Rod Dreher has two new posts about same-sex marriage here and here.
The first purports to answer the arguments of Damon Linker and Andrew Sullivan, but does not. In response to Linker's arguments, Dreher dismisses Linker's casual summation of their disagreements, and then goes into a lengthy critique of liberalism's hegemony in modern America. He then observes it's hard for conservative arguments against same-sex marriage to be taken seriously, and moves on. He does not mention, much less answer any of Linker's substantive arguments. With Sullivan, too, Dreher finds a snippet about the Pope objectionable, and defends orthodox religious thinking about moral authority. But again, he does not engage any of Andrew's arguments in favor of same-sex marriage and show why they are wrong. Instead, he repeats the trope that if we have same-sex marriage we're getting polygamy, too, and bemoans the fact that we keep talking past each other and getting all emotional.
His second post asks whether gay marriage will strengthen same-sex unions or undermine the concept of marriage - a binary formulation that leaves unexamined the possibility that it might strengthen same-sex unions and strengthen marriage as well; or leave marriage unchanged in the minds and relationships of most heterosexuals. He then returns to form (at least on this issue) by finding quotes from liberal stalwars like Matt Foreman, Joe Solomonese and Jenny Pizer, and linking to the bête noir of the right, the "manifesto" called "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage," which was recently cited by the American Law Institute. Again, Dreher doesn't man up to the best arguments being made in favor of same-sex marriage, focusing on liberal boogeymen who are much easier to refute. "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage" may not be the Protocols of the Elders of The Castro, but it's not anything that's ever driven the debate over same-sex marriage, and is far more popular as a whipping boy of the right than as an agenda for much of anyone.
I think this shows that, while several of us are very interested in engaging him in the debate, it is Dreher who is talking past us - or, more accurately, around us. There was plenty to respond to in both Linker's and Andrew's posts for anyone who wanted to engage the issue of same-sex marriage in a pluralistic democracy - which is the question. I, too, had a couple of what I think of as serious issues with Dreher's arguments that might be worth responding to.
Those were not the arguments Dreher chose to take on. If you want to have a discussion with someone, it's hardly polite to keep referring to someone else's arguments, and ignoring what the people you're supposed to be conversing with are saying.
8 Comments for “Dreher’s Conversation With No One”
posted by Regan DuCasse on
Funny this should happen JUST as North Dallas Thirty cited Beyond Marriage too, rather than answer MY primary question.
It’s all in the ‘Why Only Two?’ article by John Corvino.
The most practical answer to the marriage issue is that gay people can and do commit to a single partner. They have children. No one should accept that the children of gay parents are any less in need of as secure a situation as marriage provides.
The other practical matter is independence from social services, inclusion in family of origin.
No one bothers to think about the EXTENDED family needs that can occur. Like for elderly or sick parents, adopting a sibling’s child, extended families benefit too if a gay couple is legally married.
Gay men and women, rejected and isolated from their families of origin had little choice but to depend on their significant other probably more heavily than what occurs.
But if they don’t also have the full benefit of providing fully for each other in marriage, one or both might require welfare, where social security or other federal laws and benefits would.
Indeed, the laws that contravene into gay lives are more out of spite, than preservation of the basic intentions of marriage.
If you saw the exchange between me and NDT, my point is that marriage is reserved to make PRIMARY kin out of those who are otherwise unrelated.
And it’s primary kin that take custody and responsibility of you when you’re not married.
The state restricts based on STATUS, not attributes.
They have no reason to make a kinship redundant or excessive in the law and the laws distinguish those relationships and protect them already.
That is to say, marriage isn’t necessary if you’re already married and already primary kin.
Even blended families get respect i the law. The step children and half siblings get the same privileges of marriage from the married COUPLE as their full biological children.
Indeed, serial divorce and remarriage is the closest thing to polygamy and polyandry our society already has.
And look how well that turns out for everyone.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
No one should accept that the children of gay parents are any less in need of as secure a situation as marriage provides.
Problem with that logic is that gay relationships, unlike opposite-sex relationships, don’t produce children.
You can admit that, can’t you, Regan? Can you admit that gay couples are incapable of producing children that are related to both members by blood?
Even blended families get respect i the law. The step children and half siblings get the same privileges of marriage from the married COUPLE as their full biological children.
No they do not. The primary rights go to the biological parents. Only if the other biological parent completely waives their right does the step-parent gain the capability to adopt and treat the child as their own. Marriage does not abrogate parental and kinship rights.
Funny this should happen JUST as North Dallas Thirty cited Beyond Marriage too, rather than answer MY primary question.
There’s a reason, Regan; nowhere has it been demonstrated that you repudiate Beyond Marriage. Furthermore, David Link’s attempt to whine about quotes from Joe Solmonese and Matt Foreman is pretty funny when these two individuals head up the two largest national organizations who purport to speak for gay people and are regularly quoted and cited as doing so without so much as a peep from the vast and overwhelming majority of the gay community.
One would think that people like yourself who value marriage would be speaking out against these individuals and their pronouncements, especially since they apparently go against what you believe. The fact that you and Link don’t is an excellent argument that you value marriage less than you do doing the bidding of the leftist groups that make up the gay community.
posted by John Howard on
NDT, it is no longer true that same-sex couples cannot produce children. If that is your argument, then you should be arguing for same-sex marriage, because same-sex conception is possible right now. The leading researchers into it predicted that it would be tried in three to five years in 2005!
Your argument should be that we shouldn’t allow same-sex couples to attempt to conceive, we should prohibit same-sex conception like we prohibit incest and statutory rape.
posted by Mad John on
Per the Council on Contemporary Families, 27% of same-sex couples have children in their households.
Is that high enough to merit equal protection under the law?
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Actually, this is what the specific source you’re citing says.
More than one in four of the nearly 600,000 same-sex couples identified in the U.S. census have a child under the age of 18 living in the home with them.
Small sample size, doesn’t state whether or not said child is there temporarily or permanently, all sorts of clarifications that don’t exist in your statement.
And the answer is still no. We don’t compel people who have children to get married by law; therefore, the presence of children is not a legal argument for marriage.
Furthermore, I am always vaguely amused by these gay leftists who whine about how their children are being “harmed” by the absence of marriage. If you knew they would be harmed by your environment, why did you bring them into it in the first place? It’s like someone who smokes in the house complaining about their kids’ lung problems.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
1. First of all, NDT I can’t repudiate what I haven’t actually read and don’t know what details are relevant to your questions.
2. I do however, repudiate the notion that gay couples resemble polygamy or incest in any fashion and that I must accept that as well as gay marriage.
3. I repudiate that marriage for gay couples requires the state to accept incest and polygamy. Especially when such cases never required gay marriage to initiate engaging the courts or legislatures to make their own.
4. So WHAT if gay couples don’t make babies. It’s not against the law to NOT have children and there are no restrictions on couples to marry who don’t or don’t want to.
So that’s a NON ISSUE and shouldn’t be made one just because of gay couples.
I’m sterile myself, but I’m also married and represent millions of married people in my situation and you can kiss ALL our respective asses.
6. What IS your point in even making an issue out of non procreation and marriage? It’s not like NOT having children is a bad thing. Besides, at least when a gay couple DOES want to have a child, it’s something that requires careful consideration and mutual consent of the partners. Something that heterosexuals seriously fail at.
7. As for the issue of blended families, they represent reconfiguration of parent/child relationships and sibling sets.
Requiring still, a lot of freedom in how those families are capable of supporting each other and their general welfare.
That’s quite a lot of leeway, where the simplest situation, a gay couple without children, really doesn’t burden the laws so much.
For such a presumably bright guy, you trying to toe such a crooked line of logic begs the question why do you care, let alone why you bother?
posted by Regan DuCasse on
“if you knew they would be ‘harmed’ why did you bring them into your environment in the first place?”
1. Many gay people are compelled by seeing children in their communities with tremendous needs. Some of these children are in their own families, such as in the case of adopting a niece or nephew or grandchild.
Or they have biological children that require marriage to cement what the relationship is and their responsibility to it.
Foster care is overwhelmed in any given state that has the agency…and they ALL do.
Children’s advocates are hard pressed to reject gay couples simply because there aren’t enough straight couples to lessen the burden.
So it speaks to the charity and sacrifice of gay couples who commit to doing so, when the need is do great.
What you SHOULD be asking is why so many straight people fail their own children, and keep MAKING them when there are enough means to not conceive them at all and then whine about how much protection children need.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
It’s the gay folks who can’t marry, and haven’t had control of the laws.
But their children are harmed without marriage for their parents, by not having the federal and state benefits that come with taxation and insurance, for example.
This question doesn’t apply to hetero couples who at least have the option and the FULL rights, across the country wherever they live or go.
They are married wherever they are in the world.
THAT is only a few reasons why and how the children of gay couples are harmed by unequal and separate marriage laws.
Of course there are many more.
The point is having the same choice, the same opportunity…EQUAL.
And the children of gay parents aren’t much different (if at all) from children of straight parents.
Even in how those children came into their lives.
And because the difference is barely a difference, the state has no reason for such dramatic and profound difference in the laws in how marriage can be equal for gay couples.
Why don’t you just read the Iowa justices briefs. Then you won’t have to make such cement head statements.