – that doesn’t mean it isn’t out there, and if somebody tells me they have, unless I’ve got good reason to doubt their credibility, I’ll probably believe them. However, you can prove the presence of a thing by claiming to have seen and experienced it… in fact, that’s the only way we have to prove something. Nobody is disputing the existence of bastardly Christians, so your statement to have seen them is irrelevant. You are attempting to prove that good conservative Christians don’t exist simply by saying you haven’t seen them – and that is a logically vapid statement, so Lori was correct to shoot you down. That’s why her experiences are more relevant than yours, Dalea, and I’m sure that’s all she’s claiming. Of course your experiences are as “real” as anybody else’s – nobody’s denying that – so quit trying to portray yourself as the poor, marginalized victim, will you? It’s old.
posted by Fitz on
“Real change bubbles upward from the bottom. It rarely trickles down from the top.”
Like in Massachusets
posted by Tim Hulsey on
Exactly, Fitz: Just like in Massachusetts. Before the state’s highest court could rule in favor of same-sex marriage, a number of same-sex couples — ordinary Joes and Janes, all — had to decide that they were worthy to participate in the civil institution of marriage, and present their case. That initial change, the very real change that led these people to question their state’s discriminatory law, certainly didn’t “trickle down from the top.”
posted by Jimbo on
I hope that the religous right is starting to fade away. Here in Maine during 2005, the local RR group tried to repeal a civil rights law by saying it would lead to same sex marriages. The voters didn’t buy that alibi & the repeal effort failed 55%-45%. The group’s prestige has taken a hit, & they’ve been reduced to pulling frantic stunts (like slashing tires parked at a gay-friendly business or threatening to videotape any politician who marches in the gay parade). They’ve had money problems as of late & christians are starting to distance themselves from the organization.
You’ll see more & more Christians trying to broaden their agenda. Too many religious groups are focusing exclusively on stopping the gays that other issues (even abortion) are taking a back seat & people are rebelling.
posted by Lori Heine on
Unless they’re closet-cases or have a control complex about their own gay kids, most straight Christians are simply not that interested in homosexuality as an issue. This is not necessarily because they’re all noble and unselfish. To some degree it is precisely because they are selfish.
People are simply more concerned with their own lives than they are with anybody else’s. They are going to gravitate toward issues they feel directly affect them. The Chicken-Little, the-sky-is-falling panic the leaders of the Religious Right keep trying to whip up is dying down at least partly because the degree of absorption most people have in their own lives simply exceeds their ability to stay in a state of constant panic (which takes a lot of energy) or to hate people they don’t know and who have never done them any harm.
Those in our community who are the most paranoid about those evil Christians and how they’re supposedly all out to get us grossly overestimate how much time other people spend thinking about them.
It is as irrational to believe that ALL straight Christians are inherently evil and malicious, and that they spend all their time plotting our destruction, as it is for extremist Christians to think gays are evil or malicious, or that we have nothing better to do than sit around plotting the end of civilization.
posted by Fitz on
Tim Hulsey |
“Before the state’s highest court could rule in favor of same-sex marriage, a number of same-sex couples — ordinary Joes and Janes, all — had to decide that they were worthy to participate in the civil institution of marriage, and present their case. That initial change, the very real change that led these people to question their state’s discriminatory law, certainly didn’t “trickle down from the top.”
And in doing so catapulted a small, obscure & politically unviable social movement into the national agenda. All on a 4 to 3 decision that calls marriage quo “marriage” –“irrational”
Hardly “grass roots”
If you?re looking for an example of “grass roots” Try one of America?s largest populist movements in history.
57-43 = Oregon
59-41 = Michigan
62-38 = California
62-38 = Ohio
66-34 = Utah
67-33 = Montana
71-29 = Kansas
71-29 = Missouri
73-27 = North Dakota
75-25 = Arkansas
75-25 = Kentucky
76-24 = Georgia
76-24 = Oklahoma
78-22 = Louisiana
86-14 = Mississippi
56-44 = Colorado
63?37 = Idaho
74-26 = South Carolina
52-49 = South Dakota
82-19 = Tennessee
57-43 = Virginia
60-40 = Wisconsin
posted by ETJB on
The anti-gay marriage amendments were hardly ‘grassroots’ and had very little to do with any sort of debate on gay marriage.
Most where done to ban civil unions and DP benifits, while telling voters that they were only dealing with gay marriage.
In ND, the proponents of the amendment refused the opponents offer to engage in a serious of public debates.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And to Fitz’s point, which does one think more reflects the grass roots in Massachusetts….a court case brought by a lesbian couple whose “lifelong commitment” dissolved within mere months, or a voter petition signed by 170,000 people?
Of course, what was amusing was to watch the so-called “tolerant” gay leftists turn all fascist — trying to publicly harass and humilate anyone who had signed the petition, then trying to bribe and order the Massachusetts Legislature to ignore its constitutional duty — trying to prevent a vote on something which they claim the majority of people support.
We see the same thing in California. The logical and constitutionally-sound thing to do, if marriage is so bloody important, would be to raise a voter referendum to repeal Proposition 22. Instead, gay hatemongers and leftists like Equality California tried lawsuits — and then when that blew up, tried to end-run through the Legislature a bill based on the inane and illogical premise that Proposition 22 only applied to marriages made OUTSIDE California.
The reason they do that is simple; they know they’d lose. Badly. So badly, in fact, that so-called “pro-gay” Democrat leaders in the Assembly have ordered their gay lapdogs like Leno to not bring up marriage bills during election years.
What gay leftists forget is that, unlike support for racial segregation in the 1950s and 1960s, a majority of Americans do NOT support gay marriage. The reason the decisions of the civil-rights era stood was because people didn’t think it was important enough to counter them — mainly because black Americans, as Martin Luther King, Jr. exemplified, shared similar values, showed respect for others, and were asking for fairness, not for special treatment. What ultimately retarded and blocked the civil-rights movement was the rise of black racism, as seen in the Black Panthers and Louis Farrakhan, and the development of special-rights demands, like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
The gay community fails on all three counts there.
We in fact did the exact opposite — starting with the Black Panthers, Farrakhans, Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons, and (at a glacial pace) working our way backwards towards the MLKs.
posted by Fitz on
NDF
“We in fact did the exact opposite — starting with the Black Panthers, Farrakhans, Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons, and (at a glacial pace) working our way backwards towards the MLKs.”
That?s an excellent and often overlooked point regarding gay rights history.
The one thing we do know for certain is that the gay rights movement cut its teeth (& formed it “identity”) during one of the most radically charged decades in history.
Before that ?gay identity? did not exist in anything like its present form.
When the vast majority of women reject the conception of womanhood professed in feminism (forged in the 60?s & 70?s) it tells you something about the veracity of that identity.
You seem to be part of a small cotillion of openly gay voices that understand the extremely problematic nature of that genesis.
posted by Tim Hulsey on
Sorry to break up your little cotillion, Fitz and ND30, but you really need to do a little homework. The contemporary gay-rights movement did not begin with the Stonewall riots, nor did it start with the Black Panthers et al.
You can’t understand the roots of contemporary gay and lesbian identity if you don’t know about the various Mattachine Societies or the Daughters of Bilitis. The Mattachine group in Washington DC staged one of the first open gay-rights demonstrations in the United States — on July 4, 1965, in front of Independence Hall.
posted by Fitz on
Tim Hulsey
I’m well aware of the Mattachine Societies whose founders and foundation is in avowed Marxists & Marxism.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
You can’t understand the roots of contemporary gay and lesbian identity if you don’t know about the various Mattachine Societies or the Daughters of Bilitis.
I am very aware of both, Tim.
However, what I am also aware of is the meeting of the Mattachine Society that took place on July 9, 1969, which led to the formation of the Gay Liberation Front – and the Mattachine Society’s subsequent decline and collapse in favor of the more radical and anti-social movements spawned from it, all of which considered the Mattachines and their views “oppressive”, “patriarchal”, and “middle-class”, which then proceeded to dominate the “gay community” and the public views of it for the next three decades.
There has always been some tiny undercurrent of tolerance, understanding, incrementalism, and the like among gays. But this has been dominated and overwhelmed — and quite often reviled — by the louder “Black Panther”-esque types.
And what you are doing, Tim, is engaging in your usual apologist practices. Instead of acknowledging the hatemongering and vicious, intolerant behavior endemic throughout the gay leftist movements, especially the antireligious bigotry, you are trying to claim that an organization that hasn’t existed for decades and whose ideas were openly scoffed at by the vast majority of the gay community is somehow redeeming for it.
Had the Mattachine ideals remained paramount, we would indeed be farther along. But our movement was hijacked by radical hate-filled leftists who saw us as a means of abolishing religion, of abolishing capitalism, as antiwar ammunition, as abortion support, as pushing for promiscuous sex, as covering for drug use, and for every other loony and unpopular leftist cause.
And you and yours just sat there and tried to explain — and still try to explain — why that was a good thing.
Don’t invoke the Mattachine Society or the Daughters unless you are willing to acknowledge that their ideas of tolerance, respect for the values of others, and assimilation were right — and the overwhelming majority of gays who reviled them were not.
posted by dalea on
Let’s see. The Mattachine society was founded by actual Communists, Stalin variety. Their announced goals were:
First, Mattachine called for a grassroots movement of gay people to challenge anti-gay discrimination; and second, the organization recognized the importance of building a gay community.’
Sounds like a leftist group to me. Look, absolutely amazing thing for IGF: links with factual information!
First, Mattachine called for a grassroots movement of gay people to challenge anti-gay discrimination; and second, the organization recognized the importance of building a gay community.’
First, Mattachine called for a grassroots movement of gay people to challenge anti-gay discrimination; and second, the organization recognized the importance of building a gay community.’
History of the Mattachine Society:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattachine_Society
http://members.aol.com/matrixwerx/glbthistory/mattachine.htm
http://www.shapingsf.org/ezine/gay/files/gaymatta.html
http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/mattachine_society.html
‘In 1951, the Mattachine Society adopted a Statement of Missions and Purpose. This Statement stands out in the history of the gay liberation movement because it identified and incorporated two important themes. First, Mattachine called for a grassroots movement of gay people to challenge anti-gay discrimination; and second, the organization recognized the importance of building a gay community.’
Some of Mattachine’s more political actions, as well as the Communist leanings of several of its founders, put the organization under considerable pressure and public scrutiny during the country’s anti-Communist era of McCarthyism in the early 1950s. For example, a columnist for a local Los Angeles newspaper wrote about the Society in March 1953, calling it a “strange new pressure group” of “sexual deviants” and “security risks” who were banding together to wield “tremendous political power.”
………………………
‘The article set off a panic among Mattachine members. In the controversy that followed, two conventions were held. Unprecedented public meetings of gay people, these conventions were attended by delegates representing hundreds of discussion group participants.
A strong coalition of conservative delegates emerged, questioning the organization’s goals and challenging the idea that gay people were a legitimate minority group. They claimed such an approach would only encourage hostility.
Although in disagreement with the conservative delegates, the Mattachine board members feared the consequences of a government investigation of society activities. Consequently, in May 1953, the original founders resigned, and the organization was turned over to the conservatives who began to restructure it.
The new leadership drastically revised the goals of the organization. Instead of social change, they advocated accommodation; instead of mobilizing gay people, they sought the support of psychiatrists and psychiatric professionals, who they believed held the key to reform.
Unfortunately, such changes had a devastating effect, and the society declined. Discussion group attendance fell and chapters folded. At its 1954 convention, only 42 members attended.
The society dissolved its national structure in 1961. The New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco chapters remained active for several more years, but the society’s influence waned.’
http://www.knittingcircle.org.uk/mattachine.html
‘At first the structure of the society followed that of freemasonry with a pyramid structure, where cells at the same level would be unknown to each other. The founders were Marxists and analysed homosexuals in terms of an oppressed cultural minority. The communist leanings of the organisation put it under some pressure during the anti-communist phase in the USA. The era of McCarthyism had begun on 9th. February, 1950 with a speech by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, at Lincoln’s Birthday dinner of a Republican League in Wheeling, West Virginia. Paul Coates wrote in a Los Angeles newspaper in March 1953 linking “sexual deviates” with “security risks” who were banding together to wield “tremendous political power”. The Mattachine Society was restructured, with a more transparent organisation, and its leadership replaced. It also changed its aims to the assimilation of homosexuals into general society, which reflected its rejection of the notion of a homosexual minority. However the Society declined, and at its convention in May 1954 only fourty-two members attended.’
The idea of a Mattachine that affirmed tolerance, respect for the values of others etc. is simply fantasy. The main difference between Matachine and liberation is degree of militancy.
posted by Brian R. Miller on
a small, obscure & politically unviable social movement
Fitz, as an advocate of right-wing socialism, you should be a booster of government-sanctioned same-sex marriage.
After all, your party’s president and Congress just passed a massive $18 trillion unfunded debt in the form of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, plus has expanded the rest of the debt for future entitlements to almost $60 trillion. That’s $78 trillion in additional social debt that your baby boomer generation and its peers voted in for themselves — ostensibly to be paid by Generations X and Y.
As a member of Generation X (and a gay one at that), I think I speak for a lot of us in pointing out that we’re not too interested in paying for your retirement on our diminished wages simply to keep you in clover. And, since we’re presently excluded from most of the socialist programs you’ve voted in for yourselves anyway, we’re not too worried about funding them either.
With 10% of the funding population already excluded from the “programs” and an additional 30% to 40% now willing to give up future “entitlements” to get out of the crushing 70% to 90% tax rates that will be needed to support these programs (paid for through borrowing, tax increases, and currency inflation), it seems likely that Atlas will soon be shrugging.
The irony, of course, is that your demise will be hastened by your own actions, and after all the poisoning of the political dialogue that you and your cohorts have engaged in, nobody will be crying for you as your knarled, arthritic claws count change at the Wal-Mart cash stand.
Unfortunately, you really cannot get something for nothing and while a majority of a plurality that chooses to vote can enforce its bigoted notions through government for a while, you cannot repeal the laws of economics. When things go bad, you’ll be dependent on the compassion of others — but since you planted none today, you shall have none to harvest when your bad times come along.
Such is the folly of right-wing socialism.
posted by Fitz on
Brian R. Miller |
That?s an interesting take Brian. I agree with a lot of the substance of what you have said.
However, the slant is inaccurate.
No were have I mentioned or take a position as a Republican, advocate of social spending, or Bush voter.
Furthermore no were do I mention my age or the generation I was born into.
posted by Brian Miller on
No were have I mentioned or take a position as a Republican, advocate of social spending, or Bush voter.
Ah, but I’ve encountered your posts on other forums as well, where you’ve been (or claimed to be) all of the above.
That’s one of the downsides of anonymous posting, you see — your credibility is taxed with each statement you make on this and other forums.
Now, to the primary thrust of the discussion.
Government “marriage licenses” should be eliminated and the rights opened up to anyone who wants them. However, so long as you and your bretheren are going to insist on marriage licenses, then you have no Constitutional basis for discrimination as to who gets them — “majority” or “no majority.”
Don’t blame me (or gay people) for this — the entire reason this is an issue is because of conservative individuals and religious institutions who insisted on imposing their religious beliefs on others through government fiat. Once “marriage licenses” moved into the regulatory domain, then the Constitution (specifically, the 14th Amendment) kicks into play. There’s no avoiding that.
posted by Fitz on
?Ah, but I’ve encountered your posts on other forums as well, where you’ve been (or claimed to be) all of the above.?
You cannot quote me on this or any site as advocating for the Republican Party or supporting any social spending programs in particular. If you wish to know my views they are no further away then here. LINK
?Now, to the primary thrust of the discussion.
I thought that was ?Whither the Religious Right??
?Government “marriage licenses” should be eliminated and the rights opened up to anyone who wants them. ?
This is your agenda, simply stating it as the proscribed plan does not make it legitimate. Such proposals must be taken to a free people to decide if you are a true democrat.
?However, so long as you and your brethren are going to insist on marriage licenses, then you have no Constitutional basis for discrimination as to who gets them — “majority” or “no majority.”
I certainly do have a basis both in the Constitution and under democratic action.
?Don’t blame me (or gay people) for this — the entire reason this is an issue is because of conservative individuals and religious institutions who insisted on imposing their religious beliefs on others through government fiat. Once “marriage licenses” moved into the regulatory domain, then the Constitution (specifically, the 14th Amendment) kicks into play. There’s no avoiding that.?
This warmed over ideology is not even fitting of the label libertarianism. John Stuart Mill & John Locke would ride you out on a rail. It?s a-historical, un-constitutional, Ill-rational & ill-liberal.
For a principled Libertarian understanding of the foundational nature of marriage & the family the operation of a free republic, I would start with THIS. You also need to appreciate THIS.
posted by dalea on
Jennifer Roback Morse calls herself a libertarian? On what basis? As she states: ‘Marriage is an organic institution that emerges spontaneously from society.’Proof?
She gives none beyond ‘a natural propensity to couple, procreate, and rear children’. Since a great many readers here at this forum lack at least one of these propensities, the statement is demonstrably false. Her further statement ‘People of the opposite sex are naturally attracted to one another, couple with each other, co-create children, and raise those children’ only serves to show that she is using some vague notion of how humanity works.
Many people do not procreate. Many people are not attracted to the opposite sex. Morse seems to be using poetic language to describe an ideal situation, then using her ideal to disconnect from having to deal with actual problems people have in living.
Note that Morse does not ever address the issues that gay people find would be ameliorated by marriage. Our concerns and issues are totally absent from her presentation. Instead she wanders through an ideal state of marriage, by literary fiat extends it to all people, then decides that the alternative is a ‘hookup culture’. Which is a bad thing, supposedly.
Having gone through this, Morse next meanders over to consider municipal finance and the courts. Then on to care of dependent people. From all this she concludes that:’Libertarians do not believe that what the government chooses to bestow or withhold is the essence of any social institution’.
Ummm Jennifer, we are not talking about ‘essences’ or any other esoteric construct. We are discussing real live people, gay variety, who have problems in their lives. These problems would be solved by civil marriage. Her response: ‘Likewise, the fact that the government gives away bundles of goodies to married couples does not prove that the government created marriage’. Which has nothing to do with the subject.
posted by dalea on
Reading Lee Harris reminds me of Mencken’s description of Veblen: a veritable torrent of pish -posh. This is not libertarian by any definition I am aware of. Rather it appears to be an author channeling Russell Kirk.
This quote did strike me as interesting, though I am not clear what it relates to in the context of gay marriage:’Tradition is an essential prop for the masses ? they cannot dispense with it without chaos and havoc ensuing. The common people need their myths and their illusions; but the elite can dispense with them, provided they scrupulously avoid saying or doing anything that would disturb the cognitive complacency of the masses’.
I suspect we are hearing someone who supports the Divine Right of Kings talk here. Very strange and deeply pointless.
posted by dalea on
Looking at the site Fitz links to is an interesting and worthwhile effort. The posts there and the posters appear to be polite, intelligent people. They are against gay marriage and use Gore Vidal’s term ‘homosexualist’.
If I had to catagorize the site’s ideology, the best term would be ‘UltraMontanist’. These people know where they are coming from. And represent one reason why I find that libertarians should always separate themselves from conservatives.
posted by Brian Miller on
This warmed over ideology is not even fitting of the label libertarianism. John Stuart Mill & John Locke would ride you out on a rail. It?s a-historical, un-constitutional, Ill-rational & ill-liberal.
It’s also the supreme law of the land. You cannot complain when you subject others to your “values” through application of state power and then find your own “values” corrupted by the state power you sought to wield in the first place.
Mssrs. Mill and Locke would doubtlessly agree with me there.
The endpoint of marriage being “redefined” was inevitable the moment you transformed it from a private contract between two people into a government license replete with its own bureaucracy and legal status defined by politicians.
Sorry, you brought the present situation on yourself.
posted by Brian Miller on
Libertarians do not believe that what the government chooses to bestow or withhold is the essence of any social institution
We also believe that the use government force to compel individuals into a voluntary social institution — or exclude them from it — is profoundly immoral.
posted by dalea on
Something about the site Fitz linked to had been nagging at me. And I have finally put my finger on the issue. What it reminds me of is the LaRouche literature I have encountered.
Is this another Lyndon LaRouche front group?
posted by Fitz on
Brian Miller
Remember when I accused your (supposed) ?libertarianism? of being ?a-historical??
Well here?s the proof.
?It’s also the supreme law of the land. You cannot complain when you subject others to your “values” through application of state power and then find your own “values” corrupted by the state power you sought to wield in the first place.?
?Mssrs. Mill and Locke would doubtlessly agree with me there.?
No they would not. This is in no way the ?supreme law of the land? ? Law, any law; is an application of state power. This applies to laws against theft as much as laws against Bigamy, adult incest, polygamy, prostitution, & well? Marriage. I am no more ?imposing? the value of ?thou shalt not steal? onto my fellow citizenry than I am imposing my ?values? when government recognizes that children are best razed by their mothers & fathers.
?The endpoint of marriage being “redefined” was inevitable the moment you transformed it from a private contract between two people into a government license replete with its own bureaucracy and legal status defined by politicians.?
a-historical – Marriage was NEVER a ?private contract between two people?. It was always a social institution beyond the encroachment of the state. By licensing marriage government did not create, nor should it interfere in the institution. It merely recognizes it foundational social reality, gives it its imprimatur, and provide for reasonable regulations to achieve that end.
How expanding that regulatory power and forcing the state (against the will of its people) to recognize any coupling of individuals as ?marriage? and then proceed to force your fellow citizens to now subsidize a situation that is neither ?marriage ? nor has a compelling state interest in being granted special status, could ever be called ?libertarian? is beyond me.
dalea
I thought we were ?polite, intelligent ‘UltraMontanist’. When did we become “another Lyndon LaRouche front group?”
posted by Tim Hulsey on
And what you are doing, Tim, is engaging in your usual apologist practices. Instead of acknowledging the hatemongering and vicious, intolerant behavior endemic throughout the gay leftist movements, especially the antireligious bigotry, you are trying to claim that an organization that hasn’t existed for decades and whose ideas were openly scoffed at by the vast majority of the gay community is somehow redeeming for it.
ND30, your chief argumentative tactic — your only one, as far as I can tell — is to tar the entire gay-rights movement, and all GLBT communities by association, with the same broad brush of “left-wing bigotry.” It’s not only monotonous, it’s wrong.
Most of the ideas at IGF are openly scoffed at by the most visible spokespersons of the “gay community.” (Read an article or two here sometime if you doubt it.) But whether liberationist socialism represents “the vast majority of the gay community” is a far more open question. The most obvious answer is that it certainly doesn’t seem to represent very many gay communities outside of New York and San Francisco — and it’s far less representative there than it was even ten years ago.
The legacy of Mattachine — especially the politically active Mattachine Societies of the ’60s — is not so easily dismissed. These groups carefully laid the intellectual groundwork for some of the larger gains that would occur in the 1970s, especially the 1973 declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder. When the gay conservative movement made its first stirrings in the 1990s (with Bruce Bawer and Andrew Sullivan leading the charge), it looked to the Mattachine movement for inspiration.
Is this another Lyndon LaRouche front group?
The only thing we seem to have in common with LaRouchies is the shrillness — but fortunately, that’s only in the comments section. As far as I know, no one here has claimed that the Queen of England runs illegal drugs.
posted by Tim Hulsey on
From Fitz: … that children are best razed by their mothers & fathers.
For the record, I’m against child-razing, as I suspect most of us are. LOL
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
ND30, your chief argumentative tactic — your only one, as far as I can tell — is to tar the entire gay-rights movement, and all GLBT communities by association, with the same broad brush of “left-wing bigotry.” It’s not only monotonous, it’s wrong.
Mhm.
Remember what I asked you to do previously?
Don’t invoke the Mattachine Society or the Daughters unless you are willing to acknowledge that their ideas of tolerance, respect for the values of others, and assimilation were right — and the overwhelming majority of gays who reviled them were not.
What I’ve noticed, Tim, is that you talk a good game in terms of saying that the gay community is not majority “liberationist socialism” and that the “most visible spokespersons” are not very representative — but balk at actually demonstrating the fact.
Perhaps that’s because you know the attacks and vitriol flung at gays like myself who are willing to step up and actually say that these people are wrong — because you practice it yourself.
If so many gays are against what our “most visible spokespersons” are believing, practicing, and pushing as a requirement of being gay, let them speak and say so.
Otherwise, you’re just enabling it.
posted by dalea on
Is there anyone here aside from me who can remember Mattachine as a going concern? In the 70’s in Chicago Mattachine still was a viable organization. At general community meetings and events, Mattachine members always argued for caution, for not provoking our enemies and generally spoke of their fears of what would happen if we ‘went too far’. Once it became clear that the liberationist tactics were gaining us support and allies, almost all the Mattachine members joined in with sitins etc.
One clear memory is the intense hostility to religion shown by all of Mattachine. They would deride and put down the emerging gay religious groups. In my experience, Mattachine consisted of a bunch of really nasty attitude queens.
The Daughters of Billitis were a proud busy pro-choice group. Before Roe v Wade, one of their main efforts had been helping women get abortions. This applies to the Chicago group only.
I am talking about groups and people I personally knew.
posted by dealea on
Thank you Fitz. Now I know that you are simply an UltraMontanist, but not a LaRouchian outfit. This is a comfort.
AFAIK traditional marriage meant a ‘father’ tried to peddle his daughter’s ‘unbreached hymen’ to the highest bidder. This appears to be the Old Testament’s view of Marriage. Which is confirmed by best selling evangelical Christian author Kay MacArthur in her many works on the subject.
This appears to mean that conservative Christians have social events where one of the main social activities is that the neighbors and other interested people gaze up the bride-to-be’s vagina to see the intact hymen. Imagine a festive table set with chips and dips and in the center a women spreading her vaginal lips to proudly proclaim and display her virginity. All this and spinach dip.Is this not why Jesus died on the Cross?
Gay people could help in this en devour! We could weed out the field. Let out the word that certain sluts were attempting to pass as Christian brides. How about large scale demonstrations outside churches before weddings? Just crowds chanting: slut, slut, slut. Which crowd would also make sure everyone attending knows the sluttish nature of the bride.
And then we could confine marriage to the peddling of intact hymens, which the Bible recommends. Sound like a deal?
posted by dalea on
I am remembering Chuck. A friend of mine, and a Mattachine member in the 50’s and 60’s. Chuck grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. The draft swept him into the Marines in the early 40’s. He served honorably in the Marines and was honorably discharged.
Chuck was a great guy, wonderful and loving. His approach to religion was to speak of the ‘Christian Problem’. In which case, he favored the Russian solution. Let the Christians gather in a church; seal the exits and set the church on fire. Beggining of the end of the ‘Christian Problem’.
Thank you for letting me remember Chuck. Kewl guy, gone for 25 years. Born again, born again.
Chuck was a typical Mattachien guy, who hated with a vengenge Christianity.
posted by Brian Miller on
Remember what I asked you to do previously?
I don’t jump through hoops for pseuds. (Say that five times fast!) 😉
posted by Fitz on
dalea
That was the most distorted and perverted view of history I have ever witnessed.
Warmed over feminism is hardly a substitute for historical depth and breadth.
Valuing virginity and purity is not the same as ?the peddling of intact hymens?.
To claim that Fathers who wanted their daughters married to men of means who could provide for them and their families (just as fathers today desire) should not be twisted into some reduction of human history into a crude master/slave dialectic where people are reduced to property.
Your take on conservative Christians is vile (as you designed it to be) & it is ?not why Jesus died on the Cross?? The Christian sexual ethic has always been for sex exclusively within marriage for both men & women.
I?m well aware of the Montanists of yore. Is this you trying to have it both ways. Anyone who doesn?t agree with your twisted historical lens is a faux Christian? Yet you hold exclusive rights to what Jesus really is?
Nice try, but your words betray you.
Christian Charity means putting your adversaries position in the best possible light. Not the opposite
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
I don’t jump through hoops for pseuds.
That’s fine; you weren’t the one being asked in the first place.
Unless, of course, there’s something you want to tell us about you and “Tim Hulsey”.
posted by dalea on
‘The Christian sexual ethic has always been for sex exclusively within marriage for both men & women.’
Christianity has consistently held to one standard for ordinary people and another standard for the nobility. Women were held to a very different set of rules than men. Every Christian city that we have ever known of featured a large community of prostitutes. Whose customers were overwhelmingly married men, simply because all men were married.
I once calculated that it took 17 marriages to establish the effective demand for a woman to enter into prostitution. Putting up pretty words and rosy depictions of ideal states is really not very convincing.
Actually, I feel that everyone who claims to be a Christian is one. Some groups are more plausible than others. I am particularly fond of Religious Science, which appears to be the most plausible system of Christian theology. Many, like conservative Christianity, I recoil from. Mencken’s description of cC’s is so spot on: Believers in a theology degraded to the level of voodoo.
Likewise, all versions of Jesus are equally plausible. As I find Jesus to be a mytheo-poetic creation, not an actual person, some versions seem better than others. But that is a matter of taste.
‘Valuing virginity and purity is not the same as ?the peddling of intact hymens?.’
Since there is little point in peddling things people don’t value, I see the whole undertaking as a marketing scheme. You take the virgin girl and try to get the most remuneration possible. All the smoke and mirrors about ‘purity’ and ‘virginity’ is simply a way of distracting from the plain old commercial nature of the operation. For almost all Christians through history, women were bought and sold under the guise of ‘intact hymen’ or ‘virgin’.
Fortunately, in our modern free market world women can make their own livings. And escape from the dreadful fates of their fore mothers. And most people now can have and enjoy the sort of morals that Christians invariably approved for aristocrats, an approval reaching over many centuries.