IGF contributing author Dale Carpenter, the Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, lets us know that video of presentations from the recent symposium Is Gay Marriage Conservative? can now be viewed online.
The symposium was held February 15 at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. The event aimed "to foster civil debate among conservatives and within conservative thought about gay marriage" and focused on "the underlying policy question of whether gay marriage is a good idea from a conservative perspective." As I previously wrote, it's the kind of open exchange of ideas between independent gay intellectuals and prominent conservatives that IGF loves to see, and that the "progressive" LGBT echo chamber organizations have long shunned.
Presenters included Dale, Jonathan Rauch, David Frum and Charles Murray, among others. Check them out!
And while you're in a video watching mode, be sure to spend some time with another IGF contributing author, Wayne State University philosophy professor John Corvino. John fequently debates representatives of the religious right before student audiences. Here, he presents a free 8-minute excerpt from his renowned lecture on the morality of same-sex love.
12 Comments for “IGF’s Video All-Stars”
posted by Richard on
Please do not confuse ‘independent’ with ‘conservative’ and please do not presume that this is the first time that efforts have been made to have a diologue with conservatives.
posted by Avee on
Richard, can you elaborate? I don’t ever recall seeing anything about GLAAD or other groups actually having a dialogue with conservatives. Usually, they prefer to demonize conservatives in their fundraising messages, just as conservatives demonize gays in theirs.
posted by Richard on
Yeah, you may not have heard much about it because much of the LGBT press has losts touch with reality.
SoulForce is doing a tremendous amount of spirtual outreach/protests to what are often conservative religious-political institutions.
I have seen several debates on C-SPAN where the subject of gay marriage has been a spring board for a conversation among conservatives, liberals, moderates and libertarians.
posted by Avee on
I like and support Soulforce, but they are actually more into spiritually motivated protest than into engagement. I can tell you that HRC, GLAAD, NGLTF, etc. will not sit down and debate the religious right publically — it does not fit into their game plan.
I don’t believe you can point to anything like John Corvino’s series of campus debates (see the left column of the IGF homepage), or the forum in this posting that IGF-involved authors participated in.
posted by The Gay Species on
With 3/4ths of the states now banning gay marriage by referendum or by legislation, in reaction to the Left’s efforts to coerce liberal acceptance and tolerance through the courts rather than the court of public opinion, the day we will see “inclusive marriage” beyond a handful of states is beyond the visible horizon. The aspirations are now unachievable, unless enacted federally.
Like Assemblyman Rabbi Mark Leno of San Francisco, a New York transplant ill-aware of the concept of plebiscite, who has thrice tried to go over the wall of “direct democracy” with Politburo tactics, perhaps NOW he paid attention to the State’s Supreme Court justices who pointedly reminded the airhead legislator that a plebiscite could overturn their affirmative decision. Bottom Line (which it always was): The people decide this issue, and have. Not Rabbis without portfolio.
“Equal protection under the laws” with denies SSM seems blatantly unconstitutional on a federal level, but I seriously doubt the Supreme Nines of today’s court has any intention of reading the Constitution “strictly.” The Right Wing and Left Wing zealots for marriage equality forgot one thing: We live in a liberal democratic republic. Perhaps they missed that point in seminary.
posted by Ashpenaz on
Gays don’t want same-sex marriage because they think that lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships are better than open relationships and multiple partners. Gays don’t want to take on the responsibility of shared finances or childrearing. No, gays want marriage because they’re mad they don’t have it. They are like 10-year olds who want a car because their big brother has one, so why shouldn’t they? Huh? Dad? Mom? Huh? Why not? You’re so unfair! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! (slam doors, go listen to Green Day, and pout).
That’s what the argument breaks down to. It’s not as if gays have been secretly living in lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships and they now want to make those legal. In fact, gays want open relationships to be considered marriages.
They can’t stand the idea that the parents, in this case, the government, might have solid reasons for giving the older brother a car but considering the 10-year-old not quite ready yet. The best way to get gay marriage rights is for gays to start forming lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships and demonstrating that we have the maturity to take on the adult responsibility of marriage.
We can also encourage gays in places where marriage is available to get married in greater numbers, and not divorce within a year. But most of the gays in those areas apparently don’t want to use the right to marry because it stops them from having multiple partners.
posted by Mark on
Based on Ashpenaz’s logic, it’s also time to start taking away the “car” from the “older brother” who has been abusing his driving privileges.
Ashpenaz, a marriage license is not an ex-post reward for good behavior, but an ex-ante incentive for the same. Otherwise we would issue them primarily to senior citizens rather than young twenty-somethings.
As an aside, your stereotypical description of gays makes me think you need to find some new gay friends, because you certainly have no respect for the ones you have.
posted by Richard on
Soulforce is a good organization and faith based organizations are making inroads into religious-conservative groups.
The HRC is focused on federal lobbying of politicans, and are not really set up to properly debate public policy, which is why they rarely do.
Their are certainly many examples of the type of conversations happening across the nation, if not the world. To suggest that Mr. Corvino is the first is laughably egotiscal and naive.
Also, public debates can be effective in dealing with voters in the ‘moveable middle’ but it has limited sucess with people on the far right or left.
posted by Ashpenaz on
Soulforce is not an orthodox Christian group. It is not definitively Trinitarian, does not affirm the divinity Jesus clearly, has a very loose opinion of the inspiration of Scripure, and does not affirm moral absolutes. It is a fringe liberal group, in line with Unitarians–all of which is fine, but Unitarian is not legitmate Christianity. A better source for a genuine gay Christianity is found at gaychristian.com.
As an aside, Mark, you need to meet different straight friends, since yours don’t seem to be living up to the public vows of lifelong, sexual exclusivity they took. Real men would not respect that lack of integrity–but maybe you like guys like Eliot Spitzer and James McGreevey for friends. I prefer men of integrity whose word is their bond.
posted by The Gay Species on
Gay and Christian? Impossible. Saint Paul reminds the Jews at Rome that same-sex relations are idolatry, worship of the creature over the creator, and subject to death. Only Saint Paul insists anyone who engages in same-sex relations is already dead spiritually, and unable to inherit the kingdom.
Oh, and consistently, those who judge others do the “very same thing.” Read Romans 2, of which Romans 1 is the prologue. I doubt 144,000 humans in history will enter the kingdom, but then someone has to “find it” first.
posted by Richard on
Yes, people can get gay and a good, decent Christian or Jew.
New Testatment Paul, did not state that same-sex relations are idolatry. The translation that attempts to suggest otherwise are based on some laughably bad translations over some vague Greek words.
It is highly unlikely that their is much in the Bible that talks about gay people.
posted by Avee on
Richard: The HRC is focused on federal lobbying of politicans, and are not really set up to properly debate public policy, which is why they rarely do.
Their are certainly many examples of the type of conversations happening across the nation, if not the world. To suggest that Mr. Corvino is the first is laughably egotiscal and naive.
Again, RIchard, can you name anyone on the gay left engaging in the sort of public debates with social conservatives/religious rightists that Corvino and IGF is? I’m still waiting…
To suggest that HRC’s overall mission doesn’t extend to actually engaging with opponents of gay rights is laughable. So, all they need to do is send out scorching fundraising letters? And what about the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation? What’s the excuse you have for their lack of intellectual engagement with opponents of gay equality?